@Kaneh Or your designated lerk jumps in the hive at the beginning and then jumps out after your comm gorges up... Yeah sure the lerk comes up right around when the fades do, but umbra anyone?!?! Nothing changed, just requires a stupid loophole to be used.
@IronHorse What extra does the alien comm have to do? Use his 8 tres drifters in battle... ok goodbye harvestor worth of res... buy upgrades that cost a crap ton more... ok time to wait and you guessed it (BE BORED). Yes the alien commander demands maybe a bit more than it did before 250, but not that much at all. Marine commanding isn't boring because you have to drop 1 res meds and actually organize your team, not because you have to micro difters with terrible pathfinding and a patrol command that is for some stupid reason also the map button (I use c to bring up the map in the middle so i can click and get to places faster not tell my difter to patrol between areas). Devs did a lot of stupid things this patch that ruined my alien commanding experience. Yes I'm angry, because I loved 250 stuff, but now I can't stand commanding aliens because of this patch.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited August 2013
@Side1Bu2Rnz9
I get it, i do.. like i said from the beginning of my posts in this thread the alien commander has more things to do... (that many suprisingly don't even try) but could use more, too.
You definitely have a fair point that even if this change was for balance purposes, it still isn't "fun" .. which is something i absolutely cannot argue with.
Just wish more gave constructive suggestions on what to add to make it meaningful and fun, instead of the typical "revert! revert!"
@IronHorse well I personally didn't see anything at all wrong with 250... Fade ball was too powerful, and maybe a few more balance issues, but the commanding on both sides was fun to play. That's why I'm crying revert... that's my constructive suggestion... revert.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
So abandon making alien khammanding meaningful and fun all together?
No thanks.. its here to stay, so we might as well make it something you want to play.
you really need to weight your feedback so that those with 1000+ hrs get listened to a bit more than those with 100. I find it hard to believe that a bug with skulk movement, and the issue with mouse lag got through a rigorous testing by competitive players. I literally noticed the first within 30 seconds of skulking, and the second when I actually tried to bite someonein passing. couldn't pinpoint it, but noticed something off with the mouse at high speed. thought you were dynamically changing the mouse sensitivity on me. but yeah, these are not differences in design philosophy, but legitimate gameplay problems that people with enough experience.with the game should notice, if not immediately pinpoint.
that leads me to two conclusions, because I know that you do have some experienced players. either the tested version was different from the one released, oryour more experienced players got drowned out by those with less.
or, less charitably, uwe was aware of those problems at release, but chose to push a broken version for some ulterior motive.
those of us with enough time with the game, immediately thought you'd rejiggered skulk movement again, and most of the people I talked to complain about the mouse lag. these things are neither subtle not acceptable in an official patch. don't push bad code, rule numero uno, and it applies.
Just wish more gave constructive suggestions on what to add to make it meaningful and fun, instead of the typical "revert! revert!"
One thing you did tend to see in 251, is the alien comm getting out to gorge and make his hive more homely (fortify it); drop clogs, place hydras, help chambers build, ready nodes for echoing, heal structures that need it, etc. No-one else on the alien team has time to do that sort of stuff. They're out playing tag with the marines.
Being able to get out of the hive to do things like that keeps commanding interesting. Once the alien comm has spent all of their tres on nodes, chambers and research, all they have left to do is wait for it to finish. Admittedly, drifter micro is an option. But that also costs tres. For marines, everything is cheap and everything can be recycled. So there is easily free tres to spend on meds & ammo. For aliens, everything is expensive and nothing can be recycled. There is often tres available to keep 1 or 2 drifters ready in support, but there's rarely enough to go wild with it. Even when there is enough tres, odds are there won't be enough engagements to keep the alien comm consistently engaged. There are always going to be lulls.
As mentioned, being able to get out of the hive to do things gives the alien comm something to do during those lulls; it should be encouraged. Oh and it's worth noting that doing things (of worth) outside of the hive typically requires pres to be spent...
NarfwakJoin Date: 2002-11-02Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
edited August 2013
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with Jon Snow, at least in regards to software development.
you really need to weight your feedback so that those with 1000+ hrs get listened to a bit more than those with 100. I find it hard to believe that a bug with skulk movement, and the issue with mouse lag got through a rigorous testing by competitive players. I literally noticed the first within 30 seconds of skulking, and the second when I actually tried to bite someonein passing. couldn't pinpoint it, but noticed something off with the mouse at high speed. thought you were dynamically changing the mouse sensitivity on me. but yeah, these are not differences in design philosophy, but legitimate gameplay problems that people with enough experience.with the game should notice, if not immediately pinpoint.
that leads me to two conclusions, because I know that you do have some experienced players. either the tested version was different from the one released, oryour more experienced players got drowned out by those with less.
or, less charitably, uwe was aware of those problems at release, but chose to push a broken version for some ulterior motive.
those of us with enough time with the game, immediately thought you'd rejiggered skulk movement again, and most of the people I talked to complain about the mouse lag. these things are neither subtle not acceptable in an official patch. don't push bad code, rule numero uno, and it applies.
They pushed the release so that everyone in the player base would essentially act as playtesters before the publicized Reinforced release was out. They did this to cover their own asses before the world retried NS2... fuck the dedicated NS2 players am I right?
@IronHorse In my book 250 and 251 was fun as commander both marines and aliens... added new features and abilities but made it manageable. Not sure about your logic that making it the messed up and not fun version of today is a step forward... In my opinion and many others this patch was a huge step backwards as far as fun and enjoyable is concerned. If it's truly here to stay then I think that's fucking bullshit and I'm not alone. I like most of the added abilities in 252, but the commanding on both fronts and many of the "features" added in this build are bullshit. You're already are loosing a vast majority of your competitive scene what's a few more am I right?!
you really need to weight your feedback so that those with 1000+ hrs get listened to a bit more than those with 100. I find it hard to believe that a bug with skulk movement, and the issue with mouse lag got through a rigorous testing by competitive players. I literally noticed the first within 30 seconds of skulking, and the second when I actually tried to bite someonein passing. couldn't pinpoint it, but noticed something off with the mouse at high speed. thought you were dynamically changing the mouse sensitivity on me. but yeah, these are not differences in design philosophy, but legitimate gameplay problems that people with enough experience.with the game should notice, if not immediately pinpoint.
that leads me to two conclusions, because I know that you do have some experienced players. either the tested version was different from the one released, oryour more experienced players got drowned out by those with less.
or, less charitably, uwe was aware of those problems at release, but chose to push a broken version for some ulterior motive.
those of us with enough time with the game, immediately thought you'd rejiggered skulk movement again, and most of the people I talked to complain about the mouse lag. these things are neither subtle not acceptable in an official patch. don't push bad code, rule numero uno, and it applies.
They pushed the release so that everyone in the player base would essentially act as playtesters before the publicized Reinforced release was out. They did this to cover their own asses before the world retried NS2... fuck the dedicated NS2 players am I right?
@IronHorse In my book 250 and 251 was fun as commander both marines and aliens... added new features and abilities but made it manageable. Not sure about your logic that making it the messed up and not fun version of today is a step forward... In my opinion and many others this patch was a huge step backwards as far as fun and enjoyable is concerned. If it's truly here to stay then I think that's fucking bullshit and I'm not alone. I like most of the added abilities in 252, but the commanding on both fronts and many of the "features" added in this build are bullshit. You're already are loosing a vast majority of your competitive scene what's a few more am I right?!
could be, i was just implying they were being petulant, but that works too.
I think the Alien comm has useful abilities but being tied to an 8 res drifter add a lot of risk that Marine comm simply doesn't have.
My suggestion would be to make enzyme, mucous, and other abilities able to be triggered without drifters.
Possibly being able to "pre-enzyme" by tagging a skulk or lerk while on infestation and they could activate the ability by pressing 6 when needed. I think it still has some risk as the lifeform you tag may not make it to the phase gate/ IP. But that would also lead to the alien pack needing to organize a bit more and not just win by zerging. It fits the asymmetrical feel for the two sides in that aliens could be a bit more set and forget (while still having something for Kham to do) while marine com is very micromanaging. It naturally scales as well as your "carriers" progress through lifeforms.
Perhaps the above idea in addition to being able to use a drifter to do so.
(This is obviously just an example to explain the idea and tweaking would be required).
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
The no res for com thing is pretty terrible, too. What is alien com supposed to do? Alt-tab and browse pornhub while he's waiting for the game to end?
It must be a damn good alien porn.
I for one welcome the new changes! For me actually makes sense because in other RTS you have the same thing. You build a structure and it allows you either to build units and upgrades or only unites and upgrades. This is pretty normal in the old school RTS like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and etc. So I do not see a problem to build a whip for leap. It actually encourages the Khaamander to build various structures and make combinations with them and micromanage them. If you haven't noticed every building has an increased speed, so that they can keep up with the dynamic changes of the front line and to support the team to the best of their abilities.
So, in a sense the Khaamander is more involved with the RTS, than he used to be. That's how I feel it.
I feel the overhaul of the khammander tech tree, and management in general, is unfairly punitive.
The new system denies the khammander (and commander) any res, so they can't go gorge at the beginning: this requires them to create expensive drifters to build anything at worthwhile speed. I can foresee games where a player jumps in to be khammander to start the game, then jumps out so another player can go gorge, and jump in. Sure the original player will be skulk for a longer time, but what problem has been solved here?
Ok, so basically the number 1 issue ns2 has always faced is tres/pres and tech explosions. These changes go towards addressing this.
There are now tradeoffs to not having a field player gorge, with the current changes encouraging composition of alien comm (skulk or whatever) + gorge + lerk + 2 fade + onos. Remember, the point is to take players away from the fade ball. This is also why drifters are now an actual decision you have to make and not something you can spam thoughtlessly - endlessly replacing one after the other as you turbo expand across the map.
If you still want to comm gorge, you may drop yourself a 10 tres egg or do the gorge swap trick that you mentioned (this is an intended/accepted side-effect mechanic). Although it's kinda 'silly', the gorge swap is not game breaking and still puts a limit to fade explosions.
Infact, I think the alien commander pres rules are not punitive enough, and will only end up encouraging people to stay out of the hive for even longer. Imo, the last person to log into the hive should not get pres at all period. Both marines and aliens run on a pres/tres model, so it only makes sense for the respective commanders to have matching pres income rates (0, since marine commander doesn't get out of the chair).
I really dislike this new model where you have to build each structure so you can research the various species upgrades. I rarely place whips, so now I have to place one in order to research leap. I don't see any reasoning behind this. I suppose the thinking is that this is offset by both upgrades being available when they're researched for the species. I guess this is just an adaptation problem, but it doesn't feel right. Last build took some adjustment, but made sense to me. This one doesn't.
Honestly feels like the devs are throwing different models at the alien khammander model to see which one sticks best, rather than having a cohesive plan. Isn't this game out of beta?
C.
The "upgrade from structure" model is not new, and has been in place since b250. Not sure why this is only becoming a hot topic now? While they may have done this in the past, UWE is not currently throwing things at the wall to see what sticks best, they do have a cohesive plan. The only difference in b252 is that this system has been simplified alot.
And in regard to the simplification, I agree with ironhorse. Not really a fan, and think it's been overly simplified.
@Kaneh Or your designated lerk jumps in the hive at the beginning and then jumps out after your comm gorges up... Yeah sure the lerk comes up right around when the fades do, but umbra anyone?!?! Nothing changed, just requires a stupid loophole to be used.
No, this doesn't work. The point of lerk is to get it at a quicker timing to fades. It is the bridge lifeform. No-one in their right mind would sacrifice that lerk timing in order to get +1 extra fade.
Commander swapping at game start is not an exploit - it works as intended.
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
Do you seriously not watch Game of Thrones? o_O
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
@elodea it's a loophole not an exploit... never said exploit... as far as lerk goes they are pretty terrible as a bridge lifeform now and were essentially flying bags of umbra in build 250-251... Lerks found their role when fades and umbra were up as they essentially made fade ball unbeatable... which is why the lerk coming up when fades do even better... no one looses the lerk before umbra is researched and fades get their umbra
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
Do you seriously not watch Game of Thrones? o_O
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
It's understandable that shit happens and some bugs get released, but what UWE did was use the entire player base as beta testers against our will... I'm happy you enjoy playtesting, but most people don't want to play a beta of a game that has been released for almost a year.
It's understandable that shit happens and some bugs get released, but what UWE did was use the entire player base as beta testers against our will...
... for about 24 hours. Was it even that long? I kind of lost track of time. Anyway... man, if testing for a whole day has you this upset you must think we're, like, rocket surgeon commando scientists or something. If you want you can have my autograph.
It's not really "against your will," either. There's a news announcement in the main menu telling you that "shit be broke, dudes, look out!" [source may be edited]. It would have been perfectly reasonable to look at that, think "Oh, hmm, guess I'll check it tomorrow," and to then go do that.
@Narfwak Well to be honest I wasn't able to play that much of anything, because the game crashes to desktop so much... broken patch... oh and that's cool that you can just tell people that the game is broken and make it ok... I've seen so many companies do that with success... I'll just release a version of a game that's broken call it a released game, but secretly it's still open beta. Legit. Also... man, I was a playtester for a bit, but couldn't keep it up because I was too busy with school. I know how boring playtesting can be and I'm not saying anything about you all and what you do. I'm happy you like it, but since I'm not a playtester anymore, just a regular paying customer, I'd rather not be treated like one... like at all, even for a day. And lets be honest the only reason 253 was released a day early is because 252 made people angry.
And lets be honest the only reason 253 was released a day early is because 252 made people angry.
I am being entirely honest when I tell you that is 100% false. 252 was supposed to go out on Monday so we'd have more time to sort out issues with DirectX, OpenGL and Linux, but that was the only hiccup that occurred.
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
Do you seriously not watch Game of Thrones? o_O
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
but... you didn't reference game of thrones, you misspelled the name if that was who you were referencing... and i'm not entirely sure the reference applies. please explain it to me. i didn't really follow you around that bend.
i'm not criticizing the playtesters for not being able to test a rushed build. I'm criticizing whoever decided to release an un-tested build in the first place.
i don't expect the releases to be be perfect, i'm perfectly ok with hotfixes for things like the containment floor skulk thing. i've lived with the bile-phase thing for a long-ass time. my scoreboard still doesn't show me res or ping, and now not even my deaths. and i've lived with the chat blocking off half my screen because the text isn't designed for my resolution.
what i am not okay with is a release not being playable. and it wasn't.
And lets be honest the only reason 253 was released a day early is because 252 made people angry.
I am being entirely honest when I tell you that is 100% false. 252 was supposed to go out on Monday so we'd have more time to sort out issues with DirectX, OpenGL and Linux, but that was the only hiccup that occurred.
And lets be honest the only reason 253 was released a day early is because 252 made people angry.
I am being entirely honest when I tell you that is 100% false. 252 was supposed to go out on Monday so we'd have more time to sort out issues with DirectX, OpenGL and Linux, but that was the only hiccup that occurred.
wait, so the official drop date was disingenuous?
I'm not really allowed to talk about it any more than this, sorry. August 30th is still a big orange date. Craziness gon' be goin' down.
Ok, thread has really derailed, so I'm done bitching about the 252 release and the fact that with 253 I still can't play 90% of the time because I crash to desktop (sent in a tech report to tech-support@unknownworlds.com already).
I didn't see anything wrong with the commanding system in 250&251... if @IronHorse could please tell me why he didn't like it, but some how likes 253's system I believe we can get this thread back on topic.
So abandon making alien khammanding meaningful and fun all together?
No thanks.. its here to stay, so we might as well make it something you want to play.
Also I didn't get anything out of this post... not sure where you were going by saying that it's staying and then make it what I want to play... are you sleepy?... What I was telling you was that Khammanding was fun in 250&251, not that I was abandoning making it fun... so can we then make it so?
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
Do you seriously not watch Game of Thrones? o_O
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
Ugh if I have to read how Narfwak or Ironhorse dedicate their free time for no pay to playtest NS2 one more time, I am going to throw up. First you chose to participate. No one is forcing you. Secondly, and more importantly, the onus is on UWE to make sure their builds are released with as few bugs as possible. Maybe a limited volunteer playtest group is not the best way. Maybe it doesn't work that well. That doesn't excuse a user from complaining about obvious bugs making it into a live build. I totally get you guys are doing your best given the structure you work in.
Spoiler alert, I am actually a NS2 maptester. I have been playing biodome for months hoping to help balance and find bugs in that map. Half the time the map is broken or the playtest build isn't working. Or enough people don't show up to have a proper game. Even in ideal conditions, alot of constructive feedback is missed during our maptest sessions. I am 100% sure there will be complaints about biodome. We did the best to test it within the confines of what UWE has provided. As I am sure the playtest team does too.
Now, I am going to address complaints with biodome the way you should be addressing complaints with bugs. With Information! The maptesting group meets only twice a week (tues and thurs). We usually spend the first 30 minutes hopping around the map, checking for obvious holes, stuck spots, etc while we wait and hope for more people to show up. Like I said before, if we have enough people show up and the build and map are actually loading (which is about 50% of the time), we have a 6v6 scrim. The map creator will hopefully be there to spectate and take notes. At the end, we share any parting thoughts for another 10 minutes or so. Who knows if this is ideal or not? I think Bitey (maptesting lead) might type up a summary of the session and submit it as well (not sure).
Last Thursday a new version of Biodome was released to us. Unfortunately we could only play it on a playtest build with massive fps losses, so it was very difficult to even move around the map, let alone assess any gameplay/balance issues related to the map. We got half of a 6v6 round in before calling it pointless. There was no maptesting on Tuesday as far as I know. And thats it. I am a maptester and I will be playing the released biodome almost for the first time like many of you are (let that sink in). I have no idea how balanced it will be outside of 6v6. Many of my concerns with the map I felt have been addressed, but many have not as well. In the end, there was a deadline. And now its live. I don't think its ready, but it is what it is. If the playest group is anything like the maptest group, they are doing the best with what they have.
Also to address who's in these groups, the maptester group has a ton of top competitive or ex-competitive players from both NA and EU scenes (Bitey, rantology, joshhhy, locklear, Jonacrab, Dragon, herakles, valk, ritual, wob, others I am forgetting). I think every div1 team (both NA and EU) might have at least one person. As far as maptesters having any input on these balance/feature changes, there is none from my point of view. I saw what became b252 barely for the first time Thursday. Since it was still beta and the FPS drops were so bad, I had no idea about the majority of these changes. I was able to see the new alien vision and the consensus was how ugly and awful the massive orangeness was. The playest group has significantly less competitive players. From memory of their Teamspeak channel, I don't recognize most names and I think the most skill players are probably Zefram or WasabiOne.
Hope this information helps you all understand why, to be honest, these builds and maps are many times such a clusterfuck. We literally balance-tested biodome for months on a metagame that may have completely shifted with b252. It's honestly hard to believe. I have mad respect for the time and work Ironhorse, Narwark, and so many others put into this game, albeit misguided and inefficient most of the time. I'll let you be the judge on how well the system is working.
Finally, I promise to never mention in any other post how I volunteer my time to NS2. I hope others do the same. Thanks.
Considering the trait upgrades, I don't really understand why a new building called, for example, "Trait Chamber" cannot be introduced, and all the traits could be researched from there. Extremely intuitive from every RTS across the board and solves the problem of having trait researches slammed on different structures with blu-tack.
Or then, you know, just have a scrolling menu in the hive.
I think you're misunderstanding how the build process works internally. Bugs don't "get past" QA because they've been around for weeks and no one happened to notice them, they appear in the absolute last second and either cannot be fixed on schedule and get delayed for a day or two or do slip by because of hardware limitations or forgetting some hidden variable because we are a finite number of mortal human beings. So many things get changed or reverted or fixed or broken every single day that it is surprisingly easy to miss things that an outside individual might find immediately apparent.
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with John Snow, at least in regards to software development.
I don't think you mean what you think you mean. from what i can glean, you're implying that the skulk stick and the mouse lag were last minute bugs that got in after most of the QA was complete. Bugs that were not present in the QA build. Which leads me to question why I'm not playing that build? why am I playing a build that hasn't been tested by at least a couple of games? I may be mistaken, but these don't feel like minor bugs that would go unnoticed. the skulk thing really doesn't feel right to me, and they were glaring enough that i thought they'd tweaked the movement again. and the mouse thing is literally ever present.
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
Do you seriously not watch Game of Thrones? o_O
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
but... you didn't reference game of thrones, you misspelled the name if that was who you were referencing... and i'm not entirely sure the reference applies. please explain it to me. i didn't really follow you around that bend.
Ya I think he meant Jon Snow. And there is a somewhat memorable quote when one of the characters says to him "You know nothing, Jon Snow". I am a big fan and I just only barely got the reference, so don't feel bad.
Comments
@IronHorse What extra does the alien comm have to do? Use his 8 tres drifters in battle... ok goodbye harvestor worth of res... buy upgrades that cost a crap ton more... ok time to wait and you guessed it (BE BORED). Yes the alien commander demands maybe a bit more than it did before 250, but not that much at all. Marine commanding isn't boring because you have to drop 1 res meds and actually organize your team, not because you have to micro difters with terrible pathfinding and a patrol command that is for some stupid reason also the map button (I use c to bring up the map in the middle so i can click and get to places faster not tell my difter to patrol between areas). Devs did a lot of stupid things this patch that ruined my alien commanding experience. Yes I'm angry, because I loved 250 stuff, but now I can't stand commanding aliens because of this patch.
I get it, i do.. like i said from the beginning of my posts in this thread the alien commander has more things to do... (that many suprisingly don't even try) but could use more, too.
You definitely have a fair point that even if this change was for balance purposes, it still isn't "fun" .. which is something i absolutely cannot argue with.
Just wish more gave constructive suggestions on what to add to make it meaningful and fun, instead of the typical "revert! revert!"
No thanks.. its here to stay, so we might as well make it something you want to play.
that leads me to two conclusions, because I know that you do have some experienced players. either the tested version was different from the one released, oryour more experienced players got drowned out by those with less.
or, less charitably, uwe was aware of those problems at release, but chose to push a broken version for some ulterior motive.
those of us with enough time with the game, immediately thought you'd rejiggered skulk movement again, and most of the people I talked to complain about the mouse lag. these things are neither subtle not acceptable in an official patch. don't push bad code, rule numero uno, and it applies.
One thing you did tend to see in 251, is the alien comm getting out to gorge and make his hive more homely (fortify it); drop clogs, place hydras, help chambers build, ready nodes for echoing, heal structures that need it, etc. No-one else on the alien team has time to do that sort of stuff. They're out playing tag with the marines.
Being able to get out of the hive to do things like that keeps commanding interesting. Once the alien comm has spent all of their tres on nodes, chambers and research, all they have left to do is wait for it to finish. Admittedly, drifter micro is an option. But that also costs tres. For marines, everything is cheap and everything can be recycled. So there is easily free tres to spend on meds & ammo. For aliens, everything is expensive and nothing can be recycled. There is often tres available to keep 1 or 2 drifters ready in support, but there's rarely enough to go wild with it. Even when there is enough tres, odds are there won't be enough engagements to keep the alien comm consistently engaged. There are always going to be lulls.
As mentioned, being able to get out of the hive to do things gives the alien comm something to do during those lulls; it should be encouraged. Oh and it's worth noting that doing things (of worth) outside of the hive typically requires pres to be spent...
If you really think it's possible to release software without any bugs then I'm afraid you may have something in common with Jon Snow, at least in regards to software development.
They pushed the release so that everyone in the player base would essentially act as playtesters before the publicized Reinforced release was out. They did this to cover their own asses before the world retried NS2... fuck the dedicated NS2 players am I right?
@IronHorse In my book 250 and 251 was fun as commander both marines and aliens... added new features and abilities but made it manageable. Not sure about your logic that making it the messed up and not fun version of today is a step forward... In my opinion and many others this patch was a huge step backwards as far as fun and enjoyable is concerned. If it's truly here to stay then I think that's fucking bullshit and I'm not alone. I like most of the added abilities in 252, but the commanding on both fronts and many of the "features" added in this build are bullshit. You're already are loosing a vast majority of your competitive scene what's a few more am I right?!
could be, i was just implying they were being petulant, but that works too.
My suggestion would be to make enzyme, mucous, and other abilities able to be triggered without drifters.
Possibly being able to "pre-enzyme" by tagging a skulk or lerk while on infestation and they could activate the ability by pressing 6 when needed. I think it still has some risk as the lifeform you tag may not make it to the phase gate/ IP. But that would also lead to the alien pack needing to organize a bit more and not just win by zerging. It fits the asymmetrical feel for the two sides in that aliens could be a bit more set and forget (while still having something for Kham to do) while marine com is very micromanaging. It naturally scales as well as your "carriers" progress through lifeforms.
Perhaps the above idea in addition to being able to use a drifter to do so.
(This is obviously just an example to explain the idea and tweaking would be required).
so are you saying that you played this build and didn't notice the bugs? which i might accept, because getting accustomed to things over time might be less jarring that coming upon it fresh? or that you played another build and these are new bugs?
incidentally, I don't get your reference to john snow at all. i'd like to, but the only john snow i could find was an epidemiologist... you may have clevered yourself a bit too obscure there.
It must be a damn good alien porn.
I for one welcome the new changes! For me actually makes sense because in other RTS you have the same thing. You build a structure and it allows you either to build units and upgrades or only unites and upgrades. This is pretty normal in the old school RTS like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and etc. So I do not see a problem to build a whip for leap. It actually encourages the Khaamander to build various structures and make combinations with them and micromanage them. If you haven't noticed every building has an increased speed, so that they can keep up with the dynamic changes of the front line and to support the team to the best of their abilities.
So, in a sense the Khaamander is more involved with the RTS, than he used to be. That's how I feel it.
Why, because I love those ugly ******* things thats why.
There are now tradeoffs to not having a field player gorge, with the current changes encouraging composition of alien comm (skulk or whatever) + gorge + lerk + 2 fade + onos. Remember, the point is to take players away from the fade ball. This is also why drifters are now an actual decision you have to make and not something you can spam thoughtlessly - endlessly replacing one after the other as you turbo expand across the map.
If you still want to comm gorge, you may drop yourself a 10 tres egg or do the gorge swap trick that you mentioned (this is an intended/accepted side-effect mechanic). Although it's kinda 'silly', the gorge swap is not game breaking and still puts a limit to fade explosions.
Infact, I think the alien commander pres rules are not punitive enough, and will only end up encouraging people to stay out of the hive for even longer. Imo, the last person to log into the hive should not get pres at all period. Both marines and aliens run on a pres/tres model, so it only makes sense for the respective commanders to have matching pres income rates (0, since marine commander doesn't get out of the chair).
The "upgrade from structure" model is not new, and has been in place since b250. Not sure why this is only becoming a hot topic now? While they may have done this in the past, UWE is not currently throwing things at the wall to see what sticks best, they do have a cohesive plan. The only difference in b252 is that this system has been simplified alot.
And in regard to the simplification, I agree with ironhorse. Not really a fan, and think it's been overly simplified.
No, this doesn't work. The point of lerk is to get it at a quicker timing to fades. It is the bridge lifeform. No-one in their right mind would sacrifice that lerk timing in order to get +1 extra fade.
Commander swapping at game start is not an exploit - it works as intended.
My point is that you literally cannot find all bugs, period. Shit happens, man. No build is allowed out the door without actual games played on it and yes, we play every build as much as we can. For no pay. Because we love NS2 and UWE. And we'll gladly do it as much as it needs doing. But, c'mon, man, cut us some slack. Software QA is way harder than most people think it is, and game software QA is at least an order of magnitude harder.
It's understandable that shit happens and some bugs get released, but what UWE did was use the entire player base as beta testers against our will... I'm happy you enjoy playtesting, but most people don't want to play a beta of a game that has been released for almost a year.
... for about 24 hours. Was it even that long? I kind of lost track of time. Anyway... man, if testing for a whole day has you this upset you must think we're, like, rocket surgeon commando scientists or something. If you want you can have my autograph.
It's not really "against your will," either. There's a news announcement in the main menu telling you that "shit be broke, dudes, look out!" [source may be edited]. It would have been perfectly reasonable to look at that, think "Oh, hmm, guess I'll check it tomorrow," and to then go do that.
but... you didn't reference game of thrones, you misspelled the name if that was who you were referencing... and i'm not entirely sure the reference applies. please explain it to me. i didn't really follow you around that bend.
i'm not criticizing the playtesters for not being able to test a rushed build. I'm criticizing whoever decided to release an un-tested build in the first place.
i don't expect the releases to be be perfect, i'm perfectly ok with hotfixes for things like the containment floor skulk thing. i've lived with the bile-phase thing for a long-ass time. my scoreboard still doesn't show me res or ping, and now not even my deaths. and i've lived with the chat blocking off half my screen because the text isn't designed for my resolution.
what i am not okay with is a release not being playable. and it wasn't.
wait, so the official drop date was disingenuous?
no feedback. hitreg is off
I didn't see anything wrong with the commanding system in 250&251... if @IronHorse could please tell me why he didn't like it, but some how likes 253's system I believe we can get this thread back on topic.
Also I didn't get anything out of this post... not sure where you were going by saying that it's staying and then make it what I want to play... are you sleepy?... What I was telling you was that Khammanding was fun in 250&251, not that I was abandoning making it fun... so can we then make it so?
Ugh if I have to read how Narfwak or Ironhorse dedicate their free time for no pay to playtest NS2 one more time, I am going to throw up. First you chose to participate. No one is forcing you. Secondly, and more importantly, the onus is on UWE to make sure their builds are released with as few bugs as possible. Maybe a limited volunteer playtest group is not the best way. Maybe it doesn't work that well. That doesn't excuse a user from complaining about obvious bugs making it into a live build. I totally get you guys are doing your best given the structure you work in.
Spoiler alert, I am actually a NS2 maptester. I have been playing biodome for months hoping to help balance and find bugs in that map. Half the time the map is broken or the playtest build isn't working. Or enough people don't show up to have a proper game. Even in ideal conditions, alot of constructive feedback is missed during our maptest sessions. I am 100% sure there will be complaints about biodome. We did the best to test it within the confines of what UWE has provided. As I am sure the playtest team does too.
Now, I am going to address complaints with biodome the way you should be addressing complaints with bugs. With Information! The maptesting group meets only twice a week (tues and thurs). We usually spend the first 30 minutes hopping around the map, checking for obvious holes, stuck spots, etc while we wait and hope for more people to show up. Like I said before, if we have enough people show up and the build and map are actually loading (which is about 50% of the time), we have a 6v6 scrim. The map creator will hopefully be there to spectate and take notes. At the end, we share any parting thoughts for another 10 minutes or so. Who knows if this is ideal or not? I think Bitey (maptesting lead) might type up a summary of the session and submit it as well (not sure).
Last Thursday a new version of Biodome was released to us. Unfortunately we could only play it on a playtest build with massive fps losses, so it was very difficult to even move around the map, let alone assess any gameplay/balance issues related to the map. We got half of a 6v6 round in before calling it pointless. There was no maptesting on Tuesday as far as I know. And thats it. I am a maptester and I will be playing the released biodome almost for the first time like many of you are (let that sink in). I have no idea how balanced it will be outside of 6v6. Many of my concerns with the map I felt have been addressed, but many have not as well. In the end, there was a deadline. And now its live. I don't think its ready, but it is what it is. If the playest group is anything like the maptest group, they are doing the best with what they have.
Also to address who's in these groups, the maptester group has a ton of top competitive or ex-competitive players from both NA and EU scenes (Bitey, rantology, joshhhy, locklear, Jonacrab, Dragon, herakles, valk, ritual, wob, others I am forgetting). I think every div1 team (both NA and EU) might have at least one person. As far as maptesters having any input on these balance/feature changes, there is none from my point of view. I saw what became b252 barely for the first time Thursday. Since it was still beta and the FPS drops were so bad, I had no idea about the majority of these changes. I was able to see the new alien vision and the consensus was how ugly and awful the massive orangeness was. The playest group has significantly less competitive players. From memory of their Teamspeak channel, I don't recognize most names and I think the most skill players are probably Zefram or WasabiOne.
Hope this information helps you all understand why, to be honest, these builds and maps are many times such a clusterfuck. We literally balance-tested biodome for months on a metagame that may have completely shifted with b252. It's honestly hard to believe. I have mad respect for the time and work Ironhorse, Narwark, and so many others put into this game, albeit misguided and inefficient most of the time. I'll let you be the judge on how well the system is working.
Finally, I promise to never mention in any other post how I volunteer my time to NS2. I hope others do the same. Thanks.
Or then, you know, just have a scrolling menu in the hive.
Ya I think he meant Jon Snow. And there is a somewhat memorable quote when one of the characters says to him "You know nothing, Jon Snow". I am a big fan and I just only barely got the reference, so don't feel bad.
What were you thinking with Reception tech point? Concept craps on game play once again.