Pulling back the veil - Natural Selection 2

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Pulling back the veil - Natural Selection 2

Hi everyone. I thought today would be a good day to take a moment and discuss some recent changes to the game. For almost a month, the dev team has...

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WasabiOne

bump

IronHorse

I await the storm of reactions..

GhoulofGSG9

The other hitbox comparisions that didn't make it into the post:

Lerk Before:


Lerk After:


Fade Before:


Fade After:

Direct overlay comparisons (yellow=old, blue=new)

Frozen

So can we buff fade hp now?

IronHorse

PSA:

Everyone can compare the hitbox differences in great detail using the Viewer.exe that comes with NS2.
Once you load the model you need to orientate it so it's not aligned in a funky manner. Select Window > Animation, then change the base animation to "Idle" and put "body_pitch" and "body_yaw" to the center.
Then select Window > Physics, then click the Render Collision button (3rd one) and change the drop down selection box from "Default" to "Damage" to compare the old to the new.

The Onos hitbox remains unchanged.

Keats

IronHorse wrote: »

The Onos hitbox remains unchanged.

You gotta be kidding me. What about all those times rookies shoot between the legs, or the horns, and it counts as a miss? Onos hitbox needs to be way bigger.

RevanCorana

remi

Posted this on reddit as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/ns2/comments/4um5gs/pulling_back_the_veil_adjusted_hitboxes_and_melee/

alster

Odd in Counterstrike they made player hit boxes smaller, but whatever this is NS2.

You need to keep other big changes hidden from the community, so they can't complain until they tried it already. What should be done in a future patch to balance the game for aliens is to make the skulk bite 1 hit kill, but don't post it in the changelog.

Deck_

These changes are not bad since they still require aiming and hopefully increase the feel/hits for people. Now the game just needs:
1) Better/more tutorials
2) Increased server rates so we can feel the game playing smoother and not just registering better.

If you can do those 2 things, then you have finally done what this game should have done from the start. Then you can re-release the game or do something to attract more players.

remi

alster wrote: »

You need to keep other big changes hidden from the community, so they can't complain until they tried it already. What should be done in a future patch to balance the game for aliens is to make the skulk bite 1 hit kill, but don't post it in the changelog.

This is genius. I'm sure no one would notice.

xDragon

This was tried in the past and was removed for a reason... not sure if anyone still remembers. Of course its much less of a problem now with the general skill levels, but still. Most newer players are not going to be counting hits and feeling satisfied from just damage.. they want kills. Its intrinsic to good alien and marine play to stay alive, so regardless of the changes to improve the ability to land hits, you just end up having to compensate somewhere else.. unless you change the fundamentals of the game... and then you could effect the same result any number of ways.

I have only read some of the changes at a superficial level for quite some time now, but I struggle to see where its all trying to lead.

Frozen

xDragon wrote: »

This was tried in the past and was removed for a reason... not sure if anyone still remembers. Of course its much less of a problem now with the general skill levels, but still. Most newer players are not going to be counting hits and feeling satisfied from just damage.. they want kills. Its intrinsic to good alien and marine play to stay alive, so regardless of the changes to improve the ability to land hits, you just end up having to compensate somewhere else.. unless you change the fundamentals of the game... and then you could effect the same result any number of ways.

I have only read some of the changes at a superficial level for quite some time now, but I struggle to see where its all trying to lead.

To Outer Tactical-Gamer

Yojimbo

FSFOD is on the team, this is the best feature implemented

tallhotblonde

Comp players: "Make skulk models smaller because its way too easy to win engagements against 3 skulks as 1 marine with the right positioning"

UWE: "you wot m8?"

Mephilles

and here I thought that server performance and hitreg did increase... anyway I liked that you kept it hidden. I knew those changes were coming but not that they were in already. Have been playing some pubs the last 3 days and as skulk it feels horribly frustrating to play against people who had no problems aiming anyway. So I think skulks suffer the most from this change. Even though it is easier to hit bites now the marines just have the advantage in range here and with that even a good ambush won't necessarily lead to success.

Example on sunday I had multiple situations where a skulk completely caught me off guard and was able to get in 2 bites from behind (with silence) and I turned around and melted him before he could get the third bite in.

Might just be me who sucks at skulk dodging but I have the feeling the skulks need a little something to compensate here.

Lerk is fine. I can still pretty much dodge everything, the rest I can't tell.

migalski

So this is why marine win % is at an all time high...

.trixX.

As it turns out, my conspiracy theory is not just a theory :DD
Also, another bloody update which fixes nothing, and requires additional tweaking to fix balance.
HP bars, bigger hitboxes... way to kill the game guys, *clap clap clap*

This is a unique game, thats why you have (had) your playerbase. Copying mechanics from other games just because they do it and not considering context is stupidity on the capital level. I have no idea how your inner group reaches a decision, but you may want to update THAT instead of the game.

Oooh oooh, I have an idea! Why not run servers with only bots, you have to pay for the botskill, and you get to watch your bot to play! No user input required, and the more you pay the more you own the other bots! You can also release that for console!

Vetinari

This is a good change to experiment with, and one that has been coming for a long time, I guess.

And while I understand your reasons... I'm not sure keeping it hidden like that was the best course of action.

ReconDK

IronHorse wrote: »

I await the storm of reactions..

Inbetween a lot of the toxic people left, people with valid points also seem to have left the game. sO I am not sure there are that many people left to give feedback.
Well that is, from the more competitive minded ns2 players.

We at TAW are actively discussing the changes, but most of the veteran players feels the game has become too unbalanced for organized/comp play, so sadly a lot of players have left the game and are now playing Overwatch instead.

.trixX.

Keeping it hidden is the only thing I understand... Placebo effect is quite real

migalski

ReconDK wrote: »

IronHorse wrote: »

I await the storm of reactions..

Inbetween a lot of the toxic people left, people with valid points also seem to have left the game. sO I am not sure there are that many people left to give feedback.
Well that is, from the more competitive minded ns2 players.

We at TAW are actively discussing the changes, but most of the veteran players feels the game has become too unbalanced for organized/comp play, so sadly a lot of players have left the game and are now playing Overwatch instead.

Welcome to what the rest of the comp scene figured out years ago when we made a comp mod

Bicsum

I only played yesterday, but it didn't feel more unfair as alien than two weeks ago. My accuracy definitely went up on both sides, but in the games I played, the marines weren't stomping. No <5 minute games or something like that. That was in a 7vs7.

The_Welsh_Wizard

Great update guys. Who wants exact hitboxes anyway? Always better to Hit things when you actually don't Hit them. Oh Yea and not writing it in changelog, omg you are Genius. Why Test things in playtesting sessions when you can make the game shit on every Server instead? Also I like that it is easier now to Hit things as alien. Now those stupid high Level players have the same accuracy as the beginners which Sounds fair to me. Nobody should be able to play better than other players only because he played thousands of hours more in this game.

Also you successfully lowered the skill ceiling AGAIN, only a few more Updates and this game finally is like CoD! Can't wait!

Oh and I want to request so make skulks run slower, the bigger hitboxes help but I still get killed from a skulk engaging me through a corridor with my 8% acc. Or atleast some Kind of aim assist would be nice, I heard CoD got it too.

tudy

Now that the hitboxes are bigger -- completely besides whether that was a good decision or not -- wouldn't it be beneficial to also simplify them? As I look on the posted hitboxes it looks to me that somebody pressed select-all and enlarge. But I bet with the increased hitboxes you can also simplify them without losing accuracy.

.trixX.

PDT... "professional" is a joke in that acronym
(with a few exception of course, as always)

ZycaR

RevanCorana wrote: »

Finally I can throw away my logitech gaming mouse and keyboard and use X-Box controller. Just wondering where I can find auto-aim option in menu (I loved this feature in Halo 1).

Therius

The fact that prior to B305 the devs actually thought that any existing problem could be fixed by making aliens easier to hit is pretty solid evidence on how little the dev team knows how the game actually works and only care about how the game feels for players who don't yet understand anything about what they're doing.

Wob

I'm so angry.

.trixX.

Wob wrote: »

I'm so angry.

Your short comment makes it even more menacing

Btw, why not rename the game to OverSelection? Or maybe NaturalWatch?