WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
The forced extension could be designed to first check for the existence of the objects/properties/behavior/etc it's modifying, such that its forced loading could be retained without modification.
I could see where embracing that solution too purely could be a bad decision for UWE.
Comp players already turn off all sorts of particles, i don't see why it would be any different in that case. So this is really not a reason to introduce additional options. I understand that pub and comp players have different requirements, but ns2 vanilla never included the huge amounts of options the comp players need. They are, rightfully so, handled by mods.
The fact that ns2 was designed to be a competitive 6 v 6 game, coupled with the fact that competitive players see that vanilla is NOT appropriately balanced for it makes the 'should be managed by mods' argument bs.
Was supposed to be an esports game, and when the best teams in the world were paying ns2 on a public stage (world championships), were they playing vanilla? NO WAY!
The competitive players are the ones who know the ins and outs of the game better than anyone, yet constantly ignored and hampered by uwe when it comes to arguably the most important subject - balance. Hence the need for comp mod. These opinions are still being ignored and it's honestly just ridiculous.
A house divided cannot stand. All this negativity towards comp players and ideas is unjustified and comes off as ignorant straw graspin fueled by baseless resentment. i don't get it.
Comp players already turn off all sorts of particles, i don't see why it would be any different in that case. So this is really not a reason to introduce additional options. I understand that pub and comp players have different requirements, but ns2 vanilla never included the huge amounts of options the comp players need. They are, rightfully so, handled by mods.
The fact that ns2 was designed to be a competitive 6 v 6 game, coupled with the fact that competitive players see that vanilla is NOT appropriately balanced for it makes the 'should be managed by mods' argument bs.
Was supposed to be an esports game, and when the best teams in the world were paying ns2 on a public stage (world championships), were they playing vanilla? NO WAY!
The competitive players are the ones who know the ins and outs of the game better than anyone, yet constantly ignored and hampered by uwe when it comes to arguably the most important subject - balance. Hence the need for comp mod. These opinions are still being ignored and it's honestly just ridiculous.
A house divided cannot stand. All this negativity towards comp players and ideas is unjustified and comes off as ignorant straw graspin fueled by baseless resentment. i don't get it.
We were playing vanilla actually. Compmod came into existence post-NS2WC as a result of us realizing that those officially updating the game were not going to address fundamentally poor game design with respect to balance.
Funnily enough, most of the changes we made were eventually brought to vanilla after being adjusted for the higher player counts, resulting in moving the balance closer to 50/50. It's almost like... competitive players know what they're talking about regarding balance?
Re: Atmospheric Territories
I actually like this change because it gets rid of the terrible red lighting in a powerless room. Those lights desaturated everything and made it impossible to see skulks. And then they get enzymed and basically have cloaking.
What I don't like is the implementation. It seems that noone involved in testing bothered to try it out with lowlights enabled (which nearly every competitive player, and I imagine most public players) has enabled. Even with in-game gamma maxed and nVidia gamma boosted there are many rooms that I have a hard time seeing in. And a single cyst is enough to 'claim' the room for aliens? That's absurd. Cysts shouldn't impact room ownership at all.
Comp players already turn off all sorts of particles, i don't see why it would be any different in that case. So this is really not a reason to introduce additional options. I understand that pub and comp players have different requirements, but ns2 vanilla never included the huge amounts of options the comp players need. They are, rightfully so, handled by mods.
The fact that ns2 was designed to be a competitive 6 v 6 game, coupled with the fact that competitive players see that vanilla is NOT appropriately balanced for it makes the 'should be managed by mods' argument bs.
Was supposed to be an esports game, and when the best teams in the world were paying ns2 on a public stage (world championships), were they playing vanilla? NO WAY!
The competitive players are the ones who know the ins and outs of the game better than anyone, yet constantly ignored and hampered by uwe when it comes to arguably the most important subject - balance. Hence the need for comp mod. These opinions are still being ignored and it's honestly just ridiculous.
A house divided cannot stand. All this negativity towards comp players and ideas is unjustified and comes off as ignorant straw graspin fueled by baseless resentment. i don't get it.
We were playing vanilla actually. Compmod came into existence post-NS2WC as a result of us realizing that those officially updating the game were not going to address fundamentally poor game design with respect to balance.
Funnily enough, most of the changes we made were eventually brought to vanilla after being adjusted for the higher player counts, resulting in moving the balance closer to 50/50. It's almost like... competitive players know what they're talking about regarding balance?
Re: Atmospheric Territories
I actually like this change because it gets rid of the terrible red lighting in a powerless room. Those lights desaturated everything and made it impossible to see skulks. And then they get enzymed and basically have cloaking.
What I don't like is the implementation. It seems that noone involved in testing bothered to try it out with lowlights enabled (which nearly every competitive player, and I imagine most public players) has enabled. Even with in-game gamma maxed and nVidia gamma boosted there are many rooms that I have a hard time seeing in. And a single cyst is enough to 'claim' the room for aliens? That's absurd. Cysts shouldn't impact room ownership at all.
We were playing with CHUD (which eventually became NS2+), however. So not exactly vanilla. And a NSL mod variant with the NS2WC rosters, because actual tournament support has never been in the game.
Can we get an official response here? Pls? Ignoring these issues is not the way. Modders shouldn't have to come to the rescue to poorly implemented changes.
All I remember is that there was a patch that was supposed to be released around the time of the world champs and that there was concern it would break a mod used in comp. Was probably chud I guess?
No one is ignoring you, we have been reading through all these posts and talking over some of the feedback as a team. I will let each dev respond accordingly.
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
If the competitive players leave because they can't/won't adapt to a new feature, won't new competitive players who /do/ adapt replace them?
It seems that certain folks' (as valuable as they are) participation in NS2, not NS2 itself (nor its competitive scene on the whole), is what's at stake.
If the competitive players leave because they can't/won't adapt to a new feature, won't new competitive players who /do/ adapt replace them?
It seems that certain folks' (as valuable as they are) participation in NS2, not NS2 itself (nor its competitive scene on the whole), is what's at stake.
Cuz why should uwe consider their most loyal/knowledgeable players? Why keep them around?
If the competitive players leave because they can't/won't adapt to a new feature, won't new competitive players who /do/ adapt replace them?
It seems that certain folks' (as valuable as they are) participation in NS2, not NS2 itself (nor its competitive scene on the whole), is what's at stake.
Are you trolling? Many of the comp players are products of years of playing off and on. Some even since ns1.
Yeah maybe in 2019 you'll have Mendasp 2.0 appear magically.
But this discussion is more than about comp players. It effects everyone that plays whether you see that or not.
There are MUCH better games out there in many genres to play competitively. If you drive off most of the comp players now it will die for good.
All you have to do is read the forum to see why. No players are coming back and no reasonable amount of rookies are being retained due to focusing on all the wrong things anyway.
The only reason player count grew is due to sales not because of patches.
This is incorrect. We have data that shows we're retaining and gaining players without a steam sale. We'll be posting this data for the public to see soon.
Can we get an official response here? Pls? Ignoring these issues is not the way. Modders shouldn't have to come to the rescue to poorly implemented changes.
What official response do you want? The title of the thread says "You're killing NS2...." - and our data says that we're growing NS2 in virtually every metric. So my current response to the OP is: No we're not.
You and I both know (or you should know) I'm talking about addressing how you're affecting the modding community. Look at the posts from Mendasp and Dragon.
I'm not allying my opinion with the OP that you're killing NS2. Imo it already went to rock bottom so the only way to go is up with the right changes.
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
Complaining about runtime stability (hotfix implementations) is not complaining about the gameplay design (lighting, powernodes, etc). Careful mixing the two.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I play with NOT low lightning. It looks fine, no fps loss, no issues.
I remember this bland 'low light' version of descent called nsl_descent once.. it was horribly. The 'even light' made me actually track worse. It was just a ocean of blandness.
I can not fathom, personally, who so many comp players like the blandness and can aim better with it.
I play with NOT low lightning. It looks fine, no fps loss, no issues.
I remember this bland 'low light' version of descent called nsl_descent once.. it was horribly. The 'even light' made me actually track worse. It was just a ocean of blandness.
I can not fathom, personally, who so many comp players like the blandness and can aim better with it.
Not sure how you don't take a fps loss from that setting, or maybe you haven't tested it enough lately? If it wasn't a pretty decent fps hit, then more people would want to see better. If it was only a better see button, people would press it. It negatively affects performance to have high quality lights on which is very important in a fast fps like this where we aren't getting a ton of frames. So instead of taking the fps hit, people can have the best of both worlds - they can turn up their gamma and have high fps by using the low lights option. The problem is, you have to change your settings so your monitor looks terrible outside of game now.
How about instead of having a forum post about this, can we set up a skype session with some developers who actually make decisions within the gameplay changes in this game and discuss this amongst high respected, intellectual, and flexible community members that play this game 100x more than the developers do. Not trying to be a dick here, just pointing out a way to get real time responses without delayed responses to these forum posts where you can take time to think and blanket/ignore the important questions that generally go unanswered.
I honestly believe the developers are looking out for the best interest in this game and are reading what is being said. I just believe the community would like to get first hand, real responses. No fluff. Everyone responding this to this post passionately loves this game, and will support this game even more if we can get a better communication line going. Shit, even a twitch broadcast with live Q&A would work.
well part of the issue is you are throwing a big change on people right before a competitive season is about to start that affects the way people can see the enemy. At least give us a server side toggle in the meantime.
Anything is possible. Maybe if the new lighting was updated and veterans/comp players were fine with it. If it's still too polarizing, leave it as a server toggle.
How about instead of having a forum post about this, can we set up a skype session with some developers who actually make decisions within the gameplay changes in this game and discuss this amongst high respected, intellectual, and flexible community members that play this game 100x more than the developers do. Not trying to be a dick here, just pointing out a way to get real time responses without delayed responses to these forum posts where you can take time to think and blanket/ignore the important questions that generally go unanswered.
I honestly believe the developers are looking out for the best interest in this game and are reading what is being said. I just believe the community would like to get first hand, real responses. No fluff. Everyone responding this to this post passionately loves this game, and will support this game even more if we can get a better communication line going. Shit, even a twitch broadcast with live Q&A would work.
I am happy to setup this forum with our team. I will be out of town this next week, but would be glad to set something up in the next week after that. I will bring it up with the team and we can look at a format and go for it.
Yea there's no real harm in allowing the old lighting in some servers. People will just be like, wow I can see better - and they would understand after being told that the admin prefers having no shadows in this server so people can see. If you want the moody version of the game, you have to go elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if most servers keep the lighting as is even with the toggle option...and if there are further updates to it, I could see almost every pub server using it.
I also don't see a concern from a pub player going from the moody version of the game to comp play and being able to see better. They would understand that it's better/preferred for comp play.
Speaking for myself, I don't have a huge problem with the lights in a room being slightly dimmer. What I do have a problem with is losing track of a skulk right in front of your eyes as you are shooting them. Not due to losing line of sight, but because they blend in like crazy with their background, shadow skulks especially. I'm not the best aim, sure I've never shot over 29%, but I've also never lost track of skulks like this since I started playing in Nov 2012.
To me, and I know I'm beating a dead horse, that's just too drastic of a change. For those of you who enjoy it, good for you. I would like to have the option to disable.
Comments
I could see where embracing that solution too purely could be a bad decision for UWE.
The fact that ns2 was designed to be a competitive 6 v 6 game, coupled with the fact that competitive players see that vanilla is NOT appropriately balanced for it makes the 'should be managed by mods' argument bs.
Was supposed to be an esports game, and when the best teams in the world were paying ns2 on a public stage (world championships), were they playing vanilla? NO WAY!
The competitive players are the ones who know the ins and outs of the game better than anyone, yet constantly ignored and hampered by uwe when it comes to arguably the most important subject - balance. Hence the need for comp mod. These opinions are still being ignored and it's honestly just ridiculous.
A house divided cannot stand. All this negativity towards comp players and ideas is unjustified and comes off as ignorant straw graspin fueled by baseless resentment. i don't get it.
We were playing vanilla actually. Compmod came into existence post-NS2WC as a result of us realizing that those officially updating the game were not going to address fundamentally poor game design with respect to balance.
Funnily enough, most of the changes we made were eventually brought to vanilla after being adjusted for the higher player counts, resulting in moving the balance closer to 50/50. It's almost like... competitive players know what they're talking about regarding balance?
Re: Atmospheric Territories
I actually like this change because it gets rid of the terrible red lighting in a powerless room. Those lights desaturated everything and made it impossible to see skulks. And then they get enzymed and basically have cloaking.
What I don't like is the implementation. It seems that noone involved in testing bothered to try it out with lowlights enabled (which nearly every competitive player, and I imagine most public players) has enabled. Even with in-game gamma maxed and nVidia gamma boosted there are many rooms that I have a hard time seeing in. And a single cyst is enough to 'claim' the room for aliens? That's absurd. Cysts shouldn't impact room ownership at all.
We were playing with CHUD (which eventually became NS2+), however. So not exactly vanilla. And a NSL mod variant with the NS2WC rosters, because actual tournament support has never been in the game.
It seems that certain folks' (as valuable as they are) participation in NS2, not NS2 itself (nor its competitive scene on the whole), is what's at stake.
Cuz why should uwe consider their most loyal/knowledgeable players? Why keep them around?
Lolwat
Are you trolling? Many of the comp players are products of years of playing off and on. Some even since ns1.
Yeah maybe in 2019 you'll have Mendasp 2.0 appear magically.
But this discussion is more than about comp players. It effects everyone that plays whether you see that or not.
There are MUCH better games out there in many genres to play competitively. If you drive off most of the comp players now it will die for good.
This is incorrect. We have data that shows we're retaining and gaining players without a steam sale. We'll be posting this data for the public to see soon.
Rant is on the NS2 team - she is not a silent partner in our work.
This was a simple mistake made by a forum admin and was rectified quickly.
What official response do you want? The title of the thread says "You're killing NS2...." - and our data says that we're growing NS2 in virtually every metric. So my current response to the OP is: No we're not.
I'm not allying my opinion with the OP that you're killing NS2. Imo it already went to rock bottom so the only way to go is up with the right changes.
I remember this bland 'low light' version of descent called nsl_descent once.. it was horribly. The 'even light' made me actually track worse. It was just a ocean of blandness.
I can not fathom, personally, who so many comp players like the blandness and can aim better with it.
Not sure how you don't take a fps loss from that setting, or maybe you haven't tested it enough lately? If it wasn't a pretty decent fps hit, then more people would want to see better. If it was only a better see button, people would press it. It negatively affects performance to have high quality lights on which is very important in a fast fps like this where we aren't getting a ton of frames. So instead of taking the fps hit, people can have the best of both worlds - they can turn up their gamma and have high fps by using the low lights option. The problem is, you have to change your settings so your monitor looks terrible outside of game now.
I honestly believe the developers are looking out for the best interest in this game and are reading what is being said. I just believe the community would like to get first hand, real responses. No fluff. Everyone responding this to this post passionately loves this game, and will support this game even more if we can get a better communication line going. Shit, even a twitch broadcast with live Q&A would work.
I am happy to setup this forum with our team. I will be out of town this next week, but would be glad to set something up in the next week after that. I will bring it up with the team and we can look at a format and go for it.
I also don't see a concern from a pub player going from the moody version of the game to comp play and being able to see better. They would understand that it's better/preferred for comp play.
The flashlight was made more useful. It is less blinding while providing more light. Also, the exo now has giant floodlights.
Sometimes harm is warranted.
To me, and I know I'm beating a dead horse, that's just too drastic of a change. For those of you who enjoy it, good for you. I would like to have the option to disable.
+1!
We need to follow this example.