The Alien Vision change is a change for the worse
Sintax
Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10581Members
Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10581Members
The removal of outlines from alien's default view is the most baffling change I've seen in this game yet. Alien's normal vision used to be the most minimal version of alien vision, where only important outlines were shown. This kept you from having to use alien vision 24/7 because of the clear advantage it gives. Now alien vision must be turned on at all times (and turned back on every time you respawn, and every time you come out of an egg) in order to keep this clear advantage. This means 100% of a competant alien player's time must be spent in the extremely colored and shaded alien vision. Personally I dont like having to use this view, but after the change you are forced to turn it on after every respawn. Without it, you will miss marines guaranteed.
This is also another change which only goes to hurt new players. Those players will now start at a further detriment against experienced players since they will likely not even know that alien vision exists, and if they do know they will forget to turn it on constantly, as is required now.
This is an extreme change to a core NS2 mechanic which is of absolutely no value to the alien team. Now they've the inconvenience of turning and leaving alien vision on for the duration of the match, else lose a clear advantage. I honestly have no idea what the developers think this is supposed to accomplish.
This is also another change which only goes to hurt new players. Those players will now start at a further detriment against experienced players since they will likely not even know that alien vision exists, and if they do know they will forget to turn it on constantly, as is required now.
This is an extreme change to a core NS2 mechanic which is of absolutely no value to the alien team. Now they've the inconvenience of turning and leaving alien vision on for the duration of the match, else lose a clear advantage. I honestly have no idea what the developers think this is supposed to accomplish.
Comments
The current AV in vanilla is Huze's Minimal. I'm not sure I would describe it the way you have. Moreover, it's been a very popular AV for a long time, precisely because it affects vision in a very un-garish way. To be sure, marines' outlines can be a bit strong, especially to people accustomed to the version that used to ship with NS2+.
The removal of outlines in regular vision can certainly be argued as a bad choice. But with AV on automatically, does it affect gameplay? Simply do nothing, and alien vision will always be on, and you will always see outlines.
This is true; however, the default vision we used to have was arguably prettier (no shader outlines on everything) while doing the exact same job - and it still gave you the option of using another alien vision on top of it. You got two in one, so to speak. He's got a point in that alien default vision is utterly useless now.
Alienvision also turns on by default now, if you wish to turn this feature off you can use NS2+ to do so.
That would've made nearly everyone happy i think... I strongly recommend people try huze minimal av (always on) version before calling it bad...
Cant we implement choices on AV already.. without counting on ns2+.
How hard can it be? And how much could it help any skill lvl to have a pick of various default choices. I see only plus points.
Much better then random change nr 29 on gameplay.
This is the biggest problem with anything we do with AV at this point. There have been so many iterations and almost every iteration (no one liked FantaVision) has both fans and detractors.
Because marines have a cone view via Flashlight, Aliens should have the upperhand by having their own take on "Nightvision"(fullscreen view).
Its extremely bright in normally lit rooms(same characteristics to real life nightvision).
So basically you are not suppose to constantly use Alien vision but only when the lights are out.
At least that what i take from when ns2 had FantaVision.
I thought it was okay, a bit too bright for my taste but I can see why this was implemented. But of course comparing to any other alien visions out there, the other alien vision is a lot better
Just to reiterate: It does NOT turn on by default for me. I understand "preferences" and how the "minimal AV" is "not bad" in some peoples' opinions, but I dont like having to look at glowing marines all day. It looks bad. If we are talking about preferences, why not leave the AV the way it has been for years and add an OPTION to the OPTIONS menu? All this change has done is remove enemy visibility for some fraction of players.
It does not turn on by default. Please don't brush this off as "o well some people might or might not like the huge change we made to core gameplay." It's broken now. And default alien vision is now useless. I would rather not have to install a third party mod to restore core functionality to my game, but I suppose that's just my preference. Furthermore, if that workshop mod does return outlines to default vision on aliens, then that gives me an advantage, and puts newer players at a further disadvantage than they already are at, which I thought was counter to the focus of these new patches.
If it's such a problem why are you guys messing with it?
Well you will notice that pretty much every server runs with NS2+ and you should really use its config options.
This... While I myself don't care about such a change since I use huze always on... Why did you guys feel the need to mess with AV again??
Couldn't your time have been better spent on other changes/improvements that would actually do something to help balance or retain new players..
Seems to me like changing AV again was nothing but a waste of time... Were you guys getting a lot of complaints about the pre 300 AV or something??
While I appreciate you reiterating the same point that's been made a bunch of times without realizing my point, I would just say that I've played this game over 1000 hours and never touched the NS+ menu. And yet apparently this option is was defaulted to off for me. Can you please understand how this could be a problem for many players, especially less technically savvy, who are not knowledgeable about an options menu that only appears when you connect to certain servers?
Ghouls Box: 2 players / 8
House of Awesome: 3 players / 10
Tactical Freedom: 3 players / 8
Hard to catch people spawning, but best I could figure the people with AV off spawned with it off. I caught 1 guy spawning and turning alien vision on, which means it was defaulted off for him but he turned it on every life.
Bring back player outlines when alien vision is turned off please thank you.
No sorry, I cannot understand this how someone with 1000 hours is complaining about something that is so easy to change. "certain servers" lol, 19/20 servers run NS2+ and when you click on the YES/NO toggle in your mod menu you can even find the NS2+ options menu in the main menu. This might take you 30 seconds.
I agree that the NS2+ alien vision options should be in vanilla though.
and by hundreds you mean <200?
We always need to have health bars on or be handicapped.
We always need to have minimal infestation on or be handicapped.
How the game looks has changed for the better or worse. Alien vision should always be on with no way to turn it off. If you want to confuse players then let it remain an option.
This should be what every single player sees by default, and if you aren't seeing this then you should check your NS2+ options or enabled mods to ensure nothing is conflicting with it (like Rantology said) :
Mmm, no not really. That's like saying pro's always disable the aliens jaws because it lets them play better (which they don't). Gameplay-wise it doesn't really make a noticeable difference and in my opinion I like how it looks aesthetically, though I know that some people would disagree with the latter.
No I am not, as with every AV there are folk who love it and folk who dont.
I am told my alien vision is horrible from everyone. I like it though. That is 1/everyone.
Looks okay for me. It is ugly as fuck but that is true for every good AV.
I guess the change to alien's vision when turned off is not going to get reverted since all the devs are ignoring that part of my post. It's a real shame that normal alien's sight has been nerfed and is now useless. I used to like to turn AV on when mines or grenades were nearby because it would light them up, otherwise I usually left it off. Now I will have to turn it on 100% of the time, and that sucks a lot.
This is why this AV is superior.. it works flawlessly in complete darkness AND full brightness.. with zero tradeoffs.
(previously turning ON alien vision meant you sacrificed having marine outlines, which negatively impacted your ability to track them in melee range)
It will highlight mines, structures and enemies all the time.
Normal alien sight has been buffed, not nerfed.
Uke minimal is my pick and before the update i always play alien vision on at all times, i thought everyone did..
You are right. I read your post a bunch of times and I do not understand. Having AV turned off has been nerfed, since visibility of enemies is now abysmal. Basically "normal" vision (AV off) is now useless. You might as well remove it from the game. As you said, AV gives a clear advantage, and yet if you look at my earlier post, you can see most people are not using it (because the default is broken). Why would more than half the people I specced NOT use a superior form of vision?
https://trello.com/c/eMXuIhLX/86-replace-the-default-av-with-samus-s-start-with-av-on
Also the fact that you need to have NS2+ installed for it to work properly I will never understand. On vanilla NS2 when I reinstalled to see what they did with the AV, it started with no outlines, again, doesn't make any sense to me.
I've offered to help fix it, at the very least the bugs should be fixed and the "on" version needs to be defaulted in the shader, not in a mod.
I guess we'll never get marine outlines back and be stuck with being forced to use AV 100% of the time, but I hope the issue where it is defaulted to off is resolved at least...