Want to remove the Bile Bomb, or make it attack marine armour?

THis is where that conversation happens.

- Make the gorge faster, so that it can keep up with battle groups. Specifically, the gorge should only be slighter slower than a light armor LMG marine.

- Increase gorge resistance to seige damage (grenades and seige turrets) somehow. Either passively or by some active ability.

- Make it so that if a heavy armor marine is hit by bilebomb, he is vulnerable to acid spores for the next few seconds.

- Improve web somehow.

Remove Bilebomb

Move webs to hive 2 with a 5% higher energy cost

Add Web Bombs:

Web Bomb: Uses the old bilebomb model, only colored a greyish-white. Travels 2/3 the distance of bilebomb. Hive 3 attack. Uses 35% energy. RoF: .67/second. Any marine inside the web bomb will be stunned for .75 seconds. This allows the gorge to escape, or allows the gorge to attack, allows for support, etc.

Where does bilebomb go? To the lerk...

Remove spit. Move heal to hive 0, increase the range, and have the visual actually give some indication of where it's hitting.

Hive 1, give personal umbra. A small cloud of umbra centered on the gorge with an extended duration.

Bile bomb changes-
1) BB damages rine armour heavily. Maybe 50 AP per direct hit, less on the radius
or
2) BB stays structures only, but does between 250 and 300
or
3) BB is greatly increased to around 800, but takes almost all the gorges energy. This doesn't change the gorges total damage over time, just lets the gorge attack quicker and get back to cover. Squeezes the 4 BB shots you normally get in one energy bar down to 1 shot.

Web needs some serious work but i don't have an answer for you.

@ripur i like the idea #3

Implement lerklift. Some servers are currently using the "Lerklift" plugin and its pretty usefull if used correctly.
-It allows to travel a gorge alot faster
-It improves teamwork for the alien team, currently teamwork usually looks like this (on pubs)
"Place 3DCs fast i am fading"
no reply
"you stupid ***** gorge place the ***** DCs"
gorge places MCs
"ohhhh gosh you doomed us all we are going to loose"

Lerklift should work like this:
Hive0=healing spray
Hive1=lerklift
Hive2=bilebomb
Hive3=webs

When a lerk wants to pick up an gorge the gorge has to select his "lerklift" ability.
once selected it could emit some kind of blue bacteria, indicating that the gorge needs a ride. lerks flys to the gorge presses the use button and picks him up.
on pressing the use button again the lerk releases the gorge. when the gorge deselects its "lift" ability he should be instantly dropped. this would make the gorge more mobile but prevent a gorge lerk team from air bile-bombing a whole rine outpost. And it would prevent people from lerking around, grabbing gorges and flying them to an rine outpost for fun.
Happend to me once on a lerklift server.

Only thing I can think of changing on the gorge is increasing bile bomb range, that's about it. This way the gorge can support the team with a little less risk when attack structures, a real artillery type support creature.

I don't think sacrificing a slot for lerk lift is a good idea. If you don't watn lerks picking you up, then don't give them the ability to latch on, just let go.

AS for more BB range, i don't ever find myself out of range with bb. Most of the time if i'm attacking an active out post i have to hang around a corner or door way that puts me in range with the current arc.

- BB obscures marine vision. The thick stuff splatters onto the marines face and it sticks there for a second or two, then slowly slides off. It would either be slightly translucent (think of looking through wax paper) or completely obscures.

Rebalance idea for Gorge Abilities:

Hive0: Heal - Nothing special here. The gorge can attack and heal at short range

Hive1: BileBomb - Of course BB should be nerfed a bit, like reducing dmg or RoF. But as a hive1 ability it would finally be possible to take down a hive-lockdown without a higher lifeform and DC. Right now you can defeat MC or SC first by locking both hives down with 5+ turrets and elec every rt (if you are not playing against a very good team), but this was discussed often enough.

Hive2: Webs - The most important change, because aliens would have finally an effective jp-counter at hive2 and it would increase the power of OCs. To make webs not overpowered they should only stay temporary (like ~1 min)

Hive3: Spit - To make spit a good hive3 weapon it should "stick" to a marine if you hit and should drain his HP/AP over several seconds. (like R-32 suggested)

Normally I dont like radical ideas, but I really like them

My idea is to make the Gorge Spit Chargeable. What this means is the longer the Gorge holds down the attack bottom the more powerful the spit will become. To get an idea of what this would look/be like think Samus' gun in the metroid series, or the Gauss gun in HL. The damage itself I think should be substantial if a marine is hit with a full blast of the charged Spit.

Way this would improve current issues:

Battle Gorge: The gorge in combat right now is rather flawed. If a Gorge attempts to leave the hive he basically does not stand a chance, even in Gorge squads. This would make the Gorge a more viable evolutionary step instead of a annoying step-over to get to anything else.

Melee Only Aliens: Another issue is that aliens are too melee, not enough long distance attacks which make the aliens very susceptible to long hallway attacks and base camping by marines. This does not seem like it is going to resolve anytime soon now that spikes are gone and the Acid Rockets have been nerfed. This would create some much needed Long Distance backup for the Aliens.

Reasons why this would not be a balance problem:

1. I am not setting a specific damage number as I would dare not. So this value is open to the community/developers to decide what would be a good amount. As I stated above I think the damage amount should be substantial when fully charged, possibly killing a vanilla marine, but this of course could be too much.

2. The energy cost of a fully-charged spit would be a full bar of energy.

3. It would take time to fully charge a shot, possibly 5-10 seconds. A Gorge could stop it anytime for a less damaging shot but to do full damage then it would need to be fully charged.

4. Shot speed is again up to the community. I imagine that it would not be too slow, as in at least as fast as the current spit if not a little faster.

5. This feature is only as good as the person using it i.e. Aiming is key. I imagine the charges shot would be a good deal larger then the normal spit but still, good aim is a prerequisite for good player.

Cool Details:

Focus:Imagine a fully charged focus shot, the possibilities make me drool. Of course a focus shot would take even longer to charge and recharge but in the right hands it would turn a combat gorge into an amazing weapon.

Sprites: My visualization of the Spit-Charge is pretty cool, and I think if implemented would be an amazing example of NS eye-candy.

Normal Spit: The normal spit would of course still be there, just tapping the attack button would produce it, thusly fans of it should not be upset by this.


Questions, comments, flames, words of praise???

Gorge healspray::

I think Gorge's as sexy as they may be with their plump bellys....

Should be able to look up and let the heal spray fall down on them healing themself .
It would heal 1/2 faster than if you were healing another gorge because its coming from you and would give you some kind of defence vs those marine trying to knife kill your like your a 10 res joke.

If a gorge is 10 res and gets 2 res to reskulk after droping one rt... why not let his res be worth being called a Semi-higher lifeform instead of giving the gorge res to devolve( if thats even a word lol) . Gorge is one of my fav classes and would love it if gorge was a more playable class in the field .

I was thinking that you could let the gorge get one upgrade per chamber right off the bat. you could be a cloaked ,regen ,adren gorge because you had the ability to choose one of the 3 upgrades from each chamber tree before it is even droped. I mean.. if you can drop the chamber.... You should have it in you to use the abililty for your own use shouldnt you?

This turned out to be 2 ideas in one.. the second one is kinda a "This would be cool" idea.. But it would rock if it was added.

I dunno how hard this would be to implement, but what about making this charged spit have a projectile arc... like grenades.

So you lob a spit ball, the higher the charge the SHORTER it goes. I'm not talking fall at your feet short, but if you are trying to fight a marine 1-1 it really shouldn't matter if your super-charged-focus-spitball-of-doom only goes about as far as a current bile bomb.

That way the low charge spit is still useful because it has longer arc-range.

You want radical ideas? You GOT them!!
Remove gorges from the game! bwhahahaha
Instead allow every alien to build except they have to sacrifice themselves in the process. Reduce respawn time for builders of course.
Give the lerk a heal spray(make it entirely supportive) and throw in a different alien instead of the gorge.

Implent a mating ritual where the onos plants it forelegs (phun) solid on the gorge's back and it's reproductional organ near it's cutie-pie tail (<--hint) Followed my a serie of
movement animations for the onos, this will speed up the respawning.. The size proportion is realisticly.. Just watch animal planet..

Dunno where to put this because it's about the web-ability but also about balance.

Problem:
Right now, after the first web-shot, every shot creates a new web in theory.
Consequently one can web an entire rine squad too fast, imo.
I think web should be nerfed or let's say:
Nerf its offensive strength.

Suggestion:
Each web should need 2 shots from the gorge, so that the next web won't use the end-point of the last web created.
Defensive strength stays the same but now the gorge need more time to web multiple rines in fight.

Or take it one step further with web nerfing, which I think someone might've already suggested in another post. Instead of 1 web totally immobilizing a marine, make it 3 webs before the marine isn't able to shoot or fly. Webbed once, 33% movement/speed limited, 2nd web takes out another 33%, 3rd web takes out the last 33%. 1% left to just waddle around very very slowly.

About the webs... on most server its almost impossible to use webs correctly, either it doesnt form or there are already to many webs...
My suggestion is: make the webs instead of strings along walls, as single entities on walls (like a spiderweb decal on the floor), so you would need only 1 spitty thing to form one, and if that hit a marine straight on, he would be webbed longer (this would help prevent a pack of jps raping your hive while you are trying to form some webs only to come to the conclusions that they arent formed)...
Also they should dissolve after some time to prevent web spamming...

If it doesn't already, healspray should overflow from health the armor, as was originally planned for regen.

Drastical? maybe...

1. HSpray making the gorge do what he does best

2. Web (YES!) Late game its not very useful, because then GLs and welders are common. Early on you cant really use a stunned marine to your advantage without backup by skulks(no killing ability and no res for OCs) but with teamwork, it works. However I want webs to have a build time on a few seconds so it cant be abused like today.

3 Bilebomb IS useful and it WONT work on the lerk. Bilebombs should temporarily disable turrets however. Only for a second or so. This makes it very good for breaking farms, as well as a nice support.(rember its tough on your energy)

4. Acid spit! Higher damage with slow speed makes it hardly worth your time, but even a gorge needs to be dangerous at the 3d hive(he should have a more uniqe skill as his final, but he needs them early in the game). An odd twist would be to make it GIVE health if you hit aliens.

No, lerks are the only known motile diploid unit which can asexually reproduce the collective other than the gorge.

Anyways, back to the heal spray doing DoT... That is an A+ idea! Give the marines a whopping dosage of live Kharaa cells and the pathogen will tip the nanogridlock balance which is protecting the marines. Eventually the nanites in the marines can regain the upper-hand but not until after the damage is done to the human tissue.

Actually I'd like to see the aliens having more melee attacks doing DoT or at least having cnidariocytes on their skin. I mean, if the Kharaa are this crazy super advanced lifeform, then they'll have all of Earth's best adaptations and more; and do it faster, stronger, and better than any Earth lifeform.

Besides Kharaa attacks doing a little DoT helps them be much better at hit&run. (get up close and hit them hard and then whoosh off) I doesn't have to be a lot of DoT, just enough to show an acid symbol or biohazard symbol on the HUD. You also will solve knifing issues overnight if you give aliens cnidariocytes in their skin. (plus it's cool)

My suggestion for gorge btw:

h0: healspray <-- overheal (it costs time and wears off rather quickly) and slight DoT added.
h1: web <-- definitely yes, make them knife-able to balance
h2: bile bomb <-- no change, perfect where it is, would be really cool if it removed armor (not health, just armor)
h3: babblers <-- I love these guys

Spit is lame and out of character for gorges. They suck at combat and are slow energy and nutrient carriers for the collective.

webs are pretty sad right now in terms of thier utility. You can only have so many and that number is never enough. Making them accessable sooner will just exsasterbate the problem.
Though early game OC traps would be pretty handy if you could web right off the bat. 10 res and a little spray = 1 dead marine with out much maintence.

Web would lead to some awesome strategies and all you need to do to balance is make them knife-able. It's just a lot more fun.

I have a tip for babblers. Instead of making them like skulks, how about more like snarks. Snarks are only a few polygons and I have seen servers spammed with several hundred of them at once in an Oz DM 3.0 server back in the day and it worked just fine. Besides snarks are cute and squishy.

Comm: Where is it?
weird guy: There!
me: Aw it's soo cute
Comm: What behind the little insect thing?
wierd guy: It is the insect thing!
Comm: Why you stupid-- Bob go down there and chop it's head off please.
Bob: Right.
*sqeek sqeek*
*snark rips out eyes*
Bob (screaming): Oh god! AAAH!
everyone else: Run away! Run away!

i loved the babblers!

it was sooo fun

If the ability for a gorge to web a marine with a welder out and firing it is removed (it's rediculous, except maybe for jp since they're moving fast), then webs could concievably be improved. As it is now, an adren gorge can web/spit a marine to death while he feebly tries to weld.

I would like to see some of the usage restrictions on webs removed, but only if they're fixed vs welders.

Make spit travel faster (not hitscan speed though) so it's harder to dodge. Now anyone can dodge spit at anything greater than 5 feet. =/

Gorges are nice and balanced at the moment. There's really nothing that needs to be changed ON THEM, so much as a little tweaking to their abilities.

WEBS:
3.0 was a huge blow to the effectiveness of Webs. The amount of webs a single player can use was increased, while the amount of webs the entire team can control at one time was decreased. What this means is that one smacktard who doesn't know how to web properly can spam up useless places with highly ineffective web placement and leave you with almost no webbing. I'm not positive on the numbers, but I believe that two players' web totals combined actually exceeds the team limit (let's say 10 for each player when the team limit is 15.) Again, that's not an exact number, but it seems like if GorgeA uses up all his Webs, GorgeB cannot reach his maximum amount because the team limit has already been reached.

This is bad. Fix. Either raise the team cap or lower the per-Gorge cap.



BILEBOMB:
It's fine, really.. but some ability to damage Marines would be nice without unbalancing the game. I'm not sure exactly what a Bilebomb is in regard to the storyline, but it seems like a bunch of mildly caustic goo that coats structures and gets on the inside, either jamming up moving parts, eroding silicone or metal, or destroying / blocking out nanites. Obviously, this does nothing to Marines (there are acids that you can put on your flesh with no ill effects that will degrade metal, for instance) but perhaps it could gunk up their armor and slowly reduce it's effectiveness either over time or just deal damage in one blow.
A few ways it could work:

Upon being hit by a Bilebomb, the player is marked with Biological or Radioactive damage (the little symbol in the lower left, so they know what's going on) and begins taking non-stackable armor damage over time. Let's say the duration of the effect is 5 seconds. A hit will cause the Marine to lose 10 armor over 5 seconds, or two Armor every second. If he gets hit by the bilebomb again before the 5 seconds are up, nothing happens. The countdown continues as usual. The amount of Armor damage received over the 5 seconds period varies depending upon the proximity of the bilebomb. Direct hit causes the full 10 damage, whereas splash only causes 6 or 4.

OR.. bilebomb works as listed above, with a higher damage-over-time (perhaps 20 over 5 seconds for a direct hit) but only against HAs.

OR.. bilebomb just does a little armor-only splash damage to either only LAs, only HAs, or just both.

Not tremendously overpowered. The duration is long enough for it to not become a nuisance and make spamming of the ability ineffective. The damage isn't too severe, meaning you could probably take several direct blows before it becomes worrysome. Gas is more frightening, but the Bilebomb is mainly effective for scattering HAs which gas is ineffective against. Let the Gorges fight back.

hive one: Spit, and Healspray/umbra combination; should not be too overpowered as gorges excrete their healspray, they do not shoot it like some sort of gas "grenade" and they will have to be in harms way. Still not healed by their own healspray, will not hurt marines. Possible semi-umbra effect on themselves
Hive 2: bile bomb, hurts armor on heavies
Hive 3: web

After this, change lerk (i know, wrong thread, but these go together)
Hive one: bite, and spores; slot 1 and 2 respectively
Hive 2: Spikes; spikes have slower lower rof, same power
Hive 3: primal scream

Its just a suggestion.

no babblers ffs... I hope this goes into your ***censored*** brain!


ideas~
Direct hit webs the hud somekind. Imagine when you get throwed a sticky sponge with the consestence of a chewing gum thrown in the face or something

Bilebomb -
~ eats slowly away armor, 50% current spore damage and only to armor
~ chargeable, like UT rocket launcher (w/o auto shooting). a charged shot rolls a few seconds, too - water bomb anyone?
~ new hive 1 ability / extended bb: sporemine.
1 or 2 res, uses model of bb (maybe smaller size), spawns a lerk spore cloud.

spit. removed. period.

hspray - move 2 hive zero, decrease range, stamina cost and effectiveness, but push rof a bit up.

changed hive numbers of hspray and sporemine

I've missed that, too, and don't think so, tbh.

There is an area-limit of webs and a map-limit. That's it, afaik,
and i'm webbing since 1.03

Another Web idea:
make web two weapons: start and end spot
(i know about the weapon limit, thank you)

weapon 4.1 - web start
weapon 4.1 - web end

you can shoot as many web starts or ends as you wish, but only the last X connect when you shoot the counterpart.

x= playtested

But the Devs don't want alt-fire for any weapons, how would you get around having a primary 'weapon' that does this without an alternate fire button?

if you make 2 weapons out of web, as i suggested in my post, you will not need alt fire

Could you further 'explain'. I'm unsure as to how exactly it works ingame and also whether there are two weapon slots or what?

IMo, BILEBOMB SHOULD FREAKIN BURN!
It breaks apart structures pretty damn well (I think it should do it better)... these things are metal, or something pretty dang hard.

Its seems illogical that this giant gooball that is the size of the gorge itself wouldn't give a sting a little worse than the parasite....

Webs aren't taken out by GLs ... only welders can do that.

Other than that Gorge is perfect.

Bring back the babblers, by all means.

would it be possible to add babblers back?

Think about it, with ALL that optomising to the ns netcode, and the advancement of servers and pc's today... I feel that most machines could handle 5-6 of em in a map at a time! They may not have been bright, but DAMN if they werent' fun as hell to play with! And we all know balance > fun > all else