JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited November 2012
Agree with a lot of your points, and it is disappointing. I've gotten my time out of this game for $25 though, Combat and NS2:C especially are refreshing.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All this stated, if you're expecting a return to slow skulks which need to bunny hop to outrun marines, think again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines can sprint for 12 seconds at near base skulk speed (higher without weapons), effectively outrunning them. Think again.
<!--quoteo(post=2016844:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:41 PM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 9 2012, 12:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016844"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You enjoyed a multiplayer FPS that has a FOV of 65, the depth of a puddle and a community of 8 year olds? It can't be helped, guess you're a masochist.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
not sure if you're joking or just being a ###### :P
1) i didn't play MW competitively, therefore FOV is irrelevant (i play ns2 with lowest fov slider, because i can't afford to lose any more fps).
2) it doesn't have any depth, but neither does unreal tournament or quake.. yet UT is probably my favourite game of all time. it's designed to be a 'run around like a headless chicken and pwn nubs' game.
3) community of 8 year olds is a myth, i've described the mw community as kids on occasion, but the more accurate word to describe the cod community is 'casuals'. nothing wrong with casuals, especially when you're only playing the game to a casual level yourself.
You know there is a reason why it is called NS2, not NS1. It's a different game. Only thing I agree with you is the performance, its horrible. But as you said, UWE is a small team. They can't fix everything instantly.
<!--quoteo(post=2016905:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:37 PM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 9 2012, 03:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016905"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->not sure if you're joking or just being a ###### :P
1) i didn't play MW competitively, therefore FOV is irrelevant (i play ns2 with lowest fov slider, because i can't afford to lose any more fps).
2) it doesn't have any depth, but neither does unreal tournament or quake.. yet UT is probably my favourite game of all time. it's designed to be a 'run around like a headless chicken and pwn nubs' game.
3) community of 8 year olds is a myth, i've described the mw community as kids on occasion, but the more accurate word to describe the cod community is 'casuals'. nothing wrong with casuals, especially when you're only playing the game to a casual level yourself.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) Actually low FOV in FPS games can cause nausea and generally horrible eye strain when you play up close on a monitor, way to have terribly low standards.
2) UT and Quake have way more depth than CoD will ever have because the weapons aren't just reskins of the same 3 guns with +/- 0.5% to the accuracy or magazine size.
<!--quoteo(post=2016905:date=Nov 9 2012, 02:37 PM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 9 2012, 02:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016905"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2) it doesn't have any depth, but neither does unreal tournament or quake.. yet UT is probably my favourite game of all time. it's designed to be a 'run around like a headless chicken and pwn nubs' game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Are you telling me Quake has no depth? I think we should sticky that Rapha vs Cooller vid somewhere.
<!--quoteo(post=2016794:date=Nov 9 2012, 06:39 AM:name=Ansom)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ansom @ Nov 9 2012, 06:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016794"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I decided to uninstall. I'm done with this game. I'd be surprised if the people who produced this were the same people who worked on the original mod. It's a complete joke both for balance and optimization. The Marines are boring to play, and the Aliens are just horribly constructed. Every game is the same thing. The Aliens take the mass of the map and have to play passively until they can rush Onos. This leads to commanders bypassing upgrades that would make Fades viable picks at the time, which are trash compared to their NS1 counterpart. Then, all the Marines do is turtle heavily while slinging grenades next to an armory.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I haven't yet experienced a game like that and I played at least 30 hours of NS2. And yes, the creator of the original NS1 is still on board, which is why NS2 is more amazing than NS1. Are you sure you aren't having a bad day and you're taking it out on the game? Hmm...
The game is still being balanced and tweaked. UW release patches regularly.
Uninstalling the game because you think the Fade is underpowered is silly.
There have been plenty of patches where people rage about the Fade being too strong. Viable strategies change a lot from patch to patch as the devs tweak things...eventually things should settle....until then be patient.
<!--quoteo(post=2017009:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:02 PM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Nov 9 2012, 03:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017009"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you telling me Quake has no depth? I think we should sticky that Rapha vs Cooller vid somewhere.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's the new era of gamers, Halo is the deepest shooter ever created and 60 fps is great performance.
<!--quoteo(post=2016815:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:17 PM:name=Redford)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Redford @ Nov 9 2012, 03:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016815"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Curious, because I remember a time during the NS1 development, where the only tactic was "Marine team got jetpacks or the alien team got fades first. Nothing else matters." Also, the fact that marines could never build in a room with a high ceiling back when lerks had spikes because it would mean they would lose the base 100% of the time. Or allowing fades to ever have acid rocket. Three hives resulted in an instant loss, with no counters whatsoever to any of the tech found there for aliens. Marines could turtle all game and not control ANY of the map and still win through surgically spamming their resources before the third hive got up, getting a bunch of HMG + jetpack marines, and essentally becoming invincible. A single marine in the corner could invincibly snipe all skulks and gorges and earn his team a massive res advantage as a solo player which could basically decide a game five minutes after it started.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. It's funny how none of these things somehow make into the posts where "veterans" complain how NS2 isn't exactly like NS1. So many games spent eating acid rockets at Eclipse marine start and I say: NEVER AGAIN. Not to mention Onos was never useful or needed for anything since the game was literally over at three hives. I've forgotten more game-breaking balance issues from NS1 than NS2 ever had.
<!--quoteo(post=2016558:date=Nov 9 2012, 03:46 PM:name=hate)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hate @ Nov 9 2012, 03:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016558"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's no twitter feed on the front page for me at all. It says "Twitter Updates (Follow)" on the front page inbetween NS2HD and the email address input bar, but it's just one line of text with a link, there's no actual feed. Twitter isn't a substitute for updating your website, or at least making a forum post about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The twitter feed is displayed ingame on the main menu, at the bottom of the screen
<!--quoteo(post=2016794:date=Nov 9 2012, 02:39 PM:name=Ansom)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ansom @ Nov 9 2012, 02:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016794"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I decided to uninstall. I'm done with this game. I'd be surprised if the people who produced this were the same people who worked on the original mod. It's a complete joke both for balance and optimization. The Marines are boring to play, and the Aliens are just horribly constructed. Every game is the same thing. The Aliens take the mass of the map and have to play passively until they can rush Onos. This leads to commanders bypassing upgrades that would make Fades viable picks at the time, which are trash compared to their NS1 counterpart. Then, all the Marines do is turtle heavily while slinging grenades next to an armory.
Alien games are either lost or won by cheesing. You know? Backdooring when the Marines go all-in, skulk-rushing, or fast Onos for example? Win a game against equally-skilled opponents by outplaying them fair and square? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Aliens have to control the entire map to stay viable, yet the entire Marine team turtling in one spot for the entire game is perfectly okay. Annnd, despite not needing to control the map to be viable, there's nothing stopping Marines from walking through a Phase Gate and instantly appearing on the other side of the map. Meanwhile, Aliens? Hive Teleport? Nah. We could have given that to the Gorge, but nah. A team that needs to control the map to be viable able to teleport about to defend their installations? Outrageous!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Where the ###### have you been playing? Jesus.
Aliens don't need map control, they need 3 harvesters and 2 hives to be viable. Marines on the other hand are going to lose without keeping 4-5 extractors. Second tech point is nice but optional.
unfinished engine, bad performance and gameplay ideas that still don't work but being forced to stay no matter what. What do you expect, seriously? But if you're new player I understand why you might be mad. I was seriously hoping for better performance boost at 1.0, not much changed. I can play everything else fine, and coming to this game I still see under 30 fps during combat.
so many older vets have been hammering the developers over the years of this game development, and we still have same issues. So no developers do not really listen to the community, unless your ideas happen to coincide with their vision of how things should work. They dismissed so many good ideas that made NS1 wonderful throughout ns2 development, so much wasted time on dead end ideas. Why they ignore ns1 I have no idea, but I do know they only listen to those who share their vision of how things should be.
I'm disappointed at a few things such as alien commanders, weakening of the gorge, and marines being hive location dependant. However, I'm still going to play the heck out of the game. I've bought 3 copies of it so far. I really do think the game would be far better if they went back to the old style of no alien commander and marines having flexability. The DIFFERENCE between the two sides is what made Natural Selection so interesting and fun.
<!--quoteo(post=2016270:date=Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've debated making this thread for days now. I kept hoping "well if I give UWE time, maybe they'll patch things. Maybe things will get fixed". Alas, seven days release time has shown me everything I need to know.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, they must drop everything and 'fix' the game according to one person's view. Quick, make drastic gameplay changes, nerf everything, buff everything. If it doesn't work, make even more drastic changes until the playerbase is turned off and quits.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not new to the NS scene. I played NS1 off and on for years now. A huge lover of the modding community, and sheer customization that was possible. So color me surprised when NS2 was released last week, I purchase it day one and jump into a game that as far as I can tell is almost nothing like NS1 other than a few audio and visual assets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were somehow expecting NS1 to be ported over to fancier graphics? I have played NS1 near constantly since 2004, switched to playing NS2 on and off during the 100+ phase in Beta and did not like how laggy everything was. To my regret, I only returned around build 220 to find things greatly improved performance-wise. The gameplay took a while to adapt to (especially the aiming part) and I had to learn about things like power nodes and alien commanders, but I feel that overall NS2 HAS made improvements and addressed a number of issues that I have always had with NS1.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I know UWE is a small team, but my gods what happened to you guys over the last ten years since NS1? People come and go, I get that. But least <i>some</i> of your original design team must be left over, right? <i>right?</i>. The core gameplay changes alone would be enough to make fans twinge but you couple that with the abysmal system performance for A LOT of people and like me you begin to wonder; where did UWE begin to go wrong?
Just a few things I'm curious about;
Why do the Kharaa now require a Commander? The strength of the Alien faction was always the unique sort of every-man-for-themselves approach to working as a team. Wanted defenses, you had to be Gorge. Wanted tanky destruction you went Onos. Now they require a Commander to put down creep to expand a base? (Yes it's creep, at least before it could have been a vague tongue in cheek homage to the Starcraft franchise but now we're just inching over that line). Now they require Eggs to spawn? Was someone at UWE high the day they decided to "revamp" the Kharaa into this ######ized version of what it once was? The Frontiersmen at least get a couple new weapons, Aliens get what exactly that's new for mutations? The same five as NS1..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
First, the NS1 way of 'every alien for himself' only worked well in games where people played seriously and knew what they were doing. I've been through many games on aliens where there was a 'race' to see which gorge can evolve first and drop an SC, as well as games where there wasn't a single gorge in sight and we didn't even get a second hive until 5mins into the game.
Also, although I did often gorge in NS1, I <b>never</b> liked the mechanic where you had to save up 50 res, spend 10 of that gorging at a hive location in a defenseless egg, drop 40 res into a hive and either stay as gorge for the rest of the game or devolve into skulk and start from 0 res trying to work your way back up to a higher lifeform. There were consecutive games where people would often be 'forced' to go gorge every round because everyone else is too selfish to take up that role.
I'm GLAD that there is an alien commander now. I'm not entirely fond of the cyst system (I don't like spending 1 res per cyst, making an RT cost MORE than the 10 res it takes to drop it), but I can appreciate that having a commander allows more aliens to be freed up to be attack lifeforms instead of 'needing' a minimum of X gorges and forcing others to 'go gorge' if one of the initial gorges die. In NS1, if you didn't have gorges at all, your only option was a base rush. It is entirely possible to win a game in NS2 without an early base rush, without a single gorge in sight - that is a huge difference.
The egg spawning system can actually be an advantage - just last night, we played on ns_tram and the commander had placed a shift (structure that replenishes energy) in Hub. The shift can also spawn additional eggs around it, which causes the respawn prioritization to move to that shift and its eggs. A bunch of us respawned not at the hive, but at that shift, and we rushed into repair room (a very short distance from Hub) and took it down with a rush that the marines were not prepared for and did not expect.
I don't like how it costs 1 res per egg (at least make it 1 res per 2 eggs) and I don't like how respawning aliens cannot choose where they want to respawn at, but the egg system can be used as an advantage.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Kharaa get this epic semi-infrared vision that makes things a lot easier to see, with a built in short range wallhack-like see through ability as well? I know the Rines' get a minimap on the HUD but considering it'd be super easy to mod one in for the Kharaa this just gives them a hard coded in-game unmodded ability that is a bit overpowered. Especially now that the other side is dependent upon "power" to fuel every single thing they build so knocking out power makes them use their relatively weak flashlights compared to pretty much heat seeking nightvision? (Yea, it shows random unimportant things like fans but still its by far over powered).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Darkness and confusion are the aliens' advantage for map areas that they control, and Alien Vision is a way for aliens to capitalize on that so that they're harder to see, and harder to aim at.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On the flip side
Why do Frontiersmen now have a dual resource system? Not only can the Commander spawn weapons and items for players but the player can "purchase" these items? In theory, on paper, this sounds great right? If the team is low on Resources, spending them on one or two good weapons could be a bad choice but if the player spends his or her own Resources it could be good. Sounds great in concept, much like certain political systems in the real world that sound good on paper but in practice are not. From all the playing I've done, yes in "Pubs" not in super efficient omgleetz organized tournament play, I've always encountered "stingy" Commanders, whom won't give the team weapons even when we're sitting on a surplus of resources, thus requiring the player to spend their Resources for upgrades. And seeing as how you earn Resources on a personal level, at a much slower rate than a Resource Node could churn out, spending that X Resources on a Shotty (that you drop when you die..) pretty much depletes a players resources faster than you can re-earn. Considering the bulk of the game's playerbase will be people playing on pubs and not the uber skilled organized players whom are on ladders or in tourneys, you have to look at it like a pub perspective. Not all Commanders will be good, obviously. But dipping into a personal Resource that is earned at a much slower rate is not a good design choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You LIKED the old way of commanders who don't drop you weapons and equipment? Good comms from NS1 will manage the res and drop them as needed, but I much prefer this way of using personal res to buy what you want, when you want. The marines are now empowered to make equipment choices based on their playstyle, or the need at the moment. If something in base is burning, you buy a welder and weld it up. No need to pester the comm to drop welders. If lerk gas is bothering you, buy a flamethrower. If the team needs to bust down a hive, get a GL. Choose between JP or exosuit depending on the need and whim.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Frontiersmen get one new weapon, that appears to have replaced another? The flame thrower is great and all, but even firing it in short controlled bursts, makes tracking a skulk with celerity difficult as your field of view is momentarily taken up by flames. Why did this replace the HMG? I'd trade in the Flame thrower any day of the week for the more powerful HMG, even with it's slower reload times (which was the trade off for the LMG).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The weapons do not replace each other. The Assault Rifle is good at all ranges, the shotgun is excellent at close range, GL is for breaking hive defenses, FT is for lerk gas/umbra and it also imposes a 60% penalty to energy regen on burning aliens.
The HMG has been replaced by the exosuit minigun/dual miniguns, these are extremely devastating weapons but I feel that it is fair to stick them on a slow moving unit that has to be escorted by welders. Imagine a JP HMG in NS2, I would be able to singlehandedly kill packs of skulks, destroy lerks/fades and solo onos - and I was a very good JP HMG in NS1. Okay, now imagine 3 - 4 of these HMG JPs. Imagine a whole team of them. Instant GG, and would make onos completely useless.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why are the Frontiersmen now completely power dependent? As said compared to Kharaa, a skulk or two taking out a power node can completely HOSE a Marine team. Why? Because it all becomes pitch black and even with "emergency lights" on, is still virtually dark. Maybe if the Marine flashlight was much much brighter or offered a wider range of illuminating the area I wouldn't have a problem. But the small cone of light a single Marine can generate compared to how insanely fast the various Alien mutations can move make being power dependent such a huge nerf to that entire side of gameplay. Even with Aliens requiring Eggs, and Cysts to respawn and advance on the map, their nightvision and short range wallhack vision really totally outweighs the negatives so much to the point that the Marines are at a huge disadvantage right out of the gate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You make it sound like marines are underpowered. I can assure you that they are most definitely NOT weaker compared to Aliens.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And performance, for either side, is abysmal. Read the tech support subforum. There are people out there with massively powerful desktop pc's, that even being custom built would rank up in the thousands of dollars to build, are getting horrible performance. We're talking people with 4.4ghz hexacore CPU's, SLI GPU's (such as Nvidia 680's or 90's), 16+ GB DDR3 ram, water cooling all that snazzy stuff getting 30 or less FPS during any part of gameplay. And it's not just "a few", TONS of people with high end systems have the same or similar issues. It's all over the Steam forums, all over reddit, even here. I'm sure UWE worked hard on the "Spark" Engine but at this point your choice to move from the Source engine was a poor choice, very poor. It may not have the latest and greatest eye candy like the Cry3 Engine but some modern Source games like Left 4 Dead 2 can still look good on all high settings. Was it a monetary issue? UWE couldn't afford to license the Source engine? As a small team you thought it better to go build an engine from the ground up?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My computer is around 4 - 5 years old. ATI 4850 HD 512mb, 4gb of 1066mhz ram, and an overclocked Q6600 at 3.2ghz. I turn everything off and knock the resolution down to 1280 x 800, and it is smooth enough to allow me to track a skulk and kill it with my rifle and not make me feel like I'm in a slideshow.
Further optimizations will come down the road, I'm sure. Just give them time, the engine was basically written by one guy. Also keep in mind that they are an independent game developer - they don't have the crap ton of resources that other giant game companies have at their disposal. In fact, I find it very impressive that a small indie dev shop was able to bring something like this out at this level of performance on launch day.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And who's genius idea on the UWE team was it to tie in the game's built in voice comm chat to the same sound level slider? Again, organized people will be using their own voip service like Ventrilo, Teamspeak or Mumble. But since again the bulk of your player base are pub players, it really helps if you can hear your Commander give orders. In the middle of a fire fight, with guns blazing, aliens making all their creepy sound effects, hearing the Commander order you to fall back can be next to impossible.
And that really leads me to think that within seven days, UWE has dropped the ball. We've had one patch in that time, that didn't really fix much. Soooo many people have some form of performance issue, and we've yet to see really ANYTHING in terms of communication from the UWE team in the tech support subforum. There's a few sticky threads on common issues people are having but at this point someone from UWE publicly saying "ok we see X Y and Z are issues we're working on them" would go so so much in their favor but all we see are one or two of the player testers just telling people to post their log files and such (which really, uploading a 50MB file as a forum attachment is getting a bit out of hand. Pretty much all of us are broadband users but not everyone's ISP, which may be their ONLY option for an ISP, have unlimited data plans so asking people to upload a file that can be large is not good. I believe one users log file was over 100MB...).
So for years, I've looked forward to NS2. Every now and then I'd get an email from UWE pointing me to new screen shots, or a new video showing off this or that. I was eager for it. I loved NS1, if you looked at my Xfire profile I played close to 500+ hours of it (logged time) over the years. NS2 has been a huge disappointment. If I could get Steam to refund me, I would. But Steam does not do refunds. So I guess I'm S.O.L for the $30 I spent.
You expect far too much out of a small team of indie devs. They have to take things slow and cautiously when making changes AFTER a game has been released - it is easier to give than to take away, and the problem comes when they give too much and can't really take it away after it has been found to be a BAD move on their part.
To all of the people saying the engine is bad and they shouldn't have made it you have to remember they haven't optimized it properly for the CPU yet. Without infestation alone, I get a constant 60, which means most of the CPU use goes into infestation (and why they have turned this off in NS2c). From what I know the multicore/thread support isn't proper yet, so if they fix both of these issues you should be able to get 100+ fps outside of large fights, technically, with a Q6600 and GTX460. I've had my computer for over 6 years and only this year I've upgraded my video card. That does not sound terrible considering the graphics quality. However, I do have to stress some other things such as the game requiring 2GB of VRAM to render high textures without lag, and some engine problems that should be fixed easily such as: lack of keybind support, multiple physics bugs still existing, no linux server, terrible implementation of demo recording which should be available from the start, and no MSAA. These are the only engine specific problems I have found, which isn't that bad considering this is their first game and they are an indie company. However, they were working on this game for over 10 years? The only reason to not use the Source Engine would be to outsource your engine to get $$$ but it's not like the Spark Engine is that bad at all. Who knows, Source netcode and hitboxes could be even worse!
<!--quoteo(post=2016815:date=Nov 9 2012, 05:17 AM:name=Redford)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Redford @ Nov 9 2012, 05:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016815"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Curious, because I remember a time during the NS1 development, where the only tactic was "Marine team got jetpacks or the alien team got fades first. Nothing else matters." Also, the fact that marines could never build in a room with a high ceiling back when lerks had spikes because it would mean they would lose the base 100% of the time. Or allowing fades to ever have acid rocket. Three hives resulted in an instant loss, with no counters whatsoever to any of the tech found there for aliens. Marines could turtle all game and not control ANY of the map and still win through surgically spamming their resources before the third hive got up, getting a bunch of HMG + jetpack marines, and essentally becoming invincible. A single marine in the corner could invincibly snipe all skulks and gorges and earn his team a massive res advantage as a solo player which could basically decide a game five minutes after it started.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This x1000000
I love the changes to NS2, alien commander, wall jumping... I know it's fun to fantasize how great NS1 was 10 years ago (I played the crap outta that game) but there were definitely issues with it that we are so quick to forget. NS2 isn't perfect, but it's on the right track.
<!--quoteo(post=2016815:date=Nov 9 2012, 07:17 AM:name=Redford)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Redford @ Nov 9 2012, 07:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016815"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Curious, because I remember a time during the NS1 development, where the only tactic was "Marine team got jetpacks or the alien team got fades first. Nothing else matters." Also, the fact that marines could never build in a room with a high ceiling back when lerks had spikes because it would mean they would lose the base 100% of the time. Or allowing fades to ever have acid rocket. Three hives resulted in an instant loss, with no counters whatsoever to any of the tech found there for aliens. Marines could turtle all game and not control ANY of the map and still win through surgically spamming their resources before the third hive got up, getting a bunch of HMG + jetpack marines, and essentally becoming invincible. A single marine in the corner could invincibly snipe all skulks and gorges and earn his team a massive res advantage as a solo player which could basically decide a game five minutes after it started.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Best post of thread.
NS1 wasn't perfect. It had alot of flaws, some massive, but somehow it was charming and we embraced them.
First, background. I never played NS1. Heck, before seeing TotalBiscut's video on it, I didn't know this existed. But I was hyped for it, and followed it over the months. Didn't get into beta as while I liked the look of it, I was busy doing other games and things. That and I like to play the 'finished' game. I say 'finished' as no game is really finished if it keeps getting patches and new content.
That said, I do have some complaints that make me wonder if a first day buy was worth it.
<b>1. Ult Units</b> I tend to see games that were "ult" rushes. First team to mass produce Exos or Onos tends to win, as neither side has a very good way of countering them en mass. Bilebomb doesn't give out enough damage, and while Jetpacks can help vs the Onos they can then just rush buildings.
And while I'm on the subject of Exos, there's not really a point to building the one gun Exo. At least one that I haven't found outside of scaring off the aliens for a second or two.
<b>2. Alien Commander</b> Now, I do like that the aliens have a commander. Made sense to me that both sides would have this 'sky god' directing things. But the problem I have with the aliens commander is that I feel like my attention is dragged in more directions as Alien than Marine. Make new cysts, make new collectors, make etc here.
<b>3. End Game Grind</b> The Marine side is so easy to turtle. Okay, that makes sense. They have guns, they just need range to kill aliens. But the amount of times, on both sides, I've seen the game basically over, but take another 10-20 minutes due to the Marines being able to just hold off the aliens.
Flip side, the Aliens don't tend to have a 'grind' to kill them off. If things start going wrong for them, it can really go down hill for them.
<b>4. Flamethrower and Fade</b> I like both. I just feel that both could be made a little stronger, Flamethrower more than Fade. Cause I had a REALLY good game as a Fade. I just needed to support an Onos most the time. ..., Huh.
<b>5. Better Alien Defenses</b> This might go against EVERYTHING they want to do with the Aliens. But the Marines mines and more importantly the sentries are better than the aliens whips and hydras. I've rarely seen either kill a marine. Maybe this is due to the fact they want the aliens to be more 'mobile' than the marine's 'turtling' but still, a slight buff would be nice.
<b>6. Server list death</b> Probably my biggest complaint with the game. When I buy a game, I know it's going to have bugs. I know it's going to have problems, glitches, etc. But when I buy a game, I want to know that I can actually play the game. I'd rather not find out that there's such a game breaking problem with the game, and that I will have to go out and configure things to allow me to play.
Now, everything I said all the complaints I have, I'm still playing the game. I'm still liking the game and glad I picked it up. But I just wondered how much more I would have liked it after the first week, if I waited to buy it when more things were worked out.
<!--quoteo(post=2017053:date=Nov 9 2012, 08:38 AM:name=snaga)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (snaga @ Nov 9 2012, 08:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017053"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This. It's funny how none of these things somehow make into the posts where "veterans" complain how NS2 isn't exactly like NS1. So many games spent eating acid rockets at Eclipse marine start and I say: NEVER AGAIN. Not to mention Onos was never useful or needed for anything since the game was literally over at three hives. I've forgotten more game-breaking balance issues from NS1 than NS2 ever had.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Probably for the same reason people don't bring up Windows 95 when they complain about Windows 8.
NS1 became a really good game. Just because it started off as something other than that shouldn't reflect at all on the starting point of NS2. To think so is just plain stupid
Spread creep is very boring and tedious for the alien commander, it was alot more exciting for the gorge, because it actually gave you something to do that benefited the team, you were helping spreading the infestation, really bad decision to remove that.
Aliens definitely need some work, well a lot of work, but we will have to see what happens.
LOL GorgeNapper was a really good JP HMG...theres a joke.. Theres a big difference playing JP HMG on combat with maximum UA and nano/reinforced armor to playing it in classic. Generally in comp games you didnt see a team of JP HMGs you generally kept one or more shotgunners, usually giving out just a single HMG.
And TBH your comparing disorganized pub play in both games, its going to be somewhat messy and not always strategic, NS2 has arguably way more problems here, where aliens can get 4 hives and still not be able to defeat marines.
My biggest complaint with NS2 is how the game is balanced primarily on the units with the least skill requirement, fighting Onos/Exos as either side is not an enjoyable fight, onos gore range is completely ridiculous and the fact that it hits all nearby targets also is. Exo can basically instantly kill all aliens but the onos, with the onos/exo fight being a game of corner baiting.
<b><!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->I appear to be having difficulty engaging with my fellow creature in a productive and polite manner. By strange co-incidence, my post has disappeared.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
<!--quoteo(post=2016459:date=Nov 9 2012, 05:48 AM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 9 2012, 05:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016459"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"WAH WHY ISN'T THIS NS1HD?!" "WAH IT'S HARD TO PLAY!" "WAH WHY DON'T I GET 100FPS ON MY TOASTER?!"
Also, did you just capp Aliens OP? L-O-L This thread really reminds me of the gamespot review.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the op's point mostly is that NS2 is a decent game, NS1 was a great game, it is a not good idea that UWE chose to forget why NS1 was good
Though there is a lot of complaining going on in this thread, it points to a very big balance problem in this game. A lot of new ideas came in with NS2, yet it also reverted back to NS1 halfway, after the beta concluded. The biggest problem right now is half baked ideas and features that are not balanced. See Fading, Onos power, cost of shotguns, unequal resource costs of tech trees, maps not designed for 5 tech points, marines requiring 2 CCs to have late tech, no tech tree HUD, so on and so forth.
The game needs to be OK (not perfect) in pub, before you address and tweak for high level play.
<!--quoteo(post=2017495:date=Nov 10 2012, 12:19 AM:name=tarshish)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarshish @ Nov 10 2012, 12:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017495"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->NS 3+ also had the largest playerbase and longest lifetime of any iterations of Natural Selection - it's really largely the horrible-ness and being littered with Charlie-isms of the original 1.0 that hampered the growth of the mod, at a time when nascent Half-Life mods had a great shot at becoming runaway successes.
It's a shame to see the same dumb thing happen again. Launch is the time to convince people you've got a good game, not to show them you're still a vain idiot who sacrifices playability for stillborn concepts from the past.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So much fail in this post I don't know where to start.
OK, let's start here: NS 1.0 was horrible and IF ONLY Flayra would've listened to YOUR vision (who the ###### are you?) it would've been AMAZING from the start and a huge success (third biggest mod after CS and TFC and a new game company obviously not a success) and would now be bigger than Dota? Alas, Flayra is such an idiot he just doesn't know how to make a proper game. You sir are truly an angel sent down from heaven to instruct him with your wise and kind words. Maybe, just maybe with your help we can finally have a game that isn't a horrible stillborn idiotic mess.
Was that about right? Seriously, these forums...
(Mostly I just wanted to quote that bile so you can't edit it out.)
<!--quoteo(post=2017468:date=Nov 9 2012, 11:53 PM:name=MerlinCross)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MerlinCross @ Nov 9 2012, 11:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017468"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>1. Ult Units</b> I tend to see games that were "ult" rushes. First team to mass produce Exos or Onos tends to win, as neither side has a very good way of countering them en mass. Bilebomb doesn't give out enough damage, and while Jetpacks can help vs the Onos they can then just rush buildings.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not really seeing this problem. If one team has been holding 5 res nodes for the good part of the game, obviously they will and should stomp the other team with Onos spam or whatever. If they haven't, they just won't have res for something like that.
Spamming Onos eggs doesn't really have any downside to it which might be a problem, but with Exos, you can't even have more than 3 of them active in a 8v8 match if you want them to actually be useful. Anything more than that and you're either not gonna have map presence anywhere else and will lose all your stuff while everyone is busy welding the Exos OR you're not gonna have welder marines which makes the Exos useless OR you're just gonna lose to a base rush while your Exos are stuck at a hive. Plenty of ways to counter Exos. The only lifeform that's not very useful against them is Fade I guess.
Comments
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All this stated, if you're expecting a return to slow skulks which need to bunny hop to outrun marines, think again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines can sprint for 12 seconds at near base skulk speed (higher without weapons), effectively outrunning them. Think again.
It can't be helped, guess you're a masochist.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
not sure if you're joking or just being a ###### :P
1) i didn't play MW competitively, therefore FOV is irrelevant (i play ns2 with lowest fov slider, because i can't afford to lose any more fps).
2) it doesn't have any depth, but neither does unreal tournament or quake.. yet UT is probably my favourite game of all time. it's designed to be a 'run around like a headless chicken and pwn nubs' game.
3) community of 8 year olds is a myth, i've described the mw community as kids on occasion, but the more accurate word to describe the cod community is 'casuals'. nothing wrong with casuals, especially when you're only playing the game to a casual level yourself.
It's a different game.
Only thing I agree with you is the performance, its horrible.
But as you said, UWE is a small team. They can't fix everything instantly.
1) i didn't play MW competitively, therefore FOV is irrelevant (i play ns2 with lowest fov slider, because i can't afford to lose any more fps).
2) it doesn't have any depth, but neither does unreal tournament or quake.. yet UT is probably my favourite game of all time. it's designed to be a 'run around like a headless chicken and pwn nubs' game.
3) community of 8 year olds is a myth, i've described the mw community as kids on occasion, but the more accurate word to describe the cod community is 'casuals'. nothing wrong with casuals, especially when you're only playing the game to a casual level yourself.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) Actually low FOV in FPS games can cause nausea and generally horrible eye strain when you play up close on a monitor, way to have terribly low standards.
2) UT and Quake have way more depth than CoD will ever have because the weapons aren't just reskins of the same 3 guns with +/- 0.5% to the accuracy or magazine size.
3) Probably because most 8 year olds went to MW3.
Are you telling me Quake has no depth? I think we should sticky that Rapha vs Cooller vid somewhere.
Actually I haven't yet experienced a game like that and I played at least 30 hours of NS2. And yes, the creator of the original NS1 is still on board, which is why NS2 is more amazing than NS1. Are you sure you aren't having a bad day and you're taking it out on the game? Hmm...
Uninstalling the game because you think the Fade is underpowered is silly.
There have been plenty of patches where people rage about the Fade being too strong. Viable strategies change a lot from patch to patch as the devs tweak things...eventually things should settle....until then be patient.
It's the new era of gamers, Halo is the deepest shooter ever created and 60 fps is great performance.
This. It's funny how none of these things somehow make into the posts where "veterans" complain how NS2 isn't exactly like NS1. So many games spent eating acid rockets at Eclipse marine start and I say: NEVER AGAIN. Not to mention Onos was never useful or needed for anything since the game was literally over at three hives. I've forgotten more game-breaking balance issues from NS1 than NS2 ever had.
The twitter feed is displayed ingame on the main menu, at the bottom of the screen
Alien games are either lost or won by cheesing. You know? Backdooring when the Marines go all-in, skulk-rushing, or fast Onos for example? Win a game against equally-skilled opponents by outplaying them fair and square? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Aliens have to control the entire map to stay viable, yet the entire Marine team turtling in one spot for the entire game is perfectly okay. Annnd, despite not needing to control the map to be viable, there's nothing stopping Marines from walking through a Phase Gate and instantly appearing on the other side of the map. Meanwhile, Aliens? Hive Teleport? Nah. We could have given that to the Gorge, but nah. A team that needs to control the map to be viable able to teleport about to defend their installations? Outrageous!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Where the ###### have you been playing? Jesus.
Aliens don't need map control, they need 3 harvesters and 2 hives to be viable. Marines on the other hand are going to lose without keeping 4-5 extractors. Second tech point is nice but optional.
so many older vets have been hammering the developers over the years of this game development, and we still have same issues. So no developers do not really listen to the community, unless your ideas happen to coincide with their vision of how things should work. They dismissed so many good ideas that made NS1 wonderful throughout ns2 development, so much wasted time on dead end ideas. Why they ignore ns1 I have no idea, but I do know they only listen to those who share their vision of how things should be.
Yes, they must drop everything and 'fix' the game according to one person's view. Quick, make drastic gameplay changes, nerf everything, buff everything. If it doesn't work, make even more drastic changes until the playerbase is turned off and quits.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not new to the NS scene. I played NS1 off and on for years now. A huge lover of the modding community, and sheer customization that was possible. So color me surprised when NS2 was released last week, I purchase it day one and jump into a game that as far as I can tell is almost nothing like NS1 other than a few audio and visual assets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were somehow expecting NS1 to be ported over to fancier graphics? I have played NS1 near constantly since 2004, switched to playing NS2 on and off during the 100+ phase in Beta and did not like how laggy everything was. To my regret, I only returned around build 220 to find things greatly improved performance-wise. The gameplay took a while to adapt to (especially the aiming part) and I had to learn about things like power nodes and alien commanders, but I feel that overall NS2 HAS made improvements and addressed a number of issues that I have always had with NS1.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I know UWE is a small team, but my gods what happened to you guys over the last ten years since NS1? People come and go, I get that. But least <i>some</i> of your original design team must be left over, right? <i>right?</i>. The core gameplay changes alone would be enough to make fans twinge but you couple that with the abysmal system performance for A LOT of people and like me you begin to wonder; where did UWE begin to go wrong?
Just a few things I'm curious about;
Why do the Kharaa now require a Commander? The strength of the Alien faction was always the unique sort of every-man-for-themselves approach to working as a team. Wanted defenses, you had to be Gorge. Wanted tanky destruction you went Onos. Now they require a Commander to put down creep to expand a base? (Yes it's creep, at least before it could have been a vague tongue in cheek homage to the Starcraft franchise but now we're just inching over that line). Now they require Eggs to spawn? Was someone at UWE high the day they decided to "revamp" the Kharaa into this ######ized version of what it once was? The Frontiersmen at least get a couple new weapons, Aliens get what exactly that's new for mutations? The same five as NS1..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
First, the NS1 way of 'every alien for himself' only worked well in games where people played seriously and knew what they were doing. I've been through many games on aliens where there was a 'race' to see which gorge can evolve first and drop an SC, as well as games where there wasn't a single gorge in sight and we didn't even get a second hive until 5mins into the game.
Also, although I did often gorge in NS1, I <b>never</b> liked the mechanic where you had to save up 50 res, spend 10 of that gorging at a hive location in a defenseless egg, drop 40 res into a hive and either stay as gorge for the rest of the game or devolve into skulk and start from 0 res trying to work your way back up to a higher lifeform. There were consecutive games where people would often be 'forced' to go gorge every round because everyone else is too selfish to take up that role.
I'm GLAD that there is an alien commander now. I'm not entirely fond of the cyst system (I don't like spending 1 res per cyst, making an RT cost MORE than the 10 res it takes to drop it), but I can appreciate that having a commander allows more aliens to be freed up to be attack lifeforms instead of 'needing' a minimum of X gorges and forcing others to 'go gorge' if one of the initial gorges die. In NS1, if you didn't have gorges at all, your only option was a base rush. It is entirely possible to win a game in NS2 without an early base rush, without a single gorge in sight - that is a huge difference.
The egg spawning system can actually be an advantage - just last night, we played on ns_tram and the commander had placed a shift (structure that replenishes energy) in Hub. The shift can also spawn additional eggs around it, which causes the respawn prioritization to move to that shift and its eggs. A bunch of us respawned not at the hive, but at that shift, and we rushed into repair room (a very short distance from Hub) and took it down with a rush that the marines were not prepared for and did not expect.
I don't like how it costs 1 res per egg (at least make it 1 res per 2 eggs) and I don't like how respawning aliens cannot choose where they want to respawn at, but the egg system can be used as an advantage.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Kharaa get this epic semi-infrared vision that makes things a lot easier to see, with a built in short range wallhack-like see through ability as well? I know the Rines' get a minimap on the HUD but considering it'd be super easy to mod one in for the Kharaa this just gives them a hard coded in-game unmodded ability that is a bit overpowered. Especially now that the other side is dependent upon "power" to fuel every single thing they build so knocking out power makes them use their relatively weak flashlights compared to pretty much heat seeking nightvision? (Yea, it shows random unimportant things like fans but still its by far over powered).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Darkness and confusion are the aliens' advantage for map areas that they control, and Alien Vision is a way for aliens to capitalize on that so that they're harder to see, and harder to aim at.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On the flip side
Why do Frontiersmen now have a dual resource system? Not only can the Commander spawn weapons and items for players but the player can "purchase" these items? In theory, on paper, this sounds great right? If the team is low on Resources, spending them on one or two good weapons could be a bad choice but if the player spends his or her own Resources it could be good. Sounds great in concept, much like certain political systems in the real world that sound good on paper but in practice are not. From all the playing I've done, yes in "Pubs" not in super efficient omgleetz organized tournament play, I've always encountered "stingy" Commanders, whom won't give the team weapons even when we're sitting on a surplus of resources, thus requiring the player to spend their Resources for upgrades. And seeing as how you earn Resources on a personal level, at a much slower rate than a Resource Node could churn out, spending that X Resources on a Shotty (that you drop when you die..) pretty much depletes a players resources faster than you can re-earn. Considering the bulk of the game's playerbase will be people playing on pubs and not the uber skilled organized players whom are on ladders or in tourneys, you have to look at it like a pub perspective. Not all Commanders will be good, obviously. But dipping into a personal Resource that is earned at a much slower rate is not a good design choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You LIKED the old way of commanders who don't drop you weapons and equipment? Good comms from NS1 will manage the res and drop them as needed, but I much prefer this way of using personal res to buy what you want, when you want. The marines are now empowered to make equipment choices based on their playstyle, or the need at the moment. If something in base is burning, you buy a welder and weld it up. No need to pester the comm to drop welders. If lerk gas is bothering you, buy a flamethrower. If the team needs to bust down a hive, get a GL. Choose between JP or exosuit depending on the need and whim.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Frontiersmen get one new weapon, that appears to have replaced another? The flame thrower is great and all, but even firing it in short controlled bursts, makes tracking a skulk with celerity difficult as your field of view is momentarily taken up by flames. Why did this replace the HMG? I'd trade in the Flame thrower any day of the week for the more powerful HMG, even with it's slower reload times (which was the trade off for the LMG).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The weapons do not replace each other. The Assault Rifle is good at all ranges, the shotgun is excellent at close range, GL is for breaking hive defenses, FT is for lerk gas/umbra and it also imposes a 60% penalty to energy regen on burning aliens.
The HMG has been replaced by the exosuit minigun/dual miniguns, these are extremely devastating weapons but I feel that it is fair to stick them on a slow moving unit that has to be escorted by welders. Imagine a JP HMG in NS2, I would be able to singlehandedly kill packs of skulks, destroy lerks/fades and solo onos - and I was a very good JP HMG in NS1. Okay, now imagine 3 - 4 of these HMG JPs. Imagine a whole team of them. Instant GG, and would make onos completely useless.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why are the Frontiersmen now completely power dependent? As said compared to Kharaa, a skulk or two taking out a power node can completely HOSE a Marine team. Why? Because it all becomes pitch black and even with "emergency lights" on, is still virtually dark. Maybe if the Marine flashlight was much much brighter or offered a wider range of illuminating the area I wouldn't have a problem. But the small cone of light a single Marine can generate compared to how insanely fast the various Alien mutations can move make being power dependent such a huge nerf to that entire side of gameplay. Even with Aliens requiring Eggs, and Cysts to respawn and advance on the map, their nightvision and short range wallhack vision really totally outweighs the negatives so much to the point that the Marines are at a huge disadvantage right out of the gate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You make it sound like marines are underpowered. I can assure you that they are most definitely NOT weaker compared to Aliens.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And performance, for either side, is abysmal. Read the tech support subforum. There are people out there with massively powerful desktop pc's, that even being custom built would rank up in the thousands of dollars to build, are getting horrible performance. We're talking people with 4.4ghz hexacore CPU's, SLI GPU's (such as Nvidia 680's or 90's), 16+ GB DDR3 ram, water cooling all that snazzy stuff getting 30 or less FPS during any part of gameplay. And it's not just "a few", TONS of people with high end systems have the same or similar issues. It's all over the Steam forums, all over reddit, even here. I'm sure UWE worked hard on the "Spark" Engine but at this point your choice to move from the Source engine was a poor choice, very poor. It may not have the latest and greatest eye candy like the Cry3 Engine but some modern Source games like Left 4 Dead 2 can still look good on all high settings. Was it a monetary issue? UWE couldn't afford to license the Source engine? As a small team you thought it better to go build an engine from the ground up?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My computer is around 4 - 5 years old. ATI 4850 HD 512mb, 4gb of 1066mhz ram, and an overclocked Q6600 at 3.2ghz. I turn everything off and knock the resolution down to 1280 x 800, and it is smooth enough to allow me to track a skulk and kill it with my rifle and not make me feel like I'm in a slideshow.
Further optimizations will come down the road, I'm sure. Just give them time, the engine was basically written by one guy. Also keep in mind that they are an independent game developer - they don't have the crap ton of resources that other giant game companies have at their disposal. In fact, I find it very impressive that a small indie dev shop was able to bring something like this out at this level of performance on launch day.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And who's genius idea on the UWE team was it to tie in the game's built in voice comm chat to the same sound level slider? Again, organized people will be using their own voip service like Ventrilo, Teamspeak or Mumble. But since again the bulk of your player base are pub players, it really helps if you can hear your Commander give orders. In the middle of a fire fight, with guns blazing, aliens making all their creepy sound effects, hearing the Commander order you to fall back can be next to impossible.
And that really leads me to think that within seven days, UWE has dropped the ball. We've had one patch in that time, that didn't really fix much. Soooo many people have some form of performance issue, and we've yet to see really ANYTHING in terms of communication from the UWE team in the tech support subforum. There's a few sticky threads on common issues people are having but at this point someone from UWE publicly saying "ok we see X Y and Z are issues we're working on them" would go so so much in their favor but all we see are one or two of the player testers just telling people to post their log files and such (which really, uploading a 50MB file as a forum attachment is getting a bit out of hand. Pretty much all of us are broadband users but not everyone's ISP, which may be their ONLY option for an ISP, have unlimited data plans so asking people to upload a file that can be large is not good. I believe one users log file was over 100MB...).
So for years, I've looked forward to NS2. Every now and then I'd get an email from UWE pointing me to new screen shots, or a new video showing off this or that. I was eager for it. I loved NS1, if you looked at my Xfire profile I played close to 500+ hours of it (logged time) over the years. NS2 has been a huge disappointment. If I could get Steam to refund me, I would. But Steam does not do refunds. So I guess I'm S.O.L for the $30 I spent.
Caveat Emptor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You expect far too much out of a small team of indie devs. They have to take things slow and cautiously when making changes AFTER a game has been released - it is easier to give than to take away, and the problem comes when they give too much and can't really take it away after it has been found to be a BAD move on their part.
This x1000000
I love the changes to NS2, alien commander, wall jumping... I know it's fun to fantasize how great NS1 was 10 years ago (I played the crap outta that game) but there were definitely issues with it that we are so quick to forget. NS2 isn't perfect, but it's on the right track.
Best post of thread.
NS1 wasn't perfect. It had alot of flaws, some massive, but somehow it was charming and we embraced them.
Time to let go.
-make shortsighted design decisions
-appease whiners
First, background. I never played NS1. Heck, before seeing TotalBiscut's video on it, I didn't know this existed. But I was hyped for it, and followed it over the months. Didn't get into beta as while I liked the look of it, I was busy doing other games and things. That and I like to play the 'finished' game. I say 'finished' as no game is really finished if it keeps getting patches and new content.
That said, I do have some complaints that make me wonder if a first day buy was worth it.
<b>1. Ult Units</b>
I tend to see games that were "ult" rushes. First team to mass produce Exos or Onos tends to win, as neither side has a very good way of countering them en mass. Bilebomb doesn't give out enough damage, and while Jetpacks can help vs the Onos they can then just rush buildings.
And while I'm on the subject of Exos, there's not really a point to building the one gun Exo. At least one that I haven't found outside of scaring off the aliens for a second or two.
<b>2. Alien Commander</b>
Now, I do like that the aliens have a commander. Made sense to me that both sides would have this 'sky god' directing things. But the problem I have with the aliens commander is that I feel like my attention is dragged in more directions as Alien than Marine. Make new cysts, make new collectors, make etc here.
<b>3. End Game Grind</b>
The Marine side is so easy to turtle. Okay, that makes sense. They have guns, they just need range to kill aliens. But the amount of times, on both sides, I've seen the game basically over, but take another 10-20 minutes due to the Marines being able to just hold off the aliens.
Flip side, the Aliens don't tend to have a 'grind' to kill them off. If things start going wrong for them, it can really go down hill for them.
<b>4. Flamethrower and Fade</b>
I like both. I just feel that both could be made a little stronger, Flamethrower more than Fade. Cause I had a REALLY good game as a Fade. I just needed to support an Onos most the time. ..., Huh.
<b>5. Better Alien Defenses</b>
This might go against EVERYTHING they want to do with the Aliens. But the Marines mines and more importantly the sentries are better than the aliens whips and hydras. I've rarely seen either kill a marine. Maybe this is due to the fact they want the aliens to be more 'mobile' than the marine's 'turtling' but still, a slight buff would be nice.
<b>6. Server list death</b>
Probably my biggest complaint with the game. When I buy a game, I know it's going to have bugs. I know it's going to have problems, glitches, etc. But when I buy a game, I want to know that I can actually play the game. I'd rather not find out that there's such a game breaking problem with the game, and that I will have to go out and configure things to allow me to play.
Now, everything I said all the complaints I have, I'm still playing the game. I'm still liking the game and glad I picked it up. But I just wondered how much more I would have liked it after the first week, if I waited to buy it when more things were worked out.
Probably for the same reason people don't bring up Windows 95 when they complain about Windows 8.
NS1 became a really good game. Just because it started off as something other than that shouldn't reflect at all on the starting point of NS2. To think so is just plain stupid
Aliens definitely need some work, well a lot of work, but we will have to see what happens.
And TBH your comparing disorganized pub play in both games, its going to be somewhat messy and not always strategic, NS2 has arguably way more problems here, where aliens can get 4 hives and still not be able to defeat marines.
My biggest complaint with NS2 is how the game is balanced primarily on the units with the least skill requirement, fighting Onos/Exos as either side is not an enjoyable fight, onos gore range is completely ridiculous and the fact that it hits all nearby targets also is. Exo can basically instantly kill all aliens but the onos, with the onos/exo fight being a game of corner baiting.
"WAH IT'S HARD TO PLAY!"
"WAH WHY DON'T I GET 100FPS ON MY TOASTER?!"
Also, did you just capp Aliens OP? L-O-L
This thread really reminds me of the gamespot review.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the op's point mostly is that NS2 is a decent game, NS1 was a great game, it is a not good idea that UWE chose to forget why NS1 was good
The game needs to be OK (not perfect) in pub, before you address and tweak for high level play.
It's a shame to see the same dumb thing happen again. Launch is the time to convince people you've got a good game, not to show them you're still a vain idiot who sacrifices playability for stillborn concepts from the past.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So much fail in this post I don't know where to start.
OK, let's start here: NS 1.0 was horrible and IF ONLY Flayra would've listened to YOUR vision (who the ###### are you?) it would've been AMAZING from the start and a huge success (third biggest mod after CS and TFC and a new game company obviously not a success) and would now be bigger than Dota? Alas, Flayra is such an idiot he just doesn't know how to make a proper game. You sir are truly an angel sent down from heaven to instruct him with your wise and kind words. Maybe, just maybe with your help we can finally have a game that isn't a horrible stillborn idiotic mess.
Was that about right? Seriously, these forums...
(Mostly I just wanted to quote that bile so you can't edit it out.)
I tend to see games that were "ult" rushes. First team to mass produce Exos or Onos tends to win, as neither side has a very good way of countering them en mass. Bilebomb doesn't give out enough damage, and while Jetpacks can help vs the Onos they can then just rush buildings.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not really seeing this problem. If one team has been holding 5 res nodes for the good part of the game, obviously they will and should stomp the other team with Onos spam or whatever. If they haven't, they just won't have res for something like that.
Spamming Onos eggs doesn't really have any downside to it which might be a problem, but with Exos, you can't even have more than 3 of them active in a 8v8 match if you want them to actually be useful. Anything more than that and you're either not gonna have map presence anywhere else and will lose all your stuff while everyone is busy welding the Exos OR you're not gonna have welder marines which makes the Exos useless OR you're just gonna lose to a base rush while your Exos are stuck at a hive. Plenty of ways to counter Exos. The only lifeform that's not very useful against them is Fade I guess.
<a href="http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=4920&from=1351872722" target="_blank">http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=gra...from=1351872722</a>
Losing 250-500 players per day!