Wave spawn
AurOn2
COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
<div class="IPBDescription">Buggy, limiting, unfair etc.</div>Another feature that needs to shoo, or change hands. Currently, alien wave spawn is up to 20 seconds, and that means 20 seconds to find an egg. and i it doesnt.. well thats a next wave for you laddy!
This function makes no sense, what was it meant to do again?
I would much rather marines had this function, than aliens. aliens gestate from eggs, they don't have a sense of unity when it comes to spawning, they can't decide to hatch at a specific time, yes?
This function makes no sense, what was it meant to do again?
I would much rather marines had this function, than aliens. aliens gestate from eggs, they don't have a sense of unity when it comes to spawning, they can't decide to hatch at a specific time, yes?
Comments
This function makes no sense, what was it meant to do again?
I would much rather marines had this function, than aliens. aliens gestate from eggs, they don't have a sense of unity when it comes to spawning, they can't decide to hatch at a specific time, yes?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1 it makes more sense for it to be with marines, as they can easily build more IP's to speed up the respawn rate (aliens cant make more eggs in the same way).
Have spent up to almost a minute, when aliens get attacked their respawn rate slows down as more die.
When marines get attacked any such botle neck can be overcome by building more IP's.
I believe 3 IP's is more than sufficient to maintain very quick respawn times for marines.
I would prefer a flat 15 second spawn timer than the chook lotto we have currently for aliens.
And if there are no eggs it searches again in 5 seconds?
sounds about fair to me
Super long respawn times is also not the most exiting way of balancing the game "aliens OP? let's remove them from the game".
Thats not true. With an shifthive you can have eggs all over the map.
Maybe an shiftupgrade which buff the spawntime a bit would make the shifthive more of an option as an 1st hive-upgrade.
Something like this:
Carahive: Tougher aliens, the eggs @ cara hive have more hp, but slower spawnrates
Shifthive: Faster aliens with faster alien-spawnrates and the option to have eggs anywhere
Shadehive: Silent, invisible aliens and eggs are protectet by cloaking (but there is something missing @shadehive to be a real 1st hive option. Permanent cloaked eggs maybe in combination with an increased eggspawntime?)
The aliens could just send an endless stream of players at the Marine base. The Marines just spent the entire game defending the base, it was rubbish.
With the current system it gives the Marines a chance to build some momentum if they take down a good number of aliens.
Carahive: Tougher aliens, the eggs @ cara hive have more hp, but slower spawnrates
Shifthive: Faster aliens with faster alien-spawnrates and the option to have eggs anywhere
Shadehive: Silent, invisible aliens and eggs are protectet by cloaking (but there is something missing @shadehive to be a real 1st hive option. Permanent cloaked eggs maybe in combination with an increased eggspawntime?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1 on this ! Connection beetween eggs and hive type could be cool and useful!
Generally Speaking Hives could differ a bit more from each other. A while ago we had the special abilities like healing on infestation, hive sight. I really liked that and this could be a chance to give the hives a bit more differentiation!
Maybe an shiftupgrade which buff the spawntime a bit would make the shifthive more of an option as an 1st hive-upgrade.
Something like this:
Carahive: Tougher aliens, the eggs @ cara hive have more hp, but slower spawnrates
Shifthive: Faster aliens with faster alien-spawnrates and the option to have eggs anywhere
Shadehive: Silent, invisible aliens and eggs are protectet by cloaking (but there is something missing @shadehive to be a real 1st hive option. Permanent cloaked eggs maybe in combination with an increased eggspawntime?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree that aliens have any options as if the aliens go Cara first they are stuffed and have to suck up 30 second spawning waves untill they can get a second hive up?
To say aliens can respond by having a shift hive is not seeing the fundamental issue at play, marines can decrease spawn times by building more IP's.
Once a tech path has been selected and its not a shift hive, the aliens are left with no options.
To be obtuse and to illustrate the point, its like saying if marines want to get armour 3 then they respawn at 1/3 of the rate as if they didn't have armour upgrades. They are making the choice to have armour upgrades so they must have an offsetting downside such as slower spawn times.
Aliens need to spawn every x seconds after they die, it might need some tweaking but 10-15 seconds seems a likely starting duration.
Marines should have wave spawn as this would help ensure they dont spawn alone (a lone marine is a dead marine) and allow for easy base raping by aliens.
I would happily see marines given 2 IP's at start if they had the wave spawn mechanics currently placed on aliens, that way a comm can build 1 more IP and have 3 marines spawn at once every 30 seconds.
Makes more sense on so many levels for it to be a marine based mechanic...cant believe its been left as a nerf to aliens..
From a gameplay POV, NS2 history says different.
Marines could not survive a wave spawn system. Power node and IPs are too weak compared to a hive (ARC train, I know, I know...), meaning even more Marines staying in base to defend between spawn waves.
If you can't believe the nerf, I don't think you have played Marines enough. :)
Marines are attacking the hive, if one skulk spawns then he gets slaughtered alone.
If 5 skulks spawn at once, they have a chance to fight.
I think its a good mechanic, but the timer is too long currently.
The timer itself can be tweaked (the emergency egg spawn system was implemented quite a few patches ago) for the aliens; but I HIGHLY doubt that the devs will remove it.
As for it being 11s, that is total BS I have many times gotten the privilege of staring at a room full of eggs while the words next wave in 20sec flashed across my screen.
The problem is you get a 10-15s wave spawn timer and about 5 seconds of initial "congratulations, you are dead!" before even starting the wave timer. I often wait 15-20 seconds to spawn.
If I am the only person in the game, I still wait an absolute minimum of 15 seconds to spawn from the moment I die to the moment I hatch. 10-11s is in the wave timer. By comparison, the marine takes 10 seconds.
Now in real games, you often 'miss' the initial timer and end up waiting 20+ seconds for a second spawn timer. This is one of the reasons that aliens are weak early on. A good marine against a good skulk will probably end up 2:1 in favor of the marine. Now the alien in addition to being weaker also has a longer spawn timer.
I've been in games where I've waited over 45 seconds because the spawn system failed to locate an eggs and I looped back into the waiting time. I've had to wait over +30 seconds many of times to spawn just because a few other people died at the same is absolutely moronic. I've kill 3 out of 4 marines attacking a harvester, die, but now I have to wait 30 seconds because idiots on my team got themselves killed a couple times; now while I wait to spawn, the same 3 marines I killed are already back and kill the harvester.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(the emergency egg spawn system was implemented quite a few patches ago<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The non-existent emergency egg spawn system that hasn't exactly made any difference in the spawn wait times, nor fix the glitches and problems this lackluster spawn system contains. I rather much have the Marine spawn system that's "oh so hindered" by how many IPs they have up.
Spawning on the other side of the map while a hive is being attacked because I can't pick an egg, and the lack of hive teleport has been great fun too.
The timer itself can be tweaked (the emergency egg spawn system was implemented quite a few patches ago) for the aliens; but I HIGHLY doubt that the devs will remove it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You have good points there, but the pseudo-randomness is still a reliability issue from a purely strategic standpoint. Perhaps the best solution might be to keep the spawn queue as it is now, but replace emergency spawn rates with a steady curve, reducing the wave spawn time by a couple seconds each time a new alien dies. It would need some new information to be displayed to the player while sitting in the spawn queue to make it more intuitive, but I'll bet it would fix the problem.
Something like this (counting down):
20
19
<b>16</b> :: Player died! (2 seconds less until spawn)
15
<b>12</b> :: Player died! (2 seconds less until spawn)
11
10
To the topic: As the wave spawn for aliens was introduced it was both, a really cool zerg-rush feeling to run over the marines like a wave. But also the marine base was under constant attack and if you spawned near a hive, not holdable. If you did it to long, the aliens could get seriously egg-locked with nearly no players left on the field it was gg.
<u>I like wave spawning as aliens, but there are some problems:</u><ul><li>the spawn times can get to long and feel random</li><li>you can get egg-locked without being responsible for it (= punished without knowing how to do better)</li><li>if you get egg-locked, you can't do nothing against it (if you got no free hive to evolve to shift)</li><li>even if you get a shift hive, the shift structure is (beside the eggs) useless since adrenaline is in as upgrade</li><li>you can't even choose your egg while waiting</li><li>the obscure maximum at simultaneous spawning aliens in one wave contradicts the whole point of wave spawn</li><li>the whole alien spawn system is full of hidden constrains, absolutely against KISS. ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle</a> )</li></ul>
<u>So my ideas to fix this:</u><ul><li>aliens spawn simultaneous in waves</li><li>as soon as the first alien dies, the spawn wave begins ticking with X seconds (later dieing aliens, only have to wait for the already ticking clock)</li><li>as soon as an alien dies, an egg is created at the hive</li><li>on top of that, the hive creates one egg every x seconds</li><li>the whole time while dead, the alien can choose the egg to spawn</li><li>??? - the alien commander can create eggs for 3T-Res at any hive (1T-Res from shift-structures)</li><li>balance achieved over the X seconds spawn-wave-timer</li></ul>
What does that achieve? Aliens can't get egg-locked for rushing the marines. (They are already punished with not getting p-res while dead.) They can get egg-locked when the marines rush a hive and kill the eggs. You also got a reliable spawn-system where you know when you will spawn and you know why you can't spawn (= no eggs available because of marines in hive.)
As for egg selection, I don't really see any harm in that beyond adding new checks to make sure you aren't selecting an egg someone already has selected.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
It can be working as intended if there are more than 5 eggs at a hive and only 3 people dead and it takes a few seconds before the timer even shows up and it says then "22 seconds to respawn" ... With the time waiting for the timer to show up that's nearly 30seconds. Even without taking in account that the dead guys get no res, that's way to long. And "22" wasn't the highest number i had to "enjoy".
Being dead, is not fun, and if i spend more time dead than alive. Am i having fun?
Wave spawn is the issue, stop suggesting things that are temporary cures for the problem, and will probably result in more problems, just remove the problem, no fast cures are possible here, hell, look at the hydras. they created a cure to some nonissue, a million problems came with it.
Something like this (counting down):
20
19
<b>16</b> :: Player died! (2 seconds less until spawn)
15
<b>12</b> :: Player died! (2 seconds less until spawn)
11
10<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is probably the best idea in the thread. Wave spawning IS a good mechanic, but the current iteration just isn't working. This here is a nice change.
It can be working as intended if there are more than 5 eggs at a hive and only 3 people dead and it takes a few seconds before the timer even shows up and it says then "22 seconds to respawn" ... With the time waiting for the timer to show up that's nearly 30seconds. Even without taking in account that the dead guys get no res, that's way to long. And "22" wasn't the highest number i had to "enjoy".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You do know, that there is a hidden maximum of simultaneous spawning aliens? I don't know the number tho.
For 5 res, everyone who is dead can respawn immediately at the given hive (and given eggs are available). Does not circumvent egg killing for marines, but at least gives a panic button for the commander to direct all respawns to one hive.
For 5 res, everyone who is dead can respawn immediately at the given hive (and given eggs are available). <b>Does not circumvent egg killing for marines</b>, but at least gives a panic button for the commander to direct all respawns to one hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Think about why this makes your suggestion completely useless and then get back to me.