A list of lost features, abilities and content from earlier builds..

2

Comments

  • SquishpokePOOPFACESquishpokePOOPFACE -21,248 posts (ignore below) Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165262Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Lol invisible Onos. You either walk right into a stationary one, or you'd hear a CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP and everything starts shaking.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Being able to clog up both sides of a Phasegate, making marines unable to get out or even shoot at them before they autophased again.
    fun fun :D
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    Yup.
    Being able to clog up both sides of a Phasegate, making marines unable to get out or even shoot at them before they autophased again.
    fun fun :D

    You can still do that, far more difficult though.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    hmm really. Because I have not managed yet.
    Assuming also, of course, reasonable time span.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Lol invisible Onos. You either walk right into a stationary one, or you'd hear a CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP and everything starts shaking.

    I would be happy if silence actually made onos silent.
  • zeepzeep Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3367Members
    edited January 2015
    . free gorge tunnel placement - gorge tunnels could be placed anywhere you like, gorge tunnels in vents etc

    . whips would whack grenades, whips would bat away marine grenades preventing grenade spam and often killing the marine.

    . wall walk CCs - skulks could wall walk up and around a marine CC.

    Free gorge tunnels, whips throwing back grenades, man i really miss those.

    I feel NS2 went from great fun to -nerf nerf nerf-, regular fun. UW and forum goers taking all the fun out the game for balance schmalance. But instead it mostly ends up being more stale. All the dynamics are compressed. Modern games are like modern electronic music.

    NS2 is still a great game though.
  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    Who can forget unlimited clogs??

    Or Focus?? OP Fade & Focus ftw!!
  • KalopsiaKalopsia Join Date: 2003-05-15 Member: 16331Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    So need to make a mod out of all these changes along with the ability to drop a hive/CC anywhere on the map.
  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    SnX wrote: »
    I would like to have multiple commanders back so there are more people to blame when you lose!

    I think the dearth of players able correctly to punctuate the phrase: "it was the commanders' fault" would kill me, bit by bit.
  • HeatSurgeHeatSurge Some Guy Join Date: 2012-09-15 Member: 159438Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited January 2015
    Gosh, as I was playing pregame on aliens evolving gorge, putting tunnel next to marines for lulz, and then evolving lerk or something again, I thought: "Hypermutation."

    I remember the days when an onos would go around the corner and devolve into skulk to prevent loss of rez from being killed... Much lulz.

    Also feign death. I actually thought feign death was interesting just as it was.

    Edit: I guess both of these have already been mentioned. Oh well :-) .
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    - Glancing Bites for Skulks
    - Sentries that weren't godawful.
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    I miss sentries that didn't require the portable powernode.
    OH WAIT, THE SENTRY POWERNODE, SORRY. *cough*
  • amoralamoral Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177250Members
    Roobubba wrote: »
    SnX wrote: »
    I would like to have multiple commanders back so there are more people to blame when you lose!

    I think the dearth of players able correctly to punctuate the phrase: "it was the commanders' fault" would kill me, bit by bit.

    I'd say, sometimes it is the comm's fault. All I ask for is competence. And sometimes you've got the problem that the comm just doesn't have enough experience. They do not everything you ask but they're too slow. Meh
  • deathshrouddeathshroud Join Date: 2010-04-10 Member: 71291Members
    researching grenades over mines at a crucial moment in the game can be a win or lose event
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    AurOn2 wrote: »
    I miss sentries that didn't require the portable powernode.
    OH WAIT, THE SENTRY POWERNODE, SORRY. *cough*

    Word, I really wish we could finally get rid of this redundant extra structure. At least then they wouldn't become entirely useless once aliens get bilebomb.
    It's perfectly fine that they're capped at 3 and were made a lot less durable, but forcing marine commanders to build them all cluttered up somewhere is just ridiculous.

    There was a time when the TF was at least a somewhat viable strategy in pubs, would be nice to get that back.
  • Soylent_greenSoylent_green Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    NS2_rockdown. A kind of placeholder map for testing before real maps became available / playable. I doubt this was ever intended to become an official map. Performance gradually degraded to about 20-40 FPS during combat, with hideous stuttering. Eventually they had things sorted out and they made the map much larger, but it wasn't enough.

    Lerk projectile spikes. In NS 1.0x lerk spikes appeared to be projectiles rather than hitscan, but they were actually hitscan; this was probably a performance/technical limitation. In NS2 projectile spikes made their return.

    Unrepairable power nodes and no welders. I think you had to wait until they were destroyed before the commander had to redrop them.

    Lerk sniper-spikes.

    Lerk spike-shotgun as alt-fire for spikes.

    Mines didn't set off nearby mines. Very spam friendly.

    Completely unplayable ns2_tram with perhaps half the performance of summit, which itself had perhaps half the performance summit has today.

    Instant teleport blink. It was confusing so they added turning the fade towards the nearest marine (if close enough), with a ghost figure of a fade showing where you would end up and in what direction if you hit the fire button. This made things even more confusing.

    Infestation patches that were almost impossible to kill without flame throwers (before cysts were introduced). The flame thrower would set it on fire at the center point where you needed to aim.

    GL attachment (as has been mentioned) with grenades that would explode instantly upon hitting the floor. Extremely OP.



  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    @Xarius‌ Back from the dead?! WB, friend. ;)
  • deathshrouddeathshroud Join Date: 2010-04-10 Member: 71291Members
    edited January 2015
    i always liked the idea of sentries being a marine pres purchase and purchased from the robotics factory, they appear as a backpack that the marine can deploy anywhere he likes
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    IronHorse wrote: »
    @Xarius‌ Back from the dead?! WB, friend. ;)

    Sure am, and thanks! Been playing a lot again lately, you guys have done great things with the game so far! Excited to see what else you may have in store for us :)

  • SquishpokePOOPFACESquishpokePOOPFACE -21,248 posts (ignore below) Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165262Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2015
    i always liked the idea of sentries being a marine pres purchase and purchased from the robotics factory, they appear as a backpack that the marine can deploy anywhere he likes

    That would be interesting to see. I'd put them in vents for sure, unless they get the gorge tunnel treatment. Then I'd just use them to watch my back as I chop down harvestors.

    Let this personal turret be slightly different than what the commander drops down: max one per player, and it only attacks moving objects, not buildings. Aliens can bypasss it with cloak walking. Players can pick their own sentry back up and bring it with them as they go. (Perhaps the marine IS the battery and can't leave it behind?) If this sentry is a bit more powerful than the commander's turrets, then you can balance it by giving the marine player limited stamina for sprinting (just like the old days!)

    Also, can't use jetpack with this. That can be another balancing factor.

    Might be worth a shot, but we can't have it be too common. To much of this kind of thing is against core NS2 design.
  • amoralamoral Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177250Members
    i always liked the idea of sentries being a marine pres purchase and purchased from the robotics factory, they appear as a backpack that the marine can deploy anywhere he likes

    That would be interesting to see. I'd put them in vents for sure, unless they get the gorge tunnel treatment. Then I'd just use them to watch my back as I chop down harvestors.

    Let this personal turret be slightly different than what the commander drops down: max one per player, and it only attacks moving objects, not buildings. Aliens can bypasss it with cloak walking. Players can pick their own sentry back up and bring it with them as they go. (Perhaps the marine IS the battery and can't leave it behind?) If this sentry is a bit more powerful than the commander's turrets, then you can balance it by giving the marine player limited stamina for sprinting (just like the old days!)

    Also, can't use jetpack with this. That can be another balancing factor.

    Might be worth a shot, but we can't have it be too common. To much of this kind of thing is against core NS2 design.

    Op as hell.

    You'd never see a single base rush work again.

    And sentries not bound to battery on phase gates? With even a six man team counter pushes and coordination can't get you through that.
  • lewispgjlewispgj Join Date: 2017-05-25 Member: 230754Members
    Sorry to bump an old post, but why was the ability to have multiple commanders removed?

    I've been a super casual player of NS since its first builds as a mod for HL1 and I've always thought the single-commander design was a big flaw in an otherwise brilliant game. It seems like the community has been honed to the point where you have decent commanders regularly appearing in matches, but there are still plenty of times where one bad commander sets your team back too far to recover.

    In this recent reddit post, the third most popular comment (and judging by votes, this reflects a lot of people's attitude) summarizes the problem with this critical game mechanic: matches depend on seasoned commanders, but players are discouraged from getting experience at commanding because so much depends on them. Read it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/5mbzp4/if_you_have_never_played_natural_selection_2/

    I'm very good at both FPS and RTS games, have been playing NS since its earliest builds and know the mechanics pretty well, and I'm a comfortable leader, but I *rarely* command just because I play so casually that I wouldn't want to ruin other people's games just because I'm not up-to-speed on some new strategy or game mechanic... even though I'd probably have a lot to offer most teams.

    So are players & devs really against the idea of multiple commanders, or does it just present difficult design challenges?
  • 2cough2cough Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    edited May 2017
    do you mean simultaneously? because the reason thats not allowed seems obvious. other than that, anybody can hop in the chair/ hive if the comm is out.

    not sure what you mean by multiple commanders.
  • deathshrouddeathshroud Join Date: 2010-04-10 Member: 71291Members
    i think the multiple commanders thing was a bug early on. Anyone could just jump in an empty chair and start commanding. It did have its uses but was often plagued with trolls who would just jump in an empty cc and mess the game up.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited May 2017
    There once was a time where the marines could indeed have two commanders, one main commander. And once the team managed to get two command chairs and upgrade that one, they could get a second/optional support commander IIRC


    It was removed because it was too easy to troll with, by spending team resources on stuff that wasn't needed and also the issue of having one less marine out in the field, meaning less firepower, map control/presence and builders (something the aliens walked all over, eventually). In the end it was kinda one of those neat but useless features/ideas. I mean think about it, a marine is a lot more useful out in the field rather than riding shotgun with the big boss.

    http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Build_188, removed
    http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Build_189, bugfix
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    "Man, I never even heard of some of these things before.

    Wait, this post is how old"
    . Invisible aliens - the stealth ability for aliens made them completely invisible even when moving making it impossible to spot them without a beacon.

    This is so broken in retrospective. It just never came up because crag was so strong and people didn't realize the power of silence (and being completely fucking invisible).

    . wall walk CCs - skulks could wall walk up and around a marine CC.

    I still think this was an unnecessary change. It makes it pretty inconsistent which structures you can climb and which you can't. Was there ever much of a problem in the first place?
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    Also an interesting tidbit from the linked reddit thread:
    "Its a cool idea behind the game. As a marine you arent able to kill a skulk alone (unless you are amazing). It adds to the team element and RTS inspired elements."

    This is how rookies see the game. You think you remember and know what it's like to be a rookie, and then you read something like that, and you realize, nope, you don't. Now you're going to say "Yeah but I was never that bad"... well, you are the kind of person who put hundreds of hours into this game, so there's a certain selection bias at play.
    I think at this point it is really hard for most of us to imagine how hard this game can be for rookies...
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited May 2017
    Vetinari wrote: »
    "Man, I never even heard of some of these things before.

    Wait, this post is how old"
    . Invisible aliens - the stealth ability for aliens made them completely invisible even when moving making it impossible to spot them without a beacon.

    This is so broken in retrospective. It just never came up because crag was so strong and people didn't realize the power of silence (and being completely fucking invisible).

    Old build, old thread,
    3947070-g1335873246724378224.jpg

    Yep, it was... VERY broken/OP :D
    Vetinari wrote: »
    . wall walk CCs - skulks could wall walk up and around a marine CC.

    I still think this was an unnecessary change. It makes it pretty inconsistent which structures you can climb and which you can't. Was there ever much of a problem in the first place?

    There were indeed some issues where skulks could get on top of the thing and with it being such a tall and bulky peace of kit, marines basically had to move further away to shoot the damn Skulk, while the Skulk could move behind the CC, if they did this (rinse and repeat was annoying to say the least). And with some map areas having the CC in an alcove or higher up than the surrounding area, a Skulk almost had free reign for a certain amount of time, it made evading marines a lot easier than doing the current ring around the CC dance :tongue:
  • BestProfileNameBestProfileName Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177320Members
    Invisible aliens used to have to move at crouch speed. I think people realised the power of silence and being invisible, it's just that at higher levels, you'd be moving pretty slowly and a competent commander would scan the mothers. Perhaps there was an earlier build where you could sprint whilst invisible though.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Perhaps there was an earlier build where you could sprint whilst invisible though.

    There was and it was glorious, also celerity was a lot faster, a deadly hit and run you couldn't even see or hear coming :worried:
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