Some thoughts by a newcommer
mti
Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168493Members
Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168493Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Hello :)</div>Hi to all you manly marines and bacterial life forms,
I am completely new to the series and thought Id stop by and leave a few thoughts.
First of all let me express how much I appreciate this game. I have had a fan of the NS1 mod (which i only played for lets say 3 hours and got frustrated beyond believe) tell me about NS2 and pre-ordered it before it came on steam. Apart from the fact that I got 2 game keys for an indie title price the game itself is also as amazing.
Having a backround in competitive RTCW and W:ET I cant tell you how good it feels to see the first competitvely viable team-based "shooter" in 7 years now. And I also cant tell you how good it feels being able to say that without expecting CoD and BF casuals to have a crisis.
I was really surprised when I found, browsing this forum a bit before my initial post, that there is such harsh critisism aimed at you right now.
I for once certainly dont regret my purchase and I generally dont regard myself as a "nostalgia ######" who seem to be having a rather turmoiled episode on here.
Updating a format and taking a franchise further is a great thing and I bet that NS1 was not only designed by choice but also by limitations of the underlying engine.
Certainly different people demand different things but from what I hear the game is not only very well received by newcommers (like me) but also an accaptable next step for many of the original fans. Certainly you are smart enough to know what works and doesnt work with your title which probably includes discarding any demand for systematic progression and unlocks, which we all know the is the bane of competitve play.
However I got on here (being the "elitist oldsql" player that i am) to talk about enhancement to pub play.
I wont pretend to be an all-knowing expert in this field but you, as an indie dev, might have forgotten what all the publishers are focing on other companies these days: "focus on a social experience". While that usually makes us "hardcores" (wow i hate talking like this) have a traumatic episode I can understand what they are on about. We are more used to playing with a group of friends these days. I think that with dedicated servers (oh the days of connecting to the same IP daily and meeting the regulars), the steam buddy list, and full modding support you have most of the bases covered. What I would like to see though as a SC2 player is for the commander to be able to assign players to fireteams (hotbutton groups) that they themselves can see. Lets say I use my mic to say "hey comm, me and playerXY are mates, pls team us up" so that I then get an indicator that me, playerXY and maybe playerXZ are in one fireteam. I can see their health status (i imagine it to be a bit like the spec overlay) and a readout of their position. The commander would have an easier time to assign different groups of people to different parts of the map and I as a player would have a clue of what to do, where to rally with my squadmates, what to defend/attack and so forth. It would give a feeling of having a purpose, being part of the commanders plan and tactic. Basically it would make it easier to play with friends and for new players to have a sense of purpose and belonging even, which brings me to my next point of improving the experience for new players and public play in general.
Id very much like to believe that this game (after its initial sale cycle) is aimed at community contributions (maybe even overhauls, i can already imagine the tower defense mods in our future) and most importantly, for me, competitve play. That does however not mean that introducing the game to a large audience can be disregarded. You need a large foundation of public players to sustain a sizeable competitive community. Its no news to anyone nor is it rocket sience that only a fraction of the active public players makes a transition over to competitive play. So for the sake of it being viable for me to learn all things NS2 and get behind competitve play I need to see a possibility for the community to stay active and large enough for long enough.
So what do people care about, one might ask. Well we have this very interesting and unique, asymetrical gameplay to start with. We can also disregard most of the generic prgression and unlock stuff, people can buy a new CoD for that every year. What you should not forget about though is that people play to compete. When I join the Frontiersmen I sure as hell want them to win. However I want to receive credit for what I did. To cut a long story short: your point system is massively flawd.
I know, I know, I shouldnt care about these things. If we won due to me doing a good job it should be reward enough, but lets be honest: it just isnt (not in pub play anyway).
I think the largest problem I see with points on the marine side is the lack of kill assists. Marines have to stick together to suceed and yet I find myself getting annoyed sometimes when I just cant seem to pick up a "last hit" of my own. Better tracking might be an answer but yet I find it unintuitive. You should be glad that your marine buddy is at your side. On the alien side its even worse. The alien game (as far as I can tell with my ~40h of gameplay) is heavily reliant on gorge play. Yet you need half an hour to help build a new hive for a dismal 5 points (and sometimes you dont even seem to get those). You right click all day to heal mates, yet there are no points rewarded for it.
I have found that while having most points on a team does usually mean that you did quite well, having very little points does by no means indicate that you didnt do well.
Hopefully you made it this far and didnt just go "tl;dr" on this wall of text so Ill end it here... rather abruptly.
Please let me know wether or not I, being the newcommer that I am, have made fool of myself and what you think about my ideas. I have plenty more ;o)
PS: another quick one: why is there no 1st person spec mode? I find that to be absolutely essential in shooters, it makes watching so much more exciting (and gives casters such as myself the opportunity to go nuts over big plays).
PPS: Why dont we see the name tags of the people we are spec'ing while waiting for respawn?
I am completely new to the series and thought Id stop by and leave a few thoughts.
First of all let me express how much I appreciate this game. I have had a fan of the NS1 mod (which i only played for lets say 3 hours and got frustrated beyond believe) tell me about NS2 and pre-ordered it before it came on steam. Apart from the fact that I got 2 game keys for an indie title price the game itself is also as amazing.
Having a backround in competitive RTCW and W:ET I cant tell you how good it feels to see the first competitvely viable team-based "shooter" in 7 years now. And I also cant tell you how good it feels being able to say that without expecting CoD and BF casuals to have a crisis.
I was really surprised when I found, browsing this forum a bit before my initial post, that there is such harsh critisism aimed at you right now.
I for once certainly dont regret my purchase and I generally dont regard myself as a "nostalgia ######" who seem to be having a rather turmoiled episode on here.
Updating a format and taking a franchise further is a great thing and I bet that NS1 was not only designed by choice but also by limitations of the underlying engine.
Certainly different people demand different things but from what I hear the game is not only very well received by newcommers (like me) but also an accaptable next step for many of the original fans. Certainly you are smart enough to know what works and doesnt work with your title which probably includes discarding any demand for systematic progression and unlocks, which we all know the is the bane of competitve play.
However I got on here (being the "elitist oldsql" player that i am) to talk about enhancement to pub play.
I wont pretend to be an all-knowing expert in this field but you, as an indie dev, might have forgotten what all the publishers are focing on other companies these days: "focus on a social experience". While that usually makes us "hardcores" (wow i hate talking like this) have a traumatic episode I can understand what they are on about. We are more used to playing with a group of friends these days. I think that with dedicated servers (oh the days of connecting to the same IP daily and meeting the regulars), the steam buddy list, and full modding support you have most of the bases covered. What I would like to see though as a SC2 player is for the commander to be able to assign players to fireteams (hotbutton groups) that they themselves can see. Lets say I use my mic to say "hey comm, me and playerXY are mates, pls team us up" so that I then get an indicator that me, playerXY and maybe playerXZ are in one fireteam. I can see their health status (i imagine it to be a bit like the spec overlay) and a readout of their position. The commander would have an easier time to assign different groups of people to different parts of the map and I as a player would have a clue of what to do, where to rally with my squadmates, what to defend/attack and so forth. It would give a feeling of having a purpose, being part of the commanders plan and tactic. Basically it would make it easier to play with friends and for new players to have a sense of purpose and belonging even, which brings me to my next point of improving the experience for new players and public play in general.
Id very much like to believe that this game (after its initial sale cycle) is aimed at community contributions (maybe even overhauls, i can already imagine the tower defense mods in our future) and most importantly, for me, competitve play. That does however not mean that introducing the game to a large audience can be disregarded. You need a large foundation of public players to sustain a sizeable competitive community. Its no news to anyone nor is it rocket sience that only a fraction of the active public players makes a transition over to competitive play. So for the sake of it being viable for me to learn all things NS2 and get behind competitve play I need to see a possibility for the community to stay active and large enough for long enough.
So what do people care about, one might ask. Well we have this very interesting and unique, asymetrical gameplay to start with. We can also disregard most of the generic prgression and unlock stuff, people can buy a new CoD for that every year. What you should not forget about though is that people play to compete. When I join the Frontiersmen I sure as hell want them to win. However I want to receive credit for what I did. To cut a long story short: your point system is massively flawd.
I know, I know, I shouldnt care about these things. If we won due to me doing a good job it should be reward enough, but lets be honest: it just isnt (not in pub play anyway).
I think the largest problem I see with points on the marine side is the lack of kill assists. Marines have to stick together to suceed and yet I find myself getting annoyed sometimes when I just cant seem to pick up a "last hit" of my own. Better tracking might be an answer but yet I find it unintuitive. You should be glad that your marine buddy is at your side. On the alien side its even worse. The alien game (as far as I can tell with my ~40h of gameplay) is heavily reliant on gorge play. Yet you need half an hour to help build a new hive for a dismal 5 points (and sometimes you dont even seem to get those). You right click all day to heal mates, yet there are no points rewarded for it.
I have found that while having most points on a team does usually mean that you did quite well, having very little points does by no means indicate that you didnt do well.
Hopefully you made it this far and didnt just go "tl;dr" on this wall of text so Ill end it here... rather abruptly.
Please let me know wether or not I, being the newcommer that I am, have made fool of myself and what you think about my ideas. I have plenty more ;o)
PS: another quick one: why is there no 1st person spec mode? I find that to be absolutely essential in shooters, it makes watching so much more exciting (and gives casters such as myself the opportunity to go nuts over big plays).
PPS: Why dont we see the name tags of the people we are spec'ing while waiting for respawn?
Comments
A squad system might be feasible, but you might get people who are dedicated to their squad and don't separate when they need to. And if they do separate, they might be yelled at by everyone else. And how would the squad numbers even be done? You can't have a team of 4 just to cap a res node. No squad system allows players to shift objectives on the fly.
I would however like buttons for the commander to cycle through players. Not sure if this is in yet, but if not, should be added.