Spotlight: dretch

[kharnov]

Today, let's discuss the dretch.

Starting with the dretch, I am going to be doing a spotlight article series on the entire alien team, discussing the current state of models and what our plans are with regards to gameplay. Some of the models are already in-game. We may be able to fix texture or animation issues if you point them out in these discussion threads. Otherwise, you can give us feedback on how things are or how they're going to be. You can also suggest new names for things. Now, let's look more closely at the dretch.

Concept: Gregstein
Model: Dandoombuggy
Animation: gavlig
Status: complete

The dretch is the most basic form available to the alien team. All players can spawn as it for free, and thus, mastering the dretch is crucial to getting far with the alien team. Its main form of attack is an automatic bite, which does an impressive amount of damage considering the size of the dretch and its relative fragility. A couple of bites at a human's head will take it down, and coupled with utterly silent movement, the dretch is the ultimate stealth form. Poison from a booster enhances the dretch at later portions of the game, allowing for even armored humans to be steadily damaged over time. However, the dretch loses some of its utility once the human team gains access to the radar upgrade, and the form is relatively useless against a human in a battlesuit.

At the moment, our main gameplay change involving the dretch has been the addition of an advanced form. The upgraded dretch has additional health, and has a new pounce attack that it can use to quickly leap at an opponent, or perhaps towards safety or over obstacles such as human base defenses. A pounce can also be performed from a wall or ceiling, unique to the form. However, this might not be enough, as we are attempting to make the dretch easier for new players to pick up on. One suggestion is to allow the dretch to gradually turn invisible, or at least exceedingly difficult to detect, which would allow for a dretch player to make up for stealth mistakes against humans with radars. However, there may be other ways to go about this.

What are your thoughts?

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[DwarfVader]

The idea to gradually turn invisible is not bad, but i think it don't covers the dretch's most recent weakness:
closing in on an enemy on open ground. I find it nearly impossible to close in on a good player with a massdriver f.e.
As viech said some time ago all advanced froms of aliens will vanish, i assume that only the now called advanced version of the dretch will remain in game. is that correct? if so i would encourage you to lower that pounce cooldown it actualy has and increase its standard FOV (>this would somehow reflect its many eyes, wouldn't it?). The FOV increase may also help with the bots usualy tactics of running around in circles, practiced by some players too. especially for new players this could be helpfull. Or if the death of a dretch is considered as not so bad, than the reward gained for killing it should be lowered significant, so mass attacks become possible without a too strong feeding effect.

just some thoughts about improving the dretch. But its also possible that you cover its weakness on open ground by improving not the dretch as such, but the base defence capability of the aliens for example, so you can use avoid and sneak tactics and stay away from the incoming enemy, till you can determine the point of engagement.
Or you can increase or alter the reward system. For example a gui for the donation/share system ( like i suggested in the past ) in combination with a score reward for the donating player, so the dretch can be replaced with better alien forms much faster, even by an unskilled or new player because he would get the needed evos from his teammates.

Or increase the killing reward while beeing a dretch. or or or ....

focused just on the dretch my thoughts are: remove or at least lower the pounce cooldown, increase its standard FOV.

[ViruS]

Gloom at a good approach of using the grap-hook although sometimes it can rather be a bit slow.

Currently the dretch's pounce is good but the thing I liked about KoRx's advance dretch is that it could dash left and right, whereas the current one only limps sideways or has a long recharge timer with its pounce.

I was thinking when I was trying to simulate TF2 physics a few months ago and came up with a 99999 speed bug instead, that maybe dretch could have a high-speed dash that slows immediately down to 448 ups upon touching a surface or after waiting 0.2 seconds, with a long reload timer. It's like pseudo-teleportation that solves the "massive weapon spam area" problem a bit. When touching a human along the way, it also stops the dretch but deals double bite damage.

[Elmo]

I would like to point out that even with the floor head bites taken out a dretch is still a very formidable opponent until humans get improved armor. My suggestion is that instead of unlocking a new advanced form with alien progression, the dretch takes on a permanent improvement (whatever it might end up being)
My reason for this is that the dretch in the right hands can be overpowered against humans in the beginning of the game. I personally would much rather take on a Dragoon then a dretch in one on one combat.
Making the dretch better in the long run is an awesome idea, that will improve the game for sure for newcommers and experienced players alike, I just think it shouldn't get to much of an increase straight out of the gate.

[Viech]

As viech said some time ago all advanced froms of aliens will vanish, i assume that only the now called advanced version of the dretch will remain in game. is that correct?

The advanced forms will be removed and their strengthes and abilities will be available to the remaining base class as individual upgrades (I refer to them as "perks") which is supposed to allow for greater flexibility. What we will do with the dretch base class is unclear. We tried increasing its health from 25 to 35 once which broke the game as human base defenses weren't able to handle it anymore. After we revisit base strength and defenses we might try to boost its health once more. I don't think the dretch should get the pounce as a free movement attack since it's either too strong (current version) or rather boring.

if the death of a dretch is considered as not so bad, than the reward gained for killing it should be lowered significant, so mass attacks become possible without a too strong feeding effect.

No, I aim for strict resource balance: One alien build point should have equal value to one human build point, 100 credits shall be considered the exact counterpart to one evo, etc. Therefor the reward calculation for killing an enemy player has to be equal for both teams, too. Currently it's 200 credits plus half the price the victim paid for equipment/evolution. (Note that evo is simply another unit for credit.) This gives us an objective method to tell that a certain combination of equipment should be roughly as powerful as a certain class/perk combination.

[rolandixor]

Give it a short term poison effect (The adv dretch maybe?). That would cause the human to either be disorientated or loose health over a few seconds.

[ViruS]

I'd rather a stronger bite attack than permanent poison honestly. Sounds like all your ideas are from the (trem/kor)x mod...

[james2841]

make a version available for 2 evo points that can completely avoid radar until it is very close to the radar source and try to see if it is possible to make a radar structure that you can connect to when close and boost your current radar and make some aliens detect radar