About people saying strafejump requires no skill... I've actually encountered someone willing to teach strafe jump and explained the basics to me. No, his name will not be mentioned
Basically strafe jump is anticipating a skulk bite or an alien attack and then jumping, because you accelerate faster than they can bite/attack you will dodge it. Some of this will be hard to do with lag but overall it's not too bad and it's only good in a 1v1 if used properly.
I don't have an opinion on this, because in the NS2 community it seems you need 999+ hours to have an opinion.
I've played a lot and it seems clear to me that sj is not the actual problem here. With that said, I don't actually see the point of sj and I wouldn't mourn its loss, but then instead of the 'waa sj op my floor skulk gets destroyed' threads we will end up with a load of 'waa skulks too slow' or 'Marines op!' threads instead.
The reason for this is that most pub players are not good skulks, and most pub players seem to think that 1v1 engagements should be the norm. To all those people saying that sj makes them godlike marines: you will still get destroyed by good skulks unless you are already a good marine irrespective of sj.
SJ is a small additional horizontal boost to the normal jump. It also reduces the jump height and has a fairly lengthy cooldown in combat terms.
Please do by all means get rid of sj. But the following plea still stands regardless: learn to skulk. That is the answer to the problems being described in this thread, I'm afraid.
Allow me also to pose a further question.
Suppose skulks are buffed relative to marines, by whatever means (that is unimportant for this discussion). How hard will people rage when the current great skulks absolutely destroy entire marine teams?
disclaimer: i did not read all pages, so i apologize if i'm repeating what has been said already.
You know if you're going to just discard other peoples oppinion, no matter how much less thought or wording they use to voice it, why would anyone listen to yours?
I'm recently back to the game, and as an old ns1 player i could really fast notice glaring differences between the dynamics of these two games and quite frankly i'm glad that strafejumping is in the game. I'm not however happy about alien movement, and primaly that of being the skulk thats the most affected by it. Problems that i face with is what seems to be a shorter range on bite and drastically slow acceleration as a skulk(and i guess to some extent this carries to fade+gorge).
The aspect that is most neglected of bunnyhop, back in ns1(and any hl1mod) is that, while it was really beneficial once you got to topspeed or close to it to dodge whichever projectiles you had coming for you. The most important aspect was acceleration, the beauty of it was that with one mechanic both sides were able to benefit of it, marines and aliens. While marine's weren't allowed to keep the speed up, cause that'd be just silly(im sure most of us remember those days, fun but not really good for the game ), they still had that acceleration to keep the gamefield somewhat in status quo, whilst aliens reaks the full benefits.
If you look at ns2, sure you got wallhop of where you get some speedboost, and to some extent you can keep it up to move around, celerity furthers this but when it comes to engagements, it becomes very unforgiving. More often than none you are faced in a situation that you are on ground, and your initial acceleration is so low that what seemed like the perfect ambush, quickly turns into a "look here i am shoot my face off". In some way, this is exactly the situation that no one wants to be as marines without a mechanic like strafejumping, you just stand there taking the beating cause you have no chances on surviving by your own actions. Which in my eyes, is not a good for the game.
Further more, my personal view is that the aspects of game design and balance should not be done by removing abilities or mechanics, but adding/altering the values of those mechanics in game already. So please, come up with beneficial alterations or additions rather than removing aspects of the game. It's not just you who is the playing the game.
Allow me also to pose a further question.
Suppose skulks are buffed relative to marines, by whatever means (that is unimportant for this discussion). How hard will people rage when the current great skulks absolutely destroy entire marine teams?
They'll rage the same if that buff relies on lag or make something rely more on lag. I mean, i think that wall jump is bad in that matter too. Not on "gaining speed" while traveling but on attack/engagement.
If a skulk get on top of a pillar and jump toward a marine (on the floor), the marine often see a teleportation at some point. It looks like : 2 meters above ground and "zap", the skulk is on the ground running. "whut?", they say.
The reasons are the same on each side. Any glitch is ultimately bad.
-On marine side because you end up aiming at nothing and you have to re-acquire the target.
-On alien side because you end up biting air as the marine pass through you (at least it looks like it). Plus the teeth rack & jaws... that stupid thing doesn't make things better.
(and no i have good pings and stuff)
There will be always lag problems. In the mean time if a game isn't good on the lag matters, it shouldn't be full of things that make the lag issue worse (as a feeling).
disclaimer: i did not read all pages, so i apologize if i'm repeating what has been said already.
You know if you're going to just discard other peoples oppinion, no matter how much less thought or wording they use to voice it, why would anyone listen to yours?
I'm recently back to the game, and as an old ns1 player i could really fast notice glaring differences between the dynamics of these two games and quite frankly i'm glad that strafejumping is in the game. I'm not however happy about alien movement, and primaly that of being the skulk thats the most affected by it. Problems that i face with is what seems to be a shorter range on bite and drastically slow acceleration as a skulk(and i guess to some extent this carries to fade+gorge).
The aspect that is most neglected of bunnyhop, back in ns1(and any hl1mod) is that, while it was really beneficial once you got to topspeed or close to it to dodge whichever projectiles you had coming for you. The most important aspect was acceleration, the beauty of it was that with one mechanic both sides were able to benefit of it, marines and aliens. While marine's weren't allowed to keep the speed up, cause that'd be just silly(im sure most of us remember those days, fun but not really good for the game ), they still had that acceleration to keep the gamefield somewhat in status quo, whilst aliens reaks the full benefits.
If you look at ns2, sure you got wallhop of where you get some speedboost, and to some extent you can keep it up to move around, celerity furthers this but when it comes to engagements, it becomes very unforgiving. More often than none you are faced in a situation that you are on ground, and your initial acceleration is so low that what seemed like the perfect ambush, quickly turns into a "look here i am shoot my face off". In some way, this is exactly the situation that no one wants to be as marines without a mechanic like strafejumping, you just stand there taking the beating cause you have no chances on surviving by your own actions. Which in my eyes, is not a good for the game.
Further more, my personal view is that the aspects of game design and balance should not be done by removing abilities or mechanics, but adding/altering the values of those mechanics in game already. So please, come up with beneficial alterations or additions rather than removing aspects of the game. It's not just you who is the playing the game.
Interesting approach. I agree with you especially about the "sitting duck" issue (happens often when you ambush from ceilings for example as you don't gain any forward momentum from vertical jumps anymore).
Two benefits for balancing the early game skulk vs. marine by adjusting skulk acceleration:
1. You don't have to remove strafe jump that so many have grown fond of
2. You can do it gradually and find the sweet spot (in theory)
I'm still not sure about the required skill balance between strafe jumping and tracking the marine though. Increased acceleration would help, but there's still the problem with FOV and low profile of skulk, and the vertical-view-obstructing mouth camera.
@UncleCrunch - exactly, spot on. Many people who play this game do not realize they are depending the inbuilt prediction to compensate for the always present lag.
The more the game mechanics will resemble buzzing flies on steroids (a.k.a. fade blink), the more often the prediction will fail and you will end up with frustration - missing attacks that should hit and being hit from an enemy that should not have a LOS at you. Not to mention the player prediction which suffers from limited monitor refresh rate, in-game frame rate limits and narrow FOV in a game (that, unlike human eyes, do not auto-track targets).
In short, all these limitations result in a skulk play where you fight and enemy which you do not see for significant part of the combat. The ability to predict the movement of this unseen enemy makes or breaks the game.
If any small feature like SJ causes this much controversy and argument its quite clear there IS a problem with it. The marine Vs skulk movement mechanics just don't feel right. You can argue to the cows come home about whether it's a good/bad thing or other solutions. But why confuse the situation anymore? Just remove it, no one will miss it but people will be glad to see it go. Job done.
at the end of the day games are meant to be fun and rewarding to play; SJ is not a logical or rewarding interaction between between players. I love the core mechanics and design of NS2 but UWE really need to focus on making the game 'feel' fun now. Things like SJ, floaty/bouncy Pee size grenades and poor weapon feedback just turn the rookies off.
I think poorly executed and non-logical game mechanics are the reason for falling player numbers and low retention rate not the complexity. its easy to invest 100's of hours into learning a game that is fun to play from the get go.
Almost everyone I've introduce to NS2 say the game doesn't feel right and stop playing which is a shame because the core game is fantastic. The obsessive focus on balance over the past few months isn't helping sell copies of the game or keep new players. Screw balance test mod, lets get a fun test mod.
Reduce Strafe jump distance, leave forward jump distance, bring back rifle butt knock back. Instead of stunning the alien like it used to, just have it do a small knock back as well as a delay between rifle butt and shooting. You will have to decide if the delay is worth the rifle but, it would buy you a few seconds and give you distance. Also, would not allow you to evade multiple aliens at once. Dont get me wrong, i get my fare share of rifle butt kills, but it just seems useless for something that only does 20 dmg, when instead i can just switch to pistol or axe that does more and at a higher rate.
I loved this game when I first got it, played it almost non stop... however the change that introduced the strafe jump really killed it.
As many others have stated it simply feels wrong... Before the change it was perfect, Marines had the clear advantage at range, and Aliens had the clear advantage at melee... Now Marines have a very clear advantage at both range and melee....
More and more I see people lining up to stack on the Marine team, and I can't blame them. I've even been playing Marine more (despite how boring I find it) because Alien is no fun anymore... When I do play Alien I find myself sitting in vents waiting for the resources to go Lerk or Onos... all because Skulk feels so useless right now.
Seriously I went from averaging 1-2 kills per death, to barely being able to pull off 1 kill every 10 deaths as a Skulk... A lot of people are saying "just L2P" but it shouldn't take THAT much skill to play decently as a Skulk (especially since it's super easy to go positive in kills as a Marine)
It's sad that such a fun and addictive game has been ruined to the point where I don't even feel like logging on anymore... I've also noticed that most of the servers I had favorite (kingkahuna for example) are suddenly empty most of the time... (before the change I never saw them empty)
In my honest opinion, they need to fix this ASAP to keep the game from losing players...
New on the Beta Test mod, if you have an organized group and can test this out, DO IT! and post feedback for it.
At the end of the day, I think the larger culprit is the strange collision mechanics in this game. The same patch where we saw this strafe jump introduced (i.e. b252/Reinforced), we also saw a small but noticeable change in the physics. I found this reference from their B252 post, "You might get stuck occasionally, as changes to the physics system (again, in preparation for Linux) have introduced some new issues."
Entity collisions in this engine have never felt good from the start (ex. trying to jump around/over ARCs and getting stuck on them, etc.), but I at least the marine/alien melee interaction used to feel OK. Once b252 went live, I felt a noticeable loss of momentum as a skulk when colliding with a marine. I now find myself trying to bite marines without touching them if that makes sense (compared with how I played NS1 and pre-b252 skulk) where you could speed at them and essentially jump through them without losing speed.
The larger issue for many causal players is timing their bites and avoid this physics collision that makes you lose your momentum. If the timing on your bite is too early, you will miss the marine. If the timing on your bite is too late, you will collide with the marine, lose your speed, and the marine will move away and the bite doesn't land. I have 1400+ hrs in this game and I still mess up the timing and movement alot in this build to consistently land bites and put out the damage needed without losing my speed and dodging their aim at the same time. I will have perfect ambushes set up where I land the first bite before they see me but if my timing is just a bit off and I lose my momentum, I will often lose that engagement. I can only imagine how frustrating this is for newer and casual players.
As @xDragon will be the first to point out, that actual strafe jump mechanic isn't a massive boost that people make it out to be. It seems very OP to alot of people because a well timed strafe jump couple with an alien colliding with you will usually mean a dead skulk. Sure that small boost is a help, but strafejump ends up being the "lightning rod" that people point to because it is something more tangible. I would rather strafejump or some type of skill based movement be left in the game (in NS1, we had double jumping) and instead the underlying physics problem tweaked.
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
@palagi
FYI: The physics changes for reinforced were quickly reverted after that one day of public testing... waaayyy too many issues (like getting stuck on e v e r y thing)
@palagi
FYI: The physics changes for reinforced were quickly reverted after that one day of public testing... waaayyy too many issues (like getting stuck on e v e r y thing)
@Ironhorse Do you know what caused the change to the collision/momentum loss I am talking about in Reinforced then if it wasn't the "physics changes"? I vaguely remember a dev saying it was like a new version of PhysX being used (I may be way off on this).
As @xDragon will be the first to point out, that actual strafe jump mechanic isn't a massive boost that people make it out to be. It seems very OP to alot of people because a well timed strafe jump couple with an alien colliding with you will usually mean a dead skulk. Sure that small boost is a help, but strafejump ends up being the "lightning rod" that people point to because it is something more tangible. I would rather strafejump or some type of skill based movement be left in the game (in NS1, we had double jumping) and instead the underlying physics problem tweaked.
Perhaps giving skulks more maneuverability when bunnyhopping would help (couldn't they do tight figure eights in NS1 without losing speed?). Perhaps also making strafe jump a little more skill/timing based so there's a difference between the marines that just learn to hit "d+space" and marines that have practiced timing, etc. (although good marines will juke before jumping, which is important to learn).
@palagi
FYI: The physics changes for reinforced were quickly reverted after that one day of public testing... waaayyy too many issues (like getting stuck on e v e r y thing)
@Ironhorse Do you know what caused the change to the collision/momentum loss I am talking about in Reinforced then if it wasn't the "physics changes"? I vaguely remember a dev saying it was like a new version of PhysX being used (I may be way off on this).
No you are correct that is exactly what was being tried out, a newer version.. it was supposed to fix many issues and is something they have wanted to do for some time.
But it caused hell on every little aspect of the game, and they just couldn't get it working well enough in time, so it was scrapped. (i'm not sure, but i do not think its being pursued now)
I have gone over every single check in for Reinforced (months prior and after) and the only physics related items i could find were:
Fixed marine commander being able to drop phase gates in a way that players could get stuck
Fixed bug preventing the Exo from smashing evolving eggs
fixed old bug where exo could get stuck in floor when beaconed
fixed grenades getting stuck when firing next to a wall
tweaked strafe jumping and marine movement
tweaked wall jump a bit
So no i don't have any indication of a physics change. Perhaps you notice it more with SJ now in the mix?
Strafe jump does not need to be removed.. that is stupid. However the skulk should be able to accelerate fast enough to keep up with the strafe jump, if he happens to anticipate the direction of the strafe jump. This is not the case currently as a strafe jumping marine will actually out distance the skulk turning to keep up.
Also the ambush from the ceiling argument is very valid - you land next to a marine, bite, he strafe jumps and hes so far away from you that you have no chance to close the gap in time unless the marine is a bad shot. Its just stupid that a skulk can get the jump on a marine and ambush like this and lose the fight so badly as your skulk wont go anywhere. You should absolutely gain momentum from jumping from ceilings. How does it make any sense to gain momentum from walls but not ceilings ? Thats a herp derp mechanic if I've ever seen one.
There were changes made in 250 when the movement was overhauled, and IIRC there was also tweaks made with reinforced to 'improve' player collisions. These are changed made in lua however, the basic physic interaction still uses a pill IIRC, and is unchanged since the last overhaul way back in beta. The changes in lua are attempts to resolve how all player collisions just had you bouncing off each other. IMO it should be fixed in the underlying physics system - source uses boxes, which does have its own set of disadvantages however.
If marines keep their movement buff, give skulks more air control so they turn in the air while keeping speed. (I know we tried this in the beta test mod, but skulks were faster at the time and marines were slower)
Nooo... please no...
Increased air control leads to the limitless skulk model from those earlier versions. What it does is feel great on the skulk for the average user, but provide an amazingly high skill ceiling of dodging and exploiting mechanics to a degree that it raises the skill floor requirement for marines to a point that it creates that old familiar 75% winrate on aliens. All because your average marine cannot track the magic bullet skulk. This gave such a huge advantage to aliens, despite it being fun to play as a skulk, that it eventually brought about the "brick skulk" in a knee jerk reaction. (only after trying patch after patch of adjusting values)
Now we have a new movement system and honestly, before reinforced was introduced, felt balanced and just fine?? Took months to get that right with daily/hourly tweaking in the BT mod?
So now that we introduced this new mechanic we are trying to bend over backwards in trying to redesign something that was working well?
Ugh.. i don't think its worth it. I'm all for skilled based movement mechanics but after spending 5 minutes practicing it, its not skillful at all, and its very cheap and spammable.. lessening the importance of positioning for marines, as well.
I recommend addressing anything other than skulk movement.
Else you will repeat history, or take months to get to a good spot that everyone agrees on..(something the BT mod did already..) either option seems terrible to me.
Maybe just remove it and make marine base acceleration better?
I agree, skulk movement is fine right now.
I know it feels like i'm ranting to you guys, but, did you notice almost all our problems are related to post-249 builds?
There were changes made in 250 when the movement was overhauled, and IIRC there was also tweaks made with reinforced to 'improve' player collisions. These are changed made in lua however, the basic physic interaction still uses a pill IIRC, and is unchanged since the last overhaul way back in beta. The changes in lua are attempts to resolve how all player collisions just had you bouncing off each other. IMO it should be fixed in the underlying physics system - source uses boxes, which does have its own set of disadvantages however.
Interesting info thanks xDragon. I guess I much preferred the "bouncing off" effect in b250 (even if slightly flawed) as opposed to the running into a brick wall momentum loss feeling I get when I collide with a marine after reinforced. Your explanation definitely makes sense to what I experience in game. It makes playing skulk and fade less fun (also hurts balance and gameplay imo), but I feel like you can bulldoze marines with onos easier now, so there's that.
Strafe jump does not need to be removed.. that is stupid. However the skulk should be able to accelerate fast enough to keep up with the strafe jump, if he happens to anticipate the direction of the strafe jump. This is not the case currently as a strafe jumping marine will actually out distance the skulk turning to keep up.
Also the ambush from the ceiling argument is very valid - you land next to a marine, bite, he strafe jumps and hes so far away from you that you have no chance to close the gap in time unless the marine is a bad shot. Its just stupid that a skulk can get the jump on a marine and ambush like this and lose the fight so badly as your skulk wont go anywhere. You should absolutely gain momentum from jumping from ceilings. How does it make any sense to gain momentum from walls but not ceilings ? Thats a herp derp mechanic if I've ever seen one.
You can't add more speed because lag problem will increase. If you ever reached 14 SU (speed unit) as a skulk you know what i'm talking about. To put it simply it's another world. Lot's of Benny Hill show effect, teleportation (synchronizing) etc...
Strafe jump does not need to be removed.. that is stupid. However the skulk should be able to accelerate fast enough to keep up with the strafe jump, if he happens to anticipate the direction of the strafe jump. This is not the case currently as a strafe jumping marine will actually out distance the skulk turning to keep up.
Also the ambush from the ceiling argument is very valid - you land next to a marine, bite, he strafe jumps and hes so far away from you that you have no chance to close the gap in time unless the marine is a bad shot. Its just stupid that a skulk can get the jump on a marine and ambush like this and lose the fight so badly as your skulk wont go anywhere. You should absolutely gain momentum from jumping from ceilings. How does it make any sense to gain momentum from walls but not ceilings ? Thats a herp derp mechanic if I've ever seen one.
i don't want to play the realism card here but how is that supposed to work? just think about this: you jump 300 meters above the ground from an airplane, then crash into the ground and suddenly propel in the direction you were looking at instead of, well you know what should have happened. its a similar thing here with collisions: when you frontally collide with a surface (your velocity is oposite direction of the surface normal) should that velocity be redirected and where? with less steep impacts, velocity is being redirected already (running against a wall, jumping onto a sloped ground)
Ideally the collisions would be more 'solid' then they are now - IE you crash straight into a stationary marine, and you stop hard and cleanly - no slowdown or deflection. However in that same sense if you run into the back of a moving marine, you should not stop completely, more be slowed to match (thereabouts) the speed of what you collided with. The rubber banding effects of the current collisions definitely have drawbacks, but they are better than the old collisions where each object was more akin to a marble on impact.
Comments
"I haven't played much, and I don't understand what the problem is, but I think the marine strafe jump is not overpowered".
I bet most of these people did not even see it properly used in the game. In other words, they don't have a clue.
Basically strafe jump is anticipating a skulk bite or an alien attack and then jumping, because you accelerate faster than they can bite/attack you will dodge it. Some of this will be hard to do with lag but overall it's not too bad and it's only good in a 1v1 if used properly.
I don't have an opinion on this, because in the NS2 community it seems you need 999+ hours to have an opinion.
The reason for this is that most pub players are not good skulks, and most pub players seem to think that 1v1 engagements should be the norm. To all those people saying that sj makes them godlike marines: you will still get destroyed by good skulks unless you are already a good marine irrespective of sj.
SJ is a small additional horizontal boost to the normal jump. It also reduces the jump height and has a fairly lengthy cooldown in combat terms.
Please do by all means get rid of sj. But the following plea still stands regardless: learn to skulk. That is the answer to the problems being described in this thread, I'm afraid.
Suppose skulks are buffed relative to marines, by whatever means (that is unimportant for this discussion). How hard will people rage when the current great skulks absolutely destroy entire marine teams?
You know if you're going to just discard other peoples oppinion, no matter how much less thought or wording they use to voice it, why would anyone listen to yours?
I'm recently back to the game, and as an old ns1 player i could really fast notice glaring differences between the dynamics of these two games and quite frankly i'm glad that strafejumping is in the game. I'm not however happy about alien movement, and primaly that of being the skulk thats the most affected by it. Problems that i face with is what seems to be a shorter range on bite and drastically slow acceleration as a skulk(and i guess to some extent this carries to fade+gorge).
The aspect that is most neglected of bunnyhop, back in ns1(and any hl1mod) is that, while it was really beneficial once you got to topspeed or close to it to dodge whichever projectiles you had coming for you. The most important aspect was acceleration, the beauty of it was that with one mechanic both sides were able to benefit of it, marines and aliens. While marine's weren't allowed to keep the speed up, cause that'd be just silly(im sure most of us remember those days, fun but not really good for the game
If you look at ns2, sure you got wallhop of where you get some speedboost, and to some extent you can keep it up to move around, celerity furthers this but when it comes to engagements, it becomes very unforgiving. More often than none you are faced in a situation that you are on ground, and your initial acceleration is so low that what seemed like the perfect ambush, quickly turns into a "look here i am shoot my face off". In some way, this is exactly the situation that no one wants to be as marines without a mechanic like strafejumping, you just stand there taking the beating cause you have no chances on surviving by your own actions. Which in my eyes, is not a good for the game.
Further more, my personal view is that the aspects of game design and balance should not be done by removing abilities or mechanics, but adding/altering the values of those mechanics in game already. So please, come up with beneficial alterations or additions rather than removing aspects of the game. It's not just you who is the playing the game.
They'll rage the same if that buff relies on lag or make something rely more on lag. I mean, i think that wall jump is bad in that matter too. Not on "gaining speed" while traveling but on attack/engagement.
If a skulk get on top of a pillar and jump toward a marine (on the floor), the marine often see a teleportation at some point. It looks like : 2 meters above ground and "zap", the skulk is on the ground running. "whut?", they say.
The reasons are the same on each side. Any glitch is ultimately bad.
-On marine side because you end up aiming at nothing and you have to re-acquire the target.
-On alien side because you end up biting air as the marine pass through you (at least it looks like it). Plus the teeth rack & jaws... that stupid thing doesn't make things better.
(and no i have good pings and stuff)
There will be always lag problems. In the mean time if a game isn't good on the lag matters, it shouldn't be full of things that make the lag issue worse (as a feeling).
Interesting approach. I agree with you especially about the "sitting duck" issue (happens often when you ambush from ceilings for example as you don't gain any forward momentum from vertical jumps anymore).
Two benefits for balancing the early game skulk vs. marine by adjusting skulk acceleration:
1. You don't have to remove strafe jump that so many have grown fond of
2. You can do it gradually and find the sweet spot (in theory)
I'm still not sure about the required skill balance between strafe jumping and tracking the marine though. Increased acceleration would help, but there's still the problem with FOV and low profile of skulk, and the vertical-view-obstructing mouth camera.
The more the game mechanics will resemble buzzing flies on steroids (a.k.a. fade blink), the more often the prediction will fail and you will end up with frustration - missing attacks that should hit and being hit from an enemy that should not have a LOS at you. Not to mention the player prediction which suffers from limited monitor refresh rate, in-game frame rate limits and narrow FOV in a game (that, unlike human eyes, do not auto-track targets).
In short, all these limitations result in a skulk play where you fight and enemy which you do not see for significant part of the combat. The ability to predict the movement of this unseen enemy makes or breaks the game.
fixed.
at the end of the day games are meant to be fun and rewarding to play; SJ is not a logical or rewarding interaction between between players. I love the core mechanics and design of NS2 but UWE really need to focus on making the game 'feel' fun now. Things like SJ, floaty/bouncy Pee size grenades and poor weapon feedback just turn the rookies off.
I think poorly executed and non-logical game mechanics are the reason for falling player numbers and low retention rate not the complexity. its easy to invest 100's of hours into learning a game that is fun to play from the get go.
Almost everyone I've introduce to NS2 say the game doesn't feel right and stop playing which is a shame because the core game is fantastic. The obsessive focus on balance over the past few months isn't helping sell copies of the game or keep new players. Screw balance test mod, lets get a fun test mod.
New on the Beta Test mod, if you have an organized group and can test this out, DO IT! and post feedback for it.
As many others have stated it simply feels wrong... Before the change it was perfect, Marines had the clear advantage at range, and Aliens had the clear advantage at melee... Now Marines have a very clear advantage at both range and melee....
More and more I see people lining up to stack on the Marine team, and I can't blame them. I've even been playing Marine more (despite how boring I find it) because Alien is no fun anymore... When I do play Alien I find myself sitting in vents waiting for the resources to go Lerk or Onos... all because Skulk feels so useless right now.
Seriously I went from averaging 1-2 kills per death, to barely being able to pull off 1 kill every 10 deaths as a Skulk... A lot of people are saying "just L2P" but it shouldn't take THAT much skill to play decently as a Skulk (especially since it's super easy to go positive in kills as a Marine)
It's sad that such a fun and addictive game has been ruined to the point where I don't even feel like logging on anymore... I've also noticed that most of the servers I had favorite (kingkahuna for example) are suddenly empty most of the time... (before the change I never saw them empty)
In my honest opinion, they need to fix this ASAP to keep the game from losing players...
At the end of the day, I think the larger culprit is the strange collision mechanics in this game. The same patch where we saw this strafe jump introduced (i.e. b252/Reinforced), we also saw a small but noticeable change in the physics. I found this reference from their B252 post, "You might get stuck occasionally, as changes to the physics system (again, in preparation for Linux) have introduced some new issues."
Entity collisions in this engine have never felt good from the start (ex. trying to jump around/over ARCs and getting stuck on them, etc.), but I at least the marine/alien melee interaction used to feel OK. Once b252 went live, I felt a noticeable loss of momentum as a skulk when colliding with a marine. I now find myself trying to bite marines without touching them if that makes sense (compared with how I played NS1 and pre-b252 skulk) where you could speed at them and essentially jump through them without losing speed.
The larger issue for many causal players is timing their bites and avoid this physics collision that makes you lose your momentum. If the timing on your bite is too early, you will miss the marine. If the timing on your bite is too late, you will collide with the marine, lose your speed, and the marine will move away and the bite doesn't land. I have 1400+ hrs in this game and I still mess up the timing and movement alot in this build to consistently land bites and put out the damage needed without losing my speed and dodging their aim at the same time. I will have perfect ambushes set up where I land the first bite before they see me but if my timing is just a bit off and I lose my momentum, I will often lose that engagement. I can only imagine how frustrating this is for newer and casual players.
As @xDragon will be the first to point out, that actual strafe jump mechanic isn't a massive boost that people make it out to be. It seems very OP to alot of people because a well timed strafe jump couple with an alien colliding with you will usually mean a dead skulk. Sure that small boost is a help, but strafejump ends up being the "lightning rod" that people point to because it is something more tangible. I would rather strafejump or some type of skill based movement be left in the game (in NS1, we had double jumping) and instead the underlying physics problem tweaked.
FYI: The physics changes for reinforced were quickly reverted after that one day of public testing... waaayyy too many issues (like getting stuck on e v e r y thing)
Not losing momentum when colliding with other players is a huge start. But what else?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=130391092
@Ironhorse Do you know what caused the change to the collision/momentum loss I am talking about in Reinforced then if it wasn't the "physics changes"? I vaguely remember a dev saying it was like a new version of PhysX being used (I may be way off on this).
Perhaps giving skulks more maneuverability when bunnyhopping would help (couldn't they do tight figure eights in NS1 without losing speed?). Perhaps also making strafe jump a little more skill/timing based so there's a difference between the marines that just learn to hit "d+space" and marines that have practiced timing, etc. (although good marines will juke before jumping, which is important to learn).
But it caused hell on every little aspect of the game, and they just couldn't get it working well enough in time, so it was scrapped. (i'm not sure, but i do not think its being pursued now)
I have gone over every single check in for Reinforced (months prior and after) and the only physics related items i could find were:
So no i don't have any indication of a physics change. Perhaps you notice it more with SJ now in the mix?
Also the ambush from the ceiling argument is very valid - you land next to a marine, bite, he strafe jumps and hes so far away from you that you have no chance to close the gap in time unless the marine is a bad shot. Its just stupid that a skulk can get the jump on a marine and ambush like this and lose the fight so badly as your skulk wont go anywhere. You should absolutely gain momentum from jumping from ceilings. How does it make any sense to gain momentum from walls but not ceilings ? Thats a herp derp mechanic if I've ever seen one.
I agree, skulk movement is fine right now.
I know it feels like i'm ranting to you guys, but, did you notice almost all our problems are related to post-249 builds?
Interesting info thanks xDragon. I guess I much preferred the "bouncing off" effect in b250 (even if slightly flawed) as opposed to the running into a brick wall momentum loss feeling I get when I collide with a marine after reinforced. Your explanation definitely makes sense to what I experience in game. It makes playing skulk and fade less fun (also hurts balance and gameplay imo), but I feel like you can bulldoze marines with onos easier now, so there's that.
You can't add more speed because lag problem will increase. If you ever reached 14 SU (speed unit) as a skulk you know what i'm talking about. To put it simply it's another world. Lot's of Benny Hill show effect, teleportation (synchronizing) etc...
:-/
i don't want to play the realism card here but how is that supposed to work? just think about this: you jump 300 meters above the ground from an airplane, then crash into the ground and suddenly propel in the direction you were looking at instead of, well you know what should have happened. its a similar thing here with collisions: when you frontally collide with a surface (your velocity is oposite direction of the surface normal) should that velocity be redirected and where? with less steep impacts, velocity is being redirected already (running against a wall, jumping onto a sloped ground)