<!--quoteo(post=2039242:date=Dec 3 2012, 04:32 PM:name=Roobubba)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Roobubba @ Dec 3 2012, 04:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039242"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Larger servers: sure, I'm not telling you you're stupid for wanting them. But I, and probably a large number of others, do not want to play on such servers because it tends to make for terrible games (marines egg lock without trying, very little teamwork, lots of rambos...). As such, you'll struggle to find lots of players who WANT to play on large servers, and by definition, you're going to need lots of players who want that to make it worthwhile running such servers. Good luck with that!
Roo<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that's solely a problem of the games design and that's actually pretty sad considering that UWE wanted to do it better this time around. NS1 balance did scale already pretty badly depending on player numbers, NS2 wanted to prevent that by having the p.res and t.res system to allow UWE to make the game batter scalable playernumber wise. But in the end NS2 only served to worsen this issue due to changes to mechanics and overall game conception.
Smaller maps, egg mechanics, broken t.res/pres system between teams, bigger focus on the "COD FPS aspect". These things make the game scale worse with bigger player numbers than NS1 ever did. And that's kinda sad, because NS1 certainly could still be fun and somewhat balanced with bigger teams/maps. In the end it even lead to dedicated modes for this kind of gameplay (siege maps).
As long as UWE keeps on pretending that 6vs6 is the only epitome of the "NS2 gameplay experience" that matters, that long we gonna have balance issues with bigger playernumbers and bigger maps. So i don't think it's a good way to blame players for wanting a larger scale experience, something that many people actually expected out of NS2 by Charlies very own words. After all the whole idea of NS2 had been sold to many of us with the sentence "NS1 had been the first contact, NS2 will be the full out war".
How much of that actually applies? A full out war also means bigger scale, yet the overall scale got smaller and on the Kharaa side it feels like they de-evolved (in terms of abilities and options) compared to NS1. So it's understandable that some people will end up very disappointed with the current state of NS2.
Basically, from what I am gathering, they tried out a new coding style for NS2 but it has performance issues. The older netcodes were used for a certain raw performance and NS2 sacrificed this performance for modability and development tool efficiencies.
They didn't know it would be a problem like it has been and it is expected that such new approaches to development can have some real kinks to work out. The final beta patches introduced many radical changes to try and deal with these issues so it shows that UWE is well aware of the issue and willing to take some drastic steps to resolve it.
It's uncertain as of yet whether NS2 will be optimised in time and perform like other games but rest assured the game does work, at atleast for some people. :)
As for no combat mode I am very happy to see a combat server up in Oz and it has proven to me that combat still deserves a place in the server lists. I find combat makes me want to go hop onto classic and classic makes me want to go play combat in various lengthened cycles based on my mood.
However, the reality is that combat is not for the same audience as the classic mode and that players who love both modes (like me) aren't necessarily enough of a majority to warrant the split in attention that an official combat mode would cause.
The one thing I did find annoying as an NS1 vet is the fact that victory comes as a surprise most of the time for the regular grunt.
I wont elaborate much, but it seems that a group of 2 or 3 marines can efectively down a hive while protecting themselves, while the other players around the map are fighting for control while the game is being finished (happens for aliens as well, many times as a gorge I would secure RTs and help build, without knowing we were raping marine base)
Before, winning took team effort. a highly coordinated push, a ninja phase gate, that push meant everyone played a part in winning, now, that is lost.
TremelousPlayer your CPU clock is not very high. My Q6600 is more than 6 years old and can hold 60fps through mid game usually on a crappy cooler outside of huge butt humping fights. If you manage to clock to at least 4ghz your frustration will disappear. This game doesn't use multicore support either so don't expect extra performance from having a lot of cores. If they got multicore to work I'd imagine that 60fps will go past 120 easily.
1. I hear it's an issue, not an issue for me when I turn shadows down to low and occlusion off. 2. Never liked CO in NS1. 3. If the only servers available are 24 player servers, I won't even play, that's how bad high player servers are (marine dominance in numbers). Prefer 16 slot, will play 18 though.
<!--quoteo(post=2039321:date=Dec 3 2012, 01:52 PM:name=MuckyMcFly)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MuckyMcFly @ Dec 3 2012, 01:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039321"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I hate Call of Duty, I may go tell them I dont like it on their forums :P x<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you spend 7 years playing Call of duty X, would it be unreasonable to complain on their forums that you don't like Call of duty X+1 and think they took a wrong turn somewhere?
As for optimization, I bought my computer only a year ago so things run smoothly (only complaint is having to lead skulks to hit them, but that's not a framerate thing it's a hitbox/netcode thing.) The engine seems to have some low-hanging optimization fruit (not pre-caching the same assets every single map load, for starters.)
Definitely echo the idea that NS2 plays terrible in 12v12, and that it'd be worse on even larger servers, <b>but </b>if there's significant demand for that style of play it's honestly not a huge hurdle to balance for (the egg rate can dynamically increase based on alien player count.)
And as others have pointed out, Combat Mode exists. It's quite fun, but feels like it has a lot of balance work left before it turns out right.
<!--quoteo(post=2039313:date=Dec 3 2012, 01:29 PM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Dec 3 2012, 01:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039313"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This game doesn't use multicore support either so don't expect extra performance from having a lot of cores. If they got multicore to work I'd imagine that 60fps will go past 120 easily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This isn't accurate. NS2 MOST DEFINITELY does multi thread. However, it's probably not multi-threaded in the most optimized way possible.
High player servers are at server administrators choice. I personally don't like anything more than 16 players. Every once in awhile a 32 player server pops up. There is a 24 player combat mode server I play on, I think it is located in seattle.
<!--quoteo(post=2039472:date=Dec 3 2012, 06:16 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Dec 3 2012, 06:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039472"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This isn't accurate. NS2 MOST DEFINITELY does multi thread. However, it's probably not multi-threaded in the most optimized way possible.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't know if it counts, it never goes above 25% CPU use and disabling multicore doesn't lower my fps. It does split the process among 4 cores but it doesn't seem to do anything else.
Comments
Roo<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that's solely a problem of the games design and that's actually pretty sad considering that UWE wanted to do it better this time around.
NS1 balance did scale already pretty badly depending on player numbers, NS2 wanted to prevent that by having the p.res and t.res system to allow UWE to make the game batter scalable playernumber wise. But in the end NS2 only served to worsen this issue due to changes to mechanics and overall game conception.
Smaller maps, egg mechanics, broken t.res/pres system between teams, bigger focus on the "COD FPS aspect". These things make the game scale worse with bigger player numbers than NS1 ever did. And that's kinda sad, because NS1 certainly could still be fun and somewhat balanced with bigger teams/maps. In the end it even lead to dedicated modes for this kind of gameplay (siege maps).
As long as UWE keeps on pretending that 6vs6 is the only epitome of the "NS2 gameplay experience" that matters, that long we gonna have balance issues with bigger playernumbers and bigger maps. So i don't think it's a good way to blame players for wanting a larger scale experience, something that many people actually expected out of NS2 by Charlies very own words. After all the whole idea of NS2 had been sold to many of us with the sentence "NS1 had been the first contact, NS2 will be the full out war".
How much of that actually applies? A full out war also means bigger scale, yet the overall scale got smaller and on the Kharaa side it feels like they de-evolved (in terms of abilities and options) compared to NS1. So it's understandable that some people will end up very disappointed with the current state of NS2.
They didn't know it would be a problem like it has been and it is expected that such new approaches to development can have some real kinks to work out. The final beta patches introduced many radical changes to try and deal with these issues so it shows that UWE is well aware of the issue and willing to take some drastic steps to resolve it.
It's uncertain as of yet whether NS2 will be optimised in time and perform like other games but rest assured the game does work, at atleast for some people. :)
However, the reality is that combat is not for the same audience as the classic mode and that players who love both modes (like me) aren't necessarily enough of a majority to warrant the split in attention that an official combat mode would cause.
I wont elaborate much, but it seems that a group of 2 or 3 marines can efectively down a hive while protecting themselves, while the other players around the map are fighting for control while the game is being finished (happens for aliens as well, many times as a gorge I would secure RTs and help build, without knowing we were raping marine base)
Before, winning took team effort. a highly coordinated push, a ninja phase gate, that push meant everyone played a part in winning, now, that is lost.
this is in pubs btw.
2. Never liked CO in NS1.
3. If the only servers available are 24 player servers, I won't even play, that's how bad high player servers are (marine dominance in numbers). Prefer 16 slot, will play 18 though.
I hate Call of Duty, I may go tell them I dont like it on their forums :P x
If you spend 7 years playing Call of duty X, would it be unreasonable to complain on their forums that you don't like Call of duty X+1 and think they took a wrong turn somewhere?
Definitely echo the idea that NS2 plays terrible in 12v12, and that it'd be worse on even larger servers, <b>but </b>if there's significant demand for that style of play it's honestly not a huge hurdle to balance for (the egg rate can dynamically increase based on alien player count.)
And as others have pointed out, Combat Mode exists. It's quite fun, but feels like it has a lot of balance work left before it turns out right.
This isn't accurate. NS2 MOST DEFINITELY does multi thread. However, it's probably not multi-threaded in the most optimized way possible.
Don't know if it counts, it never goes above 25% CPU use and disabling multicore doesn't lower my fps. It does split the process among 4 cores but it doesn't seem to do anything else.
This ###### makes games fail.