Nothing wrong with changing a game if the changes make it a better game. Which is the entire intent behind Sewlek's work.
You may disagree that the changes are for the better, but they're not being made just because someone feels like making changes. They're attempts to improve the game along specific criteria, such as deepening the possible strategic choices and eliminating mechanics that players find frustrating or boring.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
edited July 2013
WHAT IF:
We cut drifters entirely, and the comm is just a gorge, permanently. and without choice. Also he can't go in the hive. This gorge just controls all the team res
And pres --> tres conversion 1:1, but not the other way around
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
I've played this game since engine test day one.. Three years later, I can safely say almost each patch brought a new, better game. This is nothing new..
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2013
Vortexing arms lab doesn't work.
There also seems to be an annoying internal cooldown per structure between vortex's.
Vortex armory
Vortex arms lab
Vortex armory again
Do this in quick concession.
When vortexing the armory for the second time it de-vortexes the arms lab (can only have 1 vortex'd structure per fade) but then doesn't vortex the armory due to timer per structure. And still costs you energy.
Vortex needs a bit more help to be a late game finisher ability. Needs to effect an arms lab, and should be possible to be chained across structures and players quickly.
Also can't damage dropped exosuits. Anyone else think you should be able to? Can't even bile them, like every other marine droppable.
CCs not on tech points are "gypsies". They're cheap, they build fast, they have low armor/health. They provide power for nearby structures. Any nearby IPs have their spawn times cut in half. And five minutes after being built, THEY SELF-DESTRUCT.
If you have two or more TPs, you can't build a gypsy CC. If you have only one TP, you can have one gypsy. If you have zero TPs, you can have two gypsies.
Why are people so desperate to make such drastic changes to how the game works? And why does UWE acquiesce to this and similar nonsensical whimsical frivolities? The game is released. Stop messing about with it. "Balance test," more like "Experimental modification" should be done in preparation for NS3, not changing a game that is out of alpha, or is that what I'm missing?
Complaining about a developer improving their game after release? I don't even?
If NS2 can continue to be improved, and it can continue to gain sales reflective of these improvements. Than how is that not a win-win we should be embracing.
The problem is none of the current official maps are balanced for relocating. It would not be such a big deal if the maps could be changed on a fly, but that is not the case.
Even more than this, it is impossibly difficult to balance a map around all possible relocations. Remember cold turn? I don't want that to happen to any of our maps in ns2.
The problem is none of the current official maps are balanced for relocating. It would not be such a big deal if the maps could be changed on a fly, but that is not the case.
Even more than this, it is impossibly difficult to balance a map around all possible relocations. Remember cold turn? I don't want that to happen to any of our maps in ns2.
Man this rings a bell but I don't remember, refresh my memory?
E: I found a video on Youtube, it was that stupid corridor room on Ayumi with the glass windows, I think you could siege 2 hives from there or something.
There also seems to be an annoying internal cooldown per structure between vortex's.
Vortex armory
Vortex arms lab
Vortex armory again
Do this in quick concession.
When vortexing the armory for the second time it de-vortexes the arms lab (can only have 1 vortex'd structure per fade) but then doesn't vortex the armory due to timer per structure. And still costs you energy.
Vortex needs a bit more help to be a late game finisher ability. Needs to effect an arms lab, and should be possible to be chained across structures and players quickly.
Also can't damage dropped exosuits. Anyone else think you should be able to? Can't even bile them, like every other marine droppable.
i totally agree, not being able to damage dropped exos looks more like a bug, vortex should affect armslabs but be restriced to 1 entity at the same time
also i got a spontaneous idea maybe it sounds interesting to you:
An upgrade for the alien comm which affects all aliens grating them an extra slot for one upgrade(so like having cele-phantom-cara and being able to choose an more expensive 4th upgrade)
it would cost the comm about 30res, requires 7,8 or 9 biomass and costs the alien itself 5more pres (or the 4th is 40% less effective)
perhaps you havent thought of this. i just thought it could be a useful to think of it or maybe similar things
Relocations come at a massive risk, you can insta-loose the game and if it succeeds you are substantially behind financially. I think it would be great...
How would you handle the size of the CC though, its massive. It would need to be massively shrunk, then you would need to re-do the animation of someone getting in ect.
I'd like to see shadowstep speed increased to what it used to be in BT mod, it was quite a bit faster before being slowed down to what it is now.
Considering how quick the fade uses energy now, the reduced attack power, 75 clip rifles and with shadowstep not unlocking to later in the game I don't see it being OP if the speed is increased.
I really don't like this new 75 bullets lmg, seems not really viable instead of shotgun.. And this smg dude, hate this "call of duty" skin so hard! Just let's the lmg in peace and give us a good heavy machine gun (late game rifle).
The SMG skin is a placeholder much like the skulk panting in pre-250 builds. The rifle was really bad when I played on the BT server yesterday though, it was only doing 8 base damage per shot so it was actually weaker than the free weapon you start out with in exchange for having a bigger magazine. Not really a great tradeoff especially for 15 res!
Then cut vortex and buff shadowstep in some op way to replace vortex.
Or make vortex a skill based defensive move, catching bullets and such. I can see it now, a fade bdropping down a hall using vortex to block shots to cap distance. Oh yehhh
How about reimplementing foresight for the alien comm?
since rines can build on infestation now i think it would be great to have those foresight clouds again to see them as comm
and drifters should be cloaking themselfes again or what was the reason for them to be visible?
Perhaps instead of a linear progression with biomass, why don't we have biomass unlock a tech slot that that the kham chose with lifeform ability to fill it with. So 1 biomass = 1 tech slot for 1 ability.
That way if the kham wants to research vortex on biomass level 1 for whatever reason, he can do just that. Then xeno on the second biomass.
Going further with this idea, perhaps the kham can research an ability multiple times filling up additional biomass level slots. Leap for example, the kham researches it on biomass level 1 and level 2 with each additional research of leap increases the abilities power such as the leap's distance and speed increase.
This will give the kham the decision capabilities to decide which tech he wants and when, while still having to secure additional hives for the additional 3 biomass. Along with the second idea of which tech to boost with additional biomass at the expense of giving up other tech in the long run.
Perhaps instead of a linear progression with biomass, why don't we have biomass unlock a tech slot that that the kham chose with lifeform ability to fill it with. So 1 biomass = 1 tech slot for 1 ability.
i think this idea is gold i mean it opens a whole new spectrum of strategies, widening it which could be great because as far as i know 250 aimed for having more strategies it would compensate the face, that biomass+upgrade are very expensive and gives no room for lifeform-eggs
even if you use stomp as first it wouldnt be op since noone has the res for an onos
but xenocide for example at full effectiveness would be a bit op at biomass 1-3 so the effectiveness should grow with the number of hives or biomass(of having for the rest of the game low effect when taking it with biomass 1) so it could be a strategie to have a higheffective umbra lategame when you dont want to upgrade it earlygame i mean you could save 9 slots for all upgrades at maximum power but you cant save the res and i dont think you could survive this in midgame and in return all biomass 9 upgrades would be disabled when losing the hive so its risky and you have to think when ou want to upgrade biomass
just think a minute of what great ways this would open getting away(a step more) from a linear preset to some selfmade strategies
for me that way it seems quite balanced but it would probably need more balancing since im not the balance guy^^
i really hope you guys dont misunderstand me due to my englishskills
How about reimplementing foresight for the alien comm?
since rines can build on infestation now i think it would be great to have those foresight clouds again to see them as comm
and drifters should be cloaking themselfes again or what was the reason for them to be visible?
Personally I used to like the camo drifters from the older builds, but I've changed my mind about them. They were in fact a fairly lazy and too easy way of scouting. Thesame could be said about foresight. I think it's better now aliens don't have such a cheap way of monitoring marine movement. You can still use drifters to scout areas, but it takes more effort from the comm, and marines can deal with it more easily. So this means aliens have to worry more about their positioning on the map and scouting in general, which should compensate a bit for their increased mobility.
Perhaps instead of a linear progression with biomass, why don't we have biomass unlock a tech slot that that the kham chose with lifeform ability to fill it with. So 1 biomass = 1 tech slot for 1 ability.
That way if the kham wants to research vortex on biomass level 1 for whatever reason, he can do just that. Then xeno on the second biomass.
Going further with this idea, perhaps the kham can research an ability multiple times filling up additional biomass level slots. Leap for example, the kham researches it on biomass level 1 and level 2 with each additional research of leap increases the abilities power such as the leap's distance and speed increase.
This will give the kham the decision capabilities to decide which tech he wants and when, while still having to secure additional hives for the additional 3 biomass. Along with the second idea of which tech to boost with additional biomass at the expense of giving up other tech in the long run.
sounds interesting, maybe the new BT mod could test this out
would need some balancing
leap, xenocide, bilebomb, spores, would all need to cost more biomass. Fade and onos abilities can cost less as those lifeforms are expensive and can only appear later on in the game.
I'm quoting myself from another thread, this is in regards to marine turtling and idea's of how to allow aliens to finish the game faster
The largest part of the problems is aliens have to commit to an attack, which looses lifeforms. Marines subsequently re spawn and pick up their weapon. I have provided some idea's that would only work at level 8/9 biomass (end-game / 3 hives) that allow aliens to whittle down the marine defense / game ending abilities. Another side effect of the flame thrower buff is umbra which was used in NS1 to finish turtles does not work due to flame destroying the umbra cloud.
- A level 8/9 biomass upgrade to bilebomb that increases trajectory range of bile bomb
- A level 8/9 biomass upgrade that allows a drifter the ability to fastcast infestation instantly in an area so that you can teleport Bile Bomb whips in so they actually work
- Tie Level 3 weapons/armour to 2nd CC
- Vortex on arms lab removes weapon/armour upgrades temporarily for marines. Basically OP but make it biomass level 9 so its only used when the game is basically over
- Bone shield upgrade for onos on 3rd hive tech, turning it into a true siege breaker
These things wouldn't take alot of coding I imagine, would only affect super late game / marine turtles but would ease the pain in public games where people suffer terribly trying to finish games. ATM aliens are locked at hive 2 tech trying to break marine tier 3 tech. Just does not work....
I have a stupid question, I really want to play this, but how do I go about doing so?
In the server browser I can filter for NS2 BT, but that only shows two servers that are always unpopulated?
They're not always empty but people aren't playing BT as much as they were 2 weeks ago when the difference between vanilla and BT was huge and there were quite a few more servers.
Bring back boosting with mines
Also the shield vortex was amazing, why not bring it back?
While you're at it make picking up welder under the lmg easier.
A few questions from me:
* The jetpack is damn fast now. It wasn't exactly easy to kill a jet packer with fade or skulk before. Is it really balanced now?
* The combination of jet pack and flamer is op as stated by several people. (Lower DPS can be mitigated by faster evasive movement aka jet pack) What is planned to fix it?
* Power Surge is a nice addition. But it makes power nodes nearly obsolete to attack now. How about reducing the health of power nodes to 1/10 and make buildings ineffective (instead of disabled) without power. This makes power nodes to light switches. Fast to destroy, fast to repair. Useful as battlefield modification not as a win-button as previously. Is it in the realm of possibility to try this mechanic?
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2013
I propose a simple Vortex ability remake:
Vortex:
effect: Target marine unit (players, structures, AI units) becomes vulnerable to damage from other marine units (temporary friendly fire, damage scaled for balance), and takes additional damage.
lore explanation: Vortex disrupts the molecular structure of nanites armor, weakening its resistance against physical force. The havoc Vortex causes does not end there, however. Nanite-based smart ammunition normally disintegrate harmlessly when detecting impact on nanite armor. But they do not recogize nanite armor under phase change as friendly, and impact with full force!
gameplay significance: Marines and structures affected vortex take additional damage, thus becoming prime targets for aliens to pick off.
The real game changing effect of Vortex would be, that other marines will be unable to protect the vortex-affected unit with showers of bullets, grenades and napalm (flamethrower). Instead, they may actually injure or damage him/it, and assist the aliens in achieving their goal.
Aliens can exploit the marines' hesitation to shoot at targets near the vortexed unit and use him/it as a shield. Vortex would significantly boost the power of melee-based aliens against clumps of marines, where friendly fire becomes impossible to avoid.
Vortex would be an interesting game changer, loved by aliens, but dreaded by marines.
I feel as though Carapace is underpowered on higher lifeforms when compared to Regeneration. To fix this, I would suggest:
- an increase of 10, 20, and 50 to the Carapace bonus of the Lerk, Fade, and Onos respectively.
- a reduction to the in-combat Regeneration by 1%.
Umbra still seems too cheap energy-wise, I'm not sure what a good cost would be.
I also feel that shotguns are still a bit too powerful. A reduction in shell capacity to the 6 previously tested would help resolve this.
The addition of an required research to open up Grenade Launchers and Flamethrowers goes a long way towards solving the 'spam' problem. I would suggest an increase in Grenade Launcher cost to 20. Flamethrower damage and ammo should be reduced a little, the range and width seems fine.
I think marines need something else tied to a second tech point. A good choice for this seems to be nanoshield. It's unintuitive that the research is on the CC.
Comments
You may disagree that the changes are for the better, but they're not being made just because someone feels like making changes. They're attempts to improve the game along specific criteria, such as deepening the possible strategic choices and eliminating mechanics that players find frustrating or boring.
We cut drifters entirely, and the comm is just a gorge, permanently. and without choice. Also he can't go in the hive. This gorge just controls all the team res
And pres --> tres conversion 1:1, but not the other way around
Adapt or die! :-P
There also seems to be an annoying internal cooldown per structure between vortex's.
Vortex armory
Vortex arms lab
Vortex armory again
Do this in quick concession.
When vortexing the armory for the second time it de-vortexes the arms lab (can only have 1 vortex'd structure per fade) but then doesn't vortex the armory due to timer per structure. And still costs you energy.
Vortex needs a bit more help to be a late game finisher ability. Needs to effect an arms lab, and should be possible to be chained across structures and players quickly.
Also can't damage dropped exosuits. Anyone else think you should be able to? Can't even bile them, like every other marine droppable.
Complaining about a developer improving their game after release? I don't even?
If NS2 can continue to be improved, and it can continue to gain sales reflective of these improvements. Than how is that not a win-win we should be embracing.
Probably trolled.
Ugh, had the wrong thread page open. Get doubled.
That's broken for sure.
Even more than this, it is impossibly difficult to balance a map around all possible relocations. Remember cold turn? I don't want that to happen to any of our maps in ns2.
Man this rings a bell but I don't remember, refresh my memory?
E: I found a video on Youtube, it was that stupid corridor room on Ayumi with the glass windows, I think you could siege 2 hives from there or something.
i totally agree, not being able to damage dropped exos looks more like a bug, vortex should affect armslabs but be restriced to 1 entity at the same time
also i got a spontaneous idea maybe it sounds interesting to you:
An upgrade for the alien comm which affects all aliens grating them an extra slot for one upgrade(so like having cele-phantom-cara and being able to choose an more expensive 4th upgrade)
it would cost the comm about 30res, requires 7,8 or 9 biomass and costs the alien itself 5more pres (or the 4th is 40% less effective)
perhaps you havent thought of this. i just thought it could be a useful to think of it or maybe similar things
How would you handle the size of the CC though, its massive. It would need to be massively shrunk, then you would need to re-do the animation of someone getting in ect.
That way we can have something that consumes energy and gives us something to do while hopping around.
Considering how quick the fade uses energy now, the reduced attack power, 75 clip rifles and with shadowstep not unlocking to later in the game I don't see it being OP if the speed is increased.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then cut vortex and buff shadowstep in some op way to replace vortex.
Or make vortex a skill based defensive move, catching bullets and such. I can see it now, a fade bdropping down a hall using vortex to block shots to cap distance. Oh yehhh
I fully support the use of this new nomenclature.
since rines can build on infestation now i think it would be great to have those foresight clouds again to see them as comm
and drifters should be cloaking themselfes again or what was the reason for them to be visible?
Perhaps instead of a linear progression with biomass, why don't we have biomass unlock a tech slot that that the kham chose with lifeform ability to fill it with. So 1 biomass = 1 tech slot for 1 ability.
That way if the kham wants to research vortex on biomass level 1 for whatever reason, he can do just that. Then xeno on the second biomass.
Going further with this idea, perhaps the kham can research an ability multiple times filling up additional biomass level slots. Leap for example, the kham researches it on biomass level 1 and level 2 with each additional research of leap increases the abilities power such as the leap's distance and speed increase.
This will give the kham the decision capabilities to decide which tech he wants and when, while still having to secure additional hives for the additional 3 biomass. Along with the second idea of which tech to boost with additional biomass at the expense of giving up other tech in the long run.
i think this idea is gold i mean it opens a whole new spectrum of strategies, widening it which could be great because as far as i know 250 aimed for having more strategies it would compensate the face, that biomass+upgrade are very expensive and gives no room for lifeform-eggs
even if you use stomp as first it wouldnt be op since noone has the res for an onos
but xenocide for example at full effectiveness would be a bit op at biomass 1-3 so the effectiveness should grow with the number of hives or biomass(of having for the rest of the game low effect when taking it with biomass 1) so it could be a strategie to have a higheffective umbra lategame when you dont want to upgrade it earlygame i mean you could save 9 slots for all upgrades at maximum power but you cant save the res and i dont think you could survive this in midgame and in return all biomass 9 upgrades would be disabled when losing the hive so its risky and you have to think when ou want to upgrade biomass
just think a minute of what great ways this would open getting away(a step more) from a linear preset to some selfmade strategies
for me that way it seems quite balanced but it would probably need more balancing since im not the balance guy^^
i really hope you guys dont misunderstand me due to my englishskills
Personally I used to like the camo drifters from the older builds, but I've changed my mind about them. They were in fact a fairly lazy and too easy way of scouting. Thesame could be said about foresight. I think it's better now aliens don't have such a cheap way of monitoring marine movement. You can still use drifters to scout areas, but it takes more effort from the comm, and marines can deal with it more easily. So this means aliens have to worry more about their positioning on the map and scouting in general, which should compensate a bit for their increased mobility.
btw: awesome avatar
sounds interesting, maybe the new BT mod could test this out
would need some balancing
leap, xenocide, bilebomb, spores, would all need to cost more biomass. Fade and onos abilities can cost less as those lifeforms are expensive and can only appear later on in the game.
otherwise i like the idea
In the server browser I can filter for NS2 BT, but that only shows two servers that are always unpopulated?
They're not always empty but people aren't playing BT as much as they were 2 weeks ago when the difference between vanilla and BT was huge and there were quite a few more servers.
Also the shield vortex was amazing, why not bring it back?
While you're at it make picking up welder under the lmg easier.
* The jetpack is damn fast now. It wasn't exactly easy to kill a jet packer with fade or skulk before. Is it really balanced now?
* The combination of jet pack and flamer is op as stated by several people. (Lower DPS can be mitigated by faster evasive movement aka jet pack) What is planned to fix it?
* Power Surge is a nice addition. But it makes power nodes nearly obsolete to attack now. How about reducing the health of power nodes to 1/10 and make buildings ineffective (instead of disabled) without power. This makes power nodes to light switches. Fast to destroy, fast to repair. Useful as battlefield modification not as a win-button as previously. Is it in the realm of possibility to try this mechanic?
Vortex:
effect: Target marine unit (players, structures, AI units) becomes vulnerable to damage from other marine units (temporary friendly fire, damage scaled for balance), and takes additional damage.
lore explanation: Vortex disrupts the molecular structure of nanites armor, weakening its resistance against physical force. The havoc Vortex causes does not end there, however. Nanite-based smart ammunition normally disintegrate harmlessly when detecting impact on nanite armor. But they do not recogize nanite armor under phase change as friendly, and impact with full force!
gameplay significance: Marines and structures affected vortex take additional damage, thus becoming prime targets for aliens to pick off.
The real game changing effect of Vortex would be, that other marines will be unable to protect the vortex-affected unit with showers of bullets, grenades and napalm (flamethrower). Instead, they may actually injure or damage him/it, and assist the aliens in achieving their goal.
Aliens can exploit the marines' hesitation to shoot at targets near the vortexed unit and use him/it as a shield. Vortex would significantly boost the power of melee-based aliens against clumps of marines, where friendly fire becomes impossible to avoid.
Vortex would be an interesting game changer, loved by aliens, but dreaded by marines.
- an increase of 10, 20, and 50 to the Carapace bonus of the Lerk, Fade, and Onos respectively.
- a reduction to the in-combat Regeneration by 1%.
Umbra still seems too cheap energy-wise, I'm not sure what a good cost would be.
I also feel that shotguns are still a bit too powerful. A reduction in shell capacity to the 6 previously tested would help resolve this.
The addition of an required research to open up Grenade Launchers and Flamethrowers goes a long way towards solving the 'spam' problem. I would suggest an increase in Grenade Launcher cost to 20. Flamethrower damage and ammo should be reduced a little, the range and width seems fine.
I think marines need something else tied to a second tech point. A good choice for this seems to be nanoshield. It's unintuitive that the research is on the CC.