At some point you can not balance this game with numbers anymore. The reason you don't see drastic changes in other games, is that they offer straight forward symmetric game play. If a gun is op in battlefield, you can simply adjust the numbers of that weapons, but that only works since every player has the same possibilities.
The gameplay in NS is somewhat unique. Not only has it two factions that play completely different in combat, you also have 2 different kinds of economy / tech systems behind them (e.g. aliens are much more dependent on pres than marines and vice virca).
That is why you can not "simply increase" the damage of the rifle. Something that might fix one end, might completely break the other.
If that all wouldn't be enough, you also have different stages of balance as the game progresses. The balance in the early game might be completely different that in the late game. The numbers are dynamically changing.
UWE has to make these kind of big changes in order to balance the game for every setup. For example the alien movement changes in 250 were made, because even bad fades were able to dominate equally skilled marines, while good fades had a hard time killing good shotgun marines.
The skill/strength scaling between alien movement + aim and marine movement + aim was off.
Yet another factors were performance / netcode / hitboxes / animations . Just through the improvement of these factors, you had to rebalance the game accordingly. Back in the beta lerks were unhittable, because of low performance.
What I'm trying to say is that you can not really blame UWE. Not only did they write a new engine (including a full set of modding tools), and therefore had to spend a lot of resources on performance, they also made a game that is unique and very complex in gameplay. They couldn't just play some others game and copy+paste the ideas and mechanics. They had to balance and add features via trial and error, but this takes a lot of time, since the players have to adapt to these changes first in order to judge if it works or not.
I respect UWE more than any other company for that.
Fine, Alien vision is for dark rooms. What tool do you propose giving aliens instead to allow them to track floating marines?
New alien normal vision gives marines quite visible orange outlines like in L4D. Makes it much easier to track marines than without it like in previous patches.
I'm sorry but its nowhere near as easy to track marines as the with previous alien vision enabled, not even close, hence its a nerf. I frequently get surprised in rooms by extra marines that I did not notice before committing to an attack.
I was about to quit in frustration last patch due to how horribly imbalanced the game was in favor of aliens. The new patch has at last evened up the odds imo.
First of, dude, I never said it was in beta. I like that they are using their creative talent to modify a lot of stuff, so that they can get closer to what a perfect game is. Do you remember Pre-250? Where the game was only about shotties/fades/onos/JP. Nothing more, nothing less. If UWE didn't change that, I'd have stopped playing for good. Fortunately, they are thinkers and created new mechanics to make the game better. In my humble opinion, the game has progressed quite a lot and is more enjoyable than 4 months ago.
I'm sorry that you have trouble with the new stuff but no pony is forcing you to play the game. There are other stuff in life, not only NS2...
By the way, the new patch fixed my performance issues for the most part, so have some bloody faith in the creators and be patient.
I'll agree with one point from the op. That's I do believe I have a reasonable expectation for a game not to be technically broken by an intermittent patch almost a year after release. Granted this most recent patch has fixed my issues, but while waiting for that patch it was pretty bad, and this isn't the first time that this has happen.
Balancing and even experimentation are good things in game. I applaud this development crew for trying new things, collecting data, and shaping the way this game evolves. Those are things to be admired in a Dev, but for me to admire them I need to have a playable experience.
After meanwhile 760 h of playtime, I never experienced any bug whatsoever that was so big that it influenced my gameplay experience. I got a 3 year old PC that was medium-class at the time I bought it, the game is running GREAT with 80-90 fps.
For such a small, independent team without big money this is a great archievement. Combine this is UWEs great attitude towards the community, free updates non-stop (not like Battlefield for example)... big thumbs up for UWE!!
OP, I'm sorry you're experiencing such awful gameplay. Given your alleged skill, though, I'm genuinely surprised you're struggling this much. I'm an NS1 vet but only recently got a computer capable of handling NS2, so I've got only about 60-70 hours logged. Though I still struggle at times, I haven't experienced anything near as bad as going 0-15. And I don't play on rookie servers.
IMHO, just keep at it! I think Reinforced bettered overall gameplay significantly, even if there are some technical issues that still need to be worked through. I'm not a huge fan of new marine movement or the mouse issue. At least in terms of the mouse issue, it'll be fixed.
I can get what the op is saying when he feels like his time has been 'wasted' once a new patch comes out, but at the same time, a lot of your muscle memory and game knowledge will inevitably transfer over, and usually in a very short amount of time as has been mentioned.
The game remains the same, but you may have to take a bit and not be dominating everyone while you learn/relearn some new tactics.
I used to be on the fence about it, but now I think that changes like these were not only necessary, but make the game far more interesting for most players. So long as the game isn't abandoned, I'll try and embrace changes so long as the goal is a better game.
The couple last patches have been horrible performance-wise. 255 didn't fix the mouse lag thing (luckily I don't suffer from it if I use dx11), but introduced a lot of crashing, and strange lag spikes whenever round starts/ends.
I'm not quite sure why they keep pushing these patches, which only seem to make things worse. Surely the playtest team catches these bugs though?
Misunderstood UWE.
* Tries to revolutionize the update policy of games: Keeping them alive through change, instead of selling change through DLC.
* Gets hate because it doesn't handle it's game like Blizzard or EA.
Every time UWE boasts about releasing another "DLC" or "expansion" (what shameful misuse of terminology, to call a patch that adds 1 or 2 pieces of content an expansion or even DLC) for free my blood boils. Free patches have been the standard since the begging of the industry and are still the standard for many companies today, puffing yourself up for adhering to said standard makes you look foolish.
IMO, I can deal w/ the balance and gameplay changes. I dont have a problem chomping or shooting and I pretty much never turn av on anymore unless I've just taken pwr out to navigate. Even then, it's only a second or two. Dont understand why in one patch, structures are totally reworked in that drifters build structures %70 faster, then fast forward just a few builds, and now drifters cost 8 crazy res! And are made of paper!
Anyways, whatever I can adjust my methods.
What I CANT adjust to is CRASHING DURING EVERY GAME! Especially frustrating as comm/khamm. I do read the forums, I docheck the site many times a day, and I did apply to become a beta tester. If denied because I have limited tech bg, at least I could submit the specs and crashes of my specific PC. But, my issues remain unresolved since 253. 254 and 255 are crash heavy, and I have received almost no input on the tech support side of these forums (have also e-mailed large dumpfiles). From playing 540 hrs mostly crash free (everything ran to full minus bloom/ambient occlusion), to the past 20 hrs of crashing at least once an hour, it has become QUITE aggravating.
Obviously I enjoy the heck out of the game, would love to continue playing it, and would love to further support UWE. But not if the game suddenly becomes actually less playable, which it has, with the past few builds. Hope this is not a trend, and that those of us still suffering from crashes will see fixes SOON and not just be over-looked, since it's not a problem affecting everyone.
Misunderstood UWE.
* Tries to revolutionize the update policy of games: Keeping them alive through change, instead of selling change through DLC.
* Gets hate because it doesn't handle it's game like Blizzard or EA.
Every time UWE boasts about releasing another "DLC" or "expansion" (what shameful misuse of terminology, to call a patch that adds 1 or 2 pieces of content an expansion or even DLC) for free my blood boils. Free patches have been the standard since the begging of the industry and are still the standard for many companies today, puffing yourself up for adhering to said standard makes you look foolish.
Not that I am ungrateful, rock on UWE!
Uh, folks got their games from magazines (included disc or code to be typed if you wanna really go back), mail order, or friends in the early days of the industry. Saying free patches were the standard back then doesn't make UWE look foolish, it makes you look ignorant.
I debated about even bringing this up, but with your idealistic expectations of proper usage of terminology I thought you might be interested.
IMO, I can deal w/ the balance and gameplay changes. I dont have a problem chomping or shooting and I pretty much never turn av on anymore unless I've just taken pwr out to navigate. Even then, it's only a second or two. Dont understand why in one patch, structures are totally reworked in that drifters build structures %70 faster, then fast forward just a few builds, and now drifters cost 8 crazy res! And are made of paper!
Anyways, whatever I can adjust my methods.
What I CANT adjust to is CRASHING DURING EVERY GAME! Especially frustrating as comm/khamm. I do read the forums, I docheck the site many times a day, and I did apply to become a beta tester. If denied because I have limited tech bg, at least I could submit the specs and crashes of my specific PC. But, my issues remain unresolved since 253. 254 and 255 are crash heavy, and I have received almost no input on the tech support side of these forums (have also e-mailed large dumpfiles). From playing 540 hrs mostly crash free (everything ran to full minus bloom/ambient occlusion), to the past 20 hrs of crashing at least once an hour, it has become QUITE aggravating.
Obviously I enjoy the heck out of the game, would love to continue playing it, and would love to further support UWE. But not if the game suddenly becomes actually less playable, which it has, with the past few builds. Hope this is not a trend, and that those of us still suffering from crashes will see fixes SOON and not just be over-looked, since it's not a problem affecting everyone.
For the love of ns2!
253 broke a lot of stuff that it couldn't have possibly foreseen when it added opengl and dx11 rendering. They do extensive testing and do listen to community input. Patch 255 fixed quite a bit of problems for quite a bit of people. They will likely fix these problems rather soon, it is just a matter of addressing the most prominent problems first, and the fact that your issue hasn't been addressed means that it is likely a minority. They have consistently fixed any game breaking problems within a week or two. Would be nice to see their playtest group get a broader set of rigs introduced to it so fewer patches like this happen.
Evil_bOb1Join Date: 2002-07-13Member: 938Members, Squad Five Blue
It appears that natural selection evolves Of course this is not without some sort of trial and error. On the long run, I am certain it will end up as a very polished and rich game. UWE aren't just done with it yet. There is no need to cultivate your frustration. If its not working for you right now take a break and come back in a few. You know already its going to be just fine
Agree with the last few posts. If you've ever experienced trying to support and/or wanting to love a truly failed game... oh say like Aliens: Colonial Marines, you'll realize just how awesome UWE is in this day and age. Games being released completely half-assed, games that look nothing like they were advertised, games that are so obviously, blatantly bad they get actual lawsuits against them, and then are either dropped immediately after the initial pay out (read: sucker punch) or receive a few stupidly overpriced DLC's for a dead game or, if you're lucky, a few throwback patches that might fix something but might break something else before the game is abandoned completely.
No developer feedback, sometimes no communication at all, no support, no explanations, no accountability, just money in the bank and seeya later suckas, off to make our next rip-off title.
And as far as the 'DLC' comment, come on, ever played Call of Duty? They'll release a 'DLC' of 4 maps for 15 fucking dollars! It's unreal, especially for any pc gamer born before 1990, but guess what? People buy them.
UWE could easily charge normal DLC price ($10-$15) for the reinforced additions, but they didn't. Trust me when I tell you that their game is far superior to many that do charge out-the-butt for DLC.
this patch was sorely needed.
I was about to quit in frustration last patch due to how horribly imbalanced the game was in favor of aliens. The new patch has at last evened up the odds imo.
The problem isn't to balance. I believe we are all for that. The problem is the way it's done.
AV ugly as hell and useless most of the time.
Default AV not efficient + teeth = tracking difficulties.
Strafe jump + lag = Bouncing dance
Hit detection seems f***ed
=> dead
If i bite a marine and have a black screen for a second is same to me. If hit detection is modified or ruined aliens don't need all that blocking on the screen (AV + teeth).
On the other hand they could try:
-Slowing alien economy or P-Res
-slow bite speed, give a little extra life.
-Collision push back, so both target separates (skulk / marine).
Many things that was probably submitted in I&S section of this forum.
Now marines jump more than ever. They even mock alien by jumping around (as they know hit detection is changed) with welders when they emptied their clips... come on...
Misunderstood UWE.
* Tries to revolutionize the update policy of games: Keeping them alive through change, instead of selling change through DLC.
* Gets hate because it doesn't handle it's game like Blizzard or EA.
Crazy world...
You're acting like UWE is a dynamic new bold dev team that's just getting sour graps from people who don't "get" their vision.
Its bold when almost no one else is doing it anymore?? I don't get how you don't see that.
By ignoring this behavior and not commending it, you only assist the current trends of poor PC games and ports. Speak up when something was done wrong, but also commend when something was done right.
Otherwise, you are exactly the type of person who if UWE were to sell their updates you would still be raging with comments like "Nickle and dime me huh?? Sell outs!" Leaving one to believe you are just insatiable and shouldn't be given any heed.
Who told you they're changing the game to be accessible to new players? .
It's like you didnt even notice the new ingame tutorials, completely re done tip vids, both in RR and while dead, new video changelogs with explanations, etc etc. 8-}
one of the things in the way of dlc, is potentially fracturing a small community. we don't have the players for them to launch different versions of the game.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@amoral good point, though I'm not entirely convinced we would still have players at all, if they hadn't been constantly updating the game since launch though. I personally wouldn't want to be dealing with that build, still.
If you've really played that long, you should be used to some fuckups. I'm sure they are well aware shit is brokeded. Play a different game until its fixed and move on with life.
No offense but this sounds like new generation whine.
I think UWE delivers pretty good and every game messes up, just cause you can't see it doesnt mean there's no problems and UWE is updating pretty frequently and if you can't play NS2 for a few days untill they patch it then I think you should get something more important to do. And honestly, you can't compare Blizzard and Valve with UWE, that's just silly.
Have some patience.
I'm not too sure what you mean by new generation. Do you mean to this game, or age wise? Like I said, I've been playing since early NS1, and I'm pushing 30 :-??
I'm not saying UWE doesn't deliver. They've made some great changes to the game since I've been playing. They obviously are working very hard at the game, but my whine is about the direction that their hard work is going. I'm not trying to compare UWE to Blizzard and Valve. I used them as an example for the good things that can come out of taking the time to make sure everything is done right. I still believe that UWE will make things right, but it will take time, and I will be patient, but if no one voices their opinion on how things are going, how will they know what they should be working on? That is the whole purpose of my post.
Post number 1 is rage quit number 4. I think that's a new record! Welcome to the forums. The calls for playtesters have been repeatedly made here for a couple of months now, by the way.
Thanks for the welcome They may have been calling for playtesters, but with what medium? Maybe on the forums, but not everyone checks the forums, I didn't until my rant post. It would have been better to post it in the steam news section, that way everyone would have known about it.
So basically you whine because you are no more at the top of the scoreboard on pubs ? Skill is about to adapt, you are not as skillful as you thought, that's alright. However the comparaison between Blizzard/Valve and UWE is dumb as hell. Criticize features is fine, it´s necessary, but make an "attention whore thread" just to say that the game is shit because you no more have the best k/d ratio is childish.
Clearly, you've missed the point. In the first paragraph I said that I would be using score as a reference, not that score matters or that's what I was complaining about. My complaint is that I no longer have fun playing the game and if you're not having fun playing a game, what's the point? I get that skill is about adaptation, and I've done just fine adapting to all the major changes they've made up until this point, even if I didn't quite like all of those changes. You also need to realize that people put in a lot of time into the game to become skilled at it, and when such drastic changes are made that change the core gameplay, all that time invested is nullified. Will I eventually adapt? Yes. Is it fun? Not in my opinion.
As I said in the above paragraphs, I was not comparing those massive companies to a small indie dev such as UWE, I was using Bliz and Valve as an example for what can be done when the time is taken to do it right. I also never said that the game was shit because my K/D ratio was poor, I don't care about K/D ratio, I care about having fun. When I sucked at the game during my learning phase, I was still having fun. I am no longer having fun with the game.
First they put a big sign that they were in a need of beta testers. It was a month ago, if I'm not mistaken. Hugh did a video about it too, so they are not responsible for your unawareness.
The changes were made to make the game more accessible, more intuitive to new players and to address some balance problems. I like that they try different stuff, unlike many other companies, who only stick to what is proven and milk their player base.
Does it suck to have the mouse lag and the worse performance? Yes, it does but this is software and software breaks. Patience is a virtue, someponies say.
Well, when they are looking for people to do beta testing, it kind of is their responsibility to make sure everyone is aware they are looking. Steam news would have been the perfect place to advertise the fact. I have never checked the forums until this recent patch, and I'm sure many people are the same. Everyone that plays will go through steam, and will see the news. I like the fact that UWE is trying different things as well, I really like the idea of Reinforced, but when those things they are trying are not working, that's when it becomes a problem. Drastic game changing/breaking changes seem to be a trend that's been ongoing recently, it's not the first time.
I will be patient. I have faith in UWE, but I also want to voice my opinion on what these changes are doing to me as a player.
After the release in october 2012 uwe released new features like: gorgetunnel, Exos, grenades, new maps ...
Every of this new features need rebalancing of the previous stuff.
This is "normal" in an asymetric game an you can not compare new features in NS2 with new weapons in BF3 or another shooter.
You get this new features for FREE. Something like the female Marine would be an "Booster Pack" in the EA-world=5$ extra.
Instead of "Thank you UWE, that you still advancing the game 1 year after release", people complain about "Oh god, i have to relearn things again"
All this "relearning" is done within 1 hr. This is the time where to have 2-3 matches on the new biodome map.
"Oh god, a new map. I have to relearn where to go"
The playercounts are small compare to other multi-millionen dollar blockbuster games. What a suprise.
But without these updates, changes, improvements the game would be really dead.
To the OP: You never be on the forum before, noone knows you here. And as noone going to miss you here, have fun with the "gold making" developers.
I acknowledge the fact that they are working hard on the game continually, and I think it's great. I just think that the direction of all that hard work is misdirected sometimes. Re-balancing is fine, but lately it's been far beyond balance changes. Every update seems like a whole new game. I already love the game, just work on making it perfect, don't completely redesign everything.
The game would not be dead without constant changes. Look at Counter-Strike, there is still a healthy player base. When was the last time that was updated? I continued to play NS1 for a very long time after they stopped updating it. A good game is timeless. I guess people should stop playing chess cause it hasn't been updated recently.
I've been a supporter in the NS community since the beginning, and I would be willing to bet; a lot longer than you. Just because I've never been on the forums, I guess I should just piss off? Nice.
if you want to put this dev on a pedestal, they would need to do something along the lines of
1) apologize
2) offer people a refund
3) communicate when the game is actually in a state they are satisfied with
note what isn't on that list:
1) ask people for more money
2) unleash a horde of white-knights to try and discredit anyone who has a negative opinion
an example of how to manage a community when you want to use a live release as a beta for an extended period of time:
Putting Things Right...
Postby Mecron » Sun Oct 30, 2011 9:36 pm
If you are a Kerberos and/or a SotS fan then please just enjoy the game as you can over the next few weeks. I know you want to help as much as possible but to be honest you should NOT be rewarded for your support with more work. Your feedback is appreciated but in no means are you expected to act as testers or hunt bugs. Literally your patience and continued support is more than enough.
If you truely feel like you have been dumped into an unannounced beta test on this game, then please, I ask you to put the game away and not look at it till someone fires off the "all done" flag. I am not going to tell you that you should not feel this way. What I am going to say is that if you feel this way then you should not feel victimized any more than if you had made a pre-order and then been informed of a delay. I know this does not make it all right but at least it should make it clear that no one wants to use you as a beta tester nor was that ever the intent.
And finally, if you are in the camp that still feels robbed by the time you have reached this point of my post I can only offer what I can. We are fixing it and we need folks to either cheer, step aside or get out of the way cause vitriol is not going to help right now. If you demand a refund then I completely understand and you can be assured, the cost of that will make it directly to us. We will feel your "voting with your dollars", you can be sure about that and we accept that as fair play. On the other hand, if a free copy of the orginal SotS will help tide you over while we get this game shined from turnip to jewel, then please write to "contact@kerberos-productions.com" and we will set you up. If nothing else, if you are not familiar with how we support our products, you can play it and then ask the old-timers how much it changed over the years and that may reassure you.
THE ALL CLEAR!
Postby Mecron » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:15 am
Hey folks!
Sorry for the long wait but I am extremely happy and proud to give the all clear signal and invite you all back to a bright and shiny SotS2. While “all clear” in no way means support for the game has ended or that we have no plans for additions, it does mean that the game is in the shape we would have wished it to be upon release. From here we will be going on to a regularly scheduled set of updates that continue to fill out and flesh out the SotS2 universe as well as adding new maps, scenarios and plenty of quality of life suggestions.
probably better than people getting bored of checking whether the game is done sucking and telling their friends how broken it is.
the main reason NS2 has its minuscule level of player retention is lack of competition in the subgenre, not because the patience devs expect from players is at a reasonable level
Its bold when almost no one else is doing it anymore?? I don't get how you don't see that.
By ignoring this behavior and not commending it, you only assist the current trends of poor PC games and ports. Speak up when something was done wrong, but also commend when something was done right.
It's good that these updates are free. It is not a bold move though; had they been released as DLC, this would have split the small playerbase, resulting in a dead game. So this move was more inevitable than bold. It was a good one, surely, and combined with the reinforcement program can help keep NS2 on track.
If most companies do it wrong (charging for minor DLC like maps and skins) and you do it right, then it's just that - doing the right thing. Not bold in any way.
@amoral good point, though I'm not entirely convinced we would still have players at all, if they hadn't been constantly updating the game since launch though. I personally wouldn't want to be dealing with that build, still.
Not changing half the game every second patch does not mean no changes being introduced. It means changes can come, but on a more slow pace, better designed and thought through. A slower evolution would have benefitted NS2 much more imho.
At some point you can not balance this game with numbers anymore. The reason you don't see drastic changes in other games, is that they offer straight forward symmetric game play. If a gun is op in battlefield, you can simply adjust the numbers of that weapons, but that only works since every player has the same possibilities.
The gameplay in NS is somewhat unique. Not only has it two factions that play completely different in combat, you also have 2 different kinds of economy / tech systems behind them (e.g. aliens are much more dependent on pres than marines and vice virca).
That is why you can not "simply increase" the damage of the rifle. Something that might fix one end, might completely break the other.
If that all wouldn't be enough, you also have different stages of balance as the game progresses. The balance in the early game might be completely different that in the late game. The numbers are dynamically changing.
UWE has to make these kind of big changes in order to balance the game for every setup. For example the alien movement changes in 250 were made, because even bad fades were able to dominate equally skilled marines, while good fades had a hard time killing good shotgun marines.
The skill/strength scaling between alien movement + aim and marine movement + aim was off.
Yet another factors were performance / netcode / hitboxes / animations . Just through the improvement of these factors, you had to rebalance the game accordingly. Back in the beta lerks were unhittable, because of low performance.
What I'm trying to say is that you can not really blame UWE. Not only did they write a new engine (including a full set of modding tools), and therefore had to spend a lot of resources on performance, they also made a game that is unique and very complex in gameplay. They couldn't just play some others game and copy+paste the ideas and mechanics. They had to balance and add features via trial and error, but this takes a lot of time, since the players have to adapt to these changes first in order to judge if it works or not.
I respect UWE more than any other company for that.
Saying that they should just upgrade the rifle damage versus skulks was perhaps too simple of an example, and that's not what I'm saying they should do. I was trying to make the point that balance changes should be more subtle. I understand that the game has many different factors to take into account when balancing, but the fact is, when you change nearly everything about the game with every other patch, there's no way in hell you'll ever be able to ever balance everything. You'll just be forever trying to balance what was unbalanced in the patch before. Decide what you want the game to be and stick with it, then balance.
OP, I'm sorry you're experiencing such awful gameplay. Given your alleged skill, though, I'm genuinely surprised you're struggling this much. I'm an NS1 vet but only recently got a computer capable of handling NS2, so I've got only about 60-70 hours logged. Though I still struggle at times, I haven't experienced anything near as bad as going 0-15. And I don't play on rookie servers.
IMHO, just keep at it! I think Reinforced bettered overall gameplay significantly, even if there are some technical issues that still need to be worked through. I'm not a huge fan of new marine movement or the mouse issue. At least in terms of the mouse issue, it'll be fixed.
Thanks for the sympathy. All the changes aside, my biggest problem is with my mouse. I can land one bite/shot, but as soon as they start moving, I can no longer follow them. I always land up overshooting or undershooting, it's a very strange feeling. This is main reason for the horrible time I've been having, but it was the 'straw that broke the camels back' that made me finally decide to come and voice my opinion on how the game has been evolving as of late.
Comments
The gameplay in NS is somewhat unique. Not only has it two factions that play completely different in combat, you also have 2 different kinds of economy / tech systems behind them (e.g. aliens are much more dependent on pres than marines and vice virca).
Each part directly influences the other part.
Alien strength <> Marine strenth
^___________________________^
v___________________________v
Alien Econemy<> Marine Econemy
The problem now is that the balance between these parts is greatly influenced by teamplay and personal skill.
A game without teamplay and average skill may look like this:
Alien strength(60%) <> Marine strenth(40%)
^___________________________^
v___________________________v
Alien Econemy(55%)<> Marine Econemy (45%)
A game with teamplay and above average skill may look like this:
Alien strength(30%) <> Marine strenth(70%)
^___________________________^
v___________________________v
Alien Econemy(35%)<> Marine Econemy (65%)
That is why you can not "simply increase" the damage of the rifle. Something that might fix one end, might completely break the other.
If that all wouldn't be enough, you also have different stages of balance as the game progresses. The balance in the early game might be completely different that in the late game. The numbers are dynamically changing.
UWE has to make these kind of big changes in order to balance the game for every setup. For example the alien movement changes in 250 were made, because even bad fades were able to dominate equally skilled marines, while good fades had a hard time killing good shotgun marines.
The skill/strength scaling between alien movement + aim and marine movement + aim was off.
Yet another factors were performance / netcode / hitboxes / animations . Just through the improvement of these factors, you had to rebalance the game accordingly. Back in the beta lerks were unhittable, because of low performance.
What I'm trying to say is that you can not really blame UWE. Not only did they write a new engine (including a full set of modding tools), and therefore had to spend a lot of resources on performance, they also made a game that is unique and very complex in gameplay. They couldn't just play some others game and copy+paste the ideas and mechanics. They had to balance and add features via trial and error, but this takes a lot of time, since the players have to adapt to these changes first in order to judge if it works or not.
I respect UWE more than any other company for that.
I'm sorry but its nowhere near as easy to track marines as the with previous alien vision enabled, not even close, hence its a nerf. I frequently get surprised in rooms by extra marines that I did not notice before committing to an attack.
Any chance you could re-format your essay down to 10 point-form points?
HEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I was about to quit in frustration last patch due to how horribly imbalanced the game was in favor of aliens. The new patch has at last evened up the odds imo.
I'm sorry that you have trouble with the new stuff but no pony is forcing you to play the game. There are other stuff in life, not only NS2...
By the way, the new patch fixed my performance issues for the most part, so have some bloody faith in the creators and be patient.
Live long and prosper! V_
Seriously, of all the threads made by new posters I think maybe 2 were worth reading.
Balancing and even experimentation are good things in game. I applaud this development crew for trying new things, collecting data, and shaping the way this game evolves. Those are things to be admired in a Dev, but for me to admire them I need to have a playable experience.
For such a small, independent team without big money this is a great archievement. Combine this is UWEs great attitude towards the community, free updates non-stop (not like Battlefield for example)... big thumbs up for UWE!!
Opinions and Onions everywhere
IMHO, just keep at it! I think Reinforced bettered overall gameplay significantly, even if there are some technical issues that still need to be worked through. I'm not a huge fan of new marine movement or the mouse issue. At least in terms of the mouse issue, it'll be fixed.
The game remains the same, but you may have to take a bit and not be dominating everyone while you learn/relearn some new tactics.
I used to be on the fence about it, but now I think that changes like these were not only necessary, but make the game far more interesting for most players. So long as the game isn't abandoned, I'll try and embrace changes so long as the goal is a better game.
I'm not quite sure why they keep pushing these patches, which only seem to make things worse. Surely the playtest team catches these bugs though?
Every time UWE boasts about releasing another "DLC" or "expansion" (what shameful misuse of terminology, to call a patch that adds 1 or 2 pieces of content an expansion or even DLC) for free my blood boils. Free patches have been the standard since the begging of the industry and are still the standard for many companies today, puffing yourself up for adhering to said standard makes you look foolish.
Not that I am ungrateful, rock on UWE!
Anyways, whatever I can adjust my methods.
What I CANT adjust to is CRASHING DURING EVERY GAME! Especially frustrating as comm/khamm. I do read the forums, I docheck the site many times a day, and I did apply to become a beta tester. If denied because I have limited tech bg, at least I could submit the specs and crashes of my specific PC. But, my issues remain unresolved since 253. 254 and 255 are crash heavy, and I have received almost no input on the tech support side of these forums (have also e-mailed large dumpfiles). From playing 540 hrs mostly crash free (everything ran to full minus bloom/ambient occlusion), to the past 20 hrs of crashing at least once an hour, it has become QUITE aggravating.
Obviously I enjoy the heck out of the game, would love to continue playing it, and would love to further support UWE. But not if the game suddenly becomes actually less playable, which it has, with the past few builds. Hope this is not a trend, and that those of us still suffering from crashes will see fixes SOON and not just be over-looked, since it's not a problem affecting everyone.
For the love of ns2!
Uh, folks got their games from magazines (included disc or code to be typed if you wanna really go back), mail order, or friends in the early days of the industry. Saying free patches were the standard back then doesn't make UWE look foolish, it makes you look ignorant.
I debated about even bringing this up, but with your idealistic expectations of proper usage of terminology I thought you might be interested.
No developer feedback, sometimes no communication at all, no support, no explanations, no accountability, just money in the bank and seeya later suckas, off to make our next rip-off title.
And as far as the 'DLC' comment, come on, ever played Call of Duty? They'll release a 'DLC' of 4 maps for 15 fucking dollars! It's unreal, especially for any pc gamer born before 1990, but guess what? People buy them.
UWE could easily charge normal DLC price ($10-$15) for the reinforced additions, but they didn't. Trust me when I tell you that their game is far superior to many that do charge out-the-butt for DLC.
The problem isn't to balance. I believe we are all for that. The problem is the way it's done.
AV ugly as hell and useless most of the time.
Default AV not efficient + teeth = tracking difficulties.
Strafe jump + lag = Bouncing dance
Hit detection seems f***ed
=> dead
If i bite a marine and have a black screen for a second is same to me. If hit detection is modified or ruined aliens don't need all that blocking on the screen (AV + teeth).
On the other hand they could try:
-Slowing alien economy or P-Res
-slow bite speed, give a little extra life.
-Collision push back, so both target separates (skulk / marine).
Many things that was probably submitted in I&S section of this forum.
Now marines jump more than ever. They even mock alien by jumping around (as they know hit detection is changed) with welders when they emptied their clips... come on...
By ignoring this behavior and not commending it, you only assist the current trends of poor PC games and ports. Speak up when something was done wrong, but also commend when something was done right.
Otherwise, you are exactly the type of person who if UWE were to sell their updates you would still be raging with comments like "Nickle and dime me huh?? Sell outs!" Leaving one to believe you are just insatiable and shouldn't be given any heed.
It's like you didnt even notice the new ingame tutorials, completely re done tip vids, both in RR and while dead, new video changelogs with explanations, etc etc. 8-}
I'm not too sure what you mean by new generation. Do you mean to this game, or age wise? Like I said, I've been playing since early NS1, and I'm pushing 30 :-??
I'm not saying UWE doesn't deliver. They've made some great changes to the game since I've been playing. They obviously are working very hard at the game, but my whine is about the direction that their hard work is going. I'm not trying to compare UWE to Blizzard and Valve. I used them as an example for the good things that can come out of taking the time to make sure everything is done right. I still believe that UWE will make things right, but it will take time, and I will be patient, but if no one voices their opinion on how things are going, how will they know what they should be working on? That is the whole purpose of my post.
Thanks for the welcome
Clearly, you've missed the point. In the first paragraph I said that I would be using score as a reference, not that score matters or that's what I was complaining about. My complaint is that I no longer have fun playing the game and if you're not having fun playing a game, what's the point? I get that skill is about adaptation, and I've done just fine adapting to all the major changes they've made up until this point, even if I didn't quite like all of those changes. You also need to realize that people put in a lot of time into the game to become skilled at it, and when such drastic changes are made that change the core gameplay, all that time invested is nullified. Will I eventually adapt? Yes. Is it fun? Not in my opinion.
As I said in the above paragraphs, I was not comparing those massive companies to a small indie dev such as UWE, I was using Bliz and Valve as an example for what can be done when the time is taken to do it right. I also never said that the game was shit because my K/D ratio was poor, I don't care about K/D ratio, I care about having fun. When I sucked at the game during my learning phase, I was still having fun. I am no longer having fun with the game.
Well, when they are looking for people to do beta testing, it kind of is their responsibility to make sure everyone is aware they are looking. Steam news would have been the perfect place to advertise the fact. I have never checked the forums until this recent patch, and I'm sure many people are the same. Everyone that plays will go through steam, and will see the news. I like the fact that UWE is trying different things as well, I really like the idea of Reinforced, but when those things they are trying are not working, that's when it becomes a problem. Drastic game changing/breaking changes seem to be a trend that's been ongoing recently, it's not the first time.
I will be patient. I have faith in UWE, but I also want to voice my opinion on what these changes are doing to me as a player.
I acknowledge the fact that they are working hard on the game continually, and I think it's great. I just think that the direction of all that hard work is misdirected sometimes. Re-balancing is fine, but lately it's been far beyond balance changes. Every update seems like a whole new game. I already love the game, just work on making it perfect, don't completely redesign everything.
The game would not be dead without constant changes. Look at Counter-Strike, there is still a healthy player base. When was the last time that was updated? I continued to play NS1 for a very long time after they stopped updating it. A good game is timeless. I guess people should stop playing chess cause it hasn't been updated recently.
I've been a supporter in the NS community since the beginning, and I would be willing to bet; a lot longer than you. Just because I've never been on the forums, I guess I should just piss off? Nice.
1) apologize
2) offer people a refund
3) communicate when the game is actually in a state they are satisfied with
note what isn't on that list:
1) ask people for more money
2) unleash a horde of white-knights to try and discredit anyone who has a negative opinion
an example of how to manage a community when you want to use a live release as a beta for an extended period of time:
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=22033
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=35604
probably better than people getting bored of checking whether the game is done sucking and telling their friends how broken it is.
the main reason NS2 has its minuscule level of player retention is lack of competition in the subgenre, not because the patience devs expect from players is at a reasonable level
It's good that these updates are free. It is not a bold move though; had they been released as DLC, this would have split the small playerbase, resulting in a dead game. So this move was more inevitable than bold. It was a good one, surely, and combined with the reinforcement program can help keep NS2 on track.
If most companies do it wrong (charging for minor DLC like maps and skins) and you do it right, then it's just that - doing the right thing. Not bold in any way.
Not changing half the game every second patch does not mean no changes being introduced. It means changes can come, but on a more slow pace, better designed and thought through. A slower evolution would have benefitted NS2 much more imho.
Saying that they should just upgrade the rifle damage versus skulks was perhaps too simple of an example, and that's not what I'm saying they should do. I was trying to make the point that balance changes should be more subtle. I understand that the game has many different factors to take into account when balancing, but the fact is, when you change nearly everything about the game with every other patch, there's no way in hell you'll ever be able to ever balance everything. You'll just be forever trying to balance what was unbalanced in the patch before. Decide what you want the game to be and stick with it, then balance.
Your first post included then. We all have to start somewhere. I'm not saying bye, I'm voicing my opinion.
Thanks for the sympathy. All the changes aside, my biggest problem is with my mouse. I can land one bite/shot, but as soon as they start moving, I can no longer follow them. I always land up overshooting or undershooting, it's a very strange feeling. This is main reason for the horrible time I've been having, but it was the 'straw that broke the camels back' that made me finally decide to come and voice my opinion on how the game has been evolving as of late.