Allow skulks to dash by holding a direction and tapping jump in the air. Make the dash about 1/3 the potency of leap, and only allow it once until they land. Incorporate airspeed acceleration into the dash.

Make ceiling climbing temporary. Prevent skulks from hanging on ceilings without resting on walls or floors every 15 seconds. Make one second of rest fully recharge their ability to climb for another 15 seconds.

Let skulks charge and grapple marines. Don't confuse this with knocking a marine over (which is boring and tedious). A skulk that ambushes a marine should have a secondary bite that attacks slowly, and is far more predictable than a regular bite, but that if successful will only allow the marine to knife the skulk to get away, by killing it.



If the gorge is not the alien commander, then give him a new job. Let him be the bait, or the battle priest, or something. Stop making us wait to drop chambers - it's boring, and one of the main reasons NS didn't last even longer than it already has competitively.

Perhaps let the gorge mutate existing structures to do other more useful tasks, for instance a DC that was mutated could act like a barricade having a great deal of health, or a mutated OC could perhaps be manned by the gorge to defend a location. Make the gorge's life dynamic again.



The fade was never intended to be an acrobat - that is the role of the lerk. While I enjoy blinking around like crazy, I see the NS2 fade as more of a teleporting assassin than a super-lerk. Give the fade back his teleporting ability, and make his eyes glow red. Fades are the main assault force of the alien "tribe" - this is a survival/horror game - make them more atmospheric.



Lerks should be the acrobats of the game, and should excel at everything movement-based. They should be the creature with the highest skill cap.

Give lerks a sort of aerial dash maneuver. Give them true freedom in the air - you could give them somersaults, barrel rolls, whatever you feel like. A good lerk should be able to outmaneuver almost any situation, but should be a glass cannon as they currently are.

I would keep gas on the lerk. It's great for breaking up campers, which makes the game more fun.



Stop the onos from climbing ladders. Make a lot of areas in maps he can't get through. Then make him truly dominant in the area he does decide to gestate in.

Let the gorge transport the onos via that canal idea from several podcasts ago.

Let him tank jetpack fire. Require a serious, perhaps even specialized weapon to kill him, and a fair amount of teamwork. He is the maximum tech of the alien force - he should take more than one JP/HMG to kill.

Again, give him atmosphere - he deserves it.




Marines

In my opinion, marines should keep rail hop, but if you won't do that, you should at least give them alternatives - and good ones.

The major point here is that a marine should have the ability to get out of an ambush if he plays well. If that's via airspeed, so be it, if you want to include a minigame of wack-a-skulk with the butt of a gun, then that's fine too. Whatever it is, it needs to give the marine the option to get out of a tight spot.

You could give bullets proximity knockback so that skulks within 3 feet were kited by good accuracy. This would force ambushing and stop stupid players from straightlining into marines with guns, and it would create a sense of banter, which is vital.

You could let marines roll out of harm's way, say a skulk was dashing toward a marine (described above) and the marine saw it, he could press d (right strafe) and tap duck to roll out of the dash - the roll would have to allow him to get up immediately though, as the skulk would be on top of him.

Elements like these will be a start toward making the game competitively viable, in addition to just being really pretty.

Wack-a-skulk.....

That makes me think of allowing melee attacks with the butt of your gun, but longer refire rate, a bit slower attack speed, and less damage than the knife.

I like all your ideas except the Skulk. While the partial leap is a nice addition, removing ceiling camping is kinda sad, at least for me. At least you allow wall camping, so my favorite over the door moves still apply. I can see how the charge can help close the distance, but hiding on ceilings is one of my favorite, although underused, moves.

I would also revise the side jump for Marines to add a slight delay to bring back up your weapon and a fairly long refire rate for the move. Otherwise you'll see lots of random rolling movement to shake the Aliens. Don't make the Marines more nimble than the Aliens, that would be poor. Another option would be an accuracy decrease that is removed over time after the roll as well as the delay to bring it back up.

I like (1) and I still agree with a grapplebite(3), but (2) seems unnecessary. Maybe you felt giving the skulk a grapplebite and (nearly) unlimited avenues of attack was too much, but I don't think this would fulfill any purpose other than frustrate new players or prevent ceiling ambushing altogether. Maybe the difference could be floors and walls are "jumpable", but the ceiling is only "detachable".

Sounds good to me.

I like the fade as acrobat, but I admit I would prefer a teleporting fade as well. Make them atmospheric by being quick and deadly assassins. Make them Kharaa ninja, not seen until it's too late.

Love it. Especially if the fade no longer blinks. Heck give the lerk the current blink without the invisibility, which is the same thing as a dash I suppose.

I'm not sold on (1) and (2). It seems like an unnecessary restriction. In a movement based game the onos is, purposely, severely lacking. I think the solution is to embrace his position as a meat shield rather than fight it. Replace charge with an "ubercharge" like ability where he's invulnerable for a short period of time. Instead of going to marines and stomping/devouring give him something to draw marines in like a tentacle grapple. That would certainly make him fearsome. Maybe (1) and (2) could stay in with such changes.

(1) is fine, nothing new. (2) and (4) sounds interesting and I'd love to try them. (3) I don't like the idea of, but I'd want to try it out before I made a decision because it could be a neat "back-and-forth" dynamic as you said.

Please post a specific NS1 example where you wouldn't be able to ceiling camp due to the fact that a wall was impossibly out of reach, where normally you would be able to without the proposed restriction.



I would actually disallow firing altogether while rolling, which is why letting the marine up immediately after with no animation lag would be crucial.

Giving marines more mobility than aliens isn't really a problem, because marines have to sacrifice airspeed mobility in order to aim - oh look, another reason side-airspeed is an invaluable gameplay mechanic...

But you're right, if they had nothing restricting their aim (like air sidespeed movement *cough*) then it might be bad to give them alienesque mobility like they almost have in NS.



15 seconds is an eternity in combat. I don't think it would do much but make skulking a little more creative, and immersive, but it's not absolutely vital.

PS: lol tentacle grapples...

That's how I thought of it when you proposed it, so I still support it.

It's not for combat so much as ambushing. A skulk hears a marine in the distance. He attaches to the ceiling and is still to avoid making noise. Now with a 15 second timeout the skulk runs the risk of dropping of the ceiling early, making a noise due to being forced to move, or limiting himself to the walls making the angle of attack much more predictable. It just seems like an arbitrary restriction.

Yeah, someone please suggest a better name. Basically something like Scorpion's "get over here" but without stunning the target.

Radix, your ideas near-perfectly highlight everything that is wrong with NS. I'm sure you didn't intend it.


1 - Okay, bunnyhopping has to be in though.
2 - Why?
3 - Terrible idea. A good chunk of marine vs skulk combat happens after the first bite, and it is about half of the fun. If you remove it, marine vs skulk will be one half as fun.


The gorge should have half of his current hp, should be able to move faster and do more damage with spit. Also, why no wallwalk? Other than that, OC turrets and structurewalls sound redundant. Think of better examples of what you can evolve the structures in and then you'll have me sold on it.


Yes, fades should have more mobility and less health. But that would also make them even harder for new players to control. Although another lifeform is needed.


lerks should be the best because I am a lerk player

am i rite?

Lerks should be skulks that can fly and perform support stuffs.


Onos is a skillless alien. I would like to see its role changed completely from a bulletproof tank to a speedy, ultimate, large spellcaster that can eat a marine for primary but can die to one hmg clip with carapace.


In my opinion it'd be cool if marines were all Altair juniors and had the acrobatic ability of... well... professional acrobats.


Wait, you don't like the marine mobility in NS? You think that marines have too much of it?

The solution to this is make the marines fast, but make the aliens even faster.

It's not that they're out of reach, it's that I don't want to touch them. For example, ceiling camping outside MS in ns_eclipse is one of my favorite activities, and sneaking along the ceiling is how I like to do it. While I could wall crawl, I prefer having the option of ceiling crawling, especially if I have to move slower to keep cloak up or something. While I will admit camping along a wall/ceiling interface is the norm and easier, I would not like ceiling camping to be removed for versatility in play. I know it's kinda weak, but that's just my thoughts. Feel free to ignore the rambling moron.




Didn't think otherwise. However, doing a side jumping game and instantly peeling off a bunch of bullets, then side jumping again and firing more could be really really bad. I concede it really depends on how fast the roll is. If it's like a quick ninja roll, this might be a problem. If it's a bit slower guy in armor roll, then perhaps instant refire could work.

Definitely remove this ability if they're in HA. That would be crazy with HAs sidejumping and rolling. Either that or make it a looong time to get back up, but they can still fire while getting up, they just can't move.

I think when it comes to Marines movement, I think it should be based off of the type of armor they are wearing.

Lowest Armor Rating, more movement options/bonuses.
Highest Armor Ranting, lowest amount of movement options/bonuses.

I don't think lack of armor would be the best either, as it would have no nanite enhanced cyborg qualities the Marines seem to possess.

This is why I think since there are people who like different movement in their playing styles would pick the armor that suits their play style best as part of their equipment load-out.

Sneak all you want, all you'd have to do is touch a wall every 15 seconds to catch your breath.

Are you saying you literally sit on the ceiling, stay on the ceiling, wait on the ceiling, and end up getting a kill? Because that won't happen with anyone who's even remotely awake.

Yes. Well, I actually wait for Marines to appear and stand right below me, then I gestate into an onos and the falling egg does enough damage to get a kill.

But seriously, I do like to sit stationary on the ceiling to avoid MT and surprise a few Marines by jumping down and chewing their toes. It's not a regular habit, and true, most of the time I don't have to wait THAT long, but it's something I've done on a number of occasions. People just don't check that skylight. There's a few other spots on other maps, but you get the idea.

I guess it's a fair point if you're speaking purely in theory, but I can't see any real applications where it would matter.

I was under the impression that he was talking about how he actually plays. Regardless you said it isn't important and I'd like to see discussion furthered along the other ideas.

The bite-grapple for instance only has a place if marines have a handy counter like a quick knife or riflebutt. Otherwise I agree that it would dumb down combat slightly. If you look at the bite-grapple in context with the other suggestions, or similar suggestions, it becomes a neat combat move that allows for "banter" between the two species.

A good reason for allowing marines to have a lot of extra acrobatic mobility is so that you can take it away for heavy armor.

Can't have both you know.

It seems to me that if you take away the skulks ability to move around the walls and ceiling indefenitly then you would have to buff the skulk up so that it can bolt down a hallway toward a marine who is firing at you, which frankly,sucks becuase that destroyes the concept of stealth for the aliens. just leave the skulks alone and add another alien to fill in the gaps needed for the aliens

For some reason, I apologize if this is the wrong place to bring this up, but the way a skulk plays in some regards when it doesn't ambush (heck even then possibly) makes me think of the zerglings from Star Craft. In star craft, those things died in droves, until one of them managed to get close. In SC, we didn't care about that, we were spawning a bunch more and they were NPCs, they didn't care that as an individual, they were screwed, just so much canon fodder. In NS1 though, those poor skulks are individual players, and when they act like a zergling against a ranged foe, well, it doesn't feel too good, to boot we call them noobs. IMHO, it seems wrong to make such a unit, low health, low armor, a bit of speed, and melee the main fighting force of the Kharaa. Sure, its really different then playing the tool toting marine, we got used to it by waiting around corners, hiding in plain sight, or trying to come up fast and quiet behind them. Talk about a learning curve. Experienced marines look up, but do you know how often most will charge with tunnel vision towards their goal, not scanning even left to right, let alone up and down and checking their six periodically.

And it has been suggested in this thread to limit them camping in out of the way spots in the architecture of the ceiling? Ouch.

I'm already thinking that with the advent of a possible Hive Mind (Kharaa Kommander) that perhaps the starting unit for a Kharaa shouldn't be the scout/guerilla fighter, but something with some range and a bit more meat on it... Gorge is the thing that comes closest to mind to fit that role, I think gorges should see action as the starting life form, then those up to the challenge go scout aka skulk. Kharaa should still excel in close combat but the poor skulks aka new players in NS1 ... I hope something about that changes for NS2.

Being a skulk is hard, but it is rewarding. Talk about a glass cannon, you're basically a toothy mouth with legs attached. However the potential to rip through marines is still there and when noob skulks go against noob marines it's pretty even. Most FPS players aren't used to checking the ceiling or behind them for flanking(because the maps are smaller and/or more open) or regularly shooting at something much smaller and faster than they are so there's a learning curve on both sides.

I believe someone calculated that the Skulk bite actually does the most dps (damage per second) except for perhaps an Onos in the Alien lineup, assuming it has plenty of Adrenaline.

The bite grapple won't dumb down melee combat because, as I said, it would be slow and predictable. The only things it would do are discourage rambos (and good rambos could deal with it anyway), and create a greater sense of atmosphere.

You know I don't care about atmosphere if it interferes with gameplay - I'm fairly sure this wouldn't. Think about Super Smash Bros Melee. Bowser has a lot of really dangerous attacks. Does anyone play Bowser? No. Why? Because he's so predictable that he never resolves any of them.

Similarly Fox has Firefox and Illusion. Does he ever use them in actual games? Very very rarely. That's the form this would need to take to be viable - a rare use when you're positive that the marine doesn't know you're there, or you're fairly certain that your opponent won't be expecting it during melee.

It creates another option.

Also, if a skulk uses a grapple in a group of marines it will cause more problems for aliens than marines - the skulk will be motionless. That will result in a fast death.

So this ability forces the marine to use a melee weapon? Why?

Skulk bite secondary needs to be leap and thats that. Don't argue.

If you can persuade me in comparison of your suggestions to, with, or against those of the many people who discussed the abilties of the alien classes in future versions in the past then you will find many supporters for this topic. Including myself.

Reading though all of your suggestions, I like the lerk and the fade the very best. I remember the fade being compared to X-Men's Night Crawler; you might want to link to that topic. And the lerk has been compared to a bat both in wing design and suggested maneuverability -- which is to say extremely maneuverable. I will wait a bit more to hear others out on the pro's & con's of those two, then I would suspect you would have my support.

The thing which I don't like at all is the apparent appraisal of knockback. Grr, I never liked it used as a "balance factor." It's just so counter to what the natural gameplay feels like in NS. Aliens are at risk when at-range but if they can close the distance (whether though stealth, clever flanking, agile dodging, or sheer velocity) they deserve to get the advantage. That's part of what made fighting in NS so damn fun. There's this exciting blood thirst, close-in-for-the-kill flavor to the alien combative gameplay, and there this equally exciting "bring it down before it gets to you" followed by "oh crap it's on me! Noo!" factor for the marines. A very distinguishable: melee vs. ranged ...with an accelerating, progressive tempo as players and teams tech-up/evolve new abilites and upgrades, not to mention the building & destuction of structures (which is one of the most fun parts for many of us; I love building bases! And wrecking up the other team's too!). Of course this is NS2 with a new opportunity, I just hope a better solution can be found that won't oppose the "feel" of the gameplay.

Most importantly of all, I like your description of the gorge as a battle priest. In the past I've tried making it clear that I felt the gorge needed more emphasis as a healer & builder and so while I don't want to see the building trait go away at all; I do support having the gorge class be more of a healer "cleric type" of character.

I hope you're not referring to 3.5D&D clerics, because those guys could be seriously broken. Heavy armor, decent weapon progression, smiting, and healing. It's like being the battle itself. Only problem was you could only do so much on your turn.

Anyways, ditto on Gorges being better healers. While being the squishy builder is interesting, I've found the best of times when I help heal up teammates just outside of the battle or drop a few chambers and roadblock half the map with my network of OCs. Being a support class, building is only so fun and only as long as you have the res to drop a building. I guess they will have a role in NS with the DI spread (just a guess), but being the team's mobile healer has been good to the Gorge so far, why not capitalize on it more.

Because currently he's fragile and has to be protected which promotes teamwork and makes front-line healing a more risky endeavor for the gorge. Let's not forget the aliens have three other ways to heal (inherent regen, DC's area regen, and DC's ability regen) not including the Fade's own regen ability.

Also, it could be the most fun thing to do because it's currently the most risky yet rewarding. I like the fact that it's risky, since there are plenty of other healing options available to the aliens, and I like the fact that it's rewarding which encourages more confident gorges to go on the front lines.

Good point SentrySteve. I guess it's true that the risk/reward system is very much in play.

I'm not advocating Gorges being invulnerable healing machines, that's what a DC is for and it doesn't shoot back. I just kinda like the idea that Gorges aren't simply builders and can get dirty a bit.

Right now the battlegorging relies a lot on bhop and a little bit of teamwork to stop the marines from rushing down the gorge. Once you've got the escape methods its a relatively interesting role in the alien team. I guess ns 2 should do the general improvement, but most of all make it more accessible.

In regard to the "battle priest" description of the gorge, I was referring to giving a gorge a more interesting life, and while I think interactable structures are a major part of that, I would give the gorge a cumulative heal, and maybe slow down the hive heal speed.

What I mean by "cumulative heal" is, say a fade got away with 100/0 health, the gorge's first healing "breath" would regen 5 health, the second breath - assuming the fade hadn't moved since the first would regen 5 times the previous heal, meaning a fade would full heal in 4 bursts, but spam healing behind a fade or onos to keep them alive wouldn't work. I think this is a good compromise between giving gorges a "real job" and making them health packs with legs.

It could end up being too powerful with a multiple of 5 - maybe it would cap, or just be a smaller multiplier, but you get the point - the gorge is a unique class, critical to NS gameplay, but needs a more interesting life in many different faculties.

Reading through your idea, suddenly I had one of my own. What if the gorge instead of a spray, used like some tentacle that comes from the mouth and attaches to the intended friendly, and helps the friendly heal that way. Inspired by the medic in TF2 but not meant to be derivative, also inspired by the gorge hook that was a mod in NS1 and the concept art of a gorge that appears to have something in its maw. Y'know, as long as we are tossing out ideas to make the gorge a slightly different experience ... also, I am not so sure a marine would at all enjoy getting hit with a gorge mouth tentacle, though just what that would entail I am not sure, only just throwing it out there.

The Medic is fine for TF2, but I think the "healing breath" should stay in the game. There's a certain flavor that would be lost if the gorge started licking teammates all the sudden.

I'd prefer the gorge to be able to heal quite good in the middle of a fight. Right now its a bit of meat shielding, some healing and a bit of damaging with spit and healspray. That's a good mixture that leaves you with quite a lot of room for improvising and quick decisions.

You actually like the gameplay system where a gorge follows behind an onos, spamming heal as a surplus health pack?

If so, why do you think it's objectively better than having gorges sit in the background to heal? They aren't designed to be mobile combat stations, and I don't think they should be treated as such.

On onoses it isn't that great, but a skulk-gorge combo is nice. For late game gorge has got bbomb for some versatility and change.

I haven't seen that many onos trailing gorges though, it's not what I meant by the combat healer. I was thinking about the gorge-skulking in which you lead the charge trying to soak as many bullets as possible while healing skulks and possibly spitting at the rines. It's quite fun and effective against LMGs as long as you can afford to lose a gorge here and there.

Yes that's precisely it. In NS2, not NS, I would like to see a greater rewards for those risks. In NS2 what's to say that teamwork isn't rewarded more. A static DC has the benefit of healing without the gorge, but the gorge itself being there should be more valuable than the DC.

Basically, old mechanics can shift as a "passage of time" in immersion-speak or as a developer would be concerned: teamplay is higher priority.


LOL!

P1: Heal me plz!
P2: k
*lick lick lick*
P1: ty
P2: np

Wrong... just... no... wrong...


In my opinion, the gorge should be near the front lines but more of a healer and less of a attack class than it currently is.

If it were up to me I'd remove spit (so you can add babblers back in, or something else) and give the little guy a much faster innate regen or ability to heal one's self. That way he's fine if getting chased by a marine with an un-upgraded machine gun and knife, but will get mauled by rapid, concentrated fire and explosives (or fire for that matter). Then up the "damage" of healspray so it heals allies faster and harms enemies more that get close. (meaning the marine can't just just be lame with running up to the gorge and knifing it. The marine must kill it at range.)

Basically make the gorge more a healing cleric or rather a druid, if you will, and less of a spit-machine. Long ago when Zunni was asking about the abilities for gorges in upcomming versions, I said this:


Granted I used to make quite a few embarrassing grammatical and spelling errors in my older posts (you get better with practice apparently), but I still stand by what my main points were then.

And just in-case you were worried about web being a second-hive ability: web's obvious counter would be something we know the development team wants to include: the flamethrower.