Aliens: Colonial Marines

dontdisme0 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 07:53 AM

first off, sorry for the few grammer and spelling errors, its atleast readable.

so heres a multiplayer idea ive been tossing around for ACM and i was wondering what yall think.

The point of this multiplayer mode is to give you the closest, most cinamatic experiance to an actual xenomorph infestation as possible.

first a little shallow information about the mode.

There are 8 players. When the game starts, 6 play as marines. The other 2 on the alien team can choose to play as an adult alien or a face hugger. If the alien team kills a player on the marine team, that person who died on the marine team will join the alien team and will have all the options of the alien team. If the marines kill an alien player, the alien player will then simply rechoose their class and respawn back into the game.

The game is balanced so the marines usualy are stronger than the aliens towards the beginning of the game, but towards the end, most of the marine players would be killed off wich increases the ammount of aliens on the field, thus turning the tides of balance. (it makes sence lol, just read a little more)

info on the alien team:

there are 4 classes of aliens but only the Adult Xeno and the Face Hugger are availible till the "end game." (more info on endgame later)

Adult Xenomorph: Douse what you expect, crawl on walls and in narrow shafts, sneak in the shadows, and use melee ambushes to attack.

Face-Hugger: This class is more toned for advanced players, the FH cant walk on walls, has no DPS attack and can be killed in one or 2 shots. But there advanteges are there speed, leaping capibilitys, small and usualy unnoticeable and easily consealable size, and one-shot-kill potential.

If a marine gets grappled by a face hugger, the marine will be helpless and will be killed within a few seconds if he dousent get help from another marine. (similar to being incompasitated in left 4 dead.)But if the marine is rescued by another marine (through a context sensitive action, again similar to left 4 dead's incompasitation feature), the marine will be rescued and the FH will die.

Warrior Xenomorph: The Warrior Xeno is only availible in the "end game" of the match. (again more info on the "end game later). These aliens are just like the adult aliens, exept they do much more damage and have alot more health. the balance to this is to make it more effective for marines to run from them rather than fight them.

Xenomorph Queen: The Xeno Queen is only availible in the "end game" of a match. (again more info on the "end game" later.) The Xenomorph Queen is big, bad, and seriously pissed off. She douse what is expected, stomp around and use one shot melee attacks. She cant walk on walls and has to stick to more wider, open routes around the map and is nearly invunerable.

Marine Team Info:

There are no classes for the marines, when they start off, they have a pistol, pulse rifle, a frag granade, and a motion tracker. They also start off with little ammo. If they need more ammo or want to change their equitment, (difforant guns and gadgets)they must find a randomly placed weapons cash on the map.

Ok, now that the teams are layed out, time to get down to brass tacts of what your going to be doing in this game mode. Heres the description of the game mode.

The objective of the game is for the marines to activate 3, randomly-placed-on-the-map computer consoles to turn on the auxilary power system for the map to activate the "end game" (more info on this later.) The catch is, even thoguh the consoles are randomly placed, the game map wont show the marines were they are placed on the map.

The marines will spawn in the Insertion point on the map. (the insertion point is fixed to the map and is never randomly placed.) The players on the alien team, on the other hand, will spawn randomly throught the innerds of the map. (usualy in places like ventilation shafts and stuff like that to ensure a safe spawn and flexibility to move around the map before they reveal themselves)

Now the marines have 2 options, the marine squad can fumble around the map blindly untill they run across the consoles... OR they can activate the infustructure schematics by accessing 2 other randomly-placed-on-the-map enginearing terminals. These terminals, although randomly placed like the auxilary power consoles, the locations are revealed to the marine team at the start of the map. This is to give the marine team some sorta lead on progressing through the map without haveing to relay on guess work, but will take up more time and requires a dangeriouse, yet cliche tactic. EVERYONE SPLIT UP!...

The only way to access the enginearing terminals, is they must be activated at the same time. This will require the marines to split up. (this tips the balance to give the once not-very-threatening-up-to-this-point aliens the favor of the balance to thin out some of the marines to get a few more players on the alien side, thus increases the alien teams potential.)

Once there are marines at both the enginearing terminals, the marines can activate them. This will reveal were the auxilary power consoles and the weapons cash is located on the map.

If the marines then make there way to all 3 auxilary power terminals, (these can be activated in any order at any time, unlike the enginearing terminals.)This will activate the "end game"

Once the End Game is activated, the map will have things like emergancy lights and sirens turn on and the marines will have a short period of time to return back to their insertion point before the map self destructs. Once the End Game is activated, all the players on the alien team will then rechoose their class and respawn back onto the map. However, the alien team now has access to the Warrior Xeno's and one lucky alien player, will be able to play as a queen. (havent worked out the factor that will determin what qualifies a player to be chosen to be the queen yet.)

At this point, the majority of players will most likely be aliens, leaving only several marines still left alive. Also the Alien players are now much stronger. This tips the balance into the aliens favor drasticly, making it a good idea for the marines to run like hell to the insertion point rather than stand and fight. But to prevent it from being completely overbalanced for the aliens, The marines can use more powerful weapons and gadgets to temperarily stun the warriors and the queen, giving the marine players a little more of a fighting chance to escape. (the only way to get more powerful equipment is through the weapons cache, making it a good idea for the marines to seek it out first before activating the end game.)

If the marines can trigger the endgame and escape, they win. if the aliens kill off all the marines any time during the match, the aliens win.

POST PROSESSED IDEAS:
Door welding. the ability for marines to weld close doors and vents to close off routes to prevent aliens mobility.

So theres my idea. still may need some more balance changes and more refining, but i think it would give you the closest multiplayer expiriance to actualy being in an alien movie. Everything from the careful insertion into a dark and mysteriouse complex, to your first, mild Xeno encounter, to the cliche "everybody split up" moment, and the mad dash for survival with a bunch of blood thirsty monsters chaceing you down.

Bigapps17 · #2 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 11:06 PM

Very solid! The only problem I can see is that there needs to be some more players, so make the map bigger to accommodate them I think that could be one game type! I think gearbox will have some more multiplayer ideas, such as team DM, but other than that this could definitely could be a game type added to the game! Good work!

dontdisme0 · #3 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 03:34 PM

thanks! i was considering more players when i first thought of the idea. but i desided on 8 becouse, come to think of it, in the alien movies, you only see a handfull of marines going into a place, never a large army. i chose 8 to kinda balance it out. plus, the lack of players kinda helps build suspence in the game. like with the marines, your going along and everything is quiet and you know anything could happen at any moment, and when it douse, it will most likely make you jump outa your seat. if aliens were attacking you every other second, it would kinda loose its fear/suspence factor wile playing as the marines.

As for the aliens, it would give them a chance to stratagize there approach on the marines, giving them more time to figure out a nice ambush strategy and allow them to move into position more easily, instead of being shot at constantly wich would cause most players to not have enough time to stratigize and position themselves, wich would just resort into most players just suicide rushing the marines constantly, hoping to take one down.

Bigapps17 · #4 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 11:54 PM

That's true. I wasn't thinking of like 16 players, but like 10 or 12! The thing is though, most people don't talk in multiplayer or they just go on by themselves without talking to anyone! But I can see your point! I would rather have 12 people to make it somewhat balanced and to have a good experience!