How to balance the alien flashlight...
Runteh
Join Date: 2010-06-26 Member: 72163Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2010-06-26 Member: 72163Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Comments
This suggestion would just make it completely useless?
Alien vision is mostly used to highlight marines in melee fights so they are easier to keep track of.
Both the change/bug in the latest patch, and your suggestion goes against what alien visions real attributes are.
It is used in melee fights = not a great thing to cost adrenaline. Forces the player to not use it to have adrenaline for abilities.
It already got a decent downside, you can't see parasites with alien vision turned on.
That fits perfectly with alien vision, since you don't <b>need</b> to look through walls in melee fights.
And there is nothing unbalanced about alien flashlight in the first place.
This suggestion would just make it completely useless?
Alien vision is mostly used to highlight marines in melee fights so they are easier to keep track of.
Both the change/bug in the latest patch, and your suggestion goes against what alien visions real attributes are.
It is used in melee fights = not a great thing to cost adrenaline. Forces the player to not use it to have adrenaline for abilities.
It already got a decent downside, you can't see parasites with alien vision turned on.
That fits perfectly with alien vision, since you don't <b>need</b> to look through walls in melee fights.
<b>And there is nothing unbalanced about alien flashlight in the first place.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
Going to have to agree that the suggestion seems a tad worse than what we have now.
I understand the want to have a drawback to alien vision. It's the same problem that Arkham Asylum/Arkham City faced with detective mode. Was just too useful to turn off and there was little reason to do so as all causes of harm to you was highlighted.
What is the alien vision's key role? For me, it's selecting targets out of the surrounding chaos. Having that predator focus on my kill. Being able to follow my prey till its demise.
If I were a real skulk, I'd be able to smell my prey. I would have the peripheral vision that helps me hunt my enemies that you can't get from vision alone. So why should using my born and bred vision cause me to get tired like an old man who's been walking uphill for too long?
Honestly I don't even see why hivesight is disabled. If you think about it, this is the POINT of parasite: To follow the prey.
Now I could argue why alien vision doesn't really need a drawback, but I'm not a real alien dog and this is a game, and games need to have options. Reasons to do one thing over the other. But there is no reason they can't be organic.
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-- My suggestion would be to remove the current adrenaline nerf and no hivesight nerf when active, but only let the aliens see organic things. Players and other alien structures.
The downsides could be severe only to the careless.
----You would not be able to easily distinguise any non organic structure from the surroundings easily.
[This includes what weapon the enemy marine is holding or if it has on a jetpack.]
[This includes mines]
[Above all, this includes turrets]
The upsides would be that you could rely on other skulks scouting abilities to spot these structures for you with parasite.
-
How this would work might cause aliens to run around a little slower, with AV off, making sure they don't run into any mines or sentries. Once an alien meets their prey, they would assess the situation. Note what weapons the marine(s) are holding. Then turn on AV and use it to track their prey as it was meant to do.
- Help new players to keep track of marines in frantic melee fights by providing a clear, stable, bright, clean game image.
- Prevent players to get headache after playing more than 10 minutes.
- Make the game looks good.
Current implementation fails at the majority of these, by making the use of alien vision very obfuscated to new players, inducing headache to those who switch alien vision rapidly. Good look is more debatable.
- Help new players to keep track of marines in frantic melee fights by providing a clear, stable, bright, clean game image.
- Prevent players to get headache after playing more than 10 minutes.
- Make the game looks good.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is this per UWE? Because I didn't know tracking in frantic melee fights was ever an intended use. I had this wacky idea that it was mostly for seeing in the dark. <.<
- Help new players to keep track of marines in frantic melee fights by providing a clear, stable, bright, clean game image.
- Prevent players to get headache after playing more than 10 minutes.
- Make the game looks good.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<ul><li>Is this really necessary? Games like TF2 and Quake have melee attacks without an alien vision equivalent, and they do just fine. </li><li>Has this actually been studied at all, or is it totally made up? I really doubt there's a lot of physiological reasoning being applied here, considering we went from BRIGHT YELLOW to DARK GREEN</li><li>It already looks good, and taking an FPS hit for turning on alien vision makes it look <i>less </i>good</li></ul>
<!--quoteo(post=1951089:date=Jul 12 2012, 05:19 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Jul 12 2012, 05:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1951089"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You are allowed to add "see in the dark" to the list.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<ul><li>Ah yes, the part where power nodes are explicitly alien-favoured. How is this good for the game?</li></ul>
This suggestion would just make it completely useless?
Alien vision is mostly used to highlight marines in melee fights so they are easier to keep track of.
Both the change/bug in the latest patch, and your suggestion goes against what alien visions real attributes are.
It is used in melee fights = not a great thing to cost adrenaline. Forces the player to not use it to have adrenaline for abilities.
It already got a decent downside, you can't see parasites with alien vision turned on.
That fits perfectly with alien vision, since you don't <b>need</b> to look through walls in melee fights.
And there is nothing unbalanced about alien flashlight in the first place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Arghhhh, the piercing light of reason! IT BURNS!!!!
<!--quoteo(post=1951113:date=Jul 12 2012, 06:32 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 12 2012, 06:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1951113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><ul><li>Is this really necessary? Games like TF2 and Quake have melee attacks without an alien vision equivalent, and they do just fine.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The heavy does not crawl on walls, and nothing in TF2 moves nearly as quickly as the aliens in NS2 (excpet maybe the skulk), also melee is hardly the primary focus of the game in TF2 while it is in NS2. NS2 environment are also much more cluttered than TF2 (both in visual and gameplay terms), and marines do not stand out nearly as much as the players do in TF2. Oh and also no bite cam that blocks a 3rd of your view or enemies that can jump clean over your head. Or crap collision system. I am less familiar with quake but I imagine most of the above still applies to a lesser or greater extent.
[*]Is this really necessary? Games like TF2 and Quake have melee attacks without an alien vision equivalent, and they do just fine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Characters in TF2 are all brightly coloured and stand out, making melee combat easier. Quake hardly has any melee, and even then characters stand out fairly well.
Contrast this to NS2, where marines are grey and blue against walls which are grey and blue. Skulks are orange and stand out, giving marines an ADVANTAGE in melee without alien vision.
Contrast this to NS2, where marines are grey and blue against walls which are grey and blue. Skulks are orange and stand out, giving marines an ADVANTAGE in melee without alien vision.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But do people who play NS2 honestly have trouble seeing marines to bite them? I just don't buy it, to be honest..
YES
Depends on the room. But a dark green or black armor on a just as dark or green background makes it difficult. Marines blend in great with their surroundings while aliens stick out like sore thumbs.
<ul><li>Is this really necessary? Games like TF2 and Quake have melee attacks without an alien vision equivalent, and they do just fine.</li></ul>
games like tf2 and quake have much less visual detail in their levels, and the rooms are much brighter. it's easy to spot enemy players. in ns2, a marine hiding in a corner can be undetectable until he starts shooting without the aid of AV.
No, it doesn't.
But alien vision is not a new mechanic, so who cares.
I'm just going to go back to what was already said: alien vision wasn't "unbalanced," it works fine, looks good, and is distinctive from other games. It doesn't need a downside.
[*]Is this really necessary? Games like TF2 and Quake have melee attacks without an alien vision equivalent, and they do just fine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Last I checked both those games where symmetrical in design so both sides share advantages and disadvantages...ns2 is not.
TF2 (and I dont believe quake has either) does not have a class that is solely Melee based which the alien class is.
Also the models are cartoon bright so they can be easily seen (counter to white walls which where common in competitive play TFC).
Alien vision is crucial in keepiong track of a marine in melee, with your eyes in your mouth your field of view is already hampered enough.
I actually <i>like</i> playing with Alien Vision on most of the time precisely because it looks so unusual. Part of the allure of playing aliens is how strange they are, and AV really adds to that strangeness. Players shouldn't be punished for enjoying the ambiance of being an alien.
If the developers think that alien vision is so unbalanced, then instead of nerfing the alien abilities, maybe just make the alien model glow a bit brighter or something when the alien vision is activated - I think this idea has been suggested before.
I mean these types of in-game nerfs are pointless at the end of the day because eventually people will create mods to make player models more visible anyway.
Visual related nerfs don't work in a modable game!
just add AV meter that drains when activated and regens when unused.
then people will stop complaining about having it always turned on, hampering adren regen rate, and not having a trade off
GG problem solved
uwe is so obsessed with this concept of alien "vision" that they turned what worked perfectly in ns1 into a complete mess.
It should give aliens a leg up in dark areas.
If NO ONE touched alien vision, we wouldn't be wasting time and energy (no pun intended) posting about something THAT WASN'T A MAJOR PROBLEM to begin with.
Don't fix what ain't broke.
Remove the energy association and be done with this so we can actually try to balance things that actually matter, like PROPER COUNTER TO JETPACKS.
Jetpacks frustrate me enough as it is. But this just takes the cake.
Skulk wall-jump, according to someone, was changed by Schimmel which further narrows the time gap to nail a wall-jump....all the while editing the leap to combat jetpacks?
Now its even more frantic and wrist-achingly painful to even play as a skulk JUST to close distance with the new, or lack of, wall-jump.
also, to combat jetpackers i think the lerk should have a larger bite radius, it seems rather small.
Or maybe we could just use the alien vision?
Marines have an advantage in ranged combat. - Aliens should have an advantage in melee combat.
As it is now, the marine has the same chances to kill a skulk in melee-range as the skulk. The aliens should at least not have to search their target.
The main-problem with AV was, that it is hiding the textures, making the game look ugly. You lose immersion with it on. The solution from Ryne fixes that. So there is not even a need for trade-offs anymore. It even matches the aliens-are-different immersion topic. Also, what most people don't know is, that your eyes go shiny when activating AV. Making you visible in the dark. This also looks cool when engaging in a melee-fight, activating AV and the marine sees your eyes going bright. (Maybe the effect is to little?)
So if you really want to have a trade-off for the sake of it, I think it is enough that buildings (especially mines!) are not shown. But having to fiddle with it (activating a pulse) while being in a frantic melee-fight is a very bad idea and not the slightest fun. I don't want to battle the UI. I want to battle the marine and this is already difficult enough, because aliens have the melee-only-disadvantage.
@ie: You can't compare this to TF2. The whole combat-system of Quake or TF2 is another. It features clearly visible targets and has not the slightest aim for ambiance and immersion. In NS2 it's all about the feeling of being an afraid marine against nasty aliens. You can't compare this to comic-shooters. And you can't say that this difference in the very base of the game design is a problem for NS2. It is just a whole different way.
It can be mitigated however by a well designed alien vision; it's much easier to track an object that has a nice contrast with the background than an object that blurs into the background.
Making people toggle on and off alien vision is just really bad, specially with an alien vision that has so much visual impact; your visual system do take some time to adapt to the new stimulus.
Have the Alien Vision controlled by a charge meter, the longer you keep it active the more charge it uses until it has no charge then it switches off until it has a full charge again, however if the player switches it off quickly after switching it on the wait till its fully charge is reduced significantly.
So the longer you keep it on the longer you will have to wait till you use it again, and if you keep it on too long it will switch off itself... cant keep it on always.
It controls how long it is active for.
It allows for quick scans to check areas.
It allows for longer durations for combat.
It encourages skillfull application of the ability.
A bad thing may be having to code in another resource , alien flashlight charge time which if checked server side may cause additional traffic... but that is about the only con I can see.