<!--quoteo(post=1947739:date=Jun 29 2012, 02:18 PM:name={GGs} Chicken)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ({GGs} Chicken @ Jun 29 2012, 02:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947739"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You guys are just being outplayed. Skulks don't sit in the middle of the room, so it's pretty obvious they'll be usually on the wall surrounding the entrance or in a corner somewhere. People always get amazed when I look up and shoot them as if being on the ceiling cancels out all marine common sense, usually with a reply of "wow ok".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1947695:date=Jun 29 2012, 07:01 AM:name=SkiT)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SkiT @ Jun 29 2012, 07:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947695"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Leap 40 sec after the begining it's not fun for the marines side.... and just too easy to kill for a skulk ealry game with cara leap vs marines weapon 0 and armor 0... Just make sure leap comming with the second hive for the next build please..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah this isn't good. We're playtesting tying this to two hives right now (I think it will work better).
<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->positive:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> -blink/swipe removal delay being gone - this one was a long time coming -JP energy not recharging in the air - this is as it should be! -health bars for the comm, finally! -celerity change - awesome, this is much better than the original incarnation -Starting p-res lowered - great change as well -slower res/economy changes - most of it is good, I think there is still tweaking to be done but it's much better now -welding rate nerf - also a long time comming -the map fixes to docking! -The new mac HP/armor buff and EMP, very neat. -The reduced cost of shade/shift stuff. It is very interesting and I think when/if alien abilities are tied to hives this will make them viable strategies.
I'm very unsure on this change. Just looking at the mechanics of it, it seems to unfairly punish some life-forms rather than others. And I know that was the point, but getting carapace as an Onos is somewhat mandatory and yet he gets crushed by the movement speed. He already walked slower than a marine before carapace, now he really just feels like a snail. I think the shotgun damage type change was enough of a nerf to the onos, he seems overly vulnerable now. It just seems like you'll have to balance lifeforms around whether they can use carapace viably or not.
Now looking at the actual gameplay of the new carapace, I would say in theory it's viable, but in the current gameplay it is incredibly imbalanced.
<!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#1<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> reason for this is the hit registration.. if the hit registration was spot on and crisp, the carapace values might be acceptable but skulks do <b><u>not</u></b> take 10 / 18 bullets to kill, they take more like ~20-30 bullets to kill a vanilla skulk and now a ludicrous ~30-40 to kill a carapace skulk. Remember in NS1 where 1 marine could feasibly kill 4-5+ skulks with just his LMG and pistol mags? At the moment the game just feels so much like a numbers game. Oh you have 2 marines? my 3 skulks win because you'll run out of ammo before you can kill us! <!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#2<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> ~40second leap just completely makes the disadvantages of carapace early game null. Leap skulks with carapace <4 minutes into the game is unbeatable from what I've seen in the gathers so far. <!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#3 <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> another concern is that the upgrade is a bandaid fix for skulk/lerk/gorge for late game and it only hurts onos/fade. I have said it before that I really dislike upgrades that need negative attributes tacked on to balance them.
-Cyst spam is still a thing, cysts can be incredibly strong to simple just deny marines building space so that they cannot get phase gates/rts/etc up. -Sentries seem too squishy now, I think the accuracy nerf would have sufficed (they were pretty squishy before to begin with) -Nanoshield is still incredibly powerful when cast on players and combined with med spam, I feel the short cooldown is not enough
-Alien abilities need to be tied to hive2/hive3, I really <i>really </i>hope that Flayra goes through with this. It will improve the game immensely.
-Carapace and Alien TTK in all stages of the game really need to be analyzed and aliens need to be scalable based on # of hives up. Three ideas to fix possibly: #1 - revert ( or partially revert- lessen some of the movement penalties and maybe reduce or revert the new armor bonuses) the carapace change and make aliens an upgrade system similar to marines that is commander researched #2 - keep the carapace upgrade as it is now(assuming hit reg gets miles better- otherwise some of the armor values need to go back to pre 212 values) and have the # of hives increase the armor bonus and/or reduce the movement speed penalty (this solution is somewhat unintuitive) #3 - Remove Carapace as an upgrade and make armor scale off of # of hives up. You'd have to come up with something to replace carapace though, and that's tough but this solution seems like the best to me.
-Cysts need a decently sized cooldown (~5sec?) or marines need to be able to build on infestation. -Nanoshield should only be castable on buildings <b>OR</b> it's damage reduction bonus needs to be reduced by 35-50% (so 25-35% damage reduction instead of the current 50%) -Nanobuild could use a nerf too, It really needs to be 100-150% build bonus, a 4x build bonus is just crazy. Aliens really have no chance to deny crucial risky phase gates and forward armories. -Infestation spikes seem cool, but they really need to be kill-able to avoid them being nothing but grief machines. Maybe give them gorge-esque HP/armor but having an immortal hallway block that can be spammed seems highly abusable.
TL;DR: Overall a good patch with more steps in the right direction. I really think t2/t3 alien abilities being tied to hive2/hive3 will fix a lot of the problems encountered in the early game alien dominance. Alien survivability scaling still needs help in the late game, carapace changes seem to miss the mark on this one.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1947711:date=Jun 29 2012, 03:56 PM:name=Angelusz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Angelusz @ Jun 29 2012, 03:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947711"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I actually like the spikes! Perhaps the implementation can be improved, but a way for the alien commander to temporarily block marines <b>on infestation</b> adds a lot of strategy to the game. Either block them from getting close, or put spikes behind them so they can't run from aliens. It'll make them think twice before they run into infestation alone and unprepared.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The "hand of god" reaching down and giving me a good loving does not make for satisfying FPS gameplay. The same applies to nano-shield, to a lesser degree.
<!--quoteo(post=1947757:date=Jun 29 2012, 07:07 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jun 29 2012, 07:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947757"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Nanoshield is still incredibly powerful when cast on players and combined with med spam, I feel the short cooldown is not enough<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Of all the suggestions made on the forums regarding fixing/removing nanoshield, they went with the worst one. What a shame.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lerk spikes changed to more of a shotgun type spread.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Hmmm not too sure if I like the sound of this!
I love the spike mechanic, it doesn't directly impact the first-person game the way nano-shield or enzyme does, so comparing them like that is pretty silly. I think cooldowns can work to some extent, but it's obvious 5 s is far too low. Cooldowns also don't address the underlying problem that is the late game abundance of res. Even if you put a 30s cooldown on nano, later in the game you will see a marine comm put it down every 30s, simply because between ARCs spam, nanos and meds/ammo, there's nothing else he has to spend T.res on.
NS 1 didn't have this problem because the comm had to use T.res on weapons and jetpacks/heavies as well. With that element removed, they'll really need to come up with something else (that isn't as cheese as ARC/whip/nano spam), for BOTH sides, to sink t.res into. If they find a solution to this problem, they also won't need cooldowns.
agree with rantology for the hits regs and the numbers of bullets for kill a skulk.. one clips for kill one skulks it's just imbalanced.. i don't know up the lmg ? nerf cara ? i don"t know how to fix that.
I cyst-spammed marine base last night, and after most cysts were destroyed promptly (by marines), one single cyst remained immortal, not taking any damage (from any weapon).
My initial reaction is that skulks with carapace are too strong. They've moved even further away from being an ambush unit and more towards an assault unit. I thought this was already a problem in build 210 so I'm really despondent to see it get worse. I'm not sure if it was intended to be a way to bolster late game skulks but they can have carapace and leap before most marine comms will get an arms lab built. That window between 3 minutes and 5 minutes is really bad for marines.
One incident that particularly got my attention - I came in to Ventilation from DC and encountered a skulk that had just finished off another marine. I was standing near the extractor, he ran straight at me and I held down the trigger. Because he didn't (couldn't) dodge I was confident that I would win before he even got off a bite. I died, he was on 10hp. We were both pretty shocked. It was within the first five minutes of the game, they had cara, we didn't have upgrades. Frontal assault should favour the marine.
On a more positive note, there is something to like with infestation spikes. I like that it creates a sense of fear about walking on to an area of infestation. I'm not keen on the animation (conservation of mass stuff always bugs me, like onos popping out of tiny eggs). I'm also a bit hesitant about how it will affect gameplay. But in general I'd like there to be a risk vs reward consideration for whether to push the infestation back, or to run in to enemy territory for a raid. In previous builds infestation was basically irrelevant to marines so its nice to have some kind of reaction to its presence.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1947759:date=Jun 29 2012, 11:13 AM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jun 29 2012, 11:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947759"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The "hand of god" reaching down and giving me a good loving does not make for satisfying FPS gameplay. The same applies to nano-shield, to a lesser degree.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The "hand of god" drops meds/ammos, scans, places structures, mysts eggs, moves NPC units, and activates chamber abilities. I find it hard to believe that infestation spikes somehow breaks FPS gameplay enjoyability more so than any of these.
the problem is the hand of god is supporting the other team with meds and nano instead of doing damage/taking control away/blocking progress of the enemy, there should be 0 that the comm can do directly to negatively impact the other team.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the spikes either. The marine comm used to be able to do something similar by dropping unbuilt buildings in the way of retreating aliens. That got removed.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1947783:date=Jun 29 2012, 08:14 PM:name=Joracy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Joracy @ Jun 29 2012, 08:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947783"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is it still possible to 1hit a skulk with a perfect shotgun with the new Cara?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. I even almost got one-shot as cara lerk earlier today. From 125hp 100armor to 19hp 0armor in one shotgun blast.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1947791:date=Jun 29 2012, 08:29 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Jun 29 2012, 08:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947791"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The "hand of god" drops meds/ammos, scans, places structures, mysts eggs, moves NPC units, and activates chamber abilities. I find it hard to believe that infestation spikes somehow breaks FPS gameplay enjoyability more so than any of these.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The problem is the direct nature of it. It's like the alien commander is reaching down from heaven and saying "nuh-uh, I decide where you can and cannot go". It's the complete antithesis of "FPS first, RTS second".
Meds, on the other hand, are indirect. Both in the sense that they only affect the commander's own team and in the sense that the commander drops something on the ground that the marine then has to pick up.
Nanoshield is shares some of the traits of medpacks, but is more frustrating for the other team because it has direct effect on the marine and a much larger effect on combat (even combining with medspam to make a marine all but invincible).
Obviously all these attacks require less pellets as you go up in weapons upgrades, effectively giving more range to the shotgun in a 1v1 with each rank of weapon upgrades. A carapace skulk, for example, would require 10 / 10 / 9 / 8 pellets per weapon upgrade (w0 -> w3). A carapace fade would be 22 / 20 / 18 / 17.
That's really useful info Gorgeous. Can you tell us anything about the blast cone? Just how point blank do you have to be to get 10 pellets in a skulk?
I have two problems with the new Gorge 1st person spit visuals:
1. It blocks the view quite a bit.
2. It fakes the actual shooting latency. It is tied to the 1st person model, so when moving sideways, it looks like you spit very precise. But the latency didn't change, so the spit comes out of your mouth 1 meter away from your model (just like before). It was hard to hit before; now - together with 1. - it is near impossible (the same latency is experienced with the grenade launcher).
Obviously all these attacks require less pellets as you go up in weapons upgrades, effectively giving more range to the shotgun in a 1v1 with each rank of weapon upgrades. A carapace skulk, for example, would require 10 / 10 / 9 / 8 pellets per weapon upgrade (w0 -> w3). A carapace fade would be 22 / 20 / 18 / 17.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know I might be wrong but the wiki states that the shotgun does light damage, so the armor would actually be twice as effective. Am I correct?
<!--quoteo(post=1947820:date=Jun 29 2012, 10:56 PM:name=godrifle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (godrifle @ Jun 29 2012, 10:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947820"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I know I might be wrong but the wiki states that the shotgun does light damage, so the armor would actually be twice as effective. Am I correct?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That particular bit of information is outdated. The shotgun's damage was changed to normal in build 210
<!--quoteo(post=1947817:date=Jun 29 2012, 04:46 PM:name=Khyron)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Khyron @ Jun 29 2012, 04:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947817"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's really useful info Gorgeous. Can you tell us anything about the blast cone? Just how point blank do you have to be to get 10 pellets in a skulk?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, I can't really. That kind of stuff is far to complex and random for me to sum up in a simple post. Here's some relevant code, though:
Spread: You could plot this. The spread is rotated randomly so it could be oriented any way, but the spread is always this. <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1--> GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2.8, 4, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-1, 3.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(3, 3.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-3.5, 0, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-0, 1.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(0.4, 0.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2, -2, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(1, -0.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(2, -2.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-1, 0, kSpreadDistance)),<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
You can see the spread if you enable cheats and type "trace bullet" in console. You can also type "give skulk" and experiment with ranges and how many pellets miss.
I would estimate you get ~4 pellets on average that would land on a skulk at a distance like that from the top of the ramp in DC to the bottom of the ramp in pipe junction. I'm basing this on the fact that there are 4 pellets that are <1.5 distance from origin. It's kind of an arbitrary guess, though. Create a server and try it out, you can learn quite a bit about the shotgun with trace bullets on and a dummy skulk or fade.
Point distance formula from origin = sqrt (x^2 + y^2) IE for the first pellet: GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2.8, 4, kSpreadDistance)) sqrt ( (-2.8)^2 + (4)^2 ) = 4.88 distance.
<!--quoteo(post=1947834:date=Jun 29 2012, 05:42 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Jun 29 2012, 05:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947834"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i thought the shotgun did 20 per pellet, when did that change?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1947757:date=Jun 29 2012, 10:07 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jun 29 2012, 10:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947757"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Cyst spam is still a thing, cysts can be incredibly strong to simple just deny marines building space so that they cannot get phase gates/rts/etc up.
-Cysts need a decently sized cooldown (~5sec?) or marines need to be able to build on infestation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Let the marines upgrade to be able to build on infestation please! It'll open up more strategies for the marine comm and fix the cysts spamming.
Comments
You are sooooo good, tell me how you do it.
1. Join Marines.
2. Press map key every 2 seconds (at least).
3. ???
4. Profit.
Yeah this isn't good. We're playtesting tying this to two hives right now (I think it will work better).
-blink/swipe removal delay being gone - this one was a long time coming
-JP energy not recharging in the air - this is as it should be!
-health bars for the comm, finally!
-celerity change - awesome, this is much better than the original incarnation
-Starting p-res lowered - great change as well
-slower res/economy changes - most of it is good, I think there is still tweaking to be done but it's much better now
-welding rate nerf - also a long time comming
-the map fixes to docking!
-The new mac HP/armor buff and EMP, very neat.
-The reduced cost of shade/shift stuff. It is very interesting and I think when/if alien abilities are tied to hives this will make them viable strategies.
<!--coloro:#FFA500--><span style="color:#FFA500"><!--/coloro-->critique:
<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
-Carapace:
I'm very unsure on this change. Just looking at the mechanics of it, it seems to unfairly punish some life-forms rather than others. And I know that was the point, but getting carapace as an Onos is somewhat mandatory and yet he gets crushed by the movement speed. He already walked slower than a marine before carapace, now he really just feels like a snail. I think the shotgun damage type change was enough of a nerf to the onos, he seems overly vulnerable now. It just seems like you'll have to balance lifeforms around whether they can use carapace viably or not.
Now looking at the actual gameplay of the new carapace, I would say in theory it's viable, but in the current gameplay it is incredibly imbalanced.
<!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#1<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> reason for this is the hit registration.. if the hit registration was spot on and crisp, the carapace values might be acceptable but skulks do <b><u>not</u></b> take 10 / 18 bullets to kill, they take more like ~20-30 bullets to kill a vanilla skulk and now a ludicrous ~30-40 to kill a carapace skulk. Remember in NS1 where 1 marine could feasibly kill 4-5+ skulks with just his LMG and pistol mags? At the moment the game just feels so much like a numbers game. Oh you have 2 marines? my 3 skulks win because you'll run out of ammo before you can kill us!
<!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#2<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> ~40second leap just completely makes the disadvantages of carapace early game null. Leap skulks with carapace <4 minutes into the game is unbeatable from what I've seen in the gathers so far.
<!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro-->#3 <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> another concern is that the upgrade is a bandaid fix for skulk/lerk/gorge for late game and it only hurts onos/fade. I have said it before that I really dislike upgrades that need negative attributes tacked on to balance them.
-Cyst spam is still a thing, cysts can be incredibly strong to simple just deny marines building space so that they cannot get phase gates/rts/etc up.
-Sentries seem too squishy now, I think the accuracy nerf would have sufficed (they were pretty squishy before to begin with)
-Nanoshield is still incredibly powerful when cast on players and combined with med spam, I feel the short cooldown is not enough
<!--coloro:#00BFFF--><span style="color:#00BFFF"><!--/coloro-->Suggestions:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
-Alien abilities need to be tied to hive2/hive3, I really <i>really </i>hope that Flayra goes through with this. It will improve the game immensely.
-Carapace and Alien TTK in all stages of the game really need to be analyzed and aliens need to be scalable based on # of hives up. Three ideas to fix possibly:
#1 - revert ( or partially revert- lessen some of the movement penalties and maybe reduce or revert the new armor bonuses) the carapace change and make aliens an upgrade system similar to marines that is commander researched
#2 - keep the carapace upgrade as it is now(assuming hit reg gets miles better- otherwise some of the armor values need to go back to pre 212 values) and have the # of hives increase the armor bonus and/or reduce the movement speed penalty (this solution is somewhat unintuitive)
#3 - Remove Carapace as an upgrade and make armor scale off of # of hives up. You'd have to come up with something to replace carapace though, and that's tough but this solution seems like the best to me.
-Cysts need a decently sized cooldown (~5sec?) or marines need to be able to build on infestation.
-Nanoshield should only be castable on buildings <b>OR</b> it's damage reduction bonus needs to be reduced by 35-50% (so 25-35% damage reduction instead of the current 50%)
-Nanobuild could use a nerf too, It really needs to be 100-150% build bonus, a 4x build bonus is just crazy. Aliens really have no chance to deny crucial risky phase gates and forward armories.
-Infestation spikes seem cool, but they really need to be kill-able to avoid them being nothing but grief machines. Maybe give them gorge-esque HP/armor but having an immortal hallway block that can be spammed seems highly abusable.
TL;DR: Overall a good patch with more steps in the right direction. I really think t2/t3 alien abilities being tied to hive2/hive3 will fix a lot of the problems encountered in the early game alien dominance. Alien survivability scaling still needs help in the late game, carapace changes seem to miss the mark on this one.
The "hand of god" reaching down and giving me a good loving does not make for satisfying FPS gameplay. The same applies to nano-shield, to a lesser degree.
<!--quoteo(post=1947757:date=Jun 29 2012, 07:07 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jun 29 2012, 07:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947757"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Nanoshield is still incredibly powerful when cast on players and combined with med spam, I feel the short cooldown is not enough<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of all the suggestions made on the forums regarding fixing/removing nanoshield, they went with the worst one. What a shame.
Hmmm not too sure if I like the sound of this!
NS 1 didn't have this problem because the comm had to use T.res on weapons and jetpacks/heavies as well. With that element removed, they'll really need to come up with something else (that isn't as cheese as ARC/whip/nano spam), for BOTH sides, to sink t.res into. If they find a solution to this problem, they also won't need cooldowns.
One incident that particularly got my attention - I came in to Ventilation from DC and encountered a skulk that had just finished off another marine. I was standing near the extractor, he ran straight at me and I held down the trigger. Because he didn't (couldn't) dodge I was confident that I would win before he even got off a bite. I died, he was on 10hp. We were both pretty shocked. It was within the first five minutes of the game, they had cara, we didn't have upgrades. Frontal assault should favour the marine.
On a more positive note, there is something to like with infestation spikes. I like that it creates a sense of fear about walking on to an area of infestation. I'm not keen on the animation (conservation of mass stuff always bugs me, like onos popping out of tiny eggs). I'm also a bit hesitant about how it will affect gameplay. But in general I'd like there to be a risk vs reward consideration for whether to push the infestation back, or to run in to enemy territory for a raid. In previous builds infestation was basically irrelevant to marines so its nice to have some kind of reaction to its presence.
The "hand of god" drops meds/ammos, scans, places structures, mysts eggs, moves NPC units, and activates chamber abilities. I find it hard to believe that infestation spikes somehow breaks FPS gameplay enjoyability more so than any of these.
Yes. I even almost got one-shot as cara lerk earlier today. From 125hp 100armor to 19hp 0armor in one shotgun blast.
The problem is the direct nature of it. It's like the alien commander is reaching down from heaven and saying "nuh-uh, I decide where you can and cannot go". It's the complete antithesis of "FPS first, RTS second".
Meds, on the other hand, are indirect. Both in the sense that they only affect the commander's own team and in the sense that the commander drops something on the ground that the marine then has to pick up.
Nanoshield is shares some of the traits of medpacks, but is more frustrating for the other team because it has direct effect on the marine and a much larger effect on combat (even combining with medspam to make a marine all but invincible).
Assuming all 10 pellets hit:
w0 = 170 max
w1 = 187 max
w2 = 204 max
w3 = 221 max
1 armor against normal damage = 2 hp.
skulk: 10 armor, 70 hp, =90 effective hp (6 pellets @w0)
skulk(cara): 50 armor, 70 hp, =170 ehp (10 pellets @w0)
lerk: 50 armor, 125 hp, = 225 ehp (2 shots minimum at any weapon level)
lerk(cara): 100 armor, 125hp, = 325 ehp (2 shots minimum at any weapon level)
fade: 50 armor, 200hp, = 300 ehp (2 shots minimum)
fade(cara): 80 armor, 200 hp, =360 ehp (3 shots @0, 2 shots @w1->w3)
Obviously all these attacks require less pellets as you go up in weapons upgrades, effectively giving more range to the shotgun in a 1v1 with each rank of weapon upgrades. A carapace skulk, for example, would require 10 / 10 / 9 / 8 pellets per weapon upgrade (w0 -> w3). A carapace fade would be 22 / 20 / 18 / 17.
1. It blocks the view quite a bit.
2. It fakes the actual shooting latency. It is tied to the 1st person model, so when moving sideways, it looks like you spit very precise. But the latency didn't change, so the spit comes out of your mouth 1 meter away from your model (just like before). It was hard to hit before; now - together with 1. - it is near impossible (the same latency is experienced with the grenade launcher).
Assuming all 10 pellets hit:
w0 = 170 max
w1 = 187 max
w2 = 204 max
w3 = 221 max
1 armor against normal damage = 2 hp.
skulk: 10 armor, 70 hp, =90 effective hp (6 pellets @w0)
skulk(cara): 50 armor, 70 hp, =170 ehp (10 pellets @w0)
lerk: 50 armor, 125 hp, = 225 ehp (2 shots minimum at any weapon level)
lerk(cara): 100 armor, 125hp, = 325 ehp (2 shots minimum at any weapon level)
fade: 50 armor, 200hp, = 300 ehp (2 shots minimum)
fade(cara): 80 armor, 200 hp, =360 ehp (3 shots @0, 2 shots @w1->w3)
Obviously all these attacks require less pellets as you go up in weapons upgrades, effectively giving more range to the shotgun in a 1v1 with each rank of weapon upgrades. A carapace skulk, for example, would require 10 / 10 / 9 / 8 pellets per weapon upgrade (w0 -> w3). A carapace fade would be 22 / 20 / 18 / 17.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know I might be wrong but the wiki states that the shotgun does light damage, so the armor would actually be twice as effective. Am I correct?
That particular bit of information is outdated. The shotgun's damage was changed to normal in build 210
No, I can't really. That kind of stuff is far to complex and random for me to sum up in a simple post. Here's some relevant code, though:
Spread: You could plot this. The spread is rotated randomly so it could be oriented any way, but the spread is always this.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1--> GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2.8, 4, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-1, 3.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(3, 3.5, kSpreadDistance)),
GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-3.5, 0, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-0, 1.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(0.4, 0.5, kSpreadDistance)),
GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2, -2, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(1, -0.5, kSpreadDistance)), GetNormalizedVector(Vector(2, -2.5, kSpreadDistance)),
GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-1, 0, kSpreadDistance)),<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
You can see the spread if you enable cheats and type "trace bullet" in console. You can also type "give skulk" and experiment with ranges and how many pellets miss.
I would estimate you get ~4 pellets on average that would land on a skulk at a distance like that from the top of the ramp in DC to the bottom of the ramp in pipe junction. I'm basing this on the fact that there are 4 pellets that are <1.5 distance from origin. It's kind of an arbitrary guess, though. Create a server and try it out, you can learn quite a bit about the shotgun with trace bullets on and a dummy skulk or fade.
Point distance formula from origin = sqrt (x^2 + y^2)
IE for the first pellet: GetNormalizedVector(Vector(-2.8, 4, kSpreadDistance))
sqrt ( (-2.8)^2 + (4)^2 ) = 4.88 distance.
b210, I think.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->kShotgunDamage = 17
kShotgunDamageType = kDamageType.Normal
kShotgunClipSize = 8
kShotgunBulletsPerShot = 10
kShotgunRange = 30<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
-Cysts need a decently sized cooldown (~5sec?) or marines need to be able to build on infestation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Let the marines upgrade to be able to build on infestation please! It'll open up more strategies for the marine comm and fix the cysts spamming.