It is a FPS first... Take it away from the Khamm. It will help lessen the "Noob Comm" problem we have. A lot of people i know (pub only players) wait for their upgrade to evolve, so they go lerk at 50 some res or fade at 70 waiting so long. Delays the usefulness of the lifeform and makes it harder on them later game when the marines can combat them better.
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
Disagree rising, I've seen lifeforms evolve on pubs asap, considering a fade void of upgrades on the field, potentially minutes earlier, is still more useful than none.
Some of the reasons it was changed to what we have now:
a) To lower the cost of biomass so the alien economy wasn't pooling large amounts of res and there was more smaller expenditures.
b) People requested to be able to individually research things so the commander could control choices for the team. With the original biomass system the only tech choice the commander actually had was hive types.
That said I actually liked the old biomass system from the perspective of a player on the ground, it was just not as exciting as the commander.
I think having different abilities on seemingly random structures is still much too awkward. I feel like cleaning up the upgrades is worth losing the fake decision of choosing tech. The tech is still locked to biomass, so you're not making a decision between different techs. You're just going up to whatever biomass you need then clicking extra busywork buttons.
It will help lessen the "Noob Comm" problem we have.
We have such a problem? I haven't seen newbie commanders for ages now in regular games. Perhaps someone who was new to BT and didn't know his way around yet, but usually only people who know their stuff take the seat nowadays.
Some of the reasons it was changed to what we have now:
a) To lower the cost of biomass so the alien economy wasn't pooling large amounts of res and there was more smaller expenditures.
b) People requested to be able to individually research things so the commander could control choices for the team. With the original biomass system the only tech choice the commander actually had was hive types.
That said I actually liked the old biomass system from the perspective of a player on the ground, it was just not as exciting as the commander.
I think having different abilities on seemingly random structures is still much too awkward. I feel like cleaning up the upgrades is worth losing the fake decision of choosing tech. The tech is still locked to biomass, so you're not making a decision between different techs. You're just going up to whatever biomass you need then clicking extra busywork buttons.
I'm not disagreeing by any means I was just giving some rationales for why it was changed. I concur that it is a fake choice. /shrug
BiteyJoin Date: 2012-05-06Member: 151622Members, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester
So we take a step backward again?
The AR spread once again creeps up to 3 degree..... So why didn't you try 2.1, 2.25, 2.35...... And so on? The ar was in a fine zone where it was at 2 degree and randomly it gets increased by 33%? Come on.....
The AR spread once again creeps up to 3 degree..... So why didn't you try 2.1, 2.25, 2.35...... And so on? The ar was in a fine zone where it was at 2 degree and randomly it gets increased by 33%? Come on.....
That part is deffo strange, the 2 degree spread was there for only one day... not sure if that's enough time to evaluate this.
You say long range - I still am waiting for what range that constitutes. I see alot of complaints about spread but not one post that is more then just whining. So ill ask again, what range should the rifle be able to 15 bullet a skulk at.
What's wrong with keeping it vanilla style? I mean skulks move faster and sharper.. I almost feel like my AR kills are luck alot of the time, unless I'm on top of them. Which is what I see the shotguns job for. Vanilla style AR took skill to track down a fade. And now that Skulks are faster, I'd put that in the same category now. But, I do understand hitreg is different as well and it is easier to hit them. But that is just my two cents. I'm not saying it should be either one extreme or the other, but atleast more accurate than it currently is.
You say long range - I still am waiting for what range that constitutes. I see alot of complaints about spread but not one post that is more then just whining. So ill ask again, what range should the rifle be able to 15 bullet a skulk at.
One standard sized room, eg. repair node to hallway that goes to ore.
Well just so people are also aware, the current rifle range is ~15 meters, where anything closer than that you will not miss, provided you are tracking the skulk accurately.
Still, not providing anything other than remarks like its broken or revert it is hardly helpful...
Also, if you need help quantifying a distance, you can type location in console to figure out exactly where you are currently.
So your saying you think the rifle should be perfectly accurate up to ~30 meters?
Well just so people are also aware, the current rifle range is ~15 meters, where anything closer than that you will not miss, provided you are tracking the skulk accurately.
Still, not providing anything other than remarks like its broken or revert it is hardly helpful...
Also, if you need help quantifying a distance, you can type location in console to figure out exactly where you are currently.
So your saying you think the rifle should be perfectly accurate up to ~30 meters?
Well if people think that the vanilla spread was nice, and want make the BT smaller, why would we need to talk about the meters when we know how it worked in vanilla.
Well just so people are also aware, the current rifle range is ~15 meters, where anything closer than that you will not miss, provided you are tracking the skulk accurately.
Still, not providing anything other than remarks like its broken or revert it is hardly helpful...
Also, if you need help quantifying a distance, you can type location in console to figure out exactly where you are currently.
So your saying you think the rifle should be perfectly accurate up to ~30 meters?
If that is the distance of what I said, then yes, marines should be able to take down skulks easily in a room if they aim well enough, it's up to skulks to lay traps or use objects in the map to get close enough.
If you think vanilla spread was fine I'm sorry but I disagree. Also, if you think aliens suddenly have the advantage in long hallways your very mistaken. You still have a secondary weapon in case you forgot.
I'm done debating this as people cannot look past their own play and just blame other things. Its sewlek's choice on spread and he has said he tested many different values from 2 to 3, so I do not know if he has other changes in mind but I suspect if people keep complaining, he will change it.
Ok I was linked this page and skipped the other 84 pages... not gonna lie. Maybe it was stated already or not, but my question is... Why the spread to begin with? If it has something to do with 15 shottin a skulk from a million miles away.... Why not keep the vanilla spread and just put range damage drop offs? But maybe I'm clearly missing the point.
Current spread is horrible, needs to be lowered! If the game needs to be balanced, make the balance out of something else than skill based mechanic, like aim for example.
The new spread is fine, if your aim is good enough the impact won't really be that much. Even above the 15m range you don't get many stray bullets if you are aiming effectively on the skulk. After doing some test its clear it rewards aim more at long range if anything.
I also encourage people to try to look at the spread change with an open mind.
You ARE right that if you aim well you won't miss much, but the fact that you COULD (at a RANDOM CHANCE) miss some bullets is messed up and dumb.
Random elements do not belong in skilled video games. (IMO)
Current spread is horrible, needs to be lowered! If the game needs to be balanced, make the balance out of something else than skill based mechanic, like aim for example.
So, do you think the LMG is underpowered? Can 1 lmg marine not take out 2-3 skulks anymore? Because i don't find this to have changed from vanilla.
The AR spread once again creeps up to 3 degree..... So why didn't you try 2.1, 2.25, 2.35...... And so on? The ar was in a fine zone where it was at 2 degree and randomly it gets increased by 33%? Come on.....
Andi sometimes ninja changes variables to see whether people really notice or not. Whether there is a real effect or whether its placebo. He did try small incremental changes over a wide range (even up to 4-5 degrees?), and afaik comp players (the ones on his servers at the time anyway) didn't even seem to notice anything was wrong. How many times or how long he's done this for i don't know.
Theoretically, the difference from 2 degree to 3 degree is
- Slightly higher skill floor over all ranges. Improves feel of game for new players, and i don't think the floor here is overly large.
- Slightly higher skill ceiling over high short-medium ranges. That is, you need to track dead center for 100% accuracy, as opposed to all your bullets going into the edge of the skulk. As well as distance judgement.
- Lower effective range
- Can parasite from long range without being instantly sniped
- More use for sniper pistol
I'm trying my hardest to objectively think what could be gravely wrong with 3 degrees, but i'm just still not seeing it.
As far as i can tell, 0 degrees would also be fine to you guys. So if 0 degrees is fine, why 2 degrees? You see what i'm finding wrong with your line of thinking bitey? Instead of whether or not 2 degrees was fine, It'd be nice to hear why 3 degrees is not fine. And not from the perspective of "i can't snipe people at long range anymore", but more from the perspective of why is this bad/good for gameplay overall.
In practice, i personally find 3 degree to be in a fine zone, just like you find 2 degrees to be in a fine zone. So yea, reasons and arguements!
*edit*
Also, the parasite spam from range thing someone mentioned was not a good arguement. There is never much you can do to prevent the first parasite to put you on 2 bite (highspread/lowspread). Parasiting to wear down a1+ requires alot of parasites (alot of time, alot of energy, still alot of risk/damage taken) and the fault is on the marine for trying to camp a long hallway and/or not pushing in the first place. Anyway, the whole arguement of parasite spam being op against lmg is just too silly to be taken seriously.
The new spread is fine, if your aim is good enough the impact won't really be that much. Even above the 15m range you don't get many stray bullets if you are aiming effectively on the skulk. After doing some test its clear it rewards aim more at long range if anything.
I also encourage people to try to look at the spread change with an open mind.
Game mechanics shouldnt impact at all on basics like aim in a shooter game, and you say ''impact won't really be that much'' the impact is still more than it should be to reward players. I've also made some tests that are equal to yours, and the fact is that aim is not rewarded in long range with this BT spread. If you need to balance the game its done somewhere else than spread, thats just a lazy way to fix things.
Current spread is horrible, needs to be lowered! If the game needs to be balanced, make the balance out of something else than skill based mechanic, like aim for example.
As far as i can tell, 0 degrees would also be fine to you guys. So if 0 degrees is fine, why 2 degrees? You see what i'm finding wrong with your line of thinking bitey? Instead of whether or not 2 degrees was fine, It'd be nice to hear why 3 degrees is not fine. And not from the perspective of "i can't snipe people at long range anymore", but more from the perspective of why is this bad/good for gameplay overall.
The reason why 2 degrees is acceptable even though some of us would prefer 0 is because that's how it's been for so long we're willing to accept it, but we're not willing to accept a step in the wrong direction on the matter.
Current spread is horrible, needs to be lowered! If the game needs to be balanced, make the balance out of something else than skill based mechanic, like aim for example.
As far as i can tell, 0 degrees would also be fine to you guys. So if 0 degrees is fine, why 2 degrees? You see what i'm finding wrong with your line of thinking bitey? Instead of whether or not 2 degrees was fine, It'd be nice to hear why 3 degrees is not fine. And not from the perspective of "i can't snipe people at long range anymore", but more from the perspective of why is this bad/good for gameplay overall.
The reason why 2 degrees is acceptable even though some of us would prefer 0 is because that's how it's been for so long we're willing to accept it, but we're not willing to accept a step in the wrong direction on the matter.
That's just silly. There is absolutely no case for 0 degree spread being superior to everything else. CS has recoil + spread, TF2 has spread, quake has spread, do i need to go on? Even rockets or grenades effectively have spread. If gameplay mechanics were never allowed to impact the aim/reward relationship, we would never have a wide variety of differently functioning weapons. To make it easy to understand, people tend to like a wide variety of weapons, thus people must also like gameplay mechanics impacting the aim/reward relationship.
I don't understand how some people can't get their minds around the fact that LMG long range effectiveness, not skill, has been capped. No holy law within the FPS bible has been violated. If you want to argue against the spread, don't do it from the holistic perspective of what should be expected from the aim/reward relationship. That approach has more holes than swiss cheese. Now, let's have a good look at how different aim/reward relationships really affect skill (skill being what we're really interested in).
Game 1
LMG does 10 dmg per bullet, 0 spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
Game 2
LMG does 7 dmg per bullet, 0 spread.
-Skulk has same y hp.
Which LMG has the higher skill ceiling? The answer is LMG 2. Now lets look at spread.
Game 1
LMG 1 does 10 dmg per bullet, 2 degree spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
-Define x long range as the max range at which all bullets will hit the skulk model so that effective damage = 10 dmg per bullet.
Game 2
LMG 2 does 10 dmg pet bullet, 3 degree spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
-Effective damage over same x long range distance = 33% less ~= 7 dmg per bullet
Which one has the higher skill ceiling? LMG 2 once again.
As you can see, the only arguements against higher spreads affecting aim skill are
1) Aliens are op at long range (laughable. The entire point of higher spread was the opposite).
2) The resulting skill floor from higher spread is too high where mis-aim is being rewarded too much. (legit)
Comments
I think having different abilities on seemingly random structures is still much too awkward. I feel like cleaning up the upgrades is worth losing the fake decision of choosing tech. The tech is still locked to biomass, so you're not making a decision between different techs. You're just going up to whatever biomass you need then clicking extra busywork buttons.
We have such a problem? I haven't seen newbie commanders for ages now in regular games. Perhaps someone who was new to BT and didn't know his way around yet, but usually only people who know their stuff take the seat nowadays.
I'm not disagreeing by any means I was just giving some rationales for why it was changed. I concur that it is a fake choice. /shrug
The AR spread once again creeps up to 3 degree..... So why didn't you try 2.1, 2.25, 2.35...... And so on? The ar was in a fine zone where it was at 2 degree and randomly it gets increased by 33%? Come on.....
One standard sized room, eg. repair node to hallway that goes to ore.
Still, not providing anything other than remarks like its broken or revert it is hardly helpful...
Also, if you need help quantifying a distance, you can type location in console to figure out exactly where you are currently.
So your saying you think the rifle should be perfectly accurate up to ~30 meters?
Well if people think that the vanilla spread was nice, and want make the BT smaller, why would we need to talk about the meters when we know how it worked in vanilla.
If that is the distance of what I said, then yes, marines should be able to take down skulks easily in a room if they aim well enough, it's up to skulks to lay traps or use objects in the map to get close enough.
I'm done debating this as people cannot look past their own play and just blame other things. Its sewlek's choice on spread and he has said he tested many different values from 2 to 3, so I do not know if he has other changes in mind but I suspect if people keep complaining, he will change it.
I also encourage people to try to look at the spread change with an open mind.
Random elements do not belong in skilled video games. (IMO)
Andi sometimes ninja changes variables to see whether people really notice or not. Whether there is a real effect or whether its placebo. He did try small incremental changes over a wide range (even up to 4-5 degrees?), and afaik comp players (the ones on his servers at the time anyway) didn't even seem to notice anything was wrong. How many times or how long he's done this for i don't know.
Theoretically, the difference from 2 degree to 3 degree is
- Slightly higher skill floor over all ranges. Improves feel of game for new players, and i don't think the floor here is overly large.
- Slightly higher skill ceiling over high short-medium ranges. That is, you need to track dead center for 100% accuracy, as opposed to all your bullets going into the edge of the skulk. As well as distance judgement.
- Lower effective range
- Can parasite from long range without being instantly sniped
- More use for sniper pistol
I'm trying my hardest to objectively think what could be gravely wrong with 3 degrees, but i'm just still not seeing it.
As far as i can tell, 0 degrees would also be fine to you guys. So if 0 degrees is fine, why 2 degrees? You see what i'm finding wrong with your line of thinking bitey? Instead of whether or not 2 degrees was fine, It'd be nice to hear why 3 degrees is not fine. And not from the perspective of "i can't snipe people at long range anymore", but more from the perspective of why is this bad/good for gameplay overall.
In practice, i personally find 3 degree to be in a fine zone, just like you find 2 degrees to be in a fine zone. So yea, reasons and arguements!
*edit*
Also, the parasite spam from range thing someone mentioned was not a good arguement. There is never much you can do to prevent the first parasite to put you on 2 bite (highspread/lowspread). Parasiting to wear down a1+ requires alot of parasites (alot of time, alot of energy, still alot of risk/damage taken) and the fault is on the marine for trying to camp a long hallway and/or not pushing in the first place. Anyway, the whole arguement of parasite spam being op against lmg is just too silly to be taken seriously.
Game mechanics shouldnt impact at all on basics like aim in a shooter game, and you say ''impact won't really be that much'' the impact is still more than it should be to reward players. I've also made some tests that are equal to yours, and the fact is that aim is not rewarded in long range with this BT spread. If you need to balance the game its done somewhere else than spread, thats just a lazy way to fix things.
The reason why 2 degrees is acceptable even though some of us would prefer 0 is because that's how it's been for so long we're willing to accept it, but we're not willing to accept a step in the wrong direction on the matter.
I don't understand how some people can't get their minds around the fact that LMG long range effectiveness, not skill, has been capped. No holy law within the FPS bible has been violated. If you want to argue against the spread, don't do it from the holistic perspective of what should be expected from the aim/reward relationship. That approach has more holes than swiss cheese. Now, let's have a good look at how different aim/reward relationships really affect skill (skill being what we're really interested in).
Game 1
LMG does 10 dmg per bullet, 0 spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
Game 2
LMG does 7 dmg per bullet, 0 spread.
-Skulk has same y hp.
Which LMG has the higher skill ceiling? The answer is LMG 2. Now lets look at spread.
Game 1
LMG 1 does 10 dmg per bullet, 2 degree spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
-Define x long range as the max range at which all bullets will hit the skulk model so that effective damage = 10 dmg per bullet.
Game 2
LMG 2 does 10 dmg pet bullet, 3 degree spread.
-Skulk has y hp.
-Effective damage over same x long range distance = 33% less ~= 7 dmg per bullet
Which one has the higher skill ceiling? LMG 2 once again.
As you can see, the only arguements against higher spreads affecting aim skill are
1) Aliens are op at long range (laughable. The entire point of higher spread was the opposite).
2) The resulting skill floor from higher spread is too high where mis-aim is being rewarded too much. (legit)