Don't disturb the eggs!
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">add a bit of atmosphere</div>If you watch Aliens or some such film, you never see the stars running around in the egg rooms, jumping up and down on them, poking them, playing catch with them, etc. Typically, they are (as you would expect) pretty damn scared of the eggs. I mean, they are ominous biological objects, which are completely unknown and unpredictable. Not so in NS2.
I think it would be pretty cool if eggs themselves, not even taking into account the players inside them, were considered "hostile". Players should want to keep their distance from eggs wherever possible, and it would just be so awesome if new players were warned to "stay away from the eggs!".
In order to accomplish this, I suggest a few changes:
The first has to do with the spawning mechanic currently in place. I think currently, dead players are simply put in a queue where they wait for 14 or so seconds, spectating some allies, at which point they are assigned an egg. They then wait a few seconds, and are then able to spawn from that egg. My first suggestion is to immediately assign a player an egg upon their death. Nothing else would change, they would still spectate allies for the 14 or so seconds, but at that point they would already have an egg assigned to them, and are simply waiting for the spawn timer to reach zero to hatch from it.
Next, I would like it if the "egg view" was utilised a bit more, as it is actually quite good. Sure, its nice to see what other aliens are doing all over the map, but if you have vision of your egg and the hive room while a marine is sneaking in, that gives you an opportunity to quickly alert the team, before said marine gets up the power node, or destroys an upgrade chamber. I think that a dead player should instantly be sent to "egg view" if their assigned egg takes damage, or if a marine walks within a few feet of it. Trying to sneak into a hive room would be a completely different scenario if you knew any of the eggs could be watching you.
Lastly, I would like to see some sort of egg "volatility". A marine disturbing eggs should run the risk of them hatching prematurely. As a rough idea, I think it would be cool if the volatility was implemented in the following way:
<b>Proximity</b>
Being within a certain range (the same range as the one that grants egg vision) has an x% chance of reducing the spawn time of the player assigned to that egg by 1 second, for every second the marine remains in range. What this would ideally result in is a player spawning between 25 - 30% faster if a marine is within range for the entire spawning duration.
<b>Damage</b>
Dealing damage to an egg should greatly reduce the spawn time of the player assigned to that egg. The spawn time reduction should not be proportional to the amount of damage done to the egg, but rather for how long the egg has taken damage. So, if two marines empty a clip into an egg at the same time, destroying it in 2 seconds, that player should have essentially no chance of spawning from the egg before it is destroyed. On the other hand, if a single marine is firing at the egg, and destroys it in 4 seconds, the chance to spawn before the egg is destroyed should be increased. Not high, not guaranteed, but increased. If you have a situation where an egg is simply set on fire and simply left to burn for a small amount of damage per second, the player assigned to that egg should spawn much faster, up to 50-60% faster even, on average.
While it may sound like it has many finicky details, and is too complicated, what this mechanic would (hopefully) result in is the following behaviour
1. Keep your distance from the eggs
2. If you are going to destroy them, do so quickly, and in a focused manner
<b>Potential Issues</b>
So just like any quickly thought up suggestion, this one has some potential problems that would need resolving.
First is predictability. It is typically quite important to know exactly when you are going to spawn, in order to get away from danger. What I would propose is to never reduce a players spawn time to below 2 seconds via proximity or taking damage. Once their spawn time goes below 2 seconds, all sources of speed up are removed, and the two seconds is counted down in seconds/milliseconds.
Second is spawn time jumping. It would be rather frustrating to see your spawn time reduced to 5 seconds, only to be killed, and swapped to another egg where your spawn time is now 10 seconds. I propose that, immediately upon gaining egg vision (via proximity or damage) the timer countdown is replaced with a progress bar. This would symbolise some sort of "fast track" process, alerting the player to the presence of nearby hostile marines. The progress bar would then increase its progress speed based on the aforementioned methods of spawn time reduction. If the players egg is destroyed before they spawn, they are assigned another egg, with a remaining spawn time of whatever they should have had, had they received no spawn time reductions.
I think it would be pretty cool if eggs themselves, not even taking into account the players inside them, were considered "hostile". Players should want to keep their distance from eggs wherever possible, and it would just be so awesome if new players were warned to "stay away from the eggs!".
In order to accomplish this, I suggest a few changes:
The first has to do with the spawning mechanic currently in place. I think currently, dead players are simply put in a queue where they wait for 14 or so seconds, spectating some allies, at which point they are assigned an egg. They then wait a few seconds, and are then able to spawn from that egg. My first suggestion is to immediately assign a player an egg upon their death. Nothing else would change, they would still spectate allies for the 14 or so seconds, but at that point they would already have an egg assigned to them, and are simply waiting for the spawn timer to reach zero to hatch from it.
Next, I would like it if the "egg view" was utilised a bit more, as it is actually quite good. Sure, its nice to see what other aliens are doing all over the map, but if you have vision of your egg and the hive room while a marine is sneaking in, that gives you an opportunity to quickly alert the team, before said marine gets up the power node, or destroys an upgrade chamber. I think that a dead player should instantly be sent to "egg view" if their assigned egg takes damage, or if a marine walks within a few feet of it. Trying to sneak into a hive room would be a completely different scenario if you knew any of the eggs could be watching you.
Lastly, I would like to see some sort of egg "volatility". A marine disturbing eggs should run the risk of them hatching prematurely. As a rough idea, I think it would be cool if the volatility was implemented in the following way:
<b>Proximity</b>
Being within a certain range (the same range as the one that grants egg vision) has an x% chance of reducing the spawn time of the player assigned to that egg by 1 second, for every second the marine remains in range. What this would ideally result in is a player spawning between 25 - 30% faster if a marine is within range for the entire spawning duration.
<b>Damage</b>
Dealing damage to an egg should greatly reduce the spawn time of the player assigned to that egg. The spawn time reduction should not be proportional to the amount of damage done to the egg, but rather for how long the egg has taken damage. So, if two marines empty a clip into an egg at the same time, destroying it in 2 seconds, that player should have essentially no chance of spawning from the egg before it is destroyed. On the other hand, if a single marine is firing at the egg, and destroys it in 4 seconds, the chance to spawn before the egg is destroyed should be increased. Not high, not guaranteed, but increased. If you have a situation where an egg is simply set on fire and simply left to burn for a small amount of damage per second, the player assigned to that egg should spawn much faster, up to 50-60% faster even, on average.
While it may sound like it has many finicky details, and is too complicated, what this mechanic would (hopefully) result in is the following behaviour
1. Keep your distance from the eggs
2. If you are going to destroy them, do so quickly, and in a focused manner
<b>Potential Issues</b>
So just like any quickly thought up suggestion, this one has some potential problems that would need resolving.
First is predictability. It is typically quite important to know exactly when you are going to spawn, in order to get away from danger. What I would propose is to never reduce a players spawn time to below 2 seconds via proximity or taking damage. Once their spawn time goes below 2 seconds, all sources of speed up are removed, and the two seconds is counted down in seconds/milliseconds.
Second is spawn time jumping. It would be rather frustrating to see your spawn time reduced to 5 seconds, only to be killed, and swapped to another egg where your spawn time is now 10 seconds. I propose that, immediately upon gaining egg vision (via proximity or damage) the timer countdown is replaced with a progress bar. This would symbolise some sort of "fast track" process, alerting the player to the presence of nearby hostile marines. The progress bar would then increase its progress speed based on the aforementioned methods of spawn time reduction. If the players egg is destroyed before they spawn, they are assigned another egg, with a remaining spawn time of whatever they should have had, had they received no spawn time reductions.
Comments
Everything needs an advantage and disadvantage. whats the point of having only positives?
Every action needs and equal and opposite reaction.
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Right now an IP is the only way for marines to spawn. IP is disabled by loosing power.
Eggs rely on Eggs. They are not effected by anything besides the hive. IP is effected by command center essentially. So there really is no big difference.
You can destroy the IP to stop spawning. Destroy eggs to stop spawning. Biggest difference of course is you have a shift hive. You loose al 8 of your aliens at the same time. You just place 8 eggs. they all spawn back at the same time. Their is no limitation on how many can be spawned at once. only limitation is eggs.
Same thing goes with marines. The limitation is the number of IP's are available.
So right now its balanced.
so the only imbalance right now is essentially the requirement of power for marines.
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Best way to balance your quicker eggs, is by forcing maximum HP attainable.
If you come out of your egg faster. The percentage of damage to the egg refelects the maximum HP achievable by that player, till the player dies.
So if an egg is damaged 90% but he hatches faster. The player starts only with 10% health. And cannot increase health more then 10% of maximum health, untill player dies.
The reasoning behind it is - the egg did not have time to fully mature to create a "Mature" alien. So its a "Preborn alien" much weaker then a normal alien.
Everything needs an advantage and disadvantage. whats the point of having only positives?
Every action needs and equal and opposite reaction.
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Right now an IP is the only way for marines to spawn. IP is disabled by loosing power.
Eggs rely on Eggs. They are not effected by anything besides the hive. IP is effected by command center essentially. So there really is no big difference.
You can destroy the IP to stop spawning. Destroy eggs to stop spawning. Biggest difference of course is you have a shift hive. You loose al 8 of your aliens at the same time. You just place 8 eggs. they all spawn back at the same time. Their is no limitation on how many can be spawned at once. only limitation is eggs.
Same thing goes with marines. The limitation is the number of IP's are available.
So right now its balanced.
so the only imbalance right now is essentially the requirement of power for marines.
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Best way to balance your quicker eggs, is by forcing maximum HP attainable.
If you come out of your egg faster. The percentage of damage to the egg refelects the maximum HP achievable by that player, till the player dies.
So if an egg is damaged 90% but he hatches faster. The player starts only with 10% health. And cannot increase health more then 10% of maximum health, untill player dies.
The reasoning behind it is - the egg did not have time to fully mature to create a "Mature" alien. So its a "Preborn alien" much weaker then a normal alien.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So when the push back on spawn was added to IPs (before your time) what was the "equal and opposite reaction"? There wasn't one. The equal nerf for equal buff only applies to situations which are balanced, and there is frequently quite a problem with the egg spawning system.
Furthermore, the vast majority of players agree that the infantry portal is a far superior method of spawning compared to eggs. Eggs are brittle and provide a static target which can instantly be shot once hatched. Eggs also run out, preventing aliens from spawning at all. Infantry portals are far more durable than multiple eggs, and also push attackers back when marines spawn in, giving the marine ample time to kill at least one attacking skulk. The infantry portal method also scales to decrease spawn time, whereas eggs have a set spawn time, which will not decrease with more eggs.
Egg locking the alien team is incredibly easy to do, and is also incredibly devastating to the alien team. Far too much pay off for such little work.
Eggs may not be durable - but they contain some inherent advantages
1. They can be spawned anywhere on the map [when owning a shift hive]
2. They are not limited based on power. Essentially once a power in a marine base dies. You are "spawn locking" marines also. It would be nearly impossible for marines to recover without another base IP.
For example when I was playing comm for aliens. Humans were destroying all my eggs in departure. So what did I do?
I created a Shift in the hallway behind departture dropped 8 eggs. And we eventually won the game. The reason this is possible is because aliens structures build them selves.
This would have been impossible for humans .
They would have to either restore power. Which takes a very long time, or create a new CC some place else, have a marine go there. restore power. create a CC + ip node. all while aliens do not notice or find him. Again impractical. More likely by that time the aliens would have destroyed the CC and marines lost the game.
This would stop marines from killing all the eggs in a single hive before actually attacking that hive without a single alien spawning there...
Players have to gain their bearings and start moving from a stopped-start with no upgrades.
Adding on top of that, their spawning position can be blocked... that's just stupid.
What if you would rush with shifts? The eggs are almost free to make so they would only act like a minefield wich could block passages..
Eggs are for spawning teamates only, Buy shifts in different places and you can have eggs everywhere ..
It is pretty dumb to only have eggs at your hives since they are so cheap to create.
Make small egg farms in different places and you will not run out of eggs if the marines kill the eggs close to the hive.
What if you would rush with shifts? The eggs are almost free to make so they would only act like a minefield wich could block passages..
Eggs are for spawning teamates only, Buy shifts in different places and you can have eggs everywhere ..
It is pretty dumb to only have eggs at your hives since they are so cheap to create.
Make small egg farms in different places and you will not run out of eggs if the marines kill the eggs close to the hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Someone posted about a shift rush (as in 3 shifts in their starting base hatching eggs), it worked for him, but that was on pub servers. The shift is probably being nerfed, for the reasons you mentioned. This change is in the balance testing mod Flayra has on the workshop
Shift Hatch now creates 2 eggs, but costs 5 resources and has a 5 second cool down (was 1 tres per egg, no cooldown).
Some decent defence, for example clan wars/scrims will result in shifts being done and then those eggs just sit there, costing additional res every time someone spawns from them....
... but for no actual benefit to the alien team.
My only suggestion for nerfing it would be the maximum number of eggs you can make when outside a hive zone.
So if a shift is within a hive room. It can make 10 eggs.
When its outside a hive room it can only make 3 at a time.
<b><div align='center'>"oh crap marines are killing the eggs"
VS
"oh crap these eggs around me can spawn skulks on my face"</div></b>
is a fairly good balance of being scary for both teams and balanced gameplay wise...
<b><div align='center'>"oh crap marines are killing the eggs"
VS
"oh crap these eggs around me can spawn skulks on my face"</div></b>
is a fairly good balance of being scary for both teams and balanced gameplay wise...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ye, but the fact remains that marines just pogo around on eggs like they could care less, and if a bunch of skulks have just hatched, you know for a fact that no more are hatching for at least another 13 seconds. I just don't like that certainty about it, it breaks the immersion for me.
This is space marines coming into a facility to clear an infestation, it should be SCARY. I've said this in other threads. This is a good suggestion that makes walking into the hive scary instead of lolletsshootheeggs.
Also, this are TSA Marines! They should not be stooping to something as low as hindering spawn rate without actually killing them.
They're meant to be the ultimate badasses, make them kill the hive!