Same here, more players will come back when the blogs go crazy announcing changes within vanilla NS2. Maybe we'll see more players for awhile, that's when the dev will attack with some DLC because they might be needing money to survive.
But people need to remember that how you present your opinions is as important as what they are. "OMG this mod sux and is going to kill NS2" is the kind of presentation of an opinion that does little to contribute to the ongoing discussion, and will likely result in those opinions being ignored. "I don't like ___ feature , because of ____ and ____ " is the sort of feedback we are looking for and that will matter.
But people need to remember that how you present your opinions is as important as what they are. "OMG this mod sux and is going to kill NS2" is the kind of presentation of an opinion that does little to contribute to the ongoing discussion, and will likely result in those opinions being ignored. "I don't like ___ feature , because of ____ and ____ " is the sort of feedback we are looking for and that will matter.
I do not like the features of the mod, because of the lack of performance issue resolutions. Please spend your precious time on performance boosting instead of creating mods that the community is making. They will make their mods and people can be free to use them if need be.
Please concentrate on what is important, performance and player base. Because as obvious as it is to everyone, without a player base NS2 will die. And it is also well known that a diminishing player base means that ultimately the game and the company involved will be dissolved. Need I say more referencing Gas Powered Games...
PS: What happens if x amount of people leave, but z amount of people come back to the game because of the changes. That is what I predict will happen... z > x
I agree to some extent here, however I do believe that sustainable changes need to be focused on more than unsustainable ones. Yes definately interest is sparked when new releases are made with more features / overhaul of balancing. However this is short lived. (look at the player graph produced from steam)
We can see sharp rises and falls on free weekends, and smaller but noticeable ones on each patch release. However inevitably within half a month or so the player base is lower than it was before the patches.
Hence I suggest strongly that UWE concentrate on sustainable and long lasting solutions. And the big one, Performance!
I do not like the features of the mod, because of the lack of performance issue resolutions. Please spend your precious time on performance boosting instead of creating mods that the community is making. They will make their mods and people can be free to use them if need be.
I agree to some extent here, however I do believe that sustainable changes need to be focused on more than unsustainable ones. Yes definately interest is sparked when new releases are made with more features / overhaul of balancing. However this is short lived. (look at the player graph produced from steam)
We can see sharp rises and falls on free weekends, and smaller but noticeable ones on each patch release. However inevitably within half a month or so the player base is lower than it was before the patches.
Hence I suggest strongly that UWE concentrate on sustainable and long lasting solutions. And the big one, Performance!
Please concentrate on what is important, performance and player base. Because as obvious as it is to everyone, without a player base NS2 will die. And it is also well known that a diminishing player base means that ultimately the game and the company involved will be dissolved. Need I say more referencing Gas Powered Games...
You don't like the features of the mod because it fails to address performance? Interesting view given it is a mod that specifically addresses game play. The rest of UWE are working on performance and I'm not sure how having Sewlek be involved with that will help the game given that game play and performance are both broken. Even if performance were good I'd probably still not play because the gameplay is bad, whereas if the balance mod stuff were in the game I would play regardless of any performance gains. Most of the people still posting and playing are the ones that have ok performance or have overlooked it.
What mods are the community making that are comparable to what Sewlek is doing ? This work needs to be implemented game wide rather than having a select few mods that x number of people are willing to play while y number aren't.
I think you mistake peoples interest in the balance mod with interest in playing ns2 as it currently is, which is rapidly declining (balance mod existing wont save the current game). The people who are only hanging around because of the mod are people who have not completely disconnected themselves from this game and community which they otherwise would have if not for Sewlek's efforts.
Yes Scatter I agree again to some extent, however my point was, leave modding to the modders, and mods are free to download and be used. UWE need to be investing time on performance and sustainable changes. Not porting mods into the core game.
Yes Scatter I agree again to some extent, however my point was, leave modding to the modders, and mods are free to download and be used. UWE need to be investing time on performance and sustainable changes. Not porting mods into the core game.
Sewlek is one of the UWE developers... This isn't a community made mod, it's a mod made as a side-project by UWE to test out a bunch of different things without having to test them out on everyone in the main vanilla game.
how do you intend to quantify this outcry? will it be before or after? will it be based purely on these forums, or will you run a poll ingame to try and reach the maximum amount of players? I ask because you cannot possibly measure the outcry or lack of until you inform the entire player base of said changes. Seeing as even now we only have a 'confirmed denial' i wouldnt say that these plans have been effectively communicated to the community. to assume there is little or no outcry on these pretences seems to be a bit premature.
We have plans to promote the mod through the official channels, soon. Sewlek has been working towards finalizing the features, and then we can put it into the final phase of testing and get the word out to more people through blog posts, twitter feed, in game news, etc, to let them know that this could be the future of NS2 and to start playing and giving feedback if they want to have a say.
Feedback can be given on the forums - Sewlek has been reading every single post in those threads. It can be given in game - Sewlek is constantly playing on BT mod servers and watching and listening to player experiences. There is an upcoming BT tournament that teams are participating in, and we will be watching those and listening to the players opinions. There are and will be plenty of arguments for and against various features in the mod, and of course we won't please everyone with the changes. But we will listen, and, based on all the feedback we receive from all areas of the community, as well as our own judgement about what we feel is best for the future of NS2, we will make the final decisions about which elements to carry over from the mod into the game.
But people need to remember that how you present your opinions is as important as what they are. "OMG this mod sux and is going to kill NS2" is the kind of presentation of an opinion that does little to contribute to the ongoing discussion, and will likely result in those opinions being ignored. "I don't like ___ feature , because of ____ and ____ " is the sort of feedback we are looking for and that will matter.
thanks for the post. it still sounds like the mod will largely be past the feature conceptualisation and design stage when the community will be informed of the plans and invited to comment. Nor do I see how that quantifies the outcry.
I think there have very good arguments made in this thread, both general and specific about the downsides of the mod, some of the best ones coming from UWE itself! to then say that its just "omg this mod sux etc" is seriously wrong. I have seen no attempt to address some of the issues brought up in this thread, instead you seem to be misrepresenting them and waving them away.
How else do you test major game play changes with so many interconnected mechanics?
The game play and performance are broken, 1 man is handling game play while the rest of UWE handles performance. This is not reasonable ?
with the huge amount of changes made that its almost impossible to examine the effect of any one single change - and thus the notion of this as a 'balance mod' is wrong imo - because if anything it will introduce a huge amount of unforeseen balance issues that will be all the harder to detect through the noise.
Another general balance point re: the skulk movement - doesnt having the skulk be able to be move so fast around the map actually render the speed upgrades all the more secondary and that if anything, it actually reinforces the position of carapace first that we see in comp today?
"I don't like ___ feature , because of ____ and ____ " is the sort of feedback we are looking for and that will matter."
- I don't like the triples upgrades (3 shells allow regen and cara lvl max), because it remembered me NS1. Not because because NS1 is bad, but because it is not NS2, and NS2 needs to be differentiated from his elder.
- I don't drifters builders, because the drifter role is to prevent a marine rush. and was a good features for the aliens, to avoid a rush.
- I don't the news aliens movement :
- Skulk : we aren't in NS1, stop bullying us about that.
- Lerk, too slow.
- Fade : A Bhop fade who's crouching and slower than a skulk, seriously ?
- I don't like the OP shotgun. Fade has never been so useless.
- I don't like the welders at 4 res directly purchasable on the armory (who's don't heal your amor), because the early game is so OP for the marines if they do a 4 man welder push. Before you can drop an armory on the field, costy, but if you have good marines, they do a good job with.
What I like now :
I like the new alien tech tree : Biomass is an amazing idea, and maybe can be implemented in the vanilla game, even if it doesn't please to everyone, and you may scare and loose a bunch of players because you change their lovely game.
Now I would like to :
A NS1/similar NS1 mod, who DOES NOT affect the vanilla game, but be reconized as an official mod/game.
Lots of NS1 players want to recover the sensation of their old NS1 games. So yes ! Go for a Bhop skulk, NS1 designed map, stuffs, and let's go. But one thing, don't do a drastic change of the vanilla game. You will loose more than 70% of your players, and maybe me.
One other thing I would like to see in the game, is more ability to each side. A magnum for the marines, a decoy for the gorge (imitate skulks sounds, stuff like that), and new usefull abilities in the competitive game.
Today; EMP, Exos, flamethrowers and GLs are too much useless for the competitive game. We always see the same tactics :
Quick cara > save rts > second hive > adrenaline/silence + blink for aliens
Marines is upgrades, pg, then arc/jetpacks.
Just restore the actual things to make them more competitive, (an Exo with a EMPtech on him ? where the marine can eject himself from the exo naked and buy a LMG on an armory, or take a weapon on the in the back of an other marine (who will be slower) ? A GL/LMG as before, or a GL with more grenades and a quicker reload ? A flamethrower who litterally brun an alien member who can barely escape and recover his arm/leg on a misted recovering egg ?)
Then after after changing all the useless competitve stuff, do others branch of the actual tech tree, without changing the actual STR/FPS gameplay. And obviouly, make the game easier to access for lower computers.
How else do you test major game play changes with so many interconnected mechanics?
The game play and performance are broken, 1 man is handling game play while the rest of UWE handles performance. This is not reasonable ?
with the huge amount of changes made that its almost impossible to examine the effect of any one single change - and thus the notion of this as a 'balance mod' is wrong imo - because if anything it will introduce a huge amount of unforeseen balance issues that will be all the harder to detect through the noise.
Another general balance point re: the skulk movement - doesnt having the skulk be able to be move so fast around the map actually render the speed upgrades all the more secondary and that if anything, it actually reinforces the position of carapace first that we see in comp today?
I'm questioning if you even test the movement, it only applies in air not when you're on the ground, ground friction is still applied, so celerity is still viable for the actual combat; you're not in wall hop the entire match, if you are you're probably not even playing in the match and just being a waste to your team. The only issue I can think of is the silent factor, having the client side growl sound be a global sound (like the skulk dog breathing sprint) would make sense, however sprint is gone now afaik
The air friction from my last playtime has been increased and strafing requirements have been decreased, a double nerf; so it's easier to do and worse and also feels worse combat wise as well.. I'm fine with wall hopping giving a boost, but the extra friction feels awful and the strafing being less important so that those who can't do it, can is also not something I favor at all. Sorry for being so aggressive in my post but I can't stand the original skulk what so ever and believe this IS the change that needs to happen. Many players support more hardcore movements, and I'm sure the older NS base appreciates it as well (from the few I spoke to over steam they are for it, but they're all benched out until performance goes up because that's their biggest upset)
The vanilla aliens are boring, well besides lerk and fade; onos isn't fun to play and skulk your majority time spent life form is even worse, what I tried out yesterday in BT didn't feel good at all but that's because I've tried pretty much every previous BT skulk version and knew it was so much better when there wasn't insane friction and strafing was important. And yes it took me a few hours to figure out, then even more hours to get proper routing down and figure out certain elevations and how it can be applied to combat, but that's how games are.. you want to be good, practice. You want to be good without practice, hey man I hear battlefield is on sale all the time
i was simply trying to point out that by making skulk speed and acceleration much more of a player attribute than a lifeform or class attribute, it would follow that the upgrades that increases these base attributes might not be worth the opportunity cost - ie going with another upgrade that alters a different more static attribute. This is the kind of issue that I would expect a 'balance mod' to resolve, not compound.
also, stop telling me vanilla aliens are boring - its just your opinion.
i was simply trying to point out that by making skulk speed and acceleration much more of a player attribute than a lifeform or class attribute, it would follow that the upgrades that increases these base attributes might not be worth the opportunity cost - ie going with another upgrade that alters a different more static attribute. This is the kind of issue that I would expect a 'balance mod' to resolve, not compound.
also, stop telling me vanilla aliens are boring - its just your opinion.
I've played BT for hours, literally, I use both adrenaline and celerity on skulk regardless of what variation we had, celerity was simply so useful to moving faster on the ground and in combat for clearing the distance (especially if there was no walls around) it also helped with side strafe dodging, and since it works in combat it was even more viable. Then if I felt like I needed more adrenaline because I'd be leaping a lot or was hunting a specific RT in a favorable location where I could be biting/dodging on the RT then come out via leap adren was more viable for me in that situation
The only issue I've seen with any upgrades was carapace and regen, celerity/adren is only an issue on the fade because of his adren cost I've never seen a reason to get celerity plus you're barely on the floor as a fade if you are you're eating shotgun shells. Plus I feel onos should be quicker with celerity than the current variation (may have changed yesterday, don't know)
Yeah it's my opinion, and a lot of the other players opinions
The only thing I was telling you via my post is that you're bad -snip yeah nothing nice, right?-
You're just frustrating everyone by making points only regarding the movement, while it's important, you've barely tested it and that's a fact. It's not an issue like it's made out to be, over 60 hours of BT matches and I thought originally skulks moving quicker would cause issues with RTs and the etc, actually it made no difference besides that skulks could win a few more engagements and 1v1s didn't heavily favor marines depending on where you approached from. Half the time when you die as a marine from a skulk ambush it's the lag compensation making it feel like shit, before you're even notified of damage to turn around you're dead. But that's a serverside variable/engine problem. Disregarding that a skulk vs marine will always favor the marine (assuming the marine can aim) giving skulks a faster method of movement and more room to dodge/wiggle started to even that table as I noticed I was able if I played smart enough to take out some really good marine players in 1v1 situations
I tried out the mod and prefer it to vanilla, especially playing as a gorge, not having to wait so long healing structures, 5 res to evolve not 10, etc.
ive already seen numerous people get shouted and insulted out of this discussion (coincidentally, i think they all shared a certain view....), and i'd rather not do the same, but this is getting really tedious.
you dodged the central point of my argument, that crag and shade alter static characteristics of the lifeform. theres no explicit manouver or technique that you can do that increases your health or cloak up or run silently, without the specific upgrades. celerity on the other hand, seeing as the speed limitations are alot less strict in this mod, is in a unique position in that its possible to approach or approximate its benefits without it. i think this is important to consider because on balance, seeing as high skill players will move pretty fast as a rule, it means that the relative advantage celerity could confer to such a player is diminished and that he would be better off opting for an upgrade that provides a bigger relative benefit. in other words, one of the big balance issues in vanilla ns2 - the dominance of carapace with respect to celerity and the shade upgrades seems to be left unresolved, and potentially aggravated.
ive already seen numerous people get shouted and insulted out of this discussion (coincidentally, i think they all shared a certain view....), and i'd rather not do the same, but this is getting really tedious.
you dodged the central point of my argument, that crag and shade alter static characteristics of the lifeform. theres no explicit manouver or technique that you can do that increases your health or cloak up or run silently, without the specific upgrades. celerity on the other hand, seeing as the speed limitations are alot less strict in this mod, is in a unique position in that its possible to approach or approximate its benefits without it. i think this is important to consider because on balance, seeing as high skill players will move pretty fast as a rule, it means that the relative advantage celerity could confer to such a player is diminished and that he would be better off opting for an upgrade that provides a bigger relative benefit. in other words, one of the big balance issues in vanilla ns2 - the dominance of carapace with respect to celerity and the shade upgrades seems to be left unresolved, and potentially aggravated.
sewlek is already on the carapace mission, no doubt in my mind that he will solve it
I'm sorry ezekel but your last post just reeks of BT fanboyism. Lawenforcer brought up a good point regarding celerity's usefulness. Your reply was essentially I have tried them and don't see a problem. I personally don't use celerity in BT as well since the skulks top speed is already extremely high. Once you close the distance to a marine, you shouldn't need any extra ground speed to make the kill. That's my opinion.
I also don't see the point of having three upgrade chambers in this game. There really are not that many places to hide them. I guess it takes you longer to fully destroy an upgrade but that's about it. I personally liked the importance of a single chamber that needs protecting.
Anyway here are a few things I like/dislike:
+New skulk movement (adds variety to the movement)
+Biomass (Gives single hive more usefulness)
+Shade Hive upgrades (Fear/Aura woot)
-Fade movement (Not a fan of bunnyhoping blink fade)
-Drifter (liked the drifter as a scout, not a builder, especially now that they are almost required)
ive already seen numerous people get shouted and insulted out of this discussion (coincidentally, i think they all shared a certain view....), and i'd rather not do the same, but this is getting really tedious.
you dodged the central point of my argument, that crag and shade alter static characteristics of the lifeform. theres no explicit manouver or technique that you can do that increases your health or cloak up or run silently, without the specific upgrades. celerity on the other hand, seeing as the speed limitations are alot less strict in this mod, is in a unique position in that its possible to approach or approximate its benefits without it. i think this is important to consider because on balance, seeing as high skill players will move pretty fast as a rule, it means that the relative advantage celerity could confer to such a player is diminished and that he would be better off opting for an upgrade that provides a bigger relative benefit. in other words, one of the big balance issues in vanilla ns2 - the dominance of carapace with respect to celerity and the shade upgrades seems to be left unresolved, and potentially aggravated.
sewlek is already on the carapace mission, no doubt in my mind that he will solve it
I would hope so, though this issue stems from a fundamental design choice imo - the 'solution' to which will more than likely be complex and convoluted. whilst it may be functional - i think good game design is to seek simplicity and elegance where ever possible. this doesnt mean that complexity cannot exist - it should emerge in the meta between players or teams, something that NS2 already leaves a fair bit of room for. it would be possible to open this metagame up even more with small but targeted balance patches imo without resorting to the sweeping changes being made in BT.
I'm sorry ezekel but your last post just reeks of BT fanboyism. Lawenforcer brought up a good point regarding celerity's usefulness. Your reply was essentially I have tried them and don't see a problem. I personally don't use celerity in BT as well since the skulks top speed is already extremely high. Once you close the distance to a marine, you shouldn't need any extra ground speed to make the kill. That's my opinion.
I also don't see the point of having three upgrade chambers in this game. There really are not that many places to hide them. I guess it takes you longer to fully destroy an upgrade but that's about it. I personally liked the importance of a single chamber that needs protecting.
Anyway here are a few things I like/dislike:
+New skulk movement (adds variety to the movement)
+Biomass (Gives single hive more usefulness)
+Shade Hive upgrades (Fear/Aura woot)
-Fade movement (Not a fan of bunnyhoping blink fade)
-Drifter (liked the drifter as a scout, not a builder, especially now that they are almost required)
Just my two cents.
I have an entire thread on my likes/dislikes, fanboyism? No more like massively played feedback; both abilities are useful in their own ways, the only thing not useful is celerity on a fade
ive already seen numerous people get shouted and insulted out of this discussion (coincidentally, i think they all shared a certain view....), and i'd rather not do the same, but this is getting really tedious.
you dodged the central point of my argument, that crag and shade alter static characteristics of the lifeform. theres no explicit manouver or technique that you can do that increases your health or cloak up or run silently, without the specific upgrades. celerity on the other hand, seeing as the speed limitations are alot less strict in this mod, is in a unique position in that its possible to approach or approximate its benefits without it. i think this is important to consider because on balance, seeing as high skill players will move pretty fast as a rule, it means that the relative advantage celerity could confer to such a player is diminished and that he would be better off opting for an upgrade that provides a bigger relative benefit. in other words, one of the big balance issues in vanilla ns2 - the dominance of carapace with respect to celerity and the shade upgrades seems to be left unresolved, and potentially aggravated.
sewlek is already on the carapace mission, no doubt in my mind that he will solve it
I would hope so, though this issue stems from a fundamental design choice imo - the 'solution' to which will more than likely be complex and convoluted. whilst it may be functional - i think good game design is to seek simplicity and elegance where ever possible. this doesnt mean that complexity cannot exist - it should emerge in the meta between players or teams, something that NS2 already leaves a fair bit of room for. it would be possible to open this metagame up even more with small but targeted balance patches imo without resorting to the sweeping changes being made in BT.
The vanilla game is a crag only option, regen is useful early game then carapace is a requirement late game basically
In BT I feel going shade is not the worst option with the new phantom/aura, as it really gives aliens the heads up on marines
Anyway from what I've read, it seems like biomass is going to be the thing scaling alien health while removing carapace completely *experimental/rumor* So we'll see how that works out if it becomes implemented into BT or if it's already there
to then say that its just "omg this mod sux etc" is seriously wrong. I have seen no attempt to address some of the issues brought up in this thread, instead you seem to be misrepresenting them and waving them away.
So he states the format best utilized for having feedback absorbed and discussed...
And you say that means he was "misrepresenting"?..
He did not state that's how it was being done currently, (even though it can actually be seen, and the track record of those types of responses in the past 3 years are often the most prevalent Imo, just look at the next post lol!) - read his post carefully - he was merely stating a crucial and helpful guideline that *obviously* needs to be said ... You misunderstood.
ironhorse - im saying that characterizing all criticism or questioning of the mod in general as no more than "omg this mod suxxxxX!!1!!!" is a serious misrepresentation of what people were actually saying and that by doing so, it enables him to ignore said criticism or questions. i find that intellectually dishonest and would expect better from a serious games developer.
ezekel - im aware that crag only is a balance issue in vanilla - which makes 'balance mod's' approach all the more questionable dont you think? also i think you have the vanilla carapace issue backwards. i think the big thing that carapace does is to make skulks very strong in the early game -> this means alien teams can get away with less p-res investment to defend their territory/win team fights in terms of gorges or lerks. i see alot of teams going 4 skulk, 1 lerk and maybe a comm gorge. this minimal pres investment from aliens means that very quickly they are able to get 4 players on 50 res, leading to what has become known as the fade explosion. this very high hp early game skulk means that marines have to counter with upgrades in order to mitigate the much increased survivability of the skulk. i think a small nerf to carapace on the skulk and the celerity buff from BT (that it doesnt disable when you get hit) would be a much more reasonable way to find some kind of 'balance' than ripping almost everything out by the roots and starting again - but then again, balance isnt this mods goal, only its 'shield'.
Lawenforcer brought up a good point regarding celerity's usefulness.
No, he didn't. His "theory" is built on a deeply flawed understanding of effective skulk vs. marine play. Explaining why would require a lot of words and I am already sick of posting in this thread, so I will simply use an example to prove the point: NS1 had full bunnyhopping for aliens, yet celerity was the predominant upgrade for most of its active lifespan. Roughly speaking, dc/crag was the default first chamber choice during 2002-2005, while mc/shift was the default first chamber choice from 2005-2011. If bunnyhopping had any impact on chamber/upgrade choice as he claims, carapace first would've surely been predominant in ns1, yet it wasn't. The conclusion should be self-evident.
You'd actually be hard pressed to find a single "good point" brought up by thelawenforcer in this entire thread. It's impossible to refute all the silly claims he makes, however, simply because he makes so many of them. I just don't have that kind of time available to waste, and I'm sure that applies to most of the other posters here as well. At some point one just has to assume that people will be able to understand on their own that <person who is repeatedly spamming ridiculous claims and predictions of doom> is really just full of hot air and not worth listening to.
While I think the balance mod is the way forward for this game, I will also be the first person to admit that it has some problems that need to be ironed out, which was the point of making it a mod in the first place. Once the different experimental changes have been tested, the good bits can be put into the game and the bad bits can be discarded. Not everyone will agree on which bits are good and which are bad, but that's just how it is, you can't please everyone. If someone gets so angry that they quit because they can't have everything their way, then I say good riddance.
ironhorse - im saying that characterizing all criticism or questioning of the mod in general as no more than ".
I know - that was the point of my post.. And you still aren't seeing it ;-)
He did not characterize all criticism or questioning in that manner.. Seriously.. Re read it man.
You are interpreting it like that, and idk why.
Its akin to giving instruction and having a person get offended because they feel it was saying something more somehow - you are reaching for something that is not there my friend.
ironhorse - im saying that characterizing all criticism or questioning of the mod in general as no more than "omg this mod suxxxxX!!1!!!" is a serious misrepresentation of what people were actually saying and that by doing so, it enables him to ignore said criticism or questions. i find that intellectually dishonest and would expect better from a serious games developer.
ezekel - im aware that crag only is a balance issue in vanilla - which makes 'balance mod's' approach all the more questionable dont you think? also i think you have the vanilla carapace issue backwards. i think the big thing that carapace does is to make skulks very strong in the early game -> this means alien teams can get away with less p-res investment to defend their territory/win team fights in terms of gorges or lerks. i see alot of teams going 4 skulk, 1 lerk and maybe a comm gorge. this minimal pres investment from aliens means that very quickly they are able to get 4 players on 50 res, leading to what has become known as the fade explosion. this very high hp early game skulk means that marines have to counter with upgrades in order to mitigate the much increased survivability of the skulk. i think a small nerf to carapace on the skulk and the celerity buff from BT (that it doesnt disable when you get hit) would be a much more reasonable way to find some kind of 'balance' than ripping almost everything out by the roots and starting again - but then again, balance isnt this mods goal, only its 'shield'.
You stated earlier you were going to permanently quit the game if the mod was implemented, obviously you think the mod sucks if it's going to make you quit
Removing carapace and having health scale with biomass upgrades seems like a very smart move, this will help aliens scale as the game progresses (much like marines getting their wep/arm upgrades and shotties/jets) Now from what I played last, you receive biomass for all structures on the field (including useful structures) minus a few, so every structure that comes out will essentially be scaling the alien team, thus removing the issue with carapace and aliens automatically receive a sort of carapace based on what they're doing on the field. I still need to play a lot more this week so I can give some good feedback on this change (if it's already in BT, haven't played since yesterday morning)
This mod does a lot for balancing, but in reality there was nothing wrong with balance before; (besides in very large games) sure the game favors marines in actuality (lets forget performance for this part and be real, marines have a clear advantage) the matches I've seen are simply by won by who had the better players on the field and the better commander, that's who won the match
Getting a 50/50 winrate doesn't mean anything, especially when the teams have been so lopsided via public matches. And yeah competitive stats said aliens win more, but once you get to the higher skilled teams you can see it was favoring marines back then at that point. If performance was say increased and everyone had max frames overnight with high ticrates and compensation lowered you would see the aliens get slaughtered; heck I could join a regular server and be the determining factor of my team winning (so can a lot of other players) but overall this mod is just simply adding so many improvements and attempting to balance things that are already there, or seeing if they work out
edit: I'm sure the "tournament" will help change a lot of things too, as I've yet to see this mod played often enough in a 6v6 environment with people who understand all of it. But I'm hoping those players do post feedback on the movement and attempt to get back the previous values of air friction and making strafing an important part of the early on skulk.. Seriously that alone made the skulk so much more viable than what we have now.
Among other changes, there are a few things I don't like which I'd like to see removed such as infestation damaging structures and the such; but a lot of things I do want kept. So I made an entire thread posting every single thing and my input after doing all of them for quite a long time, I suggest you do the same instead of judging off a few matches (if even) because this needs feedback from everyone; but not feedback like you're giving most of the time (no offense) cause you seem to be stuck on movement vs upgrades and the only real issue is the carapace upgrade in this aspect. The brick skulk was solved with strafeaccel + wall hopping, and the fact that it keeps getting nerfed/adjusted because of people who have trouble doing it is really upsetting. However changes like the slower lerk and the fade overhaul are very debatable imo
edit: It seems the cara removal for biomass was just a thought *
ironhorse - im saying that characterizing all criticism or questioning of the mod in general as no more than "omg this mod suxxxxX!!1!!!" is a serious misrepresentation of what people were actually saying and that by doing so, it enables him to ignore said criticism or questions. i find that intellectually dishonest and would expect better from a serious games developer.
Nowhere did I state this. Not...at...all. There is plenty of valid criticisms of the mod being carried out in thoughtful discussions in the main BT mod thread, in game, and by the official balance mod testing team, and I was not referring to those arguments, merely requesting people who want to give further feedback to frame it in a manner that is respectful and constructive.
And, I see that there were several posts made after my comment that did exactly what I requested, giving their opinions in a non inflammatory way, and listing out the reasons why they disagree with certain features in the mod. However, I would like to request that people leave their feedback in the other current BT thread, so that we have it all in one place, and it doesn't get lost in this thread.
i was talking in the context of quantifying outcry or opposition to this mod in general - which you say would be the only thing that could stop this from going ahead. the only indication you give that you are aware that general opposition to the mod exists (as you stated yourself, your belief is that there is little opposition in general, im guessing based off the forums?) is in the context of "omg this mod sux" and you tell them to play and test, in effect ignoring the more high level disagreements and concerns, above the individual details of the mod. alot of these it seems were voiced internally by Hugh, yet no explanations or answers are forthcoming from UWE.
though saying "omg this mod sux, i quit" is pretty shitty and unhelpful, i would categorize it as the most extreme form of outcry and has to be taken under consideration. it may be the lowest common denominator, they tend to be quite numerous though. its your game, do what you want.
Comments
I forgot, would this be considered irony for a dev to say empty feedback is useless and the next post is empty feedback?
If you look at the timestamp on the post, I didn't see his post at the time I posted.
Please concentrate on what is important, performance and player base. Because as obvious as it is to everyone, without a player base NS2 will die. And it is also well known that a diminishing player base means that ultimately the game and the company involved will be dissolved. Need I say more referencing Gas Powered Games...
You don't like the features of the mod because it fails to address performance? Interesting view given it is a mod that specifically addresses game play. The rest of UWE are working on performance and I'm not sure how having Sewlek be involved with that will help the game given that game play and performance are both broken. Even if performance were good I'd probably still not play because the gameplay is bad, whereas if the balance mod stuff were in the game I would play regardless of any performance gains. Most of the people still posting and playing are the ones that have ok performance or have overlooked it.
What mods are the community making that are comparable to what Sewlek is doing ? This work needs to be implemented game wide rather than having a select few mods that x number of people are willing to play while y number aren't.
I think you mistake peoples interest in the balance mod with interest in playing ns2 as it currently is, which is rapidly declining (balance mod existing wont save the current game). The people who are only hanging around because of the mod are people who have not completely disconnected themselves from this game and community which they otherwise would have if not for Sewlek's efforts.
The game play and performance are broken, 1 man is handling game play while the rest of UWE handles performance. This is not reasonable ?
thanks for the post. it still sounds like the mod will largely be past the feature conceptualisation and design stage when the community will be informed of the plans and invited to comment. Nor do I see how that quantifies the outcry.
I think there have very good arguments made in this thread, both general and specific about the downsides of the mod, some of the best ones coming from UWE itself! to then say that its just "omg this mod sux etc" is seriously wrong. I have seen no attempt to address some of the issues brought up in this thread, instead you seem to be misrepresenting them and waving them away.
with the huge amount of changes made that its almost impossible to examine the effect of any one single change - and thus the notion of this as a 'balance mod' is wrong imo - because if anything it will introduce a huge amount of unforeseen balance issues that will be all the harder to detect through the noise.
Another general balance point re: the skulk movement - doesnt having the skulk be able to be move so fast around the map actually render the speed upgrades all the more secondary and that if anything, it actually reinforces the position of carapace first that we see in comp today?
- I don't like the triples upgrades (3 shells allow regen and cara lvl max), because it remembered me NS1. Not because because NS1 is bad, but because it is not NS2, and NS2 needs to be differentiated from his elder.
- I don't drifters builders, because the drifter role is to prevent a marine rush. and was a good features for the aliens, to avoid a rush.
- I don't the news aliens movement :
- Skulk : we aren't in NS1, stop bullying us about that.
- Lerk, too slow.
- Fade : A Bhop fade who's crouching and slower than a skulk, seriously ?
- I don't like the OP shotgun. Fade has never been so useless.
- I don't like the welders at 4 res directly purchasable on the armory (who's don't heal your amor), because the early game is so OP for the marines if they do a 4 man welder push. Before you can drop an armory on the field, costy, but if you have good marines, they do a good job with.
What I like now :
I like the new alien tech tree : Biomass is an amazing idea, and maybe can be implemented in the vanilla game, even if it doesn't please to everyone, and you may scare and loose a bunch of players because you change their lovely game.
Now I would like to :
A NS1/similar NS1 mod, who DOES NOT affect the vanilla game, but be reconized as an official mod/game.
Lots of NS1 players want to recover the sensation of their old NS1 games. So yes ! Go for a Bhop skulk, NS1 designed map, stuffs, and let's go. But one thing, don't do a drastic change of the vanilla game. You will loose more than 70% of your players, and maybe me.
One other thing I would like to see in the game, is more ability to each side. A magnum for the marines, a decoy for the gorge (imitate skulks sounds, stuff like that), and new usefull abilities in the competitive game.
Today; EMP, Exos, flamethrowers and GLs are too much useless for the competitive game. We always see the same tactics :
Quick cara > save rts > second hive > adrenaline/silence + blink for aliens
Marines is upgrades, pg, then arc/jetpacks.
Just restore the actual things to make them more competitive, (an Exo with a EMPtech on him ? where the marine can eject himself from the exo naked and buy a LMG on an armory, or take a weapon on the in the back of an other marine (who will be slower) ? A GL/LMG as before, or a GL with more grenades and a quicker reload ? A flamethrower who litterally brun an alien member who can barely escape and recover his arm/leg on a misted recovering egg ?)
Then after after changing all the useless competitve stuff, do others branch of the actual tech tree, without changing the actual STR/FPS gameplay. And obviouly, make the game easier to access for lower computers.
Regards, a huge fan.
I don't even understand your logic.
Leaving modding to the mod community? Its a balance patch.... is an official dev not allowed to make balance/gameplay changes to the game he designs?
@thelawnenforcer
...... Won't even bother as you don't realise how absolutely boring and bland the game is in its current state.
I'm questioning if you even test the movement, it only applies in air not when you're on the ground, ground friction is still applied, so celerity is still viable for the actual combat; you're not in wall hop the entire match, if you are you're probably not even playing in the match and just being a waste to your team. The only issue I can think of is the silent factor, having the client side growl sound be a global sound (like the skulk dog breathing sprint) would make sense, however sprint is gone now afaik
The air friction from my last playtime has been increased and strafing requirements have been decreased, a double nerf; so it's easier to do and worse and also feels worse combat wise as well.. I'm fine with wall hopping giving a boost, but the extra friction feels awful and the strafing being less important so that those who can't do it, can is also not something I favor at all. Sorry for being so aggressive in my post but I can't stand the original skulk what so ever and believe this IS the change that needs to happen. Many players support more hardcore movements, and I'm sure the older NS base appreciates it as well (from the few I spoke to over steam they are for it, but they're all benched out until performance goes up because that's their biggest upset)
The vanilla aliens are boring, well besides lerk and fade; onos isn't fun to play and skulk your majority time spent life form is even worse, what I tried out yesterday in BT didn't feel good at all but that's because I've tried pretty much every previous BT skulk version and knew it was so much better when there wasn't insane friction and strafing was important. And yes it took me a few hours to figure out, then even more hours to get proper routing down and figure out certain elevations and how it can be applied to combat, but that's how games are.. you want to be good, practice. You want to be good without practice, hey man I hear battlefield is on sale all the time
also, stop telling me vanilla aliens are boring - its just your opinion.
I've played BT for hours, literally, I use both adrenaline and celerity on skulk regardless of what variation we had, celerity was simply so useful to moving faster on the ground and in combat for clearing the distance (especially if there was no walls around) it also helped with side strafe dodging, and since it works in combat it was even more viable. Then if I felt like I needed more adrenaline because I'd be leaping a lot or was hunting a specific RT in a favorable location where I could be biting/dodging on the RT then come out via leap adren was more viable for me in that situation
The only issue I've seen with any upgrades was carapace and regen, celerity/adren is only an issue on the fade because of his adren cost I've never seen a reason to get celerity plus you're barely on the floor as a fade if you are you're eating shotgun shells. Plus I feel onos should be quicker with celerity than the current variation (may have changed yesterday, don't know)
Yeah it's my opinion, and a lot of the other players opinions
The only thing I was telling you via my post is that you're bad -snip yeah nothing nice, right?-
You're just frustrating everyone by making points only regarding the movement, while it's important, you've barely tested it and that's a fact. It's not an issue like it's made out to be, over 60 hours of BT matches and I thought originally skulks moving quicker would cause issues with RTs and the etc, actually it made no difference besides that skulks could win a few more engagements and 1v1s didn't heavily favor marines depending on where you approached from. Half the time when you die as a marine from a skulk ambush it's the lag compensation making it feel like shit, before you're even notified of damage to turn around you're dead. But that's a serverside variable/engine problem. Disregarding that a skulk vs marine will always favor the marine (assuming the marine can aim) giving skulks a faster method of movement and more room to dodge/wiggle started to even that table as I noticed I was able if I played smart enough to take out some really good marine players in 1v1 situations
you dodged the central point of my argument, that crag and shade alter static characteristics of the lifeform. theres no explicit manouver or technique that you can do that increases your health or cloak up or run silently, without the specific upgrades. celerity on the other hand, seeing as the speed limitations are alot less strict in this mod, is in a unique position in that its possible to approach or approximate its benefits without it. i think this is important to consider because on balance, seeing as high skill players will move pretty fast as a rule, it means that the relative advantage celerity could confer to such a player is diminished and that he would be better off opting for an upgrade that provides a bigger relative benefit. in other words, one of the big balance issues in vanilla ns2 - the dominance of carapace with respect to celerity and the shade upgrades seems to be left unresolved, and potentially aggravated.
sewlek is already on the carapace mission, no doubt in my mind that he will solve it
I also don't see the point of having three upgrade chambers in this game. There really are not that many places to hide them. I guess it takes you longer to fully destroy an upgrade but that's about it. I personally liked the importance of a single chamber that needs protecting.
Anyway here are a few things I like/dislike:
+New skulk movement (adds variety to the movement)
+Biomass (Gives single hive more usefulness)
+Shade Hive upgrades (Fear/Aura woot)
-Fade movement (Not a fan of bunnyhoping blink fade)
-Drifter (liked the drifter as a scout, not a builder, especially now that they are almost required)
Just my two cents.
I would hope so, though this issue stems from a fundamental design choice imo - the 'solution' to which will more than likely be complex and convoluted. whilst it may be functional - i think good game design is to seek simplicity and elegance where ever possible. this doesnt mean that complexity cannot exist - it should emerge in the meta between players or teams, something that NS2 already leaves a fair bit of room for. it would be possible to open this metagame up even more with small but targeted balance patches imo without resorting to the sweeping changes being made in BT.
I have an entire thread on my likes/dislikes, fanboyism? No more like massively played feedback; both abilities are useful in their own ways, the only thing not useful is celerity on a fade
The vanilla game is a crag only option, regen is useful early game then carapace is a requirement late game basically
In BT I feel going shade is not the worst option with the new phantom/aura, as it really gives aliens the heads up on marines
Anyway from what I've read, it seems like biomass is going to be the thing scaling alien health while removing carapace completely *experimental/rumor* So we'll see how that works out if it becomes implemented into BT or if it's already there
@cyber_kun
And you say that means he was "misrepresenting"?..
He did not state that's how it was being done currently, (even though it can actually be seen, and the track record of those types of responses in the past 3 years are often the most prevalent Imo, just look at the next post lol!) - read his post carefully - he was merely stating a crucial and helpful guideline that *obviously* needs to be said ... You misunderstood.
ezekel - im aware that crag only is a balance issue in vanilla - which makes 'balance mod's' approach all the more questionable dont you think? also i think you have the vanilla carapace issue backwards. i think the big thing that carapace does is to make skulks very strong in the early game -> this means alien teams can get away with less p-res investment to defend their territory/win team fights in terms of gorges or lerks. i see alot of teams going 4 skulk, 1 lerk and maybe a comm gorge. this minimal pres investment from aliens means that very quickly they are able to get 4 players on 50 res, leading to what has become known as the fade explosion. this very high hp early game skulk means that marines have to counter with upgrades in order to mitigate the much increased survivability of the skulk. i think a small nerf to carapace on the skulk and the celerity buff from BT (that it doesnt disable when you get hit) would be a much more reasonable way to find some kind of 'balance' than ripping almost everything out by the roots and starting again - but then again, balance isnt this mods goal, only its 'shield'.
You'd actually be hard pressed to find a single "good point" brought up by thelawenforcer in this entire thread. It's impossible to refute all the silly claims he makes, however, simply because he makes so many of them. I just don't have that kind of time available to waste, and I'm sure that applies to most of the other posters here as well. At some point one just has to assume that people will be able to understand on their own that <person who is repeatedly spamming ridiculous claims and predictions of doom> is really just full of hot air and not worth listening to.
While I think the balance mod is the way forward for this game, I will also be the first person to admit that it has some problems that need to be ironed out, which was the point of making it a mod in the first place. Once the different experimental changes have been tested, the good bits can be put into the game and the bad bits can be discarded. Not everyone will agree on which bits are good and which are bad, but that's just how it is, you can't please everyone. If someone gets so angry that they quit because they can't have everything their way, then I say good riddance.
He did not characterize all criticism or questioning in that manner.. Seriously.. Re read it man.
You are interpreting it like that, and idk why.
Its akin to giving instruction and having a person get offended because they feel it was saying something more somehow - you are reaching for something that is not there my friend.
You stated earlier you were going to permanently quit the game if the mod was implemented, obviously you think the mod sucks if it's going to make you quit
Removing carapace and having health scale with biomass upgrades seems like a very smart move, this will help aliens scale as the game progresses (much like marines getting their wep/arm upgrades and shotties/jets) Now from what I played last, you receive biomass for all structures on the field (including useful structures) minus a few, so every structure that comes out will essentially be scaling the alien team, thus removing the issue with carapace and aliens automatically receive a sort of carapace based on what they're doing on the field. I still need to play a lot more this week so I can give some good feedback on this change (if it's already in BT, haven't played since yesterday morning)
This mod does a lot for balancing, but in reality there was nothing wrong with balance before; (besides in very large games) sure the game favors marines in actuality (lets forget performance for this part and be real, marines have a clear advantage) the matches I've seen are simply by won by who had the better players on the field and the better commander, that's who won the match
Getting a 50/50 winrate doesn't mean anything, especially when the teams have been so lopsided via public matches. And yeah competitive stats said aliens win more, but once you get to the higher skilled teams you can see it was favoring marines back then at that point. If performance was say increased and everyone had max frames overnight with high ticrates and compensation lowered you would see the aliens get slaughtered; heck I could join a regular server and be the determining factor of my team winning (so can a lot of other players) but overall this mod is just simply adding so many improvements and attempting to balance things that are already there, or seeing if they work out
edit: I'm sure the "tournament" will help change a lot of things too, as I've yet to see this mod played often enough in a 6v6 environment with people who understand all of it. But I'm hoping those players do post feedback on the movement and attempt to get back the previous values of air friction and making strafing an important part of the early on skulk.. Seriously that alone made the skulk so much more viable than what we have now.
Among other changes, there are a few things I don't like which I'd like to see removed such as infestation damaging structures and the such; but a lot of things I do want kept. So I made an entire thread posting every single thing and my input after doing all of them for quite a long time, I suggest you do the same instead of judging off a few matches (if even) because this needs feedback from everyone; but not feedback like you're giving most of the time (no offense) cause you seem to be stuck on movement vs upgrades and the only real issue is the carapace upgrade in this aspect. The brick skulk was solved with strafeaccel + wall hopping, and the fact that it keeps getting nerfed/adjusted because of people who have trouble doing it is really upsetting. However changes like the slower lerk and the fade overhaul are very debatable imo
edit: It seems the cara removal for biomass was just a thought *
And, I see that there were several posts made after my comment that did exactly what I requested, giving their opinions in a non inflammatory way, and listing out the reasons why they disagree with certain features in the mod. However, I would like to request that people leave their feedback in the other current BT thread, so that we have it all in one place, and it doesn't get lost in this thread.
though saying "omg this mod sux, i quit" is pretty shitty and unhelpful, i would categorize it as the most extreme form of outcry and has to be taken under consideration. it may be the lowest common denominator, they tend to be quite numerous though. its your game, do what you want.