Sewlek's Beta Test Mod

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Comments

  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    edited April 2013
    Skulks bhop changed a bit in the last few BT updates, I notice accelerating is overall slower, and it loses momentum quicker (tap a wall the wrong way and you'll lose all your speed) It does come up pretty quick if you use a lot of wall jumping though, and it seems now that aiming upward (wall jump aiming up after jump) gives a "boost" so to speak, I don't really have a complaint about it but it's not as enjoyable as it was a few BTs ago imo (anyone else try it out recently)?? Also leap seems to properly boost you when you're going at high speeds, I guess having celerity would make the bhop faster as well.. so maybe this is working in a good way after all??

    Also playing today it felt less "slippery" but the lack of the controlling air movement is what makes the skulk so weak against the marine if the skulk can somehow turn and retain control just like the lerk can, it'd be much better (especially against the improved hitreg) cause seperate the distance from a marine to a skulk, and that skulk will go down . at least this is how I see it!

    And yeah the marine shooting felt MUCH better and fun with the changes, you don't feel like shots you're hitting are dropping (I always felt like a bullet or so dropped) we'll see where it goes! I'll probably be on to play some BT tomorrow night or thursday night

    As for onos range being decreased, I think I can agree to that (haven't tried it) sometimes you hit someone too far from you, lowering the damage though, does that mean he'll do less damage to an exo or is he hitting with a different method? cause I don't think that would be good
  • matsomatso Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
    _Necro_ wrote: »
    Yuuki wrote: »
    _Necro_ wrote: »
    It's sad, when games can finally manage to get rid of hitboxes and have accurate hitzones on the model and than players blame the hitreg because hits between the legs aren't counting anymore.

    Then it gets reverted back to the inaccurate state of the old hitboxes to keep the old feeling. :/

    Well maybe a game is better off as an abstract simulation of simple geometric shapes (boxes and lines) and not as a photo-realistic physically accurate simulation. It's kind of funny that games almost simulate two parallel realities, one for the gameplay, and one for the graphics. After playing for a while the playercan often get a feel for the abstract simulation that is hidden behind the graphics.

    Mhh... fair enough. But this change does look like a step back technically.

    Well, bullets _do_ have a size... so technically, this is more accurate. Though I would have gone for 0.01 (10mm) for obvious reasons*.

    Do note that you do two traces, so you can actually see if it is a full-on hit or a glancing hit. So if you would like to make things more complex, you could do half damage on glancing hits. Depends on how strong you like your complexity tea.

    And yea, as the trace is done using a cube, you get 41% fatter bullets when shooting diagonally. Which can and will be adjusted for as soon as I get around to submitting a patch for it...

    * Hicks personal friend.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    matso wrote: »
    And yea, as the trace is done using a cube, you get 41% fatter bullets when shooting diagonally.
    Mind...explode
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited April 2013
    The skulk could definitely use some more air control in combat to be honest, being able to build speed to close the gap is one thing but the enjoyment of combat stands or falls with their performance once they've closed the gap. Skulk's aren't missiles, they shouldn't have momentum up to the first bite only then to no longer stand a chance. Quite on the contrary, they're supposed to have the advantage in melee, yet versus the current marines that hardly seems to be the case. (Which is no plea for nerfing marine movement mind you, it's in a good place)

    I've played a number of live games and so far I've never once run into a situation where I can really afford or see the point in unlocking nano shield before more important things. I really think it'd be a much more viable mechanic if it remained free, like bone-shield.

    Lastly, after several live games I'm even more of the opinion that 3CC for 3rd level armour/weapons doesn't work. Marines really need A and W to be competitive and they are a severe disadvantage when not holding 2 or 3 CCs (holding 3 is incredibly difficult in an even game). And then of course there's the issue with 4 TP maps. Hopefully you will consider experimenting having only A/W3 tied to 2nd CC. The 3rd CC would still be useful for boosting your build cap, not to mention that it's crucial in denying aliens some of their lategame effectiveness (as more hives means stronger aliens) Surely those reasons more than suffice in forcing marines to push for map control beyond 2 CCs, in a much more enjoyable fashion?

    I think preventing enemy scaling is a much more powerful and enjoyable mechanic to force map control than some arbitrary tech limitations that are perceived as a penalty.
    We've largely taken away these penalties on the alien side, with the biomass system, yet now we added them to marines...
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    @xarius : Why exactly shouldn't it be tied? Was it just because it was difficult?

    Seeing as how pres tech is not tied to it, i don't see it other than a scaling method to a game ender, no different than how biomass works with HP/armor.
    So tying it not only means more ground the marines have to defend but more importantly: more weak points and more chances for combacks (!) / less snowballing but also less effectiveness when turtling, and finally a means for expansion other than a throwaway denial of a TP which is always an optional burden on either team regardless. (and not always the best tactic, since maybe its not overtime and you'd like to hope the alien khamm was desperate enough to throw away 40 tres so close to a PG of yours)

    Should aliens only be the ones without the handicap? The game is about map control, so giving leniency to one team over the other in regards to the mechanic required to win seems odd.
    I get that asymmetry plays a hand here, but can you tell me exactly and specifically where and how it balances out adequately? Because i've been thinking of it, myself.

    I see too many benefits for this change, personally, to call out difficulty as being a roadblock :)
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Well perhaps 500+ hours of NS2 playtime with A3/W3 untied have skewed my perception but I perceive Armour and Weapon tech to be a much more pivotal aspect of the marine tech tree than the Alien biomass scaling is. I.e While the extra hp/armour from having more than 2 hives is definitely a nice addition, it doesn't feel like it's absolutely crucial to be able to compete as a higher alien lifeform in particular. (I do believe it greatly increases the skulk enjoyment lategame, but that's another point) Yes you can have Exos at 1 CC, but what's the point of spending 60 p.res on a dual exo with only W and A 1. It's not likely going to be able to tip the scales, much less than a 1 hive onos could at any rate.

    And what about 4 TP maps? Surely we can agree that it doesn't work properly in a 4 TP environment with games becoming incredibly stale as neither side has got an edge.

    What mainly bothers me really is the immediate and major setback marine suffers when they lose a CC, dramatically altering their chances of victory. It could be compared somewhat with how in the old days aliens would instantly lose all their second hive abilities when the hive was lost. Perhaps make it so A and W losses only take effect upon respawn? Either that or implement a way for marines to get A and W2 on 1 CC at a much higher cost...
  • YuukiYuuki Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75079Members
    About the bullet size issue, do you remember when searching for hit-regs bugs was trendy? A lot of people did recordings of gameplay and watched them in slow-motion to look for hit-reg misses. A lot of those people reported no or little real misses, most shots were actually legit miss, between the legs shots or slightly missed ones. One could argue that hit detection is too accurate for people to distinguish between hitreg problems and genuine misses at full game speed. The fine distinctions the engine can do are just too subtle for humans to perceive, resulting in an illusion of bad hitreg.

    The issue here is to tune the engine such that it calls a hit what people perceive to be a hit. I think a hitbox change might be a better idea than a bullet size increase, because it allow finer tuning, like filling a bit the space between the legs while keeping the body hitbox the same.
  • wirywiry Join Date: 2009-05-25 Member: 67479Members
    I would also prefer hit box changes instead of bullet size changes. Changing the bullet size seems like a really weird solution.

    However, if the hit boxes would be changed (preferably to something along the lines of the quake3/live hitboxes) i think the size of life forms would have to be changed. Skulks being too big being the most obvious problem, but also lerks. I don't really think the lerk needs a change in size, but instead some more mobility. Pancaking like in ns1 comes to mind.
  • _Necro__Necro_ Join Date: 2011-02-15 Member: 81895Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    The picture of the skulk hitbox that IronHorse posted is interesting. Especially all the spots where you can see the skulk-model is laying OVER the hitbox. I could imagine that this small spots are enough to give the feeling that some of your hits didn't count. Maybe just increase the size of the hit box a little bit so the model isn't bigger on some spots than the hit box anymore?
  • tarquinbbtarquinbb Join Date: 2012-11-03 Member: 166314Members
    edited April 2013
    btw am i the only one who noticed even more weird hitreg with the bullet change?

    at close range it was easier to hit, but several times i noticed perfectly aimed bursts at medium range (even against motionless targets) seemed to be doing far less than regular dps. it felt like i was holding a sentry gun, instead of an assault rifle.

    i've never experienced such inconsistent dps, even on uber lag servers.
  • CrushaKCrushaK Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
    edited April 2013
    IronHorse wrote: »
    matso wrote: »
    And yea, as the trace is done using a cube, you get 41% fatter bullets when shooting diagonally.
    Mind...explode

    I used the same mind blow on Ezekel on page 30. He countered the attack with ignorance, though. :>
    IronHorse wrote: »
    But honestly.. look at the NS1 hitboxes.. they seem to me way more forgiving that what 0.018 increase in bullet width would accomplish??
    Those old hitboxes definitely gave you
    xDragon wrote: »
    a mechanic which makes misses hits
    Observe:

    5LNsdGM.jpg

    Interesting, I never really thought of using such a kind of hitbox on SkeletalMeshes. So it's basically a simplified mesh that is deformed according to the bones similar to the regular model?
    That would explain why it's not easy from the get-go to add something like locational damage, since there is somewhat of an inaccuracy involved already for determing the exact hitlocation when using BoxTraces (might have to shrink them to LineTraces upon registering a hit to get the exact hit) and because you don't have the advantage of having individual collision bodies (in modern games there are rarely hit"boxes" involved but instead they use spheres and sphyls to get a more accurate shape close to a human body) parented to bones that would always be able to tell you instantly which bone geometry was hit. You would have to perform an extra check for every hit to determine the closest bone to the hitlocation of the simplified model, which might be a bit more performance demanding for rapid fire.

    Or am I seeing it wrong and those are all individual but slightly complex collision bodies that are actually parented to individual bones?



    Also, the Skulk has collision geometry on it's tail… does that imply that Skulks can't survive if you shoot only at their tail? Lethal wound? :p
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    I dont think that any of the aliens need hitbox adjustments currently, atleast in the balance mod. The hitreg is not perfect yet that is well known, but I dont think that even having massive hitboxes would fix the random events where even perfect shotgun shots do no damage, which IMO is the only real issue left. Outside of that, the hitreg seems to be consistent and good enough that I'm not concerned about it in terms of playability. For me the biggest impairment has been the mouse input issues, which make the game feel like sensitivity is always changing.
  • JektJekt Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited April 2013
    Would like to see more changes to the onos to make it less frustrating to fight against.

    Stomp range is huge and there is no way for a marine to effectively dodge it.
    Marines don't fall over if they're jumping when the stomp shockwave hits them. However they cannot move.
    Gore cancels reload.

    Also seem to be able to see full HP marines through walls at a huge range with level 3 Aura, seems a bit much tbh.
  • ZekZek Join Date: 2002-11-10 Member: 7962Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    xDragon wrote: »
    I dont think that any of the aliens need hitbox adjustments currently, atleast in the balance mod. The hitreg is not perfect yet that is well known, but I dont think that even having massive hitboxes would fix the random events where even perfect shotgun shots do no damage, which IMO is the only real issue left. Outside of that, the hitreg seems to be consistent and good enough that I'm not concerned about it in terms of playability. For me the biggest impairment has been the mouse input issues, which make the game feel like sensitivity is always changing.

    I don't agree, I find it's pretty common after I lose a fight that I think "what the hell, only five of those bullets hit?!" and feel robbed. Knowing full well that it's probably technically true, my gaming intuition is that I deserved more hits because I was tracking him really closely. I think there is such a thing as too strict when it comes to hit detection.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Xarius wrote: »
    What mainly bothers me really is the immediate and major setback marine suffers when they lose a CC, dramatically altering their chances of victory.
    Xarius wrote: »
    Longer early game, more room for errors, much greater potential for comebacks, more gradual progression towards the lategame.
    /fanboy
    Tech Tied to TP does exactly those things, specifically.
    Lol sorry I had to, your quote just fit so well. :-P
    What you want to occur, will, with this change, Imo.

    But yea i agree having the loss of upgrades should only occur after respawning to keep consistency (and even greater chances of a come back)
  • ritualsacrificeritualsacrifice Join Date: 2012-11-14 Member: 171148Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    So, late game happens, A3/W3 is tied to a CC, and the aliens kill it. Doesn't that instantly snowball into a marine loss as soon as they lose control of one tech point? A3 is not that important, but W3 is, especially once onii and carapace fades hit the field. I know you can manage fades with w1 and shotguns if you're good, but it seems like tying tech to chairs is going to have marines "in a bad way" if you know what I mean.

    (this is all just theory, i've yet to play a full game with the balance test, I've never managed to find a populated american server for it)
  • CrushaKCrushaK Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
    IronHorse wrote: »
    But yea i agree having the loss of upgrades should only occur after respawning to keep consistency (and even greater chances of a come back)

    It was probably envisioned to be consistent to marines also losing all upgrades as soon as the last Arms Lab gets destroyed/unpowered.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Join Date: 2003-11-28 Member: 23688
    edited April 2013
    I'm sure today I noticed my fade lost it's celerity while I was alive (though I'm not sure if it was triggered by the hive death or the spurs being killed), so it's not just marines that feel the hit from the loss of a tech point, + the loss of expensive biomass.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    I disagree with having upgrades and abilities kept until death, it effectively can remove any penalty from loosing map control. At the same time, I dislike A3/W3 on 3CC's, as it makes the game very black and white for marines. If you do not actively hold the 2nd CC, you cannot progress far into the midgame, its basically instantly game over once fades come out. You have little to no chance to push the fades back to retake that ground. The asymmetry of aliens gaining strength with map control and marines gaining strength with time worked very well in NS1, and there is no reason to attempt to re-invent it, especially in a way which actually makes snowballing way, way worse. With aliens having health that scales with biomass, they can perfectly counter the increasing strength of marine upgrades. There is no reason to double nerf marines in this fashion, the buffs to aliens here are the better way to address the problem.
  • wirywiry Join Date: 2009-05-25 Member: 67479Members
    Just imagine how veil would play if you needed to have 3 CC's for W3/A3 :| I'm not in favor of this idea at all.

    Also, dragon, even with the shotgun issues fades still can't really pick away at marines. It's barely possible if one fade encounters 2 marines with good aim carrying shotguns at the moment. As much as I would like the shotgun damage to be more consistent I think something needs to be done to help the fade out in that case. Not sure what kind of solution that might be though, any suggestions?
  • CrushaKCrushaK Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
    edited April 2013
    wiry wrote: »
    Just imagine how veil would play if you needed to have 3 CC's for W3/A3 :| I'm not in favor of this idea at all.

    I actually found that the last matches I had on Veil in the Balance mod were pretty good. The marines just have to keep the pressure up and not let aliens get a third Hive or more than 4 RTs.


    But dear god, does vanilla feel awful in the meanwhile.
    - Khammander gameplay = place a cyst every two meters, just to get mocked by the pathfinding that tells you that the path is still too long. Then get mocked by a ninja PG. And you may as well give up on any Drifter as soon as it's spotted, since marines WILL chase it down. Have fun doing anything else but placing 1-2 Shifts and RTs in the first minutes of the game.
    - Marine lategame = 5 unstoppable Onos rush you with super-ranged gore, so say goodbye to your jetpacks.
    - Marine sieging = aliens get so many spare res that they have dropped another Hive by the time you moved your ARCs to the next one. There is no real loss for aliens involved since their upgrades will be back immediately.
    - Alien lategame = feels like victory until you suddenly face 3 Dual-Exos with a MAC train. All your accomplishments in holding out and pushing back are instantly nullified. Also have fun seeing one Jetpacker with Shotgun take out entire Skulk rushes one by one.

    Everything is just so slowly paced and lacks dynamic. It feels like all you can do as commander is to go for the same memorized build order every game if you want to stand a chance. I need this mod so badly!
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited April 2013
    I think aliens can somewhat take a 3rd TP in games that are not yet decided, but if marines are holding 3 TP its usually GG for aliens, especially after the 10 min mark.

    For shotgun vs fade I still stand by the thought that the fade needs atleast 50 more base armor, ideally 250/100 at biomass 1 without carapace. However that does make fade explosions very difficult to deal with, and tRes fades a big problem. tRes drops of any equipment still need to be removed as late game alien play will remain unchanged (in the balance mod at about 15-18 minutes you have nothing left to do, spam fade time). What is needed is a personal resource gain mechanic (pres drain mechanics are bad overall), that will have significant variance between players during the course of a game.
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited April 2013
    I don't know, so far I've never really been able to drop lifeforms as an alien commander simply because the alien economy is a lot slower and I usually have more important things to spend res on (which is great)... Not to mention that early lifeform drops are weaker so a signficant risk in pub play especially. I like it. For comp play maybe it could be problematic but that's hard to say. Alien lategame also comes a lot slower than it does in vanilla so by the time it does finally come I don't think t.res drops are really a gameplay issue. It's either that or having commanders sit on res because they hit the build cap... (or spam drifter abilities I suppose, which are underrated imo)

    Lifeform explosions are still somewhat of an issue and quite honestly I don't know how they can be resolved, other than with an RFK or RFScore mechanic. (I do believe the gorge abilities made a difference, as now at least gorge players are set back a lot more on p.res throughout the game, which is one less onos or fade marines have to deal with)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Join Date: 2003-11-28 Member: 23688
    I've only seen lifeform drops being used once so far in the BT mod, he droped a fade and an onos - Still not enough to make a comback against the dual exos. Alien late game comes later in this so I don't think t.res drops will be an issue, + if aliens have gotten to that point aliens have probably already out played the marines.

    I'm not fond of RFK, or at least not right now with skulks dieing so quickly early-game.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited April 2013
    If the tRes drops are having a minimal/no impact on public play, then they should be removed at this point. The impact on 6v6s will always be significant as your always going to try to maximize the returns on your resources, and even with the resource adjustments there is always a point when there is nothing else worth getting, which happens much earlier in a 6v6.

    Beyond that, no one has suggested RFK ala NS1, or even RFK itself. There are many different ways a resource gain mechanic could be designed, and its probably one of the last big issues I feel the balance mod needs to tackle (attempt to have some time differentiation on lifeform/weapon timings).

    I also think that bilebomb desperately needs to be moved back to Bio4.
  • CrushaKCrushaK Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
    edited April 2013
    xDragon wrote: »
    I also think that bilebomb desperately needs to be moved back to Bio4.

    So marines can get ARC, Exo and MAC trains on 1 CC and aliens should be robbed the only thing to counter it or try an actual siege themselves? I don't think so.
    I wouldn't mind it on Biomass 3, but requiring 2 Hives would be too much imho.

    But in the end there should be a viable upgrade on each Biomass level, and Bile Bomb is in a pretty good spot there, I think.
  • wirywiry Join Date: 2009-05-25 Member: 67479Members
    If fades get buffed that way then RFK is probably the only thing that is going to keep tech explosions away. I can't think of another way that doesn't promote passive play.

    RFK, at least in organize play solves a lot of issues I think. It would reduce tech explosions and it would even promote more team play as you would try to give frags away to some one on your team who has lost their fade, or to a skulk not yet able to go fade.

    This, together with the fade buff would be very good additions I think.
  • halfofaheavenhalfofaheaven Join Date: 2012-11-09 Member: 168660Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Gold
    How about RFK that's just an additional pres tick instead of a fixed value? That way it's not a huge amount and also depends on your team's RTs.
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    Ok I can agree that W2/W3+A can be tied to a 2nd com chair for rines, but when they lose the 2nd com chair, they'll go back to W1

    Most maps it's control over the 3rd tech, and I can see how difficult it would be to get a 3rd tech on majority of maps

    the major hitreg issue I see is shotgun shots doing no damage on clear hits to fast moving enemies (lerk/fade) I think they're moving so fast that the game isn't updating their position to you quick enough when you make a very fast reaction shotgun shot

    As for the skulk, I really enjoyed the improvements regardless of how it was done, my shots where I know on my screen were hits were hitting, and that felt good. Knowing you landed shots but a few (even if one or two) were dropped due to a model does not feel good and can actually determine the fight

    As for balancing the skulk for it, simply giving him that air control (like the lerk) to respond to a marine who has just separated the distance between you two at close range would help stop that "impossible" struggle to try and get back to the marine even though it won't happen. But if something like this does happen, that means skulks will be able to turn around and respond really quickly, which could lead to much more "close range clipping" issues where it feels like the skulk has went inside of your FOV and causes missed shots (however the "fixed" hitreg may make this issue a non-issue) !

    @crushaK you used science, I replied with gamer logic!
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