[186] Gameplay discussion
elodea
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
So since it looks like we're going to be on 186 for a while as UWE works on a feature heavy 187, i thought it'd be helpful to have a wider discussion about gameplay balance/issues/concerns/praises in more detail. By this i don't mean bugs like spawnlock.
Here are some that i have
<b>1) </b>Marine reloading should only be interrupted by switching weapons. Not only does there need to be a penalty for reloading, but its unintuitive to have shooting interupt reloading. Many times I've fired too early, thinking reloading has already finished or trying to time it, only to have it interrupted.
<b>2)</b> Switching to pistol needs to be quicker, it seems alot slower than i remember in 185? By the time you've finished switching to pistol, the escaping alien has already run around the next corner. The pistol is really unique and i think quicker switching will make flamethrower/shotgun play alot more interesting.
<b>3) </b>The cooldown on fade blink feels unintuitive and i think should really go. Although its something one would get used to over time, i find it hard to judge how long the cooldown really is as theres no UI feedback related to the cooldown and it restricts movement alot. Setting a high enough initial cost for entering blink should be enough to prevent and balance blinkspam. Further, there are situations where i would want to successively blink very quickly and be willing to pay the high energy cost of doing so. A cooldown kind of commits you to a fight where you cant quickly blink in, swipe, blink out to harass shotgunners etc. <b>Blink cooldown makes the fade feel clunky for me, would love to hear what pro fade players think about the cooldown though.</b>
<b>4) </b>Entering and leaving sprint needs to be more responsive i think. Maybe its because of playing too much bf3 lately, but the delay between hitting/releasing shift and entering/leaving sprint seems really slow.
<b>5) </b>Don't think aiming at eggs should show text telling what kind of egg it is e.g. skulk egg, gorge egg, fade egg.
<b>6) </b>New egg spawning system doesn't seem to scale with team size very well. Its either instant spawns all the time for small teams, or you get to the point where you have to wait ages in larger games where aliens are just getting mown down.
Here are some that i have
<b>1) </b>Marine reloading should only be interrupted by switching weapons. Not only does there need to be a penalty for reloading, but its unintuitive to have shooting interupt reloading. Many times I've fired too early, thinking reloading has already finished or trying to time it, only to have it interrupted.
<b>2)</b> Switching to pistol needs to be quicker, it seems alot slower than i remember in 185? By the time you've finished switching to pistol, the escaping alien has already run around the next corner. The pistol is really unique and i think quicker switching will make flamethrower/shotgun play alot more interesting.
<b>3) </b>The cooldown on fade blink feels unintuitive and i think should really go. Although its something one would get used to over time, i find it hard to judge how long the cooldown really is as theres no UI feedback related to the cooldown and it restricts movement alot. Setting a high enough initial cost for entering blink should be enough to prevent and balance blinkspam. Further, there are situations where i would want to successively blink very quickly and be willing to pay the high energy cost of doing so. A cooldown kind of commits you to a fight where you cant quickly blink in, swipe, blink out to harass shotgunners etc. <b>Blink cooldown makes the fade feel clunky for me, would love to hear what pro fade players think about the cooldown though.</b>
<b>4) </b>Entering and leaving sprint needs to be more responsive i think. Maybe its because of playing too much bf3 lately, but the delay between hitting/releasing shift and entering/leaving sprint seems really slow.
<b>5) </b>Don't think aiming at eggs should show text telling what kind of egg it is e.g. skulk egg, gorge egg, fade egg.
<b>6) </b>New egg spawning system doesn't seem to scale with team size very well. Its either instant spawns all the time for small teams, or you get to the point where you have to wait ages in larger games where aliens are just getting mown down.
Comments
<b>2)</b> Agree.
<b>3)</b> Agree, the cool-down is unintuitive and feels really bad, furthermore it doesn't balance much the fade, once you adapted to it.
<b>4)</b> Agree.
The marines really need a serious buff before the tournament, in the last scrims we did the aliens won like 90% of the time.
<a href="http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/displayendgamestats?map=ns2_summit&version=186" target="_blank">http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/disp...amp;version=186</a>
2.) actually i don't agree here, let's play a little bit more and wait what others say about it. for me it feels fine currently. i like it that marines have a short "down time" where they deal no damage (also when playing as a marine, it makes switching to pistol a decision not a reflex)
3.) i have to say I already got used to it. the cooldown is low (1 blink per second if you rapidly press the button, longer blinks will consume that cooldown). it felt wrong the previous patches that you can blink so often, so quickly without thinking about what you are doing. the initial costs + this timer removes the "panic blinking" to some degree which we have seen in earlier versions
4.) i was never playing BF so I have no comparison. But I'm fine with the ns2 implementation :)
5.) not sure about that. there are arguments for it and against it. if you don't want that people read the text on the eggs, press cloaking on a shade nearby. on the other hand, marines don't need to know everything, and since the eggs look all the same there could be simply written "Egg".
6.) that's true, and something that should be adressed somehow. The only thing that comes into my mind is to reduce the egg spawn interval the bigger the alien team is, but that is something uwe tries to prevent (changing numbers because of time size).
Changing to pistol should definitely be faster. I also think changing firing modes on the pistol should be faster as well.
A few other things:
When you have no primary weapon and you walk over one you should automatically pick it up. I understand why they changed it to stop auto pick-up during fights. Yet, if I drop my primary weapon and then quickly run over another I need to press G again to pick it up. The only reason I ever drop my primary weapon is to pick up another so there's no danger of it switching when I don't want to. This is the way it works in source engine games.
I don't understand why they changed it so that marines don't get armour upgrades until they respawn. IMO this is just an unnecessary nerf to marines. They are already weak during the early game and armour 1 is the most important upgrade. Now it just means that they are weaker for longer as even when they get the upgrade they all need to die in order to get it. I didn't see a problem with the way it was before and have no idea why they changed it.
Lerk "machine gun" spikes are very inaccurate at long range. It would be better if their damage drop off faster with range, but have higher accuracy, for more damage consistency. It's frustrating when you aim perfectly for 1 second, but none of the Spikes hit.
Auto pickup when you don't have the the item of the weapon slot. Like ns1. And so you don't lose items accidentally.
Press use to switch weapons with the weapon on the ground. So you don't accidentally drop your pistol when you want to pickup a flamethrower.
And press the weapon drop key to drop the weapon. Or the pistol too if you really need to get somewhere fast.
Also things you look at and press the use key to activate, need a higher priority if this happens. So you won't swap weapons instead of using a door or an armory.
...
If possible I would like a balance fix that do not make the fade less fun to play, but if it's really not possible then I would prefer the annoying sound over other solutions.
I agree with one major caveat: The weapon switch delay would have to be reduced to zero, or at least to NS1 levels. The shotgun should be interruptable between reloading each pellet.
<!--quoteo(post=1879052:date=Oct 10 2011, 11:07 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Oct 10 2011, 11:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879052"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>4) </b>Entering and leaving sprint needs to be more responsive i think. Maybe its because of playing too much bf3 lately, but the delay between hitting/releasing shift and entering/leaving sprint seems really slow.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1879078:date=Oct 10 2011, 02:07 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Oct 10 2011, 02:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879078"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't understand why they changed it so that marines don't get armour upgrades until they respawn. IMO this is just an unnecessary nerf to marines. They are already weak during the early game and armour 1 is the most important upgrade. Now it just means that they are weaker for longer as even when they get the upgrade they all need to die in order to get it. I didn't see a problem with the way it was before and have no idea why they changed it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed and agreed.
<!--quoteo(post=1879113:date=Oct 10 2011, 05:31 PM:name=Kalabalana)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kalabalana @ Oct 10 2011, 05:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->could obscure the Fade vision a bit, slightly nerfing<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS2 needs less of this, not more. The near death muting of sounds, hazing and flashing screen almost makes me want to uninstall the game.
This. I keep forgetting about it when out of game, but I really hate how it gets <i>harder</i> to anticipate and dodge attacks when you need that ability the most.
For single shot weapons (GL, shotgun) it should be possible to stop reloading at any time though, so you can reload one shell and fire immediately afterwards.
<!--quoteo(post=1879137:date=Oct 10 2011, 08:27 PM:name=Boxer`D)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Boxer`D @ Oct 10 2011, 08:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No one ever talks about marine walk/run speed. Needs a buff so much and would be a huge balance changer ^^.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, marines feel quite slow at the moment. I don't think weapons should have an effect on walk speed.
<!--quoteo(post=1879133:date=Oct 10 2011, 08:03 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Oct 10 2011, 08:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879133"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->NS2 needs less of this, not more. The near death muting of sounds, hazing and flashing screen almost makes me want to uninstall the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Absolutely. I think the low health effect is supposed to be a warning (why anyone would need it is beyond me), but it is really just a punishment.
The alien commander seems to be play his own game at the moment- your players fight the fights and you're left over to secure victories by reinforcing rooms with your structures and creep. I'd like to see something a bit more pro-active given how slowly the OCs (forget their name!) move when unearthed. Perhaps the flying dudes that transform into structures can be upgraded to provide auras in their flying form, or after killing a marine they have 30 seconds to move to the corpse and suck up 1 or 2 res points.
@Sherpa: whip, whip, creamy and white, fancy delight, makin' marines fall into the night! (Now you'll never forget)
That sounds like a bug, pretty sure it wasn't changed that way by design.
--Cory
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah, I thought it was at first, but one of the play testers told me it was designed that way. I guess it was just a bug introduced after making the marines lose upgrades when the arms lab is destroyed.