The BT Fade has such a low skill ceiling now. Can we get vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back? Fades are just bad right now.
Lol... I can't even fade on live anymore as it feels so limited. BT fade is more predictable and easier to track, which makes playing fade require more game smarts. Probably why alot of people are struggling
I feel the exact opposite. BT Fade feels really limited to me, and it is so easy to hit the skill cap. Everything about the BT Fade is one dimensional. There is no room for creativity. You can only play the BT Fade one way and that just isn't fun for me.
Hmm...
Lets see
Live has:
X-axis only shadow step
Double jump
Blink
So basically we have removed double jump for the inclusion of bhop and being able to shadowstep up/down. I really don't see how its one dimensional, you have gained more ways to attack/move.... And lost the ability to tap space again while in the air.... Additionally fade BT is more predictable in its movement, which is absolutely needed cause fading is 2easy... Playing fade in NS1 comp was only reserved for players with great movement, great swipe aim and most important great game smarts.
The BT Fade trades Shadowstep with momentum and double-jump for strafe-jumping. BT Shadowstep has been reduced to a glorified dodge mechanic. The only way to move around the map at a decent pace is Blink + strafe-jumping. The BT Fade has a very low skill ceiling that any decent Fade will hit in just a few games. In short, the BT Fade is shit and an insult to Fades everywhere.
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
BT fade is similar to ns1 fade and now you are suggesting that the ns1 fade had a low skill ceiling which is laughable and undermines anything further you have to say.
You and your religiously pro ss friends have made your positions on the bt fade very clear already and continued posting on the matter only serves to irritate. Live with it or leave but for heavens sake stop scheiting this thread up with a high volume of repetitive posts.
I like BT Fade pretty much just as it is, except for the absence of diagonal shadowstep. Just doesn't feel right, I don't see any reason I shouldn't be able to do that. I like that both of the movement abilities are Hive 1, I never felt they were differentiated strongly enough to be an interesting unlock.
Also, not sure how many of you guys knew this but Vortex is a long range ability now, at Hive 2. I think it needs some little graphical effect when you miss, if only to communicate to players that it did something at a distance when they're messing around with it.
I think the downfall began when the Biomass from additional structures got introduced. It kinda made the second Biomass upgrade on a Hive obsolete. But in order to stop a premature tech explosion on the alien side, you now needed the respective Hive count for the upgrades again (you needed that before as well, since it was the only way to get the additional Biomass, but with the structure-based Biomass system were you basically instantly at the point where you could unlock all upgrades of the specific Hive count as soon as the Hive grew). So since the hard Hive requirement was officially back now, they probably went just the full way and removed the old Biomass system completely.
Right now, current movement for skulk:
Bhop only = 9 speed
Walljump + bhop = 13-14 speed
You bleed 0.2 speed per touch on the ground, so you can carry your speed over the ground if you build it up walljumping as long as you touch a wall every 2-3 bhops.
Probably the best and most BALANCED iteration of it. Good work Sewlek Also introduces a high amount of air control for those new skulks that keep hitting a brick wall in mid air when attempting to change direction to fast mid-jump. You can still relatively high speed, and with the increased air control its easier for new skulks to navigate the map.
For lerk, I think having spores as a later upgrade (hive 2 or 3?) doesn't make sense. Lerks are very weak and if you want the lerk to be more of a supportive role to have us get spores late game where we need to get upfront and personal we'll just get a face full of shotgun and our HP will melt.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
The mentality in Combat is a different one. Since you can respawn very quickly and don't have the risk of permanently losing your equipment, it appears like you don't really need to be welded and are expendable.
There are also tons of other upgrades in Combat that boost your survivability more than the purchase of a Welder, so people tend to invest in those first. A Shotgun in the Balance mod costs five times as much as a Welder, a Shotgun in Combat costs only twice as much.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
I suppose tomorrow we find out about the biomass system. Was actually quite looking forward to it and the removal of it is a bit of a downer. Unless of course Sewlek is working on a new system which wouldn't surprise me at all.
is there any progress on the sound issue? its bad enough that this 'elite' movement confers quasi-celerity by proxy, it should definately not give quasi-silence aswell.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
the thing is neoken, this change is being applied because of 2 things: 1- that forward armories give too much 'bang for buck'. 2- increase marines interdependence. are there no other mechanisms that would achieve the same goal? is it simply because it was this way in NS1 that its being done like that again? ive seen ns1 players say that pubbers will weld, but i've also seen NS1 players whine about how regular ns1 public games died out after combat came out. personally, i think this change is a big deal breaker for me - its just so clearly a badly implemented idea that I simply could not have confidence in the mod after that.
remiremedy [blu.knight]Join Date: 2003-11-18Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
edited June 2013
Skulk Movement - Freaking Awesome
Fade Movement - I can actually use fade now, and it's FUN
Onos - All good here
Gorge Movement - I'm so slow... Is there a trick for this I don't know? Is the only way to move faster to slide? It kind of sucks to have to choose between healing myself and doing a belly slide while trying to escape. It seems more effective currently to just keep healing than to do a belly slide to get out of there which kind of seems like the opposite of how it should be.
Lerk. You used to be my favorite. I can't play Lerk in the BT because it flys so awkwardly. Gliding was a huge part of the Lerk (and it looks like that may have come back in recent iterations of the BT), flapping is not actually much fun. Flapping at key points can be. Right now the forward flying feels ok, and it's really easy to stick to walls to perch (which is good), but hitting the strafe keys makes it fly really strangely. Before I could use the strafe keys to kind of fly circles around people as well as to bank around corners. Now it's doing something really strange. I am looking forward to this portion of the mod getting some more attention, considering all the rest of the movement has got so good.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
the thing is neoken, this change is being applied because of 2 things: 1- that forward armories give too much 'bang for buck'. 2- increase marines interdependence. are there no other mechanisms that would achieve the same goal? is it simply because it was this way in NS1 that its being done like that again? ive seen ns1 players say that pubbers will weld, but i've also seen NS1 players whine about how regular ns1 public games died out after combat came out. personally, i think this change is a big deal breaker for me - its just so clearly a badly implemented idea that I simply could not have confidence in the mod after that.
Is it really THAT bad of an idea? Anyway, it's been discussed to death already, but in my experience so far I noticed a significant difference when playing bt pub vs vanilla pub. I don't nearly get welded up as much as I do in bt pub play, so I like the change for that. Of course, bt pubs are populated by mostly experienced comp players, but still, I'm fairly positive you can get rookies to do the same to a reasonable extent. Just tell them it's like playing medic on TF2.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
For me the smart way to approach armor is to keep armor repair to welding, but assume that marines don't necessary have their armor up most of the round. You should be able to have fun and play in meaningful ways even without armor. Someone welding you is a nice bonus, but in no way expected in your average casual play.
This way you're both generating some extra reward and diversity for teamwork, but also more importantly guiding the marines to be active and spread out on the map rather than constantly operating around their bases and armories.
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
And what do you think the public players are doing in vanilla?
You just went and proved my point about this thread being detached from the majority of players.
And dying does not have little consequence. I suspect you haven't played any Combat Servers ever. Every time you die, the enemy gets stronger. The team that feeds is the team that gets stomped. A single player dying a lot can result in the opposing team teching very quickly to the point it becomes a stomp. It is extremely imperative to minimize dying in Combat Servers to prevent the opposing team from upgrading. Two good players on a Combat Server with 10 new players will lose the game to 12 mediocre players who aren't feeding. In fact, if you did play Combat Servers, you'd know that Veteran Combat Players outright complain when their team is feeding. Dying has significant consequences. It can determine if the Marine team comes at you in 2 minutes all armed with shotguns, the Alien team getting majority Fades at 2.5 minutes or facing a team stuck with skulks and level 1 rifles. You are wrong here. Deadly wrong.
Heck, one particularly appalling game I saw a bunch of Aliens go one and a time feeding marines. In a minute and a half the Marine team with 6 GLs hit the Hive and took it out while the rest had level 2 shotguns. The Aliens were so out teched that they didn't stand a chance. Don't even give me that bull**** that dying has little consequence in combat servers.
And when Xeno starts popping out, Marines still don't weld each other's armor despite it being the only real way to survive a Xeno. The fact that they don't is why Xeno can be spectacularly useful.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies.
Did you miss my point here? I gave a perfect example of a game play mode where armor repair is restricted. Competitive players detached from the rest of the population have this asinine notion that people will suddenly start working together because of need for welding. Beyond the fact that you are flat up wrong on Combat Servers, people don't weld when welding is absolutely vital. What is even worse is you get XP for welding and people STILL don't do it. So when it's in their own best individual interest, they still don't do it. Exos often end up begging people to weld them. The idea that no armor repair will suddenly create coherent teams is so detached from reality that I gotta wonder if you guys work for Microsoft on Windows 8.
I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Somethings tells me you haven't played a public server in a long, long time. You clearly haven't played more than a few minutes of Combat Servers.
This is thread is a perfect example of group think.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
Yes, I couldn't stand it after 15 minutes. Sure, some of the ideas look good, but no glance bites and no armor repair made the game extremely unbalanced in public play.
The mentality in Combat is a different one. Since you can respawn very quickly and don't have the risk of permanently losing your equipment, it appears like you don't really need to be welded and are expendable.
There are also tons of other upgrades in Combat that boost your survivability more than the purchase of a Welder, so people tend to invest in those first. A Shotgun in the Balance mod costs five times as much as a Welder, a Shotgun in Combat costs only twice as much.
You also risk giving tech upgrades to the opposing team quickly.
The more you die, the faster they tech. And if the tech rates are different, it's going to end badly for the team that is behind. Neoken is essentially full of **** in his belief that Combat Servers have little consequences of dying (in terms of being killed by another player). Furthermore, you can usually get your stuff back in a regular game if a gorge isn't biling it. Against poor marine players, I start Xenociding in 2~3 minutes when most of them aren't even at armor 1.
Teams that feed are teams that lose. It is just that simple. And the other upgrades don't help you once Tier III is researched. Resupply won't save you from a Xenocide skulk once your armor is damaged. And Combat Servers are full of people who just love to Xenocide because armor repair is hard to come by. I play with Freddie Mercury on Combat Servers and that guy regularly gets 6 Marines with Xenocide.
I get that most of you are playing Competitive, that's fine, but you cannot assume that Competitive play is the same as public play.
Failing to discuss the limitations of infestation and power nodes are critical to why the commander positions lack depth. You are forced to play in a certain way, limiting your options, limiting creativity, and limiting ability to excel. In NS1 you can relocate to new areas, for instance. That's huge. Inclusion of these features, while neat, severely limit gameplay and strategic depth. As far as armor repair, I see no reason to need that from a building. There is a difference between limiting options and encouraging teamplay.
For me the smart way to approach armor is to keep armor repair to welding, but assume that marines don't necessary have their armor up most of the round. You should be able to have fun and play in meaningful ways even without armor. Someone welding you is a nice bonus, but in no way expected in your average casual play.
What the competitive players are frankly completely blind to is that having no armor repair makes newer marines much easier to kill. The game population is small. No one can argue with that. So, does it make sense to make it frustrating for new players? What happens when you put decent alien players against new marines with no armor repair? Frustration. We saw a similar behavior during free weekend when come douche-bag competitive players went around the rookie servers getting obscene scores (like 100-1 Fade). A fair number of players on the Steam Forums cited this as why they didn't buy it. Thus, it makes little sense in the context of getting new players into the game to make it significantly easier to kill them. If the competitive players want to mod the game into irrelevance to the point where the population is on par with online PC Halo 2 (prior to MS shutting the servers), that's their prerogative, but it seems rather short sighted.
This way you're both generating some extra reward and diversity for teamwork, but also more importantly guiding the marines to be active and spread out on the map rather than constantly operating around their bases and armories.
But that assumes teamwork will come.
TF2 has at times really awful team work. And that game is significantly simpler than this one.
If this BT mod becomes vanilla and in 2 years the population is at peak under 500 worldwide, don't say I didn't warn you.
From a business point of view, makes no sense to put the needs of a small minority over the majority of users. Especially when your revenue stream is new players.
New players will be welded by their teammates, realize how important that is and be impressed by the level of teamwork there is in the community. People who want to rambo without interacting with anyone will either play Combat or Call of Duty. NS2 should be designed to its strengths, and try to appeal to people who like that play experience.
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
Maybe we're suffering from a cultural difference and American new players are objectively worse and have less initiative than everywhere else. Certainly feels like this is the case judging the low opinion people have of new players.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
His point is (I believe) that some people play NS2 for quick-pace action (like counter-strike), where it is more individually based. A part of those people doesn't want to regular NS2 for a reason; but we should still let them experience good combat-mode experience. Doing such a change (weld thing) would probably make some player leave NS2; meaning overall players.
The thing is, combat-mode could simply not take the weld-change into account (but that would be hard for players to ask, as combat-mode si based on normal gameplay as it is).
But myself, I'm divided on that weld change. Might be interesting for some game, and disastrous for some (like it currently is, when you're exo and not being weld; but more often).
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
His point is (I believe) that some people play NS2 for quick-pace action (like counter-strike), where it is more individually based. A part of those people doesn't want to regular NS2 for a reason; but we should still let them experience good combat-mode experience. Doing such a change (weld thing) would probably make some player leave NS2; meaning overall players.
The thing is, combat-mode could simply not take the weld-change into account (but that would be hard for players to ask, as combat-mode si based on normal gameplay as it is).
But myself, I'm divided on that weld change. Might be interesting for some game, and disastrous for some (like it currently is, when you're exo and not being weld; but more often).
Combat mode is a mod, it can do whatever it wants regardless of what is implemented into base NS2.
Comments
The BT Fade trades Shadowstep with momentum and double-jump for strafe-jumping. BT Shadowstep has been reduced to a glorified dodge mechanic. The only way to move around the map at a decent pace is Blink + strafe-jumping. The BT Fade has a very low skill ceiling that any decent Fade will hit in just a few games. In short, the BT Fade is shit and an insult to Fades everywhere.
You and your religiously pro ss friends have made your positions on the bt fade very clear already and continued posting on the matter only serves to irritate. Live with it or leave but for heavens sake stop scheiting this thread up with a high volume of repetitive posts.
Also, not sure how many of you guys knew this but Vortex is a long range ability now, at Hive 2. I think it needs some little graphical effect when you miss, if only to communicate to players that it did something at a distance when they're messing around with it.
I think the downfall began when the Biomass from additional structures got introduced. It kinda made the second Biomass upgrade on a Hive obsolete. But in order to stop a premature tech explosion on the alien side, you now needed the respective Hive count for the upgrades again (you needed that before as well, since it was the only way to get the additional Biomass, but with the structure-based Biomass system were you basically instantly at the point where you could unlock all upgrades of the specific Hive count as soon as the Hive grew). So since the hard Hive requirement was officially back now, they probably went just the full way and removed the old Biomass system completely.
Bhop only = 9 speed
Walljump + bhop = 13-14 speed
You bleed 0.2 speed per touch on the ground, so you can carry your speed over the ground if you build it up walljumping as long as you touch a wall every 2-3 bhops.
Probably the best and most BALANCED iteration of it. Good work Sewlek
Combat servers are good example of how restricting access to automatic repair doesn't result in teamwork. Combat Servers offer a good example of what will happen when access to armories is restricted which in a sense is the same thing as preventing armor repair via armory. Pub players don't work as a team anymore than they do in regular servers when they are largely dependent on each other for repair. Seems kind of naive in light of combat servers to think that suddenly people will change their behaviors. Sure, welding happens, but it's hardly what some users here have said they think will happen.
Right now, this thread is a great example of pandering to a small vocal minority who seems very out of touch with public play. And let's be totally honest here. NS2 has a low player population. Is it worth risking the already low numbers?
There are also tons of other upgrades in Combat that boost your survivability more than the purchase of a Welder, so people tend to invest in those first. A Shotgun in the Balance mod costs five times as much as a Welder, a Shotgun in Combat costs only twice as much.
Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies. I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
the thing is neoken, this change is being applied because of 2 things: 1- that forward armories give too much 'bang for buck'. 2- increase marines interdependence. are there no other mechanisms that would achieve the same goal? is it simply because it was this way in NS1 that its being done like that again? ive seen ns1 players say that pubbers will weld, but i've also seen NS1 players whine about how regular ns1 public games died out after combat came out. personally, i think this change is a big deal breaker for me - its just so clearly a badly implemented idea that I simply could not have confidence in the mod after that.
Fade Movement - I can actually use fade now, and it's FUN
Onos - All good here
Gorge Movement - I'm so slow... Is there a trick for this I don't know? Is the only way to move faster to slide? It kind of sucks to have to choose between healing myself and doing a belly slide while trying to escape. It seems more effective currently to just keep healing than to do a belly slide to get out of there which kind of seems like the opposite of how it should be.
Lerk. You used to be my favorite. I can't play Lerk in the BT because it flys so awkwardly. Gliding was a huge part of the Lerk (and it looks like that may have come back in recent iterations of the BT), flapping is not actually much fun. Flapping at key points can be. Right now the forward flying feels ok, and it's really easy to stick to walls to perch (which is good), but hitting the strafe keys makes it fly really strangely. Before I could use the strafe keys to kind of fly circles around people as well as to bank around corners. Now it's doing something really strange. I am looking forward to this portion of the mod getting some more attention, considering all the rest of the movement has got so good.
Is it really THAT bad of an idea? Anyway, it's been discussed to death already, but in my experience so far I noticed a significant difference when playing bt pub vs vanilla pub. I don't nearly get welded up as much as I do in bt pub play, so I like the change for that. Of course, bt pubs are populated by mostly experienced comp players, but still, I'm fairly positive you can get rookies to do the same to a reasonable extent. Just tell them it's like playing medic on TF2.
For me the smart way to approach armor is to keep armor repair to welding, but assume that marines don't necessary have their armor up most of the round. You should be able to have fun and play in meaningful ways even without armor. Someone welding you is a nice bonus, but in no way expected in your average casual play.
This way you're both generating some extra reward and diversity for teamwork, but also more importantly guiding the marines to be active and spread out on the map rather than constantly operating around their bases and armories.
And what do you think the public players are doing in vanilla?
You just went and proved my point about this thread being detached from the majority of players.
And dying does not have little consequence. I suspect you haven't played any Combat Servers ever. Every time you die, the enemy gets stronger. The team that feeds is the team that gets stomped. A single player dying a lot can result in the opposing team teching very quickly to the point it becomes a stomp. It is extremely imperative to minimize dying in Combat Servers to prevent the opposing team from upgrading. Two good players on a Combat Server with 10 new players will lose the game to 12 mediocre players who aren't feeding. In fact, if you did play Combat Servers, you'd know that Veteran Combat Players outright complain when their team is feeding. Dying has significant consequences. It can determine if the Marine team comes at you in 2 minutes all armed with shotguns, the Alien team getting majority Fades at 2.5 minutes or facing a team stuck with skulks and level 1 rifles. You are wrong here. Deadly wrong.
Heck, one particularly appalling game I saw a bunch of Aliens go one and a time feeding marines. In a minute and a half the Marine team with 6 GLs hit the Hive and took it out while the rest had level 2 shotguns. The Aliens were so out teched that they didn't stand a chance. Don't even give me that bull**** that dying has little consequence in combat servers.
And when Xeno starts popping out, Marines still don't weld each other's armor despite it being the only real way to survive a Xeno. The fact that they don't is why Xeno can be spectacularly useful.
Did you miss my point here? I gave a perfect example of a game play mode where armor repair is restricted. Competitive players detached from the rest of the population have this asinine notion that people will suddenly start working together because of need for welding. Beyond the fact that you are flat up wrong on Combat Servers, people don't weld when welding is absolutely vital. What is even worse is you get XP for welding and people STILL don't do it. So when it's in their own best individual interest, they still don't do it. Exos often end up begging people to weld them. The idea that no armor repair will suddenly create coherent teams is so detached from reality that I gotta wonder if you guys work for Microsoft on Windows 8.
Somethings tells me you haven't played a public server in a long, long time. You clearly haven't played more than a few minutes of Combat Servers.
This is thread is a perfect example of group think.
Yes, I couldn't stand it after 15 minutes. Sure, some of the ideas look good, but no glance bites and no armor repair made the game extremely unbalanced in public play.
You also risk giving tech upgrades to the opposing team quickly.
The more you die, the faster they tech. And if the tech rates are different, it's going to end badly for the team that is behind. Neoken is essentially full of **** in his belief that Combat Servers have little consequences of dying (in terms of being killed by another player). Furthermore, you can usually get your stuff back in a regular game if a gorge isn't biling it. Against poor marine players, I start Xenociding in 2~3 minutes when most of them aren't even at armor 1.
Teams that feed are teams that lose. It is just that simple. And the other upgrades don't help you once Tier III is researched. Resupply won't save you from a Xenocide skulk once your armor is damaged. And Combat Servers are full of people who just love to Xenocide because armor repair is hard to come by. I play with Freddie Mercury on Combat Servers and that guy regularly gets 6 Marines with Xenocide.
I get that most of you are playing Competitive, that's fine, but you cannot assume that Competitive play is the same as public play.
What the competitive players are frankly completely blind to is that having no armor repair makes newer marines much easier to kill. The game population is small. No one can argue with that. So, does it make sense to make it frustrating for new players? What happens when you put decent alien players against new marines with no armor repair? Frustration. We saw a similar behavior during free weekend when come douche-bag competitive players went around the rookie servers getting obscene scores (like 100-1 Fade). A fair number of players on the Steam Forums cited this as why they didn't buy it. Thus, it makes little sense in the context of getting new players into the game to make it significantly easier to kill them. If the competitive players want to mod the game into irrelevance to the point where the population is on par with online PC Halo 2 (prior to MS shutting the servers), that's their prerogative, but it seems rather short sighted.
But that assumes teamwork will come.
TF2 has at times really awful team work. And that game is significantly simpler than this one.
If this BT mod becomes vanilla and in 2 years the population is at peak under 500 worldwide, don't say I didn't warn you.
From a business point of view, makes no sense to put the needs of a small minority over the majority of users. Especially when your revenue stream is new players.
inb4abuse.
His point is (I believe) that some people play NS2 for quick-pace action (like counter-strike), where it is more individually based. A part of those people doesn't want to regular NS2 for a reason; but we should still let them experience good combat-mode experience. Doing such a change (weld thing) would probably make some player leave NS2; meaning overall players.
The thing is, combat-mode could simply not take the weld-change into account (but that would be hard for players to ask, as combat-mode si based on normal gameplay as it is).
But myself, I'm divided on that weld change. Might be interesting for some game, and disastrous for some (like it currently is, when you're exo and not being weld; but more often).
Combat mode is a mod, it can do whatever it wants regardless of what is implemented into base NS2.