It's crossed the threshold for me, Again! <3
moultano
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<div class="IPBDescription">I'm having more fun with this than I did with ns.</div>As of 217, for the first time, I'm having more fun with ns2 than I had with ns. It's running silky smooth for me almost all the time, and I feel like I can see the game that was there underneath all along. :) Last time I posted once <a href='index.php?act=findpost&pid=116416'>I started having fun with it</a>. Now I'm posting because I think it's finally better!
Now that the basic gameplay is comparable, it's interesting to examine what about the game makes it <i>more</i> fun for me than ns instead of just equivalent.
<ul><li><b>Alien commander and separation of resources.</b>
In ns I spent almost all of my time as a skulk. That was cool, I loved being a skulk, but I always found that using resources to become a higher lifeform was a detriment to the rest of my team. I was being selfish and probably ineffective. In ns2, when I become a higher lifeform, I feel like an asset instead of a liability. As a result, I actually play fade now, instead of just leaving that role to the most competent player on my team. Turns out I love being a fade, now that I actually get to do it!</li><li><b>The outcome of games feels a lot less random</b>
In ns, games would often swing entirely based on the placement of a turret factory. This always felt a little lame, that the deciding action of the game could be a skulk slipping into a random blind spot. In ns2, you still have the great mechanic of a single point of failure that takes out the whole room, but without the randomness of placement. Powernodes give the same drama without ever feeling cheap.</li><li><b>There's a lot less spam</b>
Lerks dont just sit in vents, chuckling and spamming. Marines don't just sit outside the hive and siege, lobbing grenades. There's a lot less fighting against static defenses in general. In ns I often felt like I was just throwing my body into the meat grinder, hoping to make some difference by attrition. Similar to removing grenades from tf2, this makes most of the combat a lot more satisfying.</li><li><b>More crazy ###### happens</b>
Flamethrowers. Ink Cloud. Exosuits.</li><li><b>Coordination on the alien side</b>
While I liked in ns that the aliens really had to democratically decide things, it was hard enough to do that a lot of games were spent with skulks running into bullets alone and dying. That doesn't happen anymore. It's less exciting than the highs of ns, but a lot more consistent. The baseline level of coordination is higher.</li></ul>
Now for just a few things that I think could be improved
<ul><li><b>Cysts.</b>
Placing them as a commander feels awkward. Killing them as a marine isn't very exciting. I love the effect they have on the visuals, and I like how they make it possible to contain the aliens, but interacting with them isn't there yet.</li><li><b>Alien Commander needs a name!</b>
Gardener? Grower? Infestation? Collective? Really needs something.</li></ul>
Great job! I can't wait for release!
Now that the basic gameplay is comparable, it's interesting to examine what about the game makes it <i>more</i> fun for me than ns instead of just equivalent.
<ul><li><b>Alien commander and separation of resources.</b>
In ns I spent almost all of my time as a skulk. That was cool, I loved being a skulk, but I always found that using resources to become a higher lifeform was a detriment to the rest of my team. I was being selfish and probably ineffective. In ns2, when I become a higher lifeform, I feel like an asset instead of a liability. As a result, I actually play fade now, instead of just leaving that role to the most competent player on my team. Turns out I love being a fade, now that I actually get to do it!</li><li><b>The outcome of games feels a lot less random</b>
In ns, games would often swing entirely based on the placement of a turret factory. This always felt a little lame, that the deciding action of the game could be a skulk slipping into a random blind spot. In ns2, you still have the great mechanic of a single point of failure that takes out the whole room, but without the randomness of placement. Powernodes give the same drama without ever feeling cheap.</li><li><b>There's a lot less spam</b>
Lerks dont just sit in vents, chuckling and spamming. Marines don't just sit outside the hive and siege, lobbing grenades. There's a lot less fighting against static defenses in general. In ns I often felt like I was just throwing my body into the meat grinder, hoping to make some difference by attrition. Similar to removing grenades from tf2, this makes most of the combat a lot more satisfying.</li><li><b>More crazy ###### happens</b>
Flamethrowers. Ink Cloud. Exosuits.</li><li><b>Coordination on the alien side</b>
While I liked in ns that the aliens really had to democratically decide things, it was hard enough to do that a lot of games were spent with skulks running into bullets alone and dying. That doesn't happen anymore. It's less exciting than the highs of ns, but a lot more consistent. The baseline level of coordination is higher.</li></ul>
Now for just a few things that I think could be improved
<ul><li><b>Cysts.</b>
Placing them as a commander feels awkward. Killing them as a marine isn't very exciting. I love the effect they have on the visuals, and I like how they make it possible to contain the aliens, but interacting with them isn't there yet.</li><li><b>Alien Commander needs a name!</b>
Gardener? Grower? Infestation? Collective? Really needs something.</li></ul>
Great job! I can't wait for release!
Comments
If only it was all really true...
edit: Infestation is already "dynamic"(hugh or charlie said it in an interview lately)
Natural Selection 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. This is already starting to surpass it for me too.
They ###### did it. I cannot believe they pulled this off.
When I purchased the Alpha I didn't think the sequel was ever going to be this great of a game. I bought it thinking "Even if it fails the amount of fun I had playing Natural Selection 1 is worth giving these people my money. They deserve to make a living off of that product."
I tip my glass of scotch to you guys. Well done.
If only it was all really true...
edit: Infestation is already "dynamic"(hugh or charlie said it in an interview lately)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah. I just remember hearing something about dynamic infestation.
I agree with all yalls. Ns2 is my favorite multiplayer game. I hope UWE is rewarded generously for their hard work. I think the $35 I paid was well worth it. I am going to buy the soundtrack too whenever it comes out.
Some highlights included ninjaing a powernode with a silenced gorge, forcing beacons on a half-exo army to take out both halves of it, and dropping hives during every big push in the place they last pushed, prompting the marine comm to say "How many hives do you have?!"
Great times.
Alien commander still needs a bit more stuff to do along with fixing buggy cyst placement issues
Jet Packs need to be done better
Onos needs a more defined role
skulk walljump needs to be fixed
gorge needs another structure or 2 and changed to cost 20 res to reduce suicide gorges
Marine turtling is still an issue that needs addressing
Aliens need the hive teleport that they had in NS1 when playing on huge maps (perhaps a gorge structure ? )
Aliens wave spawn system needs reworking as it simply doesnt scale well
Aliens spawning at a hive under attack is a bad idea, the khammander or the players need to be able to select where they spawn
Macs need re-balancing
Shade hive tech needs some changes to make it more viable as 1st or 2nd hive (i saw an idea of combining cloak upgrade with silence upgrade into 1 upgrade and then adding some other new upgrade, seems like a good idea as nobody ever uses cloak. How does silent while moving, cloak while still sound ? ... call it the stealth upgrade ? :) )
fade vortex needs to cost more energy or something has to change because you can vortex forever with adrenalin
carapace should have speed reduction removed or changed ( sucks for onos )
veil needs a 5th tech point
and ofcourse performance still needs to get much better both clientside and server side, not everyone has a fast machines or will overclock. And i doubt companies that provide servers will overclock to 4.4 ghz just for ns2
thats all i can think of for now, other than that its a pretty good patch with some minor bugs here and there. i must say that EXO's were really well done, much better than heavy armor in NS1 ever was and it provides some unique situations where the team gets beacon'd back to base leaving the exo's alone without support :)
Some highlights included ninjaing a powernode with a silenced gorge, forcing beacons on a half-exo army to take out both halves of it, and dropping hives during every big push in the place they last pushed, prompting the marine comm to say "How many hives do you have?!"
Great times.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I comm'd that game and i HATE YOU. Damn gorge. It was an epic game and i think both sides were learning. I am a crappy comm but felt i hit my stride later in the game.
BUT powernodes still bother the hell out of me. FUn fun funfufnufnfunufnfunfun game though. I almost gave up/recycled 3 separate times but my stubbornness kicked in. For those who werent in the game marines lost our marine start twice and had to rebuild without ips twice (with one res node each time) until we just started arc/exo/light marine clearing every room and then building each tech point up as a new base. Power nodes were always the cause of our demise (plus the noob comm).
Armory armor heal still bothers me. Not game breaking but still doesnt need to be there. Once my team came together and worked WITH one another buying welders and such we started to kick butt.
As a comm the exos started to become a liability until teamwork kicked in. People would rambo and die wasting their res or get stuck on the opposite end of the map. With exos not able to use PGs or beacons they had very limited range. As you said you forced a beacon on one of my light/exo squads that ended badly for the exos. Reminds me of the Oni vs Jetpacks in a high ceiling room.
Oh... Carapace is the Devil!
EPIC GAME!
p.s. This game is almost as fun as NS1, the alien side to me need movement work but other than that (and power nodes) i am coming around to loving this game. I also love the widening of hallways in most of the maps.
Personally I think its funny that people think there are these "huge problem" with the game, it's a challenging game with many many strategies and ways to play if you get out played learn and play again..... (my comp is 3 years old and runs it well so no complaints)....
I think they did and are doing a wonderful job.....