The Comprehensive List of Ideas
nsguy
Join Date: 2010-01-03 Member: 69869Members
Join Date: 2010-01-03 Member: 69869Members
I have been building up a list of ideas that I would like to see in NS2 for a while and now decided that it was ready to publish here. None of these ideas are extravagant, such as new classes, weapons, maps, etc. They are merely small ideas that combined would make the game [in my opinion] far superior. Please let me know what you think.
UI
1. Add animations and sound effects to buttons to feed back to the user that it has been pressed, such as the "Apply" button in "Settings". For the given example, perhaps also display a popup message indicating that the changes have been saved.
2. Display the current map name on the scoreboard in-game. (Implemented in build 245.)
3. Change the circles at the bottom right of the screen in-game (resembling the number of resource towers) to have a single icon of a resource tower and next to it have the number of resource towers owned by the team. It is currently unclear what those dots mean.
4. Add players' Steam avatars to the scoreboard.
5. Allow players to "Favourite" a server from the scoreboard.
6. Change the image used when someone is muted so that it is more obvious that you have muted that person. At present it is simply greyed out. It would be better if it had a "no" symbol over it.
7. Display next to the resource counter for both p-res and t-res the amount of resources you currently receive and how often you will receive it. For example, suppose you are on the marine team and have 20 resources and 3 resource towers it would show "20 +0.375 per 6 seconds" or show it rounded to the near integer: “20 +3 per 48 seconds”. Perhaps to avoid cluttering the UI, have the "20" in a large text size (as it is now) and below it show the subsequent information in a smaller text size.
8. Implement a chat box that lets you scroll through the chat history (inspiration taken from Valve’s games).
9. Add server MOTDs like those in Valve's games.
General
1. Allow teammates to donate resources to the commander (team resources).
2. Fire in maps should do damage to players, thus also allowing map editors to utilise them to create paths that are perhaps shorter to certain destinations, but which resultantly cause the player to have lesser health. (Was implemented in build 240 as pointed out by AuroN2.)
3. The ability to choose a spawn point, but have it default to the previous location at which you spawned or to the closest location from which you died.
4. Display player names on the map, perhaps by holding down another key whilst the map is open.
5. Prevent rookies from playing on non-rookie servers (also see 6).
6. Change the current method of defining someone as a non-rookie from having played for 4 hours to at least 24 hours, or accumulating a large number of points.
7. Give more visual and audial warnings when the power or a structure is under attack. It's too easy to not notice these when concentrating on other tasks.
8. Show invisibility in alien vision.
9. Allow marines to get in and out of Exos using the 'E' key. It should be entirely possible to implement given that commanders can currently drop Exos wherein marines must press 'E' to get into them.
10. Make sentries more useful by enabling them to have a 360 degree scan area, rather than the current 160 degrees, and perhaps remove the need for a sentry battery and allow 3 sentries to be placed anywhere within a room.
11. Make camouflage cause the alien to be constantly invisible (partially when moving, fully when still) except when attacking. It's hard to imagine a situation when you would rather not be invisible, given the choice. It would also reduce the need to have to hold awkward keys when moving, thus making it easier to use.
12. Allow players to vote concede whilst dead.
Commander
1. Display the radius of effect of structures when placing them down, for example, the observatory would display the area which it scans, the crags would display the area which it heals, etc.
2. Do not render the walls (perhaps make this available as an option in "Settings"), thus allowing the commander to select power nodes from behind, not obstruct the view of the field, and require less rendering (increasing performance slightly). Walls will instead be indicated by gaps between floor spaces. An alternative option would be to make the walls 50% transparent and enable the player to select objects through them.
3. Allow us to change the key bindings for the commander.
4. Display a beacon (as is used when a base in under attack) in the map when a player requests something from the commander, such as mist, a health pack, ammo, etc.
5. The ability for the alien commander to cancel building a structure.
6. The ability for MACs and ARCs to follow a specified player. (Implemented in build 242.)
7. The ability to cancel a beacon, but at the cost of some resources.
8. The ability to specify the radius of the area which a MAC or group of MACs should monitor for repairs. One could then fit this area so that the MAC monitors the entire base. This could be achieved by clicking on the MAC, clicking on a "Monitor area" button, and then use the scroll wheel to adjust the circular area.
9. Allow commanders to drop all types of Exos. Convert the bottom-right button in the bottom-right menu on the screen into an arrow that when clicked, shows the items that did not fit in the 6-slot menu. Consequently a back button should also be implemented. An alternative would be to have a scroll bar.
10. Show a health bar on structures so that commanders can know what needs repairing. At present one must click on each structure and determine its health using the given health fraction (current health / total health), which isn't very useful in a hectic environment.
UI
1. Add animations and sound effects to buttons to feed back to the user that it has been pressed, such as the "Apply" button in "Settings". For the given example, perhaps also display a popup message indicating that the changes have been saved.
2. Display the current map name on the scoreboard in-game. (Implemented in build 245.)
3. Change the circles at the bottom right of the screen in-game (resembling the number of resource towers) to have a single icon of a resource tower and next to it have the number of resource towers owned by the team. It is currently unclear what those dots mean.
4. Add players' Steam avatars to the scoreboard.
5. Allow players to "Favourite" a server from the scoreboard.
6. Change the image used when someone is muted so that it is more obvious that you have muted that person. At present it is simply greyed out. It would be better if it had a "no" symbol over it.
7. Display next to the resource counter for both p-res and t-res the amount of resources you currently receive and how often you will receive it. For example, suppose you are on the marine team and have 20 resources and 3 resource towers it would show "20 +0.375 per 6 seconds" or show it rounded to the near integer: “20 +3 per 48 seconds”. Perhaps to avoid cluttering the UI, have the "20" in a large text size (as it is now) and below it show the subsequent information in a smaller text size.
8. Implement a chat box that lets you scroll through the chat history (inspiration taken from Valve’s games).
9. Add server MOTDs like those in Valve's games.
General
1. Allow teammates to donate resources to the commander (team resources).
2. Fire in maps should do damage to players, thus also allowing map editors to utilise them to create paths that are perhaps shorter to certain destinations, but which resultantly cause the player to have lesser health. (Was implemented in build 240 as pointed out by AuroN2.)
3. The ability to choose a spawn point, but have it default to the previous location at which you spawned or to the closest location from which you died.
4. Display player names on the map, perhaps by holding down another key whilst the map is open.
5. Prevent rookies from playing on non-rookie servers (also see 6).
6. Change the current method of defining someone as a non-rookie from having played for 4 hours to at least 24 hours, or accumulating a large number of points.
7. Give more visual and audial warnings when the power or a structure is under attack. It's too easy to not notice these when concentrating on other tasks.
8. Show invisibility in alien vision.
9. Allow marines to get in and out of Exos using the 'E' key. It should be entirely possible to implement given that commanders can currently drop Exos wherein marines must press 'E' to get into them.
10. Make sentries more useful by enabling them to have a 360 degree scan area, rather than the current 160 degrees, and perhaps remove the need for a sentry battery and allow 3 sentries to be placed anywhere within a room.
11. Make camouflage cause the alien to be constantly invisible (partially when moving, fully when still) except when attacking. It's hard to imagine a situation when you would rather not be invisible, given the choice. It would also reduce the need to have to hold awkward keys when moving, thus making it easier to use.
12. Allow players to vote concede whilst dead.
Commander
1. Display the radius of effect of structures when placing them down, for example, the observatory would display the area which it scans, the crags would display the area which it heals, etc.
2. Do not render the walls (perhaps make this available as an option in "Settings"), thus allowing the commander to select power nodes from behind, not obstruct the view of the field, and require less rendering (increasing performance slightly). Walls will instead be indicated by gaps between floor spaces. An alternative option would be to make the walls 50% transparent and enable the player to select objects through them.
3. Allow us to change the key bindings for the commander.
4. Display a beacon (as is used when a base in under attack) in the map when a player requests something from the commander, such as mist, a health pack, ammo, etc.
5. The ability for the alien commander to cancel building a structure.
6. The ability for MACs and ARCs to follow a specified player. (Implemented in build 242.)
7. The ability to cancel a beacon, but at the cost of some resources.
8. The ability to specify the radius of the area which a MAC or group of MACs should monitor for repairs. One could then fit this area so that the MAC monitors the entire base. This could be achieved by clicking on the MAC, clicking on a "Monitor area" button, and then use the scroll wheel to adjust the circular area.
9. Allow commanders to drop all types of Exos. Convert the bottom-right button in the bottom-right menu on the screen into an arrow that when clicked, shows the items that did not fit in the 6-slot menu. Consequently a back button should also be implemented. An alternative would be to have a scroll bar.
10. Show a health bar on structures so that commanders can know what needs repairing. At present one must click on each structure and determine its health using the given health fraction (current health / total health), which isn't very useful in a hectic environment.
Comments
Why. Rookies are only green for 4 hours of gameplay.
You can cancel giving birth? How about call it digest and make it so you can recycle structures. You can also digest your aliens for the troll commander mua ha ha ha.
What didn't work? Nobody uses sentries today because they're expensive and not very useful. The "trick" is clearly a bug which should be fixed in the event that this is implemented.
See the point immediately after it: 6. Change the current method of defining someone as a non-rookie from having played for 4 hours to at least 24 hours, or accumulating a large number of points.
Does it matter? It would resolve accidental placements of structures. No one questions the sudden appearance of structures upon placement so it doesn't even look like it's giving birth.
From the Gorgeous Changelog:
This is now an option for mappers. In fact, the map I'm working on includes some environments that I plan to deal very low DOT: a nuclear reactor dealing radiation damage, a cryogenics room that deals cold damage, and a lava cave with crusted over lava.
Not on the list: Click+drag scroll option for commanders. It's more precise, and it allows much easier visual coverage of the map.
no.. that was sentry batteries once again, do your research, before you post.
It went as follows, you built a battery, you built 3 sentries, you recycled the battery, you place it so the sentries are not in the power range, you place 3 more sentries nearby the original batteries placement, and you recycle, and redrop the battery. thusly you have 6 powered sentries for one battery.
We never had 3 sentries per room, nor did it come as a trickable function.
Ah! I've been creating this list for quite a while now (since before the Gorgeous update). Thanks for letting us know.
This way, if the com is out/busy then marines can still move a MAC, say towards a power node or exo. Com could still control the macs and even have a toggle or some such if it was needed that badly.
Story time: power was down at our main base and we only had 2 exos there, one badly damaged. He made MAC follow him (macs follow damaged players) to power node and MAC got power back online.
That may be useful but I think most new/pub players would just get even more confused by this, if this was implemented I would rather see it as res/minute (so 10 Tres and 1.25 Pres per harvester/extractor), possibly have this as an option "turn on detailed resource info".
I think this could easily endanger the resource model, and be particularly problematic on large servers (more total Pres available), this also makes the game more complicated, which should really be avoided, there is already a very steep learning curve that puts off new players.
I think the current system is fine, if anything it should be non-rookies that are forbidden from joining rookie servers. Either way, you can change your rookie status back and forth whenever you want and I think that's fine. Possibly it would be better if you could only turn rookie mode off, and not back on again (can't imagine this is ever legitimately done by genuine rookies, since they wouldn't turn it off in the first place).
Sounds like this would just encourage rambo-exos even more. Teams need to weigh the risk of having players that can't beacon/build/weld against the increased firepower they get from having exos, there needs to be a big risk involved with having half your team as exo.
No, sentries should be used minimally, I would even be fine with the devs removing them entirely, new players think they are great, experienced players hate using them or playing against them.
This is being introduced in b242, hurrah! At least it's in the beta and I can't imagine they will remove it.
Completely agree, I think you should actually lose all 10 res to discourage people from using beacon whenever they like and cancelling it with no penalty, but you should definitely be able to cancel an accidental beacon, can lose you the game easily.
Again I would just say this adds more complexity to an already complex game, this can be done already by comms paying more attention to their MACs and encourages skill development.
Yes I imagine this is just due to the limitations of the menu grid, hopefully they will come up with a solution.
Other than that great post, I think these additions would make the game much nicer. Please see my list of suggestions for the commander interface if you are interested
It shouldn't cause any confusion as long as the UI is correctly laid out. Placing this information within the vicinity of the resource counter should suggest automatically what the information is about. This idea actually came to me from a HL2 mod I used to play called "Empires". In one of the updates they added a "+res" message next to the resource counter, which consequently allowed players to work out how long it would be until they received the amount of resources they required. If anything, such a feature would enable players to make decisions about whether or not they should save resources.
It's difficult to truly say what will happen if such a feature were implemented. Such an action is not without consequences: donating to the commander means that you'll have less resources to spend for yourself. It could add another dimension of strategy to the game however. As for new players, the game is quite complex in comparison to other FPSs (indeed this is an RTS/FPS), but donating resources shouldn't cause too much confusion. In StarCraft 2 it's possible to donate resources to other teammates, which is very useful. If you don't know about it you don't use it.
As someone who plays specifically on non-rookie servers this is a feature I would like to see. There is an abundance of rookie friendly servers, so such a feature won't have a huge impact on the community. It's difficult to come across a competitive scene in pub play, but such a feature would enable such a scene to exist.
It's true, this feature would make beaconing quite different. A player could exit an exo to get beaconed, but would consequently leave their costly exo completely unprotected and would most certainly be destroyed within seconds. Any player that chooses to exit the exo for whatever reason: beaconing, welding, or building, would be at risk of dying and losing their exo. Balancing would of course need to occur, but this is the case with any new feature that impacts strategy.
At the moment they are not used at all, at least on servers I play on. Idea 10 was my attempt to resolve the issue of turrets being almost useless, thus bringing them into use by experienced players.
That's great news! I have yet to play the beta.
This would have to be tested. I imagine that a cancelled beacon within the first 5 minutes of the game (resulting in a loss of 10 resources) would have quite some impact on the marines' start. Accidents should be punished in order for players to learn, and I agree that such a feature should be protected from abuse.
I'd say that it adds more customisation and organisation for the commander. At present it isn't difficult for a MAC to suddenly start following a player out of the base, only to be left stranded in the middle of a corridor. Specifying an area of repair should prevent the MAC from escaping the bounds of the specified area and make them more manageable; confining each to a certain area of the base, or to the whole base.
Yes that is the reason, but even with the grid it's possible to do this. The bottom-right button could simply be an arrow that loads the other items into the grid. This could be the layout (I've simplified it just to show the concept):
W1|W2|W3
W4|W5|--->
Clicking the arrow would load the other items:
W6|W7|W8
<---|W9|W10
Where W=Weapon, say.
I have to disagree about donating pres to tres, that is just such a huge potential shift to the resource model, seems like something that couldn't really be integrated at this point, maybe if they'd tried it early in beta - maybe someone could make a mod and see how it works.
Likewise getting out of your exo - exos should be a liability for their team, that player should be effectively useless if they get stranded on the far side of the map, you should be totally reliant on your team for support. I take your point that you are risking 50/75 res if you just left it out on the map, but one of the key features of the exo is that the team should avoid having too many in case of a base rush - that is the compromise you make for having that firepower, I think it would be sad to see that change.
Sentries are something that should be used very little imo - the reason being that this is a multiplayer game and getting killed by AI is really lame. Like hydras, sentries are meant to just be a deterrent, they're not meant to be able to hold anything on their own, making them stronger/tougher is just not a good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I don't know if you're agreeing with me on rookie servers or not - I would maintain that banning rookies from non-rookie servers is not workable since you can just turn rookie mode off in the menu anyway (which is good). I suggested you could ban non-rookies from rookie servers and have it so you can't re-enable rookie mode in the menu, but as I think about it that is also probably not a great idea - we should be relying on the community (in general, but there will obviously always be a few trolls) to join appropriate servers and be decent to one another. Besides, the player base is so small that imposing restrictions on who can play where could potentially kill public play altogether.
Supposing the aliens rushed a marine base the commander would beacon. Some players may jump out of their exos quickly in order to be beaconed back to the base, but consequently their exos would remain empty. It would be no more difficult to take down the exos still in use than it is at present. If anything, it would simply be a feast for the aliens. Of course, more players may buy exos because they can eject from them, so you could end up seeing an entire team of exos, but that would be a huge risk. Those exos would cost each player a lot of resources, and a single beacon could destroy them all. Because they are expensive to purchase, the marines would unlikely be able to get hold of any for quite a while and would be prone to an alien counter attack.
Well at the moment they're practically useless. They don't defend the base well and they cost a lot. I'm not suggesting that the sentries become powerful enough to defend a base on their own, but that they become better able to act as a deterrent. Requiring them to be placed all in one spot is rubbish; it's very easy to take them out. Their restricted angle also means that they can't protect much. The hydras on the other hand get a lot of kills from what I've witnessed and each Gorge can have 3.
You can have one sentry per room and only need to build the sentry, no battery or anything. This one sentry gets buffed slightly (wider FOV, slightly faster tracking, etc.) or lower the cost so that marine com will place one down to cover a guy repairing power, or warn of a flanking or even help defend conduit from transit better...
Battery and three sentries could still be used as def. however, just allows one to be by itself or works on the room power.
Even if the player lost all weapons and equipment when entering (which would make jumping out kinda moot), the commander could still drop him a welder.