Overly Chatty Penguins
The Ready Room => General => Topic started by: Plaguebearer on April 29, 2004, 03:34:23 PM
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Is there no hope of seeing Blink return to its former teleportational glory?
I've been thinking about it... why not make blink sort of like UT's Translocator? When a Fade blinks, they toss out an (invisible? only visible to the fade?) projectile that's about fade-sized; when they '-attack', they teleport to its location... seems like a large projectile would prevent the old fade blinking-into-solid-objects problems, and would restore some of the original feel of the fade by making Blink a Blink instead of UBERLEAP.
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Sounds quite wonderful :)
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only problem is sustained blinkage
perhaps a laser pointer-style dot that "placed" the fade like a building in commandermode
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there would have to be a "cool down" time if that is implimented after every 2-4 jumps. otherwise fade will ultimitly be the most powerful UNIT early game. 4 minute fade, good game marines lose all thier nodes, then are forced to sit in base and turtle, with ff shotguns will be a horrible massacre for marines. Think about it, if the fade blinks, appears on the other side of the hallway, disapeers within 1/2 a second next toy u, i highly doubt marines would be able to counter that. Needs a cooldown or wait time
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what if you reworked blink to actually make it *blink* in *blink* out
the fades original purpose was to strike fear into the marines because he could be anywhere on the map, including right begind yo-*blink*
what if when blink was activated the fade was made invisible to everyone, and had its walk speed doubled (and a bigger jump) while making it transparent to bullets. effectively, when you press +attack it's like you disapear (like in the manual)
adrenaline would probably drain at a constant rate (almost countered by adrenaline upgrade)
this would allow a fade to *blink* and pop up in the middle of a squad or base, take a few quick swipes and *blink* he's gone.
this would really bring the HOLY SH*T factor back to the fade (and then some) without turning it into a walking battle tank (a la 1.04)
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if they do that, id assume theyd have to decrease fades armor and OR Health
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ooo, that sounds even better. it would be the ultimate spy :p
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My ideas to fix blink are very similar to Black Mage's, but I still think there are fatal flaws with those ideas.
The main factor, which I think should be most important when relating to blink, is the one involving invisibility. The fade has become as stealthy as a flying dumpster, and the suspense of an ambush is evaporated by midgame when skulk ambushes simply do not carry enough power. Even the flawed 1.04 blink, which was still a formidable weapon even in the hands of amateurs, was effective at bringing caution to even lategame marines.
However, the invisibility poses to become a great unbalancing effect if you simply throw it onto the existing blink. Although that's how I feel the blink should be, with the supreme mobility and instant blink/attack combo, it would be simply too powerful. Imagine if a civilian or Holy were invisible while doing their thing o_O . Blink would need some fundamental reworking, keeping both its horizontal and vertical mobility.
The other main issue would be immunity to damage. Blink, as it is now, is usually enough to save a fade from death if even a minor attempt to flee is made in reasonable circumstances. The ability to gain great speed or maneuverability would likely be enough to save any fade’s tail, especially if he were invisible. Giving added invulnerability may be going a bit overboard.
Now, with all that said, I need to say I am an avid alien player, Fade being my favorite class just ahead of skulk. I would love to see the fade returned to the glory of 1.04 claw fade, a hit and run master of great power when mastered, and would practically give my right arm to let that happen.
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I think the coolest thing would be to just gave the fade 80% invisible while blinking but still completely vulnerable to bullets and such. Then maybe lower it's hp/ap to balance it.
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I think the blink should be like it is now, but maybe a bit slower.
Then Acid Rocket could be replaced with some kind of cloaking, when activated it takes energy all the time like charge and i makes you invisible until you do a attack or when you are out of adrenaline.
Haven't given this much tought but something like that.
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Prolonged exposure to pugs and clan matches has totally changed my opinion on blink, before i'd have said yes, bring back v1 blink, that was ownage but the role of the fade has changed and it won't be able to operate as efficiently without blink and i think it'd swing the game totally towards marines.
First 5 minutes should be marine ownage, marines should have no trouble killing skulks and you should be able to get some good map coverage. After 5 minutes second hive goes up, fades appear. This is when the real fight happens and i think if you removed fade blink as it is now this'd just continue to be marine ownage time right up to end game and alien timer. Imagine being a fade and blinking round a corner into a group of marines with shotguns, with current blink it's hard enough work sorting yourself out and getting out of the mess, with this i think fades will just die too easily and won't be able to engage squads of 3+.
NS is well balanced right now, it's just the bugs that need ironing out (shotgun sparks, fade hitboxes, panceaking etc). I know people say fades are overpowered and sure in the right hands they might as well be unkillable but in the right hands anything can be unkillable.
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NS is well balanced right now...
Well, if you consider über-shotguns, a third-hive spit, electricity that reaches across rooms, among many other things to be considered 'well balanced'
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it's kinda funny because as I've said many times now, Rocket Crowbar actually has a weapon that does a fully working 1.04 blink. You never get stuck; it's not that hard to do either which is why I think it was swapped out for the new 'superman' one out of either laziness or 'omg make it more new-player friendly!' than any geniune technical reasons =/
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*shrug* The reason I never play fade anymore is because I =hate= the new blink so much.
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It's balanced to the point that no one team (apart from in combat) wins every round and that there isn't one underlying, overpowering factor that wins the match by default when it's in play.
PB: New blink is ownage, it's the only way to stay alive as a fade. Without it you wouldn't last a minute.
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NS is well balanced right now...
Well, if you consider über-shotguns, a third-hive spit, electricity that reaches across rooms, among many other things to be considered 'well balanced'
Electricity is a total non issue. Its range is just barely enough to cover one structure, its expensive and not terribly powerful.
Uber Shotguns? So they kill structures well, which was kind of the point - and everything else good enough for a 10res gun. The HMG still performs markably better at killing anything that moves.
And Acid Rocket, why care? The third hive is strong enough to be useful, the lack of a good slot4 weapon for the Fade isn't a gamebreaker in any way, shape or form.
So Ben is probably pretty much right. The only thing that seems a bit neglected is 1 Hive Skulks.
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Uber shotguns are hardly a problem with sparking and borkeded hitboxes anyway. Also when i dish out 5 shotguns to a squad i don't expect a skulk to touch them. You want to deal with a shotgun squad then lerks are the way forward and for skulks to hit them in ambushes or when they're welding.
edit: elec can only hit so many targets (2/3) at once too so with a team effort (few skulks and a gorge) they go down fast enough. Bile bomb also makes electricity a total waste of time unless you hold every node on the map. (elec rush is a pwn tactic :D)
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My ideas to fix blink are very similar to Black Mage's, but I still think there are fatal flaws with those ideas.
The main factor, which I think should be most important when relating to blink, is the one involving invisibility. The fade has become as stealthy as a flying dumpster, and the suspense of an ambush is evaporated by midgame when skulk ambushes simply do not carry enough power. Even the flawed 1.04 blink, which was still a formidable weapon even in the hands of amateurs, was effective at bringing caution to even lategame marines.
However, the invisibility poses to become a great unbalancing effect if you simply throw it onto the existing blink. Although that's how I feel the blink should be, with the supreme mobility and instant blink/attack combo, it would be simply too powerful. Imagine if a civilian or Holy were invisible while doing their thing o_O . Blink would need some fundamental reworking, keeping both its horizontal and vertical mobility.
The other main issue would be immunity to damage. Blink, as it is now, is usually enough to save a fade from death if even a minor attempt to flee is made in reasonable circumstances. The ability to gain great speed or maneuverability would likely be enough to save any fade’s tail, especially if he were invisible. Giving added invulnerability may be going a bit overboard.
Now, with all that said, I need to say I am an avid alien player, Fade being my favorite class just ahead of skulk. I would love to see the fade returned to the glory of 1.04 claw fade, a hit and run master of great power when mastered, and would practically give my right arm to let that happen.
yeah, that's why i said that ground speed and jump hight should be increased while blinking, instead of turning the fade into a noise-making, bullet-attracting, humanoid clay pigeon with almost-lethal claws for arms.
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what if you reworked blink to actually make it *blink* in *blink* out
the fades original purpose was to strike fear into the marines because he could be anywhere on the map, including right begind yo-*blink*
what if when blink was activated the fade was made invisible to everyone, and had its walk speed doubled (and a bigger jump) while making it transparent to bullets. effectively, when you press +attack it's like you disapear (like in the manual)
adrenaline would probably drain at a constant rate (almost countered by adrenaline upgrade)
this would allow a fade to *blink* and pop up in the middle of a squad or base, take a few quick swipes and *blink* he's gone.
this would really bring the HOLY SH*T factor back to the fade (and then some) without turning it into a walking battle tank (a la 1.04)
^^
the old blink was very cool, becuase you would blink and the fade would be gone.
The new blink is cool, but a modified version of the old was would be sweet.
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Well, the Fade desperately needs his movement to stand a remote chance at survival at all - so whatever new blink you introduce, the fade needs to change groundspeeds to still be useful.
I think one of the biggest problems in balancing any current lifeform is the sheer amount of movement abilities they need to be able to consistantly catch a marine - nerfing marine strafing and/or crack hopping would lessen this problem a bit.
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Hell, the reason why they got rid of the old blink is because it got stuck in *every* entity. I like that idea where its a point, shoot, watch the ghost fade, letgo *blink*, Battlezone2 had something similar to that :D.
Also gem, which gun teleports you like the old fade blink in RC? Because last time I played it, there wasnt a gun which instantly teleported you in the direction you shot....
IMO skulk needs to be made stronger, I mean doubling its HP would be awesome, because I love skulks ^_^, and skulks are much more weaksauce than they were before*cough*speed nerf*cough*, so anyone who can aim and knows where to look when running around the map can rape most ninja skulks. Bring back uber skulks! Or at least leap doing any damage...
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more hives = better armor absorption, right? how about hive 1 skulks start out with the game thinking they have 2 hives (no leap obviously).
*back the thread's topic*
i hate one thing about the current blink: you don't need energy to stay in the air. try it out folks, blink into the corner of a ceiling, hold down your attack button, and you will never come down. i don't think it should be like that. when you run out, you should fall to the ground.
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But you're also almost always out, fatty. Plus, if you constantly blink you'll never get enough speed out of it to fly fast enough - meaning rape is coming your way. You need to at least blink-hop.
If you want to buff Skulks HP, yeah +5 or +10 works. +5 would mean Weapons 1 actually shaves off a bullet to kill a Skulk now, and it'd still be a reasonably subtle buff.
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i hate one thing about the current blink: you don't need energy to stay in the air. try it out folks, blink into the corner of a ceiling, hold down your attack button, and you will never come down. i don't think it should be like that. when you run out, you should fall to the ground.
I just tried that, and it didn't work. I kept falling to the ground. I also distinctly remember it not working when I was blinking around in the landing pad area outside the marine start on Hera.
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Well, the Fade desperately needs his movement to stand a remote chance at survival at all - so whatever new blink you introduce, the fade needs to change groundspeeds to still be useful.
I think one of the biggest problems in balancing any current lifeform is the sheer amount of movement abilities they need to be able to consistantly catch a marine - nerfing marine strafing and/or crack hopping would lessen this problem a bit.
unless you never see the fade coming before he starts attacking (invisible with 1.5x - 2.0x groundspeed would accompish this nicely)
oh, and if this discussion ends up somewhere useful can we link flay to it?
@civ: get adrenaline, you do not have to land ... evar
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I pretty much had the same idea as BM with the blink making you fade (omg fade just like the name LOL) out and become totally invisible and allow bullets to pass through you, then move wherever you want to go and BLINK back into existance. The fade would need serious health and armor nero_oe, but that's fine. He'd be almost unkillable with correct application of blink. What he wouldn't be is a total RT destroyer. You'd still need teamwork to take down RTs in the mid game, which is fine. The fade is supposed to be a harrassment troop anyway, and right now it's the tank. The onos is supposed to be the freaking tank, but don't get me started on that lumbering bullet magnet.
Of course none of this will go anywhere. The game has moved beyond the point of making HUGE WILD DRAMATIC changes like that. So take your the fade for what it is: a really loud uber-skulk.
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I may have to take the fade for what it is, but I am still saddened by its loss of stealth and surprise. Currently, the fade is as sneaky as an elephant. A flaming elephant. Even a simple foot speed increase to help a non-celerity fade catch and smash crack-jumping side-strafing marines would make me more than happy, and would reduce the need to learn the precise skill of a smooth blink-attack (I've always been more of a flailer).
A change to the fade which restored invisibility would come with a cost, likely decreased HP/AP, but would make dramatic effects on the marine team which are desperately needed. Marines would need caution. They would have something to fear. The fade would be restored to the terror unit it was intended to be, finally sacrificing the ability to take down bases for supreme prowess in slaughter. With death waiting around every turn, I feel that such a change would have great impacts on the marine psyche. Such a simple thing may be enough to alter midgame (and to a lesser degree, endgame) strategies and actions of the marines all across the board.
[/edit] I do so despise typos...
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Another thing to bring up, is with this invisability type of blink would the fade show up on MT while using it?
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it would be pointless if he did
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wouldnt matter if it was on mt, mt is all laggy so you dont know every move of the aliens and blink you barley see him on mt while blinking, looks like a skulk leaping in a room on mt
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You need to at least blink-hop.
This is a technique I use all the time as fade, if you just tap the mouse when blinking, you can get considerably far without using that much stamina at all. Very useful for when you turn a corner and there are 6 marines with lvl3 shotties.
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Surely an invisible fade that just appears anywhere and then disapeers again and cannot recieve damange is going to make things worse? Right now if you want to kill a fade you generally get him by blocking him when he blinks out or by having him blink round a corner into a bunch of shotgunners and he can't get out of there in time. I really can't see this doing anything other than making the fade an even more powerful unit.
As for taking down an rt, if it's not electrified what teamwork is required in one skulk eating it? If it's elec then maybe team work would be needed but once you get a second hive a bile bombing gorge > elec rt.
Also, i do not believe any such changes would have any effect on the marine mentality, path. New sensory chamber abilities were meant to have that effect but they don't at all. Aliens go sensory and the marines go "ahaha, GG two hive lockdown" instead of "OMG the aliens could be anywhere?!" quick lets hide!. They couldn't care less that the aliens are invisible.
I think invisibility making people cautious just doesn't work, okay the alien could be anywhere so lets not move round the corner. Well the alien could be right next to you anyway so you might as well keep going because if he's invisible there's nothing to stop him eating you where you are. At least by moving through like a freight train you've got more chance of survival.
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You need to at least blink-hop.
This is a technique I use all the time as fade, if you just tap the mouse when blinking, you can get considerably far without using that much stamina at all. Very useful for when you turn a corner and there are 6 marines with lvl3 shotties.
Even better if you don't hit forward between touchdowns, and just use strafe+mouseturns to accelerate additionally. The Fades groundspeed is extremely low compared to his blink speed, when you get a good blink hop going is when you move very smoothly - an observer might mistake that for having unlimited energy.
But yeah, Fades and blink aren't all that overpowered. The reason you see any Fade that lives for any noteworthy amount of time constantly blink is because its an absolute must, he's no tank whatsoever. 2 good LMGers would shred him if he didn't, and a moment of stupidity or simply bad luck in maintaining speed will get him killed instantly against higher weaponry.
Back on topic, whats almost definitely going to happen is the upper 40% of the Fades crouching model to disappear (afaik his size and bounding boxes as of now are completely intentional - the height of his visual representation isn't, according to the bugtracker at least) - that little fix could reasonably be paired with something to make blink look blinkier. Like fixing the animations ("Oh no its flying mutant zombie jesus with spastic feet!"), or adding some sort of transparency while blinking (sort of like cloaking - a fast fadeout as you initiate blink, a slow fade-in as you release the blink button [in common use, anything but an adrenaline Fade would never really be invisible]).
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fool, go play Rocket Crowbar 2 and buy the gauss cannon... 2ndary fire = fade blink without sticking problems. I suggest any naysayers grab it (google for it, I'm lazy) because it proves that fade blinking didn't need to be changed for technical reasons :p
On the fun side you can also instagib the other players with it XD
Seriously though, I can make the old buggy fade blink easily... it's not hard, fixing it so it's like the rocketcrowbar one is the real challenge and the RC2 pulled it off beautifully ^^
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MrBen, you probably have a good point there (although sensory comes with too high a cost to the alien team). I was just remembering what things were like in 1.04, when in all my nubbishness I was frightened to turn around the corner when fades came around. Basically ignore the second paragraph of my last post because while it says some things I've been thinking, it would seem my dramatic flair got the best of me. That’s what you get posting while yer tired. More on track though, reading Saltz post actually led me to realize exactly what I think needs to be done. He has a good idea too, and I'll go over that in a bit.
The fade is fundamentally weak in HP/AP, and that’s true, but the main weakness comes in blinks inability to get the fade close enough to the marine without giving him enough warning. When the marine sees a fade flapping towards him, he can get a good bead on him and where he will land. With a bit of crack-jumping or side-strafing, a decent LMG marine can seriously injure an average fade, and a shotty marine could kill even a skilled one.
Say Saltz’ idea were implemented, the one about a quick cloaking effect on the fade during a blink. If a fade at the bottom of a hill encountered a marine at the top, they would both see each other and get ready to kill one another. The only difference is that instead of the marine lining the fade up and filling him full of lead as he approached, the fade would *gasp* fade! Against a lone marine without cover, the fade would have favorable chances of winning. Without the knowledge of where the fade will be coming from (dead on, or land behind and come in from the back?) the marine can't use his range to blast the fade to itty bits when he approaches or lands. This may not be a huge advantage, and footspeed changes may be more effective, but I still think the fade deserves something to this extent.
It could even be an unbalancing advantage, I certainly don't see how, but it's possible if many grouped marines couldn't stand up to this type of fade.
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keeping the current 'superman' in but altering it's name then replacing the water pisto- uh... acid rocket with a working teleport blink would work now that I think of it =o
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gem, looking for rocketcrowbar.com (http://www.rocketcrowbar.com/)?