Regarding Balance and Bugs (User Experience)
grizzlyyy
Join Date: 2012-10-09 Member: 161924Members
Join Date: 2012-10-09 Member: 161924Members
Hi I've been playing Natural Selection since 2002 when the mod first released and have loved it ever since. I would like to first state that I am very enthusiastic about NS2 and it is off to a great start. I applaud the developers. Upon playing NS2 I have noticed a few things that seem off to me. I will list my thoughts and ideas.
<u><b>Balance</b></u>
-Kharaa are able to dominate the map more easily than marines due to the fact that their buildings construct themselves and they have a higher rate of movement speed.
-Since recent update skulks seem glitchy and appear to run faster or dodge more easily.
-Since the Kharaa's buildings automatically build by themselves without any players influencing the building then why don't marines? It was more balanced when gorges had to build hives, nodes and other buildings. If kept the same as it is now then marine buildings should construct themselves just as aliens do. I mean heck, you would think space marines would have that technology let alone primitive alien beasts. Also the Kharaa don't need power nodes to operate their resource towers. Just a creep node near it that the commander can drop at his leisure. It seems unfair that marines have to walk around and repair a power node that takes a considerably long time to repair just to get up and running again.
-Onos have too much health/armor and damage. The onos has 1300 hp with 1000 armor and does 200 damage per hit. The marine exoskeleton has 0 hp and 750 armor if upgrades are maxed. The damage is ranged and more frequent at a lesser rate. This being the case. Either Onos needs to have it's hit points reduced or Exoskeletons need to have more armor, higher damage output, higher mobility such as when pressing shift thrusters on the back propel you forward kind of like a sprint or some sort of combination of the three.
-Since Kharaa do more damage to an enemy with their back facing them; marines should get a damage bonus as well. Such as head shots doing more damage then body shots. Right now it is even damage no matter where you hit them. Like there is just 1 giant hit box.
-The arc cannons seem fairly useless. I believe you had it right in NS1 when you had stationary siege cannons. It's too easy for the arc tanks to get picked off on the way to a target. Not only that but they move very slowly and clumsily, often getting stuck on a lot of textures.
-Marine sentry turrets need to be buffed or have a more broad range of detection. It is literally worthless to put them up because there is always a way around them. They feel flimsy.
-I've noticed that when using jetpacks that if you're still in the air and not holding spacebar the jetpack energy doesn't regenerate. It only regenerates when you're on the ground. I feel that even if you're falling/floating though the air and not propelling your jetpack; that it should refill the jetpack energy bar because you're not using it. This would allow for more mobility and better maneuverability with marines.
-Kharaa seem to have the ability to tech a lot faster then marines do. Regardless of commander skill level or approach.
-Marines should be able to weld shut open vents like they could in NS1. Nanogrid vents for instance.
<u><b>Bugs/Performance</b></u>
-Game stutters a lot around alien creep and intense battles. It feels especially sluggish when getting attacked by a skulk and you're trying to maneuver and kill it.
-Possibly memory leak issues? Seems like game performance degrades after a certain amount of playtime.
-Overall engine optimization
-Marines can hop over objects in the map that are taller than sentry turret's but they can't hop over sentry turret's.
-Optimize server browser.
-Add more console commands that enable the user to edit variables such as HDR, other graphical options, and net rates.
-Servers currently run at 30 tic? What's that about? They should be 66 tic at minimum and preferably 100 tic. This is probably part of the stuttering players are encountering.
-When playing as marine commander; trying to place a building up against the side of a wall results in the building being clipped into the ceiling.
- When using marine melee weapon you have to crouch to hit anything below your waste. You can't hit anything smaller than you while standing up.
That's it for now. I may update it as I play some more and find more issues. These are my opinions and I would appreciate legitimate feedback instead of trolling. Hopefully some of you agree with me and the developers consider changes. Please feel free to post anything you feel needs to be balanced or any bugs you may encounter as well. Hopefully we can get a master list going.
<u><b>Balance</b></u>
-Kharaa are able to dominate the map more easily than marines due to the fact that their buildings construct themselves and they have a higher rate of movement speed.
-Since recent update skulks seem glitchy and appear to run faster or dodge more easily.
-Since the Kharaa's buildings automatically build by themselves without any players influencing the building then why don't marines? It was more balanced when gorges had to build hives, nodes and other buildings. If kept the same as it is now then marine buildings should construct themselves just as aliens do. I mean heck, you would think space marines would have that technology let alone primitive alien beasts. Also the Kharaa don't need power nodes to operate their resource towers. Just a creep node near it that the commander can drop at his leisure. It seems unfair that marines have to walk around and repair a power node that takes a considerably long time to repair just to get up and running again.
-Onos have too much health/armor and damage. The onos has 1300 hp with 1000 armor and does 200 damage per hit. The marine exoskeleton has 0 hp and 750 armor if upgrades are maxed. The damage is ranged and more frequent at a lesser rate. This being the case. Either Onos needs to have it's hit points reduced or Exoskeletons need to have more armor, higher damage output, higher mobility such as when pressing shift thrusters on the back propel you forward kind of like a sprint or some sort of combination of the three.
-Since Kharaa do more damage to an enemy with their back facing them; marines should get a damage bonus as well. Such as head shots doing more damage then body shots. Right now it is even damage no matter where you hit them. Like there is just 1 giant hit box.
-The arc cannons seem fairly useless. I believe you had it right in NS1 when you had stationary siege cannons. It's too easy for the arc tanks to get picked off on the way to a target. Not only that but they move very slowly and clumsily, often getting stuck on a lot of textures.
-Marine sentry turrets need to be buffed or have a more broad range of detection. It is literally worthless to put them up because there is always a way around them. They feel flimsy.
-I've noticed that when using jetpacks that if you're still in the air and not holding spacebar the jetpack energy doesn't regenerate. It only regenerates when you're on the ground. I feel that even if you're falling/floating though the air and not propelling your jetpack; that it should refill the jetpack energy bar because you're not using it. This would allow for more mobility and better maneuverability with marines.
-Kharaa seem to have the ability to tech a lot faster then marines do. Regardless of commander skill level or approach.
-Marines should be able to weld shut open vents like they could in NS1. Nanogrid vents for instance.
<u><b>Bugs/Performance</b></u>
-Game stutters a lot around alien creep and intense battles. It feels especially sluggish when getting attacked by a skulk and you're trying to maneuver and kill it.
-Possibly memory leak issues? Seems like game performance degrades after a certain amount of playtime.
-Overall engine optimization
-Marines can hop over objects in the map that are taller than sentry turret's but they can't hop over sentry turret's.
-Optimize server browser.
-Add more console commands that enable the user to edit variables such as HDR, other graphical options, and net rates.
-Servers currently run at 30 tic? What's that about? They should be 66 tic at minimum and preferably 100 tic. This is probably part of the stuttering players are encountering.
-When playing as marine commander; trying to place a building up against the side of a wall results in the building being clipped into the ceiling.
- When using marine melee weapon you have to crouch to hit anything below your waste. You can't hit anything smaller than you while standing up.
That's it for now. I may update it as I play some more and find more issues. These are my opinions and I would appreciate legitimate feedback instead of trolling. Hopefully some of you agree with me and the developers consider changes. Please feel free to post anything you feel needs to be balanced or any bugs you may encounter as well. Hopefully we can get a master list going.
Comments
What he said.
Obviously you don't read before you post a reply. Grenade launchers are in no form or way OP. If you want we can make it back like the beta and have them attached to LMG's and blow up on impact. That's what I thought... I didn't say make turrets "really strong", I said to make them better than they already are. Right now you can't defend the turret battery and the area you're trying to defend with them. It's either one or the other. Also, I never stated that what aliens can do must be a glitch... I said Skulk's movement feels glitchy and unbalanced to a defending marine. Please get your facts straight. Play alien for once? I've been playing Natural Selection since it's release in 2002. I've been playing this game longer then you're entire gaming career most likely. Please sound more like a noob. And it's Skulks not Skalks. Actually know a game before you decide to talk about it. And that goes for anyone else who has only just started playing the NS series since NS2's release... You know nothing of the game and where it came from.
Jetpacks could use a buff, they have enough energy and they don't need a quicker regen as you mentioned. But they could use a stronger uplift thrust like they had in NS1, now they feel a big slow on the take-off part.
The onos has a lot of armor, and yes it has more dmg then a Exo as well.. but that's because the onos HAS to be in melee range. You know how much damage marines can already do to a onos while it's charging in? Especially if atleast 1 exo is already unleashing its fury upon that onos. Yes, a onos will destroy a exo 1vs1 once it's in melee range, but this doesn't change the fact that marines still have all their ranged goodies to counter the problem. Surely they need some tweaking here and there once the game is balancing out ( new players learning the game better ), but I have no doubt UWE will have a close look at gameplay balance at all times.
Needless to say engine optimisation, server performance or any other performance related isues are things that UWE is constantly monitoring and looking at, this is just one of the hardest things to tackle.
And final, you asked people not to troll or grief about your topic yet you got frustrated with NomTheBomb because he didn't agree with you. He was expressing his opinions and gave valid points as well.. talk about hypocrits :o
But he didn't... He put words in my mouth and made it appear I meant something that I clearly did not.
So your way of solving it was assumptions and consistent battering on me because I put an a instead of a u? Very mature considering you've APPARENTLY been playing before I even started! I'm going to end this by saying this.... Frankly, I don't give a damn!
Marines just need to rush a Phase Gate and take over some key room and they win pretty easy.
-Maybe you are comparing Celerity skulks versus skulks without Celerity? speed upgrade. ;)
-Marine commander can build a MAC that build and heal structures, Try gettin that unit sometime.
The MAC is very useful when your teamates is to far away fighting ugly skulks.
-Onos does not have to much health, They die like butter against Jetpack users that know what they are doing.
Onos is a very large target and it is pretty hard not to hit an onos heh..
-Marine and Aliens do not need to have the same exact advantages because then the game would become a mainstream ###### game, 'Boo Aliens can do something that Marines can't' :( ..
When will aliens get a grenade launcher that clears a whole room in some seconds?
-The Arc Cannons is anything but useless.
Yes they are not that useful alone, But use 10+ Arcs at once and you will see how overpowered they are..
They can oneshot hives thru walls if you scan :s Can Aliens oneshot the command center with some mobile ion cannons? ^^
-The Marine Turrets is only there for a minor protection against lonely skulks or something like that,
The Turrets can do devastating damage sometimes..
3 turrets vs 1 dumb skulk is gg ^^ The thing with turrets is that they can not turn 360,
So you have to place them so that they all face eachother so that they can always target something.
-Jetpack marines can kill onoses alone, There is nothing wrong with the current Jetpacks in my opinion.
-Kharaa can only tech if the marines let them have more than one hive, And if the marines kill hive nr 2-3 then the Kharaa will become useless because everything gets disabled,
Marine and Alien is not the same race and they should not be treated as the same kind of team.. That would once again make it a ###### one direction mainstream game.
-Marines will be able to weld doors in some near future, It has been approved.
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-You can turn down infestation to minimal setting if you are having problem with it.
I have no problem at all, But I use minimal anyway because the infestation is just in the way =p
-No Idea if it has memory leak? I have no problem
-Overall engine optimization? not your computer that can't handle the game? =p
-They will probably come out with more commands when they have fixed all that need to be fixed.
-I am having no problem at all with 30 tic, The game feels like any other fps game that I play. 30 tic is smooth.
-Commanders place stuff in the ceiling because they don't know the map and therefore they put the structures up on other objects. It should not be possible to do that but that is how it works ^^
-Yes sometimes it is very stupid that you have to duck to hit things on the floor, But I can see that you need to sit when you are standing up with a cyst down at your feet.. The melee weapon have a melee range, you can't slash things to far away.
Onos are too strong as well. They easily out perform an Exosuit with Duals. They can tank 100% of the damage any single exosuit puts out, kill it, and then retreat to safety with ease. If an exosuit and Onos are both being properly supported, the Onos wins every time. Looking at the numbers, it isn't hard to see why either. If the Onos gets nerfed slightly, then the rest of the Aliens could be moved up a bit so that the Alien's only way to win isn't an Onos.
Honestly, I think Onos should only be available with two hives and after they are teched, that way you can't end up with stupid things like a 5 minute Onos (it happens more than you think).
As far as Marines are concerned, Make bile bomb reduce structural healing by a certain % to deal with the "turtle marine" issue, and tone the damage of the shotty down a little bit when you have W3 researched. Give the Flamer a real purpose, such as ignited enemies can't be healed until they stop burning. Burning lurk gas is too situational and the energy drain is worthless when something is already in your face because your using a flamethrower...
I'd start with the performance issue though, as it's really aggravating to have to run this game in 600x800 all low settings when I can run games like Crysis on med-high settings.