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
Don't turn it into an option, if you make it optional you might as well not have worked on it to begin with.
Plus with something as significant of being able to or not being able to clearly see the enemy, anyone with more than 5 minutes of gametime would turn it off for the advantage.
^Server side option? That means only competitive servers would turn it back to the old lighting. Wouldn't affect pub play at all. Of course this is going to upset veteran players (not all, but a decent amount) You are changing the way they can see the enemy. You aren't adding a new gun or making the fade take 50 more damage, you are changing the way they see. That is going to be upsetting.
"Decent"... "significant"... anyone know what /percentage/ (ballpark, even) of the playerbase opposes this?
In Australian servers last night, apart from the rookies which held no opinion, there was universal hatred about the new lighting. People were begging for it to be turned off, for which I felt helpless.
That's 30 players last night, AEDT timezone, and includes international players.
Or, rather than infuriate the existing player base, the loyal customers and players who've been with you for years, remove the new lighting from the build and return it as a mod?
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
If I'm not mistaken, the lights start slightly dimmer until the power comes on? If that's so, that seems unnecessary. I would have the lights start at full brightness.
What an absurd suggestion, it sounds like it's straight from the customer marketing department of a 1980s bank.
You're suggesting that loyalty is a one way street, that loyalty to UWE can survive. It is absolutely insane to say that loyal customers, those who've bought the game and then forked out more simply to support development (through things like constellation and reinforced), should fork out even more for a dlc to counter a change to the game that they never asked.
Don't worry, surely the community will keep forking put more cash. After all, they're loyal and not even a tiny bit fed up. If it ain't broke, break it.
In addition to the new Old Lighting DLC, anyone with a hive skill greater than or equal to 2000 will be forced to play with a steam controller. Once you reach or pass 2000 hive skill the game will no longer accept keyboard and mouse input. It will only work with a steam controller. This feature will not go away, even if you drop below 2000 hive skill. It is permanent once it is set.
If any player with less than 50 hours recorded in hive is accused of being a smurf by three unique players then he will be forced to use a steam controller the same was as mentioned above. To do this, ns2 will be using an advanced regex code that will parse register if the player's name and the word smurf are used in the same chat message.
Valve will be paying UWE to add this feature. There is no need to complain. This will fund development. The proceeds of Old Lighting DLC and money from Valve will make ns2 great again.
This change clearly extends beyond "atmospheric enhancement" and that's not by accident. As such it's a game design decision.
I think a client-side option for the particle effects (or perhaps tying it into the current "particle effects" option) is a solid idea if people are really that pissed off about a couple floating things around alien structures.
I think a client-side option for the light effect itself is not a good idea. Most of the options mentioned here that are "balance altering" manipulate how a person's GUI is presented (viewmodels, UI clutter, waypoints, colors, etc) or they affect the way that the world is rendered to their screen (Shadows, Bloom, Alien Vision mods). As of yet, the biggest options that change the way the world is are: Atmospherics, Infestation, Map Particles, and Ambient Sounds. This would pretty clearly top them all. IMO it would be akin to allowing users to 'turn off' how the lights go out after a power node dies.
A server-side option makes for the most fair treatment of a toggle. Everyone playing there has the same experience, the field upon which they do battle is more or less the same. Problem is the community will quickly split between grumps who can't be bothered to deal with some lighting changes, and the rest of us who are alright with the change.
Honestly though I think the best option is just to tone the effect back a little, just enough to have people get their panties out of a bunch so they'll man up and do it in the dark.
IMO the only legitimate complaint about the atmospheric darkness is one that relates to accessibility, so if you're literally part-blind, this is definitely going to be a concern for you. But so would powernodes dying...
The new lightning is nice. It just needs some tweaks about far away cysts putting a whole room in the dark. We should let the devs time to improve it.
Maybe a minimum requirement for each room? It could force the alien com to cyst more just to have this advantage. For exemple a minimum of 5-6 cysts (or less, i have no idea) to gain the control of the room. Usually you have 3-4 cysts/room if you just use auto cyst. That way this new system isn't a free buff to aliens but a new feature at the cost of 2 extra res per room. And you solve the issue of the lonely cyst in flight putting all computer lab in the dark.
I think a client-side option for the particle effects (or perhaps tying it into the current "particle effects" option) is a solid idea if people are really that pissed off about a couple floating things around alien structures.
It already is in some respects. You can't turn off the particle effects, but you can tone them down.
Shitty dark room, I need mroe light, oh cysts provide light, i dont want to kill cysts in rooms any more because it actually makes the game harder on marines by darkening the room.
So you make things harder to see anyway and then it makes me not want to play the game properly and decyst rooms because it actually makes the room better for marines to fight in because it's well lit?
Better lighting asymmetrically benefits marines, so if cysts give off significant light now both the field marines and the alien comm have perverted incentive structures: are cysts good or bad? This shouldn't be a question for either of them.
As josh says, why it cant just be a simple toggle is beyond me, like EVERY new feature it's instantly forced on everyone and a lot of people don't care for it.
Because it would create an unfair advantage for those that use that toggle, making it pretty much mandatory. Also creating options for everything possible in the game is a support nightmare, its just not maintanable. Imho NS2 already has way too many options, you just never know what combination of options will cause some obscure bug.
Well, I never realised it took so much work. I have a deeper appreciation for Mendasp's work in making our NS2 experience better now. And he covers even more options than vanilla. So many many more.
As for unfair advantage, give it a break. There are all those other graphical options in the game that do the same. What is so different about this?
Sigh, at least we see the effectiveness of the extension system, would help with quick fixes that can be implemented before the next patch.
Better lighting asymmetrically benefits marines, so if cysts give off significant light now both the field marines and the alien comm have perverted incentive structures: are cysts good or bad? This shouldn't be a question for either of them.
Killing the cysts yields better overall lighting with greater room saturation.
Not killing the cysts allows for sporadic lighting with tons of dark spots.
Building powernodes provides the brightest lighting.
in the original release I was sad that all rooms were well lit, either by white clean light or the red lights. the complete lack of the 'dark and forboding' atmosphere I felt was unfortunate, the flashlight seemed to never be needed, and even going into a hive I could 'see' enough from things moving to not have them have any advantage on their own terrain.
having the rooms go black when they make the effort to take an area gives that speed of theirs a real advantage like it's supposed to. if a marine is in there alone and cant really 'fight back', well their being foolish for going in by themselves, since you can see other marines flashlights, meaning the room can be lit up nicely by 4+ marines
It needs to be mandatory. Lighting affects gameplay too much to be optional. High infestation affected gameplay a lot too, but the drop in fps made it optional. All the other optional graphical effects didn't change gameplay as much as these two.
Better lighting asymmetrically benefits marines, so if cysts give off significant light now both the field marines and the alien comm have perverted incentive structures: are cysts good or bad? This shouldn't be a question for either of them.
Killing the cysts yields better overall lighting with greater room saturation.
Not killing the cysts allows for sporadic lighting with tons of dark spots.
Building powernodes provides the brightest lighting.
This isn't true! Did you read my post that I tagged you and mcglaspie on? ONE cyst in a room makes the power for the entire ROOM go "dim". Anything more than one structure in a room has no affect other than more lighting from alien structure. Killing some of the cysts in a room with 10 cysts doesn't improve the room's lighting situation at all.
Better lighting asymmetrically benefits marines, so if cysts give off significant light now both the field marines and the alien comm have perverted incentive structures: are cysts good or bad? This shouldn't be a question for either of them.
Killing the cysts yields better overall lighting with greater room saturation.
Not killing the cysts allows for sporadic lighting with tons of dark spots.
Building powernodes provides the brightest lighting.
This isn't true! Did you read my post that I tagged you and mcglaspie on? ONE cyst in a room makes the power for the entire ROOM go "dim". Anything more than one structure in a room has no affect other than more lighting from alien structure. Killing some of the cysts in a room with 10 cysts doesn't improve the room's lighting situation at all.
Exactly this, there's no benefit to killing cysts unless you clear them all. Which just is not viable, but this seems to be too complex to understand.
Mostly loving it, but only one gripe. I don't like using alien vision because it's ugly. Marine flashlights were tweaked to compensate, could we tweak alien vision to interfere less as well? Specifically I'd like to remove the desaturation and vignetting.
@moultano http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=375340416
This is what the AV should have always been, and probably what you are looking for. It's what the first iteration of the current was before it was changed. It's also been proposed and waiting to be implemented for the last few months as well.
Killing the cysts yields better overall lighting with greater room saturation.
Cysts, plural.
Like I said before, if you are removing 1/6 of alien presence in the room then it's still alien territory isn't it?
Reclaim it by either eliminating their presence entirely or build the powernode.
Killing the cysts yields better overall lighting with greater room saturation.
Cysts, plural.
Like I said before, if you are removing 1/6 of alien presence in the room then it's still alien territory isn't it?
Reclaim it by either eliminating their presence entirely or build the powernode.
You gotta read posts more carefully.
One cyst in a room causes the full change to happen are you telling me ONE cyst in a room makes it alien territory?
Your argument goes both ways and you're ignoring one side of it. If spending 1 tres, why is an entire room "alien territory"....
Can it be required to have 2 or 3 cysts in 1 room to make it dim. Why? Gameplay reasons for large rooms. 1 or 2 cysts would not dim the room. You wouldn't have to waste time or attention clearing all cysts. It also gives aliens an option to steathly chain cysts long distances.
aeroripperJoin Date: 2005-02-25Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
I think the rooms marines have that have power nodes need to brighter than they currently are to continue the distinction between alien/marine held areas. Currently the highest lighting available is still fairly dark but it does match the mappers original lighting of the map.
The game should have 3 states concerning lighting.
1) Alien held areas are dark as they're currently in this implementation.
2) "Neutral" areas should keep the standard mapper-set lighting. As aliens build cysts/structures in the room it should started to darken as expected.
3) Marine held areas (fully socketed power node/structures) get a markedly large lighting boost that actually feels like the lights are on. I would say maybe 3-4x brighter than the current mapper-set lighting.
This increases the "I'm in a friendly area" for rookie marines, and aliens know its less friendly.
It also helps marines see the room better too, along with a psychological impact of a small victory.
Image reference #3. Maybe a little less bloom but you get the idea:
^ I like aeroripper's idea. I think part of the issue with this lighting change is when you use low quality lights - it's really dark even with the highest gamma setting. If the play testers were mostly using high quality lights while testing, they might have not noticed the issue as much.
The problem is, it's a pretty decent fps hit to turn on high quality lights so part of the reason the comp community/veterans don't like this change. I don't think this change was done with low quality lights selected option in mind. Aero's idea could potentially fix some of the issues. If the neutral areas were lit like the powered rooms now, and the powered rooms were even more well lit than now - that could be a lot better. I think while looking for ways to improve/ update this new light change - please play test with the low quality light option in mind.
Comments
Plus with something as significant of being able to or not being able to clearly see the enemy, anyone with more than 5 minutes of gametime would turn it off for the advantage.
In Australian servers last night, apart from the rookies which held no opinion, there was universal hatred about the new lighting. People were begging for it to be turned off, for which I felt helpless.
That's 30 players last night, AEDT timezone, and includes international players.
You're suggesting that loyalty is a one way street, that loyalty to UWE can survive. It is absolutely insane to say that loyal customers, those who've bought the game and then forked out more simply to support development (through things like constellation and reinforced), should fork out even more for a dlc to counter a change to the game that they never asked.
Don't worry, surely the community will keep forking put more cash. After all, they're loyal and not even a tiny bit fed up. If it ain't broke, break it.
If any player with less than 50 hours recorded in hive is accused of being a smurf by three unique players then he will be forced to use a steam controller the same was as mentioned above. To do this, ns2 will be using an advanced regex code that will parse register if the player's name and the word smurf are used in the same chat message.
Valve will be paying UWE to add this feature. There is no need to complain. This will fund development. The proceeds of Old Lighting DLC and money from Valve will make ns2 great again.
I think a client-side option for the particle effects (or perhaps tying it into the current "particle effects" option) is a solid idea if people are really that pissed off about a couple floating things around alien structures.
I think a client-side option for the light effect itself is not a good idea. Most of the options mentioned here that are "balance altering" manipulate how a person's GUI is presented (viewmodels, UI clutter, waypoints, colors, etc) or they affect the way that the world is rendered to their screen (Shadows, Bloom, Alien Vision mods). As of yet, the biggest options that change the way the world is are: Atmospherics, Infestation, Map Particles, and Ambient Sounds. This would pretty clearly top them all. IMO it would be akin to allowing users to 'turn off' how the lights go out after a power node dies.
A server-side option makes for the most fair treatment of a toggle. Everyone playing there has the same experience, the field upon which they do battle is more or less the same. Problem is the community will quickly split between grumps who can't be bothered to deal with some lighting changes, and the rest of us who are alright with the change.
Honestly though I think the best option is just to tone the effect back a little, just enough to have people get their panties out of a bunch so they'll man up and do it in the dark.
IMO the only legitimate complaint about the atmospheric darkness is one that relates to accessibility, so if you're literally part-blind, this is definitely going to be a concern for you. But so would powernodes dying...
Maybe a minimum requirement for each room? It could force the alien com to cyst more just to have this advantage. For exemple a minimum of 5-6 cysts (or less, i have no idea) to gain the control of the room. Usually you have 3-4 cysts/room if you just use auto cyst. That way this new system isn't a free buff to aliens but a new feature at the cost of 2 extra res per room. And you solve the issue of the lonely cyst in flight putting all computer lab in the dark.
Well, I never realised it took so much work. I have a deeper appreciation for Mendasp's work in making our NS2 experience better now. And he covers even more options than vanilla. So many many more.
As for unfair advantage, give it a break. There are all those other graphical options in the game that do the same. What is so different about this?
Sigh, at least we see the effectiveness of the extension system, would help with quick fixes that can be implemented before the next patch.
Not killing the cysts allows for sporadic lighting with tons of dark spots.
Building powernodes provides the brightest lighting.
in the original release I was sad that all rooms were well lit, either by white clean light or the red lights. the complete lack of the 'dark and forboding' atmosphere I felt was unfortunate, the flashlight seemed to never be needed, and even going into a hive I could 'see' enough from things moving to not have them have any advantage on their own terrain.
having the rooms go black when they make the effort to take an area gives that speed of theirs a real advantage like it's supposed to. if a marine is in there alone and cant really 'fight back', well their being foolish for going in by themselves, since you can see other marines flashlights, meaning the room can be lit up nicely by 4+ marines
Forget options, make decisions.
Whe should share the same atmosphere.
Server side option ? Damn, how many server do we have ?
This isn't true! Did you read my post that I tagged you and mcglaspie on? ONE cyst in a room makes the power for the entire ROOM go "dim". Anything more than one structure in a room has no affect other than more lighting from alien structure. Killing some of the cysts in a room with 10 cysts doesn't improve the room's lighting situation at all.
Exactly this, there's no benefit to killing cysts unless you clear them all. Which just is not viable, but this seems to be too complex to understand.
Don't forget to turn on Bloom, Rich Infestation, Ambient Occlusion, and keep lighting options set to High.
#MaximumImmersion
@moultano
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=375340416
This is what the AV should have always been, and probably what you are looking for. It's what the first iteration of the current was before it was changed. It's also been proposed and waiting to be implemented for the last few months as well.
You gotta read my posts more carefully.
Cysts, plural.
Like I said before, if you are removing 1/6 of alien presence in the room then it's still alien territory isn't it?
Reclaim it by either eliminating their presence entirely or build the powernode.
You gotta read posts more carefully.
One cyst in a room causes the full change to happen are you telling me ONE cyst in a room makes it alien territory?
Your argument goes both ways and you're ignoring one side of it. If spending 1 tres, why is an entire room "alien territory"....
The game should have 3 states concerning lighting.
1) Alien held areas are dark as they're currently in this implementation.
2) "Neutral" areas should keep the standard mapper-set lighting. As aliens build cysts/structures in the room it should started to darken as expected.
3) Marine held areas (fully socketed power node/structures) get a markedly large lighting boost that actually feels like the lights are on. I would say maybe 3-4x brighter than the current mapper-set lighting.
This increases the "I'm in a friendly area" for rookie marines, and aliens know its less friendly.
It also helps marines see the room better too, along with a psychological impact of a small victory.
Image reference #3. Maybe a little less bloom but you get the idea:
The problem is, it's a pretty decent fps hit to turn on high quality lights so part of the reason the comp community/veterans don't like this change. I don't think this change was done with low quality lights selected option in mind. Aero's idea could potentially fix some of the issues. If the neutral areas were lit like the powered rooms now, and the powered rooms were even more well lit than now - that could be a lot better. I think while looking for ways to improve/ update this new light change - please play test with the low quality light option in mind.