Infestation Mode - What did you like/What would you change?

[Moosh89]

Hey everyone! It'sa me again 

A few years back I asked you all about Life Cycle mode - Thread here: https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=55901.0

You guys gave me a lot to think about, but if you have more thoughts on Life Cycle, please share them in that thread.

This time I want to know everyone's thoughts on an "Infestation" type mode like from AvP2010, or even "Hunt" mode from AvP2.

What did you like about those modes? Why?

What would you change?

Discuss!

[Corporal Hicks]

I have always loved the Infestation (or Survivor as it was in AvP2) style modes. The entire premise of being killed and becoming an Alien is just so thematic. I wouldn't want the facehuggers in there (they were always so annoying) but going forward, some sort of hiving animation or eggmorphing animation for a mode like this in the future would be pretty sweet.

[SiL]

Counter to what Hicks said above, I was talking to a friend the other week and the one thing he said he really wanted to see in a Survivor type mode for an Alien/AvP game was, specifically, getting facehugged and being turned into an Alien.

I love Survivor modes as there's a really fun kind of bell curve to each round -- the lone enemy struggles to get that first kill early on, but once they do the tides start turning and it rapidly switches dynamic quickly. Both sides get to enjoy a sense of overpowering the other, and both sides get to enjoy the tense feeling of being grossly outnumbered.

That said, something like egg morphing could actually add an interesting layer -- the people the first Alien kills turns into eggs, those players turn into facehuggers, and then the people they kill turn into more Aliens. But you'd need a lot of players to make that sustainable in a given round.

[Corporal Hicks]

While I thought the life cycle was a novel implementation, I never enjoyed it. Made you too vulnerable to those camping around your dead bodies. It wasn't like you could design it like you could the SP.

[Moosh89]

Fantastic replies so far, thank you!

So for an AvP2010 "Infestation" type mode (Apologies, that's the only personal reference I have as I didn't get to play the earlier games on PC), you'd want to see:

- Egg morphing. A brief cutscene would play which would suggest the Human morphs into an egg, where then the player would enter a CLASS SELECT screen where they could choose which Alien they'd play as, such as '79 "Scout/Drone/Lurker" Alien, '86 "Warrior" Alien or '92 "Runner" Alien, etc... The cutscene would be max 3-5 seconds long. (Enough time to go "Awww, damn"  )

- No facehuggers in this mode in particular

Questions:

How does this mode start?
- All players enter as human and one randomly switches to Alien
-OR-
- One player automatically enters the Alien class select screen at random before the match starts. Perhaps before the round starts in the Lobby each player draws a straw (like a "ready up") and randomly the shortest straw is an Alien. "Ready up" is timer based and those who haven't readied up automatically draw at 0:10 seconds left.

How long is the minimum/default time limit?
- 10 minutes
- 12 minutes
- 15 minutes

How many "minimum" players?
- 4 Players
- 6 Players

[Corporal Hicks]

How does this mode start?
- All players enter as human and one randomly switches to Alien
-OR-
- One player automatically enters the Alien class select screen at random before the match starts. Perhaps before the round starts in the Lobby each player draws a straw (like a "ready up") and randomly the shortest straw is an Alien. "Ready up" is timer based and those who haven't readied up automatically draw at 0:10 seconds left.

Ideally you'd want rounds anyway - the lack of rounds in this kind of mode in 2010 were a huge bummer - so I'd say just random selection at the start of each round.

How long is the minimum/default time limit?
- 10 minutes
- 12 minutes
- 15 minutes

Hmmmm. Tough question. I tend to find 20 minutes as perfect lengths for matches these days as a maximum. But the interesting thing about this style was once it snowballed, it tended to snowball really fast.

How many "minimum" players?
- 4 Players
- 6 Players

I'd probably go 8 myself.

[Moosh89]

Stellar suggestions, Corporal Hicks. Thank you

So in an effort to simplify my mutterings regarding random selection:

- Is the fact of everyone starting as a human good in the sense of "If someone who doesn't want to be an Alien sees they'll be the Alien before the match begins, they might back out"?

Perhaps the random selection can throw the chosen player into the Alien class selection screen after 30 seconds like AvP2010.

What about the Queen? I read in AvP2's "Survival" mode, apparently Aliens who got a certain killstreak morphed into a Queen? or was that just in Life Cycle mode?