Comparions/Crossovers with Savage:Battle for Newerth

Jonwah

I'm not sure if anyone has brought this up before, but NS shares a lot in common with Savage, if anyone has played it. Savage is RTS/FPS/RPG, with some third-person fighting thrown in the mix; both teams have a commander, who uses top-down classic RTS controls to place buildings, heal troops etc. Savage never started from a community, however it now has a very strong following for the original (now freeware). Savage 2 was a re-invention of the original classic, but it failed fairly badly because it lost the feel of what made the original so good.

In this case, Savage 1 felt smooth; the simplistic physics model allowed for players to invent their own styles of play (look up savage beast training video on youtube), to become very skillful at the game, and it felt right. In comparison, the sequel felt sticky and not polished, it lost the feel of the first game, and subsequently the diehard fans still play Savage 1 over S2...

I thought of this originally when reading through the AutoBite discussion; the feeling I got seemed to be that the original NS players loved how it worked, as they could use skill to get it over newer players, just like in Savage. Both games also have quite a learning curve that can be intimidating to newer players and ultimately rewarding to more experienced players.

Anyway, I was wondering if this had come up before for discussion? Has anyone here played NS and Savage, and noticed the differences/similarities? Does anyone think the guys building NS can learn from any of Savage's strong points (the third person fighting in particular, is the best in any game I've ever played), or from where Savage failed?



Edit: This may not be the right forum for this thread; I wasn't too sure, and didn't want to restart the AutoBite topic, just thought others might have similar ideas etc from their experience playing Savage...

locallyunscene

<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=me)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (me)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I bought and played Savage 1, but I ended up sticking to NS rather than buying Savage 2(although I considered it). Basically I didn't like some of the design decisions for the game. I thought they were perfectly valid and the game wasn't bad, but I liked the way NS did things better.

I didn't like the RPG progression of your character. Looking back on it it actually ended up a lot like DotA where you would be leveled above a lot of players and mainly focus on their "heros" and buildings while easily dispatching the majority of players. NS2 seems to be going in this direction with marines buying their own weapons, but still possesses a major difference; you don't keep your "levels" when you die except for global tech.

I also didn't like the RTS progression in Savage. You chose to level different build paths which improved and gave access to different weapons. These paths tended to be "harder" counters than in NS. You weren't helpless, but your comm choosing the wrong "path" could decrease your effectiveness by a lot. This meant that the RTS element has more of a focus than the FPS element.

In conjunction with the harder counters, the FPS aspect wasn't as prominent. The beginning of each match focused on melee because guns weren't effective yet. If you've every played a KvK game in NS and know what skulk v skulk combat is, it is essentially that but slower. So switching between range and melee was supposed to be the "meat" of that game, but it's not present in the beginning.

Finally, the maps were shaped like standard RTS or Onslaught maps. Two facing bases, a natural, a contested middle, and two flanking paths down each side. I much prefer the vents and cover that make NS maps a playground rather than boring empty areas.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->