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
Besides that ^ Hallucinations always have been most useful not when they are alive and far enough away to study their behavior, but right before you are getting attacked.
The instant increase in objects to track at the last moment (along with the obscuring ink cloud effect) and the fact that they incur damage indicators as well as showing up in the killfeed all contribute to encouraging the beneficial chaotic situation that can be created for those brief few moments.
In other words, if you are sending in a 1 mph lerk hallucination across an open room you are doing it wrong. Use it just before melee range is reached for greatest effect.
That all being said, you are absolutely correct that their poor behavior makes the drifter micro management skill requirement pretty narrow, as many commanders might be using them too soon which can sometimes be easy to spot and distinguish for marines. Feel free to follow up on any nuances in their behavior so we can report it and look into it. (bonus points if you've got a video of examples)
That's silly. Making drifters easy to kill AND expensive makes it really hard to use them offensively early game, whereas the marine comm can medpack and ammo support at any time.
A better solution would be; drifters cost 5 t-res, but build half as quickly. Drifters can evolve for an additional 3 t-res to build twice as fast. That way you can at least think about using drifters offensively in the early game.
A better solution would be; drifters cost 5 t-res, but build half as quickly. Drifters can evolve for an additional 3 t-res to build twice as fast. That way you can at least think about using drifters offensively in the early game.
I actually kinda like this idea yanno.
The whole drifter story kinda reeks of kneejerk balancing though. tres cost
Does no one remember how infuriating "nascar drifters" were? You could rarely kill one
Yup, if you killed one it meant that the alien comm was looking elsewhere at the time.
Now, if you kill one it means that the alien comm didn't pre-empt your appearance on the map by enough time to allow the drifter to turn slooowwly around and move out.
Combine that with the only sources of healing for drifters being crags and gorges, even if your drifter gets out alive there are many situations that occur in games that mean you still lose it somewhen down the line unless you're very, very careful. If drifters benefit from hive healing like lifeforms do it could be much less punishing in some respects. Nothing more annoying than watching your only 2 gorges die early on and then be forced to place a crag or another drifter if your first one gets wounded.
That's silly. Making drifters easy to kill AND expensive makes it really hard to use them offensively early game, whereas the marine comm can medpack and ammo support at any time.
A better solution would be; drifters cost 5 t-res, but build half as quickly. Drifters can evolve for an additional 3 t-res to build twice as fast. That way you can at least think about using drifters offensively in the early game.
Again, I have to disagree that drifters are hard or even riskier to use in combat - my thing is simply that I need them to build more often than not.
But I do like the idea of having two kinds of drifters - one that builds fast and one that is combat oriented. However, if the combat type drifter is going to cost 8 tres.. then we're back to square one - because why not just build another drifter in this current iteration for 8 tres??
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
@wheeee Plenty of people don't even like their existence. This is way better than it was before. Commanders should be paying attention to their drifters or using them more safely. Or we should be removing them in favor making gorges more important. I like that one.
Again, I have to disagree that drifters are hard or even riskier to use in combat - my thing is simply that I need them to build more often than not.
But I do like the idea of having two kinds of drifters - one that builds fast and one that is combat oriented. However, if the combat type drifter is going to cost 8 tres.. then we're back to square one - because why not just build another drifter in this current iteration for 8 tres??
They most certainly are riskier to use in combat; if the aliums you're supporting get wiped you have a decent chance of losing 8 t-res. Also, I don't understand your 2nd point; the whole idea was to make drifters cost 5 t-res at their base.
@mattj my problem with that is then alien commander is a truly boring experience and there literally would be nothing to hold your attention.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
@Ghoul
I dont think it would be a good idea to remove the walljumping and introduce a dumbed down version with simple jumping.
This would not solve the problem that players didnt uinderstand the role of a skulk in early-mid game.
I played a few rounds of the last version during my holidays after a 3 month break and it was indeed not fun most of the time on alienside.
Why?
Cause i was a bit shocked of how players perform on alienside during early game these days.
80% didnt understand what they have todo as skulk.
Wich is:
- Scouting
- parasiting
- ambushing in groups
- Avoid engagements most of the time
- Resbiting
- And very important: resbiting
Thats just the result when players learning the game in the wrong way.
So instead of teaching them the right way, dumbing down gamemechanics would only makes things worse when it comes to understanding of the game.
We're working on improving the game by taking on some of the biggest challenges, and criticisms of NS2;
1) FPS is still a challenge
2) Load times, especially for new and returning players can be long and a terrible first impression
3) The game is not accessible or easily learned
FPS is a constant battle. The nature of NS2 forces you to have a good CPU. We're working on some optimizations for 276 that should mean modern CPUs (the last 4 generations) get some kind of performance increase. Internally, we're seeing promising numbers but we will only know once this patch is out there.
Load times we know are a bane for some people. Mechanical HardDrive installs of NS2 can lead to waiting a very long time, even to just change map. @GhoulofGSG9 and @matso have both been working on ways to make load times minimal, with drastic improvements. Did you used to get a coffee while waiting for a map load? Not anymore in the forthcoming 276.
We know NS2 is difficult to master, especially for newbies. Even with all the tool tips and experienced playerbase, this is still not enough. This will be a long term goal for us going forward. The success of Dota2's complexity and CounterStrike:GO's player base turnaround gives us hope that NS2 can be rejuvenated if we all work hard enough on the problems, and innovate new ideas.
Thanks for your thoughts and criticisms @Shurakan - please know we read everyone's thoughts and opinions and we will endeavor to do our best.
Now, if you kill one it means that the alien comm didn't pre-empt your appearance on the map by enough time to allow the drifter to turn slooowwly around and move out.
You aren't supposed to lead the way with your drifter?
Your team should be properly laning and calling out advancing enemies, and if your drifter is alone on the front lines for long enough then pull it back?
When you enter a room with a drifter intending to use it in combat, it should be behind your team and preferably out of direct LOS with marines.
I agree regarding the hive not healing drifters, however, that has never made sense to me.
All these tweaks, nerfs and what not for the sake of balance. Slowing down Skulks, drifters expensive and easy to kill, marine jumping higher than Skulks.. Though i understand some motivation behind the decisions from the devs it feels like it made NS2 less fun to play and more of a chore.
When did dynamics became a bad thing?
Among producers in the music business there is a term called "overproduction", which means you've tweaked so much in the mix, still not satisfied after days of work, it now sounds very generic, clean, but it has lost almost it's complete soul.
All these tweaks, nerfs and what not for the sake of balance. Slowing down Skulks, drifters expensive and easy to kill, marine jumping higher than Skulks.. Though i understand some motivation behind the decisions from the devs it feels like it made NS2 less fun to play and more of a chore.
When did dynamics became a bad thing?
Among producers in the music business there is a term called "overproduction", which means you've tweaked so much in the mix, still not satisfied after days of work, it now sounds very generic, clean, but it has lost almost it's complete soul.
- loading times to long
- FPS problems
- not accessible and not easily learned
- -> imho only a minor thing compared to other issues
What needs to be added:
- NS2 has no variety of healthy server communities (to teach newbs)
- -> Wooza is counter-productive for ns2 but would be a great combat server (to warm up/to just kill stuff)
- ->Ppl have only a selection of about 3 servers (e.g. thirsty onos) and quit the game if they are not populated or full
- Pro player server stomping
- Commanding is not rewarding
- -> ppl don't have a motivation to follow commanders orders in public (maybe to be adress with shiny points)
- -> Commanding interface is not good
- -> No-one wants to command and ppl wait and wait and leave because they don't want to play a waiting game.
-
- Hitreg
Among producers in the music business there is a term called "overproduction", which means you've tweaked so much in the mix, still not satisfied after days of work, it now sounds very generic, clean, but it has lost almost it's complete soul.
That's what happened to NS2.
Yes because ns2 is exactly like all the other games out there and why when I open up my steam library I just can't decide which game I want to play.
- NS2 has no variety of healthy server communities (to teach newbs)
- -> Wooza is counter-productive for ns2 but would be a great combat server (to warm up/to just kill stuff)
- ->Ppl have only a selection of about 3 servers (e.g. thirsty onos) and quit the game if they are not populated or full
- Pro player server stomping
The last two points go hand in hand, you could reword that last point to "rookies ruining high skilled servers" depending on your point of view.
- Commanding is not rewarding
- -> ppl don't have a motivation to follow commanders orders in public (maybe to be adress with shiny points)
- -> Commanding interface is not good
- -> No-one wants to command and ppl wait and wait and leave because they don't want to play a waiting game.
-
- Hitreg
Commanding is waaaay too hard when you have so many marines to babysit.
Disagree with commanding interface, I think it's adequate. What would you want to see changed?
Hitreg hasn't been an issue for me since the latest patch (for some reason, placebo?)
I think one major point that some people occasionally bring up is the complete farce of a spectator system. If it was better and easier to use, along with performance increases, ns2 had a great potential to be a really good esport and gain a lot of traction through the likes of Twitch.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
what is wrong with the spectator system? I am quite satisfied with it since first person spec got fixed. I just don't like the fact that things like ingame replays don't work properly
The last two points go hand in hand, you could reword that last point to "rookies ruining high skilled servers" depending on your point of view.
? I don't see the connection you see, so I disagree.
"rookies ruining high skilled servers"
Newbs go where free slots are.
Low skilled players do the same, but may have their favorites.
High skilled do the same of course, but they know where to turn to if they want to play a more suitable game, plus they know how the could protect themselves against newbs. HBZ had a server once, which was password protected (not NSL) were higher skilled players came to play. Everyone who wanted to play with that people, got the password.
Disagree with commanding interface, I think it's adequate. What would you want to see changed?
Interface is the wrong term. The interface works i guess, but with the borders off (ns2+) you sometimes jump onto the minimap instead of placing a structure. Nevertheless I mentioned it, so you get something: Scaling the interface would be nice, selected units should be highlighted on the minimap and maybe with an arrow at the edge of the screen
What I actually meant is handling. For myself I have some problems from time to time... Marine structure placement in some areas, auto cysts chain suggests to place new cysts instead of using placed growing cysts, giving orders to drifter/macs does not always work, offset between pointer position you see and actual position on map closer to the edges of the map... that's all what comes to my mind atm.
That's silly. Making drifters easy to kill AND expensive makes it really hard to use them offensively early game, whereas the marine comm can medpack and ammo support at any time.
A better solution would be; drifters cost 5 t-res, but build half as quickly. Drifters can evolve for an additional 3 t-res to build twice as fast. That way you can at least think about using drifters offensively in the early game.
While i can agree a lot of bad nerfs have been introduced for the sake of the "show" contradicting the strategy philosophy, this would be problematic to say the least.
You can't do that without delaying Lerks and fades. Harvester comes later... lerk and fades will come up later. Which will cripple the game sequence.
You can't make the harvester produce more to balance that. It would make the marine loose every game if they can't be clearly dominant at the end of the early game. Also it would make the game harder for Alien... rants etc...
Ugrading the drifter won't be used. It would be like "it needs time to buy time"... Plus this drifter would be more precious. Leading to focus issues with commanders.
I would prefer a drifter that flee from danger when it's in sentry mode (A-B A-B). Or send an alert when it sees something, not when it takes damage. When it's under fire, it's usually too late.
Well, even at most comp levels, aliens win most matches...so a slight decrease in alien early game might not be a terrible thing. But, why wouldn't you invest in the drifter upgrade? If you can keep it alive, it pays for itself.
what is wrong with the spectator system? I am quite satisfied with it since first person spec got fixed. I just don't like the fact that things like ingame replays don't work properly
I'll explain briefly why I think this is so important:
Without proper 'hltv', demo recording or first person spectate, it's next to impossible to make frag movies. Something that has been part of fps culture since quake.
It makes it incredibly difficult to analyze matches in depth unless you have a good spectator stream it - but even then, you can't always get a full idea of the battle, because you're stuck with that one perspective. You can't investigate exactly what made player1 miss that crucial pistol shot at player2 - so you're left with guessing. We're missing learning opportunities.
If someone wanted to make a show, in the similar mannor as day9, where he watches a replay, he rewinds, fast forwards, pauses etc. a thousand times during a daily and uses it to convey really deep and abstract concepts. This is almost impossible to do in ns2 - and I know some people have expressed that they wanted to do a show like that, it's just too difficult to do with the lack of spectating tools, in a job that is already extremely difficult.
The last two points go hand in hand, you could reword that last point to "rookies ruining high skilled servers" depending on your point of view.
? I don't see the connection you see, so I disagree.
"Pro" players go on thirsty onos and have done since before the server list was just TTO servers. I'm not convinced that "Pro" players do frequently go on other servers to stomp.
Thirsty onos is an example as one of the servers which are populated most of the time.
Pro player stomping was a general mention. This issue is stated through out of NS2 history. I didn't wrote "frequently".
And low skilled players and rookies don't know where to turn if they get beat off by better players?
If i had bought the game in a sale (2-3€?) and played some unbalanced games, i probably don't want to play the game again. I'd not be attached to the game. I just wouldn't care. That's my assumption. What is yours? What would you do? Please elaborate.
Thirsty onos is an example as one of the servers which are populated most of the time.
Pro player stomping was a general mention. This issue is stated through out of NS2 history.
Regardless, those two points go hand in hand right now. A lot of low skilled people go to TTO and mix with high skilled players. I don't really get why this has to flair up anymore?
And low skilled players and rookies don't know where to turn if they get beat off by better players?
If i had bought the game in a sale (2-3€?) and played some unbalanced games, i probably don't want to play the game again. I'd not be attached to the game. I just wouldn't care. That's my assumption. What is yours? What would you do? Please elaborate.
So as not to go into further pointless details - I was happy with what I was seeing.
Then I kept playing for more and more and started to notice a trend - which I'm not sure if it's just me being unlucky or if this is the typical example of an NS2 game.
I'd not like to spoil your fun, but there're more annoying "trends" around. Just notice the K/D ratios of top player(s) from the previous round and you will have more than 80% success in guessing who's going to win the next match. No matchmaking->no fun->no players->no matchmaking...
Actually the situation of why skulks feel so weak and not enjoyable for new players was brought up and analyzed inside the CDT some month ago.
The overall result we came up with where basically these two points:
New players don't understand or get taught by the game that aliens (specially skulks) are hit and run and depend on setting up ambushes to kill marines. You should not try to dodge bullets at all ! Instead mark the marine with parasite to track his movements and set up an ambush so you are able to land one bite even before the marine is able to react. Another tip is also to not jump like a maniac around the marine in close combat but instead to just strafe around him. That increases your possibility to hit the marine while he is unable to hit you. Overall the solution brought up to solve this point was to create better tutorial actually teaching new players how to play the skulk properly.
The really unintuitive game mechanics of wall jumping. Wall jumping is needed to accelerate properly as skulk otherwise indeed you are pretty slow. But this mechanic is as said really unintuitive as it goes against the basic understanding of physic and gets never really taught by the game at all. The ideas how to solve this point go from removing wall jumping over added a general speed boost for jumping to better tutorial.
@Shurakan hopefully these points fit to your impression
Have you thought about making leap a standard ability instead of a hive upgrade?
The game would need to be adjusted acoording to this change but I think it helps new players to some extent. Also its awesome if you are a marine and a skulk flies by you. Its enjoyable scary.
Load times we know are a bane for some people. Mechanical HardDrive installs of NS2 can lead to waiting a very long time, even to just change map. @GhoulofGSG9 and @matso have both been working on ways to make load times minimal, with drastic improvements. Did you used to get a coffee while waiting for a map load? Not anymore in the forthcoming 276.
I have been playing since Launch and have always had loading troubles with NS2. But I have seen the decrease in my loading times over the years, it used to be 5+ minute.
Now its down to about 1 MAYBE 2 minutes on the 2nd map. first map still slow but still a lot faster than in the past, i can live with it.
Load times we know are a bane for some people. Mechanical HardDrive installs of NS2 can lead to waiting a very long time, even to just change map. @GhoulofGSG9 and @matso have both been working on ways to make load times minimal, with drastic improvements. Did you used to get a coffee while waiting for a map load? Not anymore in the forthcoming 276.
I have been playing since Launch and have always had loading troubles with NS2. But I have seen the decrease in my loading times over the years, it used to be 5+ minute.
Now its down to about 1 MAYBE 2 minutes on the 2nd map. first map still slow but still a lot faster than in the past, i can live with it.
Our goals for 276 are max 1 minute at first load, max 30 seconds on every load after that. I am pleasant to tell you we managed to reach even better times on most setups.
Actually the situation of why skulks feel so weak and not enjoyable for new players was brought up and analyzed inside the CDT some month ago.
The overall result we came up with where basically these two points:
New players don't understand or get taught by the game that aliens (specially skulks) are hit and run and depend on setting up ambushes to kill marines. You should not try to dodge bullets at all ! Instead mark the marine with parasite to track his movements and set up an ambush so you are able to land one bite even before the marine is able to react. Another tip is also to not jump like a maniac around the marine in close combat but instead to just strafe around him. That increases your possibility to hit the marine while he is unable to hit you. Overall the solution brought up to solve this point was to create better tutorial actually teaching new players how to play the skulk properly.
The really unintuitive game mechanics of wall jumping. Wall jumping is needed to accelerate properly as skulk otherwise indeed you are pretty slow. But this mechanic is as said really unintuitive as it goes against the basic understanding of physic and gets never really taught by the game at all. The ideas how to solve this point go from removing wall jumping over added a general speed boost for jumping to better tutorial.
@Shurakan hopefully these points fit to your impression
Have you thought about making leap a standard ability instead of a hive upgrade?
The game would need to be adjusted acoording to this change but I think it helps new players to some extent. Also its awesome if you are a marine and a skulk flies by you. Its enjoyable scary.
But the leap abillity is so strong even against experienced players. It would require big adjustments I think. I'd rather see leap being researched on 1 hive. We had a few iterations with that, but for some reason it was decided on two hives.
Also, at some point in sewlek's betamod, we had harvesters giving biomass. I think that is an interesting idea that is sort of coupled with leap on 1 hive.
Imagine that aliens can have leap on 1 hive, IF they control 4 or 5 harvesters or what ever. Suddently there would be a huge incentive in pushing for more outside your own naturals and it would also make harvesters more a priority target for marines.
Obviously such a change would affect some maps more than others.
Comments
The instant increase in objects to track at the last moment (along with the obscuring ink cloud effect) and the fact that they incur damage indicators as well as showing up in the killfeed all contribute to encouraging the beneficial chaotic situation that can be created for those brief few moments.
In other words, if you are sending in a 1 mph lerk hallucination across an open room you are doing it wrong. Use it just before melee range is reached for greatest effect.
That all being said, you are absolutely correct that their poor behavior makes the drifter micro management skill requirement pretty narrow, as many commanders might be using them too soon which can sometimes be easy to spot and distinguish for marines. Feel free to follow up on any nuances in their behavior so we can report it and look into it. (bonus points if you've got a video of examples)
That was actually another goal of the increase
A better solution would be; drifters cost 5 t-res, but build half as quickly. Drifters can evolve for an additional 3 t-res to build twice as fast. That way you can at least think about using drifters offensively in the early game.
The whole drifter story kinda reeks of kneejerk balancing though. tres cost Yup, if you killed one it meant that the alien comm was looking elsewhere at the time.
Now, if you kill one it means that the alien comm didn't pre-empt your appearance on the map by enough time to allow the drifter to turn slooowwly around and move out.
Combine that with the only sources of healing for drifters being crags and gorges, even if your drifter gets out alive there are many situations that occur in games that mean you still lose it somewhen down the line unless you're very, very careful. If drifters benefit from hive healing like lifeforms do it could be much less punishing in some respects. Nothing more annoying than watching your only 2 gorges die early on and then be forced to place a crag or another drifter if your first one gets wounded.
Again, I have to disagree that drifters are hard or even riskier to use in combat - my thing is simply that I need them to build more often than not.
But I do like the idea of having two kinds of drifters - one that builds fast and one that is combat oriented. However, if the combat type drifter is going to cost 8 tres.. then we're back to square one - because why not just build another drifter in this current iteration for 8 tres??
They most certainly are riskier to use in combat; if the aliums you're supporting get wiped you have a decent chance of losing 8 t-res. Also, I don't understand your 2nd point; the whole idea was to make drifters cost 5 t-res at their base.
@mattj my problem with that is then alien commander is a truly boring experience and there literally would be nothing to hold your attention.
I dont think it would be a good idea to remove the walljumping and introduce a dumbed down version with simple jumping.
This would not solve the problem that players didnt uinderstand the role of a skulk in early-mid game.
I played a few rounds of the last version during my holidays after a 3 month break and it was indeed not fun most of the time on alienside.
Why?
Cause i was a bit shocked of how players perform on alienside during early game these days.
80% didnt understand what they have todo as skulk.
Wich is:
- Scouting
- parasiting
- ambushing in groups
- Avoid engagements most of the time
- Resbiting
- And very important: resbiting
Thats just the result when players learning the game in the wrong way.
So instead of teaching them the right way, dumbing down gamemechanics would only makes things worse when it comes to understanding of the game.
1) FPS is still a challenge
2) Load times, especially for new and returning players can be long and a terrible first impression
3) The game is not accessible or easily learned
FPS is a constant battle. The nature of NS2 forces you to have a good CPU. We're working on some optimizations for 276 that should mean modern CPUs (the last 4 generations) get some kind of performance increase. Internally, we're seeing promising numbers but we will only know once this patch is out there.
Load times we know are a bane for some people. Mechanical HardDrive installs of NS2 can lead to waiting a very long time, even to just change map. @GhoulofGSG9 and @matso have both been working on ways to make load times minimal, with drastic improvements. Did you used to get a coffee while waiting for a map load? Not anymore in the forthcoming 276.
We know NS2 is difficult to master, especially for newbies. Even with all the tool tips and experienced playerbase, this is still not enough. This will be a long term goal for us going forward. The success of Dota2's complexity and CounterStrike:GO's player base turnaround gives us hope that NS2 can be rejuvenated if we all work hard enough on the problems, and innovate new ideas.
Thanks for your thoughts and criticisms @Shurakan - please know we read everyone's thoughts and opinions and we will endeavor to do our best.
Your team should be properly laning and calling out advancing enemies, and if your drifter is alone on the front lines for long enough then pull it back?
When you enter a room with a drifter intending to use it in combat, it should be behind your team and preferably out of direct LOS with marines.
I agree regarding the hive not healing drifters, however, that has never made sense to me.
When did dynamics became a bad thing?
Among producers in the music business there is a term called "overproduction", which means you've tweaked so much in the mix, still not satisfied after days of work, it now sounds very generic, clean, but it has lost almost it's complete soul.
That's what happened to NS2.
*pines for devour*
I agree with
- loading times to long
- FPS problems
- not accessible and not easily learned
- -> imho only a minor thing compared to other issues
What needs to be added:
- NS2 has no variety of healthy server communities (to teach newbs)
- -> Wooza is counter-productive for ns2 but would be a great combat server (to warm up/to just kill stuff)
- ->Ppl have only a selection of about 3 servers (e.g. thirsty onos) and quit the game if they are not populated or full
- Pro player server stomping
- Commanding is not rewarding
- -> ppl don't have a motivation to follow commanders orders in public (maybe to be adress with shiny points)
- -> Commanding interface is not good
- -> No-one wants to command and ppl wait and wait and leave because they don't want to play a waiting game.
-
- Hitreg
Yes because ns2 is exactly like all the other games out there and why when I open up my steam library I just can't decide which game I want to play.
+1
The last two points go hand in hand, you could reword that last point to "rookies ruining high skilled servers" depending on your point of view.
Commanding is waaaay too hard when you have so many marines to babysit.
Disagree with commanding interface, I think it's adequate. What would you want to see changed?
Hitreg hasn't been an issue for me since the latest patch (for some reason, placebo?)
I think one major point that some people occasionally bring up is the complete farce of a spectator system. If it was better and easier to use, along with performance increases, ns2 had a great potential to be a really good esport and gain a lot of traction through the likes of Twitch.
Newbs go where free slots are.
Low skilled players do the same, but may have their favorites.
High skilled do the same of course, but they know where to turn to if they want to play a more suitable game, plus they know how the could protect themselves against newbs. HBZ had a server once, which was password protected (not NSL) were higher skilled players came to play. Everyone who wanted to play with that people, got the password.
Interface is the wrong term. The interface works i guess, but with the borders off (ns2+) you sometimes jump onto the minimap instead of placing a structure. Nevertheless I mentioned it, so you get something: Scaling the interface would be nice, selected units should be highlighted on the minimap and maybe with an arrow at the edge of the screen
What I actually meant is handling. For myself I have some problems from time to time... Marine structure placement in some areas, auto cysts chain suggests to place new cysts instead of using placed growing cysts, giving orders to drifter/macs does not always work, offset between pointer position you see and actual position on map closer to the edges of the map... that's all what comes to my mind atm.
While i can agree a lot of bad nerfs have been introduced for the sake of the "show" contradicting the strategy philosophy, this would be problematic to say the least.
You can't do that without delaying Lerks and fades. Harvester comes later... lerk and fades will come up later. Which will cripple the game sequence.
You can't make the harvester produce more to balance that. It would make the marine loose every game if they can't be clearly dominant at the end of the early game. Also it would make the game harder for Alien... rants etc...
Ugrading the drifter won't be used. It would be like "it needs time to buy time"... Plus this drifter would be more precious. Leading to focus issues with commanders.
I would prefer a drifter that flee from danger when it's in sentry mode (A-B A-B). Or send an alert when it sees something, not when it takes damage. When it's under fire, it's usually too late.
"Pro" players go on thirsty onos and have done since before the server list was just TTO servers. I'm not convinced that "Pro" players do frequently go on other servers to stomp.
And low skilled players and rookies don't know where to turn if they get beat off by better players?
Pro player stomping was a general mention. This issue is stated through out of NS2 history. I didn't wrote "frequently".
If i had bought the game in a sale (2-3€?) and played some unbalanced games, i probably don't want to play the game again. I'd not be attached to the game. I just wouldn't care. That's my assumption. What is yours? What would you do? Please elaborate.
Yeah I'd either l2p, quit, or change servers...
Have you thought about making leap a standard ability instead of a hive upgrade?
The game would need to be adjusted acoording to this change but I think it helps new players to some extent. Also its awesome if you are a marine and a skulk flies by you. Its enjoyable scary.
Now its down to about 1 MAYBE 2 minutes on the 2nd map. first map still slow but still a lot faster than in the past, i can live with it.
Our goals for 276 are max 1 minute at first load, max 30 seconds on every load after that. I am pleasant to tell you we managed to reach even better times on most setups.
But the leap abillity is so strong even against experienced players. It would require big adjustments I think. I'd rather see leap being researched on 1 hive. We had a few iterations with that, but for some reason it was decided on two hives.
Also, at some point in sewlek's betamod, we had harvesters giving biomass. I think that is an interesting idea that is sort of coupled with leap on 1 hive.
Imagine that aliens can have leap on 1 hive, IF they control 4 or 5 harvesters or what ever. Suddently there would be a huge incentive in pushing for more outside your own naturals and it would also make harvesters more a priority target for marines.
Obviously such a change would affect some maps more than others.