Some feedback from yesterday's 1.2 game:
- basilisk is not fun to play. I don't know what's the exact cause, but I tend to die quickly when exposed to combat. More than in 1.1 . I suppose it's a combination of unlagged, lower HP and improved luci/pulse. As soon as S3 starts, approaching humans feels like suicide. Basilisk may have max hp more often now, but less health hurts. 12 rifle rounds are enough to kill basi, and other popular weapons just got faster.
What new basi does well is portable booster (health regen). It is very fast if you somehow manage to get yourself close to a basilisk. For this I suggest two changes: 1) if you play a basilisk, teammates within range of your healing aura are highlighted like buildings marked for decon. Especially if they're currently regenerating health thanks to your aura. This change would make it much easier to tell if you're healing someone or not. 2) All alien players get a sound indicator when they're regenerating health within a range of some regen booster (creep, booster, basilisk). Ideally the sound should differ when regen is faster (for example faint humming, getting stronger or higher pitch when health regen is faster). This would draw attention to the fact you're benefiting from some regen booster. Current indicator is much too unconspicuous ! It's quite hard to notice. At the very least the cross should get a completely new color... but I prefer sound indicator. Because regeneration pretty much doesn't occur in combat, it wouldn't cause noise in combat.
One more issue: basilisk gas has nice weakening effect, but gas attack lasts a LOONG time. It certainly feels very long for a lifeform with 80 HP and limited movement. For these seconds gas completely stops you from dealing damage, and from getting evos. I think it would be nice if basilisk could breath gas in controlled burst, much like flamethrower. But it would have a "magazine", so basilisk couldn't breath longer than current duration. The difference would be basilisk gas attack would last UP TO current duration. Basilisk would be able to stop it earlier if there's no need to gas the entire squad. Another problem with basilisk gas is that no damage dealt means no evos. If you play a team friendly basilisk who tries to heal and gas enemies, you'll get very little evos and will often be stuck as dretch. With 1.2 partial evos, I find it much easier to evolve to higher lifeforms as dretch, much easier than with basilisk.
- marauder is much more fun to play. My preferred class in 1.2. Two attacks they have feel quite distinct. Claw has higher damage to a single target, while zap has higher range (great against psaw, good in vents), is good against bases, and is an excellent opportunity attack. If you manage to ambush a group of humans you can fry them all, IF you hit. But once humans spread a little claw is much better. It feels so good to hit 2-3 players with zap.
Jumping is deffinitely better, scaling walls is quite easy now. What I would really like to see is ability to bounce off ceilings, not just walls and floor. Typically when you hit a ceiling you're an easy target, because you start falling in a predictable way. Marauder is quite vulnerable in corridors.
- One of human turrets remains unchanged. I think it should be changed too, because it's one of last bastions of humans' campy tactics. I mean the one that needs a human to operate. The jetpacker.
Jetpacks are essentially turrets. They deal damage, they are hard to reach and barely move at all. They're nearly useless in offense. In Natural Selection jetpacks can only afford short bursts before they have to land to recharge. This makes them much better in attack. But this is Tremulous, not Natural Selection, and good design ideas are rejected if they're used in other games. So an alternate solution should be found.
One change hopefully won't be controversial - make the damn thing more quiet. Being stuck in a base with 3 or more jetpack turrets makes me take off my headphones, it's that painful.
- Speaking as a dretch, I like new human machinegun turrets. It's no longer a suicide to approach them.
- new adv. goons and marauders can really damage a base.
- no camper evos is a double edged sword. Perhaps camper credits should be returned, but work like Battle Sense in Enemy Territory games ? For the uninitated, you'd gain evos if you take damage AND survive for 30 seconds. This would have following benefits: a) discourages feeding, unless feeder actually deals some damage at which point he ceases to be a mere feeder b) jetpackers and cowards in general would gain very little from it. People leaving bases and surviving for a while would be rewarded. Builders would also have a way to get evos/credits - if they survive an attack and don't feed, they'd be rewarded.
To illustrate how problematic no camper credits can be once players' tactics and metagame adapt, consider this:
2 days ago I've seen a strange tactics deployed against my alien team on ATCS. Humans moved base early, but they moved reactor to... doors of the middle building. At S1. At this point it's very easy to shoot and repair from behind, it deals damage and blocks aliens from entering. Luckily for us they fumbled the move and we got the reactor before it fully materialized. And in 1.1, camper credits would cause aliens to get dragoons and marauders, and we'd take the reactor down. But consider what would happen if humans camp this way in 1.2 ? Because reactor blocks the entrance, no humans can leave and feed ! No matter how newbish. Aliens gain NO credits and are stuck as dretches. They can't damage RC, they are zapped by it, they are shot at, and I'm not sure the openings are even big enough to admit a dretch. Eventually, if aliens don't disconnect, humans temporarily decon RC. One or two of them spam the entrance with flamethrowers and bsuits while RC finishes. The rest attacks with superior equipment.
