I am pretty sure about 50% of the complaining is because of an inaccurate perception by some that BT was an independent mod (made by super elitists who hate fun obv) that somehow got integrated into the main game. If it had been called "official NS2 beta test" or something like that from the outset that the perception would have (correctly) been that it was just a change in development strategy from previously.
I have tried the new build, and I like the most of it. The only changes I really dislike are both related to skulk:
- having to pay pres for alien upgrades
- removal of glancing bites
Glancing bites were good IMO, they rewarded accuracy, but still gave less skillful players a chance. But paying for upgrades is very bad - skulks are the fallback lifeform for less skilled players, they worked as cannon fodder while the higher lifeform had to stay alive. Skulks have no means of getting out of combat, they don't have the resilience of a gorge, speed of lerk nor the agility of the fade, not to mention the heap of HP of an onos. When the new system discourages skulks sacrificing themselves for the team, it's not good. Plus, do marines have to re-pay for upgrades? No.
Otherwise I am happy that the game is worked upon even so long after release. The long testing period is nice, at least we are getting a solid, tried product.
Yeah, prices for upgrades scale based on the lifeform. So they are free for skulks but cost more for higher lifeforms (2 gorge, 3 lerk, 5 fade, 8 onos)
You don't? Okay then, I apologize. I must have misread the changelog.
0 for any skulk upgrades
2 for any gorge upgrades
3 for any lerk upgrades
5 for any fade upgrades
8 for any onos upgrades
5 res to go gorge
25 res to go lerk
40 res to go fade
60 res to go onos
The cost of the lifeforms have been lowered but offset by the costs of the upgrades. If you spend a lot of time as a skulk, every single upgrade is free. Any upgrade you can change on the fly for any lifeform, but you must pay the above cost.
Basically it costs about the same as before to evolve a lifeform with 2 upgrades. Skulks are still free and you can swap upgrades anytime you want.
Removal of glancing bites is actually a good thing since it now removes the damage scaling. You can now count the number of bites and be sure of the amount of damage you did to the marine.
Ok, time for more "constructive" criticism. First of all let's start with the alien tech three. It's no longer a three, just a very long branch. Before you had to adapt to your aliens, strategy and your opponents. Now it is very linear. Parts of the changes are not innovative at all, just taken from NS1, not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel UWE can do better than this.
The alien com does have have more thing he can do to keep himself busy, but I do not think it is worth the trade-off.
Too me it seems very unbalanced, at least the games I have played so far has been. (Perhaps this will change with time)
I did not think the bt mod was testing of a new version, I thought it was testing of various changes that *might* be implemented into the game.
One at a time. And I hoped that most would not.
The community seems very divided on this, some like it, many hate it. On the forums many seems positive to the new changes, but when you play you will get a totally different impression.
To all those saying that the changes came without warning: Maybe next time you should read the news updates posted on the main menu in game.
This has been a long time coming and was mentioned repeatedly across all media platforms. If you bury your head in the sand you won't see the tide coming in.
Go marine comm and immediately research AA, hold a few RTs for a while and get an Obs so you can beacon, then once advanced weapons are up buy 1 or 2 GLs and a bunch of flamers and rush the main hive.
I bet you can win about 90% of pub games this way. There is virtually no counter to it unless marines are extremely incompetent.
Nerf GLs and flamers. Seriously.
Try fade VS jetpack flamer marine watch yourself get destroyed in .5 secs and can't even get away cause they zap your energy. Even worse turn the corner shotgun and flamethrower marines Insta gibbed.
Go marine comm and immediately research AA, hold a few RTs for a while and get an Obs so you can beacon, then once advanced weapons are up buy 1 or 2 GLs and a bunch of flamers and rush the main hive.
I bet you can win about 90% of pub games this way. There is virtually no counter to it unless marines are extremely incompetent.
Nerf GLs and flamers. Seriously.
Try fade VS jetpack flamer marine watch yourself get destroyed in .5 secs and can't even get away cause they zap your energy. Even worse turn the corner shotgun and flamethrower marines Insta gibbed.
Two flamer JPs can gank and chase down an onos from full to dead. With the JP upgrades and onos range nerf, the JP can VERY easily dodge out of the onos attack. No matter which way the onos runs, at them or away, they can keep up and out of reach while burning him down and finishing his HP before even needing to reload. One flamer can do about 70%.
Ive played lots, I am giving serious concideration to uninstalling... HATE THIS PATCH!!!
Stop messing with the core mechanics that have been in place for years, concentrate on new maps. Honestly please take this back to the last build gameplay and stop pushing us away from this game.
Ive played lots, I am giving serious concideration to uninstalling... HATE THIS PATCH!!!
Stop messing with the core mechanics that have been in place for years, concentrate on new maps. Honestly please take this back to the last build gameplay and stop pushing us away from this game.
What core mechanics are you even talking about? Especially curious about the ones that have been in place for years. They all seem in tact to me. In fact overall, rounds still play out in a near identical way.
Marines and aliens don't get along. Marines get res. Aliens get res. They try to kill the opponents res. Aliens get more life forms with res. Marines get weapons with res.
Iam really splitted with this patch. I really love NS since the beginning but this mod goes a different path as NS usually goes and Iam really concerned. I just uninstalled the game for the moment because I really dont like this balance issue with the early Advanced Weapons and overall advantages the rines have imho. Why unlimited stamina ? Why structures on infestations ? I really have no clue why these changes were made.
Just wanted to give some quick anecdotal feedback before I'm off for tonight.
The patch is AWESOME! I had a game on summit where marines had an epic comeback from one chair and no tech mid game! It was so brilliant, everyone was like: "stuff this, let's just concede" as power in our went down. But we relocated to Atrium, got some control over Xroads and had two ppl with enough res to buy dual exos after we had our proto lab back up. In a back and forward battle with many onoses dying we gained ground and finally defeated the alien team!
I'm not sure if that was due to the bt changes, but I know that within the 300+ h I've played this game, I've never seen such an epic comeback!
From the folks I play with several have been on the verge of dropping NS2 (me included) because it just got too predictable. The overwhelming tenor after playing 250 was, that it feels fresh and much more dynamic.
I also have to say: I love the new fade even more than the old one: chuck on some regen and cele and never stop moving. Fade now isn't so much a killing machine but a damage and distraction machine.
Thanks UWE for this amazing patch, for all the work you put into this game! I feel really sorry for you that you have to take so much shit from ppl who just don't want to give this a fair chance. Some ppl can only be pleased by not pleasing them...
VonDoomKnee deep in the latencyJoin Date: 2009-10-08Member: 68989Members, Reinforced - Shadow
I have been enjoying it so far, I like the additional emphasis on teamwork + welding and the biomass element. And cheaper lifeforms for aliens + rines can build on infestation = more action and variety, which is a positive thing.
To all those saying that the changes came without warning: Maybe next time you should read the news updates posted on the main menu in game.
This has been a long time coming and was mentioned repeatedly across all media platforms. If you bury your head in the sand you won't see the tide coming in.
Maybe they should warn that the gameplay experience is gonna be *completely different*.
There is a difference between major changes (aka I've heard that we would weld each others to repair armor, fine by me) and transforming the gameplay into an obnoxious and quite boring spamfest (die in 2 bites, can't face a decent marine player without dying right away as skulk).
I'm sure you'll be delighted that tons of peoples probably won't be there "next time". Keep the game for yourself, bury your head in the sand and make sure you close yourself to the rejection of your ideas. That sure is a winning strategy for the company.
I have mixed feelings, but going to give it some more time. I feel doing a sale after a major change was stupid, you have thrown new players into a pool of confusion and bitching, which is not good for a first experience. I just hope they get through it and stick around.
Ive played lots, I am giving serious concideration to uninstalling... HATE THIS PATCH!!!
Stop messing with the core mechanics that have been in place for years, concentrate on new maps. Honestly please take this back to the last build gameplay and stop pushing us away from this game.
What core mechanics are you even talking about? Especially curious about the ones that have been in place for years. They all seem in tact to me. In fact overall, rounds still play out in a near identical way.
Marines and aliens don't get along. Marines get res. Aliens get res. They try to kill the opponents res. Aliens get more life forms with res. Marines get weapons with res.
Which core mechanics aren't there anymore?
Lets say movement for example or the upgrade system...
I'm so sad to see this happen again. The exact same thing happened to my favorite MMO, SWG. It was great until they decided to completely change the game and adding new things to make the game easier in general. After that the most hardcore fans left and in the end they had to shut down the servers because of how little players were left.
I feel like this is the same thing in a way. What bothers me is that you, the devs decided to implement all these features in one big package instead of pushing them out one by one to see what people think about it. Most of us pubbers didn't play the BT, some didn't even understand all those changes were going to be added to the game. This feels so much different and even though I like some of the new features theres a lot I dislike and I for sure ain't the only one. I feel like you really fucked us over with this. When I first bought the game it was one of the most fun and unique FPS games I have ever played. I practiced so many hours trying to get good at the game and now I have to learn the new movement system again, which is one of the things I hate most with this patch. Skulks movement and fade changes. Ugh..
I do realize the player count has been dropping and this was probably your way to save the game. I will stay around for a while to see what changes but I am really considering just uninstalling the game and stop playing in protest of this patch.
Okay I've tried to pin down this fade clipping bug (and before you ask, yes I can play the new fade). I have been clipped on the top of an extractor, and get clipped on marines quite a lot. That particular game I spent being desperately careful to avoid getting stuck, which was fine, but the very next game I lost my fade very quickly through getting stuck on a marine again.
For people who don't know how to fade, this is probably the least of their problems with the new fade. For those of us who do, it can be devastating (and if you're the fade keeping the team together... it's pretty much gg).
Really need to get to the bottom of this one. @Ironhorse, any ideas?
Ive played lots, I am giving serious concideration to uninstalling... HATE THIS PATCH!!!
Stop messing with the core mechanics that have been in place for years, concentrate on new maps. Honestly please take this back to the last build gameplay and stop pushing us away from this game.
Yeah, we get it, you don't like the patch. Now would you stop spamming?
Yep, it's me again. I played the whole day simply because I am open minded and a person who won't just give up on learning something and guess what happened?
I totally ravage with the fade.
Now I see that the SS and blink switch just made playing a fade much easier, which is awesome considering the damage reduction. I'm still trying to adapt to the new skulking, but haven't fully mastered it yet.
As I said earlier, I wasn't raging. Just giving first impressions after the few hours of gameplay. I immediately adapted the bunnyhopping, but there's one thing that was pretty misleading in the video that covered the new movement.
In the video he used blink in between of every jump, and as I tried it I simply lost all my energy really fast when the true technique is using blink once and then bunnyhopping like a rabbit on steroids.
Now I still do prefer the old version (for now), but after getting back to my all time favorite thing in NS2 I can't see why not just play the game.
Oh, one more thing! I promised you guys that I'd play more. :> NS is just simply not something I could give away just like that.
Okay I've tried to pin down this fade clipping bug (and before you ask, yes I can play the new fade). I have been clipped on the top of an extractor, and get clipped on marines quite a lot. That particular game I spent being desperately careful to avoid getting stuck, which was fine, but the very next game I lost my fade very quickly through getting stuck on a marine again.
For people who don't know how to fade, this is probably the least of their problems with the new fade. For those of us who do, it can be devastating (and if you're the fade keeping the team together... it's pretty much gg).
Really need to get to the bottom of this one. @Ironhorse, any ideas?
I haven't experienced this one but if you are able to record it happening in a decently HQ format it could probably be reproduced and nailed down from that.
Just wanted to give some quick anecdotal feedback before I'm off for tonight.
The patch is AWESOME! I had a game on summit where marines had an epic comeback from one chair and no tech mid game! It was so brilliant, everyone was like: "stuff this, let's just concede" as power in our went down. But we relocated to Atrium, got some control over Xroads and had two ppl with enough res to buy dual exos after we had our proto lab back up. In a back and forward battle with many onoses dying we gained ground and finally defeated the alien team!
I'm not sure if that was due to the bt changes, but I know that within the 300+ h I've played this game, I've never seen such an epic comeback!
From the folks I play with several have been on the verge of dropping NS2 (me included) because it just got too predictable. The overwhelming tenor after playing 250 was, that it feels fresh and much more dynamic.
I also have to say: I love the new fade even more than the old one: chuck on some regen and cele and never stop moving. Fade now isn't so much a killing machine but a damage and distraction machine.
Thanks UWE for this amazing patch, for all the work you put into this game! I feel really sorry for you that you have to take so much shit from ppl who just don't want to give this a fair chance. Some ppl can only be pleased by not pleasing them...
I think it is kind of naiv to state the balance of this patch just by taking 1 Game in consideration. Those "comebacks" could be done before too with arcs and aggressive teamplay. Fade was never "meant" to be a killing machine, it is a fast, precise assassin (luv me some Gls ^^) , but overall I know what you are trying to say. Nevertheless the same can't be done by aliens due to biomass limitations altough rines can upgrade even JP/Exo with one cc so where is the gameplay-mechanics for aliens in this case ?
What in the world gives you the impression that your feedback would fall on deaf ears??
Every single thing in this patch is a direct result of listening to player feedback... Many from these very forums.
Thank you for your well written feedback, as well.
While I think you actually care about what people have to say good or bad, unfortunately there are other moderators who do not want to hear anything bad. This community is toxic and moderators corrupt. Thats why people feel their feedback falls on deaf ears.
I had a member from the Australian NS2 Community add me on steam and inform me that the post I made below(the first one in the list) was closed arbitrarily based off of a private communication on their forums. I was given the impression the correspondence was similar to, "Hey I don't like that this guy does not like the Balance Test Changes. Please close his thread."
I for one feel extremely alienated by your company's public face and think that your community management is a joke.
I recognize your concern, but I truly don't think you experienced corrupt moderation, i think you experienced mods reacting to said toxicity from certain users.
I obviously can't speak for other mods, but each of those threads had plenty of reasons to be closed, except for yours. (i would have just edited, nuked, warned the offending users)
Just look at the one with 10 troll flags on the OP?? But i do understand that sometimes a thread offers nothing but a platform for more of those certain users.. and there's just no saving it.
My signature links are a great example of the unavoidable typhoon that is passion through anonymity. (end result sometimes leads to hyper aggression)
But this community is FAR FAR better than the majority of gaming communities that you will ever find!
Go ahead and read through EA forums, or any other triple AAA title's forums... yeesh..
So not only are the number of trouble makers smaller, but our community contributes to the product waaayyy more!
From maps that have gone official,
to art in game
to our mapping and play testing teams
to a huge amount of server and client mods
to mentorship programs
to tech support volunteers
to bug reporting
to server hosting
to catching hackers and griefers
to infecting the internet with ns2 media
to assisting with PAX and other media events
to helping shape this game in more ways than almost any released game i know for 3 years now.
Oh yea... and donating over $9,000 to my wife and I after a major fire that tanked us financially.
So... yes, just like any community there will be some bad apples... but in my humble and probably biased opinion, this is still one of the best game communities out there. Be part of it, give your feedback as accurately and detailed as you can. The mods will do their best to be fair, but will also attempt to cull those bad apples.
/love letter to the community
:bz
Comments
- having to pay pres for alien upgrades
- removal of glancing bites
Glancing bites were good IMO, they rewarded accuracy, but still gave less skillful players a chance. But paying for upgrades is very bad - skulks are the fallback lifeform for less skilled players, they worked as cannon fodder while the higher lifeform had to stay alive. Skulks have no means of getting out of combat, they don't have the resilience of a gorge, speed of lerk nor the agility of the fade, not to mention the heap of HP of an onos. When the new system discourages skulks sacrificing themselves for the team, it's not good. Plus, do marines have to re-pay for upgrades? No.
Otherwise I am happy that the game is worked upon even so long after release. The long testing period is nice, at least we are getting a solid, tried product.
Good luck with future patches!
0 for any skulk upgrades
2 for any gorge upgrades
3 for any lerk upgrades
5 for any fade upgrades
8 for any onos upgrades
5 res to go gorge
25 res to go lerk
40 res to go fade
60 res to go onos
The cost of the lifeforms have been lowered but offset by the costs of the upgrades. If you spend a lot of time as a skulk, every single upgrade is free. Any upgrade you can change on the fly for any lifeform, but you must pay the above cost.
Removal of glancing bites is actually a good thing since it now removes the damage scaling. You can now count the number of bites and be sure of the amount of damage you did to the marine.
The alien com does have have more thing he can do to keep himself busy, but I do not think it is worth the trade-off.
Too me it seems very unbalanced, at least the games I have played so far has been. (Perhaps this will change with time)
I did not think the bt mod was testing of a new version, I thought it was testing of various changes that *might* be implemented into the game.
One at a time. And I hoped that most would not.
The community seems very divided on this, some like it, many hate it. On the forums many seems positive to the new changes, but when you play you will get a totally different impression.
Maybe next time you should read the news updates posted on the main menu in game.
This has been a long time coming and was mentioned repeatedly across all media platforms. If you bury your head in the sand you won't see the tide coming in.
Try fade VS jetpack flamer marine watch yourself get destroyed in .5 secs and can't even get away cause they zap your energy. Even worse turn the corner shotgun and flamethrower marines Insta gibbed.
Two flamer JPs can gank and chase down an onos from full to dead. With the JP upgrades and onos range nerf, the JP can VERY easily dodge out of the onos attack. No matter which way the onos runs, at them or away, they can keep up and out of reach while burning him down and finishing his HP before even needing to reload. One flamer can do about 70%.
Stop messing with the core mechanics that have been in place for years, concentrate on new maps. Honestly please take this back to the last build gameplay and stop pushing us away from this game.
What core mechanics are you even talking about? Especially curious about the ones that have been in place for years. They all seem in tact to me. In fact overall, rounds still play out in a near identical way.
Marines and aliens don't get along. Marines get res. Aliens get res. They try to kill the opponents res. Aliens get more life forms with res. Marines get weapons with res.
Which core mechanics aren't there anymore?
The patch is AWESOME! I had a game on summit where marines had an epic comeback from one chair and no tech mid game! It was so brilliant, everyone was like: "stuff this, let's just concede" as power in our went down. But we relocated to Atrium, got some control over Xroads and had two ppl with enough res to buy dual exos after we had our proto lab back up. In a back and forward battle with many onoses dying we gained ground and finally defeated the alien team!
I'm not sure if that was due to the bt changes, but I know that within the 300+ h I've played this game, I've never seen such an epic comeback!
From the folks I play with several have been on the verge of dropping NS2 (me included) because it just got too predictable. The overwhelming tenor after playing 250 was, that it feels fresh and much more dynamic.
I also have to say: I love the new fade even more than the old one: chuck on some regen and cele and never stop moving. Fade now isn't so much a killing machine but a damage and distraction machine.
Thanks UWE for this amazing patch, for all the work you put into this game! I feel really sorry for you that you have to take so much shit from ppl who just don't want to give this a fair chance. Some ppl can only be pleased by not pleasing them...
Maybe they should warn that the gameplay experience is gonna be *completely different*.
There is a difference between major changes (aka I've heard that we would weld each others to repair armor, fine by me) and transforming the gameplay into an obnoxious and quite boring spamfest (die in 2 bites, can't face a decent marine player without dying right away as skulk).
I'm sure you'll be delighted that tons of peoples probably won't be there "next time". Keep the game for yourself, bury your head in the sand and make sure you close yourself to the rejection of your ideas. That sure is a winning strategy for the company.
Lets say movement for example or the upgrade system...
Here is the changelog in case you didnt read which by the looks of your post you didnt : http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/build-250-is-now-live-on-steam/
I feel like this is the same thing in a way. What bothers me is that you, the devs decided to implement all these features in one big package instead of pushing them out one by one to see what people think about it. Most of us pubbers didn't play the BT, some didn't even understand all those changes were going to be added to the game. This feels so much different and even though I like some of the new features theres a lot I dislike and I for sure ain't the only one. I feel like you really fucked us over with this. When I first bought the game it was one of the most fun and unique FPS games I have ever played. I practiced so many hours trying to get good at the game and now I have to learn the new movement system again, which is one of the things I hate most with this patch. Skulks movement and fade changes. Ugh..
I do realize the player count has been dropping and this was probably your way to save the game. I will stay around for a while to see what changes but I am really considering just uninstalling the game and stop playing in protest of this patch.
For people who don't know how to fade, this is probably the least of their problems with the new fade. For those of us who do, it can be devastating (and if you're the fade keeping the team together... it's pretty much gg).
Really need to get to the bottom of this one. @Ironhorse, any ideas?
Yeah, we get it, you don't like the patch. Now would you stop spamming?
Yep, it's me again. I played the whole day simply because I am open minded and a person who won't just give up on learning something and guess what happened?
I totally ravage with the fade.
Now I see that the SS and blink switch just made playing a fade much easier, which is awesome considering the damage reduction. I'm still trying to adapt to the new skulking, but haven't fully mastered it yet.
As I said earlier, I wasn't raging. Just giving first impressions after the few hours of gameplay. I immediately adapted the bunnyhopping, but there's one thing that was pretty misleading in the video that covered the new movement.
In the video he used blink in between of every jump, and as I tried it I simply lost all my energy really fast when the true technique is using blink once and then bunnyhopping like a rabbit on steroids.
Now I still do prefer the old version (for now), but after getting back to my all time favorite thing in NS2 I can't see why not just play the game.
Oh, one more thing! I promised you guys that I'd play more. :> NS is just simply not something I could give away just like that.
just gonna have to be a different man
I haven't experienced this one but if you are able to record it happening in a decently HQ format it could probably be reproduced and nailed down from that.
I think it is kind of naiv to state the balance of this patch just by taking 1 Game in consideration. Those "comebacks" could be done before too with arcs and aggressive teamplay. Fade was never "meant" to be a killing machine, it is a fast, precise assassin (luv me some Gls ^^) , but overall I know what you are trying to say. Nevertheless the same can't be done by aliens due to biomass limitations altough rines can upgrade even JP/Exo with one cc so where is the gameplay-mechanics for aliens in this case ?
I obviously can't speak for other mods, but each of those threads had plenty of reasons to be closed, except for yours. (i would have just edited, nuked, warned the offending users)
Just look at the one with 10 troll flags on the OP?? But i do understand that sometimes a thread offers nothing but a platform for more of those certain users.. and there's just no saving it.
My signature links are a great example of the unavoidable typhoon that is passion through anonymity. (end result sometimes leads to hyper aggression)
But this community is FAR FAR better than the majority of gaming communities that you will ever find!
Go ahead and read through EA forums, or any other triple AAA title's forums... yeesh..
So not only are the number of trouble makers smaller, but our community contributes to the product waaayyy more!
From maps that have gone official,
to art in game
to our mapping and play testing teams
to a huge amount of server and client mods
to mentorship programs
to tech support volunteers
to bug reporting
to server hosting
to catching hackers and griefers
to infecting the internet with ns2 media
to assisting with PAX and other media events
to helping shape this game in more ways than almost any released game i know for 3 years now.
Oh yea... and donating over $9,000 to my wife and I after a major fire that tanked us financially.
So... yes, just like any community there will be some bad apples... but in my humble and probably biased opinion, this is still one of the best game communities out there.
Be part of it, give your feedback as accurately and detailed as you can. The mods will do their best to be fair, but will also attempt to cull those bad apples.
/love letter to the community
:bz
(p.s. you should start that thread again.)