Comparing Quake hitboxes (a game with limited/no lag comp) to NS2 hitboxes with lag comp is not really feasible. They also use a normalized hitbox that is sized for the biggest model you can choose ingame, so that no model offers an advantage. The NS2 skulk is quite massive in comparison to the old NS1 skulk, which did have a hitbox that was pretty close to the model. The NS2 rifle also has a smaller spread compared to the NS1 LMG, and the NS1 skulk attacked faster, so I still do not agree that the change is needed. My biggest problem is the impacts at point blank range.. If you start a marine and a skulk right next to eachother with neither moving, and having both start attacking at the same time, the marine will win the fight currently (I believe even as a 2 bite). If the skulk recieved a bite speed increase I also might not mind the change as much (would help with killing RTs also).
That's an interesting way to think of it, sometimes I do feel like I get a glancing bite when it looked more direct, and if you keep strafing an RT I think you excessively get glancing bites (I wasn't even aware RTs could get a glancing)
Replace the useless flamethrower with a decently balanced HMG and suddenly a lot of NS2's problems are fixed.
Why replace? The flamethrower has its use as a support-weapon and is by no means to be compared to the HMG. I agree though, that marines could need a better mid/long-ranged weapon.
I disagree with adding the HMG. We don't need weapons that are simply better versions of existing weapons or else the existing weapons become obsolete and then nobody wants to use them. Each weapon should have its own unique roles and uses.
When is a skulk better than an onos.. Why wouldnt you take a shotgun if you had the resources... Tradeoffs are important but this is not a class based shooter.. it is a RTS/FPS why should something that your spending resources on be only as effective as the free unit? Its not logical.
I understand why HMG can make LMG obsolete. As far as I know that's why devs didn't what it too.
But LMG has several advantages and the biggest one is - it is FREE!
Most of the players as aliens tend to play higher lifeforms but sculk has the same advantage - it is free. This makes him great in suicide runs, rt kills, scouting...
LMG marine is good for this too (well to some extent). And another advantage - he can pick up any weapon, when someone else dies.
In todays game if a player sees any other weapon (sg, flame...) I doubt he decides to stick with his gun in this case.
I disagree with adding the HMG. We don't need weapons that are simply better versions of existing weapons or else the existing weapons become obsolete and then nobody wants to use them. Each weapon should have its own unique roles and uses.
It's not applicable when the weapon you are supposed to "replace" is the only free weapon of the game. If there were two similar weapons who cost resources, I would agree with you.
But the HMG being a weapon similar to the free rifle does not have this problem, you either have the choice to keep your res for other weapons/tools, or spend your res on that weapon. But you will never take the HMG 100% of the time simply because it is better than the rifle.
i absolutely believe that nothing should fall into obsolescence; even the 'free' stuff should have a place in the late game. for a good example, look at marines or zerglings in starcraft. as long as HMG doesn't become a no-brainer upgrade, i don't have a problem with it. it's essentially not fun to die as a fade and have to play as a skulk versus jetpackers for the next 10 minutes. (obsolescence)
Replace the useless flamethrower with a decently balanced HMG and suddenly a lot of NS2's problems are fixed.
Why replace? The flamethrower has its use as a support-weapon and is by no means to be compared to the HMG. I agree though, that marines could need a better mid/long-ranged weapon.
imo the problem with flamethrower is that it totally overlaps with the grenade launcher. ideally both of them could have a specific role and reward skill, instead of being annoying spam weapons.
I disagree with adding the HMG. We don't need weapons that are simply better versions of existing weapons or else the existing weapons become obsolete and then nobody wants to use them. Each weapon should have its own unique roles and uses.
While I understand your sentiment there are a couple of problems with it. First of all, the HMG was not completely better than the LMG. It had an insanely long reload, slowed you down considerably, wasn't as accurate (I think) and did half damage to alien structures. Second, this game is meant to be an arms race. You're supposed to get better weapons as it goes along. There are weapons you start with, and then there are weapons that need to be researched and purchased for resources. It wouldn't make any sense with the design philosophy of the game to make free weapons and weapons that cost res be exactly as effective. If that is the case, why even spend resources on them in the first place? Should Armor 1 be as effective as Armor 3? Should Skulks be as effective as Fades?
I disagree with adding the HMG. We don't need weapons that are simply better versions of existing weapons or else the existing weapons become obsolete and then nobody wants to use them. Each weapon should have its own unique roles and uses.
While I understand your sentiment there are a couple of problems with it. First of all, the HMG was not completely better than the LMG. It had an insanely long reload, slowed you down considerably, wasn't as accurate (I think) and did half damage to alien structures. Second, this game is meant to be an arms race. You're supposed to get better weapons as it goes along. There are weapons you start with, and then there are weapons that need to be researched and purchased for resources. It wouldn't make any sense with the design philosophy of the game to make free weapons and weapons that cost res be exactly as effective. If that is the case, why even spend resources on them in the first place? Should Armor 1 be as effective as Armor 3? Should Skulks be as effective as Fades?
I never said they have to (or don't have to) be as effective. I just said I didn't want one to become obsolete simply because the other is better in pretty much all situations. It leads to bland gameplay and lack of choice.
For example; Skulks are better at killing buildings whereas Fades are better against Marines. Would you want a Fade that was just like a Skulk but better? That could walk up walls and was best at ambush and harassing RT's?
Any gun being better than lmg is only a problem if the systems around it are broken enough that you almost always have it. NS2 has been far too generous with its tech in general. Things feel far less special and far more spammy.
So in a nutshell:
-No 10x res adjustements yet.
-No expensive RTs/more starting res yet.
-No Proto Lab/Arms Lab CC dependency change yet.
-No Exo cost buff/armor nerf yet.
-No Biomass yet.
-No Fade/Onos changes yet.
-No Spore/Umbra tier switch yet.
Those are the things I'd consider too extreme to integrate with all the other new stuff at once. They certainly should come, but give people some time to adjust to the more understandable concepts first in a somewhat familiar environment.
Thing is, a lot of the changes depend on the implementation of other mechanics for them to make sense. So I wouldn't be surprised if they did in fact start with some big ones like the alien biomass and upgrade system, which would be incredibly exciting of course. They're also far enough down the testing tube to be a potential candidate for live implementation (not to mention they mostly have graphics in place), which is not the case with A/W being tied to CCs for example.
As of now, you can’t jump + turn quickly in combat at all because you instantly lose all your speed, almost coming to a stop for a brief second.
We played a good few games today, as a marine I felt genuinely bad for any skulk who tried to jump about in combat, you can literally see them freezing to a halt in mid-air as they turn, soaking up your bullets. To get around this you pretty much have to stay on the ground as it’s the only way to quickly change direction without losing speed (needed against any half decent strafe-jumping marine). Not a good thing imo, if it goes to official like this I’m betting the “skulk v marine hopping problem” thread will be back with a vengeance .
The NS2 skulk is quite massive in comparison to the old NS1 skulk, which did have a hitbox that was pretty close to the model.
But was still wayyy more forgiving to hit due to said hitbox! Also it had more predictable movement, and as you mentioned, the rifle spread was greater. (which lessens the skill ceiling)
But honestly.. look at the NS1 hitboxes.. they seem to me way more forgiving that what 0.018 increase in bullet width would accomplish??
Those old hitboxes definitely gave you
My biggest problem is the impacts at point blank range..
I'm down to increase the movement of the skulk, as has been done, and any other mechanics like bite speed, if it means less frustrating gunplay for marines. "Fun" should factor into these decisions as well, as Sewlek mentioned.
/My 2 cents
Quake Live does, but I was under the impression that the hitboxes were adjusted for that (I have not tested, nor does it matter). Yes the skulk model in NS1 had forgiving parts of the hitbox, but in reality its much more complicated then that. A flat increase to bullet spread makes the model bigger in every single direction, from every single angle. The hitboxes you see on the skulk may seem larger in certain places when viewed at that angle, but when actually shooting a skulk approaching you the hitboxes make sense for detecting correct hits (probably some extra hits, but much, much less than this bullet size increase). There are also zones which have no hitbox on NS1 skulks, you were actually able to throw a hand grenade through the middle of the model. Also, as I said before a larger LMG spread (which does not lessen the skill ceiling in any way btw) vs a much, much smaller model (especially the width which is important when the skulk is at your feet biting you). I dont see how these changes make the game more 'fun' for marines, your simply attempting to justify your own satisfaction of having 'hit more shots' as fun simply because you perceive hitreg to be poor (when infact the acual hitreg is near perfect). If you could reliably say that the hit detection in this game worked 100% of the time, would anyone be complaining about the difficult of hitting aliens? I highly doubt it. This also does absolutely nothing to fix the real hitreg issues, where shotgun shots will draw full blood and no damage, or how I can be tracing a lerk gliding in a straight line and have shots randomly not hit (talking 10-15 hits then a spree of 10-15 misses, then back to hits). In the end, there is no justifiable reason to make this change when marines are already having an easy time hitting skulks. If the balance mod games were complete roflstomps by skulks and it felt that marines were really struggling, I could see justifying these changes. Its just already way, way to easy to hit skulks overall, why there needs to be a massive skill handicap for marines is beyond me.
All that rambling out, the impacts of .018 are not well known to me yet, I can definately say that .04 and .03 were way, way to much. I will be interested to see what the logging presents at the end of a couple decent rounds with .018.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@xDragon : Thank you for the well thought out response.
I would have figured increasing LMG spread would have lowered the skill ceiling? Effectively causing occasional misses for those who would not otherwise? How does it not, would you mind elaborating for a better understanding? I'm not opposed to the idea necessarily i just thought the more skilled players wouldn't like it for this reason alone.
(probably some extra hits, but much, much less than this bullet size increase).
I'd actually like some measurable comparisons here, since i cant figure out how to produce a ruler next to the models to adequately judge i cant say for sure.. but those NS1 hitboxes - if applied to NS2 (even without inflating for the size increase which i dislike) - i think would still produce a larger area around the skulk than 1.8 cm.
This should be done before any further debating over it occurs i think..
I dont see how these changes make the game more 'fun' for marines, your simply attempting to justify your own satisfaction of having 'hit more shots' as fun simply because you perceive hitreg to be poor (when infact the acual hitreg is near perfect).
I personally perceive hitreg to be damn near flawless (Save for some netcode related issues that are limited by server performance still)
But I would definitely agree that "hit more shots" is more "fun".. ? Missing / losing is not fun. Hitting / winning is.
I don't see how this could be argued.. ofc its more fun .. the real question is: is it at the expense of something else like balance? Then you have to weigh it against that or adjust.
In the end, there is no justifiable reason to make this change when marines are already having an easy time hitting skulks. Its just already way, way to easy to hit skulks overall, why there needs to be a massive skill handicap for marines is beyond me.
As i said before it gives justification for buffing movement and creating more "fun" mechanics on the alien side as well! I dont think i'd be far off by saying that many feel vanilla NS2 skulk feels like a lead weight and is lacking freedom of movement and a sense of "fun".
Allowing for more forgiveness (that i believe was present in NS1 and past games) for marine shooting not only helps close the grand canyon of skill gap between your average pubber and comp player, but also gives room for the alien movement mechanics to be improved.
Seems like a win win to me.
On a related note.. as a simple test just aiming mid center, point blank at a skulk without any recording, i felt like i was able to kill it ~ 10 rounds now.
Such a test negates any bullet width.. so i'm leaving towards the extra trace being the one to give credit to..
See thats exactly my point - winning is fun, not necessarily hitting more bullets. You could reduce skulk HP by the same amount and it would achieve the same 'fun' increase. Thats a bad measure to justify this change, especially when skulks are already loosing 1v1s. This movement change is to allow greater skill in movement, but you must also realize that no matter how you use this movement you will always be more predictable than the current live NS2.
I dont see any reasonable way to compare the model hitboxes between NS1 and NS2, I could recompile the skulk model from NS1 into NS2 but it would require a decent amount of work and wouldnt maintain the hitboxes, it would just make the size difference easily apparent.
As for the LMG spread, its more a measure of effectiveness. The spread in NS1 was tight enough that at a certain range (and with good tracking) you could quite easily 15 bullet a skulk. Done correctly that wouldnt have you at any time vulnerable to being bit, and still left you some leeway time. You could wait even longer (skulk is closer) and generally kill in about 10 bullets consistently, however that incurred slight risk of being bit, and no leeway. Point being that the spread was tight enough where at medium/close range with good aim, you were not limited by the spread, all/almost all your shots would hit. The spread only served to keep the lmg from being a sniper rifle (something the live NS2 rifle is).
It also stands that playing NS1 at a high level was at most 30-40% about your aim.. Movement was 1000x more important, and even having 100% perfect accuracy wouldnt help you in many situations. Having the double jump as marines and also the good goldsrc base movement was another huge part of what allowed marines to match skulk movement so well. Its the blending of those skills, aim, movement, and also adding in awareness and intuition and reactions, that made NS1 the amazing skill based game it was. The skulk movement already starts to emulate some of those by blending walljump and bhop quite well. I would hate to see it need to be capped (it already was) to make up for poor hit detection, but at the same time dont think that a skill floor increase with bullet size is the way to go. I mainly think it is too early in the movement testing to accurately say how it will play out on a large scale, and considering the current games are heavily marine sided (even before the change), it just seems very unwarrented.
Thats one of the main reasons why I miss NS1 jetpack vs fade so much, being able to effectively dodge while also maintain your tracking on a target was a skill not easily accomplished, and was very entertaining to watch/participate in. Its one of the few mechanics I still go back to (when I can find someone to fade/jp against).
Bullet size increase is a good change because it makes shooting a lot more fun and less frustrating. In the balance mod, you have a lot less feeling like you put 10 bullets into a skulk and hit only 4 because the other 6 went through the legs or missed because animations (and perfect-matching hitboxes) wigged out.
At the end of the day, I like the bullet size because it makes playing marine a lot more fun. And that's what is important. Skulks are weak because of poor in combat skulk control, not because of bullet size. They're weak in vanilla and they're weak in the balance mod. What do both of these have in combat? Ice skating skulks.
In vanilla, the rifle spread is so small that even at extreme ranges you can hit most shots on the center torso of a skulk model (there are some outliers because of how spread is calculated here). If your missing 6 shots between the legs because the animations are wigging out, thats a seperate issue and the animation issues should be corrected (they already have been however, animation smoothing was implemented from the balance mod which is probably the change that swung balance so heavily around 240). The bullet size change should have a negligble impact overall on correcting those issues, since if the animation gaps were that small the chances of your bullet landing just there to miss is very slim. The size of the spread vs the size of the skulk model at anything <10 meters makes it reasonably easy to not miss a single bullet if your holding good tracking.
Skulks are not weak currently because of poor movement or control, thats a very bad excuse.
Skulks are weak because of poor in combat skulk control, not because of bullet size.
Agreed. The bhop/walljump combo is great fun for getting around the map, but if anything it's in-combat agility is nerfed in the mod atm due to how quickly you lose speed from turning.
QL hitboxes don't have any "holes" so it's not possible to miss in between legs like it is for NS2.
NS2 hitreg is not flawless, I still experienced noregs on LAN
regarding the bullet size, I haven't tested it yet. but a few weeks ago I posted a video of tracking a Skulk and 2-3 shots out of 10 would get lost either through spread or something, despite being a reasonable pace away and aiming at the center of the Skulk. if this fixes that issue then I don't think it's a big deal, it's just incredibly silly to be firing at reasonable distances and still miss through no fault of your own. but I'm worried because Skulks are basically still trashcans so idk how it's gonna fly !
The changes to spread will make shooting skulks at distances more consistent, but the bullet size change accomplishes the same change as a bigger hitbox (half the bulletsize, so .009 larger hitbox), if that makes it easier to understand. This change will not effect blantant noregs.
I dont think the skulk is a trashcan anymore, and that kind of feedback is hardly constructive...
Some more changes that I did not post yet, so to make it official:
- nano shield requires now being research at Command Station
- reduced grenade launcher cost to 150 (was 250)
- increased grenade launcher reserve ammo to 28
- reduced welder cost to 40
- added nano armor research to arms lab command station (marines regenerate 0.75 armor per second when out of combat)
- all marines structures can now be build on infestation, but 25% slower than usual
alien
- reduced gore range to 1.65 (was 2.2)
- reduced gore damage to 100
- added echo gorge tunnel to shift (only on infestation)
- hives have now the hatch ability (2 eggs for 10 t.res like shift)
- added bio mass, upgrade at hive. each hive can provide 3 bio mass (1 default, 150 + 450 res for upgrading 2 times)
I noticed that I would often not research Nano Shield, but probably because I am not used to getting it not from a second CC yet.
GL cost reduction probably makes sense, given how easy it is for a Skulk to go against a single GL marine. Though the new Whip nerf makes it quite powerful again because with 0.45 seconds of detonation time, you might think the Whip is not even there (or that the grenade would usually have exploded much later and the Whip basically forced it to detonate earlier and possibly destroy something that was in front of the Whip). Reserve ammo makes it more viable compared to other weapons.
Welder cost reduction is appreciated.
First we had 0.5 on Nano Armor, then 1.0 and now we seem to have found a middle ground. Nice.
Good to see infestation slowly regain at least some of it's importance. 25% may still seem a bit low but it's better than nothing.
Nice to see Gore being nerfed (I was reading "Gorge" first and thought you wanted to push it more into a vulnerable support unit corner) at least in range. I always found it ridiculous where an Onos could still hit me as Jetpacker, despite me being far out of the model's visual reach.
Does the Onos use Gore or Smash against Exos, though? And what was the Gore damage before? Wiki says something about 95, but that is probably outdated.
Echoing Gorge Tunnels is incredibly fun and useful, though I was concerned first that it might be a bit OP since a Gorge doesn't have to risk anything this way. But since it only works on infestation and thus on "secured" territory…
We started in Departures on Docking, I went Shift first, told a Gorge to make both tunnels right in the Hive room and shifted one tunnel into Locker Rooms then once we got it. Awesome Sauce!
Later on I used Shifts at my Hives to change the way the Hives were connected with Gorge Tunnels by warping one Tunnel to our new base expansion and the other Tunnel to the Hive that was further away. Not sure if the Gorges will like the change, but with good teamwork does it rock.
I also like the way the Biomass cost has shifted a bit. You can now get the vital lower tier upgrades more easily while having to pay more if you want higher tier stuff or don't dare to expand with more Hives instead. It also makes it a little more forgiving to lose a Hive when it had only one Biomass upgraded.
Comments
@crushaK
all the changes, and no patch notes! all at once!!
Why replace? The flamethrower has its use as a support-weapon and is by no means to be compared to the HMG. I agree though, that marines could need a better mid/long-ranged weapon.
But LMG has several advantages and the biggest one is - it is FREE!
Most of the players as aliens tend to play higher lifeforms but sculk has the same advantage - it is free. This makes him great in suicide runs, rt kills, scouting...
LMG marine is good for this too (well to some extent). And another advantage - he can pick up any weapon, when someone else dies.
In todays game if a player sees any other weapon (sg, flame...) I doubt he decides to stick with his gun in this case.
But the HMG being a weapon similar to the free rifle does not have this problem, you either have the choice to keep your res for other weapons/tools, or spend your res on that weapon. But you will never take the HMG 100% of the time simply because it is better than the rifle.
imo the problem with flamethrower is that it totally overlaps with the grenade launcher. ideally both of them could have a specific role and reward skill, instead of being annoying spam weapons.
While I understand your sentiment there are a couple of problems with it. First of all, the HMG was not completely better than the LMG. It had an insanely long reload, slowed you down considerably, wasn't as accurate (I think) and did half damage to alien structures. Second, this game is meant to be an arms race. You're supposed to get better weapons as it goes along. There are weapons you start with, and then there are weapons that need to be researched and purchased for resources. It wouldn't make any sense with the design philosophy of the game to make free weapons and weapons that cost res be exactly as effective. If that is the case, why even spend resources on them in the first place? Should Armor 1 be as effective as Armor 3? Should Skulks be as effective as Fades?
I never said they have to (or don't have to) be as effective. I just said I didn't want one to become obsolete simply because the other is better in pretty much all situations. It leads to bland gameplay and lack of choice.
For example; Skulks are better at killing buildings whereas Fades are better against Marines. Would you want a Fade that was just like a Skulk but better? That could walk up walls and was best at ambush and harassing RT's?
Thing is, a lot of the changes depend on the implementation of other mechanics for them to make sense. So I wouldn't be surprised if they did in fact start with some big ones like the alien biomass and upgrade system, which would be incredibly exciting of course. They're also far enough down the testing tube to be a potential candidate for live implementation (not to mention they mostly have graphics in place), which is not the case with A/W being tied to CCs for example.
As of now, you can’t jump + turn quickly in combat at all because you instantly lose all your speed, almost coming to a stop for a brief second.
We played a good few games today, as a marine I felt genuinely bad for any skulk who tried to jump about in combat, you can literally see them freezing to a halt in mid-air as they turn, soaking up your bullets. To get around this you pretty much have to stay on the ground as it’s the only way to quickly change direction without losing speed (needed against any half decent strafe-jumping marine). Not a good thing imo, if it goes to official like this I’m betting the “skulk v marine hopping problem” thread will be back with a vengeance .
But honestly.. look at the NS1 hitboxes.. they seem to me way more forgiving that what 0.018 increase in bullet width would accomplish??
Those old hitboxes definitely gave you Observe:
I'm down to increase the movement of the skulk, as has been done, and any other mechanics like bite speed, if it means less frustrating gunplay for marines. "Fun" should factor into these decisions as well, as Sewlek mentioned.
/My 2 cents
All that rambling out, the impacts of .018 are not well known to me yet, I can definately say that .04 and .03 were way, way to much. I will be interested to see what the logging presents at the end of a couple decent rounds with .018.
I would have figured increasing LMG spread would have lowered the skill ceiling? Effectively causing occasional misses for those who would not otherwise? How does it not, would you mind elaborating for a better understanding? I'm not opposed to the idea necessarily i just thought the more skilled players wouldn't like it for this reason alone.
I'd actually like some measurable comparisons here, since i cant figure out how to produce a ruler next to the models to adequately judge i cant say for sure.. but those NS1 hitboxes - if applied to NS2 (even without inflating for the size increase which i dislike) - i think would still produce a larger area around the skulk than 1.8 cm.
This should be done before any further debating over it occurs i think..
I personally perceive hitreg to be damn near flawless (Save for some netcode related issues that are limited by server performance still)
But I would definitely agree that "hit more shots" is more "fun".. ? Missing / losing is not fun. Hitting / winning is.
I don't see how this could be argued.. ofc its more fun .. the real question is: is it at the expense of something else like balance? Then you have to weigh it against that or adjust.
As i said before it gives justification for buffing movement and creating more "fun" mechanics on the alien side as well! I dont think i'd be far off by saying that many feel vanilla NS2 skulk feels like a lead weight and is lacking freedom of movement and a sense of "fun".
Allowing for more forgiveness (that i believe was present in NS1 and past games) for marine shooting not only helps close the grand canyon of skill gap between your average pubber and comp player, but also gives room for the alien movement mechanics to be improved.
Seems like a win win to me.
On a related note.. as a simple test just aiming mid center, point blank at a skulk without any recording, i felt like i was able to kill it ~ 10 rounds now.
Such a test negates any bullet width.. so i'm leaving towards the extra trace being the one to give credit to..
I dont see any reasonable way to compare the model hitboxes between NS1 and NS2, I could recompile the skulk model from NS1 into NS2 but it would require a decent amount of work and wouldnt maintain the hitboxes, it would just make the size difference easily apparent.
As for the LMG spread, its more a measure of effectiveness. The spread in NS1 was tight enough that at a certain range (and with good tracking) you could quite easily 15 bullet a skulk. Done correctly that wouldnt have you at any time vulnerable to being bit, and still left you some leeway time. You could wait even longer (skulk is closer) and generally kill in about 10 bullets consistently, however that incurred slight risk of being bit, and no leeway. Point being that the spread was tight enough where at medium/close range with good aim, you were not limited by the spread, all/almost all your shots would hit. The spread only served to keep the lmg from being a sniper rifle (something the live NS2 rifle is).
It also stands that playing NS1 at a high level was at most 30-40% about your aim.. Movement was 1000x more important, and even having 100% perfect accuracy wouldnt help you in many situations. Having the double jump as marines and also the good goldsrc base movement was another huge part of what allowed marines to match skulk movement so well. Its the blending of those skills, aim, movement, and also adding in awareness and intuition and reactions, that made NS1 the amazing skill based game it was. The skulk movement already starts to emulate some of those by blending walljump and bhop quite well. I would hate to see it need to be capped (it already was) to make up for poor hit detection, but at the same time dont think that a skill floor increase with bullet size is the way to go. I mainly think it is too early in the movement testing to accurately say how it will play out on a large scale, and considering the current games are heavily marine sided (even before the change), it just seems very unwarrented.
Thats one of the main reasons why I miss NS1 jetpack vs fade so much, being able to effectively dodge while also maintain your tracking on a target was a skill not easily accomplished, and was very entertaining to watch/participate in. Its one of the few mechanics I still go back to (when I can find someone to fade/jp against).
At the end of the day, I like the bullet size because it makes playing marine a lot more fun. And that's what is important. Skulks are weak because of poor in combat skulk control, not because of bullet size. They're weak in vanilla and they're weak in the balance mod. What do both of these have in combat? Ice skating skulks.
Skulks are not weak currently because of poor movement or control, thats a very bad excuse.
Agreed. The bhop/walljump combo is great fun for getting around the map, but if anything it's in-combat agility is nerfed in the mod atm due to how quickly you lose speed from turning.
NS2 hitreg is not flawless, I still experienced noregs on LAN
regarding the bullet size, I haven't tested it yet. but a few weeks ago I posted a video of tracking a Skulk and 2-3 shots out of 10 would get lost either through spread or something, despite being a reasonable pace away and aiming at the center of the Skulk. if this fixes that issue then I don't think it's a big deal, it's just incredibly silly to be firing at reasonable distances and still miss through no fault of your own. but I'm worried because Skulks are basically still trashcans so idk how it's gonna fly !
I dont think the skulk is a trashcan anymore, and that kind of feedback is hardly constructive...
I noticed that I would often not research Nano Shield, but probably because I am not used to getting it not from a second CC yet.
GL cost reduction probably makes sense, given how easy it is for a Skulk to go against a single GL marine. Though the new Whip nerf makes it quite powerful again because with 0.45 seconds of detonation time, you might think the Whip is not even there (or that the grenade would usually have exploded much later and the Whip basically forced it to detonate earlier and possibly destroy something that was in front of the Whip). Reserve ammo makes it more viable compared to other weapons.
Welder cost reduction is appreciated.
First we had 0.5 on Nano Armor, then 1.0 and now we seem to have found a middle ground. Nice.
Good to see infestation slowly regain at least some of it's importance. 25% may still seem a bit low but it's better than nothing.
Nice to see Gore being nerfed (I was reading "Gorge" first and thought you wanted to push it more into a vulnerable support unit corner) at least in range. I always found it ridiculous where an Onos could still hit me as Jetpacker, despite me being far out of the model's visual reach.
Does the Onos use Gore or Smash against Exos, though? And what was the Gore damage before? Wiki says something about 95, but that is probably outdated.
Echoing Gorge Tunnels is incredibly fun and useful, though I was concerned first that it might be a bit OP since a Gorge doesn't have to risk anything this way. But since it only works on infestation and thus on "secured" territory…
We started in Departures on Docking, I went Shift first, told a Gorge to make both tunnels right in the Hive room and shifted one tunnel into Locker Rooms then once we got it. Awesome Sauce!
Later on I used Shifts at my Hives to change the way the Hives were connected with Gorge Tunnels by warping one Tunnel to our new base expansion and the other Tunnel to the Hive that was further away. Not sure if the Gorges will like the change, but with good teamwork does it rock.
I also like the way the Biomass cost has shifted a bit. You can now get the vital lower tier upgrades more easily while having to pay more if you want higher tier stuff or don't dare to expand with more Hives instead. It also makes it a little more forgiving to lose a Hive when it had only one Biomass upgraded.