Oh nice. The inconsistent wording on these is funny, though:
Kill a Marine with a Jetpack
Kill an Alien with a Shotgun
Might make rookies think aliens can get JPs or shotties. :P
As far as achievements go, I have some ideas. Inside jokes are great too:
Marksman: Kill an Alien with the Pistol.
Meatshot: Shoot an Alien with 17 Shotgun pellets.
Instagib: Kill an Alien with the Railgun.
Shotty Sniper: Kill an Alien xx meters away from you with the Shotgun.
Upgrade Sniper: Kill three evolution structures in quick succession.
Adrenaline Junkie: Kill an Onos with a Rifle Bash.
Last Resort: Kill an Alien with the Welder.
Lumberjack: Kill an Alien structure with the Switch-Axe.
Team Player: Weld a teammate to full armor.
Gorgecraft: Build ten clogs.
Flash Fade: Die as a Fade within two minutes of evolving.
Booby Trap: Kill an enemy and yourself using Mines.
Bacon Denied: Kill an Observatory during a Distress Beacon.
Blind Shot: Shoot and kill an enemy past the draw distance.
Found Ya!: Kill a camouflaged alien.
Predator: Kill an enemy during a blackout.
Slippery Fish: Enter the hive while you're being attacked.
Whip Army: Echo five+ whips to a contaminated room.
Hive Rush: Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
Penny Pincher: Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
BOOM!: Kill five+ Marines with Xenocide.
Honest Mistake: Die to an environmental hazard.
Equilibrium: Start a force even teams vote.
Decked Out: Unlock a DLC skin or decal.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
As far as achievements go I think we should prioritize it on achievements that promote teamwork and teach players advanced gameplay features, like welding milestones, defending a phasegate with mines, bile-bombing advanced weaponry, and saving people with commander abilities.
An open discussion would probably be beneficial to everyone on that matter.
Also in regards to the art & dlc portion, I'm indifferent to the whole cs:go matter but I would really like to be able to use various armor camos I purchased on other marine model types. Like using the Elite Assault or Special Edition color variants on any of my unlocked armors.
A comprehensive tutorial is a prerequisite to any of these suggestions. The ability to retain new players is dependent on them not becoming frustrated within 20 minutes of beginning to play
Hmm I do not understand everything because I don't play CS: GO, PayDay 2, Killing Floor 2 or Battlefront. But what I understand is: Achievements that dictate people how to play or what to do. INGAME drops of things? People wearing hats and other weird looking things that kill atmoshpere. And many paid DLCs.
Sorry but those ideas sound terrible. I hope I have misunderstood all the things.
TWEET: The new NS2 dev team has written an overview of what will possibly supervene on NS2. You might want to have a look: https://goo.gl/VIb4ou
Pretty.
Yes finally getting Steam achievements yaaay. But the achievements that are listed are just... boring. I think 99% of the achievement can be unlocked by playing NS2 in one evening.. Steam achievements should help make people stay longer and let them help try out new tactics and strategies.
Currently those achievements may all be unlocked in a round. But it should contain achievements that are hard to get, something you really have to achieve for and maybe you need the help of your team to do that. Here are some samples:
"Tunnels are marines best friends": Use the help of an alien tunnel to destroy a hive ->Brings new tactics
"Who needs phasegates anyway": In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander -> Brings new tactics
"Discover new worlds": Play 10 different custom maps on a server -> Helps playing more custom maps
"God mode:ON ": Kill 5 Hallucination in a round.
"Reach the impossible": Achieve a draw in a round. -> An achievement that is almost impossible to get
"I was the fastest!": Destroy a CC blueprint to win the game.
" Well equipped": "Equip your army with w2/a2 in less than 7min ->Brings new tactics
"Xenopanic": Research Xeno in less than 10min ->Brings new tactics
"Born in the cold war" : Scan and detect a sneaky tunnel (Shaded tunnel)
"Commanders right hand": Follow 5 orders from your commander.
"Axe murder": In a round, kill 3 aliens with an axe. -> Difficult to get, makes people using more often axe against damaged aliens
"Worth it": Kill yourself and a lerk or fade with mines.
"Shut up and take my money!": Buy a dual exo.
There is a lot more i could write but these should represent what i expect of achievements.
TL;DR The current listed achievements will NOT HELP to keep players in NS2. Create achievements that are difficult to get and some that require from the player to do things he would not do without the achievements.
I have only one question regarding steam achievements, will everyone have to earn these achievements on equal footing or will veterans have most of these albeit the hardest ones already unlocked?
As much as I approve of the idea to bring achivements in NS2 I think we should be careful with achivements like
- Hive Rush : Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
- Penny Pincher : Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
- "Who needs phasegates anyway" : In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander->Brings new tactics
In my opinion achivements like these might encourage players to play for the achivements more than for the team. A commander dropping a hive within the first minute or never dropping pgs although they are highly needed might create a worse experience than it might help.
What do you guys think about achivements connected with numbers?
Kill a skulk, kill 10 skulks, Kill 100 skulks, kill 1000 skulks, ...
Command a round, command 10 rounds, ...
Although these are not achivements you can actively try to unlock (like commanding aliens and drop a hive at round start) but I think for a lot of players today it might still be appealing to aim for achivements like this, especially if they are connected with some neat goodies. Maybe display the achivements and their current status (573/1000 skulk kills) somewhere ingame or give the player a neat title or some skin/badge/whatever for it.
As much as I approve of the idea to bring achivements in NS2 I think we should be careful with achivements like
- Hive Rush : Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
- Penny Pincher : Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
- "Who needs phasegates anyway" : In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander->Brings new tactics
In my opinion achivements like these might encourage players to play for the achivements more than for the team. A commander dropping a hive within the first minute or never dropping pgs although they are highly needed might create a worse experience than it might help.
What do you guys think about achivements connected with numbers?
Kill a skulk, kill 10 skulks, Kill 100 skulks, kill 1000 skulks, ...
Command a round, command 10 rounds, ...
Although these are not achivements you can actively try to unlock (like commanding aliens and drop a hive at round start) but I think for a lot of players today it might still be appealing to aim for achivements like this, especially if they are connected with some neat goodies. Maybe display the achivements and their current status (573/1000 skulk kills) somewhere ingame or give the player a neat title or some skin/badge/whatever for it.
This is the exact reason why I think achievements are always a bad thing for multiplayer games. Playing for an achievement means you do not play for your team. This is okay in CoD where you only care about your unlocks but in NS2 the goal of every round is to win the game. Achievements give players a different goal. Achievements like "Kill 1 Skulk, 10 Skulks, 100 Skulks" is OKAY because you do not aim for it but unlock it by playing. But it should never change your style of playing. And achievements like "Don't drop phase gates", "kill Gorge" or "kill Fade with mine" absolutely do that. I can see marines jumping around fades placing mines in panic mode.
As much as I approve of the idea to bring achivements in NS2 I think we should be careful with achivements like
- Hive Rush : Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
- Penny Pincher : Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
- "Who needs phasegates anyway" : In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander->Brings new tactics
In my opinion achivements like these might encourage players to play for the achivements more than for the team. A commander dropping a hive within the first minute or never dropping pgs although they are highly needed might create a worse experience than it might help.
You can still add requirements to such achievements, for example you need to win as commander when you choose to play without pg's.
Achievements like "kill 1 skulks", "kill 10skulks" and so on are just attracting achievements hunters. They will no longer play the game when they have all the achievements, or most. They just doing this to push their overall achievement completion rate on Steam.
Achievements should not attract new players straight away. Achievements should attract people that already know the game and spent hours into learning the basics. With those achievements they can see more advanced techniques they might try. This helps the player retention. You can still have some basic achievements that new players can unlock quick, but the focus should not be to flood them with achievements for basic action
Can't say I have ever actively played a game purely for achievements unless my achievement % is like 90% out of a hundred then I would adjust my gameplay accordingly to acquire those achievements.
Much more fun to just unlock shit as you go along ;-)
There will need to be a award like skins for having a sertan amount of achievements like special shoulder pads or babblar skins what ever aslong you get a award for doing the achievements.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2015
Team based and teaching based achievements aren't that hard to come up with though, just harder to implement from a coding side I think...
Marines:
Teaching:
The perfect order: Construct the powernode before the RT
Alright, let's move out: As a team do a perfect split ~40-40% of the team to both naturals and ~20% basebuild (armory/obs/arms)
Team:
Keep your spacesuit on (1/1000): Weld your fellow marines
Robot Mechanic (1/1000): Weld your EXOs/ARCs
Shoot at my feet! Kill a skulk from a distance, engaged in combat with a fellow marine
Aliens:
Teaching:
Reloading sounds are tasty: Kill a marine that is in the mids of reloading his weapon
Behind enemy lines: Place a connected tunnel behind enemy lines and keep it alive for at least 5 minutes (powered rooms with marine structures?)
Team:
Reach out and touch someone: Parasite an unparasited marine engaged in combat, from outside combat
Group hug: Attack a marine with multiple skulks
He who smelled it dealt it (1/1000): Umbra your teammates engaged in combat
The Hive Mind is watching: As a Khamaander help out your aliens with ink/pustules/spikes and while the effect is active have your aliens kill the affected marine
something about bilebombs and healing and stuff...
you know... stuff that actively push players to play the game as intended. number based or simple achievement unlocks and so on...
Do not forget one rewarding georges for building stuff.
Fast Hive: help your team build the hive in less than 30 seconds.
Down with the Kharaa!: Kill a hive from full health to 0 in <30 seconds.
You should be able to have a counter for how many times you have done some of these. Things like building a hive quickly with your team or killing one fast together should be rewarded multiple times.
There should be one for saving a structure that only has one hit left on it.
I do agree that having some basic training ones could help noobs like having one for building the power first and an advanced one for building it to <100 and >90% finishing the rt or any other building and then finishing the power. Other things like rewarding using the boosters on the exo or running with your axe also could help noobs. For the running with the axe something like:
Running to the kill: Kill a skulk after switching from your axe while running.
There should be a reward for winning a game where you played longer than an hour. It should state how long you were playing so you could even increase it. There is so many of us who like to tell stories of the times we played a really long game. There could even be one for when you lose a really long game:
So close yet so far: Lose a game where you were playing for over an hour.
I think there is a lot of room for very creative achievements that reward team play and or encourage community interaction. Therefore, clearly the most important achievement should be for using a mic! lol
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
TGNS added a fully automated achievement system in April 2014. Having distributed thousands of badges to hundreds of community regulars at this point, it has had some of the effects on our community that I see folks wanting a similar system to have on the title's community at large, and it has been a lot of fun so far. Here are some notes, in case they're helpful to anyone designing something similar (some of our design decisions aren't appropriate for a title-wide system):
TGNS Badges provides lots of scoreboard badges that every player earns just by playing. Each badge has four levels, with varying amounts of difficulty. The player uses the TGNS Portal to specify which earned badge appears on their scoreboard row. When the server's full of regulars, the scoreboard is adorned with all sorts of colorful badges.
Core to our badge design strategy is enhancing the experience for the playerbase at large. We cater to that potential with every badge we design. That has been pretty challenging and very rewarding.
All badges require multiple games to earn. A few badges appear very quickly for new visitors ("wait. what? There are MORE badges?!"), while months of play is required for some of our highest level badges. We quietly and regularly roll out new badges, and players' past playtime data applies retroactively to the progress of newly released badges.
Seeing what others have earned is the only way to learn what's possible -- there is no published list of earnable badges. The system doesn't show a player his progress toward next levels, as it's more important to pursue the rewarded behavior than it is to pursue the reward itself.
When we launched the system, we published a list of prerequisites which must be met for any game before that game will contribute any progress toward any badge, and no one player can meet these game prerequisites alone (e.g. this much game duration, that many community regulars playing for the game's entire duration, etc, etc). This design makes abuse much less likely (similarly important: it makes the /perception/ of abuse much less likely).
During early design, we had concerns about badge chasers, but it really hasn't been a problem during the offering's first 18 months (that is: it has happened, but its effect has been negligible and all too easy to manage). We haven't had gameplay significantly threatened by what little badge chasing we've seen -- indeed, I would describe as "healthy and fun" the level of badge chasing we've seen (and that's despite a silly badge or three; one of our badges is possible only through Team Surrender, for example). I'm too inexperienced as an achievements system designer to say how much of the "things have gone well" credit should go to the players as opposed to the badge requirement designs themselves.
Overall, the achievement system has been a big success for TGNS regulars. I've never gotten too involved in chasing achievements in my own gameplay, and I've been pleasantly surprised to watch the enthusiasm and interest some players have shown for being given a fun challenge to pursue alongside normal play.
A comprehensive tutorial is a prerequisite to any of these suggestions. The ability to retain new players is dependent on them not becoming frustrated within 20 minutes of beginning to play
Honestly I don't think any of these additions will bring new players to the game, the first priority should be bringing back the old community to get the game off life support. That said if you really want to make the game more accessible to new players, there's a solution that has already been proven to work in NS1 - bring back combat mode. Even with an awesome tutorial, the RTS mode is still going to be scary to new players because it's just fundamentally a lot deeper than your typical shooter. And there are some players who just aren't interested in that period. And yes NS2: Combat was a flop, but I think making that a standalone game was a mistake - it sacrificed the original reason Combat was added to NS1, which was to help populate empty NS servers, plus it also cut loose the existing playerbase that had already purchased NS2.
Running to the kill: Kill a skulk after switching from your axe while running.
That is one of the most widespread misconceptions in the game. You actually run just as fast with your pistol as you do your axe.
Oh, I never knew that lol. I just felt like I was going faster with the axe but apparently my mind was just working faster going oh shit I am running around with an axe lol.
I was always under the impression that running with a pistol or an axe does not make a difference in speed if you are also carrying your primary, if you dropped your LMG you would get the speed benefit however.
I was always under the impression that running with a pistol or an axe does not make a difference in speed if you are also carrying your primary, if you dropped your LMG you would get the speed benefit however.
You do run faster with your pistol out. Check with debug_speed in console. I used to not think it was a significant amount until I noticed Marines with pistols were passing me sprinting with LMG.
You keep talking about NS2 gameplay and how achievements affect the gameplay, but still there are 2 Wooza servers with 40 player slots. Is this how the game is supposed to be played then, masses vs masses ?
New players just join these 20vs20 horror servers because they usually have most players, and end up playing DM/Push ''tactic'' games instead of truly playing NS. Get rid of these mega servers, and bring back those max 16 slot servers for pubgames, then talk about how achievements affects the game.
You keep talking about NS2 gameplay and how achievements affect the gameplay, but still there are 2 Wooza servers with 40 player slots. Is this how the game is supposed to be played then, masses vs masses ?
New players just join these 20vs20 horror servers because they usually have most players, and end up playing DM/Push ''tactic'' games instead of truly playing NS. Get rid of these mega servers, and bring back those max 16 slot servers for pubgames, then talk about how achievements affects the game.
I don't have a problem with these servers existing. Theres a lot of people who like that game-style, and honestly, I dont care if they chose to play there, especially new people who can "get lost in the massess" and not get raged at.
I DO think that these being the pretty much the only constantly-active servers around are a symptom of one of the biggest problems with the game today....seeding servers.
People will ALWAYS join active servers over inactive ones just because the wait time is so much smaller than seeding a server.
We need a way to connect the people looking for a server together to make seeding less time consuming. An auto-matchmaking system like people rave about would have the same problem we currently have, which is not knowing how long you will have to wait for a match.
A global and regional chat room, accesible from within a server, would give people a way to communicate and organize to get all the people waiting for a game, into a game. At the very least, they will have something to do while waiting for a round to start, and this will help a lot in keeping people engaged.
So yeah, let people play their 20v20 games, but also let people communicate and organize into other game types as well.
Ha, pretty sure there was a time where I would drop the pistol. Your base speed with an lmg was slightly increased.
Laama actually made art form from pistol dropping. I think it's safe to say that it was his trademark. It confuse aliens when a marine suddenly move faster than normally.
Comments
Holy crap is this document a joke? It's not April Fools Day yet.
@Decoy tell him what's up
Might make rookies think aliens can get JPs or shotties. :P
As far as achievements go, I have some ideas. Inside jokes are great too:
Marksman: Kill an Alien with the Pistol.
Meatshot: Shoot an Alien with 17 Shotgun pellets.
Instagib: Kill an Alien with the Railgun.
Shotty Sniper: Kill an Alien xx meters away from you with the Shotgun.
Upgrade Sniper: Kill three evolution structures in quick succession.
Adrenaline Junkie: Kill an Onos with a Rifle Bash.
Last Resort: Kill an Alien with the Welder.
Lumberjack: Kill an Alien structure with the Switch-Axe.
Team Player: Weld a teammate to full armor.
Gorgecraft: Build ten clogs.
Flash Fade: Die as a Fade within two minutes of evolving.
Booby Trap: Kill an enemy and yourself using Mines.
Bacon Denied: Kill an Observatory during a Distress Beacon.
Blind Shot: Shoot and kill an enemy past the draw distance.
Found Ya!: Kill a camouflaged alien.
Predator: Kill an enemy during a blackout.
Slippery Fish: Enter the hive while you're being attacked.
Whip Army: Echo five+ whips to a contaminated room.
Hive Rush: Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
Penny Pincher: Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
BOOM!: Kill five+ Marines with Xenocide.
Honest Mistake: Die to an environmental hazard.
Equilibrium: Start a force even teams vote.
Decked Out: Unlock a DLC skin or decal.
I could go on and on...
An open discussion would probably be beneficial to everyone on that matter.
Also in regards to the art & dlc portion, I'm indifferent to the whole cs:go matter but I would really like to be able to use various armor camos I purchased on other marine model types. Like using the Elite Assault or Special Edition color variants on any of my unlocked armors.
Sorry but those ideas sound terrible. I hope I have misunderstood all the things.
Yes finally getting Steam achievements yaaay. But the achievements that are listed are just... boring. I think 99% of the achievement can be unlocked by playing NS2 in one evening.. Steam achievements should help make people stay longer and let them help try out new tactics and strategies.
Currently those achievements may all be unlocked in a round. But it should contain achievements that are hard to get, something you really have to achieve for and maybe you need the help of your team to do that. Here are some samples:
"Tunnels are marines best friends": Use the help of an alien tunnel to destroy a hive ->Brings new tactics
"Who needs phasegates anyway": In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander -> Brings new tactics
"Discover new worlds": Play 10 different custom maps on a server -> Helps playing more custom maps
"God mode:ON ": Kill 5 Hallucination in a round.
"Reach the impossible": Achieve a draw in a round. -> An achievement that is almost impossible to get
"I was the fastest!": Destroy a CC blueprint to win the game.
" Well equipped": "Equip your army with w2/a2 in less than 7min ->Brings new tactics
"Xenopanic": Research Xeno in less than 10min ->Brings new tactics
"Born in the cold war" : Scan and detect a sneaky tunnel (Shaded tunnel)
"Commanders right hand": Follow 5 orders from your commander.
"Axe murder": In a round, kill 3 aliens with an axe. -> Difficult to get, makes people using more often axe against damaged aliens
"Worth it": Kill yourself and a lerk or fade with mines.
"Shut up and take my money!": Buy a dual exo.
There is a lot more i could write but these should represent what i expect of achievements.
TL;DR The current listed achievements will NOT HELP to keep players in NS2. Create achievements that are difficult to get and some that require from the player to do things he would not do without the achievements.
- Hive Rush : Drop a hive within the first minute of a round.
- Penny Pincher : Amass 100 personal resources, you cheap bastard.
- "Who needs phasegates anyway" : In a round, never place a phasegate as marine commander->Brings new tactics
In my opinion achivements like these might encourage players to play for the achivements more than for the team. A commander dropping a hive within the first minute or never dropping pgs although they are highly needed might create a worse experience than it might help.
What do you guys think about achivements connected with numbers?
Kill a skulk, kill 10 skulks, Kill 100 skulks, kill 1000 skulks, ...
Command a round, command 10 rounds, ...
Although these are not achivements you can actively try to unlock (like commanding aliens and drop a hive at round start) but I think for a lot of players today it might still be appealing to aim for achivements like this, especially if they are connected with some neat goodies. Maybe display the achivements and their current status (573/1000 skulk kills) somewhere ingame or give the player a neat title or some skin/badge/whatever for it.
You can still add requirements to such achievements, for example you need to win as commander when you choose to play without pg's.
Achievements like "kill 1 skulks", "kill 10skulks" and so on are just attracting achievements hunters. They will no longer play the game when they have all the achievements, or most. They just doing this to push their overall achievement completion rate on Steam.
Achievements should not attract new players straight away. Achievements should attract people that already know the game and spent hours into learning the basics. With those achievements they can see more advanced techniques they might try. This helps the player retention. You can still have some basic achievements that new players can unlock quick, but the focus should not be to flood them with achievements for basic action
Much more fun to just unlock shit as you go along ;-)
you know... stuff that actively push players to play the game as intended. number based or simple achievement unlocks and so on...
Fast Hive: help your team build the hive in less than 30 seconds.
Down with the Kharaa!: Kill a hive from full health to 0 in <30 seconds.
You should be able to have a counter for how many times you have done some of these. Things like building a hive quickly with your team or killing one fast together should be rewarded multiple times.
There should be one for saving a structure that only has one hit left on it.
I do agree that having some basic training ones could help noobs like having one for building the power first and an advanced one for building it to <100 and >90% finishing the rt or any other building and then finishing the power. Other things like rewarding using the boosters on the exo or running with your axe also could help noobs. For the running with the axe something like:
Running to the kill: Kill a skulk after switching from your axe while running.
There should be a reward for winning a game where you played longer than an hour. It should state how long you were playing so you could even increase it. There is so many of us who like to tell stories of the times we played a really long game. There could even be one for when you lose a really long game:
So close yet so far: Lose a game where you were playing for over an hour.
I think there is a lot of room for very creative achievements that reward team play and or encourage community interaction. Therefore, clearly the most important achievement should be for using a mic! lol
TGNS Badges provides lots of scoreboard badges that every player earns just by playing. Each badge has four levels, with varying amounts of difficulty. The player uses the TGNS Portal to specify which earned badge appears on their scoreboard row. When the server's full of regulars, the scoreboard is adorned with all sorts of colorful badges.
Core to our badge design strategy is enhancing the experience for the playerbase at large. We cater to that potential with every badge we design. That has been pretty challenging and very rewarding.
All badges require multiple games to earn. A few badges appear very quickly for new visitors ("wait. what? There are MORE badges?!"), while months of play is required for some of our highest level badges. We quietly and regularly roll out new badges, and players' past playtime data applies retroactively to the progress of newly released badges.
Seeing what others have earned is the only way to learn what's possible -- there is no published list of earnable badges. The system doesn't show a player his progress toward next levels, as it's more important to pursue the rewarded behavior than it is to pursue the reward itself.
When we launched the system, we published a list of prerequisites which must be met for any game before that game will contribute any progress toward any badge, and no one player can meet these game prerequisites alone (e.g. this much game duration, that many community regulars playing for the game's entire duration, etc, etc). This design makes abuse much less likely (similarly important: it makes the /perception/ of abuse much less likely).
During early design, we had concerns about badge chasers, but it really hasn't been a problem during the offering's first 18 months (that is: it has happened, but its effect has been negligible and all too easy to manage). We haven't had gameplay significantly threatened by what little badge chasing we've seen -- indeed, I would describe as "healthy and fun" the level of badge chasing we've seen (and that's despite a silly badge or three; one of our badges is possible only through Team Surrender, for example). I'm too inexperienced as an achievements system designer to say how much of the "things have gone well" credit should go to the players as opposed to the badge requirement designs themselves.
Overall, the achievement system has been a big success for TGNS regulars. I've never gotten too involved in chasing achievements in my own gameplay, and I've been pleasantly surprised to watch the enthusiasm and interest some players have shown for being given a fun challenge to pursue alongside normal play.
Honestly I don't think any of these additions will bring new players to the game, the first priority should be bringing back the old community to get the game off life support. That said if you really want to make the game more accessible to new players, there's a solution that has already been proven to work in NS1 - bring back combat mode. Even with an awesome tutorial, the RTS mode is still going to be scary to new players because it's just fundamentally a lot deeper than your typical shooter. And there are some players who just aren't interested in that period. And yes NS2: Combat was a flop, but I think making that a standalone game was a mistake - it sacrificed the original reason Combat was added to NS1, which was to help populate empty NS servers, plus it also cut loose the existing playerbase that had already purchased NS2.
Oh, I never knew that lol. I just felt like I was going faster with the axe but apparently my mind was just working faster going oh shit I am running around with an axe lol.
You do run faster with your pistol out. Check with debug_speed in console. I used to not think it was a significant amount until I noticed Marines with pistols were passing me sprinting with LMG.
New players just join these 20vs20 horror servers because they usually have most players, and end up playing DM/Push ''tactic'' games instead of truly playing NS. Get rid of these mega servers, and bring back those max 16 slot servers for pubgames, then talk about how achievements affects the game.
The old philosophical debate about the pros and cons of keeping your pistol at spawn
Ha, pretty sure there was a time where I would drop the pistol. Your base speed with an lmg was slightly increased.
So I should stop doing that...gotcha
I don't have a problem with these servers existing. Theres a lot of people who like that game-style, and honestly, I dont care if they chose to play there, especially new people who can "get lost in the massess" and not get raged at.
I DO think that these being the pretty much the only constantly-active servers around are a symptom of one of the biggest problems with the game today....seeding servers.
People will ALWAYS join active servers over inactive ones just because the wait time is so much smaller than seeding a server.
We need a way to connect the people looking for a server together to make seeding less time consuming. An auto-matchmaking system like people rave about would have the same problem we currently have, which is not knowing how long you will have to wait for a match.
A global and regional chat room, accesible from within a server, would give people a way to communicate and organize to get all the people waiting for a game, into a game. At the very least, they will have something to do while waiting for a round to start, and this will help a lot in keeping people engaged.
So yeah, let people play their 20v20 games, but also let people communicate and organize into other game types as well.
hidden game mechanics *shakes fist*
What is going on?! Some explanations about the recent issues, changes and drama following B278.
http://goo.gl/HlrdFr