I fully agree with WatchMaker's first post. we, who have been watching this mod for so long and learned slowly update by update how it will function, know all the game already, and thus are blinded by our knowledge. we seen the colours, but the blind audience won't get it.
the age of Chivalry team, a modder group that currently makes a Commercial sequel, made this reflection on their failings. <a href="http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/smf/index.php?topic=8598.0" target="_blank">http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/smf/index.php?topic=8598.0</a>
while the problems are distinctive, some points remain true and can be applied to NS2.
UWE generally needs to straighten out the priorities of the Game. they took natural selection 1 and added to it, implementing new features and innovated new things, but by doing so, they moved away from an accessible, streamlined, teamplay focused game they wanted to make. all these new features, Macs, drifters, multiple commanders, feel kinda out of place and cluster up the game, while adding very little value, or pushing the old, tested true things of NS1 aside. like the gorge. what is the purpose of the gorge? there is no teamplay or gameplay justification besides a cheap Base defense, the hydra. its important role has been taken out by Drifters, Alien commander, and the general smallness of maps with the Crag and very close multiple hives.
what needs to be in NS2? at the very, most basic level? so that a group of 10 people can play a 30-40 minute game and have a deep and fun experience. no. deep and fun doesn't come from features, it comes with the basic Core layout of the game. the foundation must be strong and stand on its own, while additions enrich and refine it. if a skulk lvl 0 vs Marine rifle lvl 0 game, with its bare skeleton, isn't balanced, (around 50% win for both sides over the course of many games) you can't add more.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The lesson that can be learned from this is essentially that all features; no matter how grand and deep they will make your gameplay, MUST be not only communicated to the player, but also very simple to understand- on the outside at least.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In AoC the core lacking thing was movement. the entire Gameplay, with its classes, weapons, maps, features, suffered because of this, Basic movement.
what was the core gameplay of NS1? I don't know, I didn't play that much, but one of you surely can filter it out.
I can't complain about said post, because I have made a few critical ones recently (not of them, but what is happening in game). But with things very much in development, things will change drastically with the introduction of the later game upgrades.
@People saying you can't judge something because of performance that is not true. The game is extremely confusing and mechanics can be evaluated regardless of how well it runs. Many game designers especially ones using custom in house engines (myself included), will tell you that design decisions have to be made and evaluated regardless of how well the game runs. Optimization is usually an ongoing process that can run right up to release. The fact that NS2 does not run very well certainly has not hindered my ability to come to some conclusions of my own. This thread as already stated is not about balance, it's about the game features and rules that seem questionable and confusing more than anything. You should be able to describe your game in a few sentences as a rule, and I have a really hard time doing so to friends whom I try to get involved in the NS world. It's hard to explain something when you don't understand it yourself.
<!--quoteo(post=1824011:date=Jan 13 2011, 04:13 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jan 13 2011, 04:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824011"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Greater clarity is always best.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> To a degree, but not when it's unneccesarily complicated.
You don't need to know the exact specifics of how money works, all you need to know is that you want as much of it as you can get, and that it's keeping you from doing overpowered things, and that you need to wait if you don't have enough.
I agree with your points about the resource model, I've won a few games and I'm not really a massive fan of the different resources and how they work with each other. Carbon, Plasma, what? Player resources? It makes no difference to me because I'm only paying attention to matching up the number I need with what I want to build. I have 14 res and I need 20, I can freely glaze over the mechanics.
Your other points about smaller maps and general balance are baseless, however. Of the maps we have, Rockdown is a test map that was never built with gameplay in mind. And Tram is the smallest of the official maps and currently doesn't see much gameplay due to a few performance issues. I can only assume balance is something that needs to be looked at once the glaring performance issues are fixed.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1824077:date=Jan 13 2011, 11:39 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Jan 13 2011, 11:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824077"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To a degree, but not when it's unneccesarily complicated.
You don't need to know the exact specifics of how money works, all you need to know is that you want as much of it as you can get, and that it's keeping you from doing overpowered things, and that you need to wait if you don't have enough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The average player doesn't need to know, but the commander sure does. Understanding how to get resources and which resources do what is key to commanding. Any added complexity in the resource system just increasing the commanding learning curve.
<!--quoteo(post=1824083:date=Jan 13 2011, 02:52 PM:name=Supernorn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Supernorn @ Jan 13 2011, 02:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824083"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your other points about smaller maps and general balance are baseless, however.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They're not baseless, they're just my opinions on how the game has lost much of it's atmosphere and in turn, some of it's appeal. In case you misunderstood, or I was unclear, NS2 is currently facing issues that are preventing a lot of people from enjoying it. Much of that is a result of a lack of intuitive design, but part of it lies in the fact that it has lost some of it's uniqueness. This thread is an attempt to pin point where those issues are and how we can address them so they do not prevent people from enjoying the game.
personally, I think, you, the UWE team, needs to sit down and have a talk about...
...what is necessary for good gameplay and balance, and what isn't. ...which features add depth and enhance the game, and which are just gimmicks. (Mac comes to mind) ...what went wrong. (learning curve, 2 Res'es, 2 coms, game priorities.) ...the Gameplay roles of the classes/weapons. ...the organization of new content, and the balance of balancing/content/bugfixing ...the hiring of new manpower. (new POV, fresh blood, more manpower, less stress) ...what kind of game you want to make (its pretty hardcore atm imho) ...how to make the Game as transparent and easy to grasp as possible<b> for the players</b> (!!!) - this includes resources. - this includes Power nodes. - this includes the tech tree (!!!) - this includes Commander mode (!!!) - this includes the Roles of Classes/weapons for the players - this includes the HUD
....and how to implement all the necessary changes.
but I'm just a semi active worm that doesn't even own the beta. so these are just suggestions, but they're from the heart. I don't want to bash you guys, no, I want to support and help you in the little way I can, even if it is just writing meeting topic suggestions on a forum board.
oh, and please get those new maps out quickly. too many people grow attached and used to rockdown, and due to the problem of "no alternatives", the suggestions are probably flawed when based on a Testmap. or heavily rework rockdown to a large map. I don't want it to become a NS2 de_dust.
If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
It's their game. All you can do is asking them. Not offending them.
If you want to learn a game in less than one minute, don't play NS. Play CoD.
You even need time to learn CS. All those weapons...very confusing. How did anyone ever play this...
If gameplay elements suck, they will recognise it. most of the games are on rockdown at this moment and we barely can play at all.
Maybe we will see (when we can play real games), that some ideas are not good. But they are not stupid. They want to make a good game. They will make a good game.
The recourse system is not confusing. It is a RTS. I'll say it again, as a commander, it is a RTS. A RTS. I never played one famous RTS with only one type of ressources.
You can not tell about the loss of anything, because there's almost nothing in it yet.
And again:
If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
I think this thread is ###### ###### ###### ###### and ###### ###### ###### with ###### ######
<!--quoteo(post=1823945:date=Jan 13 2011, 01:10 PM:name=MOOtant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MOOtant @ Jan 13 2011, 01:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1823945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So, are you saying that it'll get even slower after adding onos/JP? Truth is that these are totally orthogonal.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm saying that its pointless to discuss team gameplay dynamics because they will change totally when the teams are actually complete. Introduce new counters and new strategies, etc.
<!--quoteo(post=1824129:date=Jan 13 2011, 05:49 PM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Jan 13 2011, 05:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824129"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->also why is this in ideas and suggestions?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I cannot discuss a problem without offering my best solution. And because I'm giving suggestions, I figured it would end up here regardless. so I saved the moderators the trouble.
<!--quoteo(post=1824112:date=Jan 13 2011, 10:34 PM:name=countbasie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (countbasie @ Jan 13 2011, 10:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824112"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
It's their game. All you can do is asking them. Not offending them.
If you want to learn a game in less than one minute, don't play NS. Play CoD.
You even need time to learn CS. All those weapons...very confusing. How did anyone ever play this...
If gameplay elements suck, they will recognise it. most of the games are on rockdown at this moment and we barely can play at all.
Maybe we will see (when we can play real games), that some ideas are not good. But they are not stupid. They want to make a good game. They will make a good game.
The recourse system is not confusing. It is a RTS. I'll say it again, as a commander, it is a RTS. A RTS. I never played one famous RTS with only one type of ressources.
You can not tell about the loss of anything, because there's almost nothing in it yet.
And again:
If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
I think this thread is ###### ###### ###### ###### and ###### ###### ###### with ###### ######<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I am confused, is this directed at me, or the thread maker? I never tried to offend anyone, and Watchmaker's post is polite and thought out, although the topic title could be more descriptive.
Nobody <b>ever</b> said anything about "good" elements, or that certain elements "suck", or that any ideas are "stupid." quite frankly, you're the only one who evem swears in this thread. this doesn't give your post more maturity. and I highly doubt that WatchMaker, or any other Natural selection 1 veteran, would want to offend this awesome 4 man team.
now, on a personal point, from me to you, I disagree on the RTS part. NS in general is a FPS/rts hybrid, and quite frankly, saying that you never played one famous RTS with just one resource.. well, i can't comment on that, you know better and are probably right about that. but I have played one. its called Natural selection 1. and it kicks ass. also, the RTS part only applies to 2 people on the server, the rest is playing a FPS. and commanders have better things to do than Macro resources, and FPS players will get the increased complexity of the RTS system.. for what? the names don't make sense either. why not make them Money and resources? carbon and ... even I forgot!
there is no reason to not streamline the core game mechanics.
hell, this thread isn't even about Balance, its about the learning curve, and the many complicated and complex systems in the game, which will scare off newer players. Like Watchmaker said, NS2 is worse than NS1 in that regard.
Nobody ever said, or even expected NS2 to be boiled down that much that a unknowing guy can pick it up in 10 seconds. that's ridiculous. but he should get the very basic Idea behind it.
Marines vs Aliens, in a spaceship, with Bases and RTS elements. to win destroy enemy Base/hive. to get weapons you need to build RTs. but no, you need to upgrade the armory first. but then you need a second CC, and a few other upgrades too, and there are power nodes, which power buildings, and when destroyed shut off the lights, god this is confusing, what should I do? ok, switch to alien team. woah, completely different. ok, why should I take gorge/Lerk/fade? what does it do? is it important? I spawn in eggs, that's kinda cool. but why do I die so fast? hey, I didn't know hives were CCs too! why didn't anyone tell me? what's carbon? and that other stuff? is there a difference? oh man i get them mixed up. when I kill someone a yellow +Number shows up. its probably more carbon. or that other stuff.
...
and it goes on and on and on. nobody says Make NS2 easier, but make it Transparent, and easy to grasp, easy to explain and learn by doing.
I think the res system is fairly simple, but it's simply not explained because we're still in beta.
Carbon is easy to understand. You use it to build stuff.
Plasma is a bit stranger, but it's similar to munitions in Company of Heroes. It's used to outfit players or trigger powerful effects (beacon, that AoE thing that whips do, crag's umbra). It's a bit muddled by gorges dropping hydras and was formerly used for sentries (might be again?), but overall there's a good difference, especially since everyone has their own "plasma pool". I think the only problem is that they need to add tool tips explaining this, which is fairly simple to do and I'm sure will happen later in the development process. There's no such thing as "commander plasma" -- it's just the commander's personal plasma pool, no different from anyone else's. Res towers should specify that they extract both plasma and carbon (and that the amount of plasma extracted can be upgraded), but again... more tooltips. They already have some placeholder text for some of this stuff and just haven't gotten around to it yet.
And energy is building specific. There are many buildings/units in RTS that function almost exactly the same. Putting the energy icon next to the building's current/total energy would explain a lot, but that's still something that seems like it'd be done near the end of the development cycle.
A lot of the other things I sort of agree with. We definitely need one commander per team. But the relationship between marines and their commander has diminished? I don't know where you're getting this, but the commander is there to command the marines, set up bases, and provide strategy.
Power nodes indeed feel superfluous and are very distracting to new skulks that spend the first 5 minutes of a game chomping down every power node in sight. I'm not sure about combining the two, and honestly I'm *kind of* okay with the way it is now as it can have its uses, but it does adds a bunch of useless munching/repairing to the game.
There really needs to be some fixing of each team's dynamics right now. The priorities are very skewed as marines try to hold out and research tech while aliens try to grab map control so they can pump out lerks/fades (tram) or deny marines a 2nd tech point (rockdown). But I think it's a bit too early to raise a lot of complaints until more of the game is implemented. Sieges for both teams is especially a huge game changer.
I think MACs are great as they are now and require no major changes to their role. Very very very useful tool for marine commanders and makes it feel much more like an RTS for them. Drifters I don't have a big problem with although providing them some support role would be nice other than the flash thing.
I kind of agree about doors, but I think you place way too much emphasis on them. They should be more similar to weldable points in NS1 and shouldn't play a prominent role in all matches. I'm not seeing how they ruin the experience for you as they stand now. They aren't that bad in tram... You seem to again be complaining about helpful visual indicators, which I'm sure will be implemented later whenever they get around to working on doors again. It's not like the game has gone retail yet.
I do think the alien commander has been left woefully unimplemented. When I command alien games, I generally just hop in, plop some stuff down, then hop out. There's just not enough for the commander to do since the aliens' hive sight generally tells players where they need to go. You also definitely are correct that DI, if it is such a huge game changer (and hopefully serves to limit rapid alien expansion), should be implemented very soon, even if it's visually crude. They don't even need to work on deforming terrain, just make the texture sprawl for now.
I think a lot of your criticism is pointed to the game not being player friendly enough, but a lot of effort into making a game player friendly comes from polish. UWE is just not at that stage yet.
aonomusDedicated NS Mastermind (no need for school)Join Date: 2003-11-26Member: 23605Members, Constellation
Its been a while since I've posted on these forums. Recently got the beta on my new computer and I had some thoughts as well. I'm actually a little disappointed, but I'm understanding that its in beta - having said that, I have the following thoughts.
- Learning curve: NS1 was steep, NS2 is asymptotic towards infinity. The fact that 'veterans' of the beta <i>still</i> don't get it should be a red flag. Why does no very clear manual exist to ease the entry into the game? The wiki doesn't explain gameplay usage of anything really other than 'it exists, costs X carbon, ramble on to fill out the article'.
- Resource model: huh? 3-4 different types of resources with no definition of what belongs to who and how to use it?
- Resource granularity: the decrease in resource rate is a big change, no obvious signs of when res is coming in vs when its being spent visually
- Resource granularity con't: building costs to resource income rate always seems to be never balanced, you either have too many options and to little res, or too few options and far too much res
- Resource 'endgame': sometimes I've noticed that when no one knows how to command, they spend res on whips, crags, upgrades, etc before extractors, causing a resource 'dead end'. Without the gorge to earn personal res as a skulk and go drop the first new extractor/RT after all were lost, its a dead end of skulk lemming behavior vs marine tech upgrades until steamroller status. Marines could always recycle something to place a new RT unless it was truly desperate (in which case the game is over). A few games I've played aliens have a thriving structure base but no carbon left to keep that going.
- Game strategy dynamic: The marines rely on mainly one strategy now: tech up to bigger guns and steamroller. The aliens have a significant limit to that counter strategy because they don't have all the features completed yet. - Marines can selectively lock doors to create more linear maps, without the onos to break them down, or break turret bases, its very hard to counter that strategy - Aliens also lack a bunch of upgrades which can be used to counter marine strategy and movement and in general go hand in hand with the sneaky ambush characteristic that we liked about the aliens in NS1. Before you could hide, sneak around, sabotage, etc. Now its lemming, lemming, lemming. - As a result of lack of options for the aliens, many fades have resorted to blinking off the map as their <i>only</i> sneaky strategy, which is probably not what the devs have desired.
- Mini map: needs to be introduced already? Even a list of maps with screenshots of the minimap on the wiki would help to orient people.
- Team communication: voice chat indicators are non-existent, teamwork is hard when you don't know who is talking - whether its your bud next to you or someone across the map. Team alive/dead indicators are also non-existent, you really don't know how bad things are at any given point in time
[/rant]
Now that I've said that, hopefully people have some constructive thoughts on this.
Of all the thousands of useless threads on these boards if there ever was one I really hope UWE actually looks long and hard at it would be this one. Bottom line if NS2 is even harder to get into than NS1 it will not be successful.
<!--quoteo(post=1824089:date=Jan 13 2011, 08:10 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Jan 13 2011, 08:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824089"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The average player doesn't need to know, but the commander sure does. Understanding how to get resources and which resources do what is key to commanding. Any added complexity in the resource system just increasing the commanding learning curve.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's never stopped me from commanding.
I build extractors and place stuff, I notice i tend to have more of the blue stuff than the green stuff, so I spend the blue stuff more freely. I save the green stuff for when I need it. If I don't have enough of either stuff I place more extractors.
wow, instead of complaining about the learning curve, why don't you guys just go edit the wiki? i don't think the learning curve is any harder. it's actually easier.
you don't need to know that you have to ask for a gun from a commander. you don't need to hit 3 buttons to leap then bite. you don't need to know that you should get adrenaline and carapace as a skulk to be effective.
you guys just glossed over all of the gameplay and honed in on the resource model, which is actually pretty simple, p for plasma for personal resources, c for carbon for construction. wow that was hard.
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model. @Tig: You're saying every player is expected to read the Wiki in order to understand the game.
I think you've both done a spectacular job of explaining exactly why we need intuitive design back at the helm, if indirectly and unintentionally.
<!--quoteo(post=1825093:date=Jan 17 2011, 04:53 PM:name=WatchMaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WatchMaker @ Jan 17 2011, 04:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1825093"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So let me get this straight:
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model. @Tig: You're saying every player is expected to read the Wiki in order to understand the game.
I think you've both done a spectacular job of explaining exactly why we need intuitive design back at the helm, if indirectly and unintentionally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no, im just saying that it's not that hard. it's really not. and they have already said that they are redoing most of the flash interfaces in lua and that when they do that, they will take another look at the intuitiveness of the design.
aonomusDedicated NS Mastermind (no need for school)Join Date: 2003-11-26Member: 23605Members, Constellation
Heck, some features present in most HL2 mods due to the base code in the SDK such as voice chat indicators are absent, this is one of my biggest pet peeves since a teamwork based game should have streamlined communication and information display.... right now its just hard to figure out who is talking and if its the commander or not.
One problem I've found is that towards the marine end game, the commander has nothing to do but either sit back and spam medpacks/ammopacks, or jump out and leave the comm station to rambo with everyone else. If a lucky skulk sneaks in and takes out the IP(s) then its a fast reversal, but the comm should have a more active role towards the endgame as well.
<!--quoteo(post=1825456:date=Jan 19 2011, 12:29 PM:name=aonomus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (aonomus @ Jan 19 2011, 12:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1825456"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One problem I've found is that towards the marine end game, the commander has nothing to do but either sit back and spam medpacks/ammopacks, or jump out and leave the comm station to rambo with everyone else. If a lucky skulk sneaks in and takes out the IP(s) then its a fast reversal, but the comm should have a more active role towards the endgame as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The commander will have more to do end game when we get <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/ARC" target="_blank">ARC</a> and MAC Mines.
Sorry but with the design and features in flux any sort of effort into a tutorial is a waste of time, that needs to be done right at the end. Right now us beta players just have to suck it up and feedback on the frustrations. There is no point in telling people to RTFM when things change from one build to the next.....
I hope this will get enough attention from the devs, most of the points WatchMaker brings up in here really have to be adressed before a release is possible. If those "features" are missing in the final product or will be implemented at later stages, it might scare away new players.
It doesn't matter if there is something wrong with the performance right now, you should be able to identify these problems with or without performance issues. And I hope the devs won't repeat the NS1 mistakes.
<!--quoteo(post=1825093:date=Jan 17 2011, 09:53 PM:name=WatchMaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WatchMaker @ Jan 17 2011, 09:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1825093"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So let me get this straight:
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can call it carbon and plasma if you want, but it's still green stuff and blue stuff. It's two arbitrary resources, when you want to buy something you check how much of the stuff you have, and if you have enough, it deducts the stuff from the pile and gives you a structure or gun.
I play company of heroes, which has THREE resources, and indiivdual points from which to collect each. Everything also costs varying mixtures of all resources, everything costs manpower, some things cost ammo, vehicles usually cost fuel, and you get fuel manpower and ammo in varying amounts. I still just think of it as beige stuff orange stuff and green stuff, I also think of company of heroes as one of the simpler RTS games with regards to resource model because for the most part, killing the enemy and gathering money is the same thing, because you don't have harvesters, you just have to kill enemies and keep them away from your territory and you get money.
In NS2 I don't even need to think about whether I have captured the right sort of res node, I just build more extractors, more extractors = more money, more money = more extractors, lots of money = win game.
It's really <i>not</i> complicated, that's why I don't treat it as complicated. NS1 was about as simple as you could get, take territory > get money. NS2 has taken the impossible leap to take territory > get money and also marines each get their own money.
Comm stuff costs carbon, personal stuff costs plasma, in either case 'if you have enough green or blue stuff, you can buy more things' is all you really need to know.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's causing a large number of players to walk away with poor reactions, who then spread their negative opinions somewhat heavy handed to potential buyers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just send them to the forums, i m happy to answer all of their questions about (already released) ns2 stuff. (And i bet a lot others would help them too)
UWE will address the ns2 for dummies issue as soon as it gets close to release, im sure.
<!--quoteo(post=1823808:date=Jan 13 2011, 03:45 AM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Jan 13 2011, 03:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1823808"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't understand why people take this amount of effort when the game is in this state. I can barely shoot a skulk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Then you are totaly a noob or the game runs like on my pc, terrible. Skulks are so cheap and very vulnerable, in ns2 there like cannon fodder. They are slow, fat and can not hide because there fat and slow.
Comments
the age of Chivalry team, a modder group that currently makes a Commercial sequel, made this reflection on their failings.
<a href="http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/smf/index.php?topic=8598.0" target="_blank">http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/smf/index.php?topic=8598.0</a>
while the problems are distinctive, some points remain true and can be applied to NS2.
UWE generally needs to straighten out the priorities of the Game.
they took natural selection 1 and added to it, implementing new features and innovated new things, but by doing so, they moved away from an accessible, streamlined, teamplay focused game they wanted to make.
all these new features, Macs, drifters, multiple commanders, feel kinda out of place and cluster up the game, while adding very little value, or pushing the old, tested true things of NS1 aside. like the gorge. what is the purpose of the gorge? there is no teamplay or gameplay justification besides a cheap Base defense, the hydra. its important role has been taken out by Drifters, Alien commander, and the general smallness of maps with the Crag and very close multiple hives.
what needs to be in NS2? at the very, most basic level? so that a group of 10 people can play a 30-40 minute game and have a deep and fun experience. no. deep and fun doesn't come from features, it comes with the basic Core layout of the game. the foundation must be strong and stand on its own, while additions enrich and refine it. if a skulk lvl 0 vs Marine rifle lvl 0 game, with its bare skeleton, isn't balanced, (around 50% win for both sides over the course of many games) you can't add more.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The lesson that can be learned from this is essentially that all features; no matter how grand and deep they will make your gameplay, MUST be not only communicated to the player, but also very simple to understand- on the outside at least.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In AoC the core lacking thing was movement. the entire Gameplay, with its classes, weapons, maps, features, suffered because of this, Basic movement.
what was the core gameplay of NS1? I don't know, I didn't play that much, but one of you surely can filter it out.
I dearly hope UWE have read this thread.
I can't complain about said post, because I have made a few critical ones recently (not of them, but what is happening in game). But with things very much in development, things will change drastically with the introduction of the later game upgrades.
To a degree, but not when it's unneccesarily complicated.
You don't need to know the exact specifics of how money works, all you need to know is that you want as much of it as you can get, and that it's keeping you from doing overpowered things, and that you need to wait if you don't have enough.
Your other points about smaller maps and general balance are baseless, however. Of the maps we have, Rockdown is a test map that was never built with gameplay in mind. And Tram is the smallest of the official maps and currently doesn't see much gameplay due to a few performance issues. I can only assume balance is something that needs to be looked at once the glaring performance issues are fixed.
You don't need to know the exact specifics of how money works, all you need to know is that you want as much of it as you can get, and that it's keeping you from doing overpowered things, and that you need to wait if you don't have enough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The average player doesn't need to know, but the commander sure does. Understanding how to get resources and which resources do what is key to commanding. Any added complexity in the resource system just increasing the commanding learning curve.
They're not baseless, they're just my opinions on how the game has lost much of it's atmosphere and in turn, some of it's appeal. In case you misunderstood, or I was unclear, NS2 is currently facing issues that are preventing a lot of people from enjoying it. Much of that is a result of a lack of intuitive design, but part of it lies in the fact that it has lost some of it's uniqueness. This thread is an attempt to pin point where those issues are and how we can address them so they do not prevent people from enjoying the game.
...what is necessary for good gameplay and balance, and what isn't.
...which features add depth and enhance the game, and which are just gimmicks. (Mac comes to mind)
...what went wrong. (learning curve, 2 Res'es, 2 coms, game priorities.)
...the Gameplay roles of the classes/weapons.
...the organization of new content, and the balance of balancing/content/bugfixing
...the hiring of new manpower. (new POV, fresh blood, more manpower, less stress)
...what kind of game you want to make (its pretty hardcore atm imho)
...how to make the Game as transparent and easy to grasp as possible<b> for the players</b> (!!!)
- this includes resources.
- this includes Power nodes.
- this includes the tech tree (!!!)
- this includes Commander mode (!!!)
- this includes the Roles of Classes/weapons for the players
- this includes the HUD
....and how to implement all the necessary changes.
but I'm just a semi active worm that doesn't even own the beta. so these are just suggestions, but they're from the heart. I don't want to bash you guys, no, I want to support and help you in the little way I can, even if it is just writing meeting topic suggestions on a forum board.
oh, and please get those new maps out quickly. too many people grow attached and used to rockdown, and due to the problem of "no alternatives", the suggestions are probably flawed when based on a Testmap.
or heavily rework rockdown to a large map.
I don't want it to become a NS2 de_dust.
It's their game. All you can do is asking them. Not offending them.
If you want to learn a game in less than one minute, don't play NS. Play CoD.
You even need time to learn CS. All those weapons...very confusing. How did anyone ever play this...
If gameplay elements suck, they will recognise it. most of the games are on rockdown at this moment and we barely can play at all.
Maybe we will see (when we can play real games), that some ideas are not good. But they are not stupid. They want to make a good game. They will make a good game.
The recourse system is not confusing. It is a RTS. I'll say it again, as a commander, it is a RTS. A RTS. I never played one famous RTS with only one type of ressources.
You can not tell about the loss of anything, because there's almost nothing in it yet.
And again:
If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
I think this thread is ###### ###### ###### ###### and ###### ###### ###### with ###### ######
I'm saying that its pointless to discuss team gameplay dynamics because they will change totally when the teams are actually complete. Introduce new counters and new strategies, etc.
I cannot discuss a problem without offering my best solution. And because I'm giving suggestions, I figured it would end up here regardless. so I saved the moderators the trouble.
It's their game. All you can do is asking them. Not offending them.
If you want to learn a game in less than one minute, don't play NS. Play CoD.
You even need time to learn CS. All those weapons...very confusing. How did anyone ever play this...
If gameplay elements suck, they will recognise it. most of the games are on rockdown at this moment and we barely can play at all.
Maybe we will see (when we can play real games), that some ideas are not good. But they are not stupid. They want to make a good game. They will make a good game.
The recourse system is not confusing. It is a RTS. I'll say it again, as a commander, it is a RTS. A RTS. I never played one famous RTS with only one type of ressources.
You can not tell about the loss of anything, because there's almost nothing in it yet.
And again:
If you want to critisize, don't offend people first. This is never a good strategy, no one will like to listen to you.
I think this thread is ###### ###### ###### ###### and ###### ###### ###### with ###### ######<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am confused, is this directed at me, or the thread maker?
I never tried to offend anyone, and Watchmaker's post is polite and thought out, although the topic title could be more descriptive.
Nobody <b>ever</b> said anything about "good" elements, or that certain elements "suck", or that any ideas are "stupid."
quite frankly, you're the only one who evem swears in this thread. this doesn't give your post more maturity. and I highly doubt that WatchMaker, or any other Natural selection 1 veteran, would want to offend this awesome 4 man team.
now, on a personal point, from me to you, I disagree on the RTS part. NS in general is a FPS/rts hybrid, and quite frankly, saying that you never played one famous RTS with just one resource.. well, i can't comment on that, you know better and are probably right about that. but I have played one. its called Natural selection 1. and it kicks ass. also, the RTS part only applies to 2 people on the server, the rest is playing a FPS. and commanders have better things to do than Macro resources, and FPS players will get the increased complexity of the RTS system.. for what? the names don't make sense either. why not make them Money and resources? carbon and ... even I forgot!
there is no reason to not streamline the core game mechanics.
hell, this thread isn't even about Balance, its about the learning curve, and the many complicated and complex systems in the game, which will scare off newer players. Like Watchmaker said, NS2 is worse than NS1 in that regard.
Nobody ever said, or even expected NS2 to be boiled down that much that a unknowing guy can pick it up in 10 seconds. that's ridiculous. but he should get the very basic Idea behind it.
Marines vs Aliens, in a spaceship,
with Bases and RTS elements.
to win destroy enemy Base/hive.
to get weapons you need to build RTs.
but no, you need to upgrade the armory first.
but then you need a second CC, and a few other upgrades too,
and there are power nodes, which power buildings, and when destroyed shut off the lights,
god this is confusing, what should I do?
ok, switch to alien team. woah, completely different.
ok, why should I take gorge/Lerk/fade? what does it do? is it important?
I spawn in eggs, that's kinda cool. but why do I die so fast?
hey, I didn't know hives were CCs too! why didn't anyone tell me?
what's carbon? and that other stuff? is there a difference? oh man i get them mixed up.
when I kill someone a yellow +Number shows up. its probably more carbon. or that other stuff.
...
and it goes on and on and on. nobody says Make NS2 easier, but make it Transparent, and easy to grasp, easy to explain and learn by doing.
Carbon is easy to understand. You use it to build stuff.
Plasma is a bit stranger, but it's similar to munitions in Company of Heroes. It's used to outfit players or trigger powerful effects (beacon, that AoE thing that whips do, crag's umbra). It's a bit muddled by gorges dropping hydras and was formerly used for sentries (might be again?), but overall there's a good difference, especially since everyone has their own "plasma pool". I think the only problem is that they need to add tool tips explaining this, which is fairly simple to do and I'm sure will happen later in the development process. There's no such thing as "commander plasma" -- it's just the commander's personal plasma pool, no different from anyone else's. Res towers should specify that they extract both plasma and carbon (and that the amount of plasma extracted can be upgraded), but again... more tooltips. They already have some placeholder text for some of this stuff and just haven't gotten around to it yet.
And energy is building specific. There are many buildings/units in RTS that function almost exactly the same. Putting the energy icon next to the building's current/total energy would explain a lot, but that's still something that seems like it'd be done near the end of the development cycle.
A lot of the other things I sort of agree with. We definitely need one commander per team. But the relationship between marines and their commander has diminished? I don't know where you're getting this, but the commander is there to command the marines, set up bases, and provide strategy.
Power nodes indeed feel superfluous and are very distracting to new skulks that spend the first 5 minutes of a game chomping down every power node in sight. I'm not sure about combining the two, and honestly I'm *kind of* okay with the way it is now as it can have its uses, but it does adds a bunch of useless munching/repairing to the game.
There really needs to be some fixing of each team's dynamics right now. The priorities are very skewed as marines try to hold out and research tech while aliens try to grab map control so they can pump out lerks/fades (tram) or deny marines a 2nd tech point (rockdown). But I think it's a bit too early to raise a lot of complaints until more of the game is implemented. Sieges for both teams is especially a huge game changer.
I think MACs are great as they are now and require no major changes to their role. Very very very useful tool for marine commanders and makes it feel much more like an RTS for them. Drifters I don't have a big problem with although providing them some support role would be nice other than the flash thing.
I kind of agree about doors, but I think you place way too much emphasis on them. They should be more similar to weldable points in NS1 and shouldn't play a prominent role in all matches. I'm not seeing how they ruin the experience for you as they stand now. They aren't that bad in tram... You seem to again be complaining about helpful visual indicators, which I'm sure will be implemented later whenever they get around to working on doors again. It's not like the game has gone retail yet.
I do think the alien commander has been left woefully unimplemented. When I command alien games, I generally just hop in, plop some stuff down, then hop out. There's just not enough for the commander to do since the aliens' hive sight generally tells players where they need to go. You also definitely are correct that DI, if it is such a huge game changer (and hopefully serves to limit rapid alien expansion), should be implemented very soon, even if it's visually crude. They don't even need to work on deforming terrain, just make the texture sprawl for now.
I think a lot of your criticism is pointed to the game not being player friendly enough, but a lot of effort into making a game player friendly comes from polish. UWE is just not at that stage yet.
Stele: Yes, that polish-thing.
- Learning curve: NS1 was steep, NS2 is asymptotic towards infinity. The fact that 'veterans' of the beta <i>still</i> don't get it should be a red flag. Why does no very clear manual exist to ease the entry into the game? The wiki doesn't explain gameplay usage of anything really other than 'it exists, costs X carbon, ramble on to fill out the article'.
- Resource model: huh? 3-4 different types of resources with no definition of what belongs to who and how to use it?
- Resource granularity: the decrease in resource rate is a big change, no obvious signs of when res is coming in vs when its being spent visually
- Resource granularity con't: building costs to resource income rate always seems to be never balanced, you either have too many options and to little res, or too few options and far too much res
- Resource 'endgame': sometimes I've noticed that when no one knows how to command, they spend res on whips, crags, upgrades, etc before extractors, causing a resource 'dead end'. Without the gorge to earn personal res as a skulk and go drop the first new extractor/RT after all were lost, its a dead end of skulk lemming behavior vs marine tech upgrades until steamroller status. Marines could always recycle something to place a new RT unless it was truly desperate (in which case the game is over). A few games I've played aliens have a thriving structure base but no carbon left to keep that going.
- Game strategy dynamic: The marines rely on mainly one strategy now: tech up to bigger guns and steamroller. The aliens have a significant limit to that counter strategy because they don't have all the features completed yet.
- Marines can selectively lock doors to create more linear maps, without the onos to break them down, or break turret bases, its very hard to counter that strategy
- Aliens also lack a bunch of upgrades which can be used to counter marine strategy and movement and in general go hand in hand with the sneaky ambush characteristic that we liked about the aliens in NS1. Before you could hide, sneak around, sabotage, etc. Now its lemming, lemming, lemming.
- As a result of lack of options for the aliens, many fades have resorted to blinking off the map as their <i>only</i> sneaky strategy, which is probably not what the devs have desired.
- Mini map: needs to be introduced already? Even a list of maps with screenshots of the minimap on the wiki would help to orient people.
- Team communication: voice chat indicators are non-existent, teamwork is hard when you don't know who is talking - whether its your bud next to you or someone across the map. Team alive/dead indicators are also non-existent, you really don't know how bad things are at any given point in time
[/rant]
Now that I've said that, hopefully people have some constructive thoughts on this.
It's never stopped me from commanding.
I build extractors and place stuff, I notice i tend to have more of the blue stuff than the green stuff, so I spend the blue stuff more freely. I save the green stuff for when I need it. If I don't have enough of either stuff I place more extractors.
Boom, resource system solved.
you don't need to know that you have to ask for a gun from a commander. you don't need to hit 3 buttons to leap then bite. you don't need to know that you should get adrenaline and carapace as a skulk to be effective.
you guys just glossed over all of the gameplay and honed in on the resource model, which is actually pretty simple, p for plasma for personal resources, c for carbon for construction. wow that was hard.
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model.
@Tig: You're saying every player is expected to read the Wiki in order to understand the game.
I think you've both done a spectacular job of explaining exactly why we need intuitive design back at the helm, if indirectly and unintentionally.
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model.
@Tig: You're saying every player is expected to read the Wiki in order to understand the game.
I think you've both done a spectacular job of explaining exactly why we need intuitive design back at the helm, if indirectly and unintentionally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no, im just saying that it's not that hard. it's really not. and they have already said that they are redoing most of the flash interfaces in lua and that when they do that, they will take another look at the intuitiveness of the design.
One problem I've found is that towards the marine end game, the commander has nothing to do but either sit back and spam medpacks/ammopacks, or jump out and leave the comm station to rambo with everyone else. If a lucky skulk sneaks in and takes out the IP(s) then its a fast reversal, but the comm should have a more active role towards the endgame as well.
The commander will have more to do end game when we get <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/ARC" target="_blank">ARC</a> and MAC Mines.
There is no point in telling people to RTFM when things change from one build to the next.....
If those "features" are missing in the final product or will be implemented at later stages, it might scare away new players.
It doesn't matter if there is something wrong with the performance right now, you should be able to identify these problems with or without performance issues.
And I hope the devs won't repeat the NS1 mistakes.
@Chris0132: You think a superficial understanding of "Green stuff" and "Blue stuff" is enough to understand the complex resource model.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can call it carbon and plasma if you want, but it's still green stuff and blue stuff. It's two arbitrary resources, when you want to buy something you check how much of the stuff you have, and if you have enough, it deducts the stuff from the pile and gives you a structure or gun.
I play company of heroes, which has THREE resources, and indiivdual points from which to collect each. Everything also costs varying mixtures of all resources, everything costs manpower, some things cost ammo, vehicles usually cost fuel, and you get fuel manpower and ammo in varying amounts. I still just think of it as beige stuff orange stuff and green stuff, I also think of company of heroes as one of the simpler RTS games with regards to resource model because for the most part, killing the enemy and gathering money is the same thing, because you don't have harvesters, you just have to kill enemies and keep them away from your territory and you get money.
In NS2 I don't even need to think about whether I have captured the right sort of res node, I just build more extractors, more extractors = more money, more money = more extractors, lots of money = win game.
It's really <i>not</i> complicated, that's why I don't treat it as complicated. NS1 was about as simple as you could get, take territory > get money. NS2 has taken the impossible leap to take territory > get money and also marines each get their own money.
Comm stuff costs carbon, personal stuff costs plasma, in either case 'if you have enough green or blue stuff, you can buy more things' is all you really need to know.
It's not rocket surgery.
Just send them to the forums, i m happy to answer all of their questions about (already released) ns2 stuff. (And i bet a lot others would help them too)
UWE will address the ns2 for dummies issue as soon as it gets close to release, im sure.
Then you are totaly a noob or the game runs like on my pc, terrible.
Skulks are so cheap and very vulnerable, in ns2 there like cannon fodder.
They are slow, fat and can not hide because there fat and slow.