Hey guys, picked the game up on a Steam sale and fell in love! It has all the elements of Starship Troopers, Starcraft, Quake and Aliens that I dig on. Just wrapped up my 40th hour in the game and thought I'd provide my feedback as a scrubby noob.
Tribal knowledge:
I did not realize that wall jumping increased my skulk speed until getting on the forums, nor did I understand how crosshairs and other mods worked. I was unaware how skulk aiming worked. These fundamental aspects of the game require tribal knowledge to understand and there is little to nothing one can do to find it in-game unless they replay the tutorial a few times.
Lack of a casual non-rookie community:
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there seem to be a good number of rookie servers and veteran servers without much in between. Once I hit level 3 (took me two days, I certainly still felt like a rookie at that point) I didn't really know where to go. Hitting Play Now would put me in matches with veteran players that were toxic to players attempting to learn the ropes. I certainly couldn't practice commanding with them, my fumbling inexperience caused them to eject me within a few minutes. Getting field experience was fun and all (1 kill 10 deaths ... but still fun) but I don't know where to go or how to go about finding players that aren't rookies but also still doing a great deal of learning. Some way to connect with that community would be a great start. If it were available in the game client then bonus points! Anything taking me away from the game client is generally bad form, and an opportunity for the customer to get distracted by something else.
Skill curve:
The skill curve in this game is steep. The only way I'm going to be able to stick to the game is if I can have a reasonable way to practice. Currently the single player bots are useless for training. I have no easy way to find players of similar skill to learn with. I can't learn if I'm just ejected then smashed in the face over and over again by players with 1000+ hours.
Complexity:
I do not find myself completely overwhelmed with information or needless complexity yet. There is much I've learned, but still enough unlearned to intrigue and provide curiosity. My biggest hurdles so far have been with regards to matchmaking and finding opportunities to practice efficiently.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
I think this says that level 3 or lower rookie servers are only viable around sales. Can be easilt adjusted upwards with the UWE Hotfix mod probly. Can just increase levels as it goes
Hi guys, would that be possible to be able to be on auto-join on a full server whilst playing on another server. For instance if you want to join a friend which is playing on a full server and you don't want to wait just watching the server browser, but play in the meantime.
Hi guys, would that be possible to be able to be on auto-join on a full server whilst playing on another server. For instance if you want to join a friend which is playing on a full server and you don't want to wait just watching the server browser, but play in the meantime.
You can queue through the steam browser. Find your friend on steam overlay (Shift+Tab), right click his name, click join game and select auto retry.
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
There should be more notification on damage types in combat. It isn't exactly apparent to people that certain weapons do more or less damage against certain things. Some kind of visual or audio cue would be beneficial to players despite how miniscule the changes are in some instances.
There should be more notification on damage types in combat. It isn't exactly apparent to people that certain weapons do more or less damage against certain things. Some kind of visual or audio cue would be beneficial to players despite how miniscule the changes are in some instances.
I've wanted to try an audio cue for alien life forms to determine what type of damage they took. So for example, if I'm a fade and I'm in a fight, I can tell quickly with a type of sound if I was hit by a full shotgun meat shot or if it was a partial one immediately. It would be like hit sounds, but they would be the opposite - hurt sounds. Not sure if people think this is too much of an advantage in a fight, but I think it would be really nice for focusing on your target and not having to look for a visual sign of damage taken. Might only be nice for a fade vs a shotgun, but it is a big part of the game.
There should be more notification on damage types in combat. It isn't exactly apparent to people that certain weapons do more or less damage against certain things. Some kind of visual or audio cue would be beneficial to players despite how miniscule the changes are in some instances.
I've wanted to try an audio cue for alien life forms to determine what type of damage they took. So for example, if I'm a fade and I'm in a fight, I can tell quickly with a type of sound if I was hit by a full shotgun meat shot or if it was a partial one immediately. It would be like hit sounds, but they would be the opposite - hurt sounds. Not sure if people think this is too much of an advantage in a fight, but I think it would be really nice for focusing on your target and not having to look for a visual sign of damage taken. Might only be nice for a fade vs a shotgun, but it is a big part of the game.
This worked beautifully in NS1, you could hear your own pain sounds, which varied depending on damage taken.
There should be more notification on damage types in combat. It isn't exactly apparent to people that certain weapons do more or less damage against certain things. Some kind of visual or audio cue would be beneficial to players despite how miniscule the changes are in some instances.
I've wanted to try an audio cue for alien life forms to determine what type of damage they took. So for example, if I'm a fade and I'm in a fight, I can tell quickly with a type of sound if I was hit by a full shotgun meat shot or if it was a partial one immediately. It would be like hit sounds, but they would be the opposite - hurt sounds. Not sure if people think this is too much of an advantage in a fight, but I think it would be really nice for focusing on your target and not having to look for a visual sign of damage taken. Might only be nice for a fade vs a shotgun, but it is a big part of the game.
This worked beautifully in NS1, you could hear your own pain sounds, which varied depending on damage taken.
Great point, I'm not sure if I partially remembered that or not but that's cool it was in NS1. I figure with the new alien vision and all the indicators aliens have now (thanks for your addition of the energy bar and health bar near the crosshair) - we are still missing the audio cues. I would really like to see that considered. Thanks!
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
edited February 2016
NS1 had it all. First person evolving with dynamically changing fov, first person pain sounds, hivesight icons so you could see your alien teammates/stuff without needing a minimap, hive health and location hud indicator so you don't have to worry about your team being quiet when your base under attack or dropping a new hive, a different icon for parasited structures as opposed to marines(I think), build/health rings for both team's structures and friendly players, fall damage so you couldn't cheese tall areas, and countless other things that were never implemented into ns2.
^ Awesome. Yes give the user options that don't give them unfair advantage. The thing about audio cues for fades is, it might make people less likely to lose their life form especially in small fights. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, ha. Might stop some players from going in for a swipe again after taking a meat shot or 2 because they were too focused on getting the kill. Could change the way the game is played. I still think it's worth having though, fades need all the information they can get since it's such an easy life form to hit. Not sure if you need hivesight stuff for aliens, but I think they are working on hive and structure information that will be nice. I would like to see that and audio cues added.
^ Awesome. Yes give the user options that don't give them unfair advantage. The thing about audio cues for fades is, it might make people less likely to lose their life form especially in small fights. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, ha. Might stop some players from going in for a swipe again after taking a meat shot or 2 because they were too focused on getting the kill. Could change the way the game is played. I still think it's worth having though, fades need all the information they can get since it's such an easy life form to hit. Not sure if you need hivesight stuff for aliens, but I think they are working on hive and structure information that will be nice. I would like to see that and audio cues added.
There's not really any unfair advantages to any of it, pain sounds can help teach newer players to pay attention to their health and can give better feedback that they're under attack, which basically helps them become better players and generally improve their experience overall. Hivesight icons are essentially the alien version of the minimap marines have on their hud, naturally there are tradeoffs between the two but both of them fit well for their respective side.
^ Awesome. Yes give the user options that don't give them unfair advantage. The thing about audio cues for fades is, it might make people less likely to lose their life form especially in small fights. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, ha. Might stop some players from going in for a swipe again after taking a meat shot or 2 because they were too focused on getting the kill. Could change the way the game is played. I still think it's worth having though, fades need all the information they can get since it's such an easy life form to hit. Not sure if you need hivesight stuff for aliens, but I think they are working on hive and structure information that will be nice. I would like to see that and audio cues added.
There's not really any unfair advantages to any of it, pain sounds can help teach newer players to pay attention to their health and can give better feedback that they're under attack, which basically helps them become better players and generally improve their experience overall. Hivesight icons are essentially the alien version of the minimap marines have on their hud, naturally there are tradeoffs between the two but both of them fit well for their respective side.
I agree, I don't think it's unfair. I was just getting right up next to that idea in case someone thought it did. I think it could only help make players better, and let's face it - staying alive as a lifeform is important a lot of the time. Doesn't mean it's not worth being aggressive sometimes, but a lot of players could use help staying alive and assessing the situation. I'm not sure about hivesight. I know it's not motion tracking as you're only seeing your teammates, but a big part of the game is having to open your map, even on marines as it helps you better understand what to do next. With hivesight, you might not need to open your map as much on aliens (not sure) - and I dont know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Maybe some other players can share their thoughts on it. Also, not sure if it would affect FPS if you have hivesight throughout the whole map. I don't think it's worth it if it negatively affects FPS and we have dealt so long without it. At least you can see your teammates on the map.
I haven't read the 20 pages but I also have another idea that I think is really simple to implement.
When I die I usually take a look at the stats to check my resources to wether what I can buy next or evolve to.
But the frame is focused on the spectated player and I have to search my name in the list. Why not frame the own name
and place a camera symbol in front of the spectating player?
Simple but useful.
(highlighted this in case it goes under in comments.)
Here is some easy balance changes that either simplify or would address some core problems of NS2:
-Make skulk sneaking (when you press shift) faster. It almost unusable currently because it's slow compared to marines normal pace. In NS1 it was much faster and made ambushing easier and more fun. I think many new players find it frustrating that unit that is supposed to based on ambushing and sneaking doesn't do those things really well.
-Give 1 point of score from landed parasite. This will encourage people to parasite more.
-Remove sprint, reduce speed, or give it bigger drawpack. I have never seen the point in sprint in NS2, it only makes the game more complicated and unbalanced, but if are not going to remove it at least make it worse. One the core balance problems of NS2 is that mobility levels of marines and aliens are too close to each others. Aliens should have bigger advantage than marines in this area.
-Make kill cam, or even better give information by text or sound when you die. For example if you are skulk and you die, the first thing a player sees is the the text like: "Remember to jump from walls to get more speed".
-Make welders standard equipment for marines. I don't understand why so basic and important part of the game is buyable. Because you have buy it from armory it's harder to people to learn to use it. First comm have to build armory and then new player have find thing called welder there, but because there are more cool stuff like shotguns and flamethrowers the new player will not buy a welder.
-Increase cost of medpacks to 2 or 1.5. I think main frustrating for new players come from skulk vs. marine combat. This is way too unbalanced for marine favor and one way to balance that is to make constant med support more costly for marine team.
-Make skulk smaller. The most important change you could make to this game and which would solve so many problems, but I guess you will never do this.
Yes, I know these changes would break current overall balance, but the current balance is based on flawed core mechanics which makes this game frustrating for new players. It doesn't matter how accessible you make this game if the new player feels that as skulk he/she is just a cannon fodder.
-Give 1 point of score from landed parasite. This will encourage people to parasite more.
I'm pretty sure this is the case already. The condition is however, that the marine has to be unparasited.
Other than that I like your suggestions individually, I in particular like the medpack cost increase, but as you mention yourself; those changes would break overall balance. So it's easy enough for you to say this, but if this was implemented you'd have to address that overall balance.
One thing that's for sure, it's unwise to implement all these points simultaneously. At any rate, this would take a long time to implement and test. I think the only ones with the proper Means to make this, is the compmod team.
In short, I like your suggestions, I don't like you calling this easy.
I ment these changes to be easy to do. Only the shrinking of skulk would need modelling for example, but of course rebalancing the game would need time. Most of these changes have been said by me or others who mastered NS1 for over 3 years already. I have been part with many balance test groups and always people have agreed with them, but have said that now it's not the time to change the game that radically. I don't believe that any of these changes would actually happen.
IxianDenmarkJoin Date: 2014-03-16Member: 194783Members, Squad Five Blue
Having PTed combat, health compared to size is a huge thing. Buffing the skulk havent worked, which some mods have done, and combat did to a redicoulus unkillable degree - I would LOVE to what happenes when it becomes smaller. I want to believe that the early game will be more balanced, and the skulks are bigger threat and more fun to play, but I have nothing to base this upon. Servers have changed lerks to 18 pres to give aliens a better early game, even in the early game skulks are forced to come in big groups or get massively good engagements for them to be worthwhile to attack any groups succesfully. This change is beautiful, and I would love to see it. One MIGHT need to nerf carapace a bit for the skulk, so it doesnt become the ns:combat killingmachine but otherwise : JUST DO IT!
Upping the cost of meds isn't a bad idea - however, we must be careful that the marine comm doesnt become as "boring" as the alien comm. Right now, the marine comm requires alot of mechanical skill, while the alien comm, nearly none, due to the nature of pres tied to tres and upgrades that need to come up with lifeforms (metabolise with fades f.ex). This is the only problem I can foresee as a possibility.
Sprinting is silly.
Increased sneak speed is intriguing, and I fail to see any new strategies coming out of it - only setting up traps will be faster, and since the price of speed isn't that great it will be done more often. Me liky.
Make the welder purchaseable at a small box in the chair? No need to break your back spending 10 res on an armory in the first 2 minutes, when you want to be getting resnotes.
I haven't read the 20 pages but I also have another idea that I think is really simple to implement.
When I die I usually take a look at the stats to check my resources to wether what I can buy next or evolve to.
But the frame is focused on the spectated player and I have to search my name in the list. Why not frame the own name
and place a camera symbol in front of the spectating player?
Simple but useful.
(highlighted this in case it goes under in comments.)
Erm I quote myself. Today when I played it was my name highlighted! When has this been implemented? In B287? Or is it a Mod at Woozas Server? But though the cam symbol is still a good idea I think despite the Name is shown up at top of the screen.
Edit:
Edit this time... I was wrong!! Your own name is just framed when alive. So my idea is still worth a look.
-One the core balance problems of NS2 is that mobility levels of marines and aliens are too close to each others. Aliens should have bigger advantage than marines in this area.
Sprint isn't that much faster, but I agree with reduction in speed for marines overall.
That being said, I don't think Aliens (the already mobile team that would regain their advantage with reducing marine speed) necessarily need gorge tunnels so early in a round, either.
At the same time, make welders do structural damage type so that players out of ammo (or conserving) won't be at a deficit because they didn't know to drop their welder to use an axe instead.
-Give 1 point of score from landed parasite. This will encourage people to parasite more.
I'm pretty sure this is the case already. The condition is however, that the marine has to be unparasited.
Other than that I like your suggestions individually, I in particular like the medpack cost increase, but as you mention yourself; those changes would break overall balance. So it's easy enough for you to say this, but if this was implemented you'd have to address that overall balance.
One thing that's for sure, it's unwise to implement all these points simultaneously. At any rate, this would take a long time to implement and test. I think the only ones with the proper Means to make this, is the compmod team.
In short, I like your suggestions, I don't like you calling this easy.
Why shouldn't they be considered easy? I find this notion bizarre, because we've had essentially 3 years of the same meta and the same balance for testing. The only 2 things stopping any of these changes making it into the game are
1. UWE vetoing them
2. the vocal minority of what's left of the community liking the game how it is because change is scary
The irony is that any effort to ultimately attract more rookies to play longer is going to be offset by these continuing core issues with balance and gameplay that haven't been addressed since at least b250 (but in essence have remained with the game since the end of the beta).
You look at other games and they are constantly looking at significant balance tweaks at regular intervals. Even popular games like LoL have managed to do entire redesigns of their core mechanics with a large active competitive and pub scene (eg their jungle redesign). Yes you will get people complaining, not everyone likes change, but there are certain changes that will benefit everyone (eg some of @Tane 's suggestions) that just need to be looked at and at the very least trialed.
This thread, with its 21 odd pages, just goes to show you that the current meta and balance is stale, old, and has aspects that are broken at the core.
So I challenge the PDT and UWE to hold true to their experiment run and actually start looking at balance seriously - and not just the little stuff here and there. Don't be afraid to shake up the meta like 250 did. The game was better off from that patch, and so it will be with any further carefully considered core changes. You have a wealth of experience in the community with players who know the game inside out, who understand the nuisances of both pub play and comp play.
Hi guys, would that be possible to be able to be on auto-join on a full server whilst playing on another server. For instance if you want to join a friend which is playing on a full server and you don't want to wait just watching the server browser, but play in the meantime.
You can queue through the steam browser. Find your friend on steam overlay (Shift+Tab), right click his name, click join game and select auto retry.
Yes that's a solution, but joining a friend is not the only case where you could want to join a full server while playing on another one.
Hi guys, would that be possible to be able to be on auto-join on a full server whilst playing on another server. For instance if you want to join a friend which is playing on a full server and you don't want to wait just watching the server browser, but play in the meantime.
You can queue through the steam browser. Find your friend on steam overlay (Shift+Tab), right click his name, click join game and select auto retry.
Yes that's a solution, but joining a friend is not the only case where you could want to join a full server while playing on another one.
You can do that through the steam server browser (steam -> view -> servers -> ns2). But with the same limitation that Tinki mentioned; you can't join reserved slot servers with this method.
At the same time, make welders do structural damage type so that players out of ammo (or conserving) won't be at a deficit because they didn't know to drop their welder to use an axe instead.
The welder should stay as it is and be switchable alongside the axe a la ns1. Why? Because the welder shouldn't be an upgrade to the axe or else we could have had the Heavy Machine Gun ages ago.
Comments
Tribal knowledge:
I did not realize that wall jumping increased my skulk speed until getting on the forums, nor did I understand how crosshairs and other mods worked. I was unaware how skulk aiming worked. These fundamental aspects of the game require tribal knowledge to understand and there is little to nothing one can do to find it in-game unless they replay the tutorial a few times.
Lack of a casual non-rookie community:
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there seem to be a good number of rookie servers and veteran servers without much in between. Once I hit level 3 (took me two days, I certainly still felt like a rookie at that point) I didn't really know where to go. Hitting Play Now would put me in matches with veteran players that were toxic to players attempting to learn the ropes. I certainly couldn't practice commanding with them, my fumbling inexperience caused them to eject me within a few minutes. Getting field experience was fun and all (1 kill 10 deaths ... but still fun) but I don't know where to go or how to go about finding players that aren't rookies but also still doing a great deal of learning. Some way to connect with that community would be a great start. If it were available in the game client then bonus points! Anything taking me away from the game client is generally bad form, and an opportunity for the customer to get distracted by something else.
Skill curve:
The skill curve in this game is steep. The only way I'm going to be able to stick to the game is if I can have a reasonable way to practice. Currently the single player bots are useless for training. I have no easy way to find players of similar skill to learn with. I can't learn if I'm just ejected then smashed in the face over and over again by players with 1000+ hours.
Complexity:
I do not find myself completely overwhelmed with information or needless complexity yet. There is much I've learned, but still enough unlearned to intrigue and provide curiosity. My biggest hurdles so far have been with regards to matchmaking and finding opportunities to practice efficiently.
The reason they don't do this is because those servers always remain empty. They are hard to fill.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/139456/ns2-assault-alpha/p1
You can queue through the steam browser. Find your friend on steam overlay (Shift+Tab), right click his name, click join game and select auto retry.
http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/index.php?title=Damage_Types#List_of_Damage_Types
I've wanted to try an audio cue for alien life forms to determine what type of damage they took. So for example, if I'm a fade and I'm in a fight, I can tell quickly with a type of sound if I was hit by a full shotgun meat shot or if it was a partial one immediately. It would be like hit sounds, but they would be the opposite - hurt sounds. Not sure if people think this is too much of an advantage in a fight, but I think it would be really nice for focusing on your target and not having to look for a visual sign of damage taken. Might only be nice for a fade vs a shotgun, but it is a big part of the game.
Great point, I'm not sure if I partially remembered that or not but that's cool it was in NS1. I figure with the new alien vision and all the indicators aliens have now (thanks for your addition of the energy bar and health bar near the crosshair) - we are still missing the audio cues. I would really like to see that considered. Thanks!
NS1 had it all. First person evolving with dynamically changing fov, first person pain sounds, hivesight icons so you could see your alien teammates/stuff without needing a minimap, hive health and location hud indicator so you don't have to worry about your team being quiet when your base under attack or dropping a new hive, a different icon for parasited structures as opposed to marines(I think), build/health rings for both team's structures and friendly players, fall damage so you couldn't cheese tall areas, and countless other things that were never implemented into ns2.
Pretty much all of these would improve ns2.
There's not really any unfair advantages to any of it, pain sounds can help teach newer players to pay attention to their health and can give better feedback that they're under attack, which basically helps them become better players and generally improve their experience overall. Hivesight icons are essentially the alien version of the minimap marines have on their hud, naturally there are tradeoffs between the two but both of them fit well for their respective side.
I agree, I don't think it's unfair. I was just getting right up next to that idea in case someone thought it did. I think it could only help make players better, and let's face it - staying alive as a lifeform is important a lot of the time. Doesn't mean it's not worth being aggressive sometimes, but a lot of players could use help staying alive and assessing the situation. I'm not sure about hivesight. I know it's not motion tracking as you're only seeing your teammates, but a big part of the game is having to open your map, even on marines as it helps you better understand what to do next. With hivesight, you might not need to open your map as much on aliens (not sure) - and I dont know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Maybe some other players can share their thoughts on it. Also, not sure if it would affect FPS if you have hivesight throughout the whole map. I don't think it's worth it if it negatively affects FPS and we have dealt so long without it. At least you can see your teammates on the map.
I haven't read the 20 pages but I also have another idea that I think is really simple to implement.
When I die I usually take a look at the stats to check my resources to wether what I can buy next or evolve to.
But the frame is focused on the spectated player and I have to search my name in the list. Why not frame the own name
and place a camera symbol in front of the spectating player?
Simple but useful.
(highlighted this in case it goes under in comments.)
-Make skulk sneaking (when you press shift) faster. It almost unusable currently because it's slow compared to marines normal pace. In NS1 it was much faster and made ambushing easier and more fun. I think many new players find it frustrating that unit that is supposed to based on ambushing and sneaking doesn't do those things really well.
-Give 1 point of score from landed parasite. This will encourage people to parasite more.
-Remove sprint, reduce speed, or give it bigger drawpack. I have never seen the point in sprint in NS2, it only makes the game more complicated and unbalanced, but if are not going to remove it at least make it worse. One the core balance problems of NS2 is that mobility levels of marines and aliens are too close to each others. Aliens should have bigger advantage than marines in this area.
-Make kill cam, or even better give information by text or sound when you die. For example if you are skulk and you die, the first thing a player sees is the the text like: "Remember to jump from walls to get more speed".
-Make welders standard equipment for marines. I don't understand why so basic and important part of the game is buyable. Because you have buy it from armory it's harder to people to learn to use it. First comm have to build armory and then new player have find thing called welder there, but because there are more cool stuff like shotguns and flamethrowers the new player will not buy a welder.
-Increase cost of medpacks to 2 or 1.5. I think main frustrating for new players come from skulk vs. marine combat. This is way too unbalanced for marine favor and one way to balance that is to make constant med support more costly for marine team.
-Make skulk smaller. The most important change you could make to this game and which would solve so many problems, but I guess you will never do this.
Yes, I know these changes would break current overall balance, but the current balance is based on flawed core mechanics which makes this game frustrating for new players. It doesn't matter how accessible you make this game if the new player feels that as skulk he/she is just a cannon fodder.
Other than that I like your suggestions individually, I in particular like the medpack cost increase, but as you mention yourself; those changes would break overall balance. So it's easy enough for you to say this, but if this was implemented you'd have to address that overall balance.
One thing that's for sure, it's unwise to implement all these points simultaneously. At any rate, this would take a long time to implement and test. I think the only ones with the proper Means to make this, is the compmod team.
In short, I like your suggestions, I don't like you calling this easy.
Upping the cost of meds isn't a bad idea - however, we must be careful that the marine comm doesnt become as "boring" as the alien comm. Right now, the marine comm requires alot of mechanical skill, while the alien comm, nearly none, due to the nature of pres tied to tres and upgrades that need to come up with lifeforms (metabolise with fades f.ex). This is the only problem I can foresee as a possibility.
Sprinting is silly.
Increased sneak speed is intriguing, and I fail to see any new strategies coming out of it - only setting up traps will be faster, and since the price of speed isn't that great it will be done more often. Me liky.
Make the welder purchaseable at a small box in the chair? No need to break your back spending 10 res on an armory in the first 2 minutes, when you want to be getting resnotes.
Erm I quote myself. Today when I played it was my name highlighted! When has this been implemented? In B287? Or is it a Mod at Woozas Server? But though the cam symbol is still a good idea I think despite the Name is shown up at top of the screen.
Edit:
Edit this time... I was wrong!! Your own name is just framed when alive. So my idea is still worth a look.
That being said, I don't think Aliens (the already mobile team that would regain their advantage with reducing marine speed) necessarily need gorge tunnels so early in a round, either.
At the same time, make welders do structural damage type so that players out of ammo (or conserving) won't be at a deficit because they didn't know to drop their welder to use an axe instead.
So long as its hitbox returns to oversized NS1 levels
Why shouldn't they be considered easy? I find this notion bizarre, because we've had essentially 3 years of the same meta and the same balance for testing. The only 2 things stopping any of these changes making it into the game are
1. UWE vetoing them
2. the vocal minority of what's left of the community liking the game how it is because change is scary
The irony is that any effort to ultimately attract more rookies to play longer is going to be offset by these continuing core issues with balance and gameplay that haven't been addressed since at least b250 (but in essence have remained with the game since the end of the beta).
You look at other games and they are constantly looking at significant balance tweaks at regular intervals. Even popular games like LoL have managed to do entire redesigns of their core mechanics with a large active competitive and pub scene (eg their jungle redesign). Yes you will get people complaining, not everyone likes change, but there are certain changes that will benefit everyone (eg some of @Tane 's suggestions) that just need to be looked at and at the very least trialed.
This thread, with its 21 odd pages, just goes to show you that the current meta and balance is stale, old, and has aspects that are broken at the core.
So I challenge the PDT and UWE to hold true to their experiment run and actually start looking at balance seriously - and not just the little stuff here and there. Don't be afraid to shake up the meta like 250 did. The game was better off from that patch, and so it will be with any further carefully considered core changes. You have a wealth of experience in the community with players who know the game inside out, who understand the nuisances of both pub play and comp play.
Just do it.
New season New meta would be the greatest
Yes that's a solution, but joining a friend is not the only case where you could want to join a full server while playing on another one.
You can do that through the steam server browser (steam -> view -> servers -> ns2). But with the same limitation that Tinki mentioned; you can't join reserved slot servers with this method.
The welder should stay as it is and be switchable alongside the axe a la ns1. Why? Because the welder shouldn't be an upgrade to the axe or else we could have had the Heavy Machine Gun ages ago.
AND IT SOUNDS COOL, TBH it was kinda the iconic weapon from NS with it's looks, sound and reload cycle
Now I haz sad...