Ideas
We haven't come up with any really decent ideas for potential new upgrades, but we thought that with Shade hives have 3 potential upgrades, maybe we can come up with a 3rd for both Shift and Crag. Someone brought up a "Vampiric" ability for crag, but that is a little OP with Lerk spiking and several other issues.

If you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them.

I thought the vampiric ability would only apply to melee attacks (like bite, swipe and gore)

Vampiric would have to be >40hp/3bites (14hp per bite) to make it worth it for skulks instead of carapace and that's if you decide to stay in the engagement and do 3 bites (armor 0/1) in a row, otherwise regen might actually be better if you can continuously engage/disengage.


Split shift upgrades into:
1) Bigger energy capacity (Adrenaline)
2) Quicker energy regeneration (Replenishment?)
3) More speed (Celerity)

Wob says

Split shift upgrades into:
1) Bigger energy capacity (Adrenaline)
2) Quicker energy regeneration (Replenishment?)
3) More speed (Celerity)

+1

@Vampiric bite would only be for melee attacks as meph said, and the idea was based off of combat mods upgrade (can't remember the name) where it doubles the passive regen aliens have anyway, but in combat you gain health based off of health damage that you cause. The more shells, the higher the % of damage caused is returned as health.

But again, it was just an example.

For shift, maybe have apart from " more speed", "energy regen + more energy" a new choice of "higher attack speed".

Like your bites / swipes / spike go off faster, as with the enzyme ability. Only maybe a little less fast, but still that it has a worthwhile effect. :))) Has to be tested.

But I guess it wouldnt be picked because you can just use a drifter ^^ ... idk


Another passive effect that could be cool is "add a set amount of personal ressources to your pres counter (or maybe the whole teams pres? Though thats would probably be op) when you kill an enemy", but i dont really know where that fits in :/

Just some random ideas...

Nightsy says

For shift, maybe have apart from " more speed", "energy regen + more energy" a new choice of "higher attack speed".

For all the the ideas. Faster attack speed is an upgrade I could see myself pick. Often in battles I find it to be a battle of DPS vs DPS. and marines usually win that with the current balance.

other abilities I remember seeing on modded server is "furiosity" (I think) that would increase your damage. And then I also seem to remember another one that would teleport you back to the hive after x seconds when you were below 40% HP.

But I know from NS2 combat how easy it is when you suddenly 2 swipe every marine....

For crag hive maybe be able to use carapace like bonshield for onos by using adrenaline, when you use it damage are reduce by 6 or 7 %.
For shift hive maybe increase alien bite/swipe like drifter ability, could be very effficient to avoid medd spam and really good with packplay alien

Hey guys, just gonna throw this idea out there. Focus from NS1
enjoy.

Just because shade hive has 3 abilities doesn't mean the other 2 hives must have an additional ability added. It's not going to fix anything and will potentially make aliens stronger with no payoff. (Lower divs are already struggling with marine wins.)

Zafod says

Just because shade hive has 3 abilities doesn't mean the other 2 hives must have an additional ability added. It's not going to fix anything and will potentially make aliens stronger with no payoff. (Lower divs are already struggling with marine wins.)

But another upgrade choice is not directly making aliens just stronger, its giving them more options to choose from, making the game potentially more interesting. I dont think it will affect the win/lose ratio from lower divs (and in general) in any significant way. Unless an upgrade is super overpowered of course.

I agree with Zafod, why do we need to have 3 different abilities?

I agree with zafod here, there's no reason to add a third abitlity - it would only create a bigger gap between comp mod and vanilla ns2 AND it might cause imbalance....

Yeah with hindsight, I'm really not sure this is a high priority and might be an idea for comp mod 6

Redemption focus silence gg

Play nice everyone & stay on topic.

How about a shield that gives you more than carapace, but can't be healed nearly as soon. This would be problematically OP for skulks but not necessarily other lifeforms.

^ @Frozen - so basically a better version of babblers is what you are saying.

loMe says

^ @Frozen - so basically a better version of babblers is what you are saying.

Kind of I guess, but well babblers aren't exactly clear as to how they work, I think you can shoot around them to some extent, right?

@ LoMeNEW IDEA: How about if you can be immune to status effects from fire and pulse? It's not something that would be used all the time, but can easily be worth taking in the middle of a hive defense! I love how grenades burn now (though I find it super strong), that ability would cost res since if you want it as fade youre dropping the 5 res from your previous upgrade most likely. I think it fits. Redemption was always kinda dumb. It's real situational, but we are filling an empty slot anyway.. right?