Rages, Fun Factor, Overhauling (Constructive criticism)
Ironsoul
Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
Hey guys, so this post will be edited multiple times and will discuss multiple issues revolving around the RAGE FACTOR, and the FUN FACTOR of natural selection 2.
Before I actually post up some of my own suggestions, I would like to do a quick poll on how you guys currently feel about natural selection 2's fun or rage factor.
There doesn't appear to be a poll button, so. In one sentence, how does natural selection make you feel? Some ideas for the answer is enjoyment, or anger/frustration?
I'll be back in a while to continue adding stuff in, please post a reply until then.
EDIT: Restructuring of Commander Experience to make it easy(and fun) to learn, and challenging to master(maybe).
So what happens when you first log in to the commander experience(for players who have never played a natural selection game before). I don't know, but I do know what I did: I said "oh hey, this is like a real time strategy game... and I don't like rts games all that much. So I continued to play around, building structures, trying to give orders, getting frustrated by lag(from the engine, but that's another story and I know theyre trying to fix that).
I've owned ns2 for over a month now, and I really dislike the commander experience, and the current rts clone setup doesn't work with the maps and gameplay of ns2(may have worked with ns1, I don't know).
But if I were designing the commander experience, it would work a little something like this...
The interface would be split into three sections: Orders, Upgrades and Construction
<u><b>Orders</b></u>
In the orders menu, The commander can drop way-points around the map and give them a name and importance level. Aside from an overview of the current map, another menu would be visible where the commander can rearrange the location of objectives on the list to indicate which should be completed first. And, if wanted, the commander can also draw lines to the objectives if a specific path is taken(or later on, the game can automatically set up paths to objectives).
Objectives are custom, but would generally be along the lines of attack, defend, or build. If the commander types in any of those key words, an icon on the objective will automatically be set to reflect the objective type.
In the orders section, the commander can also quickly post urgent messages to the entire team, for example "Base is under attack, need it to be defended". These messages would appear in a special font.
Squad management would also be possible easily from the orders menu, and individual squads can be assigned their own objectives.
<b><u>Upgrades</u></b>
This would simply be a menu dedicated to the upgrading of weapons, building technology, and other miscellaneous upgrades. It would have a tiered menu approach and allow the commander to view all of the progresses of upgrades and highlight key upgrades(such as shotgun research percentage) to broadcast to the entire team until that upgrade is complete.
<b><u>Construction</u></b>
This would consist of an overview of the map, a menu bar down the bottom containing all the structures that can be built, and also an indication of how building a certain structure would affect resources(note, resources would be visible across all sections for obvious reasons): if a structure in the build menu is highlighted red, it cannot be built, if it is yellow, it will use more than 50% of the total resources, if it is green, it will use less than 20%, in between that, there will be no highlighting.
When the commander places a building to be built, a mac will automatically be built and deployed to the location of the structure to build it. The commander can also opt to "rush" the construction which will deploy more macs if energy allows and post a message to marines to build the structure.
How macs(and drifters) will work.
Energy will increase in the same way as before, when a mac is created, it will still cost 50 energy. The mac will travel to it's objective, construct the building, and then return to the command center. When the mac returns to the command center, a percentage of energy will be returned for later use(if the mac has 100% health, 100% energy of construction will be returned, if it has 50% health, 50% energy return).
A couple of other ideas.
Counter to sneaky skulks destroying the infantry portal early on. An ability the commander can activate to make the infantry portal invulnerable(or highly resistant to damage), but deactivated(marines can't teleport in) would be useful to allow marines to rush back to base and attempt to defend the portal, disabling the portal provides balance as it would be unfair for an invulnerable portal to allow teleportation. 10-15 seconds should be long enough to give marines precious time without being overpowered.
Before I actually post up some of my own suggestions, I would like to do a quick poll on how you guys currently feel about natural selection 2's fun or rage factor.
There doesn't appear to be a poll button, so. In one sentence, how does natural selection make you feel? Some ideas for the answer is enjoyment, or anger/frustration?
I'll be back in a while to continue adding stuff in, please post a reply until then.
EDIT: Restructuring of Commander Experience to make it easy(and fun) to learn, and challenging to master(maybe).
So what happens when you first log in to the commander experience(for players who have never played a natural selection game before). I don't know, but I do know what I did: I said "oh hey, this is like a real time strategy game... and I don't like rts games all that much. So I continued to play around, building structures, trying to give orders, getting frustrated by lag(from the engine, but that's another story and I know theyre trying to fix that).
I've owned ns2 for over a month now, and I really dislike the commander experience, and the current rts clone setup doesn't work with the maps and gameplay of ns2(may have worked with ns1, I don't know).
But if I were designing the commander experience, it would work a little something like this...
The interface would be split into three sections: Orders, Upgrades and Construction
<u><b>Orders</b></u>
In the orders menu, The commander can drop way-points around the map and give them a name and importance level. Aside from an overview of the current map, another menu would be visible where the commander can rearrange the location of objectives on the list to indicate which should be completed first. And, if wanted, the commander can also draw lines to the objectives if a specific path is taken(or later on, the game can automatically set up paths to objectives).
Objectives are custom, but would generally be along the lines of attack, defend, or build. If the commander types in any of those key words, an icon on the objective will automatically be set to reflect the objective type.
In the orders section, the commander can also quickly post urgent messages to the entire team, for example "Base is under attack, need it to be defended". These messages would appear in a special font.
Squad management would also be possible easily from the orders menu, and individual squads can be assigned their own objectives.
<b><u>Upgrades</u></b>
This would simply be a menu dedicated to the upgrading of weapons, building technology, and other miscellaneous upgrades. It would have a tiered menu approach and allow the commander to view all of the progresses of upgrades and highlight key upgrades(such as shotgun research percentage) to broadcast to the entire team until that upgrade is complete.
<b><u>Construction</u></b>
This would consist of an overview of the map, a menu bar down the bottom containing all the structures that can be built, and also an indication of how building a certain structure would affect resources(note, resources would be visible across all sections for obvious reasons): if a structure in the build menu is highlighted red, it cannot be built, if it is yellow, it will use more than 50% of the total resources, if it is green, it will use less than 20%, in between that, there will be no highlighting.
When the commander places a building to be built, a mac will automatically be built and deployed to the location of the structure to build it. The commander can also opt to "rush" the construction which will deploy more macs if energy allows and post a message to marines to build the structure.
How macs(and drifters) will work.
Energy will increase in the same way as before, when a mac is created, it will still cost 50 energy. The mac will travel to it's objective, construct the building, and then return to the command center. When the mac returns to the command center, a percentage of energy will be returned for later use(if the mac has 100% health, 100% energy of construction will be returned, if it has 50% health, 50% energy return).
A couple of other ideas.
Counter to sneaky skulks destroying the infantry portal early on. An ability the commander can activate to make the infantry portal invulnerable(or highly resistant to damage), but deactivated(marines can't teleport in) would be useful to allow marines to rush back to base and attempt to defend the portal, disabling the portal provides balance as it would be unfair for an invulnerable portal to allow teleportation. 10-15 seconds should be long enough to give marines precious time without being overpowered.
Comments
Does that work?
<u>Fun Factors:</u>
-Commanding is fun
-The skulk is very good
-The Classes on the aliens are fun to play
And now for the rages:
<u>Rage Factors:</u>
-Fade is abosulutely crap; he can't hit properly, he is slow, blink blinds you for a split second, Flamerthrower stops fades energy from going back up making the fade a sitting duck, he is weak and gets owned by shotguns, (That was just 1 thing)
-The shotgun is terrible, it is OP, 2 shotgunners can kill a fade in under 2 seconds, it owns whips and crags and harvesters and hydras and hives, What doesn't it own?
-The Hydra is crap, it can't hit targets, it is weak and dies in a few seconds, it can't hit moving targets and it fires slowly,
-The Whip is also crap, it gets owned even when a shotgunner is looking at it straight int he face(?) and shooting it, yet it doesn't kill him
-The gorge lacks any roles, he places crappy hydras and heals...
-The lerk is fine but hard to fly around with because of the complex and detailed maps.
-The lag is ridiculous
Some may think this is just a trolling post but I am angry because of the lousy game that I just played as Alien were my whole team was getting owned and they weren't doing anything about it...
Hit F.
F4? <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/trollface.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
That ruins the nice detailed maps :/
<u>Fun Factors:</u>
-Commanding is fun<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey, since the idea i plan on posting is mainly about redoing the commander experience, can you please tell me what's fun about it, or what's not fun if any that you find?
1. German Keyboard => Y=Z.
2. The layout, i would rather have a dedicated backbutton* in each child menu instead having the structures etc only on asdfzxcv... i always missclick into the qwer region... so instead building a RT with d? i always press E - the artstyle tricks me into it. (or maybe im just used that qwer are "important" buttons from games like dota, LoL, HoN)
*Swapping menu places with zxcv would be the best idea
My biggest problems besides this:
Its lacking a good squad and waypoint system, and position of stuff isnt really userfriendly.
Doesnt care about minimizing "eye traveltime" so location names upper left, map bottom left, resources center top and structures down left - great
So i have to look in the upper center to know my resources, look every few seconds in the bottom left corner to check whats going on (occasionally popup the bigger map), then look at what i can build + recheck to top center if im waiting for res...for voice commanding i have to look in the upper left corner or the big map to tell where what happens, and also look on the screen to spam medpacks, ammo build stuff or select groups and place waypoints. (which i cant see)
Ideas:
- Map with color filters(show only red(enemy player + structures), green(friendly players + structures) show friendly with individual squad colors, extra structure colors for both sides[guess no need if icons are implemented])
- Fast global "pings" next to the minimap with hotkeys (global waypoints for attack, defend, harrass without the need of selecting ppl by hand - they are planning it this way for aliens only, if i understand the current ui right :(.
- Add the current location name over the minimap.
- Ring of Health and Armor around structures or players at key press or via options menu. (settings: press alt => shows rings on players and structures, always show rings on players + alt for structures, or the other way around)
So we dont have to select every single structure or player to find out if it needs repair or health.
- Squadsystem
- Shift + build
- Multiselected builders + shift + build
- idle builder hotkey
PS: i also hate that i cant just drop structures if i have a mac selected - placing a structure with a mac waits until it is at the position to drop it, while having the cc selected instead lets you just drop it. Either have a hotkey to drop structures, or just drop it and let the mac move to it. (I could live with it if structure hotkeys wouldnt be so crappy. Do the the single tap and double tap key move to selected opject system we all know from every other rts - so i could save me the stress and lets me just press the CC hotkey to select it without moveing my screen across the whole map.
Yeah, but all of that nice detail distracts you from your main purpose of killing marines.
PFFSHA! I play with my monitor off so others don't rage quit all the time <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/awesome.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />