A list of lost features, abilities and content from earlier builds..
deathshroud
Join Date: 2010-04-10 Member: 71291Members
Join Date: 2010-04-10 Member: 71291Members
Thought we could put together a long list of all the features, abilities and changes that are no longer in ns2. Just for nostalgia.
. Cysting through gorge tunnels - at 1 point in time alien commanders could cyst from a tunnel just like a hive.
. free gorge tunnel placement - gorge tunnels could be placed anywhere you like, gorge tunnels in vents etc
. no gorge tunnels - for quite a long time the game had no gorge tunnels at all.
. whips would whack grenades, whips would bat away marine grenades preventing grenade spam and often killing the marine.
. drifters used to be evolved into structures - no structures could be placed without a drifter turning into it.
. infestation acted like parasite - when marines walked on infestation they would show up on the minimap to aliens
. gorge boneshield - gorges once had the ability to curl into a ball increasing their armor similar to boneshield.
. crag stacking - there was no limit on the number of crags that could heal 1 player or structure, often hives had 8 crags in them.
. Lerk bilebomb - before umbra lerks had bilebombs and not gorges.
. marine auxiliary grenade launcher - marines could purchase an under slung grenade launcher for their rifles.
. battery free sentries - at one time sentries did not require batteries only a a room with power.
. welders researched - at one time welders had to be researched.
. armory repairs armor - armories used to also repair armor.
. drifter attack - commanders could order a drifter to attack a marine, the damage was low but with 20+ drifters you could do significant damage to the marine team.
. rifle knockback - marines could hit a skulk with their rifle butt causing it to be knocked back and stunned for a second.
. Fade step - fades had shadow step only and the commander had to research blink.
. broken lerks - lerk hitboxes didnt match their models making them extremely difficult to hit.
. flamesabers - flamers had no collision and would burn through walls etc and look really weird.
. MAC spam - there was no limit to the number of macs that could weld something and MACs even welded each other.
. fade evolution - the fade proved difficult to get right for UWE and he evolved a lot over the course of the game with different abilities etc.
. Invisible aliens - the stealth ability for aliens made them completely invisible even when moving making it impossible to spot them without a beacon.
. armory research - unlocking the advanced armory did not unlock the gl and flamer, the gl had to be researched ontop of the av research.
. EXO no eject - marines for a long time could not eject from an exo.
. EXO beacon - exos would be beaconed with marines.
. ONOS eggs - the alien com could drop eggs for pres at any point in the game resulting in an onos in 6 minutes
. multiple commanders - either team could have multiple commanders if someone jumped in an empty hive/chair whilst a com was active.
. wall walk CCs - skulks could wall walk up and around a marine CC.
. gorge infestation - gorges could place infestation.
. No cyst infestation - infestation did not have cysts.
. fade double jump - fades could double jump giving them great momentum.
. skulk feign death - upon death with this ability researched the skulk would go invisible for about 1 second before reappearing with a low amount of health (really weird)
. Cysting through gorge tunnels - at 1 point in time alien commanders could cyst from a tunnel just like a hive.
. free gorge tunnel placement - gorge tunnels could be placed anywhere you like, gorge tunnels in vents etc
. no gorge tunnels - for quite a long time the game had no gorge tunnels at all.
. whips would whack grenades, whips would bat away marine grenades preventing grenade spam and often killing the marine.
. drifters used to be evolved into structures - no structures could be placed without a drifter turning into it.
. infestation acted like parasite - when marines walked on infestation they would show up on the minimap to aliens
. gorge boneshield - gorges once had the ability to curl into a ball increasing their armor similar to boneshield.
. crag stacking - there was no limit on the number of crags that could heal 1 player or structure, often hives had 8 crags in them.
. Lerk bilebomb - before umbra lerks had bilebombs and not gorges.
. marine auxiliary grenade launcher - marines could purchase an under slung grenade launcher for their rifles.
. battery free sentries - at one time sentries did not require batteries only a a room with power.
. welders researched - at one time welders had to be researched.
. armory repairs armor - armories used to also repair armor.
. drifter attack - commanders could order a drifter to attack a marine, the damage was low but with 20+ drifters you could do significant damage to the marine team.
. rifle knockback - marines could hit a skulk with their rifle butt causing it to be knocked back and stunned for a second.
. Fade step - fades had shadow step only and the commander had to research blink.
. broken lerks - lerk hitboxes didnt match their models making them extremely difficult to hit.
. flamesabers - flamers had no collision and would burn through walls etc and look really weird.
. MAC spam - there was no limit to the number of macs that could weld something and MACs even welded each other.
. fade evolution - the fade proved difficult to get right for UWE and he evolved a lot over the course of the game with different abilities etc.
. Invisible aliens - the stealth ability for aliens made them completely invisible even when moving making it impossible to spot them without a beacon.
. armory research - unlocking the advanced armory did not unlock the gl and flamer, the gl had to be researched ontop of the av research.
. EXO no eject - marines for a long time could not eject from an exo.
. EXO beacon - exos would be beaconed with marines.
. ONOS eggs - the alien com could drop eggs for pres at any point in the game resulting in an onos in 6 minutes
. multiple commanders - either team could have multiple commanders if someone jumped in an empty hive/chair whilst a com was active.
. wall walk CCs - skulks could wall walk up and around a marine CC.
. gorge infestation - gorges could place infestation.
. No cyst infestation - infestation did not have cysts.
. fade double jump - fades could double jump giving them great momentum.
. skulk feign death - upon death with this ability researched the skulk would go invisible for about 1 second before reappearing with a low amount of health (really weird)
Comments
My favorite was having drifters able to attack marines and their structures. Back then if you had 4 drifters, you could have them defend an RT against a lone marine. 50 drifters could take a marine base.
How I used it, I would get a hive built as quick as possible. This was before drifters were needed to build hives. Drifter also spawned from the hive itself so you needed more hives to build more drifters faster. So I would forgo upgrades and just built RT's, a hive, and lots of drifters. I would just make drifters until the marines teched up enough where my upgradeless skulks couldn't compete. By this time I would usually have what I estimate to be 300 drifters. I would do a big triangle and select them all, and then click on the marine chair.
The marines knew what was coming, because when 300 drifters move the server lags down to like 2 tick rate. Marines couldn't kill drifters because the server was lagging. Marines couldn't kill drifters because they couldn't focus one down, because they always shuffled. Sometimes if I felt really troll I would kill all the marines in base with drifters before I went for the chair. Marines would try to run, but drifters were always faster.
Good times.
This did have a counter. If had an advanced armory and filled their base with 12+ sentries, because sentries weren't room limited back then, they might survive the drifter lag onslought. Grenades and flamethrowers put out enough AOE damage along with the sentry spam could sometimes handle the drifters. If you survived my mass drifter attack, you basically won because I had no upgrades and all my res went to drifters.
But the funniest thing I remember was when you couldn't get out of an Exo. I saw a few times the whole marine team going Exo, then no one could build anything. So they lost the IPs and they were not able to rebuild them
The trains of Macs (able to weld each other) following an Exo were pretty insane
Other classics are the thousand old fade abilities: Old shadowstep, old vortex, shadowstep, vortex. And I guess that a few more in alpha/beta days, like blink shield and blink teleport
Invisible drifters for map awareness, feign death, camouflage with total invisibility, etc...
2 chairs required to research jetpacks or exos
Also, alien abilities used to be bound to the hive were you researched them, so if you lost that hive you also lost the upgrades
ah... nostalgia... I've played so many different games all of them called Natural Selection 2...
Funny times.
As @Jekt so aptly put, 'on a scale of 1 to legitimate strategy'
:P
Shadowstep-Jumping, blink had to be researched but shadowstep was the main movement method anyway.
Double jump.
Then you had to research shadowstep and it lost the shadowstep-jump ability, now even that is gone
The many incarnations of Vortex
Bug or designed feature?
tested feature and nuked, like stopping power bullets
-- and there was a bug where you could knock Skulks into walls and they get stuck longer than intended
Mac had emp, which always surprised people when I used it (not that it did anything useful however...)
If you count map content I bet everyone can mention their favorite version of Docking
(if EVERYONE on a 12 man team bought a GL, that would be the same as 3 GLs today)
looking at the list its pretty crazy what the game was like, imagine adding all those features together into a mod it would just be insane and probably completely broken.
Still makes me wish we had three traits for each upgrade chamber, though.
if you did go with 3 traits per upgrade chamber then frenzy would have to be a spur upgrade ability
Go onos with hypermutation. Stroll into marine base. Stand still and just spam chuckle while multiple marines are shooting you. Quickly evolve skulk right before you're going to die. Get onos res refunded. Leap out of marine base chuckling while they stand around and wonder wtf just happened. Repeat.
EG: as d0pesird0g pointed out, if you were onos, and evolved into skulk, you would get.. wait for it.. ALL YOUR RES BACK.
Man i remember how hard it was pinning lifeforms and finishing them off in those days...
*shudder*
almost dead as an onos?
go skulk, then onos again and be at full HP! gorges were so outclassed!
You forgot feign death. i actually MISS that.
I never got to try Hypermutation myself but the trait description sounds like it would have made for a lot of fun gameplay. Ignoring any OP bits like instantly healing an onos or refunding to skulk just before dying.
Just the idea of not being locked into a lifeform when something else is needed for the team, which I think was probably the core idea that never really managed to get ironed out in the mechanics.
At some point some people wised up and we had to fight over the boxes.
I also really liked total invisibility on the aliens. I loved that tingle in my balls when I knew that there was one in the room. After spraying the corners, I usually found one. I was a jedi, man! Now cloak is pretty lame. No challenge at all.
Also I remember the good old days of 2 minute Onos. Even as a marine player I argued that it was balanced because we usually were able to win. But that was because people were terrible players back then and didn't play alien right, hahahha
Total invisibility on Aliens is something I wish I had been there for. Hell I'd just be happy enough if a stationary alien with cloak was totally invisible, it's annoying how certain players are able to see cloaked aliens as if they're covered with lights.
I miss how Gorge tunnels used to be before they added the stupid restrictions that keep them on ground level and out in the open. So many times a one sided game could be turned around with a sneaky tunnel the Marines couldn't see (like under the stairs outside flow control on Refinery) Now they're so restricted that there are TONS of places right out in the open you can't place them.... I really wish they would have just fixed the "exploit" spots (like in the vents, or up on the roof at landing pad on Docking)