If you had full creative control of NS2
Bad Mojo
Join Date: 2009-05-01 Member: 67317Members
Join Date: 2009-05-01 Member: 67317Members
<div class="IPBDescription">What would you change?</div><b>If you got to make all the design/feature/balance decisions for the game (assume performance isn't an issue), what would you identify as the overarching problem with NS2 gameplay, and what approach would you take to fix it?</b>
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->My Answer: Tech Scaling doesn't have very smooth transitions, for either team. For aliens, I would focus on making each lifeform worth its res cost, and for marines expanding the tech tree to where they would require 3 TPs for the highiest tier.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<b>Secondly, what would be the top 5 changes you would implement/start playtesting immediately?</b>
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->Mine:
<ol type='1'><li>Make the maps much darker, at least in corners and nooks</li><li>Put in a limited form of bhop that only reaches full potential when combined with walljumping.</li><li>Resources for SCORE: Adjust the point column on the scoreboard to reward building/healing/completing objectives equally or more than getting kills, and increase res per tick as a player's score gets higher, capping at ~2 per tick</li><li>Bring Acid Rocket Back at 3 hives. If The aliens are evolving so quickly, eventually they would realize that they are at a range disadvantage, so developing ranged abilities into their arsenal in the late game makes sense.</li><li>Individually placed, more powerful sentries (with proximity restrictions); could be purchased by commander with ~10s build time, then 'grabbed by a marine and placed, or a single sentry can be purchased by a marine and placed, just like mines (limit to one per player, ~10-20 res cost).</li></ol><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->My Answer: Tech Scaling doesn't have very smooth transitions, for either team. For aliens, I would focus on making each lifeform worth its res cost, and for marines expanding the tech tree to where they would require 3 TPs for the highiest tier.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<b>Secondly, what would be the top 5 changes you would implement/start playtesting immediately?</b>
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->Mine:
<ol type='1'><li>Make the maps much darker, at least in corners and nooks</li><li>Put in a limited form of bhop that only reaches full potential when combined with walljumping.</li><li>Resources for SCORE: Adjust the point column on the scoreboard to reward building/healing/completing objectives equally or more than getting kills, and increase res per tick as a player's score gets higher, capping at ~2 per tick</li><li>Bring Acid Rocket Back at 3 hives. If The aliens are evolving so quickly, eventually they would realize that they are at a range disadvantage, so developing ranged abilities into their arsenal in the late game makes sense.</li><li>Individually placed, more powerful sentries (with proximity restrictions); could be purchased by commander with ~10s build time, then 'grabbed by a marine and placed, or a single sentry can be purchased by a marine and placed, just like mines (limit to one per player, ~10-20 res cost).</li></ol><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Comments
More taunts and animations! Kinda like team fortress 2 style taunts where if you have different weapon you can do different taunts and animations.
The ability to desecrate the dead! For example you can cut/bite off the head of your enemies and you can use it to throw it at their friends!
A new mode where the marines have to save and escort civilians to a landing pad, while aliens try to murder them all.
The ability to add videos in the ingame monitors!
The ability to lower weapons!
Add individual training courses for marines and aliens from actually being able to kill anything training to fancy tricks all the pro alien guys can do training.
A kill cam, ever wondered how the heck you died? With the kill cam you can see what your enemy did to kill you!
Most of the ideas are impractical and probably require a lot of work that it wouldn't be worth it but it would be cool to have.
2. Leave camouflage as it is but bring the option to increase the range on observatories (to make it more like the old motion tracking upgrade). Could also be a passive buff to all observatories.
3. Bring back the old beta sentry that didn't require a sentry battery.
4. Start the game with a free (as in beer) MAC for the marine side.
5. Get rid of power nodes for all purposes except room lighting and have large parts of the map start of unpowered and in emergency-lighting conditions.
6. Add the option to drop dual exosuits as a commander.
7. Add a dual flamethrower exosuit for 65 resources.
8. Up the limit on hydra placement for gorges to 4.
9. Remove hallucinations from the game.
2. Maps made truly massive (+-3 times larger than they are now).
<ul><li>Add extensive post-match statistics and graphs.</li><li>Add focus upgrade to shade hive.</li><li>Put hard limits on NPC combatants - sentries, whips, macs, drifters, hallucinations, arcs. Maybe even have them all share a population cap, so commander must choose which to go for.</li><li>Re-add remote power packs, require 2 CC.</li><li>Improve commander interfaces and feedback for both sides (<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=122784" target="_blank">detailed in my thread</a>)</li></ul>
-Make it so infestation slowly destroys power nodes.
-Make it so infestation has to be removed from a room for a powernode to be repairable
-Make it so all rooms start with powernodes except alien start (which starts with destroyed node)
-Make powernodes only repairable by welders
-Bring back portable power packs
-Make mature hives count as "two hives" for research perspective: ie 1 mature hive gets leap, bile, etc.
-make onos eggs dropable by "4 hives" (read: TWO mature hives)
-Make fade base armor 100
-Allow crags to heal faster, but make it so stack logarithmically (1 crag heals 10 hp/tic, 2 crags heals 1.5 hp/tics, 3 crags 1.75... etc)
-Make lerk spike/spore by default.
-Make lerk bite poison able to kill marines (no 5 hp cap)
That's all I can think of for now...
get rid of marine movement restrictions
option to remove infestation
remove power nodes from the game
remove sentries from the game
fixed shotgun spread
hats
-Change spawning speed for both teams to be slower.
-Equalize the skill ceiling between teams and add more rewarding game mechanics.
-Create a more interesting(and bit slower) flow between the early and late game where creative play is rewarding but not restrictive.
-Do some improvements on overall interface and customization for the players (such as allowing commanders to bind their own keys).
-Improvements to both commander views and alerts.
-Improve collision, movement and all that is needed for good fps gameplay experience.
-Improve the core mechanics of the game to make it feel more fluid and complete.
-Remove all gimmicky mechanics that do harm to player gameplay experience and add something that rewards player creativity and skills.
Its bit broad but basically make the game as perfect as possible, meaning a lot of small changes.
- remove glancing bites and reduce attack cone significantly (so playing skulk is as difficult as playing marine for the average pubber)
- add back in structure energy (and the circle continues... :D) but make all passive structure abilities not stack at all, but the triggered abilities would
- allow the commanders to "purchase p.res" instead of dropping equipment, so it would scale with all player counts
-Make it so infestation slowly destroys power nodes.
-Make it so infestation has to be removed from a room for a powernode to be repairable
-Make it so all rooms start with powernodes except alien start (which starts with destroyed node)
-Make powernodes only repairable by welders
-Bring back portable power packs
-Make mature hives count as "two hives" for research perspective: ie 1 mature hive gets leap, bile, etc.
-make onos eggs dropable by "4 hives" (read: TWO mature hives)
-Allow crags to heal faster, but make it so stack logarithmically (1 crag heals 10 hp/tic, 2 crags heals 1.5 hp/tics, 3 crags 1.75... etc)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I quite like these ideas! Let me add some of my own twists:
<ul><li>Gorges can freely place normal cysts wherever they like.</li><li>Gorge heal spray once again leaves patches of infestation where it lands.</li><li>Alien deaths leave small patches of infestation behind.</li><li>Cysts can only support a specific quantity of infestation: Player-created infestation will only be kept alive if it's near a cyst that hasn't finished spreading infestation. This counts against that cyst's cap, but this allows players to grow a cyst's infestation in specific direction or shape.</li><li>Implement Mouse's suggestion from the I&S forums that allow you to evolve cysts to allow nearby infestation to provide different bonuses.</li></ul><ul><li>Fire causes infestation to slowly recede even if the parent cyst is still alive (until the fire goes out), in addition to remaining super-effective against cysts.</li><li>Infestation from cysts does not naturally grow in powered rooms (due to "nanite gridlock"), but heal-spray and player deaths are still effective.</li><li>Infestation that is unsupported by a nearby cyst recedes faster in powered rooms ("nanites!").</li></ul><ul><li>Cyst infestation grows over anything that remains stationary for 30 seconds or more, including marine structures and afk players.</li><li>Gorges & players deaths and can accelerate this process, allowing it to be slowly forced in a powered room (eg Gorge helps Comm infest a powernode, etc).</li><li>Marine movement will quickly shake off any infestation covering them.</li><li>Marine structures & players covered in infestation are 50% less effective and/or slower (powernodes dim the lights, IPs spawn slower, armories give out half health, weapons upgrades are 50% effective, all research progresses at half speed).</li><li>Marine structures & players covered in infestation take continuous damage over time (until they move).</li></ul>
- remove glancing bites and reduce attack cone significantly (so playing skulk is as difficult as playing marine for the average pubber)
- add back in structure energy (and the circle continues... :D) but make all passive structure abilities not stack at all, but the triggered abilities would
- allow the commanders to "purchase p.res" instead of dropping equipment, so it would scale with all player counts<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You should cast a mind control spell on Charlie in the office and have him implement these :-D . (Except structure energy and non-stacking, not big on that)
The mere removal of glancing bites would go a long way in "fixing" the pub situation right now IMO. 75 cone seems ok otherwise.
get rid of marine movement restrictions
option to remove infestation
remove power nodes from the game
remove sentries from the game
fixed shotgun spread
hats<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->
how intuitive.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--quoteo(post=2033230:date=Nov 24 2012, 04:08 AM:name=ZEROibis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ZEROibis @ Nov 24 2012, 04:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033230"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would undo the alien nerfs in the recent builds except the changes to creg. I would then increase range of obs slightly and allow marines to research nades which spawn with them. The nades can then give marines an early game buff against the alien issues which were nerfed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Yes, because we need more marine death grenade spam and random explosions around corners in any game.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--quoteo(post=2033164:date=Nov 24 2012, 01:50 AM:name=Sewlek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sewlek @ Nov 24 2012, 01:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033164"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- fixed shotgun spread (maybe more pellets and higher spread, so distance and enemy size plays a bigger role)
<b>- remove glancing bites and reduce attack cone significantly (so playing skulk is as difficult as playing marine for the average pubber</b>)
- add back in structure energy (and the circle continues... :D) but make all passive structure abilities not stack at all, but the triggered abilities would
- allow the commanders to "purchase p.res" instead of dropping equipment, so it would scale with all player counts<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I personally find it easier to track a skulk as a marine then track a marine as a skulk, mainly because of camera orientation (marine can look down onto a skulk and just spray over him), and the fact that marine jumping can be extremely disorienting in tracking, however in recent builds there seems to be something off with hit registration or w/e, especially prominent with the shotgun it seems, and in some cases cause bullets who should register not to register. Makes playing marines frustrating for me right now too. As soon as the game becomes more fluid and competent in registering hits, so marines can damage skulks (in recent builds) and skulks can reliably damage marines <i>without</i> glancing bites, glancing bites should never be removed until then.
As for me, repeated again and again in other threads:
-Give Marines more combat oriented weapons, not just shotgun and rifle, possibly direct damage projectile weaponry for higher skill/reward (ala plasma rifle from doom3)
-Create viable spam counters (onos spam, marine base grenade spam)
-Give aliens some hard siege strategies and abilities other then onos and bilebomb (allowing marine tech/upgrade sabotage is a start)
-Make all alien lifeforms equally viable (increase utility and cost/reward ratio of fade)
-Fix gorge spit to make it reliable in visuals/hit detection
-Heighten skill floor and <i>create a skill ceiling</i> for onos
-equalize alien tech branches, shades shifts crags etc should all be equally viable from one to another
-More marine support abilities from commander (Catalyst packs? don't know what they where intended for.)
-More secondary weapons or support tools for marines ala different pistols, welders, melee weapons (thinking of stun stick from Resident Evil 5) portable healthpacks/ammopacks. etc
-Superficial resdump researchable upgrades for both teams; advanced alien vision, brighter wider flashlights, increased accuracy for weapons, increased ammo capacity, advanced hivesight,
-Slow down overall spawn times for both teams by a small margin, increasing cruciality of survival slightly.
I agree with this but I would take it one step further as the aliens would have expansion problems. Harvesters would generate their own infestation allowing them to be the root of a cyst chain much like a hive is now. All other structures still require infestation. Cyst TRes cost would then need to be increased.
<ul><li>Improved walljump with bunny hopping in between to maintain the speed boost.</li><li>Spore to hive 1, umbra to hive 2. Reduce effectiveness of both slightly to compensate. Perhaps increase vision obscure on umbra and reduce it significantly on spores.</li><li>Allow 50 Res exos to build. Increase exo movement speed slightly.</li><li>Remove strafing acceleration when changing directions on all classes except perhaps the Onos.</li><li>Increase base Fade armor</li><li>Remove RFD.</li><li>Slightly unnerf Crags, add minimum range for other crags so they cannot be placed next to each other. Allows the heals to stack on structures but not on other crags. (or simply just make crags heal themselves and not other crags unless you use heal wave)</li><li>Remove armor healing from armories (advanced armories still heal armor)</li><li>Do something to ARCs like requiring a marine to deploy them. The disconnect of ARCs from teamwork has always kind of bothered me and it is the commander directly attacking the other team rather than assisting in an attack.</li></ul>
Hrmm... This kinda makes sense actually. The resources consumed would be feeding the infestation. Harvesters even kinda look a little like giant cysts.
<!--quoteo(post=2033274:date=Nov 24 2012, 11:47 AM:name=Industry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Industry @ Nov 24 2012, 11:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033274"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><ul><li>Spore to hive 1, umbra to hive 2. Reduce effectiveness of both slightly to compensate. Perhaps increase vision obscure on umbra and reduce it significantly on spores.</li><li>Allow 50 Res exos to build. Increase exo movement speed slightly.</li><li>Remove armor healing from armories (advanced armories still heal armor)</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like these ideas as well.
I'd up the skill cap heavily
Skulks detaching from ceilings to bite a marine in the head would be a very near instant kill
Slow moving grenades rounds that actually contact an enemy lifeform would be devastating
Flamethrowers would be a powerful but dangerous weapon in the hands of the wielder <i>(even more so than GL)</i>
I'd make an evolution that rewards players for staying alive instead of giving them the opposite <i>(aka feign death)</i>
Aliens would be able to set more traps
Marines would have an alternative win condition
1) Lighting is a very tricky element in game design, as higher detail typically translates into higher CPU/GPU load. Besides, if the rooms were any darker, people would just turn up their gamma and brightness to compensate.
2) Skulks jumping around the floor has the advantage of a quieter footprint, but also makes an easy target. This feels like good balance, no need to turn spacebar into mini-leap.
3) I would like to see more episodic point scoring. I don't think a scoreboard should effect pres in any way, though.
4) The only real answer to the Fade in the mid-game is the Shotgun. This is balanced because the Fade does not have a ranged attack. Allowing it to harass from range would make the Lerk obsolete past the 3-hive upgrade.
5) I like mines and think they fill a very interesting role. Adding additional traps have to be balanced with the current ones (Mines/Sentries) and against the variety of Alien targets. I don't think sentries need to be developed for pres distribution simply because it would encourage even larger sentry farms in 12v12 servers.
I'd like to see them add proximity detection. Have it be an Advanced Armory upgrade, 15 tres 60 seconds. Marines purchase 4 laser trip mines (ala Half-Life 1) for 15 pres. Each one, <b>upon detonation, reveals in an small area on the map any cloaked Aliens for a few seconds</b>, and pings the player who placed it (it should also show up for the Commander and other Marines as a small scanner sweep about one-fourth radius, lasts 3 seconds. This would help new players learn to defend Extractors and give them a mid-game edge against Camouflage all-ins. Having the beam invisible in Alien Vision would be an added treat.
2. balance the game around set paramaters, maybe like halve or double every stat i can without it being ridkooloos.
3. make all jumps have more forward imput than they currently do, dependant on what direction you are going.
4. Personal turrents, miniature ones, 5 pres each, one per person etc, but not too good.
5. add more mine options for marines, more defensive options for aliens, like trip mines or little teleporting cavern like things. similar to the rat vents in DISHONOREd.
6. any other really cool idea that i or someone can come up with.
1. Eliminate Armory armor repair. Or limit Armories to a radius set around an built command chair. Either would be fine.
2. Place a cooldown on Scan. Reduce its radius to 14 to keep it in line with Shade radius. Reduce its service time by 50% to remove its unnecessary bonus duration with ARC firing rate having been doubled recently (like those ever get used...).
<b>3. Change Arms Lab functionality to bring it more in line with that of Alien upgrade limitations. Each Chair is limited to maintaining a total of two upgrades within its radius, either +2 Weapons, +2 Armor, or +1 Weapons/+1 Armor (up to the current limit of 3/3 total, of course). If that Chair goes down, the upgrades go with it. However, applying upgrades to a Chair costs the same regardless of the level being applied. It is always 15 res to add +1 Weapon to a chair, whether that +1 brings the total upgrade level to Weapons 1 or Weapons 3. Additionally, the Arms Lab is simply a means to an end for upgrades. It's a buff but also a debuff to Marines, reducing the total cost of upgrades while making them less vulnerable to surgical strikes but limiting their free access and making the upgrades a potential loss to a siege. The main goals of doing this would be to encourage Marine expansion beyond the goal of denying Alien expansion, to eliminate Marine doomsday turtle strength, and to bring some semblance of parity between Alien and Marine upgrades in their vulnerability.</b>
4. Reduce PRes rate to 0.0625 (1/16 instead of 1/8).
5. Fix Skulk movement to be more representative of NS1 movement; wall jump is a failure and Leap was taken down with it. Or reduce Skulk body size by 50% (increasing movement speed to keep it in line with original size's movement, assuming that's a factor).
<b>6. Increase Fade Energy reserves to 150/300. (I'll get to their balance issues in a moment but this is just one factor.*)</b>
<b>7. Make Hydras invincible and refund resources when replaced--Hydras however deactivate when out of range of a Gorge or Cyst (acting like a Power Node). Or Hydras are made to be significantly more dangerous than their current incarnation. I prefer option A, however. Or some option C I haven't myself figured out.</b>
<b>8. Jetpack cost increased to 25 PRes, to bring the JP+SG+Welder layout cost in line with that of a Fade.</b>
---
* Fade balance.
How exactly do you fix them? In their current form, they're more or less identical in concept to their NS1 incarnation, minus two key factors in Metabolism and Focus. They could always be killed in two solid Shotgun blasts, it's just that their rate of movement and surgical strike capability in NS1 far, far eclipsed their NS2 progeny. I don't think there is an easy answer because, well, I am my own worst counterexample. When Aliens are already winning or the game is quite evenly matched, I get that rare opportunity to go Fade and I'll rock the 50+ kills to 1 death as a Fade. But if the game is going poorly for Aliens, it's not worth it for me to Fade because an Onos is simply a better return on investment. So simultaneously, I'm torn between the fact that any buffs would unfairly improve my game but a lack of buffs continues to hurt the Fade as it currently stands. It doesn't really add anything to a match because it isn't capable of strongly impacting the flow of the game. It can't break a siege or turtle and it certainly can't siege, itself.
What exactly is Fade meant to accomplish in NS2? I really don't know, even if I'm fairly proficient at getting kills in the right scenario with the lifeform. And I feel that's the issue. The Fade doesn't have a very solid answer to that question. The Lerk is almost perfect in its role as hit-and-run surgical strikes/push support, so it isn't that. The Skulk has its own issues but it mostly fulfills its role of ninja cannon fodder defense. The Onos? The Onos is more or less a catch-all due to its great combat unit power but that's because it has to be, as there's no other option for it. The only answer, I feel, is a lateral upgrade that helps give the Fade a much more defined purpose. Bear with me as I'm going to suggest something a little unusual and possibly horrifying... The Fade needs Acid Rocket to come back.
The main problem with Acid Rocket in NS1 is that it never had a real role to fulfill. It was a gimmick weapon that the developers, from what I recall, largely despised because it messed with the Fade's dynamic of hit-and-run while never really being useful for anything. You only saw it in Classic as a joke when the Marines had already lost. You only saw it in Combat as a joke being played. But with NS2's more broadly-defined damage types, we can change that. Make it a siege weapon and turtle breaker. Bring it back as a rapid-fire, small area-of-effect Corrode damage weapon that is always available to the Fade, a la Parasite, Heal Spray, or Spikes. This provides the Fade with a purpose more specialized than "expensive, faster, bigger Skulk", in that it becomes a hit-and-run siege breaker.
This gives the Fade a purpose that doesn't make it more powerful than other lifeforms...simply just another role to play that is more useful than "bigger Skulk".
- remove glancing bites and reduce attack cone significantly (so playing skulk is as difficult as playing marine for the average pubber)
- add back in structure energy (and the circle continues... :D) but make all passive structure abilities not stack at all, but the triggered abilities would
- allow the commanders to "purchase p.res" instead of dropping equipment, so it would scale with all player counts<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
!! We need to build a mind control device to allow you to put these changes in.
- gorge as primary builder
- differentiate alien buildings as "TRES buildings" and "PRES buildings"
- create hard collision boundaries for player models
- incorporate commander/marine hierarchy based item purchases
- onos now takes 2/3 damage from the front
- onos now has bone shield action, fanning face shield creating a wall. ducking to provide ground cover - standing to allow ground troops to enter battle
- gorge slide has a percent chance to "slide between" marine's legs
- power nodes are found everywhere except tech nodes
- tech nodes assume the role of power nodes with the presence of a CC
- lerk poison gas + gorge bile bomb = temporarily disables existing armor
- lerk umbra + gorge heal spray = temporary bonus to alien armor
- aliens may build off infestation - growth/maturity stunted to 70% effectiveness than infestation buildings
- increased bass to all explosions, no more shallow explosions
- remove wall jumping mechanic
- include queued multi jump mechanic for aliens
- give marines a two jump max queue mechanic
- lmg is now a bullpup
- add hmg upgrade, replaces the lmg- larger capacity mag, smaller inventory, longer reload
- XENOCIDE IS REGULAR DAMAGE
-Gorges would be considered mini-comm's they can build Hives, Res-plants, hydros, walls, and even upgrades.
-Lerks can place web traps up to 3 and spray net traps to Jetpacks so they can't fly for a short period of time, Lerks would act like spiders with wings and they would also get bile bomb reduced to 50% damage compared to Gorges, so it won't be that powerful but can be effective.
-Skulks would get gliding wings when 3 hives are up, like those squirrels that can glide for a short amount of time. This is only when Aliens have 3+ hives.
-Fades should be able to grab a marine and blink him some where else that would be so much fun. Also, would like Fades to do range ability maybe a acid spit.
Onos we all want them to eat a marine and poop him out when the Onos ate more than 2 marines.
I would like attachment abilities for Aliens, like a lerk on top of a Onos and they do some special move, like making Onos fly for a short amount of time.
Marines:
A super Exo when 5 Exos combine to make one big Exo that would be fun but It can also be a bit OPness.
Wouldn't removing glancing bites and reducing attack cone make playing aliens worse even if you can hit with bites? Surely this change would restrict skulk movement in combat even more than it already is, giving the skulk more movement options in combat would increase his skill ceiling more than making him have to have more accurate bites.
1. Add metabolize to Fades, remove Vortex.
2. Leave camouflage as it is but bring the option to increase the range on observatories (to make it more like the old motion tracking upgrade). Could also be a passive buff to all observatories.
3. Bring back the old beta sentry that didn't require a sentry battery.
4. Start the game with a free (as in beer) MAC for the marine side.
5. Get rid of power nodes for all purposes except room lighting and have large parts of the map start of unpowered and in emergency-lighting conditions.
6. Add the option to drop dual exosuits as a commander.
7. Add a dual flamethrower exosuit for 65 resources.
8. Up the limit on hydra placement for gorges to 4.
9. Remove hallucinations from the game.
Replace the stock alien vision with the minimal variant or add an option to make it less obnoxious.
Remove the motion blur and wind tunnel effects from celerity, which are just tedious since often when playing alien these effects will be active more than they're not. Had celerity been something you used in short bursts (like marine sprinting, which only moves the camera slightly downwards <i>but that can be disabled</i>) it could have worked but it isn't.
Make rich infestation more on par with minimal in terms of visibility or add a 3rd option that's less bubbly but still gorgeous. Rich looks so, so much better it's a shame anyone would have to turn it off, for performance or gameplay reasons.
Better stock crosshairs, especially for the exo.
Rework the grenade physics, they just feel so bad. Heavier, less bouncy, less floaty, smoother... or something like that. Higher visibility, possibly slightly bigger model and a bit of a glow and discreet trailing particle effect to them. Make them pass through teammates that pop out just in front of you, excluding exos. Add back a crosshair, even the flamethrower has one and it requires no aiming at all, grenades does - miss a vent at low health and you die!
Better notifications for commanders. The amount of times the power has gone out without the com even noticing... it shouldn't even be possible to miss the power node in base going down fast, but the com UI makes it possible. Something to deal with spamming as well, games has been ruined by a single player spamming requests.
- the new alien economy isn't working - mostly it's "strategic and unfun". An alien player should not be able to 'save for onos', instead they should be encouraged to play all the lifeforms.
- loss is hard. A similar fault to NS1, if you're in a losing position it's quite unlikely to turn it around... but you're stuck with N minutes of 'unfun gameplay'.
- too frequently games are won/lost due to lack of willing commander, leading to 'unfun' for all the players.
I'd change:
- onos should be produced by 'something other than pres'. My own suggestion is that hives simply generate onos eggs. (with 3 hives, 1 immediately produced then 1 egg every 5 minutes etc). Buff/nerf the onos as appropriate.
- a 'soft loss' condition. If either side is forced back to 1 hive, the losing side prepares to destroy the map, giving the other team a fixed cooldown for complete victory. (5 minutes or something)
- a player on each team should indicate willingness to command prior to the start of a map.
- Bring back Focus
- Tweak gorge heal spray values, make it less of an asthma healer, add webs, hydra p.res cost to 2 and cap to 5.
- Slight fade base hp increase
- Alien second and third tier not exclusively tied to 2nd and 3rd hive, 1 mature hive allows 1 T2 ability, 2 mature hives allows 1 T3 ability. (Higher cost)
- Beef up xenocide
- Onos t.res egg at 2 mature hives, bump up maturation time.
- Hives can purchase extra eggs for 1t.res, shift allows these eggs to be teleported to its position for 1 t.res without echo.
- Shift, Shade and Crags available from start, Hive choice would only affect abilities on these structures (echo, illusions, babblers) and upgrades
- Scaling alien upgrades, bring back the old 3 upgrade structures for maximum bonus or scale on hives/with maturity.
- More commander interaction with the environment, maybe have bone wall tied to crag hive, come up with 2 more abilities, 1 for each hive type.