<!--quoteo(post=2021222:date=Nov 12 2012, 09:22 PM:name=Toastie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Toastie @ Nov 12 2012, 09:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021222"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Isn't that basically Valve's approach to making games? More drastic in some than others.
But yeah, you are right for the most part. And god it has to be boring to remake the same game over and over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea, I mean CS:GO and DoTA 2 are such failures right?
CS:GO is actually an amazingly good example of the same problems that could happen (already have to some extent) to NS2. Valve had and did work with big teams/players from the competitive community from 1.6 when making the game, and in the end they did their own thing with the game, and look at the game now, it still fails to match even CSS in players, let alone 1.6
<!--quoteo(post=2021175:date=Nov 12 2012, 04:58 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 12 2012, 04:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021175"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ah, so bunny hopping was an exploit since it was unintended then it was relabeled a feature. Gotcha. And yes, it was an exploit because it was eventually <i>taken out of the game entirely</i> when Valve released the orange box version, at least it was for CS, which as you'll recall was also a HL1 engine mod. Same bug, different mod? Say it ain't so! The command you're probably thinking of was sv_airaccelerate, and is a server-client command. Even if the NS crew <i>could</i> have disabled it completely, the server could leave it in. (I will admit I'm no expert on console commands or bunny hopping, but if they ever disabled Marine bunny hopping it was long, long after I quit playing NS. And I played for about two years.)
Really, no mods that changed the game play? Yeah, I guess LerkLift didn't change anything at all...<i>oh wait yes it did.</i> I'm not really trying to attack your opinion here, you're more than welcome to it, but saying that NS1 was far more balanced is something we can't even know yet given that the majority of the player base is still brand spanking new. You can talk about competitive play, but the two are only remotely related at this point. With 16 or 24 person servers being the norm, the dynamics of two will never be the same. Ever.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you're going to attempt to state facts at least make sure they are true. It was taken away from CS because in CS it was an exploit that actually destroyed important gameplay elements. CS is not every shooter, and bhop was still in the orange box version of source engine, in fact it was possible with every orange box game save portal. It is also a feature of the quake idtech engine which gsrc (HL engine) was made from and eventually source, it was impossible for Valve to not know it yet and leave it in the release version of every game in the source engine up to Orange Box. Most important for NS2 however, is that NS1 was <i>balanced</i> around bhop for aliens, and NS2 is still sort of balanced around it. NS2 skulks have some of the same stats as in NS1, even though they are slower and bigger. Not only is the engine's movement inferior but there is also no bhop and instead some incomplete "walljump" is there. I guess while UWE were too busy finding ways to annoy good skulk players they forgot to make marines more "noob-friendly" as well by making their spread humongous and having them use aim-down sights or something. That would certainly equalize the skill ceilings and "boringness" levels of both sides.
<!--quoteo(post=2021298:date=Nov 12 2012, 04:22 PM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 12 2012, 04:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021298"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you're going to attempt to state facts at least make sure they are true. It was taken away from CS because in CS it was an exploit that actually destroyed important gameplay elements. CS is not every shooter, and bhop was still in the orange box version of source engine, in fact it was possible with every orange box game save portal. It is also a feature of the quake idtech engine which gsrc (HL engine) was made from and eventually source, it was impossible for Valve to not know it yet and leave it in the release version of every game in the source engine up to Orange Box. Most important for NS2 however, is that NS1 was <i>balanced</i> around bhop for aliens, and NS2 is still sort of balanced around it. NS2 skulks have some of the same stats as in NS1, even though they are slower and bigger. Not only is the engine's movement inferior but there is also no bhop and instead some incomplete "walljump" is there. I guess while UWE were too busy finding ways to annoy good skulk players they forgot to make marines more "noob-friendly" as well by making their spread humongous and having them use aim-down sights or something. That would certainly equalize the skill ceilings and "boringness" levels of both sides.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You obviously missed my follow up post, there have been so many different releases of half life, it can be easy to mix them up.
Wall jumping is easy, and involves pressing the space bar a lot of times when you're near walls. It's a little more complex than that, but not much. Bunny hopping was counter intuitive and was never a 'feature' or something that was 'balanced' until, as Dragon told me, it was removed for the Marines. It was a game exploit inherent in the engine, but people that use it will always claim that it was intended because it existed and wasn't fixed. It never seems to occur to people that bunny hopping was insanely hard and counter intuitive for 95% of humans and involved an in-depth knowledge of the engine itself and how to <i><b>exploit</b></i> that engine to make it do things that were <i>obviously</i> unintended. The very fact the game had a 'forwards' button should clue you in on that. If it was intended, <i>the game would teach you the skill</i> instead of going to a hackers/cheaters/exploit forum to discover the secret. Valve has a tendency to say 'It's broken? We'll fix that in the next version!' versus going back and actually trying to patch it in their current version. At least with game play mechanics they do, actual broken games are rare but buggy ones are not. <i>Especially</i> their engines. Kind of like how Unreal engines are so easy for hackers, it would seem.
Look trying to convince people either way about bunnyhopping isnt what this thread is about at all, some people liked it some people didnt, leave it at that. For the record many games have gone on to add bunnyhoping in ways that makes it much more accessible, where holding forward and space are all that is needed to learn the basics. Adding skill to a game is a good thing, would people be interested in watching soccer or baseball if any random person was able to compete in major events? Theres no reason to not encourage skill based gameplay, and while bunnyhop was quite controversial there are other ways to increase skill that do not tread on such dangerous ground. Aliens in general are in real need of some skill based mechanics to match up to marines, both early and late game.
<!--quoteo(post=2021361:date=Nov 12 2012, 05:27 PM:name=xDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xDragon @ Nov 12 2012, 05:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021361"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Look trying to convince people either way about bunnyhopping isnt what this thread is about at all, some people liked it some people didnt, leave it at that. For the record many games have gone on to add bunnyhoping in ways that makes it much more accessible, where holding forward and space are all that is needed to learn the basics. Adding skill to a game is a good thing, would people be interested in watching soccer or baseball if any random person was able to compete in major events? Theres no reason to not encourage skill based gameplay, and while bunnyhop was quite controversial there are other ways to increase skill that do not tread on such dangerous ground. Aliens in general are in real need of some skill based mechanics to match up to marines, both early and late game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So aliens, the team that almost anyone will tell you is already the hardest and most skill intensive team, needs more skill based mechanics? What about Marines? Is switching to a knife and holding down the 'shift' key really something that requires skill? Or how about repeatedly tapping the spacebar to change direction as a jet packer? Or how about the alternating fire of Exo's? Is there skill involved? Sure! Is it anywhere near as tough as trying to play any alien life form? Not even close, especially since each one of the alien life forms use entirely different movement gimmicks. As a marine, the only true 'skill' required is to put your cross hairs on the alien and click. Jumping properly is a close second, but if you do the first skill well you'll never need the second.
It's balanced enough, and I like it, but the teams will each attract a totally different demographic of players. Personally, I find the Marines boring and bland. I've played Marines in every other FPS I've ever played. I've only played as Aliens in NS. (Although I suppose the AVP franchise counts too, although the two are only at all similar at face-value.)
<!--quoteo(post=2021374:date=Nov 12 2012, 05:46 PM:name=xDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xDragon @ Nov 12 2012, 05:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021374"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So you call yourself a public player, but now your trying to tell me which side requires and has a higher skill cap?
Are you sure you want to try to make that call? Because your wrong.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I feel pretty safe in saying that aliens have a higher skill requirement across the board. There isn't a single marines movement mechanic that requires any thought process. At all. The fact it's balanced at all is a testament to UWE, and I thank them for this amazing game.
I call myself a public player because, well, I play with the public. Who do you play with? God?
EDIT: That was snarky and mean, sorry. You're just being unreasonable now.
I actually play hackysack with god, hes pretty cool.. But you have done a great job showing you have absolutely no idea what your talking about again, should I go back to bunnyhopping and explain how every single point you made was completely incorrect?
Marines have a higher skill cap because you can get a lot better at aiming than you can ever hope to get at wallhopping. Wallhop is just way to restrictive and situational to ever have it compare to marine aim skill.
But as you said its just putting the circle in the middle of your screen over the alien, theres no skill in that at all... Since apparently I have no clue maybe you should ask a competitive player what they think?
And Im glad to see a PT sees the need to comment in this thread with something completely worthless, perhaps you should go back to trying your hardest to hack peoples accounts and get people that actually are useful kicked out, since apparently thats all you can be useful at. Oh wait, I cant post that here can I? I guess you can stick to making snide remarks to people playing specific mods in NS2.
you can totally get better at aiming than everything, can't even compare it with wall hopping.
BUT, the effort required to get EXTREMELY good at aliens including wall hopping is overall more difficult and less effective than having solid aim (i'm not talking fana/tane level aim, just really good, like joe!)
aiming lerk spikes is the highest skillcap in the entire game because you're flying around though, just SAYIN
Every patch in beta they changed walljump and every time it was terrible. It went from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZq_4y7sBLY&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZq_4y7sBLY&hd=1</a> to what it is now, which is you gain momentum when falling. So the best way to "walljump" is crawl on a ceiling and jump off. You keep your momentum if you continuously jump. You also keep it for a short time as it gets "stored" so you can jump off a ceiling, wait a while standing still or crawling, and run off like a racecar. I also have to mention that geometry detection is still terrible so you are pretty much required to spam spacebar in order for it to work. Yea bhop sure is unintuitive compared to this. Even though compared to these ridiculous physics bhop is actually more realistic, as gaining speed when turning ( jump-strafing) is what happens in real life. Possible in the air or with low friction, like skiing. Which is also something that takes skill, and is fun.
I'm not going to bother talking about this any more. If you are truly feeling like you don't care about that I know, just watch this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HowpVX-hU&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HowpVX-hU&hd=1</a> pretty much everything you need to know is in this video.
Stuff the bunnhyhop and NS1 mechanics. The biggest problem I have with NS2 is, ITS TO MUCH LIKE NS1. I mean the same life forms really? Same weapons honestly? Wheres all the new life forms? Wheres are the cool new weapons and abilities? I was expecting aliens to have like spider life forms which could web places and marines, and a huge flying onos type creature if you saved up the pres. Marines should drive around in ARC's and where is the engineer, medic armour kit for marines so you can do something totally different. Commanders should have an EMP strike that only works near a CC which stuns all aliens for a short period, and Khammder's should have a big acid bomb which just melts anything that comes near the hive.
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!
As the OP i wan't to stick my nose in an stop the semi-arguing going on in here. The one thing that has been loyal to both NS1 and NS2 is the community - which is awesome :D
<!--quoteo(post=2021439:date=Nov 13 2012, 01:01 AM:name=GodofThunder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GodofThunder @ Nov 13 2012, 01:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021439"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff the bunnhyhop and NS1 mechanics. The biggest problem I have with NS2 is, ITS TO MUCH LIKE NS1. I mean the same life forms really? Same weapons honestly? Wheres all the new life forms? Wheres are the cool new weapons and abilities? I was expecting aliens to have like spider life forms which could web places and marines, and a huge flying onos type creature if you saved up the pres. Marines should drive around in ARC's and where is the engineer, medic armour kit for marines so you can do something totally different. Commanders should have an EMP strike that only works near a CC which stuns all aliens for a short period, and Khammder's should have a big acid bomb which just melts anything that comes near the hive.
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reason none of those things exist is because they are very very silly.
<!--quoteo(post=2021439:date=Nov 12 2012, 06:01 PM:name=GodofThunder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GodofThunder @ Nov 12 2012, 06:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021439"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff the bunnhyhop and NS1 mechanics. The biggest problem I have with NS2 is, ITS TO MUCH LIKE NS1. I mean the same life forms really? Same weapons honestly? Wheres all the new life forms? Wheres are the cool new weapons and abilities? I was expecting aliens to have like spider life forms which could web places and marines, and a huge flying onos type creature if you saved up the pres. Marines should drive around in ARC's and where is the engineer, medic armour kit for marines so you can do something totally different. Commanders should have an EMP strike that only works near a CC which stuns all aliens for a short period, and Khammder's should have a big acid bomb which just melts anything that comes near the hive.
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If we wanted the exact same game as NS1, we'd be playing that instead.
The problem is that they changed things that <i>didn't need to be changed</i> while things that could have done with some changing, like more lifeforms for Aliens, went unchanged.
<!--quoteo(post=2021413:date=Nov 12 2012, 06:40 PM:name=unkind)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (unkind @ Nov 12 2012, 06:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021413"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->you can totally get better at aiming than everything, can't even compare it with wall hopping.
BUT, the effort required to get EXTREMELY good at aliens including wall hopping is overall more difficult and less effective than having solid aim (i'm not talking fana/tane level aim, just really good, like joe!)
aiming lerk spikes is the highest skillcap in the entire game because you're flying around though, just SAYIN<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's more or less what I meant, thanks for making it clearer!
Although you still need to aim, even as a skulk/lerk/fade. It's just the aim skill, being a skill that transfers over from every other FPS ever made since 1981, is more useful for a marine that attacks primarily from range against an opponent who is entirely melee and is required to use gimmicky movement mechanics to make up for their <i>insanely</i> subpar health. It's the most fun you can have if you're doing well, mouse-throwing anger inducing when you're doing poorly. The 'skill' is making up for your inherent disadvantage. If you look at the genre of 'melee' video game arch types, what do you see? Almost always, they involve incapacitating (L4D) or instantly killing (Most FPS) the target, precisely because of the difficulty involved in getting close. In natural selection, at end game, it takes <b>4</b> hits to defeat the other vanilla unit while it needs a split second to be killed.
This isn't a complaint, merely a fact. Yet it works because some people are slow to aim and higher life forms can take more hits or somehow evade 'better'. So-called Competitive Gaming is silly in my opinion, as it pits the exceptions to every game rule against each other using strategies that 90% of the player base can't implement. It certainly can showcase game issues of what <i>can</i> be done, but those issues might be entirely different than the issues that <i>most</i> of your player base are having. If you cater to your Pro gamers, you alienate everyone else. If you cater to everyone else...well almost everyone is happy...
Aliens balanced around people who never miss would be dangerously OP versus everyone else, and Marines that are balanced around people that miss a lot is dangerously OP for those that don't. As it stands now, it seems like it balances out through the environment choices made by UWE. Even the best aim-bot like player cannot hit a target that he can't see, and most of the higher life forms have a decent enough niche to fill. It's not perfect, but perfection doesn't exist.
You can either like the changes or hate them, but claiming that the developers made those changes in ignorance is foolish when using your own logic.
First off, its 4 bites from a skulk against A3, assuming good bites. And regarding marine aim levels, i would assume that you havent played against that many/any high level comp players.. with the slower movement speed of all aliens its pretty easy to land mostly all your shots, obviously accounting for the misses due to spread/lacking hit detection atm. Adding to the skill based movement of aliens, especially skulks, would go a long way to making marine vs skulk more balanced, just watch the last ESL games where you see 4-5 skulks rushing 3 marines, and loosing at times.
I've seen them all right, and I still think it's impossible to balance around people who might as well be an aim-bot. You can't balance around pro's, you simply can't. It's impossible.
Skulks movement could <i>never</i> trump such a player, as a player like that is only limited by frames per second, and even then I've known people who can <i>infer</i> where to shoot to hit a player in the head even with a crappy 15 FPS machine. They would still win versus 99.9 percent of skulks if the skulks were Onos with Gatling Lasers.
How do you propose to balance that, in reality?
The point is it's balanced for <i>most</i> reasonably skilled humans. If you see someone that could be a pro player on a server, who has a 75-0 or higher KDR, just leave the server unless you somehow believe being slaughtered will improve your skill at jumping. I mean, if the rest of their team is utter crap you might be able to just be where they aren't or try and ambush with shade hive, but is it fun running around a map hiding from one player?
And if you think every player has the potential for that level of play, you would be wrong. So with time Marines will get better, and Aliens will get better, but not all of them will become aim-bots. That's also what game-balance patches are for, and why they continue for a long time with a lot of games. They don't usually make drastic, sweeping changes like completely removing one of the team's commanders and replace it with...a vague hope your team can cobble together something that looks like a plan.
And just for the record, constantly nay-saying me with 'well in competitive play' doesn't really mean much. There are 144,000 copies of NS2 sold, and how many top-tier pro players? Maybe we should just nerf the pro players, like maybe a mob-style finger bashing? ^_-
... NS1 managed to balance that, and its completely possible with more advanced movement techniques that can be added for aliens, specifically skulks... If there are players that can aim that well then there are also players who can use the movement that well.
Im not saying everyone has that potential, there is a limit where you cannot get better in terms of aim, your limited by reactions, coordination and gamesense.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've seen them all right, and I still think it's impossible to balance around people who might as well be an aim-bot. You can't balance around pro's, you simply can't. It's impossible.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually... this is not true.
You can balance for both pro's & noobs. This is how you do it
<b>Skill margins</b> Marine Skill Ceiling = Aim / Movement Alien Skill Ceiling = Bite aim / Movement
<b>3 Scenarios </b> Assuming the skill ceiling of marines can reach a pro level, but the skill ceiling of a skulk caps out at average.
Noob Marine / Noob Skulk Result: Even
Average Marine / Average Skulk Result: Even match
Pro Marine / Pro Skulk (capped at the skill of an average skulk) Result: Marine win
The skill ceiling capacity of marines is much higher than skulk, this means once you reach a certain level pro marines overpower pro skulks.
To increase the maximum skill capacity of skulk, you create a mechanic that allows a pro skulk to fight a pro marine.
That's a lot like saying it's easy to get to the moon. You just get a rocket and <i>go.</i>
Maybe the community can think of an option to make movement competitive versus guns, but if blink and leap aren't fast enough to evade now you're looking at...what exactly? Automated movement? Invulnerability windows? Incapacitation? NoClip lifeforms? Even MOAR speed to the point the person behind the wheel can't control it, let alone have someone else hit it? 10 bullet LMG clips? Recoil on guns? I've seen some suggestions on the forums, but most are either impractical, impossible, or silly.
It would also require retooling the entire game vs. minor tweaks. I somehow doubt that's going to happen.
<!--quoteo(post=2021511:date=Nov 13 2012, 12:20 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 13 2012, 12:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021511"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's a lot like saying it's easy to get to the moon. You just get a rocket and <i>go.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, its not. Your making the problem overly complex when really its quite a simply problem to solve.
BHOP fixed the problem in NS1 Walljump is attempting to fix this problem in NS2, its not quite there yet.
In a perfect world, a combination of both BHOP & Walljump would be amazing (see the game warsow for a truely great example of movement). The skill is not being able to pull off a skilled based movement, but choosing when/how to use it. Unfortunately there are a thousand retards who get all upset when bhop is mentioned and worry about their stupid immersion. These are the same people that don't understand bhop at all and make wild false assumptions on it. Hence the dev's won't go near that controversial topic due to the outlash of a few loud bad players.
<!--quoteo(post=2021467:date=Nov 12 2012, 09:29 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 12 2012, 09:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021467"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You can't balance around pro's, you simply can't. It's impossible.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's very simple to understand actually. A lot of people agreed that NS1 marines and skulks were balanced. Why? Marines and skulks have an asymmetrical balance. Marines focus on aim, skulks focus on movement. Newbie marines have bad aim, but they can still hit newbie skulks that have bad movement, and vice-versa. Amazing marines have near-perfect aim on targets that move predictably, but amazing skulks have amazing movement that no bad player would be able to track. And then we come to the differences in this balance between NS2 and NS1. NS1 has the same amount of shots to kill skulks as in NS2. However, NS2 skulks are slower, bigger, and generally easier targets. Their whole movement mechanic to make them fast and powerful by having more skill, bhopping, was removed. In NS2, rifles have less spread. In NS2, marines have an easier time hitting skulks. Going off of just this information, if you played NS1 and play NS2, you will notice your skulk play will be weaker, and your marine play will be stronger. The opposite goes for anybody playing NS1.
<!--quoteo(post=2021096:date=Nov 12 2012, 03:40 PM:name=Sagan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sagan @ Nov 12 2012, 03:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021096"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would break down the complaints into a few categories.
Nostalgia over the golden age of NS1... golden ages are never as golden as we remember them.
New players having not played the game enough matches to truly appreciate the balance.
New commanders learning the role and their ability to influence the gameplay.
There are some definate map imbalances, such as Veil and Refinery.
There's a bit of WWI mentality in the player base as well, with many people concentrating on the "front lines". The game is all about momentum in my opinion... when the other team has the momentum the commonest strategy seems to be to try and slow down the opposing teams momentum, and then slowly reverse it. Really though some brazen attacks behind the enemy "front lines" are much more effectively strategically. This will eventually go away though, leaders(both commanders and players) will step up and start leading groups into those brazen momentum shifting attacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I agree with you that those are categories that many of the complaints are coming from... but you're erroneously making it out like fitting into any of those categories makes the complaints non-legitimate.
I'd say by far the biggest factor in the complaints is people see a lot of potential for this game, and therefore care enough to want it to be better, but it's still very new, and as such has some significant issues that need to still be polished out.
<!--quoteo(post=2021752:date=Nov 13 2012, 02:22 AM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 13 2012, 02:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021752"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's very simple to understand actually. A lot of people agreed that NS1 marines and skulks were balanced. Why? Marines and skulks have an asymmetrical balance. Marines focus on aim, skulks focus on movement. Newbie marines have bad aim, but they can still hit newbie skulks that have bad movement, and vice-versa. Amazing marines have near-perfect aim on targets that move predictably, but amazing skulks have amazing movement that no bad player would be able to track. And then we come to the differences in this balance between NS2 and NS1. NS1 has the same amount of shots to kill skulks as in NS2. However, NS2 skulks are slower, bigger, and generally easier targets. Their whole movement mechanic to make them fast and powerful by having more skill, bhopping, was removed. In NS2, rifles have less spread. In NS2, marines have an easier time hitting skulks. Going off of just this information, if you played NS1 and play NS2, you will notice your skulk play will be weaker, and your marine play will be stronger. The opposite goes for anybody playing NS1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wall jumping can get absurd, but very few people are remarkably good at it. Even in the competitive communities.
<!--quoteo(post=2021752:date=Nov 13 2012, 12:22 AM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 13 2012, 12:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021752"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's very simple to understand actually. A lot of people agreed that NS1 marines and skulks were balanced. Why? Marines and skulks have an asymmetrical balance. Marines focus on aim, skulks focus on movement. Newbie marines have bad aim, but they can still hit newbie skulks that have bad movement, and vice-versa. Amazing marines have near-perfect aim on targets that move predictably, but amazing skulks have amazing movement that no bad player would be able to track.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This sounds like another, newer game I'm playing these days actually...
I never felt that Marines and Aliens were balanced, but apparently some later patch to NS1 fixed everything that everyone hated about the game and turned it into pure gold.
That, or all the people that felt it wasn't balanced quit playing over it's ten year history over one minor patch issue or another.
Chicken, or the egg?
So the model is a fraction larger, the movement a hair slower, and the bullets a smidge more accurate. Leap and blink, I notice, are inexplicably missing from your riposte. Meaning, I take it, that you agree that the game already has skill based movement dodges that in your opinion don't work. Your solution? Add bunny hopping back in. I would rather have just about anything other than that, but if you want to make wall jumping more consistent on flat-ground then sure I like the idea.
<!--quoteo(post=2021777:date=Nov 13 2012, 02:58 AM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 13 2012, 02:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021777"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This sounds like another, newer game I'm playing these days actually...
I never felt that Marines and Aliens were balanced, but apparently some later patch to NS1 fixed everything that everyone hated about the game and turned it into pure gold.
That, or all the people that felt it wasn't balanced quit playing over it's ten year history over one minor patch issue or another.
Chicken, or the egg?
So the model is a fraction larger, the movement a hair slower, and the bullets a smidge more accurate. Leap and blink, I notice, are inexplicably missing from your riposte. Meaning, I take it, that you agree that the game already has skill based movement dodges that in your opinion don't work. Your solution? Add bunny hopping back in. I would rather have just about anything other than that, but if you want to make wall jumping more consistent on flat-ground then sure I like the idea.
B-Hop is dead. Long live Walljumpin'!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> He's selectively omitting net code misses. Skulks can afford to be a little better when 20 percent of the bullets that actually hit them just don't do damage.
Comments
But yeah, you are right for the most part. And god it has to be boring to remake the same game over and over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea, I mean CS:GO and DoTA 2 are such failures right?
Really, no mods that changed the game play? Yeah, I guess LerkLift didn't change anything at all...<i>oh wait yes it did.</i> I'm not really trying to attack your opinion here, you're more than welcome to it, but saying that NS1 was far more balanced is something we can't even know yet given that the majority of the player base is still brand spanking new. You can talk about competitive play, but the two are only remotely related at this point. With 16 or 24 person servers being the norm, the dynamics of two will never be the same. Ever.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you're going to attempt to state facts at least make sure they are true. It was taken away from CS because in CS it was an exploit that actually destroyed important gameplay elements. CS is not every shooter, and bhop was still in the orange box version of source engine, in fact it was possible with every orange box game save portal. It is also a feature of the quake idtech engine which gsrc (HL engine) was made from and eventually source, it was impossible for Valve to not know it yet and leave it in the release version of every game in the source engine up to Orange Box. Most important for NS2 however, is that NS1 was <i>balanced</i> around bhop for aliens, and NS2 is still sort of balanced around it. NS2 skulks have some of the same stats as in NS1, even though they are slower and bigger. Not only is the engine's movement inferior but there is also no bhop and instead some incomplete "walljump" is there. I guess while UWE were too busy finding ways to annoy good skulk players they forgot to make marines more "noob-friendly" as well by making their spread humongous and having them use aim-down sights or something. That would certainly equalize the skill ceilings and "boringness" levels of both sides.
You obviously missed my follow up post, there have been so many different releases of half life, it can be easy to mix them up.
Wall jumping is easy, and involves pressing the space bar a lot of times when you're near walls. It's a little more complex than that, but not much. Bunny hopping was counter intuitive and was never a 'feature' or something that was 'balanced' until, as Dragon told me, it was removed for the Marines. It was a game exploit inherent in the engine, but people that use it will always claim that it was intended because it existed and wasn't fixed. It never seems to occur to people that bunny hopping was insanely hard and counter intuitive for 95% of humans and involved an in-depth knowledge of the engine itself and how to <i><b>exploit</b></i> that engine to make it do things that were <i>obviously</i> unintended. The very fact the game had a 'forwards' button should clue you in on that. If it was intended, <i>the game would teach you the skill</i> instead of going to a hackers/cheaters/exploit forum to discover the secret. Valve has a tendency to say 'It's broken? We'll fix that in the next version!' versus going back and actually trying to patch it in their current version. At least with game play mechanics they do, actual broken games are rare but buggy ones are not. <i>Especially</i> their engines. Kind of like how Unreal engines are so easy for hackers, it would seem.
Adding skill to a game is a good thing, would people be interested in watching soccer or baseball if any random person was able to compete in major events? Theres no reason to not encourage skill based gameplay, and while bunnyhop was quite controversial there are other ways to increase skill that do not tread on such dangerous ground. Aliens in general are in real need of some skill based mechanics to match up to marines, both early and late game.
Adding skill to a game is a good thing, would people be interested in watching soccer or baseball if any random person was able to compete in major events? Theres no reason to not encourage skill based gameplay, and while bunnyhop was quite controversial there are other ways to increase skill that do not tread on such dangerous ground. Aliens in general are in real need of some skill based mechanics to match up to marines, both early and late game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So aliens, the team that almost anyone will tell you is already the hardest and most skill intensive team, needs more skill based mechanics? What about Marines? Is switching to a knife and holding down the 'shift' key really something that requires skill? Or how about repeatedly tapping the spacebar to change direction as a jet packer? Or how about the alternating fire of Exo's? Is there skill involved? Sure! Is it anywhere near as tough as trying to play any alien life form? Not even close, especially since each one of the alien life forms use entirely different movement gimmicks. As a marine, the only true 'skill' required is to put your cross hairs on the alien and click. Jumping properly is a close second, but if you do the first skill well you'll never need the second.
It's balanced enough, and I like it, but the teams will each attract a totally different demographic of players. Personally, I find the Marines boring and bland. I've played Marines in every other FPS I've ever played. I've only played as Aliens in NS. (Although I suppose the AVP franchise counts too, although the two are only at all similar at face-value.)
Are you sure you want to try to make that call? Because your wrong.
-_-
Are you sure you want to try to make that call? Because your wrong.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I feel pretty safe in saying that aliens have a higher skill requirement across the board. There isn't a single marines movement mechanic that requires any thought process. At all. The fact it's balanced at all is a testament to UWE, and I thank them for this amazing game.
I call myself a public player because, well, I play with the public. Who do you play with? God?
EDIT: That was snarky and mean, sorry. You're just being unreasonable now.
But you have done a great job showing you have absolutely no idea what your talking about again, should I go back to bunnyhopping and explain how every single point you made was completely incorrect?
Marines have a higher skill cap because you can get a lot better at aiming than you can ever hope to get at wallhopping. Wallhop is just way to restrictive and situational to ever have it compare to marine aim skill.
But as you said its just putting the circle in the middle of your screen over the alien, theres no skill in that at all... Since apparently I have no clue maybe you should ask a competitive player what they think?
And Im glad to see a PT sees the need to comment in this thread with something completely worthless, perhaps you should go back to trying your hardest to hack peoples accounts and get people that actually are useful kicked out, since apparently thats all you can be useful at. Oh wait, I cant post that here can I? I guess you can stick to making snide remarks to people playing specific mods in NS2.
BUT, the effort required to get EXTREMELY good at aliens including wall hopping is overall more difficult and less effective than having solid aim (i'm not talking fana/tane level aim, just really good, like joe!)
aiming lerk spikes is the highest skillcap in the entire game because you're flying around though, just SAYIN
I'm not going to bother talking about this any more. If you are truly feeling like you don't care about that I know, just watch this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HowpVX-hU&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HowpVX-hU&hd=1</a> pretty much everything you need to know is in this video.
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reason none of those things exist is because they are very very silly.
Seriously why do people want the same dam thing? NS1 is gone. It's why im pissed of at dota 2. ITS THE SAME DAM THING!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If we wanted the exact same game as NS1, we'd be playing that instead.
The problem is that they changed things that <i>didn't need to be changed</i> while things that could have done with some changing, like more lifeforms for Aliens, went unchanged.
BUT, the effort required to get EXTREMELY good at aliens including wall hopping is overall more difficult and less effective than having solid aim (i'm not talking fana/tane level aim, just really good, like joe!)
aiming lerk spikes is the highest skillcap in the entire game because you're flying around though, just SAYIN<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's more or less what I meant, thanks for making it clearer!
Although you still need to aim, even as a skulk/lerk/fade. It's just the aim skill, being a skill that transfers over from every other FPS ever made since 1981, is more useful for a marine that attacks primarily from range against an opponent who is entirely melee and is required to use gimmicky movement mechanics to make up for their <i>insanely</i> subpar health. It's the most fun you can have if you're doing well, mouse-throwing anger inducing when you're doing poorly. The 'skill' is making up for your inherent disadvantage. If you look at the genre of 'melee' video game arch types, what do you see? Almost always, they involve incapacitating (L4D) or instantly killing (Most FPS) the target, precisely because of the difficulty involved in getting close. In natural selection, at end game, it takes <b>4</b> hits to defeat the other vanilla unit while it needs a split second to be killed.
This isn't a complaint, merely a fact. Yet it works because some people are slow to aim and higher life forms can take more hits or somehow evade 'better'. So-called Competitive Gaming is silly in my opinion, as it pits the exceptions to every game rule against each other using strategies that 90% of the player base can't implement. It certainly can showcase game issues of what <i>can</i> be done, but those issues might be entirely different than the issues that <i>most</i> of your player base are having. If you cater to your Pro gamers, you alienate everyone else. If you cater to everyone else...well almost everyone is happy...
Aliens balanced around people who never miss would be dangerously OP versus everyone else, and Marines that are balanced around people that miss a lot is dangerously OP for those that don't. As it stands now, it seems like it balances out through the environment choices made by UWE. Even the best aim-bot like player cannot hit a target that he can't see, and most of the higher life forms have a decent enough niche to fill. It's not perfect, but perfection doesn't exist.
You can either like the changes or hate them, but claiming that the developers made those changes in ignorance is foolish when using your own logic.
(EDIT: Corrected bite #, good catch.)
Skulks movement could <i>never</i> trump such a player, as a player like that is only limited by frames per second, and even then I've known people who can <i>infer</i> where to shoot to hit a player in the head even with a crappy 15 FPS machine. They would still win versus 99.9 percent of skulks if the skulks were Onos with Gatling Lasers.
How do you propose to balance that, in reality?
The point is it's balanced for <i>most</i> reasonably skilled humans. If you see someone that could be a pro player on a server, who has a 75-0 or higher KDR, just leave the server unless you somehow believe being slaughtered will improve your skill at jumping. I mean, if the rest of their team is utter crap you might be able to just be where they aren't or try and ambush with shade hive, but is it fun running around a map hiding from one player?
And if you think every player has the potential for that level of play, you would be wrong. So with time Marines will get better, and Aliens will get better, but not all of them will become aim-bots. That's also what game-balance patches are for, and why they continue for a long time with a lot of games. They don't usually make drastic, sweeping changes like completely removing one of the team's commanders and replace it with...a vague hope your team can cobble together something that looks like a plan.
And just for the record, constantly nay-saying me with 'well in competitive play' doesn't really mean much. There are 144,000 copies of NS2 sold, and how many top-tier pro players? Maybe we should just nerf the pro players, like maybe a mob-style finger bashing? ^_-
Im not saying everyone has that potential, there is a limit where you cannot get better in terms of aim, your limited by reactions, coordination and gamesense.
Actually... this is not true.
You can balance for both pro's & noobs. This is how you do it
<b>Skill margins</b>
Marine Skill Ceiling = Aim / Movement
Alien Skill Ceiling = Bite aim / Movement
<b>3 Scenarios </b>
Assuming the skill ceiling of marines can reach a pro level, but the skill ceiling of a skulk caps out at average.
Noob Marine / Noob Skulk
Result: Even
Average Marine / Average Skulk
Result: Even match
Pro Marine / Pro Skulk (capped at the skill of an average skulk)
Result: Marine win
The skill ceiling capacity of marines is much higher than skulk, this means once you reach a certain level pro marines overpower pro skulks.
To increase the maximum skill capacity of skulk, you create a mechanic that allows a pro skulk to fight a pro marine.
Maybe the community can think of an option to make movement competitive versus guns, but if blink and leap aren't fast enough to evade now you're looking at...what exactly? Automated movement? Invulnerability windows? Incapacitation? NoClip lifeforms? Even MOAR speed to the point the person behind the wheel can't control it, let alone have someone else hit it? 10 bullet LMG clips? Recoil on guns? I've seen some suggestions on the forums, but most are either impractical, impossible, or silly.
It would also require retooling the entire game vs. minor tweaks. I somehow doubt that's going to happen.
No, its not. Your making the problem overly complex when really its quite a simply problem to solve.
BHOP fixed the problem in NS1
Walljump is attempting to fix this problem in NS2, its not quite there yet.
In a perfect world, a combination of both BHOP & Walljump would be amazing (see the game warsow for a truely great example of movement). The skill is not being able to pull off a skilled based movement, but choosing when/how to use it. Unfortunately there are a thousand retards who get all upset when bhop is mentioned and worry about their stupid immersion. These are the same people that don't understand bhop at all and make wild false assumptions on it. Hence the dev's won't go near that controversial topic due to the outlash of a few loud bad players.
It's very simple to understand actually. A lot of people agreed that NS1 marines and skulks were balanced. Why? Marines and skulks have an asymmetrical balance. Marines focus on aim, skulks focus on movement. Newbie marines have bad aim, but they can still hit newbie skulks that have bad movement, and vice-versa. Amazing marines have near-perfect aim on targets that move predictably, but amazing skulks have amazing movement that no bad player would be able to track. And then we come to the differences in this balance between NS2 and NS1. NS1 has the same amount of shots to kill skulks as in NS2. However, NS2 skulks are slower, bigger, and generally easier targets. Their whole movement mechanic to make them fast and powerful by having more skill, bhopping, was removed. In NS2, rifles have less spread. In NS2, marines have an easier time hitting skulks. Going off of just this information, if you played NS1 and play NS2, you will notice your skulk play will be weaker, and your marine play will be stronger. The opposite goes for anybody playing NS1.
Nostalgia over the golden age of NS1... golden ages are never as golden as we remember them.
New players having not played the game enough matches to truly appreciate the balance.
New commanders learning the role and their ability to influence the gameplay.
There are some definate map imbalances, such as Veil and Refinery.
There's a bit of WWI mentality in the player base as well, with many people concentrating on the "front lines". The game is all about momentum in my opinion... when the other team has the momentum the commonest strategy seems to be to try and slow down the opposing teams momentum, and then slowly reverse it. Really though some brazen attacks behind the enemy "front lines" are much more effectively strategically. This will eventually go away though, leaders(both commanders and players) will step up and start leading groups into those brazen momentum shifting attacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with you that those are categories that many of the complaints are coming from... but you're erroneously making it out like fitting into any of those categories makes the complaints non-legitimate.
I'd say by far the biggest factor in the complaints is people see a lot of potential for this game, and therefore care enough to want it to be better, but it's still very new, and as such has some significant issues that need to still be polished out.
Wall jumping can get absurd, but very few people are remarkably good at it. Even in the competitive communities.
This sounds like another, newer game I'm playing these days actually...
I never felt that Marines and Aliens were balanced, but apparently some later patch to NS1 fixed everything that everyone hated about the game and turned it into pure gold.
That, or all the people that felt it wasn't balanced quit playing over it's ten year history over one minor patch issue or another.
Chicken, or the egg?
So the model is a fraction larger, the movement a hair slower, and the bullets a smidge more accurate. Leap and blink, I notice, are inexplicably missing from your riposte. Meaning, I take it, that you agree that the game already has skill based movement dodges that in your opinion don't work. Your solution? Add bunny hopping back in. I would rather have just about anything other than that, but if you want to make wall jumping more consistent on flat-ground then sure I like the idea.
B-Hop is dead. Long live Walljumpin'!
I never felt that Marines and Aliens were balanced, but apparently some later patch to NS1 fixed everything that everyone hated about the game and turned it into pure gold.
That, or all the people that felt it wasn't balanced quit playing over it's ten year history over one minor patch issue or another.
Chicken, or the egg?
So the model is a fraction larger, the movement a hair slower, and the bullets a smidge more accurate. Leap and blink, I notice, are inexplicably missing from your riposte. Meaning, I take it, that you agree that the game already has skill based movement dodges that in your opinion don't work. Your solution? Add bunny hopping back in. I would rather have just about anything other than that, but if you want to make wall jumping more consistent on flat-ground then sure I like the idea.
B-Hop is dead. Long live Walljumpin'!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He's selectively omitting net code misses. Skulks can afford to be a little better when 20 percent of the bullets that actually hit them just don't do damage.