My Thoughts On Blink

[Plaguebearer]

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.

[A Boojum Snark]

Sounds quite wonderful

[Ulatoh]

only problem is sustained blinkage

perhaps a laser pointer-style dot that "placed" the fade like a building in commandermode

[Diablus]

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

[Black Mage]

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)

[Diablus]

if they do that, id assume theyd have to decrease fades armor and OR Health

[A Boojum Snark]

ooo, that sounds even better. it would be the ultimate spy :p

[Path]

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.

[ThoraX]

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.

[Clashen]

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.

[Mr.Ben]

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.

[Grimm]

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'

[Geminosity]

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 =/

[Plaguebearer]

*shrug* The reason I never play fade anymore is because I =hate= the new blink so much.

[Mr.Ben]

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.

[SaltzBad]

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.

[Mr.Ben]

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 )

[Black Mage]

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.

[That Annoying Kid]

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.

[SaltzBad]

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.