Combat Mode Relaunch

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  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    edited September 2012
    Allright guys now is the time! we are uploading Combat mode on steam workshop and we are gonna have a playtest today @9:00pm Stockholm time.
    You guys should connect to the server and it will auto download the mod and maps, so no need to do anything else.
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    edited September 2012
    Alright guys, here is the lowdown. Combat Mode is now on Steam Workshop. To play the game as a normal player you don't need to do anything except find a Combat server...

    A little guide to running a server on Steam Workshop follows:

    <ol type='1'><li>Visit <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/" target="_blank">Steam Workshop</a> in your browser and log in at the top right</li><li>Subscribe to the mod collection. You can do this by following <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=82684884" target="_blank">this link</a> and subscribing to all. You'll get some maps to play with included too. Or you can just choose 'Combat Mode' there if you just want to test it on the regular maps.</li><li>Copy the aforementioned Workshop folder to your server to the same location.</li><li>On the server: Go to your c:\users\<you>\appdata\Roaming\Natural Selection 2\Workshop in windows explorer.
    <strike></li><li>Browse through each of the folders until you find the one with Combat Mode in it. Note down the mod id - e.g. on my machine it is m<b>5f35045</b>_1348944712 - The mod id is the part just after the 'm' and before the underscore.</li><li>The Combat mode maps will be scattered across the list in Workshop too. Note them down!</strike></li><li>The mod IDs don't seem to change from system to system so you should be good to use the ones below:</li><li>Start your server with the following: <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->server.exe -config_path "C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2\combat" -modstorage "C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2\Workshop" -mods "5f35045 55e90a3 4d41f11 4fd7fd4 57c685f 57f5f9a" -map ns2_chuteout -name "Combat Mode Server"<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
    You may need to change the mods to match the ones in your workshop folder. I don't know if they vary from system to system.</li><li>Edit: No need to remove the consistency check, see Max's reply below.
    <strike>Close down your server so we can edit the config files.</li><li>Edit the ConsistencyCheck.json file in C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2\combat. You need to replace the "check" line with this: <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->  "check": [  ]<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
    </strike></li><li>Start the server again. You're now up and running with Combat Mode!</li></ol>

    Let me know if you run into any problems...
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    Just in case you come across an error like:

    <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->Finished loading 'maps/ns2_pulsecombat.level'
    Client connecting (93.96.179.76)
    Client disconnected (93.96.179.76) Missing required mod<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

    Follow these steps to fix it:
    <ol type='1'><li>Delete your 'workshop' folder on your own PC. Don't worry - Spark will redownload everything when you launch NS2.</li><li>Launch NS2 and let it redownload everything</li><li>Delete the workshop folder on the server</li><li>Upload your files to the server</li></ol>

    Et voila!
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    We've published a couple of small fixes to the workshop today. I hope they will address the spawning issues that people have been reporting and also issues with missing tooltip text - I can't test them myself because of a bug with 'downloading mods' affecting my client, but in theory they should stop the server crashes people have reported.
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited September 2012
    I guess the servers aren't updated yet, I couldn't get into a combat server.
    (Something about server running an outdated version of the mod)

    Nvm, found one that let me in. I think a lot of players don't know you can just join a server and play to be honest, (autodownload), should probably make that clear in the server name for now?
  • Squirreli_Squirreli_ Join Date: 2012-04-25 Member: 151046Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Great work guys.

    Since we (Team Exertus) happen to have a mostly-empty high-performance public server available, we ran Combat last night for hours. Was really fun, and the mod is really good for lifeform practice. There are some imbalances and annoying features of course, but I'm sure the mod will get better.

    For now, we will probably keep the server running Combat, since obviously there was demand for a good Combat server; All the 16 slots filled up. The server's name is something like "Cold-blooded Gorges COMBAT".

    Ps. I tried to get my streaming configs working and did a test cast of me playing combat for two and a half hours. It can be found at <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/squirreli/b/334025175" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/squirreli/b/334025175</a>, in case someone would like to watch poor A/V quality gameplay with mumble chatter in finnish ;)
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I think I played on this server for a bit yesteday, ran great but I believe it did crash in the end (Around 12.20 AM GMT). May want to look into that.

    Really enjoying this mod, it's great practice indeed, and already hugely popular it seems.
  • Squirreli_Squirreli_ Join Date: 2012-04-25 Member: 151046Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited October 2012
    <!--quoteo(post=1985519:date=Oct 1 2012, 01:19 PM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Oct 1 2012, 01:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985519"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think I played on this server for a bit yesteday, ran great but I believe it did crash in the end (Around 12.20 AM GMT). May want to look into that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    The mod is not completely stable yet, it seems. Seems to crash from time to time, but as long as there are admins playing, we'll keep restarting the server as necessary. Just open console and hit 'retry' until the server is back up ;)

    We weren't able to save logs of those crashes for the makers of this mod, but will hope to do so in the future. There is not much else we can do as server admins. However, crashing seemed to be somewhat related to maps. We spent most of our time on Summitcombat as that was the most stable. Some thoughts on our last nights games:

    Summitcombat seemed best suited for NS2 of all the maps, and didn't appear to have map-specific problems. We spent most of our time on this map and in 3-4 hours got about 3 crash events, where at least twice server crashed and at least once ~ 6 players out of ~ 8 marines had a client side crash. Some of the areas could be a bit more skulk friendly... The long corridors seem to force the initial contact into pipe junction and data core areas, since those are the ones defensible by unupgraded skulks. I perhaps would like to see less corridors and more rooms. Still, the best map of the bunch and worked really well ;)

    Faceoff port was way too tight for NS2 and whenever there was any central combat, everyone was getting assist points for it. Spawncamping way too easy due to small size. Especially egg killing was problematic. Didn't play for long and I don't think we got any crashes. Marines get stuck on marinestart grilled floor (near CC), which is annoying.

    Pulse seemed to cause unnecessarily much crashes, but without logs it's hard to know for sure. We didn't play for long due to the crashes. Alien hive is way too easy to spawncamp, and the game seemed to devolve into an easter egg hunt pretty soon. The alien hive at least seems to need some work. Liked the map otherwise.

    PS. I have played NS2 Combat for maybe 5 hours now, so all these opinions are pretty preliminary!
  • Squirreli_Squirreli_ Join Date: 2012-04-25 Member: 151046Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Cold-blooded Gorges Combat <!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro--><b>server up</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> at: arc.q-q.name:27032

    Provided by Team Exertus. Admins can be reached via IRC in Quakenet #exertus.
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    In regards to the mod itself, nutrient mist seems like a very lacklustre upgrade. I also didn't really understand what the 'ink cloud' does (you may want to revisit the description). And I guess focus isn't in? Thought I read something about that from earlier builds.

    Lastly, a lot of players didn't immediately understand how they could get leap, or blink and other abilities. I suppose this problem stems from them never having played as a commander and thus never having put any thought in the underlying RTS dynamics of classic NS 2. It would probably be a good idea to rename '2 hive and 3 hive' to 'second tier ability' and 'third tier ability', or something like that.
    (An alternative could be listing all the alien second tier abilities on the upgrade instead)
  • TechercizerTechercizer 7th Player Join Date: 2011-06-11 Member: 103832Members
    Is there a list somewhere of every purchase and what it does? I played for a few minutes today, and while upgrades like wpn1 and sg were very intuitive, ones like resupply and scan were not.

    Had a great time while I was in though. Didn't experience any bugs.
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1985698:date=Oct 1 2012, 05:29 PM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Oct 1 2012, 05:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985698"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In regards to the mod itself, nutrient mist seems like a very lacklustre upgrade. I also didn't really understand what the 'ink cloud' does (you may want to revisit the description). And I guess focus isn't in? Thought I read something about that from earlier builds.

    Lastly, a lot of players didn't immediately understand how they could get leap, or blink and other abilities. I suppose this problem stems from them never having played as a commander and thus never having put any thought in the underlying RTS dynamics of classic NS 2. It would probably be a good idea to rename '2 hive and 3 hive' to 'second tier ability' and 'third tier ability', or something like that.
    (An alternative could be listing all the alien second tier abilities on the upgrade instead)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    thanks for the feedback! focus is there as an upgrade, its the icon with 2 eyes.
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Aha, so I guess it's just an unupdated tooltip then. Will definitely check focus out.
  • NominousNominous Baltimore, MD Join Date: 2012-02-18 Member: 146518Members
    Played for the first time today and it was a lot of fun. :) A bug I noticed was silence sometimes not sticking upon respawn for the skulk and lerk. Bite and spike sound effects would still be heard while parasiting, walking, flying, etc were still silent. I don't know whether marines were able to hear the bugs, though. I also got stuck on geometry in summit as fade and, funnily enough, a JPer got stuck momentarily near my spot. It was the circular pillar with railings in one of the back corridors. I've gotten stuck in similar places on other maps, so I guess there's not much to be done about it.

    Balance is pretty tight. The addition of focus is cool, but after trying it out as skulk, I'd much rather fight without it. It's hard for me to land focus bites since the intervals between getting within melee range differ greatly due to dodging. With the shorter interval between normal bites, I'm much more likely to land hits. I'm sure that someone who has mastered focus may use it to great effect, although I don't have any statistics concerning marine armor.
  • SkieSkie Skulk Progenitor Join Date: 2003-10-18 Member: 21766Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    The exp values for killing tougher targets could be adjusted. It's disappointing to see 90 exp for a difficult fade kill but killing a well upgraded skulk gives 110 with just one shotgun blast. Onii-chans are very difficult to kill compared to how much exp they give. Same for exos.

    For some reason I feel like the draw damage numbers are way off (doubled?). Parasiting a marine shows -20, and I've had 600 damage on fades and no kill. I know there's hitreg issues because the damage numbers are clientside, but still.

    Noticed a bug, that sometimes your chamber upgrades disappear as alien. I think it happened when reaching max exp.

    co_summit was good fun.
  • douchebagatrondouchebagatron Custom member title Join Date: 2003-12-20 Member: 24581Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    any ETA on getting the GUI into the workshop? I know at one point it was working.
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've made a couple of notes and I'll try and address some of the balance and upgrade description issues this week.

    Bug #1 for me is still whatever is causing these crashes - I think we've removed a few of the crash bugs which is why it's much more stable than at the weekend, but sorry to hear that there are still some issues. So far, I've pinned it down to something to do with removing spawn protect for a player that's already dead. In theory, if we fix spawn protection for aliens so that it actually works 100% I think the bug may go away. If any server operators have any logs or clues at all, please post them here so I can take a look!

    Unfortunately, getting all these things done is made more difficult by the fact that I can't get into a game at the moment. Build 221 has completely messed up my client and I can't even run a local server right now (it freezes with max cpu usage on "Downloading mods")... I'm doing what I can from looking at server logs and from my knowledge of the code. Hopefully Build 222 will fix my issues and we'll be back into full swing!
  • Squirreli_Squirreli_ Join Date: 2012-04-25 Member: 151046Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1985994:date=Oct 2 2012, 08:44 AM:name=MCMLXXXIV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MCMLXXXIV @ Oct 2 2012, 08:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985994"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If any server operators have any logs or clues at all, please post them here so I can take a look!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Saved some logs from yesterday... I've got a short log that looks like a crash (although I don't know for a fact), and then I've got a 26MB no-crash log (zipped 300kB) from a few hours play. Both from yesterday. Where do you want them? Email?

    (Tried to send the same message as a PM, but the message just disappeared and when trying to resend, it wouldn't allow new PMs to be sent until a time limit. The forum's PM functionality didn't convince me, to put it mildly ;)
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I think you will probably have to do something about the 'endgame' turning into a big onos vs exo fest, most players I talked to agreed the game becomes pretty dull at that point, given that neither the onos or the exo take much skill or even thought to play. (And they have a tendency to turn the game into a big stalemate) Perhaps they should be hardcapped so that only a few can be on the field at the same time? That way you could retain somewhat of a balanced team make-up instead of the usual 5 - 6 players all going onos and just running head-first into the marine's 5 - 6 exos.

    In regards to maps, summit's definitely fun although it probably makes it a little too easy that you spawn right at the hive/CC, perhaps spawning close to it instead would alleviate this issue somewhat.
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    imho as most of the combat servers are running 16 player slots hardcapping it to max of 2 exos/oni per team isnt such a bad idea, maybe have it so that when u lose the onos/exo you wont be able to upgrade to it for 1-2m to give a chance for other players to get one.
  • Squirreli_Squirreli_ Join Date: 2012-04-25 Member: 151046Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    One way to deal with the oni/exos is to make them significantly more expensive. Right now it is an trivially easy choice to save for onos/exo, as you get so much more for your points. Upping onos cost to 6 and exo costs to 5 and 6 (possibly lowering minimum armour level to 1) would make players think real hard about whether to save for an end-game tool or to go crazy with the upgrades that are available right there and then. If also the assist points mechanic would be toned down a little or the level cost progression was faster, it would be harder to save all those levels with just minimal gear.
  • AlignAlign Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
    Yeah the lifeform/HA/JP costs never made any sense in combat mode to me. 2 points to upgrade armor and get 40 more armor, or 2 points to get HA = 200 more armor...
    Much the same for lifeforms. Only reason not to get them is "I don't want to play as x right now", as opposed to "x is equally good but doesn't suit my playstyle".
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    Okay.. it looks like the crash errors that Team Exertus have been seeing are related to Exo Suits buying Catalyst packs... I've made the two mutually exclusive now so that should solve that one.

    Exo and Onos cost 5 now, and the dual minigun exo costs 6. Hopefully that will put enough people off saving up for them as you need to put yourself at a major disadvantage to go there! In the long term I think hard-capping each team to a maximum 2 of each with a cooldown timer should make the game more interesting. Once I can actually run the client again (build 222, fingers crossed) I can work on this game mechanic. Until then I'm only making minor changes to address easy to resolve issues as I can't test my own code out!

    I'll ask Jibrail to run a quick test of the new code tonight. I've created a Development workshop mod that we can use to test these changes out easily without people having to download the new version from GitHub. If they're good I'll publish a new version of the main mod to the workshop tonight and we can run another playtest.
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    We have a playtest in 30m 22:30PM stockholm time, we have a new version up on steam workshop so server operators make sure you update.
  • SkieSkie Skulk Progenitor Join Date: 2003-10-18 Member: 21766Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    Making onos and exo more expensive just opens them a bit later in the game atm. You can just go to RR and then join back to your team to reset your upgrade points. So saving up as a concept doesn't really work because it can be circumvented.
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1986295:date=Oct 2 2012, 10:12 PM:name=Skie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skie @ Oct 2 2012, 10:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1986295"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Making onos and exo more expensive just opens them a bit later in the game atm. You can just go to RR and then join back to your team to reset your upgrade points. So saving up as a concept doesn't really work because it can be circumvented.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    In the long term I think that hard-capping each team to a maximum of 2 onos/exo players with a cooldown timer per-player so that you have to spend some time with the other upgrades, Planetside 2 style, should make the game more interesting. What do you think of this approach?
  • SkieSkie Skulk Progenitor Join Date: 2003-10-18 Member: 21766Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1986299:date=Oct 3 2012, 12:23 AM:name=MCMLXXXIV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MCMLXXXIV @ Oct 3 2012, 12:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1986299"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In the long term I think that hard-capping each team to a maximum of 2 onos/exo players with a cooldown timer per-player so that you have to spend some time with the other upgrades, Planetside 2 style, should make the game more interesting. What do you think of this approach?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    I guess that could work... But then the guys who are on a timer will be running around with less upgrades for a while, unless they can undo some so they can go onos/exo later again if they decide to take some other upgrades for a short time.
  • Rudy.czRudy.cz Join Date: 2012-02-13 Member: 145410Members
    edited October 2012
    Just quick suggestion. I think destroyed powernodes (except the alien one) should slowly repair over time (~2 min ?). In the heat of battle nobody has time to repair them, but the shutdown lights could get annoying after some time . It also destroys the the artistic intentions of level designer :)
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    yeah I don't know what to feel about the power nodes I though it added to the game but now I see that many people are getting annoyed by it, I don't like the idea of auto repair I mean why would one team work for it while the other dosnt?
  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    I said at that start not to add powernodes :P

    I really think they break the game, just leave power on with no power nodes at all :D
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