Alien Attack Upgrades
Ohnojojo
Join Date: 2011-08-01 Member: 113400Members
Join Date: 2011-08-01 Member: 113400Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Removing Frenzy and Swarm</div>With the incoming removal of Frenzy and Swarm, I'm wondering if there will be more attack oriented upgrades coming?
NS2 upgrades:
shell: carapace, regeneration
veil: silence, cloak
spur: hypermutation?, celerity??
NS1 upgrades:
defensive: cara, regen, redemption
movement: celerity, silence, adrenaline
sensory: scent of fear, cloaking, <b><!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->focus<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
Focus made a very big impact in late game, allowing the skulk and lerk to still be intimidating and allowing fades to stand <i>almost</i> toe to toe with an HMG Heavy. It was also not imba in early game as skulks would have a hard time reaching marines, the usual choice for early game was celerity.
My main concern is that Jetpackers with full armor are very formidable and Exosuits will tear Fades, Skulks and Lerks to shreds.
Obviously Frenzy was imba and Swarm was confusing and Focus might not have a place in NS2 mechanics (although it would be nice to see focus in NS2)
What attack abilities should we expect to see later?
Or even better, will shells, veils and spurs only have a max of 2 upgrade types? Or 3?
NS2 upgrades:
shell: carapace, regeneration
veil: silence, cloak
spur: hypermutation?, celerity??
NS1 upgrades:
defensive: cara, regen, redemption
movement: celerity, silence, adrenaline
sensory: scent of fear, cloaking, <b><!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->focus<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
Focus made a very big impact in late game, allowing the skulk and lerk to still be intimidating and allowing fades to stand <i>almost</i> toe to toe with an HMG Heavy. It was also not imba in early game as skulks would have a hard time reaching marines, the usual choice for early game was celerity.
My main concern is that Jetpackers with full armor are very formidable and Exosuits will tear Fades, Skulks and Lerks to shreds.
Obviously Frenzy was imba and Swarm was confusing and Focus might not have a place in NS2 mechanics (although it would be nice to see focus in NS2)
What attack abilities should we expect to see later?
Or even better, will shells, veils and spurs only have a max of 2 upgrade types? Or 3?
Comments
Some hallucination upgrades would be cool aswell, such as hallucinogenic poison, where you can poison a marine and cause him to see things that arn't there (whether that be aliens, buildings or even a hive).
The only problem with frenzy is, that it scales the healing with the additional damage done to the target with the killing blow.
(With armor 2 the marine has only 10hp left after two hits from a fade. When the 3rd hit comes in, there is a huge load of health coming in for the fade.)
Solution: Make the frenzy healing rate to a fixed percentage. Maybe: 25% of max HP and it is fine.
Swarm is only terribly useless, because the time between the hits is so short. 2 or 3 seconds countdown until one alien hits is not enough. Make it 5 and it is an option. It's too unintuitive? Than let the target glow red for the aliens, as long as the counter ticks. So everyone knows, that the damage done would be increased. It's like jarate from TF2. It should be shown to the aliens, that mini-crits are active on a target. And it will lead to more coordinated attacks.
For example in starcraft bw in TvZ the terran will typically go mech or bio, and you'll see a very different match if he goes one or the other. In a typical game only part of the tech tree is explored. This create a huge diversity and is very desirable.
All this kind of stuff usually scale in a combinatorial manner, for example having five different chambers would give 10 different chamber combinations on a three hives map: no match would be the same. I can't even compute the number of upgrade combinations, because it's so astronomical and my brain is so tiny.
Of course designing five chambers would be a bit hard, but four seems alright. An inspired game designer could even crowdsource such things.
Another idea when we were discussing downsides some months ago :
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was thinking about the function of downsides in game, and in some games (e.g. magic the gathering) the downsides are used to create a lot of new cards. You got the basic card "do X" and then you got a big collection of "do 2 X but Y". The game then is to pick up the right downside depending on the context (some downsides becoming very good sometimes).
It could be a way to extend ns1 upgrade scheme, first you get basic regeneration "regen 5 heath per second". Then (on new hive or whatever) the upgrade tree extend up in three branches "regen 10 heath per second but X,Y,Z". It would do 27 upgrades, a bit hard to design since we can't even think of one here ;)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only problem with frenzy is, that it scales the healing with the additional damage done to the target with the killing blow.
(With armor 2 the marine has only 10hp left after two hits from a fade. When the 3rd hit comes in, there is a huge load of health coming in for the fade.)
Solution: Make the frenzy healing rate to a fixed percentage. Maybe: 25% of max HP and it is fine.
Swarm is only terribly useless, because the time between the hits is so short. 2 or 3 seconds countdown until one alien hits is not enough. Make it 5 and it is an option. It's too unintuitive? Than let the target glow red for the aliens, as long as the counter ticks. So everyone knows, that the damage done would be increased. It's like jarate from TF2. It should be shown to the aliens, that mini-crits are active on a target. And it will lead to more coordinated attacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Frenzy heals 40% of maximum HP, over time.
It used to work on overkill dmg, but it haven't worked like that for quite some time.
The problem is that it is too powerful for higher lifeforms, with hit and run tactics(fade), a group of marines can feel helpless(not successful in making the fade retreat for healing).
Swarm was never useless, far from it.
Swarm is very powerful for lerks spiking, gorges healspraying marines, or bilebombing structures.
While swarm encourages coordinated attacks, it was a part of what made bilebomb too powerful.
The removal of these two upgrades, are very much in place.
On topic, I very much would like to see focus as well, it's a great ability with a trade-off in itself. More damage for slower rate of fire.
You can definitly feel that NS2 aliens doesn't scale into lategame, dmg-wise. Focus was what made them scale into lategame in NS1.
Focus should be introduced into NS2, since melee upgrades didn't work out.
But whats with swarm? When it is only because of the bile bomb, why not make it a player-damage buff only?
And are the 25% more damage only added, if another one with swarm attacks a target and then i do? Or do I get the buff right after the first bite, when i choose it?
passives are always the biggest payoffs in rpgs
The marine team has the weapon & armor upgrades that everyone gets when they spawn once purchased.
The aliens do not....late game you spawn...you suck...add some upgrades maybe a evolution.