HandschuhJoin Date: 2005-03-08Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
edited July 2017
- Match Making System | improved Shuffle for afkers/leavers
- Compmodimplementation (Gorgebhop!)
- 64 Bit with more stable fps(!!!!)
- Killcam
- Playerstatssystem
- Jambi as official map
- NS2+ as vanilla with more useful default settings overall in all settings
- Hiveskill for Marine/Alien and slightly changed for Commander
- Remove Stab - Implement at least weak form of Acidrockets
- delayed Autoupgrades (gain 1 Upgrade for every 1-2 seconds, e.g. 1 Shell/shift per Second so you won't overpower a marine who spawns near the egg)
- Improved Beaconactivation (no accidents!.. like doubleclick or something)
- Less pdamage for GL / Friendlyfire on to prevent GL spam
- Renaming machinegun to HMG with less Weight
- Medpack Dropping - increased visibility / soundnoise while dropping/picking it up
- removing HP bar
- configurable axe animation to get the old one...
- improved whips
- Remove Dual Railguns
- Gorgetunnel adjustability like which Tunnel you remove..
- cooler Sound for rifle bash
- make the removal of weaponswitching configurable so you can still play you're used to(!)
- Improved Scoreboard
-- Knowing who has what Equipment via icon
-- Improved Informationflow that you lack welders, to many flamethrowser/GLs or lack lerks and fades(!!!) and got to many gorges... before you go gorge...
- visible/hearable information once you get Lifeformressources
- Improved MiniMap
-- Showing Mapcoverage for each marine... even if its just a glowing bubble so you see which lane/route/vent isnt covered at all and if there are to many marines at one spot
- Improved Tutorials
-- Wallhop / Speedrun tutorials with movement explanation for all lifeforms with Real Mapparts
-- Engagementutorials (Crushes, First one only dodges | Positioning for Killing Hive / Harvester by not using the Axe due to bad positioning | Pointing out importance of Distance as marines always run to close to melee enemies/tunnels/entrances/corners)
-- Strategy Tutorials (Lifeformdistribution [importance of Lerks/Fades], explaining importance of techtree - armor 1/2 )
I disagree with kill cams, could reveal certain things inadvertently if too long, and wouldn't be useful if too short, with both of these cons overlapping in the middle. When you then consider that it wouldn't be easy to implement, it's a bad idea.
Ns1 hive sight range – used to be able to see players / hives on the other side of the map, hive sight in ns2 has very limited range, only players around will show up
Hive health on hud
Structure drop messages – just a little notification that shows what structure and where it is dropped
Add more colour to sprites – ie upgrades on hud – different colours other than just orange, like colour symbols on workshop for ns2
New sounds? Current sounds sound very dull, new sounds may improve overall experience
Any chance of ns2 getting a port to another engine? Spark 2, unity?
I disagree with kill cams, could reveal certain things inadvertently if too long, and wouldn't be useful if too short, with both of these cons overlapping in the middle. When you then consider that it wouldn't be easy to implement, it's a bad idea.
Killcams are a great thing for public server. Players are able to see how they died that way but in competitive I agree it is a bad idea. A killcam could reveal a gorge tunnel hidden by a shade or something like that.
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
edited July 2017
Tweaks
- evolve menu while spawning, and you stay an egg until it is closed.
- Rework dual railgun exo so it isn't so fiddly and strange. (My suggestion would be to allow charging both at once, but lower the charging rate and maximum charge when both are charging.)
- add a bind for each alien ability individually
- better MG sound
New stuff
- A badass trailer that makes the social media rounds
- A free weekend to accompany the trailer
- Some new flashy marine mid-game tech
- moar maps!
KatzenfleischJoin Date: 2014-03-21Member: 194881Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
edited July 2017
If I was in charge of the current development team and could decide what could be worked on for the next 1-3 months this would be a start, in the hope ideas here will help.
Assuming there is nothing on the plate being worked on and I got a @McGlaspie available, you seems to always have so much work on your todolist
Changelog:
== Major part of the logs ==
[*] Commander -> field players communication improvement.
......... At best this would allow a commander to tell everything he needs to his/her team with only the big minimap (no word needed. If they are needed then something is lacking.
......... This would includes:
......... * 1/ Commander able to "draw" on the minimap the same way spectators do with a mouse eraser option, plus a 'R' reset/clear for everything
......... * 2/ Commander able to place icons on the minimap (defend / attack / follow / etc)
......... * 3/ Commander able to right-click square select players on the minimap directly (a lot faster to give order).
......... * 4/ Vim like shortcut (like "3d click" to place a "defend" icon with the number 3 displayed in red/green/blue to say "I need 3/2/1 more marines here", can be distance based
[*] An "evadespeed" meter bar (extension of debugspeed)
......... To get our mouvement speed "on screen" relative to the nearest enemy with the seen size of the hitbox. This would help a lot when training lerk/fade lifeforms since so far there is close to zero way to know how good we are doing. Ideally with a summary end game of how well you have done (atm, there is no stats concerning mouvement skills)
[*] Revamp of the game graphism to looks like this (in my opinion the game looks insaly good/creepy on this video compared to what we got now)
......... *
[*] "Play now" taking into account groups of players, imo this is the best and easiest way for players to gather a team and train as a group (even with pairs of 2/3 players, or alone)
[*] Players mouvement prediction so the model don't depend on the fps and "freeze" midair (but continue) if, for example, game is freezing for half a sec (I am freezing a couple of times (< 1s) per game due to my hdd/texture I think, but this is often enough to flash a lifeform or being confused if you are still alive after it resumes)
[*] Kill cam (with every single enemy entity but the killer (and on sight ones) hidden from relevancy, so nothing is disclosed)
== Minor part of the logs ==
[*] Delayed skulk spawn auto upgrade
[*] Burst of short living spore on matured cyst (like in infested mode) that would either damage health, or produce a small disorient effect the longer you stay on infestation depending on which hive type is the closest, so each hive has its own surrounding cyst environement.
[*] Fade revamp to make its gameplay more unique (seems like a fast 3d moving big skulk without anything new)
[*] Fade blink mouvement oriented and not view oriented (blink where you want to move instead of what you are looking at (in the mind of shadow step))
[*] Fade blink interblink delay removed/reduced (so it can be use more aggressivly to dodge))
[*] Stats: Bullets/bites/spikes/spits missed on you
[*] Stats: Making marines accuracy be shown depending on how far the target is (with a nice curve X: Distance Y: Accuracy, with a point giving the number of bullets spent at this distance)
[*] Bringing back bonewall blueprint on the khammander view
[*] Bringing back real hallucination death (hallucination dying like a real player, and being more easily controlable by the khammander (atm they are stubborn, especially gorge (ordermixin overriden)))
[*] Bringing back delayed regdoll dissolve (it looks like god is cherry picking dead souls with a stolen startrek laser)
[*] Bringing back rifle attached grenade, even if it needs a research on the AA
[*] Points/Stats umbra blocked damages
[*] Points/Stats when destroying mines
[*] Points/Stats when killing marines with a gorge tunnel
==> Those 2 are important ====== (Skulk mouvement on ceiling should be really easy and viable)
[*] Skulk speed bonus when walking on ceiling or adding a 'wall mouvement lock' to force the skulk to stay attached no matter what until a key is released (ideally, moving from A -> B walking on ceilings should be as fast or faster than moving on the ground), this would make the engagement a lot more spreaded on screen (less skulks on the lower part of the screen, more on the top, more viable gameplay options). Unfortunatly skulks are just an easy target on the ceiling and it is often a really hard place to move on.
[*] Allow skulks to do 'locked ceiling jumps': When the skulk is moving on the ceiling, a blueprint (same as the "sneak here" ones in the tutorials) is displayed on a place forward on the ceiling so the skulk can 'jump' on it. This is basicaly a pure mouvement buff without any drawback to allow skulk to evade and jump from horizontal pillars to an other (ex: repair in mineshaft). This would be played the same way as if you were jumping on the floor but the jump would only make you grip on an other piece of ceiling)
<=======================
[*] Gorge hydras recycling
[*] Gorge 'spitting' structures effect back
[*] Gorge 'draging' ragdolls toward infestation and consume them for pres/tres.
[*] Gorge 'turtling mode' carapace (where the gorge gather itself into a small balls with similar effect with boneshield)
[*] Gorge "babbler traps", same as webs, looks like a cyst, explode with babblers if a marine walk on it (Alien C4)
[*] Lerk gas: Being able to switch from the ranged/dropped gas (old/new)
[*] Shift group echoing (with the shift on screen) (square select + echo)
[*] Shift destination echoing (without shift on screen) (bring a structure from anywhere on the map who is nearby a shift toward where you are, same as "build XXX" but bring it from a shift instead of dropping it.
[*] Shift "auto moving" toward the building you want to echo if it is nearby to make it easier and smoother (goal is to switch from a "I want to echo this from here, to here", to "I want this building here, no matter from where it comes from (taking into account all building in direct range of a shift, or close enough for the shift to reach by automoving X sec). Most of the time aliens have only 1 building of each type, otherwise it can pick the less used one if multiple are in range.
[*] Khammander: Moving bonewall/infestation worms (something like this: but more spreaded like ground insects)
[*] Khammander: Automatic cyst growing and being able to "first view drop" khammander structures to use ceilings and walls, it would open a lots of deapth/death/depth to the game.
[*] Khammander: Better visual feedback for drifter abilities (is enzime still active ??, how many aliens are having it ??)
[*] Khammander: Drifter 2+ patrol points
[*] Marines priority when picking a weapon (so you don't repick a welder when there a shotgun going to expire, or being able to be forced to spam 'G' to be sure to pick it at least once)
[*] Marines C4 or clippable grenades (mines you can place and manually detonate, can be grouped up, can be repicked by you (or your teammates if compmod))
I've seen this done in other gaming communities and enjoyed reading those threads a lot so here we go:
How would the next builds change log look like afterwards?
I too have seen this in other (dying) games. And it is completely the wrong approach to find out what should be done.
Those that will answer have 1000+ hours and will continue to play no matter what.
They will have extreme detail knowledge about some game aspects and suggest change value X to X+-10%.
(In my opinion mostly because they prefer one playstyle and someone is countering that easily, and we cant have that when
they have perfected that playstyle over years. )
This is the wrong group to ask. You should asking those that stopped playing.
I have stopped playing ns2 twice for the following reasons: 1/2 of all games a crap/shit.
1/2 are just farming/crushing of 1 team, and last 4-12 minutes, with no change at all for the loosing team.
That plus a lot of players do not want to win, they want to humiliate; want to humiliate by have 4 victory hive,
concede right before victory, group picture of the team standing on the last tech point etc.
Changelog:
* Hive skill is now split into 4: marine, alien, marines com, alien com.
* Shuffle now use uses those to make teams.
* End statistics now shows a graph of hive skill difference over gametime (ignoring afks).
* Game auto adjust feature X if game is too unbalanced.
* If you bail from an ongoing game on a server, you cannot join another server for 1 hour.
Other changes
* Better support for clans; you name is now suffixed with a clan badge.
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
General
1. New game mode without commanders (like NS2:Assault mod)
2. Don't be scared to shake up the meta with new content as this keeps the game fresh.
3. Don't balance the fun out of the game.
Aliens
1. Alien abilities unlock automatically with biomass - Removes redundant research and allows for better balancing of abilities
2. Increase cost of biomass - Compensate for automatic ability unlock
3. Third hive lerk ability
4. Rework Stab
Upgrades
Upgrades are a little boring in this game because generally they're just stats increases. There should be a push to make all of them viable play styles for each life form that will have interesting synergies with other hive upgrade types. We need to get people out of the "I must have celerity as first upgrade wtf com?!?" attitude.
1. More than 1 upgrade can be evolved from the same hive type - If I want to go carapace and regen to be tank and slow I don't really see a problem. Balance accordingly.
2. Carapace gives more armour but makes you slower - combining this with celeritywould still give a net benefit but diminished individual bonus
3. Celerity makes you faster but reduces armour - combining this with carapace would still give a net benefit but diminished individual bonus
4. General review of upgrade viability and use
Marines
1. Reduce GL direct damage
2. Heavy armour - Gas resistant like ns1
Exos
There's nothing really fun or skilled about these since they're slow and just have weapons. They need to have some purchasable modules that give them some basic abilities without making the game too complicated (like modular exos which was too complicated/too much choice)
1. Reintroduce single weapon exos - these would move around substantially faster than dual
2. Railgun exo speed increase - needs to be able to disengage from an onos more easily
3. Railgun RoF doubled, half damage - less forgiving for victim and shooter and requires consecutive shots to a lerk
4. Railguns can fire at the same time - currently annoying managing timers on two separate mouse buttons
Module Ideas
1. Projected shield that is purchased - Gives more tactical use to exos
2. Armor module - more armour, slower
3. Beacon - Exo can be beaconed
4. Anything else that adds something interesting and tactical without overcomplicating
It's just harder to add more variety to NS2's gameplay when the maps are so small. Small maps are also the reason it's harder to balance between stalemating and snowballing. Obviously this problem can't really be fixed in NS2, but just felt like putting that out there.
It's just harder to add more variety to NS2's gameplay when the maps are so small. Small maps are also the reason it's harder to balance between stalemating and snowballing. Obviously this problem can't really be fixed in NS2, but just felt like putting that out there.
What would be your ideal map size?
Use node count, travel time between tech points and natural nodes, and travel time between tech points.
It's just harder to add more variety to NS2's gameplay when the maps are so small. Small maps are also the reason it's harder to balance between stalemating and snowballing. Obviously this problem can't really be fixed in NS2, but just felt like putting that out there.
No matter how many times I read this comment, I cannot wrap my head around the logic.
Almost every competitive FPS out has smaller maps than NS2, and those maps are certainly less detailed.
Tell me of a competitive game, that has maps that take potentially a whole minute to walk across, and that is without checking corners etc... if you add in-game obstacles like combat etc, it can take longer on certain maps.
Making the maps any bigger just makes the game take longer... and rounds already take longer (much MUCH longer) than the majority of competitive FPS games out there.
Well that's different, you aren't taking objectives in those games and you certainly aren't building bases (I assume you were referring to my 2nd statement). Bigger maps add more of a buffer that prevents snowballing while still allowing teams to move through objectives and keep the game interesting.
@Mouse I find that to be a bit hard to quantify honestly.
Well that's different, you aren't taking objectives in those games and you certainly aren't building bases (I assume you were referring to my 2nd statement). Bigger maps add more of a buffer that prevents snowballing while still allowing teams to move through objectives and keep the game interesting.
@Mouse I find that to be a bit hard to quantify honestly.
When it comes to NS2, and the nature of the Pres system (especially for aliens)
The larger the map, the more likely aliens are to win it... and they win by snowballing... they progressively tick up Pres, and then everyone goes onos, which is incredibly difficult to deal with in pub matches.
Add a way for aliens to indicate to their team what will be their first lifeform.
you can even send every player a notification when they have enough pres to evolve to their selected lifeform.
(I saw some players asking for this notification some years ago, so maybe it would be helpful to rookies)
Remove the arcade function and big centric buttons. No reason to just promote one server. Give it a reasonable name like modded servers or something. All servers are modded these days. Many more players go through them like the 8-bits, or TTO and the IBIS and DMD and the .ru or TA or just put the name Wooza on it. It i s a good thing to describe something for what it is. And health bars!
Remove the arcade function and big centric buttons. No reason to just promote one server. Give it a reasonable name like modded servers or something. All servers are modded these days. Many more players go through them like the 8-bits, or TTO and the IBIS and DMD and the .ru or TA or just put the name Wooza on it. It i s a good thing to describe something for what it is. And health bars!
...how is the current system promoting "just one server"?
Tweaks
- added small golden lights to alien structures.
I'm missing a reference here...
This was the best part of the sort lived atmo experiment. This part could be added back without changing anything else, and it would look really good I think.
Comments
The Hugh Head Trophy? AWESOME! x)
- Compmodimplementation (Gorgebhop!)
- 64 Bit with more stable fps(!!!!)
- Killcam
- Playerstatssystem
- Jambi as official map
- NS2+ as vanilla with more useful default settings overall in all settings
- Hiveskill for Marine/Alien and slightly changed for Commander
- Remove Stab - Implement at least weak form of Acidrockets
- delayed Autoupgrades (gain 1 Upgrade for every 1-2 seconds, e.g. 1 Shell/shift per Second so you won't overpower a marine who spawns near the egg)
- Improved Beaconactivation (no accidents!.. like doubleclick or something)
- Less pdamage for GL / Friendlyfire on to prevent GL spam
- Renaming machinegun to HMG with less Weight
- Medpack Dropping - increased visibility / soundnoise while dropping/picking it up
- removing HP bar
- configurable axe animation to get the old one...
- improved whips
- Remove Dual Railguns
- Gorgetunnel adjustability like which Tunnel you remove..
- cooler Sound for rifle bash
- make the removal of weaponswitching configurable so you can still play you're used to(!)
- Improved Scoreboard
-- Knowing who has what Equipment via icon
-- Improved Informationflow that you lack welders, to many flamethrowser/GLs or lack lerks and fades(!!!) and got to many gorges... before you go gorge...
- visible/hearable information once you get Lifeformressources
- Improved MiniMap
-- Showing Mapcoverage for each marine... even if its just a glowing bubble so you see which lane/route/vent isnt covered at all and if there are to many marines at one spot
- Improved Tutorials
-- Wallhop / Speedrun tutorials with movement explanation for all lifeforms with Real Mapparts
-- Engagementutorials (Crushes, First one only dodges | Positioning for Killing Hive / Harvester by not using the Axe due to bad positioning | Pointing out importance of Distance as marines always run to close to melee enemies/tunnels/entrances/corners)
-- Strategy Tutorials (Lifeformdistribution [importance of Lerks/Fades], explaining importance of techtree - armor 1/2 )
After that I might be satisfied
Hive health on hud
Structure drop messages – just a little notification that shows what structure and where it is dropped
Add more colour to sprites – ie upgrades on hud – different colours other than just orange, like colour symbols on workshop for ns2
New sounds? Current sounds sound very dull, new sounds may improve overall experience
Any chance of ns2 getting a port to another engine? Spark 2, unity?
He wants to add:
increase skulk health to 120
increase bite damage to 90
increase armor to 70
and BOOM we have the Skulk-King
Killcams are a great thing for public server. Players are able to see how they died that way but in competitive I agree it is a bad idea. A killcam could reveal a gorge tunnel hidden by a shade or something like that.
- evolve menu while spawning, and you stay an egg until it is closed.
- Rework dual railgun exo so it isn't so fiddly and strange. (My suggestion would be to allow charging both at once, but lower the charging rate and maximum charge when both are charging.)
- add a bind for each alien ability individually
- better MG sound
New stuff
- A badass trailer that makes the social media rounds
- A free weekend to accompany the trailer
- Some new flashy marine mid-game tech
- moar maps!
-Thunder Hammers added
-Game renamed to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
We would finally get our third race... SPACE ORKS!!!
Changelog:
== Major part of the logs ==
[*] Commander -> field players communication improvement.
......... At best this would allow a commander to tell everything he needs to his/her team with only the big minimap (no word needed. If they are needed then something is lacking.
......... This would includes:
......... * 1/ Commander able to "draw" on the minimap the same way spectators do with a mouse eraser option, plus a 'R' reset/clear for everything
......... * 2/ Commander able to place icons on the minimap (defend / attack / follow / etc)
......... * 3/ Commander able to right-click square select players on the minimap directly (a lot faster to give order).
......... * 4/ Vim like shortcut (like "3d click" to place a "defend" icon with the number 3 displayed in red/green/blue to say "I need 3/2/1 more marines here", can be distance based
[*] An "evadespeed" meter bar (extension of debugspeed)
......... To get our mouvement speed "on screen" relative to the nearest enemy with the seen size of the hitbox. This would help a lot when training lerk/fade lifeforms since so far there is close to zero way to know how good we are doing. Ideally with a summary end game of how well you have done (atm, there is no stats concerning mouvement skills)
[*] Revamp of the game graphism to looks like this (in my opinion the game looks insaly good/creepy on this video compared to what we got now)
......... *
[*] "Play now" taking into account groups of players, imo this is the best and easiest way for players to gather a team and train as a group (even with pairs of 2/3 players, or alone)
[*] Players mouvement prediction so the model don't depend on the fps and "freeze" midair (but continue) if, for example, game is freezing for half a sec (I am freezing a couple of times (< 1s) per game due to my hdd/texture I think, but this is often enough to flash a lifeform or being confused if you are still alive after it resumes)
[*] Kill cam (with every single enemy entity but the killer (and on sight ones) hidden from relevancy, so nothing is disclosed)
== Minor part of the logs ==
[*] Delayed skulk spawn auto upgrade
[*] Burst of short living spore on matured cyst (like in infested mode) that would either damage health, or produce a small disorient effect the longer you stay on infestation depending on which hive type is the closest, so each hive has its own surrounding cyst environement.
[*] Fade revamp to make its gameplay more unique (seems like a fast 3d moving big skulk without anything new)
[*] Fade blink mouvement oriented and not view oriented (blink where you want to move instead of what you are looking at (in the mind of shadow step))
[*] Fade blink interblink delay removed/reduced (so it can be use more aggressivly to dodge))
[*] Stats: Bullets/bites/spikes/spits missed on you
[*] Stats: Making marines accuracy be shown depending on how far the target is (with a nice curve X: Distance Y: Accuracy, with a point giving the number of bullets spent at this distance)
[*] Bringing back bonewall blueprint on the khammander view
[*] Bringing back real hallucination death (hallucination dying like a real player, and being more easily controlable by the khammander (atm they are stubborn, especially gorge (ordermixin overriden)))
[*] Bringing back delayed regdoll dissolve (it looks like god is cherry picking dead souls with a stolen startrek laser)
[*] Bringing back rifle attached grenade, even if it needs a research on the AA
[*] Points/Stats umbra blocked damages
[*] Points/Stats when destroying mines
[*] Points/Stats when killing marines with a gorge tunnel
==> Those 2 are important ====== (Skulk mouvement on ceiling should be really easy and viable)
[*] Skulk speed bonus when walking on ceiling or adding a 'wall mouvement lock' to force the skulk to stay attached no matter what until a key is released (ideally, moving from A -> B walking on ceilings should be as fast or faster than moving on the ground), this would make the engagement a lot more spreaded on screen (less skulks on the lower part of the screen, more on the top, more viable gameplay options). Unfortunatly skulks are just an easy target on the ceiling and it is often a really hard place to move on.
[*] Allow skulks to do 'locked ceiling jumps': When the skulk is moving on the ceiling, a blueprint (same as the "sneak here" ones in the tutorials) is displayed on a place forward on the ceiling so the skulk can 'jump' on it. This is basicaly a pure mouvement buff without any drawback to allow skulk to evade and jump from horizontal pillars to an other (ex: repair in mineshaft). This would be played the same way as if you were jumping on the floor but the jump would only make you grip on an other piece of ceiling)
<=======================
[*] Gorge hydras recycling
[*] Gorge 'spitting' structures effect back
[*] Gorge 'draging' ragdolls toward infestation and consume them for pres/tres.
[*] Gorge 'turtling mode' carapace (where the gorge gather itself into a small balls with similar effect with boneshield)
[*] Gorge "babbler traps", same as webs, looks like a cyst, explode with babblers if a marine walk on it (Alien C4)
[*] Lerk gas: Being able to switch from the ranged/dropped gas (old/new)
[*] Shift group echoing (with the shift on screen) (square select + echo)
[*] Shift destination echoing (without shift on screen) (bring a structure from anywhere on the map who is nearby a shift toward where you are, same as "build XXX" but bring it from a shift instead of dropping it.
[*] Shift "auto moving" toward the building you want to echo if it is nearby to make it easier and smoother (goal is to switch from a "I want to echo this from here, to here", to "I want this building here, no matter from where it comes from (taking into account all building in direct range of a shift, or close enough for the shift to reach by automoving X sec). Most of the time aliens have only 1 building of each type, otherwise it can pick the less used one if multiple are in range.
[*] Khammander: Moving bonewall/infestation worms (something like this:
[*] Khammander: Automatic cyst growing and being able to "first view drop" khammander structures to use ceilings and walls, it would open a lots of deapth/death/depth to the game.
[*] Khammander: Better visual feedback for drifter abilities (is enzime still active ??, how many aliens are having it ??)
[*] Khammander: Drifter 2+ patrol points
[*] Marines priority when picking a weapon (so you don't repick a welder when there a shotgun going to expire, or being able to be forced to spam 'G' to be sure to pick it at least once)
[*] Marines C4 or clippable grenades (mines you can place and manually detonate, can be grouped up, can be repicked by you (or your teammates if compmod))
And there is also something else I want:
More toys/weapons to play with
BREAKING NEWS: Strain of Orkish fungi discovered to be a rogue offshoot of the kharaa bacterium.
I too have seen this in other (dying) games. And it is completely the wrong approach to find out what should be done.
Those that will answer have 1000+ hours and will continue to play no matter what.
They will have extreme detail knowledge about some game aspects and suggest change value X to X+-10%.
(In my opinion mostly because they prefer one playstyle and someone is countering that easily, and we cant have that when
they have perfected that playstyle over years. )
This is the wrong group to ask. You should asking those that stopped playing.
I have stopped playing ns2 twice for the following reasons: 1/2 of all games a crap/shit.
1/2 are just farming/crushing of 1 team, and last 4-12 minutes, with no change at all for the loosing team.
That plus a lot of players do not want to win, they want to humiliate; want to humiliate by have 4 victory hive,
concede right before victory, group picture of the team standing on the last tech point etc.
Changelog:
* Hive skill is now split into 4: marine, alien, marines com, alien com.
* Shuffle now use uses those to make teams.
* End statistics now shows a graph of hive skill difference over gametime (ignoring afks).
* Game auto adjust feature X if game is too unbalanced.
* If you bail from an ongoing game on a server, you cannot join another server for 1 hour.
Other changes
* Better support for clans; you name is now suffixed with a clan badge.
1. New game mode without commanders (like NS2:Assault mod)
2. Don't be scared to shake up the meta with new content as this keeps the game fresh.
3. Don't balance the fun out of the game.
Aliens
1. Alien abilities unlock automatically with biomass - Removes redundant research and allows for better balancing of abilities
2. Increase cost of biomass - Compensate for automatic ability unlock
3. Third hive lerk ability
4. Rework Stab
Upgrades
Upgrades are a little boring in this game because generally they're just stats increases. There should be a push to make all of them viable play styles for each life form that will have interesting synergies with other hive upgrade types. We need to get people out of the "I must have celerity as first upgrade wtf com?!?" attitude.
1. More than 1 upgrade can be evolved from the same hive type - If I want to go carapace and regen to be tank and slow I don't really see a problem. Balance accordingly.
2. Carapace gives more armour but makes you slower - combining this with celeritywould still give a net benefit but diminished individual bonus
3. Celerity makes you faster but reduces armour - combining this with carapace would still give a net benefit but diminished individual bonus
4. General review of upgrade viability and use
Marines
1. Reduce GL direct damage
2. Heavy armour - Gas resistant like ns1
Exos
There's nothing really fun or skilled about these since they're slow and just have weapons. They need to have some purchasable modules that give them some basic abilities without making the game too complicated (like modular exos which was too complicated/too much choice)
1. Reintroduce single weapon exos - these would move around substantially faster than dual
2. Railgun exo speed increase - needs to be able to disengage from an onos more easily
3. Railgun RoF doubled, half damage - less forgiving for victim and shooter and requires consecutive shots to a lerk
4. Railguns can fire at the same time - currently annoying managing timers on two separate mouse buttons
Module Ideas
1. Projected shield that is purchased - Gives more tactical use to exos
2. Armor module - more armour, slower
3. Beacon - Exo can be beaconed
4. Anything else that adds something interesting and tactical without overcomplicating
What would be your ideal map size?
Use node count, travel time between tech points and natural nodes, and travel time between tech points.
No matter how many times I read this comment, I cannot wrap my head around the logic.
Almost every competitive FPS out has smaller maps than NS2, and those maps are certainly less detailed.
Tell me of a competitive game, that has maps that take potentially a whole minute to walk across, and that is without checking corners etc... if you add in-game obstacles like combat etc, it can take longer on certain maps.
Making the maps any bigger just makes the game take longer... and rounds already take longer (much MUCH longer) than the majority of competitive FPS games out there.
@Mouse I find that to be a bit hard to quantify honestly.
When it comes to NS2, and the nature of the Pres system (especially for aliens)
The larger the map, the more likely aliens are to win it... and they win by snowballing... they progressively tick up Pres, and then everyone goes onos, which is incredibly difficult to deal with in pub matches.
- added small golden lights to alien structures.
(I saw some players asking for this notification some years ago, so maybe it would be helpful to rookies)
...how is the current system promoting "just one server"?
I'm missing a reference here...
This was the best part of the sort lived atmo experiment. This part could be added back without changing anything else, and it would look really good I think.