There's nothing "balanced" about having an operational, but unlit human factory. Before infestation, there were people living here. They didn't just decide to be nice to the aliens, bend over and switch off the lights before getting owned.
Quit with the stupid ideas already. As it stands, aliens are running around with low-light mode on because it improves framerates and makes hiding marines stick out like a sore thumb anyway.
<!--quoteo(post=2031203:date=Nov 21 2012, 08:46 AM:name=purephoenix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (purephoenix @ Nov 21 2012, 08:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2031203"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Tbh, i think this is a plain troll thread.
There's nothing "balanced" about having an operational, but unlit human factory. Before infestation, there were people living here. They didn't just decide to be nice to the aliens, bend over and switch off the lights before getting owned.
Quit with the stupid ideas already. As it stands, aliens are running around with low-light mode on because it improves framerates and makes hiding marines stick out like a sore thumb anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Such a constructive post. Our ideas are stupid, therefore disregard them. I haven't even heard of this low light mode thing Aliens are doing.
Before infestation there were working lights and power, but people <b>no longer live there</b>, the point being that Aliens have taken over. If you really wanna go down that road the entire map should be covered in infestation and Aliens should start with 2 hives and an Alien:Marine ratio of at least 2:1 since the Aliens would have had considerable time to hatch a significant force that is living in the map.
Or you could just, you know, contribute something useful to the thread in the direction of making emergency lighting a little more punishing, or giving the Aliens an option to shut off lighting entirely at their own expense.
This is a topic that comes up a lot. From memory, I believe the story goes that some mappers feel the unpowered states ruin the artistic merits of their creations, and that having the game state default to red or pitch-black lighting states results in a game that generally does not appropriately show off the otherwise beautiful maps. I can understand these sentiments, but also believe that the current lighting systems don't make much sense from a gameplay perspective. A better solution needs to be found.
Like others on these forums, I strongly believe the root of the issue is the automatically-generated emergency lighting, and that we need to give full control of the unpowered lighting state to mappers.
I want to see mapper-controlled light sources overhauled and organised into three groups: -Baseline lighting -Powered lighting -Emergency lighting
The game engine's influence over room lighting would be limited to toggling between the powered lighting and the emergency lighting. Baseline lighting would always remain on.
Baseline lighting would primarily illuminate limited sections of walls, where mappers can focus on achieving prettiness through the use of heavy contrasts/etc. Lighting be discouraged on floors, corners and vent entrances, but this would not be a strict rule.
Powered lighting would fill in the gaps, returning maps to their current powered state. Emergency lighting would feature sparse and occasional red lights, or animated lights, to convey the sense of emergency without flooding the map with a single colour.
This is not a new idea. This and similar suggestions have been made <i>many</i> times by <i>many</i> different players throughout the beta. To the best of my knowledge, lighting threads have generally died off quickly after these types of suggestions have been made and I don't recall seeing any official comment on the why this style of idea has not been implemented.
OP has all my agreement. Lighting is such a powerful artistic tool and having an engine that is able to handle it as dynamic gameplay element should be embraced by them, not scare them away.
I really don't want to tweak the gameplay balance of lighting, but I really feel like emergency lighting doesn't make much sense when power nodes weren't there to begin with. I'm not sure how to address this, really.
Make all rooms outside of the immediate vicinity from Marine start (2-3 rooms around the marine start) without power, and no emergency lights. Then make it so that when the power node is destroyed, you get emergency lighting for a short amount of time, then fade to black. This gives incentive to kill power nodes and build them.
I can see just as fine in emergency red lighting as I can in bright and shiny lighting.
As an added bonus, it would give incentives to use alien vision besides making targeting marines easier.
As somebody who is learning the map builder, I'd rather my map be functional with a variety of gameplay stemming from a good use of the lighting system than pretty.
Pretty is nice, but pretty isn't always fun.
I'm not touching camo with a 50 ft pole.
EDIT: It would also make Exos better as support with their flood lights. I'd definitely spend the 50 on a single gun Exo just to be able to support my boys with that nice flood light.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but people no longer live there, the point being that Aliens have taken over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nobody said that actually, ever. In fact, numerous NS1 maps are only known to be attacked, because a resident triggers the distress beacon.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From memory, I believe the story goes that some mappers feel the unpowered states ruin the artistic merits of their creations,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it's more important to mention, these facilities are solar powered and the technology level is such that there's no benefit towards ever turning the lights OFF. We're talking the year 2400 odd iirc, we're not talking about light bulbs here. We're talking thick, sturdy fluorescent steel or something equally nigh-indestructible.
<!--quoteo(post=2029155:date=Nov 19 2012, 12:36 PM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Nov 19 2012, 12:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2029155"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Tried in beta, gave a huge advantage to aliens, removed.
Also tried in beta - people got annoyed at having to bite down a bunch of structures right from the start. In practice you could skip them and be better off, but it was unintuitive and didn't add to gameplay, and distracted players from fighting the other players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel like everyone ignored this quote far too easily.
<!--quoteo(post=2033457:date=Nov 24 2012, 05:37 PM:name=Kopikat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kopikat @ Nov 24 2012, 05:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033457"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I feel like everyone ignored this quote far too easily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I saw the comment, and was there at the time when these things were tried out.
I agree that having the map start with all res nodes built was problematic for exactly the reasons Align stated. I'm happy that's gone.
We tried a lot of different things in beta: Having unpowered lighting be completely pitch black, having the red lights flash on and off, having all the power nodes in, and all the power nodes out. Every attempt involved the developers adding game code that would override or interfere with the map's built-in lighting, and I believe that's the real reason why none of them worked out very well.
I'm saying that turning off 50% of the lights is not the same as setting every light to 50% brightness, and that we've only ever experimented with the brightness knob.
Comments
There's nothing "balanced" about having an operational, but unlit human factory. Before infestation, there were people living here. They didn't just decide to be nice to the aliens, bend over and switch off the lights before getting owned.
Quit with the stupid ideas already. As it stands, aliens are running around with low-light mode on because it improves framerates and makes hiding marines stick out like a sore thumb anyway.
There's nothing "balanced" about having an operational, but unlit human factory. Before infestation, there were people living here. They didn't just decide to be nice to the aliens, bend over and switch off the lights before getting owned.
Quit with the stupid ideas already. As it stands, aliens are running around with low-light mode on because it improves framerates and makes hiding marines stick out like a sore thumb anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Such a constructive post. Our ideas are stupid, therefore disregard them. I haven't even heard of this low light mode thing Aliens are doing.
Before infestation there were working lights and power, but people <b>no longer live there</b>, the point being that Aliens have taken over. If you really wanna go down that road the entire map should be covered in infestation and Aliens should start with 2 hives and an Alien:Marine ratio of at least 2:1 since the Aliens would have had considerable time to hatch a significant force that is living in the map.
Or you could just, you know, contribute something useful to the thread in the direction of making emergency lighting a little more punishing, or giving the Aliens an option to shut off lighting entirely at their own expense.
Like others on these forums, I strongly believe the root of the issue is the automatically-generated emergency lighting, and that we need to give full control of the unpowered lighting state to mappers.
I want to see mapper-controlled light sources overhauled and organised into three groups:
-Baseline lighting
-Powered lighting
-Emergency lighting
The game engine's influence over room lighting would be limited to toggling between the powered lighting and the emergency lighting. Baseline lighting would always remain on.
Baseline lighting would primarily illuminate limited sections of walls, where mappers can focus on achieving prettiness through the use of heavy contrasts/etc. Lighting be discouraged on floors, corners and vent entrances, but this would not be a strict rule.
Powered lighting would fill in the gaps, returning maps to their current powered state. Emergency lighting would feature sparse and occasional red lights, or animated lights, to convey the sense of emergency without flooding the map with a single colour.
This is not a new idea. This and similar suggestions have been made <i>many</i> times by <i>many</i> different players throughout the beta. To the best of my knowledge, lighting threads have generally died off quickly after these types of suggestions have been made and I don't recall seeing any official comment on the why this style of idea has not been implemented.
I can see just as fine in emergency red lighting as I can in bright and shiny lighting.
As an added bonus, it would give incentives to use alien vision besides making targeting marines easier.
As somebody who is learning the map builder, I'd rather my map be functional with a variety of gameplay stemming from a good use of the lighting system than pretty.
Pretty is nice, but pretty isn't always fun.
I'm not touching camo with a 50 ft pole.
EDIT: It would also make Exos better as support with their flood lights. I'd definitely spend the 50 on a single gun Exo just to be able to support my boys with that nice flood light.
Nobody said that actually, ever. In fact, numerous NS1 maps are only known to be attacked, because a resident triggers the distress beacon.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From memory, I believe the story goes that some mappers feel the unpowered states ruin the artistic merits of their creations,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it's more important to mention, these facilities are solar powered and the technology level is such that there's no benefit towards ever turning the lights OFF. We're talking the year 2400 odd iirc, we're not talking about light bulbs here. We're talking thick, sturdy fluorescent steel or something equally nigh-indestructible.
Also tried in beta - people got annoyed at having to bite down a bunch of structures right from the start. In practice you could skip them and be better off, but it was unintuitive and didn't add to gameplay, and distracted players from fighting the other players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel like everyone ignored this quote far too easily.
I agree that having the map start with all res nodes built was problematic for exactly the reasons Align stated. I'm happy that's gone.
We tried a lot of different things in beta: Having unpowered lighting be completely pitch black, having the red lights flash on and off, having all the power nodes in, and all the power nodes out. Every attempt involved the developers adding game code that would override or interfere with the map's built-in lighting, and I believe that's the real reason why none of them worked out very well.
I'm saying that turning off 50% of the lights is not the same as setting every light to 50% brightness, and that we've only ever experimented with the brightness knob.