I played a number of rounds last night. It has come a long way from our first playtest a year ago!! Great work by all!
One thing that would help is making the blue and yellow a little lighter, or brighter I should say. Not much brighter but just a little would help in seeing the difference in teammates vs. enemy.
I think power nodes are fine but like one poster said make them more robust. One thing to think about and if it is even possible, make damage from bullets, nades and flames less. Welders and ax do more damage. This way people have to get right on the node to take it down. This will keep teams from staying far away and just shooting the power out.
Mines should be a that one mine will kill a marine unless on A2 or A3 and if you can make them a little more transparent would help them from being shot out.
Just my $.02
Very well done mod, clean and fun to play. Thanks to all that made it happen
I don't think the textures are that bad but they come off a bit dull and blend in under certain lighting, how would friendly glow affect game play, it seems like a good idea to me?
Power can be easily trolled by team mates, had a few games where someone deliberately took it out.
Would be good if welders could convert enemy structures, perhaps as an upgrade, lots of players seem to use it as a weapon instead of the axe now you get it for free.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Oh yes... That's on the number one ToDo item right now. Nothing ruins a game faster than a griefer, so I'll most likely be coming up with another hot-fix (out right removing power usage and requirements) for the time being. I'm still set on having power be a factor in gameplay, so once I have a more comprehensive system in place, power usage/requirement will be added back in.
Would it be possible to keep the one power system but if a team has structures in that area the power can't be hurt by that team, also the other team can't build until all structures are destroyed or converted?
I definitely think being able to convert structures would add to game play.
Would it be possible to keep the one power system but if a team has structures in that area the power can't be hurt by that team, also the other team can't build until all structures are destroyed or converted?
I definitely think being able to convert structures would add to game play.
That's actually very similar to what I've got in mind at the moment. I'm going to tackle the problem with two systems.
First off, I need to make something that can move entities at map-load. Sort of a per map entities override table. The reason being is there are a few maps that have power nodes in absolutely horrible places for the MvM context (E.g. Flight Control in Summit). This will let me relocate power nodes, or whatever else I need to without having to modify the levels themselves. I'll probably release this for others to take advantage of too.
The change in how nodes function that I have in mind is similar to what you suggested Magneto. My thoughts on this are essentially turning power nodes into control points. Obviously, starting locations would be under the control of the appropriate teams. As each team is placing structures in a location, the number of structures and their type create an "influence" type effect on that location's power node. All nodes would take X amount of time to capture. This would be accelerated by the number and type of structures placed in a location. Once captured they would become owned by a team. After they're under the control of a specific team, the opposing side could no longer use them for powering their structures. They could still be destroyed, but only repaired by the team that owns them. If all hostile structures are destroyed in a location, it would then allow the attacking team to use a node, thus flipping it back to a Neutral state and resetting the ownership. Figuring out the rate at which the nodes are captured, and how much Influence various structures have will take a good bit of fiddling to hammer out though.
First off, I need to make something that can move entities at map-load. Sort of a per map entities override table. The reason being is there are a few maps that have power nodes in absolutely horrible places for the MvM context (E.g. Flight Control in Summit). This will let me relocate power nodes, or whatever else I need to without having to modify the levels themselves. I'll probably release this for others to take advantage of too.
The change in how nodes function that I have in mind is similar to what you suggested Magneto. My thoughts on this are essentially turning power nodes into control points....
Well you said exactly what I was thinking would be the best changes to the bloody power system. The only thing I want to add is randomized spawns might be a good thing. Marines always spawning in Departures is a rather obvious thing that I like abusing, so picking the Marine team shouldn't guarantee you a spot in the map.
I've contacted a few admins of EU servers. So far, no one has expressed any interested in hosting MvM. I'll keep trying
I have the *hack* fix for the power node griefing problem ready to go. Short term, I'm removing power node usage entirely. This is a stop gap fix. So, once I've spent the time needed on the new system, they'll make a come back.
First off, I need to make something that can move entities at map-load. Sort of a per map entities override table. The reason being is there are a few maps that have power nodes in absolutely horrible places for the MvM context (E.g. Flight Control in Summit). This will let me relocate power nodes, or whatever else I need to without having to modify the levels themselves. I'll probably release this for others to take advantage of too.
The change in how nodes function that I have in mind is similar to what you suggested Magneto. My thoughts on this are essentially turning power nodes into control points....
Well you said exactly what I was thinking would be the best changes to the bloody power system. The only thing I want to add is randomized spawns might be a good thing. Marines always spawning in Departures is a rather obvious thing that I like abusing, so picking the Marine team shouldn't guarantee you a spot in the map.
The fixed starting locations is part of the motivation behind the map entity modifying system I mentioned. I should be able to use it to tweak pretty much any entity in a level. Should being the operative word, I have yet to write the prototype so it might not be a feasible option. Assuming it does work, I could go as far as injecting new/additional entities into a level. So, for vanilla NS2 things like weldable vents could be added to levels as a mod. Time will tell.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
I didn't do any. The lame thing about the Workshop is the shader compile routine has to happen every time I make an update. I can't apply a small update to just the code. It's all or naught. I had to add about seven new shaders the game to get multi-skins to work. Sorry, wish there was something I could do about. Heh, blame Steam.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
I've contacted endar to see if he might make one his monash servers (australia) An MVM.
OH yeah, i was responding to the event of MVM being released in my previous post, not the post previous to mine. >.<
Hey, I had a blast playing this mod on team156's MvM sever! It was great! And what game balance!??!! Its like the teams are perfectly matched or something?
Anyway, I fraps'd a couple games and uploaded a few clips from them. Quality isn't NS2HD, but I was trying to keep my FPS up.
Running into that exo was such an "OH SHIT" moment!
My only comment is that I think the blue team tends to blend in much better, especially at distance.
Edit - How do I embed? Youtube's code doesn't seem to be working. Link to un-embedded version:
Apparently posting a link = embed on the new forums.
Wow, this very well has the potential to become a hugely popular mod, especially if you intend to further take it away from the base game and add new features and stuff.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
I know there are still quite a lot of annoying bugs, such as Commanders not always getting Med/Ammo requests. I'm going to be focusing on these kinds of problems for the next week or so. Hopefully, these will get hammered out in the next update.
Glad that MvM is back Do you plan on adding flags for some domination style maps?
I don't have any current plans to add gametype variations, but that's certainly possible. My entire goal behind this (aside from just learning NS2 Lua code) was "Familiar yet different". Which is why I kept the same game rules as vanilla NS2. As far as maps go I'm trying to stay away from making or modifying any levels. I didn't want to lock the mod into a specific set of maps. It "should" work on any NS2 map made. No idea about Combat levels though. I'm beginning work on a new system that should give me the ability to inject new stuff into a level and/or move existing entities around. This would make CTF or Domination type game-modes possible without needing to create whole new levels. Time will tell.
Hey, I had a blast playing this mod on team156's MvM sever! It was great! And what game balance!??!! Its like the teams are perfectly matched or something?
Nice! Good to hear people are enjoying it. That's encouraging us to make it even better! Heh, nice comment about balance I'm hoping to expand on existing gameplay mechanics and create new ones to try to add some depth since the Asymmetric aspect is now absent.
Wow, this very well has the potential to become a hugely popular mod, especially if you intend to further take it away from the base game and add new features and stuff.
I am indeed planning on adding new things. Some of which are: Infiltration Kit, EMP Grenades, Plasma ARC, Exo-Shield Variant, ECM/ECCM, and a few other things. No idea if they'll pan out to be any good or if they'll even get made. But I am thinking about new stuffs.
The biggest thing that is needed right now is a tier one splash weapon.
Currently a lot of combat early game ends up just being a large unkillable group of marines huddled around an armory in a very dumb manner. The only weapons of rifles and shotguns are not made to handle that type of situation.
Player count, what is the official number you are balancing towards? I keep asking but numbers man, numbers.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited February 2013
I'd remove the effect on players (and exos) when they're getting meds or welded that makes a blue outline appear. Really confuses combat with gold players. Or a separate gold effect.
Would remove power nodes all together as well, they don't serve a purpose.
Great mod, a lot of fun.
Is there a range set for sentries? Seems like they fire upon you from any distance and any LOS.
I released a mvm map to the workshop ns2_mvm_assault Let me know if there are any problems. I'll fix any issues as soon as possible. Hope you guys enjoy it.
How hard would be it to make an Alien vs Alien mod?
I played some MvM just now and enjoyed it, but the combat is mostly like a regular FPS.
Then I imagined what it might be like to have Skulk vs Skulk battles... and, well, I want to see it happen!
I released a mvm map to the workshop ns2_mvm_assault Let me know if there are any problems. I'll fix any issues as soon as possible. Hope you guys enjoy it.
Nice! I just had a quick run through on it. I like where that's going. One problem though, MvM uses the NS2 Resources model, so there would need to be quite a few more Res nodes added. Either way, well done. I'll most likely be adding this to the MvM server I control soon.
I should mention MvM will most likely cause problems with all other mods at the moment. In other words, be incompatible with other mods. I'll be trying to address that with the next update.
I was thinking of putting a double res in the reactor room.
Only I was not sure where to stash the power node in reactor as it might favor one team.
Otherwise I can break reactor into 2 powered areas each with a single power node to run a single res.
It's easy enough to add more res nodes.
How many would you ideally like in a map that size ?
Double res in team spawns ?
or would you prefer them more spread out. ? some in the connecting corridors ?
Res nodes only take minutes to add to a map so let me know and i'll make the changes tonight when I get home from work.
Map updated.
Can't believe I forgot to add 2nd tech points.
Here is new Map and Key. online photo sharing
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
@WorthyRival It's really up to you how you'd like your map to be done. I'm intentionally not specifying a set of custom maps or "rules" around how any of them should be done. Ideally, MvM will work on any and all maps. The only important part I can stress is how important LOS is as well as cover. Aside from that, it's fair game. For the most part, all of the rule surrounding vanilla NS2 level should apply as to MvM.
Yeah Cat-Poker, I was aware of that. At some point I'll get with Huze and sort all that out. As you said though, that's way down on the to-do list. Just take a look at the tracker in my sig to see how huge the list is. Daunting.
Oh, and for some of the people that have been messaging me and commenting on the Workshop; I have no plans to make AvA. Once I'm comfortable with where MvM is at, I'm going to be moving to some new projects for something actually new (instead of rehashing existing elements). No idea when that will be though.
Got to play 1 round on this mod last night. Was defiantly unique. My biggest complaint is how well the blue marines blended in with the background. I only got to play on docking.
Comments
One thing that would help is making the blue and yellow a little lighter, or brighter I should say. Not much brighter but just a little would help in seeing the difference in teammates vs. enemy.
I think power nodes are fine but like one poster said make them more robust. One thing to think about and if it is even possible, make damage from bullets, nades and flames less. Welders and ax do more damage. This way people have to get right on the node to take it down. This will keep teams from staying far away and just shooting the power out.
Mines should be a that one mine will kill a marine unless on A2 or A3 and if you can make them a little more transparent would help them from being shot out.
Just my $.02
Very well done mod, clean and fun to play. Thanks to all that made it happen
Playa_2b
Power can be easily trolled by team mates, had a few games where someone deliberately took it out.
Would be good if welders could convert enemy structures, perhaps as an upgrade, lots of players seem to use it as a weapon instead of the axe now you get it for free.
I definitely think being able to convert structures would add to game play.
Alas, there's nothing I can do about the lighting. Its just the way NS2's works, sadly - there's literally nothing to be done about it.
First off, I need to make something that can move entities at map-load. Sort of a per map entities override table. The reason being is there are a few maps that have power nodes in absolutely horrible places for the MvM context (E.g. Flight Control in Summit). This will let me relocate power nodes, or whatever else I need to without having to modify the levels themselves. I'll probably release this for others to take advantage of too.
The change in how nodes function that I have in mind is similar to what you suggested Magneto. My thoughts on this are essentially turning power nodes into control points. Obviously, starting locations would be under the control of the appropriate teams. As each team is placing structures in a location, the number of structures and their type create an "influence" type effect on that location's power node. All nodes would take X amount of time to capture. This would be accelerated by the number and type of structures placed in a location. Once captured they would become owned by a team. After they're under the control of a specific team, the opposing side could no longer use them for powering their structures. They could still be destroyed, but only repaired by the team that owns them. If all hostile structures are destroyed in a location, it would then allow the attacking team to use a node, thus flipping it back to a Neutral state and resetting the ownership. Figuring out the rate at which the nodes are captured, and how much Influence various structures have will take a good bit of fiddling to hammer out though.
Well you said exactly what I was thinking would be the best changes to the bloody power system. The only thing I want to add is randomized spawns might be a good thing. Marines always spawning in Departures is a rather obvious thing that I like abusing, so picking the Marine team shouldn't guarantee you a spot in the map.
I have the *hack* fix for the power node griefing problem ready to go. Short term, I'm removing power node usage entirely. This is a stop gap fix. So, once I've spent the time needed on the new system, they'll make a come back.
The fixed starting locations is part of the motivation behind the map entity modifying system I mentioned. I should be able to use it to tweak pretty much any entity in a level. Should being the operative word, I have yet to write the prototype so it might not be a feasible option. Assuming it does work, I could go as far as injecting new/additional entities into a level. So, for vanilla NS2 things like weldable vents could be added to levels as a mod. Time will tell.
Thanks for the feedback folks! It helps
OH yeah, i was responding to the event of MVM being released in my previous post, not the post previous to mine. >.<
Anyway, I fraps'd a couple games and uploaded a few clips from them. Quality isn't NS2HD, but I was trying to keep my FPS up.
Running into that exo was such an "OH SHIT" moment!
My only comment is that I think the blue team tends to blend in much better, especially at distance.
Edit - How do I embed? Youtube's code doesn't seem to be working. Link to un-embedded version:
Apparently posting a link = embed on the new forums.
I don't have any current plans to add gametype variations, but that's certainly possible. My entire goal behind this (aside from just learning NS2 Lua code) was "Familiar yet different". Which is why I kept the same game rules as vanilla NS2. As far as maps go I'm trying to stay away from making or modifying any levels. I didn't want to lock the mod into a specific set of maps. It "should" work on any NS2 map made. No idea about Combat levels though. I'm beginning work on a new system that should give me the ability to inject new stuff into a level and/or move existing entities around. This would make CTF or Domination type game-modes possible without needing to create whole new levels. Time will tell.
Nice! Good to hear people are enjoying it. That's encouraging us to make it even better! Heh, nice comment about balance
I am indeed planning on adding new things. Some of which are: Infiltration Kit, EMP Grenades, Plasma ARC, Exo-Shield Variant, ECM/ECCM, and a few other things. No idea if they'll pan out to be any good or if they'll even get made. But I am thinking about new stuffs.
Currently a lot of combat early game ends up just being a large unkillable group of marines huddled around an armory in a very dumb manner. The only weapons of rifles and shotguns are not made to handle that type of situation.
Player count, what is the official number you are balancing towards? I keep asking but numbers man, numbers.
Would remove power nodes all together as well, they don't serve a purpose.
Great mod, a lot of fun.
Is there a range set for sentries? Seems like they fire upon you from any distance and any LOS.
Sentries have a range equal to the draw distance.
I played some MvM just now and enjoyed it, but the combat is mostly like a regular FPS.
Then I imagined what it might be like to have Skulk vs Skulk battles... and, well, I want to see it happen!
No special tweaks required with the exception of adding "mvm" in the ServerConfig.json tags property. See example:
{ "settings": { "rookie_friendly": false, "end_round_on_team_unbalance": 0.5, "auto_kick_afk_time": 600, "auto_team_balance": { "enabled_on_unbalance_amount": 5, "enabled_after_seconds": 10 } }, "auto_kick_afk_capacity": 0.5 "tags": [ "mvm" ] }Also don't forget to add this mod to the MapCycle.json file, see below.
{ "mods": [ "7957667" ], "mode": "random", "maps": [ "ns2_docking", "ns2_mineshaft", "ns2_refinery", "ns2_summit", "ns2_tram", "ns2_veil" ], "time": 30 }I should mention MvM will most likely cause problems with all other mods at the moment. In other words, be incompatible with other mods. I'll be trying to address that with the next update.
Only I was not sure where to stash the power node in reactor as it might favor one team.
Otherwise I can break reactor into 2 powered areas each with a single power node to run a single res.
It's easy enough to add more res nodes.
How many would you ideally like in a map that size ?
Double res in team spawns ?
or would you prefer them more spread out. ? some in the connecting corridors ?
Res nodes only take minutes to add to a map so let me know and i'll make the changes tonight when I get home from work.
Map updated.
Can't believe I forgot to add 2nd tech points.
Here is new Map and Key.
online photo sharing
Yeah Cat-Poker, I was aware of that. At some point I'll get with Huze and sort all that out. As you said though, that's way down on the to-do list. Just take a look at the tracker in my sig to see how huge the list is. Daunting.
Oh, and for some of the people that have been messaging me and commenting on the Workshop; I have no plans to make AvA. Once I'm comfortable with where MvM is at, I'm going to be moving to some new projects for something actually new (instead of rehashing existing elements). No idea when that will be though.
Thanks for the comments folks! Keep them coming