UWE had a small budget, a small team, a small development time and had the biggest balls to produce one of the most unique fun games Ive ever played. I challenge anyone to do better.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
A lot of the issues surrounding mod stability is because the Steam workshop sometimes being an unreliable mess, failing to connect to workshop content and it failing to load is probably one of the many reasons why we barely see any mod servers. There is also an allure of having your own custom serverside content that no one else has, which is entirely impossible when requiring a community mod pool such as the workshop as the end all for downloads. Take a look at all the copycat badge and admin mods that are up in the workshop. Growth of dedicated community servers is limited when all the servers provide the same experience.
This game really needs serverside mod support and downloads without requiring Steam workshop.
They have built an excellent engine, that as they did with the HL1 engine, they have pushed to the absolute limit with their game code.
I have to strongly disagree with you on this point. I believe that the Spark engine is a decent engine overall (and props to UWE for coding and utilizing their own game engine), but it is nowhere near as good as GoldSrc. I can't call it excellent when performance is still an issue.
The engine just isn't that impressive. It's not the best looking engine and it doesn't perform well on mid-level hardware.
I support UWE but they don't poop gold. Let's be honest, Spark 2 might rock my face off; Spark is just OK for now.
What's all this talk of match making, few people wanted it. Most people would prefer finding one themselves, then they can get it right.
People wanted 1) Performance, 2) Balancing, 3) Fix for the bad voting mechanics, 3) Maps, 4) Content, 5) Donation stuff.
They really messed up their game. It's in a terrible state currently. I can't believe they did stuff like 2x jetpack fuel in reinforced.. Making fades worse than Lerks, yet they're more expensive, make a good performance patch and then release a patch shortly after which makes performance even worse.
There isn't any 'strongest' lifeform in that level of play. Every engagement can go either way if you try to 1v1. LMG marines can kill fades. Lerks can kill solo SG's. Vice-versa. Anything can happen.
Cyber_Mage that was a good read although I don't believe that it will be understood here.
Breaking down whats wrong with the game can be really easy just looking whats going on... Game is directed to pro play 6v6 ideally, but average/pub player likes bigger games, simply to avoid bestial skill players that they have no chance beating. They run to 18-24 people servers and although those servers are not inherently balanced, simply because they like to shoot more and get more chances to get better: One is prone to learn have drastically more encounters than on small servers.
IMHO, the fact that developers ignore this fact as well as the fact that most of the populated servers is above officially recommended player count is source of most disagreements in and out of forum community.
I understand that quasi-leveling by sharpening skill is interesting for us who played a lot but whenever NS2 gets a new player influx it fails to keep them because 90% of the time their skulk fails to land a single bite due to biblical amount of tricks that he has to conquer.
And then there are really flat out bad decisions. Alien vision (i'm interested how many players use it even in dark), Alien play complexity, skulks sounding like galloping horses when running or like jet fighters when walljumping that can be heard 2 rooms away and so on. Players with 800hrs know how to deal with it most of other people simply bailed from the game that requires more than it should in order to be appreciated and enjoyed.
Mind you I'm not saying the game is bad. I just think that focus should not be in catering to comp scene but rather general populace.
Original ns2 was quite good and was, in a sense, more accessible than current iteration. Right now, good players have more power than ever and game requires more time than ever to master and with it more time to get proficient skill to play for enjoyment.
I think that more complexity could be achieved through commanders to make game more exciting, something that I would like to propose elsewhere on the forums.
Comments
Therefore we can't have opinions?
This game really needs serverside mod support and downloads without requiring Steam workshop.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/134109/proposal-for-abuse-proof-skill-system/p1
I have to strongly disagree with you on this point. I believe that the Spark engine is a decent engine overall (and props to UWE for coding and utilizing their own game engine), but it is nowhere near as good as GoldSrc. I can't call it excellent when performance is still an issue.
The engine just isn't that impressive. It's not the best looking engine and it doesn't perform well on mid-level hardware.
I support UWE but they don't poop gold. Let's be honest, Spark 2 might rock my face off; Spark is just OK for now.
People wanted 1) Performance, 2) Balancing, 3) Fix for the bad voting mechanics, 3) Maps, 4) Content, 5) Donation stuff.
They really messed up their game. It's in a terrible state currently. I can't believe they did stuff like 2x jetpack fuel in reinforced.. Making fades worse than Lerks, yet they're more expensive, make a good performance patch and then release a patch shortly after which makes performance even worse.
Looking at the highlights of the NS2 WC, seems some of the most exciting and skilled moments were Fade vs Shotgun.
Strangely, I never thought I'd say this, but Lerks seem more 'paper-thin' than Fades these days. Plus Fades at 40 res! NS2 SACRILEGE!
We've got more GFX options than ever before too.
Lerks are incredible strong, stronger than Fade idk.
The rest is just parts of it?
Breaking down whats wrong with the game can be really easy just looking whats going on... Game is directed to pro play 6v6 ideally, but average/pub player likes bigger games, simply to avoid bestial skill players that they have no chance beating. They run to 18-24 people servers and although those servers are not inherently balanced, simply because they like to shoot more and get more chances to get better: One is prone to learn have drastically more encounters than on small servers.
IMHO, the fact that developers ignore this fact as well as the fact that most of the populated servers is above officially recommended player count is source of most disagreements in and out of forum community.
I understand that quasi-leveling by sharpening skill is interesting for us who played a lot but whenever NS2 gets a new player influx it fails to keep them because 90% of the time their skulk fails to land a single bite due to biblical amount of tricks that he has to conquer.
And then there are really flat out bad decisions. Alien vision (i'm interested how many players use it even in dark), Alien play complexity, skulks sounding like galloping horses when running or like jet fighters when walljumping that can be heard 2 rooms away and so on. Players with 800hrs know how to deal with it most of other people simply bailed from the game that requires more than it should in order to be appreciated and enjoyed.
Mind you I'm not saying the game is bad. I just think that focus should not be in catering to comp scene but rather general populace.
Original ns2 was quite good and was, in a sense, more accessible than current iteration. Right now, good players have more power than ever and game requires more time than ever to master and with it more time to get proficient skill to play for enjoyment.
I think that more complexity could be achieved through commanders to make game more exciting, something that I would like to propose elsewhere on the forums.