rantology
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- 28 March 2012
5 October 2014 - 12:24 EDT
Lydda if you wanted a reply from me (I assume you are talking about me? - if not, replace with whoever you were talking about) you need to send a PM. I do not respond to every post here. To become vindictive because of a lack of response seems a bit unfair- It's been said time and time again that every single post here gets read and discussed. If you are looking for a reply in specific you need to say so when you post, otherwise how are we to know? Lack of response =/= ignoring.
In regards to your posts, here's my 2c (I also want to reiterate that everything I post here is just that, my personal opinion and not the "official stance" or whatever of cmod):
HMG:
The weapon does indeed scale in the same way as the other marine weapons do with weapon upgrades. It starts at 14 base damage and increases by 10% with each weapon upgrade (which I believe is +1.4 damage). The issues with early/mass HMGs should be alleviated somewhat by the recent change that returned the HMG's damage back to puncture type- meaning it will be less effective to have numerous HMGs on the field because it will leave you more susceptible to alien PvE.
Stab:
Being a 3rd hive ability this one didn't get as much attention as it deserved because like all hive 3 abilities, it's use in competitive games is extremely rare and unimpactful. We did try to fix some of the issues with it, however. Some of the movement penalties were removed, but I do agree with you that we could have gone further there. I would like to see all movement impairments completely gone with it. The stab itself, setting aside the movement quirks, is a pretty nice/viable hive 3 ability though, imo.
To speak to Mephilles' concerns while I'm at it:
Adrenaline:
It's never been anything more than a niche trait in ns2, even pre-metabolize most fades went with Celerity. Like you say, it's the most useful on gorges and late game lerks (for umbra spam)... and maybe some niche situations like leap skulk VS jetpacks or something like that. To make it more of a wanted upgrade, you'd need to increase energy management difficulty with most of the lifeforms... which probably wouldn't feel good. Brainstorming ideas about how to make it more wanted would be welcome- but for now it's used often enough that you can't consider it useless.
Webs:
The way webs work right now could be considered by some to be frustrating to see on Hive 2, which is why they're on Hive 3 (and available for no p-res cost). It did not seem like people would be open to having this on hive2. I think they could be pretty interesting to see, because they would encourage the use of a perma gorge more often, but you'd probably have to re-implement their p-res cost. Imo this is something that could be adapted back toward vanilla, since in the last patch they were moved to hive 2 in vanilla.
Cloaking:
Again like adrenaline it's pretty niche/situational. It was far too frustrating when it was also combined with silence, but I do agree it's easily the least attractive of the 3 shade upgrades. Any ideas welcome.
Babblers:
Virsoul pretty much explained the situation here. Their vanilla implementation was far to strong in terms of body-armor and they quickly became something of a hated feature in the competitive community. They've had to be dumbed down so much because there were so many complaints of frustration when they were any stronger than they are currently. And their damage aspect has never been anything more than novelty... again, suggestions welcome.
Laslty I would like to add that cmod is in "lockdown" for Season 5 so no big changes will be made until the season's conclusion. There's already a few things on the wish list to change but you will not be seeing anything more than small tweaks in the near future. Brainstorming and feedback is welcome regardless, as always.
In regards to your posts, here's my 2c (I also want to reiterate that everything I post here is just that, my personal opinion and not the "official stance" or whatever of cmod):
HMG:
The weapon does indeed scale in the same way as the other marine weapons do with weapon upgrades. It starts at 14 base damage and increases by 10% with each weapon upgrade (which I believe is +1.4 damage). The issues with early/mass HMGs should be alleviated somewhat by the recent change that returned the HMG's damage back to puncture type- meaning it will be less effective to have numerous HMGs on the field because it will leave you more susceptible to alien PvE.
Stab:
Being a 3rd hive ability this one didn't get as much attention as it deserved because like all hive 3 abilities, it's use in competitive games is extremely rare and unimpactful. We did try to fix some of the issues with it, however. Some of the movement penalties were removed, but I do agree with you that we could have gone further there. I would like to see all movement impairments completely gone with it. The stab itself, setting aside the movement quirks, is a pretty nice/viable hive 3 ability though, imo.
To speak to Mephilles' concerns while I'm at it:
Adrenaline:
It's never been anything more than a niche trait in ns2, even pre-metabolize most fades went with Celerity. Like you say, it's the most useful on gorges and late game lerks (for umbra spam)... and maybe some niche situations like leap skulk VS jetpacks or something like that. To make it more of a wanted upgrade, you'd need to increase energy management difficulty with most of the lifeforms... which probably wouldn't feel good. Brainstorming ideas about how to make it more wanted would be welcome- but for now it's used often enough that you can't consider it useless.
Webs:
The way webs work right now could be considered by some to be frustrating to see on Hive 2, which is why they're on Hive 3 (and available for no p-res cost). It did not seem like people would be open to having this on hive2. I think they could be pretty interesting to see, because they would encourage the use of a perma gorge more often, but you'd probably have to re-implement their p-res cost. Imo this is something that could be adapted back toward vanilla, since in the last patch they were moved to hive 2 in vanilla.
Cloaking:
Again like adrenaline it's pretty niche/situational. It was far too frustrating when it was also combined with silence, but I do agree it's easily the least attractive of the 3 shade upgrades. Any ideas welcome.
Babblers:
Virsoul pretty much explained the situation here. Their vanilla implementation was far to strong in terms of body-armor and they quickly became something of a hated feature in the competitive community. They've had to be dumbed down so much because there were so many complaints of frustration when they were any stronger than they are currently. And their damage aspect has never been anything more than novelty... again, suggestions welcome.
Laslty I would like to add that cmod is in "lockdown" for Season 5 so no big changes will be made until the season's conclusion. There's already a few things on the wish list to change but you will not be seeing anything more than small tweaks in the near future. Brainstorming and feedback is welcome regardless, as always.