Vivisection
sedek
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170750Members
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170750Members
<div class="IPBDescription">In which we explore the game from an outsider's perspective</div>Having never played NS1, read no reviews, and relying on the occasional word of mouth from friends, I picked the game up on Steam. Installed cleanly, launched without a fuss. Initial impression was good. The menu screen does a good job of conveying the feel of the game (dark, claustrophobic, totally unforgiving). A welcome change of pace to see that mods are easily available and apparently well supported.
Flowed to training, unwilling to drop blind. Watched a little of"Official Game Overview Video". Very, very little learned from videos in general, chose to go hands on rather than slog through two hours of videos. Loaded Explore Mode on map "Summit". Initial load times were, quite frankly, ridiculous for the size of the map (but subsequently improved). The loading screen depicted the grotesque progression into infestation, and the tips were easily <i>all</i> read before the map loaded. The loading room was simple to understand, though I can't in good faith say it was easy to understand why having players play "red rover" to select their team was desirable (nostalgia?).
Marines first. The HUD is simple and easy to understand, intuitive even without calling on the videos. The controls felt crisp and responsive, and tracking an imaginary target was easy enough. I'm a sucker for displaying the spare mags as they are. The buildings are visually distinct from each other yet follow the same overall design aesthetic. The pistol is described as being "great for sniping", which is confusing, considering that the reticle is very difficult to use at any significant range. The central dot disappears instantly when passed over terrain and marine buildings. The spread is also barely noticeably better than the assault rifle. Use in training maps is limited, but I doubt I'll use the pistol to any great degree, unless the alien Time To Kill is between a specific range, something the training videos didn't seem to indicate as being the case. Big fan of the hatchet, low tech solution. I next spent some time in the commander's chair, researching and expanding as allowed. Jetpacks seemed to be of limited use, allowing very little mobility in most of Summit's corridors and rooms. Exosuits remind me of TF2's heavy in the early months, ponderous at best. Return to ready room after five-ten minutes of playing around.
Aliens next. The Skulk is incredibly disorienting to use. I'm not sure why this creature's eyes are in the back of its mouth, but I spent a few minutes going through the keybinding and general options looking for the third person view control. I'm still disbelieving that this is how aliens are played. It doesn't lend itself well to the high mobility playstyle the skulk is supposed to be geared for. Wallclimbing is, it's, there's nothing positive to say about it. It's unintuitive and it doesn't work well in training. There is no indicator for how far away you can look before the game assumes you wish to fall, it's very difficult to navigate right angles safely, and any momentum build is quickly lost either by a fall or encountering an angle the engine handles as being something that should stop your progress. There's some room for finesse here, but it is very obviously not meant for most new players to excel at. Sticking to the floor for now. Unable to play the gorge, it made me physically ill to look through that perspective. While playing with the lerk I discovered that there's a fairly large (30 degrees-ish beyond the model in every direction) hitbox for all things Marine. I suppose this is designed to counter the extreme difficulty of landing hits with an obtuse viewpoint. The lerk is actually the first Alien that makes sense and seems to have a clearly defined purpose as a scout, capable of high mobility travel and covering miasma. Fades are some sort of fast stabby beast (that teleport?). Must investigate later. It's an interesting critter so far. Onus..es? Oni? Onusi? Onususeses are tanks. Not fast, not oriented towards finesse, just built to crush things. Health far and beyond any other unit in the game that I know of.
Half an hour elapsed, I did thus set out for an online game! Three attempts (one timeout and one authentication refused) later, I joined and had no choice but to play aliens. We were apparently badly behind. It's here that information overload took hold and I ceased gaining useful data. The Skulk continued to prove an extremely unreliable and unhelpful class, and I finished the round five minutes later having gone nearly 0-10. In training I failed to notice the immense amount of resources required to advance to one of the fun classes. Next game I went 3-15 as a marine, spending most of my time playing with the welder and being crushed by Onuseseis who appeared without any warning from a corridor my fellow marines had just traveled safely down not moments before. Skulks are infuriatingly hard to hit and seem to have far more health when I'm not playing them. Shotguns did not improve my lot in life. Among my next three games, I accrued a little more combat savvy and managed to go 6-8 as a marine by the limit of my patience.
NS2 has somehow merged the problems of "boot to neck" FPS team skill disparity and "rich get richer" RTS skill disparity, with the possibility of comebacks being held out of sight, much less reach, of any team that gets beyond a certain point simply doesn't seem to posses the physical resources to reestablish themselves, and from there it's a bitter fight to see how much of the other team's time they can waste before succumbing to the inevitable. I would recommend changing the tooltips and hints about new players, there was no help available, chat messages were ignored and none of the seven commanders I played under cared to issue any orders or give any direction, teams mostly formed and ran by themselves to varying degrees of success. Also, some sort of training course for aliens would be extremely helpful to new players, a linear set of rooms and corridors to help them learn about vents and how best to use their very limited toolsets and resources to drown the marines in bodies (or, as I discovered in game four, rush to onuses).
Not an easy pass, but I wouldn't put out a multiplayer demo if I were the development team, this game must depend on NS1 nostalgia or blind faith for its sales, I couldn't recommend it to anyone I know for any price tag higher than eight dollars. It's a cool idea to be sure, and I'll be happy to check in on it every few months to see if it's evolved into something that treats inexperienced players better than the slime on the walls of its maps.
Flowed to training, unwilling to drop blind. Watched a little of"Official Game Overview Video". Very, very little learned from videos in general, chose to go hands on rather than slog through two hours of videos. Loaded Explore Mode on map "Summit". Initial load times were, quite frankly, ridiculous for the size of the map (but subsequently improved). The loading screen depicted the grotesque progression into infestation, and the tips were easily <i>all</i> read before the map loaded. The loading room was simple to understand, though I can't in good faith say it was easy to understand why having players play "red rover" to select their team was desirable (nostalgia?).
Marines first. The HUD is simple and easy to understand, intuitive even without calling on the videos. The controls felt crisp and responsive, and tracking an imaginary target was easy enough. I'm a sucker for displaying the spare mags as they are. The buildings are visually distinct from each other yet follow the same overall design aesthetic. The pistol is described as being "great for sniping", which is confusing, considering that the reticle is very difficult to use at any significant range. The central dot disappears instantly when passed over terrain and marine buildings. The spread is also barely noticeably better than the assault rifle. Use in training maps is limited, but I doubt I'll use the pistol to any great degree, unless the alien Time To Kill is between a specific range, something the training videos didn't seem to indicate as being the case. Big fan of the hatchet, low tech solution. I next spent some time in the commander's chair, researching and expanding as allowed. Jetpacks seemed to be of limited use, allowing very little mobility in most of Summit's corridors and rooms. Exosuits remind me of TF2's heavy in the early months, ponderous at best. Return to ready room after five-ten minutes of playing around.
Aliens next. The Skulk is incredibly disorienting to use. I'm not sure why this creature's eyes are in the back of its mouth, but I spent a few minutes going through the keybinding and general options looking for the third person view control. I'm still disbelieving that this is how aliens are played. It doesn't lend itself well to the high mobility playstyle the skulk is supposed to be geared for. Wallclimbing is, it's, there's nothing positive to say about it. It's unintuitive and it doesn't work well in training. There is no indicator for how far away you can look before the game assumes you wish to fall, it's very difficult to navigate right angles safely, and any momentum build is quickly lost either by a fall or encountering an angle the engine handles as being something that should stop your progress. There's some room for finesse here, but it is very obviously not meant for most new players to excel at. Sticking to the floor for now. Unable to play the gorge, it made me physically ill to look through that perspective. While playing with the lerk I discovered that there's a fairly large (30 degrees-ish beyond the model in every direction) hitbox for all things Marine. I suppose this is designed to counter the extreme difficulty of landing hits with an obtuse viewpoint. The lerk is actually the first Alien that makes sense and seems to have a clearly defined purpose as a scout, capable of high mobility travel and covering miasma. Fades are some sort of fast stabby beast (that teleport?). Must investigate later. It's an interesting critter so far. Onus..es? Oni? Onusi? Onususeses are tanks. Not fast, not oriented towards finesse, just built to crush things. Health far and beyond any other unit in the game that I know of.
Half an hour elapsed, I did thus set out for an online game! Three attempts (one timeout and one authentication refused) later, I joined and had no choice but to play aliens. We were apparently badly behind. It's here that information overload took hold and I ceased gaining useful data. The Skulk continued to prove an extremely unreliable and unhelpful class, and I finished the round five minutes later having gone nearly 0-10. In training I failed to notice the immense amount of resources required to advance to one of the fun classes. Next game I went 3-15 as a marine, spending most of my time playing with the welder and being crushed by Onuseseis who appeared without any warning from a corridor my fellow marines had just traveled safely down not moments before. Skulks are infuriatingly hard to hit and seem to have far more health when I'm not playing them. Shotguns did not improve my lot in life. Among my next three games, I accrued a little more combat savvy and managed to go 6-8 as a marine by the limit of my patience.
NS2 has somehow merged the problems of "boot to neck" FPS team skill disparity and "rich get richer" RTS skill disparity, with the possibility of comebacks being held out of sight, much less reach, of any team that gets beyond a certain point simply doesn't seem to posses the physical resources to reestablish themselves, and from there it's a bitter fight to see how much of the other team's time they can waste before succumbing to the inevitable. I would recommend changing the tooltips and hints about new players, there was no help available, chat messages were ignored and none of the seven commanders I played under cared to issue any orders or give any direction, teams mostly formed and ran by themselves to varying degrees of success. Also, some sort of training course for aliens would be extremely helpful to new players, a linear set of rooms and corridors to help them learn about vents and how best to use their very limited toolsets and resources to drown the marines in bodies (or, as I discovered in game four, rush to onuses).
Not an easy pass, but I wouldn't put out a multiplayer demo if I were the development team, this game must depend on NS1 nostalgia or blind faith for its sales, I couldn't recommend it to anyone I know for any price tag higher than eight dollars. It's a cool idea to be sure, and I'll be happy to check in on it every few months to see if it's evolved into something that treats inexperienced players better than the slime on the walls of its maps.
Comments
I know the game may be frustrating if you are playing for the first time. There are a lot of thing to learn and understand, and it will seem hard at first, but like every other game, a bit of practice will make it easier.
After a few games I understood most skuls jump a lot, so when I see one, I'm already expecting that and adjust my aim according, making it easier to kill one before he kills me.
Also expect them to come at you from the ceeling and walls, so after passing a "doorway" look on the ceeling/walls.
If a skulk "spit" on you (parasite) you will see a small yellow efect over your weapon/hand. This means other aliens know where you are and can see your trough the walls. Armory cleans the parasite.
Other lifeforms are tougher to kill and most of them require some teamwork.
The pistol is very accurate, and fires as fast as you can click the mouse. Even if you find that the "dot" disapears, remeber most aliens are big enough for you to him them, as long as the "semi moon" stays in target. And it <u><b>is</b></u> a secondary weapon, use it when your machine gun runs out of ammo.
Make you shotguns shot count, don't just shoot everywhere like the machinegun when a alien apears. A direct hit will kill a skulk dead.
Crouch so aliens don't ear you. If you going to defend something and you know theres an alien there (it's so easy to ear them "munch munch" stuff) if you don't make noise it's harder for them to notice you arriving.
As a skulk you have very little life and die in less then 1 sec in derect fire (machine guns deal 10 damage per shot and shot 10 rounds per sec, skuls needs 90 damage to dies). So atacking an enemy on large space reduces the odds of the skulk to survive. You're best abumshing ppl. Wait for them on the ceeling/walls, when you know someone's coming.
<b>Do not</b> stay still, jump a lot, use the walls around the enemie to screw his aim. It's so hard to predict a skulk movement when he jumps to a wall, and you are expecting him to fall, then he moves over the ceeling and falls on your head.
Use the "alien vision" (default "f") to have a better notion where the marines are (they glow yellowish/orange)
"spit"(atack 2 called parasite) on them to mark them. If you see one on a long distance, don't go for him, over distance marines will surely kill you, instead mark him and you can see him on the minimap, and trough walls.
Using the "sprint" key will make the skulk walk, making it not making any noise. The skulks are very loud and easy to ear.
<u><b>HEADPHONES</b></u> Play with a headphone on. Belive me you will know if a skulk is running around the wall, or if it's a marine coming around. Also it helps communicating.
The game is amazingly rewarding if your team "talks" even if we loose, theres an amazing achievement of teamwork knowing everyone was trying their best and trying to help each other.
As stated this is a <b>TEAM</b> game, playing like a team will make its so good, 2 good teams can extend a game for very long time, and belive me the time will disappear as no one wants to loose and go away.
Anyways I hope you enjoy the game, and I'm sure you'll eventually like it more, and become a better player. Don't give up.
Cheers
I have comment this. Some new players get huge tunnel vision problems. I have had several comeback games when marine exo suits destroyed our hive just because we went to marine base and destroyed it because exos were at our base or somewhere else. Or marine commander recalls troops to base and that leaves exo suits alone for easy kill. There are options, you just don't know them yet. ;)
I read the whole thing. Nice writing but you made me sad about talking your kills/deaths. :( NS2 ain't about kill/death ratios, it's about team.
I'd really like to see how the game plays with a better alien race.
<!--quoteo(post=2023266:date=Nov 14 2012, 08:22 AM:name=Tunska)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tunska @ Nov 14 2012, 08:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023266"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I read the whole thing. Nice writing but you made me sad about talking your kills/deaths. :( NS2 ain't about kill/death ratios, it's about team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The team is only as good as the sum of its combat abilities. There is no way to win except through superior individual skills in close proximity with other people's superior individual skills. I've been stuck with an alien team who work together extremely well, active on voice communication, coordinate both short and long term goals, but since we were all individually 1-11 or 2-6, the marines won because they were able to advance and hold and there was simply nothing we could do about it. If you want to see your sentiment come true, NS2 must start giving both sides a larger number of utility roles. Every single Marine is also a base builder, potential exo-mechanic and scout. There is only a single alien with a non-combat skillset unless I'm missing the Onos's ability to act like a forklift, and it's one that has one tool for each of a few very specific circumstances. I don't count the Lerk's bullet resistant cloud because I've seen it <i>once</i> outside of training over thirty four games. Abilities that never make it onto the field in a normal game might as well not exist until they're tuned to appear more regularly.
Also, for future reference, vivisection is not exactly the best title for a thread as its meaning is pretty dark.
Marines are easy for new players to pick up, so i'm not surprised you had a better time with them. Just shoot at the aliens and try and keep a distance between them and you.
Skulks are harder. You have to sneak up on people. Use shift so you don't make a sound and sneak up behind someone, or wait somewhere above the end of a hallway on the wall where you can't be seen and drop down on them. Don't stick to the ground. That is by far the worst thing you can do (unless you're sneaking up on somebody and the marines can't see you). If i'm a marine and a skulk comes at me running towards me on the ground it makes you incredibly easy to hit. And it requires very little bullets to kill a skulk (12 on weapons lvl 0, somebody correct me if i'm wrong cause I could very well be). If you're in a combat situation, you generally want to be jumping all over the place because that makes you much harder for the marines to aim at you. Basically, you want to close the distance before a marine even see's you. But if he see's you and and fire at you, jump around so you're not such an easy target.
You can also jump off walls to get a speed boost and then again when you hit the ground. Or leap into a wall and jump off it. It can get more complicated than that where you jump off the ceiling onto a wall onto another wall and link up jumps like that, but only pro players really bother with that.
Ambushing with multiple skulks is also a very good option, and usually necessary if there's more than one or two marines (even if you think you've got the drop on them). Another good thing to do is to use dash in and out of cover to bait the marines into wasting a clip on you, and move in to finish them off while they're reloading.