Public 322 Playtest this Thursday!
IronHorse
Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Hey all,
We have a Public Playtest session scheduled for patch 322:
Thursday, March 29th 1300 PDT / 2200 CEST
All are welcome to join and test the build with us by playing a few rounds.
It's largely a bug fix patch that contains things like fixing being unable to recycle your gorge tunnel, some server performance improvements, Hydra LOS fixes, removing Metabolize from the weapon slot, queuing orders for unbuilt drifters and some other odds and ends. (You can always track what's being worked on here)
Join our Official Discord Server a few minutes before the listed time in order to organize with us and ask any question before we play games.
You'll need to swap to the BETA branch of NS2 for this test.
Once you've selected the branch, then just idle in our General Voice channel to coordinate with us joining the server.
We're looking for community feedback of any kind, as well as assessing the stability of the build/server.
It's also a good chance to get the "Kill a Dev" achievement if you haven't gotten one already, or just to chat with some devs after the games.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me in our discord.
Thanks and see you there!
We have a Public Playtest session scheduled for patch 322:
Thursday, March 29th 1300 PDT / 2200 CEST
All are welcome to join and test the build with us by playing a few rounds.
It's largely a bug fix patch that contains things like fixing being unable to recycle your gorge tunnel, some server performance improvements, Hydra LOS fixes, removing Metabolize from the weapon slot, queuing orders for unbuilt drifters and some other odds and ends. (You can always track what's being worked on here)
Join our Official Discord Server a few minutes before the listed time in order to organize with us and ask any question before we play games.
You'll need to swap to the BETA branch of NS2 for this test.
Once you've selected the branch, then just idle in our General Voice channel to coordinate with us joining the server.
We're looking for community feedback of any kind, as well as assessing the stability of the build/server.
It's also a good chance to get the "Kill a Dev" achievement if you haven't gotten one already, or just to chat with some devs after the games.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me in our discord.
Thanks and see you there!
Comments
You can already queue drifter move orders while it is building. Are you expanding this to include other stuff like enzyme and patrol?
So the only thing removed will be how you can accidentally switch from swipe to meta. Which is a good thing imo...
How could you even trigger metabolize without it being a weapon? Would it be moved to sprint or crouch?
[edit] never mind someone on discord explained the basics of fading to me
Just make an option and default it to off....
Why is there any point in having metabolize on a weapons slot if you can simply use it on demand by pressing shift? It would be superfluous and confusing to keep it this way.
If you're used to switching to meta -> using meta -> switching to swipe, then your fade is bad and should re-learn it anyway, sorry
I know some guys in ns2 who've done it for more than a decade to play fade this way... you shouldn't call people bad who are far superior than you are ;-)
@devs: Have you not learned, that making things configurable saves all issues like these?
I was waiting for this ad-hominem reply ;]
If one's a better fade than me (no big deal there) and he's using the slot to meta, then he is a bad fade compared to himself, since he could me more effective with shift.
So no @Handshuch, it's not about absolute skill level, but one compared to their own, in case "bad" is correct. Now please get off the high horse ^^
Have you not realized yet that making something configurable requires a lot more work? Like GUI, config persistence and app logic changes?
The real issue of having too many config parameters starts with QA. Every option that affects game play needs to be tested every single time any code regarding to that aspect of the game changes which increases the time needed for testing exponentially with the amount of config parameters. This is the very reason I detest releasing a new version of ns2+, every single change has to be tested with at least 10 different config setups increasing the time needed for a ns2+ release candidate test to at least 1 hour.
Of course automated testing could resolve that problem to some degree but writing a proper testing framework from stretch at this point would takes at least 100+ hours.
There could be a benefit to having abilities and their keybinds be displayed at all times like KF2 has.
Then people will complain that the GUI is obscuring too much, and will mod it away immediately
Who needs gui anyways, just r_gui 0 it away and play realism mode.
I cant believe how hard it is to find a screenshot of aliens GUI...
So i drew it.
Skulko Picasso!
Magnifico! x)
There used to be a testing framework (and a lot of tests! Hundreds if not thousands!) but it was removed somewhat recently. I am guessing it was not maintained.
This usually isn't a problem because you can make it optional.
You could have just made one :P
This seems like a good way to start turning ns2 into a total moneysink. I'd rather have the slow but steady development we get right now continue than UWE pouring a ton of money into ns2, burning out on the whole thing and then having to write it off as a complete loss because some estimated goals haven't been met.
I did XD
As much as I would like more time spent developing and updating NS2, I agree with @Vetinari .
Metab on a weapon slot is minuscule inconvience.
Xeno taking over parasite after research and blowing yourself is kind of a big thing
I think alien weapon switching could be removed altogether. Abilities could be activated by pressing the corresponding key (maybe twice for xeno to confirm you really want to xeno).
A lot of it is just habit ingrained into me from years of ns1. It made it easier to do it the old way from the getgo. But there is a legit purposes for it - and that's ultimately why I never made the switch.
If you're blinking around the map, especially if there's no marines around and no need to have swipe out, it's much easier just to switch slots and mouseclick. You can just hold it down and breeze around the map rather than tap, tap, tap, tap. It's annoying to have to do that. Especially with your pinky. This alone is reason enough to keep it, and is surely a very common thing that people do. (especially being that you can't simply hold shift)
But I'll go on.
It frees up your pinky to crouch, rather than having to switch between the two if you ever need to crouch. And that's pretty much all the time. I'm either crouching or have my pinky always ready to, because it makes the collision box smaller. (i assume it still does this). And because skulks use crouch for walljumping, and their movement is so similar already (leap/blink are both right click propel abilities and you can conserve momentum with queued jumps), it's nice to have my keyboard actions for the two of them the same, rather than adding unfamiliar elements by incorporating shift usage. And especially with a mechanical keyboard, doing these quick switches between control and shift is a lot more awkward than simply keeping the pinky on crouch, and doing weapon-switches with the other fingers.
As for pressing crouch and shift at the same time: This may have been possible on my old keyboard, but since switching to mechanical, it's actually prohibitively difficult to do this. (for moments that's when required) Either I have to do use my nail on the shift, and finger on control, which is hard to with quickly with enough precision, especially if you're switching from control to control + shift at the same time. Or I have to lay my whole pinky flat, which causes my whole hand to come down, either meaning I have to form an uncomfortable claw shape every time I make have to do this, or risk mashing keys (e.g. my middle finger hitting the S key). So it ends up being a legit sacrifice where either I can do one or the other and have to work my fading around it - and why do that when you have other options.
Obviously if you use shift only, you already think it's easier, and might not be able to fathom anybody finding that more difficult than doing weapon switching. It's a bit more shit to do, maybe. But my pinky woes are probably more to do with how awkward it feels, rather than difficulty. It might seem silly to you that people actually like doing it this way, but it's not as if I'm not advocating removing the shift quick-key from the game and thus forcing anybody to do it the other way. I'm just asking that you don't remove the old way as an option, and force me and other people to do it the shift way. Especially if there's nothing really added by removing it and a good amount of people at least use it for travel.
Even if you put shadowstep on the table and forced everybody to use weapon-slot, I'd much rather have the option of using shift. Cause options are good. I will find myself sometimes clicking shift in combat and would like that option available to me. But I simply prefer the old way 99% of the time. I could probably benefit a bit from using shift a weeeee-bit more but I don't think it's really holding me back. It's really not that often that it's actually worth it at all and my fade won't really be that much better off for it imo.
Tbh, if you can't fade well both ways, then your fade is bad
I can use shift. I tried it initially, and it was a bit hard at first but pretty quickly could do it well enough that it didn't really take anything away from my fading ability. But ultimately, I just didn't like it. It was clunky and not as fun, so if I was forced to use only shift, I'd be much much much muuuuuch less inclined to fade to the point I just wouldn't do it anymore unless the team is absolutely desperate and probably not even then.
So it's not so much that I don't want to relearn to fade - but rather, I don't want to relearn to enjoy fading again.
My issue isn't reaaaally that pressing shift makes fading "harder". My issue is that I don't like the feel of it. One of my favorite parts of my favorite game would be less enjoyable, and that sucks. It's been on a weapon slot since the dawn of time, and even with the addition a quick-key, people are still getting legitimate use out of the weaponslot option today, so why remove that option? Again - Options are good. Surely I'm not the only one who at least uses a combination of both. Surely there are people who at least travel the map using weapon slot metabolize.
I'm not exactly sure what's gained from this. It's unnecessary to remove it. It's not superfluous if it actually adds something. It's something that's not deemed "necessary" by absolutely everybody (just as I don't think shift is necessary), but it's certainly something many people get use out of, if only for travel.
It's really not that confusing either - You have 2 options for fade blink. That's not rocket science. I think we can give people more credit than that. I really doubt any newcomer would actually use the word "confusing" to describe having 2 available options for an ability: one as a weaponslot, and one as a quick-key instacast.
The game also directs you to use shift in the quick-tips, and the quick-key is something that's incredibly easy to stumble upon considering shift has a purpose for every alien. So it's not a noob-trap either.
Inevitably, I think it's a restrictive change that solves a problem that doesn't really exist. (apart from in hypotheticals) Instead, in practice, it will just remove options for the player with nothing really gained.
If the reason is to put stab on slot 2, then lol - stop trying to make stab happen. It's never going to happen. Keep it on slot 3 because I bet it's not used nearly as much as the amount of users who use it for map travel, and even not used nearly as much as the small minority of madmen who use weaponslot metabolize even in combat situations.
My fade is bad, period
OK, your reply makes sense from a subjective point of view. I havent thought about the blink combo for eg... nor the uselessness of stab (in general).
(and yeah, I understand that you don't want to confuse new players with a weapon slot that is not a weapon, but you'll only achieve to piss some people... and the game won't improve at all by doing it)
I'm grabbing popcorn and waiting for the storm to begin
Please map out your planned gorge keys.
I'm still waiting to hear who were those players who had difficulty throwing their welders "far away" because its so difficult to axe a harvester.