Well after watching that Q&A stream, looks like Xenocide is staying in. Unless this ability is balanced PROPERLY, I won't be supporting combat. Xeno completely destroyed combat mod, the lag, devour and the lerk spam I can stomach (pardon the pun) but Xeno broke the entire experience playing as marines.
Well after watching that Q&A stream, looks like Xenocide is staying in. Unless this ability is balanced PROPERLY, I won't be supporting combat. Xeno completely destroyed combat mod, the lag, devour and the lerk spam I can stomach (pardon the pun) but Xeno broke the entire experience playing as marines.
If you watch the whole video, there were fewer than 20 kills due to xenocide over an hour of games. There is no reason we'd leave this ability less balanced than any other.
Well after watching that Q&A stream, looks like Xenocide is staying in. Unless this ability is balanced PROPERLY, I won't be supporting combat. Xeno completely destroyed combat mod, the lag, devour and the lerk spam I can stomach (pardon the pun) but Xeno broke the entire experience playing as marines.
If you watch the whole video, there were less than 20 kills due to xenocide over an hour of games. There is no reason we'd leave this ability less balanced than any other.
But that doesn't necessarily mean its perfectly balanced and SUITED for combat is it? Many extraneous variables are responsible for why people did or did not use Xeno, novelty being the most obvious. I concede that I can't judge it unless I play it myself but Xenocide is not an ability that belongs in combat based on previous experience. It's easily the most powerful ability and tech advantage in the main game. It is designed to end games quickly and efficiently and used to decimate entire marine squads. Almost every other alien lifeform or ability forces marines to bunch up and work together, Xeno is the antithesis of that.
If you can balance it properly then I'll support your judgement and opinion on the subject but amongst all the crap that combat mod was left with, Xenocide was by far more of an abomination than any glitch, bad map or poor balance decision. It left very poorly skilled players a huge, skilless advantage over any marine shotgun or exo god.
Good luck because unless it's nerfed into the ground, I find it very difficult not to find serious problems with it when the main game balances it around something that combat is incapable of doing.
DecoyJoin Date: 2012-09-11Member: 159037Members, Super Administrators, Playtest Lead, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts, Retired Community Developer
@Razdaz - I never liked Xeno. It was just irritating. However, as someone who has actually played the game, Xeno is not overpowered anymore. I don't know that anything in the game is PERFECTLY balanced, but the beautiful thing is that the devs can continue to make balance tweaks as they need to.
You could just ask the devs if it had been nerfed before jumping to conclusions. They've been active throughout this thread.
Many extraneous variables are responsible for why people did or did not use Xeno, novelty being the most obvious.
I don't know about novelty, but you're right - there are a lot of "extraneous" (not sure what is/isn't extraneous when balancing a multiplayer game) variables that accounted for its use, or lack thereof, just like devour (I got devoured twice over an hour of games).
Even on the team, we sometimes have the problem of looking at abilities in a vacuum - and admittedly, it's very difficult to do anything else without extensive, repeated, iterative playtesting with full servers on a range of map sizes (you need a lot of data, basically). But we're trying our best to get that information, and until we have it, we aren't afraid to make small (or drastic) tweaks when something feels imbalanced, or just isn't fun.
And speaking as a player, not a dev, I've always thought xeno and devour were totally broken - until now.
yourstruly41The United States of AmericaJoin Date: 2014-07-01Member: 197141Members
I enjoyed watching the stream. The gameplay looked fast and fun. The abilities looked cool, it seems pretty balanced to me. The game was also running smooth; performance was good.
i tohught the purpose of devour was to incapacitate high skilled marines for a short time
I'd have to go back and check what was said during 1.1/2.0 development and around the release of 2.0, but as I recall it was about HAs and preventing equipment from being endlessly recycled. Taking a person out of the game and making them stare at a red screen for half a minute or more seems more like an undesirable and annoying side-effect of balancing devour rather than the actual goal itself.
@Decoy Even if it is balanced, like with Devour, I don't like the concept. To me, this type of ability doesn't belong in combat but at the very least, if its balanced then I can deal with it and still enjoy the game. NS2 to me is a game where good players really shine, Xeno is the complete opposite. It may appeal to rookies or average FPSers but not to me.
I hate maps that are absolute mazes. And 99% of NS2 maps are mazes. Why? Example of good map is Faceoff. Sure it might need some tweaking to balance the jetpackers or gorge strikes, but the base is great and i always had the most fun on thsi exact map. Symatric design and as little corridors as possible. Otherwise players need freakin 2 months to learn every corridor that looks exactly the same as the rest.
I wish i could participate in the testing during dev phase to see if they have changed stuff and how. In a way i liked the Combat mode more than NS2 itself. Sure that one is also cool, but it just requires too much effort and time to even start the round and then you end up with a comm who leaves the match 1 minute after the start. Combat mode needs like 6 players and no comm and the action can begin. And it's jolly fun even in a broken Combat mode.
Do you guys have a player range you are balancing for?
Personally I only like ns2 combat mod if it has less than 8 players. It just gets spammy after that.
I personally have been trying to look at it from a 6v6 perspective and upwards, the maximum number we are shooting for is 20-24, 24 being that we are kinda hitting the limit before it gets too chaotic.
Do you guys have a player range you are balancing for?
Personally I only like ns2 combat mod if it has less than 8 players. It just gets spammy after that.
I personally have been trying to look at it from a 6v6 perspective and upwards, the maximum number we are shooting for is 20-24, 24 being that we are kinda hitting the limit before it gets too chaotic.
I figured. I knew I was also very oddball in my taste in combat there too.
^what he said
But yeah guys remember that you are NDA, that includes everything you see in the build, slack and trello.
We have a hidden PT forum for those sort of discussions btw, shoot Gisp a message on slack for access.
Comments
If you watch the whole video, there were fewer than 20 kills due to xenocide over an hour of games. There is no reason we'd leave this ability less balanced than any other.
But that doesn't necessarily mean its perfectly balanced and SUITED for combat is it? Many extraneous variables are responsible for why people did or did not use Xeno, novelty being the most obvious. I concede that I can't judge it unless I play it myself but Xenocide is not an ability that belongs in combat based on previous experience. It's easily the most powerful ability and tech advantage in the main game. It is designed to end games quickly and efficiently and used to decimate entire marine squads. Almost every other alien lifeform or ability forces marines to bunch up and work together, Xeno is the antithesis of that.
If you can balance it properly then I'll support your judgement and opinion on the subject but amongst all the crap that combat mod was left with, Xenocide was by far more of an abomination than any glitch, bad map or poor balance decision. It left very poorly skilled players a huge, skilless advantage over any marine shotgun or exo god.
Good luck because unless it's nerfed into the ground, I find it very difficult not to find serious problems with it when the main game balances it around something that combat is incapable of doing.
You could just ask the devs if it had been nerfed before jumping to conclusions. They've been active throughout this thread.
I don't know about novelty, but you're right - there are a lot of "extraneous" (not sure what is/isn't extraneous when balancing a multiplayer game) variables that accounted for its use, or lack thereof, just like devour (I got devoured twice over an hour of games).
Even on the team, we sometimes have the problem of looking at abilities in a vacuum - and admittedly, it's very difficult to do anything else without extensive, repeated, iterative playtesting with full servers on a range of map sizes (you need a lot of data, basically). But we're trying our best to get that information, and until we have it, we aren't afraid to make small (or drastic) tweaks when something feels imbalanced, or just isn't fun.
And speaking as a player, not a dev, I've always thought xeno and devour were totally broken - until now.
I'd have to go back and check what was said during 1.1/2.0 development and around the release of 2.0, but as I recall it was about HAs and preventing equipment from being endlessly recycled. Taking a person out of the game and making them stare at a red screen for half a minute or more seems more like an undesirable and annoying side-effect of balancing devour rather than the actual goal itself.
I wish i could participate in the testing during dev phase to see if they have changed stuff and how. In a way i liked the Combat mode more than NS2 itself. Sure that one is also cool, but it just requires too much effort and time to even start the round and then you end up with a comm who leaves the match 1 minute after the start. Combat mode needs like 6 players and no comm and the action can begin. And it's jolly fun even in a broken Combat mode.
Personally I only like ns2 combat mod if it has less than 8 players. It just gets spammy after that.
I personally have been trying to look at it from a 6v6 perspective and upwards, the maximum number we are shooting for is 20-24, 24 being that we are kinda hitting the limit before it gets too chaotic.
Please dont add that ugly green thing to my game
I really hope someone takes 2 minutes to recolour it to be orange to match every single other alien structure
Edit- I posted this in the wrong thread, this has nothing to do with combat. Derp.
NDA BREAKER!!!!! THE POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY!!!
But yeah guys remember that you are NDA, that includes everything you see in the build, slack and trello.
We have a hidden PT forum for those sort of discussions btw, shoot Gisp a message on slack for access.