So I have a couple of ideas I picture being cool that probably wouldn’t be as great in practice or may just not be natural selection-esk. I thought I might as well post them, if nothing else for you guys to read.

Squad Formations:
a system where a commander can click on a unit in a squad and chose a formation. Circles show up for the other members of the squad. I was picturing it acting like a vehicle, the person the commander clicked on “drives” and other members can click use on the formation circles to “auto walk” in formation.
For example a circular formation where the marines can easily watch all angles.

“Swarm”
Basically it would be a bunch of little aliens that run together and each have their own life and hp. The player plays as the front or center of the swarm. as individuals in the swarm die the attack weakens.
It could be evolving into 2 or 3 skulks or turning into a bunch of little guys (think the swarm in halo but stronger)
Could be crazy to get attacked by a bunch of players evolved as swarms.

Leg damage:
I posted this before but I just picture it being so cool to be drop to the ground right before death and fighting to survive and your bud runs over and grabs your back. Your team mate drags you back to a small health dispenser the commander built as you both shoot wildly at the oncoming aliens.

Health dispenser:
A a small building that releases nano bots to heal near by marines. great for the front line. maybe it heals slowly or even has a limit to how much energy it has so the commander has to pay to recharge it. I was think about how to replace the magic video game red cross box.

The Rebels:
It would be cool to have a race that plays as a middle ground to aliens and humans. They can’t run on walls but maybe they can jump high and climb up into rafters. They can run fast, steal marine uniforms, maybe even cloak. Their knife would deadly and maybe have all short range weapons or traps.
They can set up small buildings or “devices” themselves. They still have a “commander” but in actuality he is more like a spy.
He can upgrade buildings and maybe has a few only he can build but his main use is to spy.
At low levels he can hear the radios of marines or the voice of aliens close to “microphones” they can build.
At high levels he can see everything the marine commander can see or can see everyone on the map.
He doesn't have to select people and give way points, he could click points on the map where he hears or sees the other team and tries to keep the rest of the team up to date on what they are doing.
They could also have EMP grenades: the electricity would stun alien buildings and the EMP would disable marine structures.

3 teams:
marines vs rebels vs aliens: first team to lose gets auto balanced between the remaining teams.

Just some things that have popped into my head while playing NS.

Squad Formations: altho i can see how it might be nice to be able to force your team to work together in covering each other i think it would kind of kill the whole idea of having to do that yourself, the very measure of a good team is how well they do that, if u remove that then there's not much room anymore to prove your worth as a marine. i cant ever see a bunch of 4 guys being fixed in a formation ever looking as good as, or being at tactical effective as free moving individuals.

Swarm: i like that idea, an alien that's advantage is being very hard to kill and their downside is only having as much damage as u have separate bodies remaining within the swarm.
i can see it looking incredible visually, imagining marines frantically spraying their HMG's around the walls.
but it would have to play just like a normal skulk and only have the appearance on many bodies in order to work, i think, and even with that compromise i see it being very awkward to code into the game and fit in with the physics of the game. does sound like a interesting dream tho.

Leg damage; kind of like COD4 last stand? could be good, would feel much more accurate to see a marine drop to the ground first when a skulk munches on his ankles rather than see him instantly do a ragdoll death or whatever they have planned.

The Rebels: yuck, no tnx, if they are both human, why would they want to fight amongst each other when they shud both be focusing on surviving the alien onslaught!

Moved to Suggestions.

Believe they're already working on a system similar to this.



Are you saying players would spawn in remote locations throughout the map based on where teammates were located if they were part of this 'swarm'? That would give aliens a decided advantage, but anything can be balanced. Neat idea.



NS isn't a movie. Debilitation is an awful gameplay mechanic because it depletes player enjoyment faster than it increases it.

Squads:
I don't like the idea of the auto move. Or the commander giving squad formation. I would rather have a squad leader assigned, by some automatic means that could be overridden by the com, he could then give his squad members position commands in the form of a circle in the floor. He might not even need to give the specific command to anyone. Just press a key and click on 3 or 4 spots in the floor and then release the key... circles will be drawn for all the squad members and it's up to the individuals to chose a circle and go stand on in. Every time the squad leader hits the squad key all the previous circles are erased and he can the new ones.

Swarm:
Cool idea. I'd like it better as an alien commander ability. Spawn swarm and give attack waypoints.


Health dispenser:
It may have some overlap with the armory but. I like the idea of the auto healing within a radius as long as the building is weak and it costs resources to refill, or it simply poofs away when empty and you have to build another one. Also should have a radius where your can't build more of the same. Like with the turrets.

Legs cripple stuff: I'll wait to see how it plays out in Left 4 Dead before giving the opinion of that one.

hmm my first impression was a new "drug" for the marines, developed in these laboratories ive seen on some screenshots...

Squad Formational Tactics- eh, i say there should be preset commands, "Squad, Form Up" would simply draw blue circles on the floor that follow the Squad Leader, and standing in them would give a small bonus, if form up, maybe armor bonus? Then u can have some simple incircle tatics, blue circles in a circle around leader, then have the place your own circles one. Being in the circle gives you a bonus, maybe when u use the 'place your own spots' command, u can choose what type of circle to use, red circle gives you better RoF or damafe, not much, Blue circle gives Armor, Green Gives health bonus, maybe if you get a RoF or damage bonus, u have to get a debonus, less health, each circle can give u a pro, and a polar opposite con, Red will also debonus your health or armor, blue demotes speed, and green demotes damage or RoF. So when u use the preset ones, u can see if they are useful for what situation, the players can freely move out of the circle if they want or in it, the circle can slightly move off where it should be so the player doesnt have to struggle to stay in the circle, so if the leader stops and u keep going for another meter or 2, the circle follows u, but if u got 3-5 meters away from where the circle SHOULD be, then it reverts back

Third Special Idiot Rebels- yuck yuck yuck, if they're ######es enough to kill the marines killing the aliens, they deserve not to be in the game.

Leg Crippling Last Ditch Effort- I'll wait for Left 4 Dead like the other guy

Swarm of Massive Doom- Love the idea, i dont like it if someone spawns they become part of your swarm but i like it if u play as the middle man of the swarm and can have weaker attacks, like instead of a normal 2-3 skulks, have infant skulks or something, they are weaker so they stick in a pack or swarm and attack. I'd love to see a panicing marine shoot everywhere to kill all 2-3 skulks in the swarm.

NanoBot Dispencer-Would be a great thing, but would require resources to refill its nano bot container. SO an armory gives big peices of health per pickup and unlimited, but nano dispencer requires refill, and has constant healing of both armor and health. To make it so the comm will actually make this instead of just droping an armory, make the armory like the IP, it must be built near a CC.

I think i got my points across

Re: leg damage


I agree, debilitation is bad. But the IDEA behind it could still work and be good!

Marines:
Gears of War "death" comes to mind. Not quite the "healing touch" bit though, just have it so when you just barely die, you drop down pointing off sideways, "dead" except you are bleeding to death. After a bit, you get to respawn. UNLESS your buddy grabs you with a use key, then you face where they face and regain control of your gun (maybe reloadable, maybe not.) Then you can spray while your buddy drags you. If you took a lucky hit, you can be revived by a squad medic, if you both die, you respawn. And if you take more than X damage below 0 health, you just die.

Alien:
Similar, except gorges are the medics. The gorge can rez you, for, say 1/2 the cost to re-morph to your current form, taken from your resources. Or free, whatever- depends on how the balance plays out. Not sure if a gorge SHOULD be able to drag off wounded. Maybe have the smaller critters draggable? Fade.... probably not, and Onos DEFINITELY not.

Both:
Deathblows- if it isn't dead, chewing on it or shooting/knifing it seems a surefire way to send them to the respawn queue.

i like that, the alien requires to check the body to see if they still alive, maybe like only 50% of the time do you go into this 'bleed' phase, the other 50% u just die, that way u get the cool thing where a marine kills a skulk steps up to it and shoots it to make sure =D