The game might have taken the road to balance out stuff, but it had to throw usefull and fun tactics/abilities overboard. And he is right, compared to ns1, there is no atmosphere left. The bright maps and watered down music are one point. The other is that the bright green infestation made it unnecessary to create dark and destroyed alien start locations etc. But the worst thing in my opinion is that you don't fear or at least respect aliens as a thread. You can take on everything and with jp/sg you have no natural enemies whereas aliens have to retreat way too often and early.
I understand that you had to make aliens weaker because you added alien comm and tres in order to counter the resulting lifeform explosion (no alien has to save for a hive/rt/upgrades anymore = six 8min oni during the beta). But then again I don't understand why rines get exos with unlimited ammo and nerve gas, but acid rockets and ranged spores are considered "bad and annoying gameplay". They might be easy to use, but they also stopped a rine rush and soften targets up so you can actually attack a siege position (arc train of doom in ns2).
I have seen aliens and rines dominate in this build. So I don't complain about balance, but I can say that playing or watching aliens ain't as much fun as it used to be. And that two techpoint marines can beat two hive aliens step by step on veil even if the aliens hold everything but the two techpoints for most of the time. Without ranged spores and strong onos, aliens have to rely on bile bomb or mass onos. And mass onos takes time to get and gorges are no match against shotguns. Oh there is another thing...why add covers to the veil vents to stop bilebomb? It is like bile is the only reliable thing left for aliens (despite the nerfes) and yet the devs dont want it to be used :P
In short: Most things that were fun for ns1/ns2 aliens got removed or nerfed while rines get more and more offensive and fun stuff for the sake of balance.
I just hope ns2 stops to evolve soon (no more mod breaking) and there are still people left who will create some good modifications that can bind more people for a long time.
Atmosphere can be used to describe the emotional environment of a situation.. in this case, a game. I believe for those of us who speak passionately about atmosphere use this form of the word.
A forum member had made me rethink why I enjoyed NS1 with their comment(cannot find currently); I enjoyed Natural Selection because it was on the HL engine- the assets available led to a "space derelict" theme that fit the game in such a way that I fell in love with. It is the sum of all visual and audio assets that NS1 had that made it bleed that feeling of a dying or distressed environment ready to collapse.
In comparison, NS2 is very clean and sterile. @[AwE]Sentinel has already touched on this point.
You know an oldschool fps without atmosphere? Because I think that old games in general had more atmosphere = more awesomeness. And that without loosing focus on for example pvp mechanics. Space Marines versus Aliens...that screams for atmosphere
edit: You are right, it is a matter of taste. But fire the old ns1 pistol and fire the ns2 pistol and then tell me that atmosphere is futile or a noisence for "oldschool fps". It won't at least make things worse.
Also back then Aliens were scary to fight against. Nowadays I can go toe-toe with anything up to a fade with a rifle completely confident in winning. In the fades case I usually lose, but inflict enough damage that he's forced to go back and heal, and If I'm using a shotgun I feel completely safe in going against a fade..
I really wish the fade was as scary as it was in NS1, where it could very likely take out 3 members of a group solo very easily. If you didn't have a shotgun there was no hope for you at all. Even if you did, there was a good chance you'd lose in a pair (if it was running upgrades), no hope solo.
You remember b250?
"ooh, fades so op, please nerf, they take down an entire team at once!"
Also back then Aliens were scary to fight against. Nowadays I can go toe-toe with anything up to a fade with a rifle completely confident in winning. In the fades case I usually lose, but inflict enough damage that he's forced to go back and heal, and If I'm using a shotgun I feel completely safe in going against a fade..
I really wish the fade was as scary as it was in NS1, where it could very likely take out 3 members of a group solo very easily. If you didn't have a shotgun there was no hope for you at all. Even if you did, there was a good chance you'd lose in a pair (if it was running upgrades), no hope solo.
You remember b250?
"ooh, fades so op, please nerf, they take down an entire team at once!"
...
Idk what you guys want.
I don't know what people want, they're mostly morons, what I want is super fades but a forced pres sink to stop them exploding causing the 'fade ball'. In ns1 that was the hive + res node drops, I don't really know how to force it in ns2, but I'd love to see a smaller number of more powerful fades that cost more and were actually game changing rather than game stalling.
The problem wasn't ever the power of the fades in b250, it was how powerful they were for how many you could have without trading off something significant (like no 2nd hive or res nodes). If there had (and this is stupid but stay with me a moment) been a hard cap of 2 fades for 6v6 play and say 4 fades for 12v12 or something (I dunno how many for pub, and can't be bothered thinking up a good number), no one would have bitched that the fade was op.
The problem was, teams were going 4 even 5 fades sometimes in 6v6 play with no down side, they still damaged buildings and since all buildings are tres drops they lose nothing there either. The only thing they might miss out on was a gorge for defences if they were to go 5 fades, and even then, at the time the comm could still jump out and go gorge so...
Thing is, Marines don't have to be afraid of the dark, bickering, defend hard faught RT nozzles and thinking up strategies as a team to break the might of Aliens. In NS2 they can frolick in bright places, jumping about, happily break essential cyst-chains, let ARC do their job, oneshot anything that tries crawling out of its vent and solo a hive with JP. Then suddenly Aliens manage to lead a successful Gorge rush from sneaky tunnel or everyone saved up for higherlife forms and more or less evolved at the same time, securing a win for Aliens. GG. Aliens OP.
In NS2 the roles are swapped. Marines often follow the same patterns that lead to victory, trying to suffocate Aliens with the early advantage and harass they have. While Aliens try to turn the tides by defending a strategic point until its time for them to shine or try to turn the tides with a well-timed rush. Afterwards its often just going down for Marines.
Atmosphere is nowhere to be found in that kind of gameplay.
I think the game is great in its current state (mind you, I haven't played the first one). The power node mechanic is a great way to either illuminate the rooms for the marines, or leave them swathed in darkness for the aliens
It's a moot point to me anyway because people adjust their monitors. If you want a darker game, turn down your brightness... If UWE turns down the brightness, it's the same thing. The people you play against are going to set it however they want anyway.
NS2 is designed for competitive gameplay. If you care too much about balance you have to partially sacrifice things like atmosphere and fun for regular players (not really interested in things like ensl leagues or even any kind of organized competition). I don't like it too. Moreover I think it's the reason why it's rather not very popular game concerning it's fantastic potential and sci-fi/alien climate. This may be why even more frequent sales have no real effect. I have heard UWE is currently working on next project - my guess is they are going to cut it off. This is too small team to forget about what they've done so far and if they want to sale more games they need to give priority not to things like competitive organized leagues. And it'd sound like NS3 for regular/casual players while still maintaining (a bit) NS2 for others. It could be awesome.
If that were true, it would be more balanced than it is right now.
This is small team of developers and the game looks like difficult to find very good balance to satisfy every 'competitive' player especially as we know what pain in the ass they can be. But surely I'm new player of NS2 and may be just wrong.
If that were true, it would be more balanced than it is right now.
This is small team of developers and the game looks like difficult to find very good balance to satisfy every 'competitive' player especially as we know what pain in the ass they can be. But surely I'm new player of NS2 and may be just wrong.
Yes, obviously all comp players are complete pains in the ass.
Do you see a difference between "what pain in the ass they can be" and "obviously all comp players are complete pains in the ass"? Because I do. Don't put your word in my mouth.
I liked ns2 a long time, however i was for the slow tactical rts type of gameplay, so i quit playing ns2 for quite a while now already.
Looking here and there if something changes back to a more tactical version, but i doubt it will.
So yes you're not alone with the feeling that ns2 lost its atmospheric's and players (at least-me).
I wouldnt even mind to mod it back to a more atmospheric/tactical/rts+shooter type of game, but alone its just to much work and i dont know if there would be even enough playerbase for it. At least i would think that such a sort doesnt really exist (anymore).
But with some help on the mod part i would try to get some of the feeling back.
Do you see a difference between "what pain in the ass they can be" and "obviously all comp players are complete pains in the ass"? Because I do. Don't put your word in my mouth.
The difference between insinuating that all comp players 'can be a pain in the ass' and saying they are pains in the ass is basically zero.
If I said "pub players can be totally unskilled muppets who don't listen, can't cooperate, have zero game sense and don't understand the mechanics of the game," you and others would rightly spam the disagree button, because while the technical language used states 'can be,' an entirely true statement, the clear meaning behind is that that is how they are and it is disrespectful and misleading.
You were the one who put the phrases 'competitive player' and 'we know what a pain in the ass they can be' together as a would-be factual, blanket statement. Don't be surprised if that causes offence.
Do you see a difference between "what pain in the ass they can be" and "obviously all comp players are complete pains in the ass"? Because I do. Don't put your word in my mouth.
NS2 is player vs. player so the team that plays at a faster pace is usually going to win. Low skill servers usually have slow paced games that take 20-30 minutes.
Came back after a long while to find a game that feels completely bland lacking any of the atmosphere of when it released.
Levels are always lit with it no longer feeling either scary as a marine hearing the footsteps approaching in the darkness or like the hunter stalking its prey in the shadows.
There is less tactical elements tied to lighting since marines always have the advantage and are even rewarded for NOT building power nodes in areas since lighting is always on and cannot be turned off if they don't build it.
Emergency lights are much brighter than the original shadows and as such still don't bring the original feel to it for either side.
Alien vision and marine flashlight are almost completely pointless now since levels remain bright 99% of the time.
WTF did you do to this game? It just feels bland lacking anything on both sides that gave the game its feel.
The game since when it was first released has been overrun with fps kids, its not what it use to be. Marines are easy to play almost so that you can casually play marines, where the alien team needs good players to win. The current balance is also catering to 5v5 competitive clan play which is stupid since most servers worth playing are 18 24 or 32 player servers.
a lot of good ns2 players have stopped playing the game, including myself. I'm a dedicated alien player and everytime I start off with a skulk it feels like i'm running in water,(I can out run anyone pro with a skulk, take 1 bite speed hits 0 - marines jumps 10 feet away and you eat a clip before u can get to him again) it frustrates me to no end how the game has ended up I have over 500 hours of gameplay. But i have hope, I'll keep checking in to this website to see if any big changes take place.
Metal ManJoin Date: 2011-11-13Member: 132717Members
I don't play any more but I am bored as a bag of donkey balls so i thought I would say some stuff.
To the people saying this is a competitive game: It is not. The performance is too crap for many to play it competitively. Years before the game was even released I had wet dreams about forming an NS2 clan and playing scrims and clan matches. To this day the game runs like garbage on all low settings so this is an impossibility for me. Other than this game, there is not a single game in the entire known universe (single or online multiplayer) that my baller PC has had trouble running. What a joke. You are an "indie" company with great aspirations. And i respect the hell out of that. But why make an indie game so taxing. Rich pricks with a crap load of money should not be your target demographic. I mean, you should want anyone and everyone to enjoy your game... but indie games have a certain draw because they are cheap and accessible. This contradicts all that b. So sure it could be called competitive... for goddamn pricks and shits in dubai and shit like that man!
And all the people saying it should be more atmospheric: Well this is tough. This game has more objects, and design, and dynamic events, and colors, and particle and lighting effects for the atmosphere to really shine (disregarding performance). For some reason all this clutter has made the atmosphere so weak. Honestly I'm too hungry to go about explaining this. But NS1 had more atmosphere than this game. I can't quite say why, but it has no suspense or tension, and it has nothing to do with the lightning but I think more because of the gameplay. You don't turn a corner often and find a skulk pop up out of nowhere and bite your face off. Everything is "standoffish." Not Standof Fish. Standoff-ish. Its like most shooters, intense and action-packed, which is cool. But man i used to be so tense in NS1 when a round starts and you leave the base and enter the dark domain. And it was kind of scary as an alien too running into a marine. I'm not a goddamn author I can't articulate or make sense of my thoughts but goddamnit they are right just see this.
IMHO. Dynamic infestation ruined this game. It is slow and choppy and boring and removes all competitive shit men. It reveals location and strategy and really offers nothing in return. And in trying to create atmosphere it kills it because it drives out suspense and scary thoughts. Also that alien commander is just gimmicky and silly. Just get rid of that boy and make the gorges team camms and make aliens real time strategize by their own alien means! And dude that onos he right up piss me off!
Atmosphere matters, it just doesn't triumph game-play for me and to be perfectly honest if I can disable it to give me an advantage, I probably would.
But I do really miss the back-ground music you had on NS1 along with the maps feeling a lot more atmospheric. Not necessarily cause they were more dim but the sound overall was much more present. You could hear dripping of water, bending of metal beams under their weight, ventilation fan noise and so on. NS2 doesn't really have any of that, sure it makes hearing the enemy that much easier but sound is a key factor to atmosphere that is sorely missing.
I think the graphics are in the right place, bit bright maybe but with gamma and all you might as well. Sound is what's really missing for me.
I could swear I saw a vid a while back where buildings had much more ambient noise, something from the alpha days I believe.
Comments
The game might have taken the road to balance out stuff, but it had to throw usefull and fun tactics/abilities overboard. And he is right, compared to ns1, there is no atmosphere left. The bright maps and watered down music are one point. The other is that the bright green infestation made it unnecessary to create dark and destroyed alien start locations etc. But the worst thing in my opinion is that you don't fear or at least respect aliens as a thread. You can take on everything and with jp/sg you have no natural enemies whereas aliens have to retreat way too often and early.
I understand that you had to make aliens weaker because you added alien comm and tres in order to counter the resulting lifeform explosion (no alien has to save for a hive/rt/upgrades anymore = six 8min oni during the beta). But then again I don't understand why rines get exos with unlimited ammo and nerve gas, but acid rockets and ranged spores are considered "bad and annoying gameplay". They might be easy to use, but they also stopped a rine rush and soften targets up so you can actually attack a siege position (arc train of doom in ns2).
I have seen aliens and rines dominate in this build. So I don't complain about balance, but I can say that playing or watching aliens ain't as much fun as it used to be. And that two techpoint marines can beat two hive aliens step by step on veil even if the aliens hold everything but the two techpoints for most of the time. Without ranged spores and strong onos, aliens have to rely on bile bomb or mass onos. And mass onos takes time to get and gorges are no match against shotguns. Oh there is another thing...why add covers to the veil vents to stop bilebomb? It is like bile is the only reliable thing left for aliens (despite the nerfes) and yet the devs dont want it to be used :P
In short: Most things that were fun for ns1/ns2 aliens got removed or nerfed while rines get more and more offensive and fun stuff for the sake of balance.
I just hope ns2 stops to evolve soon (no more mod breaking) and there are still people left who will create some good modifications that can bind more people for a long time.
All these points are based on conjecture and opinion. The things people will complain about are just amazing.
A forum member had made me rethink why I enjoyed NS1 with their comment(cannot find currently); I enjoyed Natural Selection because it was on the HL engine- the assets available led to a "space derelict" theme that fit the game in such a way that I fell in love with. It is the sum of all visual and audio assets that NS1 had that made it bleed that feeling of a dying or distressed environment ready to collapse.
In comparison, NS2 is very clean and sterile. @[AwE]Sentinel has already touched on this point.
That is why I played a FPS for atmosphere.
edit: You are right, it is a matter of taste. But fire the old ns1 pistol and fire the ns2 pistol and then tell me that atmosphere is futile or a noisence for "oldschool fps". It won't at least make things worse.
You remember b250?
"ooh, fades so op, please nerf, they take down an entire team at once!"
...
Idk what you guys want.
I don't know what people want, they're mostly morons, what I want is super fades but a forced pres sink to stop them exploding causing the 'fade ball'. In ns1 that was the hive + res node drops, I don't really know how to force it in ns2, but I'd love to see a smaller number of more powerful fades that cost more and were actually game changing rather than game stalling.
The problem wasn't ever the power of the fades in b250, it was how powerful they were for how many you could have without trading off something significant (like no 2nd hive or res nodes). If there had (and this is stupid but stay with me a moment) been a hard cap of 2 fades for 6v6 play and say 4 fades for 12v12 or something (I dunno how many for pub, and can't be bothered thinking up a good number), no one would have bitched that the fade was op.
The problem was, teams were going 4 even 5 fades sometimes in 6v6 play with no down side, they still damaged buildings and since all buildings are tres drops they lose nothing there either. The only thing they might miss out on was a gorge for defences if they were to go 5 fades, and even then, at the time the comm could still jump out and go gorge so...
In NS2 the roles are swapped. Marines often follow the same patterns that lead to victory, trying to suffocate Aliens with the early advantage and harass they have. While Aliens try to turn the tides by defending a strategic point until its time for them to shine or try to turn the tides with a well-timed rush. Afterwards its often just going down for Marines.
Atmosphere is nowhere to be found in that kind of gameplay.
If that were true, it would be more balanced than it is right now.
Yes, obviously all comp players are complete pains in the ass.
Nice way to introduce yourself to our community.
Looking here and there if something changes back to a more tactical version, but i doubt it will.
So yes you're not alone with the feeling that ns2 lost its atmospheric's and players (at least-me).
I wouldnt even mind to mod it back to a more atmospheric/tactical/rts+shooter type of game, but alone its just to much work and i dont know if there would be even enough playerbase for it. At least i would think that such a sort doesnt really exist (anymore).
But with some help on the mod part i would try to get some of the feeling back.
The difference between insinuating that all comp players 'can be a pain in the ass' and saying they are pains in the ass is basically zero.
If I said "pub players can be totally unskilled muppets who don't listen, can't cooperate, have zero game sense and don't understand the mechanics of the game," you and others would rightly spam the disagree button, because while the technical language used states 'can be,' an entirely true statement, the clear meaning behind is that that is how they are and it is disrespectful and misleading.
You were the one who put the phrases 'competitive player' and 'we know what a pain in the ass they can be' together as a would-be factual, blanket statement. Don't be surprised if that causes offence.
The game since when it was first released has been overrun with fps kids, its not what it use to be. Marines are easy to play almost so that you can casually play marines, where the alien team needs good players to win. The current balance is also catering to 5v5 competitive clan play which is stupid since most servers worth playing are 18 24 or 32 player servers.
a lot of good ns2 players have stopped playing the game, including myself. I'm a dedicated alien player and everytime I start off with a skulk it feels like i'm running in water,(I can out run anyone pro with a skulk, take 1 bite speed hits 0 - marines jumps 10 feet away and you eat a clip before u can get to him again) it frustrates me to no end how the game has ended up I have over 500 hours of gameplay. But i have hope, I'll keep checking in to this website to see if any big changes take place.
yet do you know the meaning of reading comprehension ?
To the people saying this is a competitive game: It is not. The performance is too crap for many to play it competitively. Years before the game was even released I had wet dreams about forming an NS2 clan and playing scrims and clan matches. To this day the game runs like garbage on all low settings so this is an impossibility for me. Other than this game, there is not a single game in the entire known universe (single or online multiplayer) that my baller PC has had trouble running. What a joke. You are an "indie" company with great aspirations. And i respect the hell out of that. But why make an indie game so taxing. Rich pricks with a crap load of money should not be your target demographic. I mean, you should want anyone and everyone to enjoy your game... but indie games have a certain draw because they are cheap and accessible. This contradicts all that b. So sure it could be called competitive... for goddamn pricks and shits in dubai and shit like that man!
And all the people saying it should be more atmospheric: Well this is tough. This game has more objects, and design, and dynamic events, and colors, and particle and lighting effects for the atmosphere to really shine (disregarding performance). For some reason all this clutter has made the atmosphere so weak. Honestly I'm too hungry to go about explaining this. But NS1 had more atmosphere than this game. I can't quite say why, but it has no suspense or tension, and it has nothing to do with the lightning but I think more because of the gameplay. You don't turn a corner often and find a skulk pop up out of nowhere and bite your face off. Everything is "standoffish." Not Standof Fish. Standoff-ish. Its like most shooters, intense and action-packed, which is cool. But man i used to be so tense in NS1 when a round starts and you leave the base and enter the dark domain. And it was kind of scary as an alien too running into a marine. I'm not a goddamn author I can't articulate or make sense of my thoughts but goddamnit they are right just see this.
IMHO. Dynamic infestation ruined this game. It is slow and choppy and boring and removes all competitive shit men. It reveals location and strategy and really offers nothing in return. And in trying to create atmosphere it kills it because it drives out suspense and scary thoughts. Also that alien commander is just gimmicky and silly. Just get rid of that boy and make the gorges team camms and make aliens real time strategize by their own alien means! And dude that onos he right up piss me off!
But I do really miss the back-ground music you had on NS1 along with the maps feeling a lot more atmospheric. Not necessarily cause they were more dim but the sound overall was much more present. You could hear dripping of water, bending of metal beams under their weight, ventilation fan noise and so on. NS2 doesn't really have any of that, sure it makes hearing the enemy that much easier but sound is a key factor to atmosphere that is sorely missing.
I think the graphics are in the right place, bit bright maybe but with gamma and all you might as well. Sound is what's really missing for me.
I could swear I saw a vid a while back where buildings had much more ambient noise, something from the alpha days I believe.