<!--quoteo(post=2016345:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:27 AM:name=hate)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hate @ Nov 9 2012, 03:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016345"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->He didn't say it should've been fixed, he said we haven't heard anything about them even TRYING to fix it. Which is true.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> We've communicated very openly with the community about fixes to a variety of problems that we've been working on since release, and already put out one patch to fix some major issues. Since release we fixed issues that people were having with the game crashing while loading, we've been working on server memory leak issues, creating better profiling tools to go out with the next patch to better track down those leaks, trying to fix the red plug server disconnects that are actually caused by multiple problems, working on speeding up loading times, fixing a whole variety of bugs and planning out the future of NS2 in regards to new content, new gameplay features, and optimizations and general improvements. And that doesn't even cover everything. So, yeah, we worked like crazy to get the game done in time for release, and now are working hard to improve and fix it, with pretty much no break.
We aren't out there talking about every issue that people want fixed with the game, because we simply can't fix every issue people have with the game all at once. <!--quoteo(post=2016389:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:54 AM:name=Mkilbride)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mkilbride @ Nov 9 2012, 03:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016389"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I ###### hate Twitter. I refuse to use it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Lucky for you the twitter messages show up right there in game. <!--quoteo(post=2016315:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:02 AM:name=Scubbo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scubbo @ Nov 9 2012, 03:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016315"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->first impressions do last, but UWE has the money already so why should they care :) end of the day its a money maker, less people to support the cheaper the upkeep, i'll go now ;p<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> We care very much. People assume that we suddenly have a lot more money then we actually do (running a company is a lot more expensive then many people think), but no matter how much money comes in, we are still very dedicated to NS2 and and future projects at Unknown Worlds. Even if we suddenly became Donald Trump overnight, I'm pretty sure we'd still be banging away on making NS2 better, since that is what we love doing.
And finally, in regards to the OP, we are going to be continuing to improve performance, as many people can attest to from the improvements made over the course of the development. But it seems like you have many issues with the overall core design, such as having an Alien commander, that are what NS2 is now. If those are really going to keep you from enjoying the game, it is unfortunate, but luckily for you there is an NS2:Classic mod that turns the game into NS1.
The darkness issue has seriously got to be your monitor. NS1 was way darker than NS2 ever was. I'm sorry to hear you want a refund already from these problems, because NS 1.0 was so flawlessly perfect that it never needed changes ever in balance and gameplay, right?
Seriously, just give it a little time. UWE is not a company that would just up and leave their game with problems.
It would help if you could end off with a bullet list of your complaints or something.
For the parts I did read:
Quite a few people complain about how the alien commander takes away that unique aspect of the alien team, and makes the two teams more alike. To that I say: ###### off. You are complaining because the teams are too symmetrical? Really? I'm sure you can see why that is not a valid complaint, in any universe or dimension.
Performance is a problem, a very big one. Most beta players knew that it would be form day one. Luckily (?) I am not the kind of person who notices performance issues, as I play on a laptop in all games I play, however I know there are those who view 50 FPS as unplayable, and if they spend the money making their machines beast, then they are right.
This just seems to be a post from someone who took a punt on an indie game and didnt like it. Why the epic moan?
I hate cod but I dont email them every time about their epic rehashes of the last six games with new skins on and charge £50.
I took a risk in buying the deluxe pre-release game before a single line of code had been written and you know what... best money I spent on a game.
450hrs in alpha and beta and loved every second, yes the game isnt a triple a title, its built to be easily modded hence the dodgy performace as most of the logic is written in lua.
Stop writing epic moans, play the game for a bit and if you still dont enjoy it uninstall and move on.
I'm thinking about uninstalling, honestly. I just played the worst game ever. I spent seemingly the whole game saving up for Fade and waiting for the commander to research upgrades that benefit a Fade (This is one of the reasons Fades suck, because Commanders don't accommodate them. They'd rather accommodate Skulks to keep them viable or prepare for their reliance on Onos instead.) only to get two-shot by a Marine... a Marine who shrugged off my damage because he had armor upgrades. 50 personal resource gone with two clicks from the enemy. If I had killed him, what would have been the inconvenience? 20 personal resources if he didn't just walk back and pick his gun up? Sigh.
We had the Marines backed up to one spot and yet couldn't win the game. Why? They all sat on armories spamming grenades down the two pathetic shafts leading to their base. Then, all it took was one jetpacker dancing around the hive to distract our team long enough for them to push out. The amount of effort required to take out a jetpacker is just sad. I might make a thread later explaining my reasoning if I do uninstall. I'm increasingly disappointed with this game day by day. I really want to like it, but so much ###### angers me about it. I only like playing Alien because I hate the monotonous Marine gameplay, so it's a constant downer.
Fades might not be the powerhouses they used to be, but if you lose to marines that are turtling in their base then that's just alien incompetence. One jetpacker bringing the whole team back? That's just a shamefur dispray for the aliens.
These exact things this happened in early NS1 as well but it was eventually balanced quite well and such case of extreme turtling became very rare. It's silly to think the game is 100% with no changed to be made and just give up on it, this isn't a damn generic "fire and forget" console game. As some beta testers used to comment: "Balance seems off in this build, I'll wait for the next patch."
The solution is dont evolve untill the upgrades are in, I wont go lerk unless I get the things I need. I certainly wouldnt go fade without blink.
Keep at it, once more people learn to play the better it is.
Currenlty with the new players its nothing like it was with the beta guys, this game needs communication and its something a lot of people arnt getting.
I was playing with a bad aliens team yesterday, I got on voice comms, and coordianted attacks.. we won.
In terms of the marines backed up to one spot, just go for the power node. The power node can be quickly eaten by a few aliens while everyone else is fighting. Once the power node is down there goes the infantry portals, phase gates and observatory. Pretty much an instant win.
I can't understand these people complaining that sequel of the game is different than the last one, i just don't get it ??
let's get over some facts here, remade version of previous title is just plain BAD idea, for a sole reason, why make something when it already exists ? it's like re-inventing a wheel, We invented this round thing that makes carts move !! how proud are we, oh wait, it's a wheel.
Keep in mind, that this game is new product and a new ideas, it takes months if not years to perfect the game.
when sequel comes, it's supposed to be new game with new features, if you don't like it, you can go back play ns1 always.
i love new things that is in NS2, powernodes, alien com, base sites etc. Biggest problem people do is that they compare this game to NS1, it's actually biggest mistake everyone does when compares sequel to it's prequel, you just don't do this, remember that this is a new game, it needs a lot of balancing, anyone remember NS1 when it first came out ? compare THAT to ns1 we now have, they are totally different games.
I, for one, would been dissapointed to this game if it was identical copy of NS1, it would have not provided anything new and exiting, why i want to buy ns1 when i already have it ? imagine if all finalfantasies we're identical to last title, that would been sucky.
now that being said, NS2 does have some serious balance issues, and i trust and hope they're going to fix them.
Doesn't one of our most vocal community members (Thempage?) have a serious beef with NS1 vets and their troubled perceptions on what a sequel should be (and the game itself).
<!--quoteo(post=2016760:date=Nov 9 2012, 09:46 PM:name=MuckyMcFly)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MuckyMcFly @ Nov 9 2012, 09:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016760"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Real fans would've bought into to the beta and helped test and balance the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Real fans <b>did</b> buy into the beta, help test and balance, and brought up the inherent problems with alien kham and powernodes. They are flawed concepts, but for better or worse here to stay. We've come to accept that as a fact of life.
As for tres weapons, they might as well not exist. They were initially implemented in order for commanders to have <b>pres sinks</b> because they accrued pres just like everyone else. The tres system was then tweaked (1res per 8, now 7 secs as opposed to 4+rfk in ns1) to work within the budget of everything <b>but</b> equipment drops. So now we have tres equipment with huge opportunity costs within a tres system that also fundamentally has no room for it. Basically, poor design oversight for whatever reason.
The flamethrower might as well not exist either. Even if it was free, it does more harm than it does good with all that vision block and loss of dps. Energy sap is trivial, the dot is trivial, and it has a very small cone of aoe. Ironically, burning away spores causes more vision block than otherwise and I'd rather have a welder on me to kill cysts.
Performance is a big issue, UWE knows it, and there's no reason to keep harping on about it imo OP.
The only valid criticism is the performance. UWE did always promise that NS2 performance will be similar to, I think it was Half Life 2??? People voicing their concern were always put off by fanboys that it's only an alpha/beta.
Here we are at release day with the system requirements increased and the game can still only be fully enjoyed on High-End hardware (or lets say, high-end CPU)! I have not a single doubt that better performance alone would have had a serious impact on popularity. I fear the game will soon have mediocre player numbers because most people simply cannot really get a fluid game going. And yeah, first impressions count.
Oh and with fluid I mean constant 60 fps, even in lategame combat.
I decided to uninstall. I'm done with this game. I'd be surprised if the people who produced this were the same people who worked on the original mod. It's a complete joke both for balance and optimization. The Marines are boring to play, and the Aliens are just horribly constructed. Every game is the same thing. The Aliens take the mass of the map and have to play passively until they can rush Onos. This leads to commanders bypassing upgrades that would make Fades viable picks at the time, which are trash compared to their NS1 counterpart. Then, all the Marines do is turtle heavily while slinging grenades next to an armory.
Alien games are either lost or won by cheesing. You know? Backdooring when the Marines go all-in, skulk-rushing, or fast Onos for example? Win a game against equally-skilled opponents by outplaying them fair and square? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Aliens have to control the entire map to stay viable, yet the entire Marine team turtling in one spot for the entire game is perfectly okay. Annnd, despite not needing to control the map to be viable, there's nothing stopping Marines from walking through a Phase Gate and instantly appearing on the other side of the map. Meanwhile, Aliens? Hive Teleport? Nah. We could have given that to the Gorge, but nah. A team that needs to control the map to be viable able to teleport about to defend their installations? Outrageous!
None of the aliens scale for the risk they take to deliver their damage. Focus got removed. There's nothing fun about desperately trying to finish off only one Marine as a Skulk or a Lerk and at the billionth hit he finally lands <b><i>one</i></b> shotgun blast to take you down. There's nothing fun about Gorges being complete shells of their former selves. There's nothing fun about going Gorge long enough to drop a few free buildables and then changing over to a form that isn't a snoozefest. There's nothing fun about playing the boring Onos, especially when you're forced to do it to win a game. It's not fun at all, either way you slice it.
Oh yeah, the game runs like ######. I do have a dated rig, but this is apparently a problem for people even with modern builds. My computer runs games that are more visually and computationally-demanding just fine. I can play massive maps in games like Battlefield with vehicles and infantry going and it runs like a dream. But, enter a room with two enemies, and it chugs along. It's not unplayable. It's just a disadvantage. This is nothing more than poor optimization. It's a custom engine made from the ground up, that's why. They should have stuck with an engine made by professionals and used some sort of project kickstarter to get money for licensing fees.
The constant No True Scotsman arguments coming from the same people who embrace the changes that made this game garbage compared to the original are so irritating. Even if the people complaining were part of the beta, judging by UWE's response to some of these posts and their lack of transparency, I don't think they would take anything to heart. So many developers are full of themselves, and when they release a game and make money, it goes to their head. Betas are becoming increasingly more about generating hype than they are about giving players a chance to shape the game. So, yeah.
You don't like this game. That is ok. This can happen.
But I never saw someone got a refund for a dinner that doesn't tasted well for him. "Fun" like "taste" is a subjective thing. And this game is fun to a lot of people. So it isn't the fault of the game, that it isn't fun for you.
To sum up everything in all this states something simple and very wrong in the gaming community in general. "Releasing unfinished beta products is considered acceptable." If you buy a car and the brakes don't work, you say "O well they will fix it eventually!" No you die in a horrible wreck from a car accident or get terribly injured and sue the company to hell.
Now how does this relate to games? Okay so you have a game that has some issues. But overall the game runs nicely and does what it is supposed to. There are no crashes. The game simply isn't fun because it isn't optimized. A niche group of players will stay in and hang out all the issues and deal with the problems.
The mass of consumers will toss the game off for being bad, unoptimized, and horribly coded then never look at it again.
This comes down to a simple, do you want a niche or a game that is widely accepted and will keep repeat buyers in the future. By releasing the latter of unpolished, un-optimized, and a problem game for most computers you are only shooting yourself in the foot.
I'm happy for all the fan boys and people who love the game. Your circle will hopefully keep unknown worlds plugging away with hope. As for the rest of the world, just because you are on sunshine and rainbows does not necessarily mean everyone else sees it this way. Which can go either way. For those of us who see something dismal and cannot stand to play after we waited since Fall 2009 and put money into it hoping for something far better. For what has been released is quite a hit. It makes me wish i never had expectations.
Yea making a game is hard, business is tough, and that is well known. But that should have been known from your first go around.
Curious, because I remember a time during the NS1 development, where the only tactic was "Marine team got jetpacks or the alien team got fades first. Nothing else matters." Also, the fact that marines could never build in a room with a high ceiling back when lerks had spikes because it would mean they would lose the base 100% of the time. Or allowing fades to ever have acid rocket. Three hives resulted in an instant loss, with no counters whatsoever to any of the tech found there for aliens. Marines could turtle all game and not control ANY of the map and still win through surgically spamming their resources before the third hive got up, getting a bunch of HMG + jetpack marines, and essentally becoming invincible. A single marine in the corner could invincibly snipe all skulks and gorges and earn his team a massive res advantage as a solo player which could basically decide a game five minutes after it started.
There are a few things I agree on though.
1. Gorges are underpowered. They either need to lose some or all of their resource cost, or need to get attacks to make them into a combat viable unit. Back when they made all the buildings, it made sense for them to be weaker then a marine. Now, though, it makes significantly less sense. An LMG marine with a welder costs less resources then a gorge and is more effective at killing pretty much anything.
2. Fades are underused. You're better off spending 75 res on an onos then 50 res on a fade because an onos without stomp is far better at killing things then a fade without blink. Marines mirror this issue exactly. No reason to get a single gun exo when the dual gun one deals twice as much damage for only 50% more resources. There used to be a point in the game where getting an early fade to fight marines before they got shotguns was useful, but the new resource system means that shotguns are very easy to get early on (sooner then fades, even) and a single marine with a shotgun can easily kill a fade without carapace and blink for 30 less resources. Meanwhile fades are very expensive for their durability and need a research to actually do fade things.
All this stated, if you're expecting a return to slow skulks which need to bunny hop to outrun marines, think again.
<!--quoteo(post=2016804:date=Nov 9 2012, 01:56 PM:name=Apollonius999)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Apollonius999 @ Nov 9 2012, 01:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016804"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now how does this relate to games? Okay so you have a game that has some issues. But overall the game runs nicely and does what it is supposed to. There are no crashes. The game simply isn't fun because it isn't optimized. A niche group of players will stay in and hang out all the issues and deal with the problems.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then call me the niche I guess. I've been around since 1.04 and although there's absolutely room for improvement I love NS2. I've been playing daily since release (a little less before because performance was holding me back) and I'm not tired of it yet. In fact I can't wait to get home tonight and play again.
It's true that bugridden unfinished releases have almost become the norm and that's why I absolutely applaud UWE for releasing a game with a tiny team which has NO game breaking technical issues. And anyone saying UWE doesn't try to communicate or doesn't care about their users, all I can do is laugh in your face. Feel free to call me a fanboy to dismiss me and feed your ego but between Twitch and Twitter and the forums and considering how little time they have I think they do amazingly well. "I shouldn'tt have to bla bla bla" jesus..
There's valid criticism to be had when it comes to abilities and balancing of the life forms, of course, but the vast majority of cricitism seems to me to stem from an undeserved sense of entitlement and unrealistic expectations.
Again, call me a fan boy, I know I don't speak for everyone. But don't pretend you do either. "The gaming community", you sound like a politician.. "The American people want.."
but i would like to add that you're being pretty obtuse with your assessment in several points.
1) stingy commanders? wtf you die and lose your personal res weapons and it's the commanders responsibility to buy you a new one? errr no. if the aliens kill you, why shouldn't you suffer from losing those resources?
2) they should have used the source engine... errrr no. maybe they felt that the source engine (or even cry engine) couldn't do what they wanted to do. i honestly can't speculate as i don't even know what the 'engine' does... but look at stuff like airstrafing in source games like HL2/CS/TF2 etc - it's all the same. maybe they didn't want to be known as 'a mod to half-life' again.
3) as for performance... i've seen a lot worse... i can't even play arma2 (dayz) with more than 30fps, and that game looks like crap. but i can run NS2 - albeit only 40-50fps. it's unfortunate that a minority of people who spent £3000 on their pc, sometimes don't get their expected FPS. but i know about 20 people who purchased the game, and none of them have mentioned any problem with performance. the only complaint from them is server browser - however, i had an issue for YEARS in the source server browser where it would 'crash' my router for about 10 minutes every time i hit refresh and be unable to load servers and unable to use the internet at all (it was only fixed by valve a few months ago), i purchased a new router a couple of years ago which fixed the problem.
4) you want the HMG... errr sorry, but do you know what happens if you have a game that's 'almost' balanced and then you throw something in like the HMG? yes the flamethrower in it's current state is underwhelming, but how about exploring possibility like increasing the energy draining properties, burning properties or even the damage? ... i prefer that option to throwing FT in the trash and making an entirely new weapon 1 week after release.
5) i have never had issues hearing people over voice comms... in fact i'm usually in mumble with tf2 friends while i play ns2, and i often get confused whether it's someone on mumble or someone in game that started talking. if you can't hear someone in game, it's probably because they're a noob and haven't configured their microphone properly in windows.
it sounds like you're butthurt because your £4000 alienware doesn't get more than 30fps, so you decided to make up a load of niggly half-assed complaints to hide your embarrassment. if this is true, give UWE a chance to straighten up the performance issues before you decide to quit for good.... otherwise see ya.
I really dont understand why people rage to companys like this and do nothing to the big ones that are the real money makers with low things and games that costs 2x the price.
Im sad that only 2 weeks ago i know about this game and trying to get a key for it or only next month i could buy it, and still, its now 6 days im watching Streams all day of the game and still loving it by only watching.
Players that rage at a game just because wasnt made for him, oh well.
Ansom, I've been in this since day one of the alpha, and I don't consider the alpha / beta were just about generating hype - as a player, it was fun being in from the start and seeing things come together, and I'm the proud owner of black armour. Hell, UWE deserved my money for the thousands of hours of enjoyment I got out of the "free" NS1 - far more than any other game I'd actually spent money on. Elite and Frontier were probably the only two games that came close to the number of hours put in, in 30+ years of gaming.
As for players shaping the game, you might be surprised to hear that the spectate mode was written by Huze, a member of the community - and UWE incorporated it into the game. The the gorge belly slide was initially a joke by someone, that all the players thought was too cute an idea to ignore, so it was included.
I used to play this on a 3.4Ghz P4, and yes, the performance on that was not really in a playable condition on that system (~8-10fps).
I'm now on an AMD triple core Phenom 2.4Ghz, and although my frame rate isn't "stellar" - it's certainly as good as the performance I used to get on my old machine when Half-Life first came out, and it's perfectly playable, although not always silky smooth - I'm still getting 18-50fps at the extremes, but it's usually in the 30-35fps range on a graphics card that no longer gets driver updates (ATI 4850).
While I'm sorry to hear that some people have been disappointed by NS2, their issues are often spurious - perhaps they were on team balance, frame rate, game mechanics, too hard, requirement for proper teamplay, not what they expected or wanted it to be etc.
By the same token, I tried CoD MW when it was on a free trial weekend on Steam, and thought it was *awful* - simplistic game mechanics, the maps, although they may look pretty in places, might as well have just been ceiling high grey cubes / enclosed areas, because they were un-navigable (railings that looked like you should be able to jump over them to get a nice vantage point, you couldn't, and so on). I don't buy many "AAA" games, but I have to admit to actually being shocked at how bad CoD was, having played NS2.
To those who thought they've wasted money on NS2, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure as hell glad that I didn't empty my bank account of even more money for CoD !
<!--quoteo(post=2016821:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:21 PM:name=phoenixbbs)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (phoenixbbs @ Nov 9 2012, 12:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016821"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ansom, I've been in this since day one of the alpha, and I don't consider the alpha / beta were just about generating hype - as a player, it was fun being in from the start and seeing things come together, and I'm the proud owner of black armour. Hell, UWE deserved my money for the thousands of hours of enjoyment I got out of the "free" NS1 - far more than any other game I'd actually spent money on. Elite and Frontier were probably the only two games that came close to the number of hours put in, in 30+ years of gaming.
As for players shaping the game, you might be surprised to hear that the spectate mode was written by Huze, a member of the community - and UWE incorporated it into the game. The the gorge belly slide was initially a joke by someone, that all the players thought was too cute an idea to ignore, so it was included.
I used to play this on a 3.4Ghz P4, and yes, the performance on that was not really in a playable condition on that system (~8-10fps).
I'm now on an AMD triple core Phenom 2.4Ghz, and although my frame rate isn't "stellar" - it's certainly as good as the performance I used to get on my old machine when Half-Life first came out, and it's perfectly playable, although not always silky smooth - I'm still getting 18-50fps at the extremes, but it's usually in the 30-35fps range on a graphics card that no longer gets driver updates (ATI 4850).
While I'm sorry to hear that some people have been disappointed by NS2, their issues are often spurious - perhaps they were on team balance, frame rate, game mechanics, too hard, requirement for proper teamplay, not what they expected or wanted it to be etc.
By the same token, I tried CoD MW when it was on a free trial weekend on Steam, and thought it was *awful* - simplistic game mechanics, the maps, although they may look pretty in places, might as well have just been ceiling high grey cubes / enclosed areas, because they were un-navigable (railings that looked like you should be able to jump over them to get a nice vantage point, you couldn't, and so on). I don't buy many "AAA" games, but I have to admit to actually being shocked at how bad CoD was, having played NS2.
To those who thought they've wasted money on NS2, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure as hell glad that I didn't empty my bank account of even more money for CoD !<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i really enjoyed mw2 to be fair... but i got a total of ~100 hours in a month before getting bored and uninstalling it. whereas i got 30 hours of fun out of ns2 in like 2.5 days after buying it :P
<!--quoteo(post=2016800:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:50 PM:name=Bad Mojo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bad Mojo @ Nov 9 2012, 12:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016800"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->aaaaaaaannnnnd SCENE!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> rofl, thats what i thought!
but seriously, why do people come here and tell me(the community) that they dont like the game? <b>i can not help you with that</b>! play a mod, write a mod, or uninstall. is that decision realy so hard? do i realy need to hold your hand?
<!--quoteo(post=2016804:date=Nov 9 2012, 01:56 PM:name=Apollonius999)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Apollonius999 @ Nov 9 2012, 01:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016804"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The mass of consumers will toss the game off for being bad, unoptimized, and horribly coded then never look at it again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds to me like you projecting your thoughts and experiences on the whole community. Performance is at an acceptable level for the number of entities on a map some games get to and while it's not as good as it can be, it will improve as it has with almost every patch from the alpha to release. I've went from 10-30 FPS max in the alpha to 30-60 and I have quite an old CPU.
Balance in MP RTS games with will always need tweaking, even Starcraft 2 with over 100 million budget changed radically after 1.0. The fact that there's an FPS element to NS2 only adds to that complexity since not every unit in equal to another depending on players.
Expecting a game to be "100% done and perfect, no tweaks ever needed" is a valid expectation for single player console titles, but every successful MP titles will always need to evolve as new things are discovered.
I played a lot of NS1 and now I am playing NS2 and enjoying the game a lot :)
Yes it is different and yes they probably should change some things, But I would not moan like many others do because the game is really good as it is right now.
People need to see the social aspect of the game and not go in to 'MW/BO' rage mode.. I like how you can speak in the microphone and not get blocked in this game, In other games you will get death threats if you are trying to help the team with microphone commands..
This game is pretty new and its fanbase are probably much older than in most other popular games. I like that a lot :)
<!--quoteo(post=2016832:date=Nov 9 2012, 02:31 PM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 9 2012, 02:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016832"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i really enjoyed mw2 to be fair... but i got a total of ~100 hours in a month before getting bored and uninstalling it. whereas i got 30 hours of fun out of ns2 in like 2.5 days after buying it :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You enjoyed a multiplayer FPS that has a FOV of 65, the depth of a puddle and a community of 8 year olds? It can't be helped, guess you're a masochist.
Comments
We've communicated very openly with the community about fixes to a variety of problems that we've been working on since release, and already put out one patch to fix some major issues. Since release we fixed issues that people were having with the game crashing while loading, we've been working on server memory leak issues, creating better profiling tools to go out with the next patch to better track down those leaks, trying to fix the red plug server disconnects that are actually caused by multiple problems, working on speeding up loading times, fixing a whole variety of bugs and planning out the future of NS2 in regards to new content, new gameplay features, and optimizations and general improvements. And that doesn't even cover everything. So, yeah, we worked like crazy to get the game done in time for release, and now are working hard to improve and fix it, with pretty much no break.
We aren't out there talking about every issue that people want fixed with the game, because we simply can't fix every issue people have with the game all at once.
<!--quoteo(post=2016389:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:54 AM:name=Mkilbride)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mkilbride @ Nov 9 2012, 03:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016389"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I ###### hate Twitter. I refuse to use it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lucky for you the twitter messages show up right there in game.
<!--quoteo(post=2016315:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:02 AM:name=Scubbo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scubbo @ Nov 9 2012, 03:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016315"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->first impressions do last, but UWE has the money already so why should they care :) end of the day its a money maker, less people to support the cheaper the upkeep, i'll go now ;p<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We care very much. People assume that we suddenly have a lot more money then we actually do (running a company is a lot more expensive then many people think), but no matter how much money comes in, we are still very dedicated to NS2 and and future projects at Unknown Worlds. Even if we suddenly became Donald Trump overnight, I'm pretty sure we'd still be banging away on making NS2 better, since that is what we love doing.
And finally, in regards to the OP, we are going to be continuing to improve performance, as many people can attest to from the improvements made over the course of the development. But it seems like you have many issues with the overall core design, such as having an Alien commander, that are what NS2 is now. If those are really going to keep you from enjoying the game, it is unfortunate, but luckily for you there is an NS2:Classic mod that turns the game into NS1.
--Cory
Seriously, just give it a little time. UWE is not a company that would just up and leave their game with problems.
Give them a refund and pull his key. We can attest his lost due to true natural selection, inability to adapt to a new environment.
For the parts I did read:
Quite a few people complain about how the alien commander takes away that unique aspect of the alien team, and makes the two teams more alike. To that I say: ###### off. You are complaining because the teams are too symmetrical? Really? I'm sure you can see why that is not a valid complaint, in any universe or dimension.
Performance is a problem, a very big one. Most beta players knew that it would be form day one. Luckily (?) I am not the kind of person who notices performance issues, as I play on a laptop in all games I play, however I know there are those who view 50 FPS as unplayable, and if they spend the money making their machines beast, then they are right.
I hate cod but I dont email them every time about their epic rehashes of the last six games with new skins on and charge £50.
I took a risk in buying the deluxe pre-release game before a single line of code had been written and you know what... best money I spent on a game.
450hrs in alpha and beta and loved every second, yes the game isnt a triple a title, its built to be easily modded hence the dodgy performace as most of the logic is written in lua.
Stop writing epic moans, play the game for a bit and if you still dont enjoy it uninstall and move on.
We had the Marines backed up to one spot and yet couldn't win the game. Why? They all sat on armories spamming grenades down the two pathetic shafts leading to their base. Then, all it took was one jetpacker dancing around the hive to distract our team long enough for them to push out. The amount of effort required to take out a jetpacker is just sad. I might make a thread later explaining my reasoning if I do uninstall. I'm increasingly disappointed with this game day by day. I really want to like it, but so much ###### angers me about it. I only like playing Alien because I hate the monotonous Marine gameplay, so it's a constant downer.
One jetpacker bringing the whole team back? That's just a shamefur dispray for the aliens.
These exact things this happened in early NS1 as well but it was eventually balanced quite well and such case of extreme turtling became very rare.
It's silly to think the game is 100% with no changed to be made and just give up on it, this isn't a damn generic "fire and forget" console game.
As some beta testers used to comment: "Balance seems off in this build, I'll wait for the next patch."
Keep at it, once more people learn to play the better it is.
Currenlty with the new players its nothing like it was with the beta guys, this game needs communication and its something a lot of people arnt getting.
I was playing with a bad aliens team yesterday, I got on voice comms, and coordianted attacks.. we won.
I can't understand these people complaining that sequel of the game is different than the last one, i just don't get it ??
let's get over some facts here, remade version of previous title is just plain BAD idea, for a sole reason, why make something when it already exists ? it's like re-inventing a wheel, We invented this round thing that makes carts move !! how proud are we, oh wait, it's a wheel.
Keep in mind, that this game is new product and a new ideas, it takes months if not years to perfect the game.
when sequel comes, it's supposed to be new game with new features, if you don't like it, you can go back play ns1 always.
i love new things that is in NS2, powernodes, alien com, base sites etc. Biggest problem people do is that they compare this game to NS1, it's actually biggest mistake everyone does when compares sequel to it's prequel, you just don't do this, remember that this is a new game, it needs a lot of balancing, anyone remember NS1 when it first came out ? compare THAT to ns1 we now have, they are totally different games.
I, for one, would been dissapointed to this game if it was identical copy of NS1, it would have not provided anything new and exiting, why i want to buy ns1 when i already have it ? imagine if all finalfantasies we're identical to last title, that would been sucky.
now that being said, NS2 does have some serious balance issues, and i trust and hope they're going to fix them.
Real fans <b>did</b> buy into the beta, help test and balance, and brought up the inherent problems with alien kham and powernodes. They are flawed concepts, but for better or worse here to stay. We've come to accept that as a fact of life.
As for tres weapons, they might as well not exist. They were initially implemented in order for commanders to have <b>pres sinks</b> because they accrued pres just like everyone else. The tres system was then tweaked (1res per 8, now 7 secs as opposed to 4+rfk in ns1) to work within the budget of everything <b>but</b> equipment drops. So now we have tres equipment with huge opportunity costs within a tres system that also fundamentally has no room for it. Basically, poor design oversight for whatever reason.
The flamethrower might as well not exist either. Even if it was free, it does more harm than it does good with all that vision block and loss of dps. Energy sap is trivial, the dot is trivial, and it has a very small cone of aoe. Ironically, burning away spores causes more vision block than otherwise and I'd rather have a welder on me to kill cysts.
Performance is a big issue, UWE knows it, and there's no reason to keep harping on about it imo OP.
People voicing their concern were always put off by fanboys that it's only an alpha/beta.
Here we are at release day with the system requirements increased and the game can still only be fully enjoyed on High-End hardware (or lets say, high-end CPU)!
I have not a single doubt that better performance alone would have had a serious impact on popularity. I fear the game will soon have mediocre player numbers because most people simply cannot really get a fluid game going. And yeah, first impressions count.
Oh and with fluid I mean constant 60 fps, even in lategame combat.
Alien games are either lost or won by cheesing. You know? Backdooring when the Marines go all-in, skulk-rushing, or fast Onos for example? Win a game against equally-skilled opponents by outplaying them fair and square? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Aliens have to control the entire map to stay viable, yet the entire Marine team turtling in one spot for the entire game is perfectly okay. Annnd, despite not needing to control the map to be viable, there's nothing stopping Marines from walking through a Phase Gate and instantly appearing on the other side of the map. Meanwhile, Aliens? Hive Teleport? Nah. We could have given that to the Gorge, but nah. A team that needs to control the map to be viable able to teleport about to defend their installations? Outrageous!
None of the aliens scale for the risk they take to deliver their damage. Focus got removed. There's nothing fun about desperately trying to finish off only one Marine as a Skulk or a Lerk and at the billionth hit he finally lands <b><i>one</i></b> shotgun blast to take you down. There's nothing fun about Gorges being complete shells of their former selves. There's nothing fun about going Gorge long enough to drop a few free buildables and then changing over to a form that isn't a snoozefest. There's nothing fun about playing the boring Onos, especially when you're forced to do it to win a game. It's not fun at all, either way you slice it.
Oh yeah, the game runs like ######. I do have a dated rig, but this is apparently a problem for people even with modern builds. My computer runs games that are more visually and computationally-demanding just fine. I can play massive maps in games like Battlefield with vehicles and infantry going and it runs like a dream. But, enter a room with two enemies, and it chugs along. It's not unplayable. It's just a disadvantage. This is nothing more than poor optimization. It's a custom engine made from the ground up, that's why. They should have stuck with an engine made by professionals and used some sort of project kickstarter to get money for licensing fees.
The constant No True Scotsman arguments coming from the same people who embrace the changes that made this game garbage compared to the original are so irritating. Even if the people complaining were part of the beta, judging by UWE's response to some of these posts and their lack of transparency, I don't think they would take anything to heart. So many developers are full of themselves, and when they release a game and make money, it goes to their head. Betas are becoming increasingly more about generating hype than they are about giving players a chance to shape the game. So, yeah.
But I never saw someone got a refund for a dinner that doesn't tasted well for him. "Fun" like "taste" is a subjective thing. And this game is fun to a lot of people. So it isn't the fault of the game, that it isn't fun for you.
If you buy a car and the brakes don't work, you say "O well they will fix it eventually!" No you die in a horrible wreck from a car accident or get terribly injured and sue the company to hell.
Now how does this relate to games? Okay so you have a game that has some issues. But overall the game runs nicely and does what it is supposed to. There are no crashes. The game simply isn't fun because it isn't optimized. A niche group of players will stay in and hang out all the issues and deal with the problems.
The mass of consumers will toss the game off for being bad, unoptimized, and horribly coded then never look at it again.
This comes down to a simple, do you want a niche or a game that is widely accepted and will keep repeat buyers in the future. By releasing the latter of unpolished, un-optimized, and a problem game for most computers you are only shooting yourself in the foot.
I'm happy for all the fan boys and people who love the game. Your circle will hopefully keep unknown worlds plugging away with hope. As for the rest of the world, just because you are on sunshine and rainbows does not necessarily mean everyone else sees it this way. Which can go either way. For those of us who see something dismal and cannot stand to play after we waited since Fall 2009 and put money into it hoping for something far better. For what has been released is quite a hit. It makes me wish i never had expectations.
Yea making a game is hard, business is tough, and that is well known. But that should have been known from your first go around.
There are a few things I agree on though.
1. Gorges are underpowered. They either need to lose some or all of their resource cost, or need to get attacks to make them into a combat viable unit. Back when they made all the buildings, it made sense for them to be weaker then a marine. Now, though, it makes significantly less sense. An LMG marine with a welder costs less resources then a gorge and is more effective at killing pretty much anything.
2. Fades are underused. You're better off spending 75 res on an onos then 50 res on a fade because an onos without stomp is far better at killing things then a fade without blink. Marines mirror this issue exactly. No reason to get a single gun exo when the dual gun one deals twice as much damage for only 50% more resources. There used to be a point in the game where getting an early fade to fight marines before they got shotguns was useful, but the new resource system means that shotguns are very easy to get early on (sooner then fades, even) and a single marine with a shotgun can easily kill a fade without carapace and blink for 30 less resources. Meanwhile fades are very expensive for their durability and need a research to actually do fade things.
All this stated, if you're expecting a return to slow skulks which need to bunny hop to outrun marines, think again.
Then call me the niche I guess. I've been around since 1.04 and although there's absolutely room for improvement I love NS2. I've been playing daily since release (a little less before because performance was holding me back) and I'm not tired of it yet. In fact I can't wait to get home tonight and play again.
It's true that bugridden unfinished releases have almost become the norm and that's why I absolutely applaud UWE for releasing a game with a tiny team which has NO game breaking technical issues. And anyone saying UWE doesn't try to communicate or doesn't care about their users, all I can do is laugh in your face. Feel free to call me a fanboy to dismiss me and feed your ego but between Twitch and Twitter and the forums and considering how little time they have I think they do amazingly well. "I shouldn'tt have to bla bla bla" jesus..
There's valid criticism to be had when it comes to abilities and balancing of the life forms, of course, but the vast majority of cricitism seems to me to stem from an undeserved sense of entitlement and unrealistic expectations.
Again, call me a fan boy, I know I don't speak for everyone. But don't pretend you do either. "The gaming community", you sound like a politician.. "The American people want.."
but i would like to add that you're being pretty obtuse with your assessment in several points.
1) stingy commanders? wtf you die and lose your personal res weapons and it's the commanders responsibility to buy you a new one? errr no. if the aliens kill you, why shouldn't you suffer from losing those resources?
2) they should have used the source engine... errrr no. maybe they felt that the source engine (or even cry engine) couldn't do what they wanted to do. i honestly can't speculate as i don't even know what the 'engine' does... but look at stuff like airstrafing in source games like HL2/CS/TF2 etc - it's all the same. maybe they didn't want to be known as 'a mod to half-life' again.
3) as for performance... i've seen a lot worse... i can't even play arma2 (dayz) with more than 30fps, and that game looks like crap. but i can run NS2 - albeit only 40-50fps. it's unfortunate that a minority of people who spent £3000 on their pc, sometimes don't get their expected FPS. but i know about 20 people who purchased the game, and none of them have mentioned any problem with performance. the only complaint from them is server browser - however, i had an issue for YEARS in the source server browser where it would 'crash' my router for about 10 minutes every time i hit refresh and be unable to load servers and unable to use the internet at all (it was only fixed by valve a few months ago), i purchased a new router a couple of years ago which fixed the problem.
4) you want the HMG... errr sorry, but do you know what happens if you have a game that's 'almost' balanced and then you throw something in like the HMG? yes the flamethrower in it's current state is underwhelming, but how about exploring possibility like increasing the energy draining properties, burning properties or even the damage? ... i prefer that option to throwing FT in the trash and making an entirely new weapon 1 week after release.
5) i have never had issues hearing people over voice comms... in fact i'm usually in mumble with tf2 friends while i play ns2, and i often get confused whether it's someone on mumble or someone in game that started talking. if you can't hear someone in game, it's probably because they're a noob and haven't configured their microphone properly in windows.
it sounds like you're butthurt because your £4000 alienware doesn't get more than 30fps, so you decided to make up a load of niggly half-assed complaints to hide your embarrassment. if this is true, give UWE a chance to straighten up the performance issues before you decide to quit for good.... otherwise see ya.
Im sad that only 2 weeks ago i know about this game and trying to get a key for it or only next month i could buy it, and still, its now 6 days im watching Streams all day of the game and still loving it by only watching.
Players that rage at a game just because wasnt made for him, oh well.
Gratz on the game and continue the good work :)
Just wait until the patching gets rolling and they spice up the game!
As for players shaping the game, you might be surprised to hear that the spectate mode was written by Huze, a member of the community - and UWE incorporated it into the game. The the gorge belly slide was initially a joke by someone, that all the players thought was too cute an idea to ignore, so it was included.
I used to play this on a 3.4Ghz P4, and yes, the performance on that was not really in a playable condition on that system (~8-10fps).
I'm now on an AMD triple core Phenom 2.4Ghz, and although my frame rate isn't "stellar" - it's certainly as good as the performance I used to get on my old machine when Half-Life first came out, and it's perfectly playable, although not always silky smooth - I'm still getting 18-50fps at the extremes, but it's usually in the 30-35fps range on a graphics card that no longer gets driver updates (ATI 4850).
While I'm sorry to hear that some people have been disappointed by NS2, their issues are often spurious - perhaps they were on team balance, frame rate, game mechanics, too hard, requirement for proper teamplay, not what they expected or wanted it to be etc.
By the same token, I tried CoD MW when it was on a free trial weekend on Steam, and thought it was *awful* - simplistic game mechanics, the maps, although they may look pretty in places, might as well have just been ceiling high grey cubes / enclosed areas, because they were un-navigable (railings that looked like you should be able to jump over them to get a nice vantage point, you couldn't, and so on). I don't buy many "AAA" games, but I have to admit to actually being shocked at how bad CoD was, having played NS2.
To those who thought they've wasted money on NS2, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure as hell glad that I didn't empty my bank account of even more money for CoD !
As for players shaping the game, you might be surprised to hear that the spectate mode was written by Huze, a member of the community - and UWE incorporated it into the game. The the gorge belly slide was initially a joke by someone, that all the players thought was too cute an idea to ignore, so it was included.
I used to play this on a 3.4Ghz P4, and yes, the performance on that was not really in a playable condition on that system (~8-10fps).
I'm now on an AMD triple core Phenom 2.4Ghz, and although my frame rate isn't "stellar" - it's certainly as good as the performance I used to get on my old machine when Half-Life first came out, and it's perfectly playable, although not always silky smooth - I'm still getting 18-50fps at the extremes, but it's usually in the 30-35fps range on a graphics card that no longer gets driver updates (ATI 4850).
While I'm sorry to hear that some people have been disappointed by NS2, their issues are often spurious - perhaps they were on team balance, frame rate, game mechanics, too hard, requirement for proper teamplay, not what they expected or wanted it to be etc.
By the same token, I tried CoD MW when it was on a free trial weekend on Steam, and thought it was *awful* - simplistic game mechanics, the maps, although they may look pretty in places, might as well have just been ceiling high grey cubes / enclosed areas, because they were un-navigable (railings that looked like you should be able to jump over them to get a nice vantage point, you couldn't, and so on). I don't buy many "AAA" games, but I have to admit to actually being shocked at how bad CoD was, having played NS2.
To those who thought they've wasted money on NS2, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure as hell glad that I didn't empty my bank account of even more money for CoD !<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i really enjoyed mw2 to be fair... but i got a total of ~100 hours in a month before getting bored and uninstalling it. whereas i got 30 hours of fun out of ns2 in like 2.5 days after buying it :P
rofl, thats what i thought!
but seriously, why do people come here and tell me(the community) that they dont like the game?
<b>i can not help you with that</b>!
play a mod, write a mod, or uninstall. is that decision realy so hard? do i realy need to hold your hand?
i=any forum community you=whiners in general
Sounds to me like you projecting your thoughts and experiences on the whole community.
Performance is at an acceptable level for the number of entities on a map some games get to and while it's not as good as it can be, it will improve as it has with almost every patch from the alpha to release.
I've went from 10-30 FPS max in the alpha to 30-60 and I have quite an old CPU.
Balance in MP RTS games with will always need tweaking, even Starcraft 2 with over 100 million budget changed radically after 1.0. The fact that there's an FPS element to NS2 only adds to that complexity since not every unit in equal to another depending on players.
Expecting a game to be "100% done and perfect, no tweaks ever needed" is a valid expectation for single player console titles, but every successful MP titles will always need to evolve as new things are discovered.
Yes it is different and yes they probably should change some things,
But I would not moan like many others do because the game is really good as it is right now.
People need to see the social aspect of the game and not go in to 'MW/BO' rage mode..
I like how you can speak in the microphone and not get blocked in this game,
In other games you will get death threats if you are trying to help the team with microphone commands..
This game is pretty new and its fanbase are probably much older than in most other popular games. I like that a lot :)
You enjoyed a multiplayer FPS that has a FOV of 65, the depth of a puddle and a community of 8 year olds?
It can't be helped, guess you're a masochist.