It will take people time to adjust to the skulk movement before we can start to see where the skulk vs marine balance lands, but atm its pretty marine sided.
If the skulk could just maintain a little bit more speed while turning in the air (in combat), it would be spot on imo.
And I agree with CrushaK about drifers, keep their speed but lower their hp a bit.
I think the problem is more the speed combined with the regen from the crag hive. Changing the regen to extra armor would help, then from there lowering the base health if needed.
unfortunately i cant update the mod currently so i have no way to improve the situation (something i intended to tweak this weekend). maybe i need to re-publish the mod, something in the steam work shop seems to be corrupt
@Sewlek have you been able to fix this and make an update?
As for fade energy management its much harder than live NS2, which is a good change. However I can traverse the entire map at an easy 14-16 speed and always have 85%+ of my energy, with celerity. Traversing the map as a fade in live was stupidly easy, just press shift then jump twice, there was no thought or skill requirement there. Fade speed now scales more with skill, and also energy management is quite critical. As for how the fade feels you may have your own opinions regarding, but generally this change increases the skill ceiling for fade (shadowstep was decent for traversing map, but was really just a gimick in combat).
Yeah, this is wrong. The balance mod fade has lowered the skill ceiling and raised the skill floor by making blink the primary movement mechanic. Blink is both easier and less dynamic than shadowstep. Shadowstep with double jumps combines prediction, timining, and planning where as the blink is click -> go. The combination of vanilla shadowstep and blink allowed fades great mobility if planned out well. The new shadowstep is a leftover relic to complement the fact that the blink is so linear.
The only good fade change in the balance mod was the reduction in "wispy" effects.
Have they changed the Fade in the last week or two?
When I last played Fade on BT it felt great. Fade movement is far less predictable, but energy management is far more important. The new Shadowstep is far more useful and fun to use in my opinion. Overall I feel the Fade changes are great and reward skilled players more effectively.
You probably don't know how to use the current shadowstep, then. Because it is none of those things.
Fun fact, double jump was removed from the fade because we had to include bhop as much as possible. Everyone knows that bhop is the only skill-based movement system that requires "skill." The rest of them, like shadowstep momentum and wall jump are "stupidly easy" and "require no thought or skill."
You probably don't know how to use the current shadowstep, then. Because it is none of those things.
Fun fact, double jump was removed from the fade because we had to include bhop as much as possible. Everyone knows that bhop is the only skill-based movement system that requires "skill." The rest of them, like shadowstep momentum and wall jump are "stupidly easy" and "require no thought or skill."
But guise, bhop is different.
i think it's more importantly trying to be a fun movement system which is fluid even in cluttery, narrow and winding rooms/corridors.
rather than a clunky shadowstep where you miss the door by 1 inch and stick to the wall like a wet noodle.
i think it's more importantly trying to be a fun movement system which is fluid even in cluttery, narrow and winding rooms/corridors.
rather than a clunky shadowstep where you miss the door by 1 inch and stick to the wall like a wet noodle.
Agree with this x1000. The current live fade implementation is just too binary in effectiveness, if you fail one shadowstep and hit an obstacle then you just flail around uselessly; this makes attempting to learn fade extremely punishing and unenjoyable for a lot of players. BT fade feels like a modified NS1 fade rather than an entirely new creature, and it just seems more intuitive for blink to have the more general purpose usage of flying around the map at high speed with shadowstep reserved for specific in-combat uses.
Of course I'm pretty biased, I hated the NS2 fade from the first second I tried it and I never play it, and BT has allowed me to actually enjoy fading again.
Blindly supporting a mechanic which you like that others dont, and then bashing mechanics that others like that you dont... sounds quite biased to me... The fact you try to suggest double jump was removed to push bhop is really pretty sad. Considering your position such comments are pretty immature.
The skill ceiling in no way is lowered with the BT fade, any remarks there are completely false. You can disagree as to if the ceiling is increased, but quite frankly I dont think you have even remotely learned the new fade and as such making comments regarding that is premature. As for the rest of your post, its just mocking and generally disrespectful, which is really nothing new.
In the end, I do not like the current fade movement mechanics in live. However, they did offer more depth and skill then I had expected back when the system was being tested, and as such worked better and were funner than I expected. The point being that there is a chance here to improve and add greater depth, while fixing the spammy parts of what we had and also making the fade scale better through the game. The old system while not terrible, has some major problems which need to be fixed. Those are my opinions however and thats all anyone has here, so I suggest some people start acting like it.
Removing something to 'push' something is very different than removing something because of conflicts. The truth is most likely something between it causing slight conflicts, to more just the fact that is was unneeded at that point. Blink gives you full 3 dimensional movement control, and with queued jumps you can jump the instant you hit the ground, eliminating any need for double jump. Saying that blink is linear but supporting shadowstep doesnt make sense to me - shadowstep was way more linear, you had less air control with fade back then, and you were restricted to a single plane of movement. Blink allows for all the air movement and more compared to the live fade, allows you to move in all directions at any time, and also allows for smoother travel. I dont see anything that could be done with shadowstep that could not be done with blink currently, aside from maybe drive by swipes, but thats more a result of collision changes than anything. I guess some of the purely evasive side to side movement is lost, but since thats something gained later when you get shadowstep back again, I dont think thats a huge deal.
Attempting to move this forward, it would be more helpful if you could elaborate on what aspects of the live fade movement you like, the more specific the better. Just saying LOL ITS BAD doesnt help much...
i think it's more importantly trying to be a fun movement system which is fluid even in cluttery, narrow and winding rooms/corridors.
rather than a clunky shadowstep where you miss the door by 1 inch and stick to the wall like a wet noodle.
Agree with this x1000. The current live fade implementation is just too binary in effectiveness, if you fail one shadowstep and hit an obstacle then you just flail around uselessly; this makes attempting to learn fade extremely punishing and unenjoyable for a lot of players. BT fade feels like a modified NS1 fade rather than an entirely new creature, and it just seems more intuitive for blink to have the more general purpose usage of flying around the map at high speed with shadowstep reserved for specific in-combat uses.
Of course I'm pretty biased, I hated the NS2 fade from the first second I tried it and I never play it, and BT has allowed me to actually enjoy fading again.
I always use Blink for combat and Shadowstep for moving around the map, even in the BT. Blink gives much better maneuverability and is far less predictable while still giving players complete control over it.
Drifters storm and mucuous abilities are very similar, so I'm lost on the two
As for those abilities, they need a delay or a cost increase, and guys don't forget the drifter is NOT cloaked until the commander has a shade hive (or a veil out, one of the two) so that is the counter to the perks the drifter gets when you have a crag/shift hive up!
Fade is simply, jump THEN blink and repeat, you will begin to move quickly.
Once you get shadowstep, you can combine it how you like, also shadowstep can now go in any direction (including up in the air) so essentially the fade is not going to be as strong with just blink compared to current fade, but once you get shadowstep it will become just as powerful (if even more powerful) once used! (The goal I believe of this was to make fade EASIER for new players while at the same time allowing skilled players to get more out of the fade, however while the new shadowstep is pretty cool IMO, I don't really know how it'd feel adding double jump, as I don't really see a point in DJ w/out momentum in air, but if you add both of those back with the new shadowstep, then fade would probably be a time traveling death machine
As for bhopping, I have a post in the latter pages of this thread that explain in detail how to do it, or you can catch me on BT and I'll just explain it over the mic. It's not really complicated at all, but just learning the best places to jump from when making turns and navigating the map is part of the learning process, maps like veil and summit are very easy and great places to get started, maps like descent are much more difficult because of constant staircases and the etc
The separation of NS1 Blink into NS2's Blink and Shadowstep never made much sense to me. It broke down a really tight and versatile movement system that could be used in both close combat and map navigation into two inferior counterparts.
Sharp momentum boosts a la NS1 meant that you could achieve the quick closing down of marines for combat in such a way that you actually had far more control over distance, dimension and path than the rigid and pre-set shadowstep. Also incredibly important is the fact that this never stripped away the ability of a marine to respond. You could shoot it while its approaching because it's not instantaneous movement, you could make its approach difficult and you never felt like you were utterly powerless to do at least some damage. We've ended up counteracting this in NS2 by having a really fragile fade that can get instagibbed by 2sgs and which has to go up against full armour marines often. I happen to think that this kind of combat is generally far less satisfying.
These sharp momentum boosts could then be traded in for long - and costly - blink trajectories by holding the ability down. Rarely used in extremes, this let fades traverse maps incredibly smoothly and the combination of long blink arcs, short blinks taps and retention of momentum through bhop meant that you had one ability that satisfied all the criteria, was incredibly well skill-indexed and incredibly personal. By personal, I mean that, because the difference between sharp taps and long holds of NS1 blink was a gradual one, it could be used in a myriad of different ways. Top-class fades in NS2 all look the same to me, especially when getting around, as the technique is so blunt (do A, then B, than C) and the only thing that stands out is the frequency at which someone facepalms a wall. In NS1, some fades used the floor far more, some preferred long arcs for air acceleration, some conserved more energy through bunnyhopping, some took corners highly aggressively et cetera. Let me qualify this by admitting that I don't watch NS2 competitive nearly as much as I did NS1 though and perhaps others see more than I do.
What is undeniable though is the linear nature of the NS2 Blink and Shadowstep. The Blink provides a constant speed with no variation and the Shadowstep propels you a set distance with no variation. The only thing this promotes of value is planning and this was never in short supply anyway.
I feel like Shadowstep is the last remnant (along with blink visuals) of an early desire to create and emulate the X-men Nightstalker. Teleportation was an ambitious plan which ultimately failed and we are left with some paltry mini-teleportation in its wake. Also, don't forget the early decision by UWE to include "secondary movement" for all classes as well; I reckon cleaving the NS1 movement mechanic in half was a fairly easy, if misguided, path to take to fill this gap. They would have had to be much more creative if they already had a fully functioning movement system already - a pity they didn't go down that route really.
It's devolution really. We had a taste of the smartphone which could play music and make calls all on one device and now we're back to wielding an mp3 player and brickphone all over again.
That was the bug, the spread was very biased towards the center, now it has a much more consistent distribution. The spread on the rifle is still unchanged in terms of degrees.
Also, comparitively the spread is both smaller than NS1, and your also shooting a much larger skulk than in NS1. I dont buy that the spread is even remotely too big currently, I personally thought that it could still even be increased a single degree still. The spread corrections is not to 'make it easier' to shoot skulks, its to make the rifle not a sniper rifle.).
'Fixing" the spread to not be "biased toward the center" or to have "consistent distribution" within it's unchanged degrees of cone IS increasing the spread! I don't know how you don't see that?
Its not like changing the degrees of the cone is the only way to increase spread, as you clearly pointed out - increasing the previously tight distribution within said cone is just another way of increasing the spread.
So i don't get the whole denial of the end result going on??
Also if you insist on bringing up the difference in skulk model size as justification at least don't omit such things as the a) animation issues that wont be fixed b) huge difference in hit box proportion and sizes and c) obvious net code differences
These factor in, making the difference in model size of lesser importance Imo.
But really the take away point is this : lmg spread has been increased.
That was the bug, the spread was very biased towards the center, now it has a much more consistent distribution. The spread on the rifle is still unchanged in terms of degrees.
Also, comparitively the spread is both smaller than NS1, and your also shooting a much larger skulk than in NS1. I dont buy that the spread is even remotely too big currently, I personally thought that it could still even be increased a single degree still. The spread corrections is not to 'make it easier' to shoot skulks, its to make the rifle not a sniper rifle.).
'Fixing" the spread to not be "biased toward the center" or to have "consistent distribution" within it's unchanged degrees of cone IS increasing the spread! I don't know how you don't see that?
Its not like changing the degrees of the cone is the only way to increase spread, as you clearly pointed out - increasing the previously tight distribution within said cone is just another way of increasing the spread.
So i don't get the whole denial of the end result going on??
Also if you insist on bringing up the difference in skulk model size as justification at least don't omit such things as the a) animation issues that wont be fixed b) huge difference in hit box proportion and sizes and c) obvious net code differences
These factor in, making the difference in model size of lesser importance Imo.
But really the take away point is this : lmg spread has been increased.
I am referring to it in terms of the code, you choose to look at the end result and see it as an increase. Technically the bullet spread has not increased - IE the furthest shot you could possibly get from dead center has not changed. The effective spread is larger/more consistent. Why your bringing that up to argue about it I haven't a clue, but if your trying to say that the rifle spread is too large I have to disagree, and the current balance of the mod disagrees with you also.
It does amaze me that I was completely right about the impact and feedback that these changes would instigate, but also really, really depresses me.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited April 2013
@xdragon : I brought it up because when others said in here that the spread increased you insisted on saying no, it was fixed but not increased.
Which i found to be disingenuous, because no typical user would know a semantic detail in code, they only know the end result. Not to mention your semantic argument is still wrong if *any* amount of bullets are further outward from the origin from their previous implementation - even if the maximum cone remained the same - that is an increase of spread.
So you not conceding that, yes, the spread has increased (like you just did, thank you) made it seem like you didn't want to others to know the actual, practical, end result : increased spread.
Oh and balance isn't the only factor for this mod as sewlek stated?? I thought the direction the public opinion swayed on the bullet width argument, a few pages ago was a prime example?
Edit : obviously, you being the only one who has been verbal in this thread regarding wanting to increase lmg spread didn't help me feeling your reply was disingenuous..
Clearly, but spread is something that I would consider more directly related to the balance aspect, and less related to 'fun' (unless its massively huge). I think having the increased spread is good, as it makes peeking less deadly for aliens, reinforces the pistol's role and also I think having a consistent spread is better as its much more predictable in terms of damage. The old spread was why I warned people trying to test the hitreg to expect ~1 bullet out of 10 to be more off center than the rest. That spread was inconsistent, and actually could have been causing hitreg to be perceived as worse to an extent. This spread correction has been in for quite a while now IIRC, interesting it only now becomes a topic.
The separation of NS1 Blink into NS2's Blink and Shadowstep never made much sense to me. It broke down a really tight and versatile movement system that could be used in both close combat and map navigation into two inferior counterparts.
Sharp momentum boosts a la NS1 meant that you could achieve the quick closing down of marines for combat in such a way that you actually had far more control over distance, dimension and path than the rigid and pre-set shadowstep. Also incredibly important is the fact that this never stripped away the ability of a marine to respond. You could shoot it while its approaching because it's not instantaneous movement, you could make its approach difficult and you never felt like you were utterly powerless to do at least some damage. We've ended up counteracting this in NS2 by having a really fragile fade that can get instagibbed by 2sgs and which has to go up against full armour marines often. I happen to think that this kind of combat is generally far less satisfying.
These sharp momentum boosts could then be traded in for long - and costly - blink trajectories by holding the ability down. Rarely used in extremes, this let fades traverse maps incredibly smoothly and the combination of long blink arcs, short blinks taps and retention of momentum through bhop meant that you had one ability that satisfied all the criteria, was incredibly well skill-indexed and incredibly personal. By personal, I mean that, because the difference between sharp taps and long holds of NS1 blink was a gradual one, it could be used in a myriad of different ways. Top-class fades in NS2 all look the same to me, especially when getting around, as the technique is so blunt (do A, then B, than C) and the only thing that stands out is the frequency at which someone facepalms a wall. In NS1, some fades used the floor far more, some preferred long arcs for air acceleration, some conserved more energy through bunnyhopping, some took corners highly aggressively et cetera. Let me qualify this by admitting that I don't watch NS2 competitive nearly as much as I did NS1 though and perhaps others see more than I do.
What is undeniable though is the linear nature of the NS2 Blink and Shadowstep. The Blink provides a constant speed with no variation and the Shadowstep propels you a set distance with no variation. The only thing this promotes of value is planning and this was never in short supply anyway.
I feel like Shadowstep is the last remnant (along with blink visuals) of an early desire to create and emulate the X-men Nightstalker. Teleportation was an ambitious plan which ultimately failed and we are left with some paltry mini-teleportation in its wake. Also, don't forget the early decision by UWE to include "secondary movement" for all classes as well; I reckon cleaving the NS1 movement mechanic in half was a fairly easy, if misguided, path to take to fill this gap. They would have had to be much more creative if they already had a fully functioning movement system already - a pity they didn't go down that route really.
It's devolution really. We had a taste of the smartphone which could play music and make calls all on one device and now we're back to wielding an mp3 player and brickphone all over again.
You don't even understand NS2 shadowstep + blink at all. If you don't watch or play competitive games, how do you have any idea what top tier fades look like? The entire point of the balance mod revamp is to try and increase the skill involved in the fade movement, but it has the exact opposite effect. Plus it has the side effect of making fades feel shittier to use and relying on bhop to do anything.
You probably don't know how to use the current shadowstep, then. Because it is none of those things.
Fun fact, double jump was removed from the fade because we had to include bhop as much as possible. Everyone knows that bhop is the only skill-based movement system that requires "skill." The rest of them, like shadowstep momentum and wall jump are "stupidly easy" and "require no thought or skill."
But guise, bhop is different.
i think it's more importantly trying to be a fun movement system which is fluid even in cluttery, narrow and winding rooms/corridors.
rather than a clunky shadowstep where you miss the door by 1 inch and stick to the wall like a wet noodle.
NS2balance blink doesn't accomplish that, nor will it ever. You get stuck even more in the balance mod because you're relying on bhop and the faster you go, the longer the turns you have to take. P.S. You lose all momentum immediately if you touch anything.
Blindly supporting a mechanic which you like that others dont, and then bashing mechanics that others like that you dont... sounds quite biased to me... The fact you try to suggest double jump was removed to push bhop is really pretty sad. Considering your position such comments are pretty immature.
The skill ceiling in no way is lowered with the BT fade, any remarks there are completely false. You can disagree as to if the ceiling is increased, but quite frankly I dont think you have even remotely learned the new fade and as such making comments regarding that is premature. As for the rest of your post, its just mocking and generally disrespectful, which is really nothing new.
In the end, I do not like the current fade movement mechanics in live. However, they did offer more depth and skill then I had expected back when the system was being tested, and as such worked better and were funner than I expected. The point being that there is a chance here to improve and add greater depth, while fixing the spammy parts of what we had and also making the fade scale better through the game. The old system while not terrible, has some major problems which need to be fixed. Those are my opinions however and thats all anyone has here, so I suggest some people start acting like it.
I'm no more biased than you are. You constantly push things to make the game more like NS1 because you believe that NS1 > NS2 and every mechanic you change in that direction will make the game better. I think that's a stupid and game-killing position to take.
You constantly lecture me about the skill involved in these things yet you don't even play a high level fade. The current fade movement is the most skillful thing in NS2, but we're breaking things that work well because some people want to play NS1 4.0.
I like how exo has less hp and less dmg, but I'm not sure about the decreased price, maybe same price with faster movement? Sprint feels good, I'm not too sure
As for onos, he still can't crouch jump (not sure why this was taken away) he gets stuck in a lot of places/staircases cause of this
His overall speed with celerity doesn't seem to fit his gore range, if his gore range is still going to be so close then I'd prefer if he could move faster with celerity, or have a minor gore range increase
umm skulk still feels good, but like everyone else giving him that air control would really be useful
Lerk feels nice as is, I like the control and the speed, I really feel like a bird
Fade I stink balls with until I get shadowstep, I think he needs some tweaking but others should discuss this more, I understand the transition is to help new players, while still make it good for experienced players, but I dunno vanilla fade is pretty excellent
As for single handed minigun exo, he feels really worthless
And drifter, a cool down was added on his moves, however I think a cost increase would be better, but the goal is probably to prevent spam so I guess either or works
The speedy gonzalez exo feels a bit silly to me. Running as fast as a marine is one thing, but sprinting at double the speed is another. It just doesn't fit the image of the exo. All their assets are clearly designed around being huge, slow and powerful. No matter how well balanced it is, I don't think I want to see an implementation of them that is cheap, fast and disposable.
The speedy gonzalez exo feels a bit silly to me. Running as fast as a marine is one thing, but sprinting at double the speed is another. It just doesn't fit the image of the exo. All their assets are clearly designed around being huge, slow and powerful. No matter how well balanced it is, I don't think I want to see an implementation of them that is cheap, fast and disposable.
I think if the visual impact of the thrusters being used was greater than this wouldn't be so jarring, and the current implementation makes exos more broadly useful which is definitely a good thing for gameplay as they are always going to be compared to the ubiquitous JP+SG.
Comments
I think the problem is more the speed combined with the regen from the crag hive. Changing the regen to extra armor would help, then from there lowering the base health if needed.
Unless its changed since weekend. (I didnt test since then)
Yeah, this is wrong. The balance mod fade has lowered the skill ceiling and raised the skill floor by making blink the primary movement mechanic. Blink is both easier and less dynamic than shadowstep. Shadowstep with double jumps combines prediction, timining, and planning where as the blink is click -> go. The combination of vanilla shadowstep and blink allowed fades great mobility if planned out well. The new shadowstep is a leftover relic to complement the fact that the blink is so linear.
The only good fade change in the balance mod was the reduction in "wispy" effects.
When I last played Fade on BT it felt great. Fade movement is far less predictable, but energy management is far more important. The new Shadowstep is far more useful and fun to use in my opinion. Overall I feel the Fade changes are great and reward skilled players more effectively.
Although, I do miss double jump.
Fun fact, double jump was removed from the fade because we had to include bhop as much as possible. Everyone knows that bhop is the only skill-based movement system that requires "skill." The rest of them, like shadowstep momentum and wall jump are "stupidly easy" and "require no thought or skill."
But guise, bhop is different.
i think it's more importantly trying to be a fun movement system which is fluid even in cluttery, narrow and winding rooms/corridors.
rather than a clunky shadowstep where you miss the door by 1 inch and stick to the wall like a wet noodle.
Of course I'm pretty biased, I hated the NS2 fade from the first second I tried it and I never play it, and BT has allowed me to actually enjoy fading again.
The skill ceiling in no way is lowered with the BT fade, any remarks there are completely false. You can disagree as to if the ceiling is increased, but quite frankly I dont think you have even remotely learned the new fade and as such making comments regarding that is premature. As for the rest of your post, its just mocking and generally disrespectful, which is really nothing new.
In the end, I do not like the current fade movement mechanics in live. However, they did offer more depth and skill then I had expected back when the system was being tested, and as such worked better and were funner than I expected. The point being that there is a chance here to improve and add greater depth, while fixing the spammy parts of what we had and also making the fade scale better through the game. The old system while not terrible, has some major problems which need to be fixed. Those are my opinions however and thats all anyone has here, so I suggest some people start acting like it.
Attempting to move this forward, it would be more helpful if you could elaborate on what aspects of the live fade movement you like, the more specific the better. Just saying LOL ITS BAD doesnt help much...
At the same time, skulk is a lot more enjoyable and a lot better.
I always use Blink for combat and Shadowstep for moving around the map, even in the BT. Blink gives much better maneuverability and is far less predictable while still giving players complete control over it.
As for those abilities, they need a delay or a cost increase, and guys don't forget the drifter is NOT cloaked until the commander has a shade hive (or a veil out, one of the two) so that is the counter to the perks the drifter gets when you have a crag/shift hive up!
@current1y
Fade is simply, jump THEN blink and repeat, you will begin to move quickly.
Once you get shadowstep, you can combine it how you like, also shadowstep can now go in any direction (including up in the air) so essentially the fade is not going to be as strong with just blink compared to current fade, but once you get shadowstep it will become just as powerful (if even more powerful) once used! (The goal I believe of this was to make fade EASIER for new players while at the same time allowing skilled players to get more out of the fade, however while the new shadowstep is pretty cool IMO, I don't really know how it'd feel adding double jump, as I don't really see a point in DJ w/out momentum in air, but if you add both of those back with the new shadowstep, then fade would probably be a time traveling death machine
As for bhopping, I have a post in the latter pages of this thread that explain in detail how to do it, or you can catch me on BT and I'll just explain it over the mic. It's not really complicated at all, but just learning the best places to jump from when making turns and navigating the map is part of the learning process, maps like veil and summit are very easy and great places to get started, maps like descent are much more difficult because of constant staircases and the etc
Sharp momentum boosts a la NS1 meant that you could achieve the quick closing down of marines for combat in such a way that you actually had far more control over distance, dimension and path than the rigid and pre-set shadowstep. Also incredibly important is the fact that this never stripped away the ability of a marine to respond. You could shoot it while its approaching because it's not instantaneous movement, you could make its approach difficult and you never felt like you were utterly powerless to do at least some damage. We've ended up counteracting this in NS2 by having a really fragile fade that can get instagibbed by 2sgs and which has to go up against full armour marines often. I happen to think that this kind of combat is generally far less satisfying.
These sharp momentum boosts could then be traded in for long - and costly - blink trajectories by holding the ability down. Rarely used in extremes, this let fades traverse maps incredibly smoothly and the combination of long blink arcs, short blinks taps and retention of momentum through bhop meant that you had one ability that satisfied all the criteria, was incredibly well skill-indexed and incredibly personal. By personal, I mean that, because the difference between sharp taps and long holds of NS1 blink was a gradual one, it could be used in a myriad of different ways. Top-class fades in NS2 all look the same to me, especially when getting around, as the technique is so blunt (do A, then B, than C) and the only thing that stands out is the frequency at which someone facepalms a wall. In NS1, some fades used the floor far more, some preferred long arcs for air acceleration, some conserved more energy through bunnyhopping, some took corners highly aggressively et cetera. Let me qualify this by admitting that I don't watch NS2 competitive nearly as much as I did NS1 though and perhaps others see more than I do.
What is undeniable though is the linear nature of the NS2 Blink and Shadowstep. The Blink provides a constant speed with no variation and the Shadowstep propels you a set distance with no variation. The only thing this promotes of value is planning and this was never in short supply anyway.
I feel like Shadowstep is the last remnant (along with blink visuals) of an early desire to create and emulate the X-men Nightstalker. Teleportation was an ambitious plan which ultimately failed and we are left with some paltry mini-teleportation in its wake. Also, don't forget the early decision by UWE to include "secondary movement" for all classes as well; I reckon cleaving the NS1 movement mechanic in half was a fairly easy, if misguided, path to take to fill this gap. They would have had to be much more creative if they already had a fully functioning movement system already - a pity they didn't go down that route really.
It's devolution really. We had a taste of the smartphone which could play music and make calls all on one device and now we're back to wielding an mp3 player and brickphone all over again.
Its not like changing the degrees of the cone is the only way to increase spread, as you clearly pointed out - increasing the previously tight distribution within said cone is just another way of increasing the spread.
So i don't get the whole denial of the end result going on??
Also if you insist on bringing up the difference in skulk model size as justification at least don't omit such things as the a) animation issues that wont be fixed b) huge difference in hit box proportion and sizes and c) obvious net code differences
These factor in, making the difference in model size of lesser importance Imo.
But really the take away point is this : lmg spread has been increased.
If you still disagree atleast bring some arguments to back it up rather then resorting to 'blah blah'.
It does amaze me that I was completely right about the impact and feedback that these changes would instigate, but also really, really depresses me.
Which i found to be disingenuous, because no typical user would know a semantic detail in code, they only know the end result. Not to mention your semantic argument is still wrong if *any* amount of bullets are further outward from the origin from their previous implementation - even if the maximum cone remained the same - that is an increase of spread.
So you not conceding that, yes, the spread has increased (like you just did, thank you) made it seem like you didn't want to others to know the actual, practical, end result : increased spread.
Oh and balance isn't the only factor for this mod as sewlek stated?? I thought the direction the public opinion swayed on the bullet width argument, a few pages ago was a prime example?
Edit : obviously, you being the only one who has been verbal in this thread regarding wanting to increase lmg spread didn't help me feeling your reply was disingenuous..
You don't even understand NS2 shadowstep + blink at all. If you don't watch or play competitive games, how do you have any idea what top tier fades look like? The entire point of the balance mod revamp is to try and increase the skill involved in the fade movement, but it has the exact opposite effect. Plus it has the side effect of making fades feel shittier to use and relying on bhop to do anything.
NS2balance blink doesn't accomplish that, nor will it ever. You get stuck even more in the balance mod because you're relying on bhop and the faster you go, the longer the turns you have to take. P.S. You lose all momentum immediately if you touch anything.
I'm no more biased than you are. You constantly push things to make the game more like NS1 because you believe that NS1 > NS2 and every mechanic you change in that direction will make the game better. I think that's a stupid and game-killing position to take.
You constantly lecture me about the skill involved in these things yet you don't even play a high level fade. The current fade movement is the most skillful thing in NS2, but we're breaking things that work well because some people want to play NS1 4.0.
And, like you said, that's just my opinion.
I like how exo has less hp and less dmg, but I'm not sure about the decreased price, maybe same price with faster movement? Sprint feels good, I'm not too sure
As for onos, he still can't crouch jump (not sure why this was taken away) he gets stuck in a lot of places/staircases cause of this
His overall speed with celerity doesn't seem to fit his gore range, if his gore range is still going to be so close then I'd prefer if he could move faster with celerity, or have a minor gore range increase
umm skulk still feels good, but like everyone else giving him that air control would really be useful
Lerk feels nice as is, I like the control and the speed, I really feel like a bird
Fade I stink balls with until I get shadowstep, I think he needs some tweaking but others should discuss this more, I understand the transition is to help new players, while still make it good for experienced players, but I dunno vanilla fade is pretty excellent
As for single handed minigun exo, he feels really worthless
And drifter, a cool down was added on his moves, however I think a cost increase would be better, but the goal is probably to prevent spam so I guess either or works
I think if the visual impact of the thrusters being used was greater than this wouldn't be so jarring, and the current implementation makes exos more broadly useful which is definitely a good thing for gameplay as they are always going to be compared to the ubiquitous JP+SG.