Mr. EpicJoin Date: 2003-08-01Member: 18660Members, Constellation
edited June 2011
Tick rate seemed to improve dramatically! On one server 6v6 and under seemed to hold steady at 30 flat with 6v7 holding around 25 and dipping to 15 at the absolute worst, most of the time it was around 20 when it dipped. Nice job!
first impressions are that fades are still dominating. seeing fades blink into the middle of a group of marines surrounded by turrets, killing one, retreating, rinse repeat. couple that with a team full of fades who take turns doing that tactic and it's just a lopsided fight. despite the marine buffs, I don't see any balance happening until HA and JP's arrive.
<!--quoteo(post=1853207:date=Jun 15 2011, 05:41 PM:name=DJPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DJPenguin @ Jun 15 2011, 05:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1853207"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->first impressions are that fades are still dominating. seeing fades blink into the middle of a group of marines surrounded by turrets, killing one, retreating, rinse repeat. couple that with a team full of fades who take turns doing that tactic and it's just a lopsided fight. despite the marine buffs, I don't see any balance happening until HA and JP's arrive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're just not using enough fire
Congratulations, NS2 is definitely playable now - such a HUGE improvement through the server performance improvements... This patch did what I waited for, now I'll play every day ;) Just had a 7v7 game with no server lag at all - was great :)
Balance is kinda destroyed the other way around now though, guess its 70% rine wins? ;)
Shotguns counter fades - they should be available at CC #2 and for 20 res instead of 15 (aka I'll buy one every death)...
Oh and 10% energy reg while on fire? really...? thats pretty much nothing.
This could be the break everyone has been waiting for well. i'm downloading the update now and i hope it's a playable update you guys have worked hard on ++++++
The game has totally changed with the last two patches, and for the better! Things certainly seem to be picking up, and I can't wait to see the finalized dynamic infestation, onos, and jetpacks/heavy.
<!--quoteo(post=1853207:date=Jun 15 2011, 06:41 PM:name=DJPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DJPenguin @ Jun 15 2011, 06:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1853207"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->first impressions are that fades are still dominating. seeing fades blink into the middle of a group of marines surrounded by turrets, killing one, retreating, rinse repeat. couple that with a team full of fades who take turns doing that tactic and it's just a lopsided fight. despite the marine buffs, I don't see any balance happening until HAand JP's arrive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dissagree! Killed fades with no prObmel with 2SG. Just kill the gorge first and run in the direction the Fade blinked from to catch him when he flees! 3 Full hits with SG and he's gone.
The new Blink is cool. Bilebomb does high damage vs structures (5%on a node). Ticks are awsome on the Servers! SG is almost to cheap now! As soon as it gets researched I don't see Marines with LMG ( and this is bad... LMG is strong at distance) Couldn't test the ARC.
Btw aliens can still build a crag and a whip with the start Drifters!
Performance definitely seems better now. Played Fade again and I like where it's going, still needs a few tweaks though I think. I think it's a little too easy to spam blink every .5 seconds to be impossible to hit, but it's also very difficult to actually fight against shotguns any other way. Personally I would prefer if the blink cooldown were longer, but in exchange you have full air control while blinking, i.e. no more sluggish turns. That way your blinks could be more controlled and tactical rather than spammy.
Seem to be disconnecting from Steam Server a lot lately, not sure if it's just steam having a spaz, and when it does the server shuts down and I have to manually run it again. :(
completely awesome patch!! well done. still gettin c opening commands menu as well as minimap and ARC still isnt great but i guess thats cos its new. keep it up!!!!
Shotguns at 15 PRes for this res model is good, it definitely makes it more accessible (less wait!) and a staple weapon for assaults. I find myself deciding between Grenade Launcher and Flamerthrower more often without Shotguns being too huge an investment.
Fade Blink feels good, I just need more practice in for controlling direction. Maybe we'll see good Fades do 360s when chased :)
Bile Bomb should have a research cost, and the area seems much wider than the splash animation. Oh and instant Hydra/Infestation deploy! Finally, Charlie ^^!!
Some really great improvements! I can now smoothly play on my GeForce 8600M GT Laptop with the settings on Medium! The game barely ran six months ago!
A few bugs I've noticed:<ul><li>You cannot Recycle (or Cancel, if that's the intended feature) a structure before it is built, though the Recycle button is active.</li><li>When you Recycle a structure, the Commander HUD indicates "Research Complete" (this is probably just a placeholder).</li><li>ARCs jump up/down vertical ledges and on top of structures when they should not physically be able to.</li><li>Lerk Spores attack animation lags behind the Fire delay. In other words, if you hold down Spores, the animation desyncs with the actual Spore firing.</li></ul>
Also, at some point I ended up with a fraction of T.Res (as in 321.5), but I'm not completely sure how I managed that. Think it may have happened after dropping about 6 Robotics Factories, building them, and then recycling all of them quickly.
Just given it a couple of games as I have to get up early.
On a server of 8 v 8, perfectly smooth the whole game with a solid 30fps on high.
Couple of things I did notice.
- Noticed a marine running round alien spawn at round start but he was a spectator - is this a known bug? - When escaping a few times as an alien, when bumping into a teammate it felt very sticky and in general felt wierd. (might just be me).
Really great having the game as good as it was, there was no lag like there was in previous. One final thing, it definitely felt unbalanced which is a great thing in itself because the performance hasn't really been there for me to make that call. Aliens dominated both games, Marines were either rubbish or just mismatched. As soon as we had 2 Fades we cleaned them up. Although the gorgeplay was fantastic and it was really good to work as a team.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Good patch!
Lots of little annoying things (like LMG muzzle flash and ghost clients) are fixed and server performances has improved noticeably. 16 players on Australia Pure and a decent amount of sentry spam didn't seem to have a significant effect (e.g. tickrate stayed consistently above 20).
Balance has improved, but only a little. <a href="http://ns2.sorcerer.de/stats/" target="_blank">http://ns2.sorcerer.de/stats/</a> and <a href="http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/displayendgamestats?version=179" target="_blank">http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/disp...ats?version=179</a> are showing B179 win rate at 70%, which is improved from B178's 75%, but still a far cry from balanced. That might decrease once more people start getting used to shotgunning on less laggy servers, but I don't see it dropping much. In particular, fades are more manageable with 2-3 shotties, but are still effective at hit-and-run kills.
Very noticeable performance improvement for me! I could actually track aliens with the crosshair and land 70% of my bullets.
Still getting lots of stuttering...sometimes it's really bad as if the game is loading a lot of stuff, and I even see through the map at some points and that lags a lot while my computer loads the whole bloody thing! Is that occlussion culling problem? I have a relatively low end system so this is the biggest problem for me. I cant play the game when it freezes like that on and off.
Bilebomb is confusing....I dont know if it hit its target or what....people werent rly using it. The graphics for it are not appealing. Looks like a coconut/water balloon.
Fade is absolutely crippled by flamethrower now so no complaints from marines please :) I got hit by a flamer and my energy basically never recovered = cant even use the basic attack, have to run away and die a slow death.
Whips are much more useful now they move at decent speed, in the last game they were used a lot and work well at blocking off corridors.
Placing infestation is still buggy. I could put down a few spots then no more unless i went to another hive. That happened consistently and was a great handicap.
The minimap is readable for me now and very helpful.
Comments
And what a changelog. Very nice!
Really looking forward to occlusion culling optimization.
Decent servers are needed!
awesome changes! keep up that good work!
You're just not using enough fire
Just had a 7v7 game with no server lag at all - was great :)
Balance is kinda destroyed the other way around now though, guess its 70% rine wins? ;)
Shotguns counter fades - they should be available at CC #2 and for 20 res instead of 15 (aka I'll buy one every death)...
Oh and 10% energy reg while on fire? really...? thats pretty much nothing.
Dissagree! Killed fades with no prObmel with 2SG. Just kill the gorge first and run in the direction the Fade blinked from to catch him when he flees! 3 Full hits with SG and he's gone.
The new Blink is cool. Bilebomb does high damage vs structures (5%on a node).
Ticks are awsome on the Servers! SG is almost to cheap now! As soon as it gets researched I don't see Marines with LMG ( and this is bad... LMG is strong at distance)
Couldn't test the ARC.
Btw aliens can still build a crag and a whip with the start Drifters!
20 Friggin players!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
balance not so much :P...only played 2 games, but aliens still imba it looks
balance not so much :P...only played 2 games, but aliens still imba it looks<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It should be improved surely.
Marines get cheaper, more destructive, longer ranged ARCs and nearly twice as many shotguns, while fades get less health.
Shotguns at 15 PRes for this res model is good, it definitely makes it more accessible (less wait!) and a staple weapon for assaults. I find myself deciding between Grenade Launcher and Flamerthrower more often without Shotguns being too huge an investment.
Fade Blink feels good, I just need more practice in for controlling direction. Maybe we'll see good Fades do 360s when chased :)
Bile Bomb should have a research cost, and the area seems much wider than the splash animation. Oh and instant Hydra/Infestation deploy! Finally, Charlie ^^!!
Can't wait to play more tonight!
A few bugs I've noticed:<ul><li>You cannot Recycle (or Cancel, if that's the intended feature) a structure before it is built, though the Recycle button is active.</li><li>When you Recycle a structure, the Commander HUD indicates "Research Complete" (this is probably just a placeholder).</li><li>ARCs jump up/down vertical ledges and on top of structures when they should not physically be able to.</li><li>Lerk Spores attack animation lags behind the Fire delay. In other words, if you hold down Spores, the animation desyncs with the actual Spore firing.</li></ul>
Also, at some point I ended up with a fraction of T.Res (as in 321.5), but I'm not completely sure how I managed that. Think it may have happened after dropping about 6 Robotics Factories, building them, and then recycling all of them quickly.
On a server of 8 v 8, perfectly smooth the whole game with a solid 30fps on high.
Couple of things I did notice.
- Noticed a marine running round alien spawn at round start but he was a spectator - is this a known bug?
- When escaping a few times as an alien, when bumping into a teammate it felt very sticky and in general felt wierd. (might just be me).
Really great having the game as good as it was, there was no lag like there was in previous. One final thing, it definitely felt unbalanced which is a great thing in itself because the performance hasn't really been there for me to make that call. Aliens dominated both games, Marines were either rubbish or just mismatched. As soon as we had 2 Fades we cleaned them up. Although the gorgeplay was fantastic and it was really good to work as a team.
Summary: Great patch.
Lots of little annoying things (like LMG muzzle flash and ghost clients) are fixed and server performances has improved noticeably. 16 players on Australia Pure and a decent amount of sentry spam didn't seem to have a significant effect (e.g. tickrate stayed consistently above 20).
Balance has improved, but only a little. <a href="http://ns2.sorcerer.de/stats/" target="_blank">http://ns2.sorcerer.de/stats/</a> and <a href="http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/displayendgamestats?version=179" target="_blank">http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/disp...ats?version=179</a> are showing B179 win rate at 70%, which is improved from B178's 75%, but still a far cry from balanced. That might decrease once more people start getting used to shotgunning on less laggy servers, but I don't see it dropping much. In particular, fades are more manageable with 2-3 shotties, but are still effective at hit-and-run kills.
Still getting lots of stuttering...sometimes it's really bad as if the game is loading a lot of stuff, and I even see through the map at some points and that lags a lot while my computer loads the whole bloody thing! Is that occlussion culling problem? I have a relatively low end system so this is the biggest problem for me. I cant play the game when it freezes like that on and off.
Bilebomb is confusing....I dont know if it hit its target or what....people werent rly using it. The graphics for it are not appealing. Looks like a coconut/water balloon.
Fade is absolutely crippled by flamethrower now so no complaints from marines please :) I got hit by a flamer and my energy basically never recovered = cant even use the basic attack, have to run away and die a slow death.
Whips are much more useful now they move at decent speed, in the last game they were used a lot and work well at blocking off corridors.
Placing infestation is still buggy. I could put down a few spots then no more unless i went to another hive. That happened consistently and was a great handicap.
The minimap is readable for me now and very helpful.
Fade blink - didnt test it much. Seems fine now.