Idea: Reward staying alive
Wilson
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
Just got finished playing a few games as skulk and I had this idea. What about instead of just getting res for kills if instead you "stole" the res from the players pres when you killed them.
I felt like a few times I did really well to get away alive as a skulk but there wasn't any reward for it. By the time I ran all the way back to the hive and healed I may as well just have just gotten killed and respawned. If you lost a little res when you died then there would be an incentive for staying alive rather than going on suicide missions. (I'd like to here other ideas for incentives for staying alive too. I really feel like there should be some reward for staying alive as a skulk. [Another idea would be to link spawns to team res so that every spawn costs a few team res])
It would also mean that there wouldn't be any "free spawns" so to speak. At the moment if you spawn as a skulk or a rifle marine, you can get killed without any penalty. Aliens tend to target the marines with shotguns and flamethrowers more because they know that those weapons cost money. It would be nice if killing rifle marines and skulks also did a little bit of damage to the enemy economy.
It would only be 1-2 res per death (I guess you could get different amounts based on weapons/classes) so it wouldn't heavily skew the game in favour of whoever is getting the most kills, but it would make people try and stay alive more and reward players who avoid death.
[EDIT] Actually, I think adding a health regen for skulks might be a better idea to reward them for staying alive. See below.
Also just while I'm posting this, here are a few ideas I had for alien upgrades:
Restore energy on kill (same as frenzy only energy instead of health).
Allow hives and crags to restore energy as well as health.
Increase energy restoration while not moving (to allow skulks to hide and restore energy faster).
Increase health restoration while not moving.
I felt like a few times I did really well to get away alive as a skulk but there wasn't any reward for it. By the time I ran all the way back to the hive and healed I may as well just have just gotten killed and respawned. If you lost a little res when you died then there would be an incentive for staying alive rather than going on suicide missions. (I'd like to here other ideas for incentives for staying alive too. I really feel like there should be some reward for staying alive as a skulk. [Another idea would be to link spawns to team res so that every spawn costs a few team res])
It would also mean that there wouldn't be any "free spawns" so to speak. At the moment if you spawn as a skulk or a rifle marine, you can get killed without any penalty. Aliens tend to target the marines with shotguns and flamethrowers more because they know that those weapons cost money. It would be nice if killing rifle marines and skulks also did a little bit of damage to the enemy economy.
It would only be 1-2 res per death (I guess you could get different amounts based on weapons/classes) so it wouldn't heavily skew the game in favour of whoever is getting the most kills, but it would make people try and stay alive more and reward players who avoid death.
[EDIT] Actually, I think adding a health regen for skulks might be a better idea to reward them for staying alive. See below.
Also just while I'm posting this, here are a few ideas I had for alien upgrades:
Restore energy on kill (same as frenzy only energy instead of health).
Allow hives and crags to restore energy as well as health.
Increase energy restoration while not moving (to allow skulks to hide and restore energy faster).
Increase health restoration while not moving.
Comments
The main point is that I feel like a lot of the time it's harder to get away from a group of marines after killing one than it is to just keep chomping until you die. But even if you do get away (which takes more skill) you don't get rewarded for it as it takes you longer to get back to the hive and heal. Currently there is not much point in trying to get away as a skulk or a rifle marine.
I feel like the game should reward the skill required to stay alive rather than rewarding suicide missions. A game should always try to encourage the players to do the things that require the most skill to execute.
Another solution would be to <b>enable skulks to heal themselves rapidly if they haven't taken any damage for 10-15 seconds</b>. This would mean they wouldn't need to run all the way back to the hive and staying alive would allow them to get back into the fight quicker. It would also reward marines for killing skulks and encourage them to hunt them down, rather than letting them run away and heal up.
You can't be very useful with only 10hp. You'll die almost instantly and running back to the hive to heal takes longer and therefore you're not helping out your team. At the moment it's better to just die and respawn to get back in the fight with full health as quickly as possible.
I really think having the skulks auto regen after a certain time would improve the gameplay and reward good players without any drawbacks.
Could kill streaks of varying lengths get you some sort of cosmetic, but gratifying, pin or award? It could be displayed only on the scoreboard so as not to clutter up gameplay.
And Dragons we need dragons.
This.
You can still be useful with 10hp. If you decide to go back heal, you provide vision and map presence and you can relay what you see happening (ninjas, team movement, base setup, etc.). If you don't wish to go back and heal, you can continue applying pressure by munching RTs, nodes, parasite marines, etc. Respawn is pretty much instant for now, but I as servers get bigger, there'll most likely be more waiting in queue. "Stealing" res would make it near impossible to save up for something in a situation where your team has very few RTs (granted, that'd mean you're losing, but still, having to chance to fight back is never pleasant.)
<!--quoteo(post=1857430:date=Jun 30 2011, 09:12 PM:name=maesse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (maesse @ Jun 30 2011, 09:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1857430"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about when you get a kill as skulk, you get healed ~50hp over the next 8 seconds.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is already the Frenzy upgrade giving you hp back after a kill:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Frenzy" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Frenzy</a>
"Frenzy is an upgrade from the offensive Whip structure. Frenzy heals the player after a kill with the amount of extra damage done, for at least 10 health.
Frenzy: On kill, get health back equal to extra damage done; health comes back over time (approx. 15/sec). Frenzy scales reasonably for Skulk to Onos, and extra damage upgrades and group tactics can increase the benefits."
I really think having the skulks auto regen after a certain time would improve the gameplay and reward good players without any drawbacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for reminding me to /kill when I'm on low health as a Skulk. No res for you suckers! :P
I agree that it takes too long to travel to a Hive/Crag for healing as Kharaa, which is suppose to make the Frenzy (heal on kill) upgrade attractive.
Well frenzy would make that obsolete. It doesn't really address the issue either. IMO, it should never be advantageous to suicide or just run into certain death. The only way to change that is to make it so that staying alive and healing is better/faster than dying and respawning. It shouldn't matter if you get kills or not, suicide should always be the worst option.
That way if you get killed it's a disadvantage to you and your team (as it should be) and an advantage to the enemy team. If you manage to get a few bites in and then run away to safety that should be better than dying (currently in many situations, it isn't - because staying alive with very low hp is useless and healing takes longer than respawning).
<!--quoteo(post=1857434:date=Jul 1 2011, 04:43 AM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Jul 1 2011, 04:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1857434"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I hate to rip things from TF2, which is a completely unrelated game in almost every way, but they have things like Dominations and personal records to address this issue.
Could kill streaks of varying lengths get you some sort of cosmetic, but gratifying, pin or award? It could be displayed only on the scoreboard so as not to clutter up gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, this doesn't really address the issue. It doesn't make sense to reward the player cosmetically for something that is worse for them from a gameplay standpoint. Winning should be what is rewarded and this would be counter intuitive to that. Yes, I may have stayed alive and now I get a little marker on the scoreboard...but now all this time I'm spending running back to the hive is actually worse for my team than if I had just died and respawned.
I feel a better implementation of this idea would be to increase the players damage or max HP the longer they have been alive. That way the disadvantage of being out of the battle while running back to the hive would be made up for with a real gameplay difference. I'm not sure this is the right approach though.
Stealing res was probably not the best idea.
I really feel that having the skulks HP regen after 10 seconds (or a certain amount of time sitting still) would fix this problem without affecting any other aspect of gameplay. It would encourage skulks to stay alive and keep the pressure on the marine team from close by (respawning would take longer than just sitting still and healing). It also balances nicely with the fact that the marines can be dropped med kits during a battle.
Gorges would still be useful at quickly healing skulks if needed, as it would be faster than the regen time (although I don't see much skulk healing anyway). But if a skulk gets away to safety with no gorge around he shouldn't be punished by being out of the battle longer than if he had died. Skulks HP is so low anyway that having full health doesn't make them hard to kill at all; with anything less than full HP you're almost certain to die. Restoring your health to full before each battle is almost mandatory so a health regen makes sense.
Yes it absolutely should be advantageous to do that. If you manage to kill someone in the process with a lifeforms that costs nothing, you are doing something helpful. Every other lifeform benefits from being a pansy and running away at the first sign of difficulty, having one which doesn't suffer that drawback is neccesary and important, it is the only thing the skulk has in its favour, and it fills a vital role in many situations.
Why should it be advantageous to kill yourself? Yes, killing the enemy team is of course good but every class gets rewarded for that. Running into certain death just so you can respawn takes no skill. Getting a few bites off and then getting to safety is much more difficult. Why should the thing that takes more skill be worse for you as a player and keep you out of the battle longer? It makes no sense.
I don't think it's necessary or important to have suicide style gameplay encouraged. If the skulk had health regen every other aspect of the gameplay would be the same. The only difference would be that if you died you would be out of the battle for a longer time than if you managed to stay alive. You could still suicide all you wanted and it wouldn't cost you any res, but it would be better to play smart and try and stay alive when possible.
It just makes sense to reward the player for getting away alive, not to punish them for it.
For example if I am attacking a room, and skulks are with me, I know I can rely on them to distract the enemy until death as well as to follow me into the room, because they have no reason to pull out or worry about dying. If I'm supported by lerks or fades, I can't count on them to go with me, or to fight to the death. If I win a fight with skulks as allies, I know they will carry on with me to the next fight rather than running away to heal up or something. Units which don't fear death are reliable, dependable. Aliens as a rule have crappy morale because the first thing everyone does at the first sign of trouble is run away like a little girl to preserve their precious res, and that's fine when you are carrying around a big investment like a fade, but you need throwaway units in any strategy game. If this was a pure FPS then yeah, maybe you could encourage everyone to stay alive, but sometimes you need to kill a few units to accomplish a goal. If zerglings complained about dying, starcraft would be a much crappier game.
If you win a fight as aliens and two skulks are with you, both with 10hp left, if you keep pressing on they will get picked off very easily by a sentry gun or a stray shotgun shell. If they had health regen then they would start to heal before the next battle and be quickly ready with full health again - this is much more helpful.
Having the ability to regenerate health won't make skulks afraid to engage. It will just mean that if they manage to stay alive they can be more helpful and keep the pressure on the marines, quicker than if they had died.
Skulks would still be throwaway units as you say. The only difference would be rewarding skulks for not dying rather than punishing them for it. It doesn't make any sense that it is actually worse in many situations if you stay alive with low HP.
If I manage to kill a marine and then get away from another with low HP it doesn't make any sense that if I just run back and let him shoot me I could be back at the same position in the map with full health quicker than if I had stayed alive and went to heal. This discourages skulks from staying alive and it doesn't promote any positive gameplay.
This isn't much of a problem with rilfe marines because they have slower speed / respawning takes longer and they have more HP. Plus the commander can drop health for them when they are far away from the base to save them having to run all the way back.
I don't think your SC example really works either. It's always advantageous to keep more units alive in starcraft. Yes, zerglings are cheap but that doesn't mean that you should get them killed for the sake of it. Having a cheap unit that doesn't need to worry much about death is fine. Punishing a player for staying alive with low HP isn't.
Before RFK was added, I used to kamikaze charge at Marines all the time, just to force them back to heal. Now it feels that Kharaa are suffering more from battle attrition, as they often have to retreat back to a hive to heal, because even a single Crag does not provide sufficient healing to Lerks and Fades. Not to mention that forward Armories are much easier to set up than forward Crags. On top of that, Marines have the advantage of Medpack drops.
Marines can even get significant amounts of Team Res from killing Skulks, which are suppose to be cannon fodders, not cash cows.
The implementation of Frenzy is also less than ideal. The Kharaa dealing the killing blow can easily disrupt his own team, by unintentionally denying another Kharaa who needs the healing more.
<!--quoteo(post=1857514:date=Jul 1 2011, 03:47 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jul 1 2011, 03:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1857514"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Health regen on skulks really wouldn't change any of that. Skulks still won't be overly concerned about death, it will just make it so that it would be a small disadvantage to die, rather than an advantage. It will still make sense to distract with skulks since they are free and keeping the higher life forms alive is more important.
If you win a fight as aliens and two skulks are with you, both with 10hp left, if you keep pressing on they will get picked off very easily by a sentry gun or a stray shotgun shell. If they had health regen then they would start to heal before the next battle and be quickly ready with full health again - this is much more helpful.
Having the ability to regenerate health won't make skulks afraid to engage. It will just mean that if they manage to stay alive they can be more helpful and keep the pressure on the marines, quicker than if they had died.
Skulks would still be throwaway units as you say. The only difference would be rewarding skulks for not dying rather than punishing them for it. It doesn't make any sense that it is actually worse in many situations if you stay alive with low HP.
If I manage to kill a marine and then get away from another with low HP it doesn't make any sense that if I just run back and let him shoot me I could be back at the same position in the map with full health quicker than if I had stayed alive and went to heal. This discourages skulks from staying alive and it doesn't promote any positive gameplay.
This isn't much of a problem with rilfe marines because they have slower speed / respawning takes longer and they have more HP. Plus the commander can drop health for them when they are far away from the base to save them having to run all the way back.
I don't think your SC example really works either. It's always advantageous to keep more units alive in starcraft. Yes, zerglings are cheap but that doesn't mean that you should get them killed for the sake of it. Having a cheap unit that doesn't need to worry much about death is fine. Punishing a player for staying alive with low HP isn't.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You aren't being punished for it, if you die, you have to go back to the hive, if you don't die, you can keep on playing, how is it in any way beneficial to die on purpose?
Skulks have almost no health anyway, they rely on not being shot to win, having 10hp as a skulk doesn't massively decrease your combat effectiveness as you play much better when you don't give marines a chance to hit you. Charging in and getting shot at is something you only do as skulk if you can't do anything else, you would be much better spreading around the map and using parasite and your wallwalking to ambush marines.
Eventually you will have upgrades like carapace and regeneration, and then you will be able to tank more as a skulk for minimal res costs, but as it stands I see no reason to give skulks innate health regen. If you want regenerating health, field a couple of gorges, you should have at least two fallback points very quickly as aliens, your start hive, and the second hive which should have a gorge defending it, both of which provide you healing. Later in the game you should have two established hives at least, and crag outposts in as many places as possible. Not that it will do you much good given that marines will be fielding shotguns.
Really speaking this complaint can only apply to the first two minutes of the game, before marines get shotguns and before you establish your infrastructure, and that is precisely the point in the game where you really don't need the balance mucking up by giving skulks regenerating health. It is supposed to be very difficult to stay alive at that point as either team, marine comm isn't likely to be spending money on medpacks unless it's a vital area, and aliens aren't going to have any of their healing stuff available, both for good reasons as you want to make it very hard to hold an area firmly at the start, otherwise the game turns into a complete land grab with teams claiming and locking down huge areas of the map. Inability to heal forces the game into a more measured rate of expansion.
Because through dying you will be able to get to the same point in the map with full HP quicker. If you have 10hp left it will be very difficult to kill a marine, if they get one lucky shot off you will die instantly. But it's not worth it to go back to the hive and heal because it would take longer than respawning. Skulks health is so low anyway that anything less than full HP puts you at a pretty big disadvantage.
Perhaps you're right. Maybe when more of the upgrades are in and later in the game when you have multiple hives and crags everywhere it won't be such a big deal. I just feel like there have been several times where I have managed to get away from the marines but it's not really been worth it, because now I need to run back and heal and it takes longer than respawning. Or I've been damaged by a sentry and rather than going back and healing I just jump into it because it's quicker and I'll be able to support my team better with full HP.
It clearly says:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think they care that much XD, it has 2 pages now lol
:D
Any sort of reward given to skulks for killing marines at the early beginning without requiring research will make probably make them Op.
It would encourage hit and run behaviour, and give them a greater degree of staying power in a prolonged battle.
I haven't read up on how Frenzy works, but
What if Frenzy had an area of effect on near by team mates? That would promote groups and minimize the effects of kill stealing.