DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
To be honest the lack of a minimap on aliens would be far less troublesome if we had REAL hivesight. Remember ns1 my fellow oldbies?
Where aliens saw any attacking blip in their real world? Where you always saw the hives as a blip in your world? I think you even saw teammates, but do not quite me on that.
You would also get the structure under attack warning.
For the folk who did not play ns1 and do not know what I mean. Imagine summit. You are in crossroads. If you look to atrium, you see a atrium blip (or I guess in ns2 icon) of a hive, if you have a hive. If its being attacked it pulsing red.
That RT in crevice? If its being hit you see a pulsing red blip where your RT is, all while standing in crossraids.
So you do not need a minimap. You see the various blips on your screen and you react. It was different from marines yes, but not at all inferior.
NS2 does not have this, so the lack of a minimap always seems odd in comparison.
I am a newcomer with about 100 hours played. I remember many things that confused or annoyed me. I wanted to quit the game many times. I persisted and now I'm enjoying the game very much. You're right that in order to retain rookies, you really need to improve the newcomer experience.
First things first:
If you want to improve rookie experience, you need to ask rookies. You won't find them here. You need to reach out to them on the game main screen, or on map loading screen, or on death screen/pre-game mode screen.
You should use a proper tool for this discussion. It's much better to have a threaded discussion than a huge unthreaded flow like this (under a blogpost or in a forum). It's hard to watch out for replies, it's hard to add something, it just gets lost. I see some people link to userreports.com, yet I see no official links to it from anywhere (game main webpage, etc). People will not find it. Use good tools and make them discoverable. Don't require registration, that's puts off most. Allow external logins or just email-based (userreports.com seems to do this). Or use Steam forums for gathering feedback, that's available right away to everyone.
Now for improved rookie experience (from what I remember, in no particular order):
Add in-game encyclopedia listing all units, structures and abilities with simple description, recommendations, and perhaps even videos. Make it easily available from the game (from the evolve menu, allow to show encyclopedia entry for each lifeform).
Make it more obvious when game is not started and we're waiting for a commander. I can't count how many times I thought we're actually playing. Remove glitches like missing crosshair during pre-game, that only adds to confusion.
Make NS2+ mod the default. It improves the game so much I consider vanilla NS2 unplayable. It also adds to confusion of rookies, because if they by chance connect to vanilla NS2 server, some things work differently (for example C key is not a toggle, you need to hold it) and they have no idea why.
Consolidate the voting menus. I know of 3 different voting menus in the game - X button, M button and Esc->Vote button. That's insane, and it's one of the reasons why rookies never know how to eject commander or vote concede. (On top of that, X collides with last-game stats, so it depends if you quickly press it or hold it - this is madness).
Remove "concede not allowed" timer.
Make it easier for teams to concede or eject commander. It's very hard to do that now, mostly because people don't know how to do it. They react much better to F1/F2 voting, because that is obvious! So maybe change concede/eject into F1/F2 vote.
Make it more obvious who's currently talking. From UI standpoint, move the indicators from right screen edge to left screen edge, because everything is at the left screen edge. With larger screen, the right edge is out of your focus area and it's very hard to notice the speakers name. Make the name disappear gradually, so it's possible to still read it even if they bark a single command (otherwise the indicator is instantly gone, and you have no idea who was just talking). From in-game standpoint, if I see the person, it should be *very* obvious he's talking - add a big icon, or even better highlight him and his name. You can even consider highlighting the person through walls, even if I don't directly see him.
Make the near-world chat (added recently) more used. I haven't seen anyone use it yet, most people probably don't even know. Teach them, and add a default keybinding. This is much more useful when shouting something like "behind you!". When I'm using near-world chat, highlight the names of other players around me, so that I can easily address the right person.
Add more skill-limited servers. I know only of one (<1000 skill), and it's not always running. This helps *a lot* and I really enjoy playing there. No more freaking 2500-skill sharpshooter gods.
Make extremely good players handicapped in some way. If somebody has 10:1 K:D ratio or more, clearly the game is not balanced, and I can guarantee you the rookies are not enjoying it. This can be solved with skill-limited servers, but maybe you can even put a bounty on such a player - the enemy team getting extra RTs for killing such a player. Highlighting him in red in alien vision, so that rookies don't attack him one by one. Or something similar. I admit, this is controversial, but extremely skilled players were my #1 cause of rage-quitting this game. I was convinced they are cheaters with aimbots. Now that I have more experience, I tend to believe they are simply so good. But don't underestimate the emotions the rookies get from this.
It would be very helpful for rookies to see why exactly they died, because often they die and don't even know how. After death, replay the last 10 seconds in slow motion, in third person view or the killer view, and show them exactly what went wrong. This will help with cheater accusations greatly. How was it possible that he saw them when they though they were hidden? How come they got shot when it seemed he was looking the other way? Show people how they died.
Even better, it would be great to automatically save replay from any of the past few games, and be able to replay them and switch between views of any of the players.
Gorge build menu needs to be separated from the attacking skills, because people very often unintentionally switch into it during battle and then madly mash buttons to get back to a different attack. And end up building things instead. Move it to the last number (4?) and make the other skills grayed out with "not researched" subtitle when not available, or move it to something like number 0, far away.
Fix or remove unused skills and items. I've never seen webs. I usually don't see well used babblers, I think people mostly build them in accident/just for fun. Marines don't use other grenades than cluster grenades, and I'm not surprised - aliens are too fast and people don't believe they can hit them with it. When turrets are used, commanders get scolded. Flamethrowers are often bought by rookies who think it's a great weapon against aliens, while it's not, they just instantly die and lose resources. All these items should be changed or thrown out.
Add descriptions to items when buying them from armory. E.g. if you decide to keep flamethrower, write "mostly useful for damaging/disabling alien structures, not very effective against alien lifeforms". Will help rookies a lot.
Get rid of unbuilt invulnerable power nodes. The fact that good players build it to 95% and only finish it when needed adds a) busywork for good players b) confusion for rookies who get yelled at for finishing the power node (something the automatic ingame guidance system told them to do!). There's no benefit, only frustration. When power node is getting built, do it the same way as all other buildings do - start at low health and increase.
Get rid of medpack spam. It's a nasty way to keep uber-skilled players even more godlike. I have played too many games where an extremely skilled player kills 4+ skulks attacking him at once, and then marches forward and destroys everything else in sight including a hive, alone. Because the combination of a high-skilled player and a fast-finger commander can't be beaten by rookies. And they are dumbfounded why the hell is that marine still standing and killing everything, even though he should be ten times dead with all the one-time bites they managed to do before dying over and over again. Add a medpack delay either to receiving side (marine) or to supplying side (commander).
Unify build tool and welder. Either remove welder completely and make builder tool do everything, or have it still possible to purchase and show it as an upgraded build tool (different graphics) with extended abilities (weld marines). Use one key for everything.
Full-sized maps are one of the biggest problems in the game. Until you know maps by heart, you have to run around with map open. It's easier if you're a marine, because you have a minimap, but for an alien, you spend 50% time running around with map open. So first, you don't see anything properly, and second, the map graphics are so terrible that you constantly bump into walls that are not displayed in the map. Please, please, please, for the love of god, redraw the maps and a) make them extremely simple and clean b) include all walls or terrain elevation elements. It is so frustrating to walk around with map covering 90% of your screen, and not being able to exit the room, because the walls are drawn incorrectly. And if you close the map, you have no idea where to go.
Add alien minimap. I know it doesn't make too much sense (marines have HUDs in helmets), but for a rookie, it was one of the top reason why I refused to play aliens. Full-sized map is too clunky for real-time navigation, but without a minimap rookies just run through rooms randomly, or constantly stopping, opening the map, turning into a proper direction, running a few meters and over and over again. And dying, because static skulk is a dead skulk. I have died so many times when studying a map.
Make vent openings glow/get highlighted in alien vision. Vents are almost unused by rookies (and very much unused by me even after 100 hours of experience). Why? Because I can't freaking find them. Some are visible, but many are so well hidden (and the map graphics is so poor), that many times I have spent *minutes* running around a room looking for that particular vent that the map claimed should be somewhere here, and didn't find it. Frustrated, I kept running through the corridors. It's easier than finding vents, even though it means more dying. This goes directly against NS2 intention - sneaky skulks. Make the vent entrances highlighted and draw the maps better. You could also draw the guiding arrows when being near the vent to help discover it, because some of them are really insanely hidden.
When being inside a vent and the vent turns 90% vertically, I find it very hard to navigate. I have to turn around several times to figure out which ways are open, and by that time I lose track of which way I came from, so I need to open my map. Another set of guiding arrows showing possible directions near vent turns would also help a lot.
Show hit indicators by default and show real damage numbers. This is very important for user feedback. It happens very often that you try to chomp somebody but he's too far away or to the side and you don't hit him at all. Without any obvious hit indication, you have no idea, and then you're angry about game bugs. Also, I read somewhere that the damage numbers do not show real damage, but damage before damage reduction (armor types and such). It seems to go along with my experience when I damage a skulk for much more than he should have health (according to after-death stats), but he still doesn't die and kill me. If the numbers are really not final, stop the madness and show real numbers. It would clear some confusion, and it would also help players to discover whether e.g. a rifle or a pistol is more effective at Onos.
Remove movement mechanics which require thousands of hours to master, are unrealistic, and basically misuse the game engine. I'm talking mainly about very advanced lerk movement here. Some players are able to get invincible by performing something like a permanent epileptic seizure moves while still flying 100mph and biting everyone in sight. It's no fun, it's impossible to counter by average players, and it something it shouldn't exist - no creature is able to change its movement direction 10 times in a second. I see it as an engine hack, because I assume the hit detection goes nuts and most of the shots are not registered. There should be a limit on the speed with which you can turn around, regardless of your through-the-roof mouse sensitivity setting. But this also goes the other way - don't add hard-to-master features like strafejumping which will make overpowered players even more overpowered. I know good players need advanced techniques to distinguish themselves, but movement glitches are not a good idea. If there are other such techniques in the game (e.g. if you strafe while walljumping, you're faster), please remove them.
The cost of upgrades (either marine or alien) are off-putting. As a rookie, I die with shotgun as quickly as with rifle, or with lerk as quickly as a skulk. But the cost is disheartening, it takes me 5 minutes to earn it again. At least for marines, the guns are dropped and can be picked up by someone else (usually by good players, who are fed by rookies, because it doesn't work the other way round - good players don't die much and therefore rookies only buy, but almost never pick up for free). For aliens, the money is lost completely. I don't know how to fix this, but I consider it one of the major design issues. In my case, I ended up playing rifle marine or a skulk the whole game (even with 100 personal res), because upgrades made not much difference and only made me feel worse.
Add a game mode in which everything is researched, bases are invulnerable, and players can buy and evolve everything. This can be used by rookies to test their weapons/skills against other players. If they die, they don't need to wait for an eternity and save, they'll just buy/evolve again and experiment more. Something like the current pre-game mode, but all the time, so that you don't need to wait for it. Just a few servers with this "carnage" mode would suffice, it would be mainly for rookies to test everything.
Make the rounds start faster somehow. Usually there's no commander and I suspect some people might not even know that is a problem, they are just happy to fool around in the all-tech-available mode.
Engaging tutorials and practices mode would certainly do wonders for rookies.
I never notice that upgrades are available. Even though it's written on screen and there's an audio cue, I never notice it (there are too many sounds around and too many things happening on the screen). This is not a problem for marines, upgrades are applied automatically and you see weapons in armory. But for aliens, this is crucial, and I believe most rookies don't evolve lifeform traits. Especially when they use a hotkey for evolving last traits after death, you might figure out that a new trait was available for 20 minutes and you still don't use it. It should be more obvious on the evolve screen that the person should pick traits, and if I use a hotkey to evolve it and I'm missing something that could be added (especially when it's free), I should be visibly notified during evolve time with text and audio.
Make entering a comm chair a conscious decision, not just hit E. Ask "do you really want to be a commander? yes/no" and make them click. Explain what commander is, that only experienced people might want to be a commander, and how to log out. Too many rookies hop in the chair by accident, just pressing E because the tooltip says so, and don't know how to get out. Don't start the game immediately after getting a comm chair.
Show some feedback whether I'm welding something or not. Often it happens that I and a different player try to weld something, but I stand a little too far and I'm actually not welding it. But I don't know that, because I have no indication about it, I just see the percentage increase, and I have no idea that it's done by a single person, not the two of us.
It could be a good idea to indicate a server preferred language in the server list. Some servers do it in their names, but many don't. Since this is primarily a team-based game, it would help a lot to know which language the people are most probably going to speak.
Motivate people to use voice chat somehow. Grant badges. Most people are silent.
In the skill tree (J key), don't display just icons, but also names. Rookies don't know the icons, even I still don't remember/recognize some of them. Also, if you don't know the name, you can't ask/search for it.
And some annoyances that I observed:
Stop spawning people facing the ground.
Stop spawning the marine facing a different direction than he was looking into from the third-person view a fraction of a second before (when waiting to be 100% spawned).
Show marine buildings health bars properly when an alien is very close to them and/or facing down (e.g. skulk chomping on RT). Currently they just disappear.
Add shortcuts for buying items from armory. It there are some, make them obvious.
Other thoughts:
I don't see any issues with power node/cysts, as suggested here, really. I think they're quite fine as they are. That doesn't mean the proposals are not improvements, I don't know. I just didn't see any rookies issues with the current state of things.
People are discussing audio cues for 2 hives, 3 hives here. Honestly, I have no idea what it is good for, and neither rookies probably do. What is important is the availability of new upgrades (lifeforms and their traits). Not sure about hive numbers announcement. There are already too many announcements.
It would be great to be able to bind a special key for certain abilities, like parasite, that would perform one-time action, but keep the current attack selected. So that I could click a button to spit a parasite, but still use left mouse button to chomp, without switching. I don't know how good players do it, but they are able to parasite me in midair and instantly bite me a fraction of a second later. I find it very hard to do with default bindings.
What a brilliant post, from one end to the other. Well thought out, from a perspective we rarely see on these forums.
I agree with the crux of every single point, some of the details I'd argue on though, but the point is; you have accurately identified a lot of real underlying issues here.
Fix or remove unused skills and items. I've never seen webs. I usually don't see well used babblers, I think people mostly build them in accident/just for fun. Marines don't use other grenades than cluster grenades, and I'm not surprised - aliens are too fast and people don't believe they can hit them with it. When turrets are used, commanders get scolded. Flamethrowers are often bought by rookies who think it's a great weapon against aliens, while it's not, they just instantly die and lose resources. All these items should be changed or thrown out.
This I totally agree with, and I've said something to the same effect a couple of times in the past. The responses I got in a nutshell was; 'no we won't remove babblers, it would be a waste of the development time spent'. So I'm glad to see a 'rookie' (by your own admission) agree to this. -because veterans sure as hell don't care about it, so what demographic are they really left for?
Turrets do have their place in the game though, they don't need to be removed.
I just want to use this opportunity to highlight this point well-made.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
@navazka does have a fantastic post here. I believe while I read it an hour ago on my way into work, there was only 3 things that I felt were important that I would contend, but sooo so much of it is great, implementable changes.
I'd contest points about the movement systems, I believe their complexity is important, and if they were removed to streamline the game for rookies, I would probably quit. That being said, the issue is resolved by your point about making actual rookie servers.
So essentially if we get more players, some things become non-issues. I'm all for different game modes allowing rookies to learn the game better.
I do wish you mentioned learning maps even earlier as I believe it to restrict everything in this game, especially the complex movement you're not so keen on!
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
The problem is while many abilities are noob traps, they can be useful.
For example said turrets. Yes rookie comms spam the map with them and that is a mistake.
But Id not be the first experienced commander who puts em near a phasegate for chip damage. They still can and should be used correctly.
And therein lies the whole thing. Correctly. Almost nothing is near useless. Just for some correctly is few and rare.
Id say flamethrowers have more use in (big) teams then webs do, but I can think of uses for both. Although the web list is very short.
Going back a couple of pages, what would replace cysts as a system though? Alien commander is so barebones already that even removing cysts makes it already more dull, comp alien comms will be spending even less time in the hive.
@rantology
I don't think cysts are a huge problem, rookies com figure them out quit quickly (in 1 or 2 games). They have difficulties with drifters. And even then these are commander difficulties and not rookie's one. You can simplify commander mechanics (power node, cyst) by removing them but commanding won't be easier since you'll still need the map awareness, the knowledge of the different BO.
If you want to simply commander mechanics specifically though you should look at NS2 pre Blance Mod, when infestation spread much faster, when you needed much less cysts and when drifters were only here for support; while keeping the auto chain cyst system.
On an other note a lot of things from preBM could be reintroduce. As a player it looks like balance mod was here to complexify the game. Now that the global level is lower a lot of these mechanics looks out of place (navazka talk about some of them).
Okay, I probably shouldn't do this, but here's my two cents...
cent 1: General stuff
First, NS2 doesn't have a problem with it's mechanics. Some of these mechanics are partly counterintuitive, but they've been developed in a long and arduous process into something that, currently, works. At least in my opinion, balance seems fine right now, and the past has shown that this could change rather quickly to a point where it's hard to fix. As such, I advise not doing any large, sweeping changes, unless they serve a clear and and desirable goal; especially since there's a lot, and I mean lot to do that can improve NS2 without even touching balance.
I think that NS2's biggest problem is how it presents those mechanics. Tutorial, noob flash Onos, yadda yadda, it's been told. I think @navazka did a great job at giving an idea of what I mean. I don't agree with everything he says, and there's other people's posts, too, but I think his' gets the point across.
It's second biggest problem is, in my opinion, the lack of progression. I'm actually surprised it only came up once here. Personally, I don't mind it; I like the game for what it is. But I understand the problem of having a game where everything is available from the start. (Disregarding teching up in a match here; the possibility of getting all the gear is inherent to every match alike.) Thus, the game is very static: Fundamentally, the only thing different between your first game and your 200th is YOU. This is not enough to motivate a less than highly enthusiastic player. It's why Battlefield, Call of Duty etc. have progression systems: There's still things left to see, discover and unlock. In NS2, once you've played on every map, tried every bit of marine equipment and every alien lifeform, the game can get stale very fast, especially if you're a newbie that doesn't feel his skills get any better and keeps getting stomped, further adding to the no progression feel. (Fun fact: This is the exact reason I stopped playing chivalry after 10 hours.)
Sadly, I don't have an idea to fix this - at least none that works. And I spent quite some time thinking about it in the past. Sorry. Maybe you can come up with something. (Badges?)
cent 2: Specific stuff
I want to take a quick look at the suggestions of the doc, and what I think of them.
Sound cues: Anything that improves the interface is good. Personally I don't feel you need these, since there's quite a difference between a1/a2/a3, but considering my playtime, I'm probably not the best judge of this.
Infestation/Power nodes: This is where the "large sweeping changes" thing comes into play. I think you'll probably have to rebalance the whole game after a change like that. And for what? Again, this is just my opinion, but I don't think cysting is much of a hassle. It's done with two button presses and a click since the automatic cyst chain has been implemented - just as much as any other structure. The alien commander has little to do as it is! Give him more to do if anything, please.
As for powernodes... I see that they're a point of confusion for newbies. But they also serve tactical and atmospheric purpose, and I think removing them would detract from the game. I suggest having every room start with broken power, and reducing the amount of time it takes to fix a broken powernode. Reasons why I think this is a good idea:
1. Alien territory wouldn't constantly lit up like it is now. It's been brought up before and I, too, wonder why you have to set up small auxiliary power generators that take down the entire room's lights with them if they go down.
2. It preserves the tactical possibilites powernodes bring with them in the first place.
3. Building a powernode the first time wouldn't have it be invincible anymore; admittedly removing a gimmicky tactical advantage, but removing a lot of confusion for newbies.
Since unbuilt powernodes wouldn't be lit up blue anymore, there'd probably need to be a different indicator that they exist.
Hive 3: Frankly, all the game ending tech is already there. People just don't use it. My advice: Feature contamination more prominently and increase biomass scaling. Make ARC factory require 2 CCs. (So marines can't just camp with their arcs. ARCs are rarely used, anyway, and pumped out rather quickly; I don't think this would impact main gameplay much.)
Alien Hive UI: I'm not sure what is meant here. As far as I understand it, this is covered by the tech tree. (J)
A better way to convey damage types: Yes, Please! This is probably the best suggestion in the document. I myself never know how much my damage number is actually worth.
Increased skulk base speed: Another good idea. It's been brought up in the past as well. Of all the core gameplay mechanics, we should really look at skulk movement. It's one of the largest entry hurdles new players face, I think. In fact, if you want to do large changes, I advice revamping skulk movement first.
Eh... this ended up having headlines and stuff. I didn't mean to write that much.
@navazka does have a fantastic post here. I believe while I read it an hour ago on my way into work, there was only 3 things that I felt were important that I would contend, but sooo so much of it is great, implementable changes.
I'd contest points about the movement systems, I believe their complexity is important, and if they were removed to streamline the game for rookies, I would probably quit. That being said, the issue is resolved by your point about making actual rookie servers.
So essentially if we get more players, some things become non-issues. I'm all for different game modes allowing rookies to learn the game better.
I do wish you mentioned learning maps even earlier as I believe it to restrict everything in this game, especially the complex movement you're not so keen on!
Well, at first I was apprehensive, at the point about movement, as well. I don't think having skillbased movement is bad for the game - look at overwatch, it has all kinds of skillbased movements and nobody complains (minejump junkrat, wallrolling lucio, phara-knockback etc.).
However, @navazka criticism seemed to mostly revolve around the lerk. And I fully agree that the lerk's movement is just way too strong. I main lerk myself, and it pains me to see bad players getting away with bad decisions, because the movement is so ridiculous.
I'm not sure how to balance it. I fear if you mess too much with the turn acceleration, then you risk making cqc too 'unnatural'.
Naturally, you'd probably also have to buff the lerks hp to compensate with nerfed movement.
But I definitely agree with @navazka that the lerk movement in particular needs reform.
Bunnyhop on gorge would be cool. Skulk and fade movements are being discussed, but I'm for the most part content with those two lifeforms for now.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
The thing about lerk movement is that I've only ever fought 3 lerks ever that i would be unable to solo some decent percentage of the time. If you take that away from most lerks, they're going to start having a much worse time than you might think.
Also pancaking is a staple of the game for 10+ years. Long live it.
The thing about lerk movement is that I've only ever fought 3 lerks ever that i would be unable to solo some decent percentage of the time.
I'm sorry.. but who cares? This has no bearing on the ability to retain new players.
But to address your point; lerks shouldn't be engaging in 1v1 fights in the first place against competent players, unless they have a clear opening (out of ammo, lack of awareness, lack of los, low on hp etc.). This is the sort of 'bad decisions' I was initially talking about, that I don't want to see excused. These mistakes should be punished imo.
1.Simplify the learning curve like mentioned before not the game itself, depth of NS is what makes the game. Balance change testing is welcome at this point, but you don't have make everything work that has been implemented in the game or add more stuff, sometimes it just makes it even more confusing rather than immersive. Take the best parts of NS1 and NS2.
2.Focus on rewards for playing the game, at the moment the only reward is the gameplay itself. Gameplay alone isn't enough for modern players it seems, one problem of course is the low player base that you are trying to fix. Most of the players don't want to invest time if it isn't rewarding in a long run. By only focusing on the fun factor for new players you wont keep them motivated for long.
a.Fun factor (Different game modes/Balance/Community/Simplify learning) (Casual players)
b.Cosmetics/ranks/achievements (Modern players)
c.Skill/Competetive (More ambitious players)
d.Dev attitude: Are the devs going to keep going with the franchise, or leave and focus on other games. NS2 comeback now -> NS3 in the future (Future oriented players)
3.Try to make clear for new players the depth of the game, maybe balance the rookie experience equally with 6vs6 and 20vs20 games, some people want that sneaky and tactical gameplay, and some those massive battles. At the moment rookies join the most populated servers like wooza(40players). Im not saying that you should take those away, but maybe its too messy/confusing to new players, or maybe they think thats all the game has to offer. So perhaps you could tell that the game is played in different formats (competetive 6vs6 and casual up to 20vs20 players)
4.Forward the rookies to the community, @rantology if you are making that new main menu can you add ENSL link to it!
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
edited December 2015
It's pretty frustrating from a new player perspective and from someone who played a long time to be outgunned by a Lerk, the thing moves twice as fast and has half the hitbox of a jetpack marine while also having a mostly unpredictable flight pattern. The Lerk was always supposed to be a support role for additional chipdamage but it can easily solo a group of players if the user is semi-competent.
As a player who started playing NS around it's final release, I never experienced Lerk spikes and the game was better for it overall. Lerks had to Bite res towers to harass and fly in at the right moment to bite marines, or just gas them from a safer distance to soften them up for the next engagement. This made Lerks much easier to deal with as their range of effective damage was much smaller and their attack pattern was much more predictable. It also kept the theme where the aliens' best source of damage would be at the melee range, since the marines are supposed to have ranged superiority.
I'm not saying completely remove them from the game, but it should be moved to Hive 3 instead.
It's pretty frustrating from a new player perspective and from someone who played a long time to be outgunned by a Lerk, the thing moves twice as fast and has half the hitbox of a jetpack marine while also having a mostly unpredictable flight pattern. The Lerk was always supposed to be a support role for additional chipdamage but it can easily solo a group of players if the user is semi-competent.
As a player who started playing NS around it's final release, I never experienced Lerk spikes and the game was better for it overall. Lerks had to Bite res towers to harass and fly in at the right moment to bite marines, or just gas them from a safer distance to soften them up for the next engagement. This made Lerks much easier to deal with as their range of effective damage was much smaller and their attack pattern was much more predictable. It also kept the theme where the aliens' best source of damage would be at the melee range, since the marines are supposed to have ranged superiority.
I'm not saying completely remove them from the game, but it should be moved to Hive 3 instead.
I think Lerk spikes is an important part of the game that shouldn't be removed. It gives the aliens a counter to shotguns early game, and allows for lerks to be support for the fades later on in the game. This is really needed once marines get upgrades and weapons. Giving lerks gas early and not allowing spikes early force the lerk to get close and would make it very difficult to take down shotguns.
Regarding the lerks moving quickly and being difficult to hit, I'm sure it's really frustrating and seems impossible for many players to hit a fast moving lerk. It takes awhile to learn when the lerk is most vulnerable, when to save your ammo and so on. I'm not sure if lerk movement should be looked into because it's the only way lerks can stay alive against good shots. There could be a movement penalty to moving too many directions in a row, but then lerk hp would have to probably be increased.
I'm not sure if lerk movement should be looked into because it's the only way lerks can stay alive against good shots.
Wrong. And I'll repeat myself again and again until this sticks
To stay alive against good shots; Make good decisions.
And/or as you correctly mention yourself, compensate by buffing them in some other area like eHP.
I'm not against looking at a movement penalty for lerks and increasing their health. It would make lerks a lot less frustrating for many players. It would probably be more beneficial for players to feel like they could hit a lerk even if it still took a lot to kill them with the increased hp. Not sure how the movement penalty would work. Would require a lot of play testing.
SpoogeThunderbolt missile in your cheeriosJoin Date: 2002-01-25Member: 67Members
I haven't logged in to play NS2 for many months but I want to comment anyway because I believe this might be an actual attempt to correct previous wrongs that have limited the advancement of the community. I won't comment on non-pub play because 1. I've never been involved in higher level play and 2. higher level play hasn't been enough to grow the community.
IMHO, it's the pace of gameplay that is the main culprit.
Consider what happens at the start of a round: everyone sprints as fast as possible to resource points. Players from both sides fan out all around the map. For a new player, this looks like every other team deathmatch approach to play. Why would anyone be surprised then that they fail to respond to situations that require teamwork?
While aliens should be moving freely about the map in early game, they should be initially very weak in any solo engagement. A reduced speed of marine territorial advance would allow skulks the time they need to establish ambush locations while parasiting to report enemy locations. There should also be a bit more penalty for early skulk deaths to prevent the spawn->die->repeat approach to play.
Marines in the early game should also be very weak in small numbers. Reducing their actual movement speed would give them a sense that venturing too far out without protection will make them vulnerable.
Each side must face great risk when initially advancing. That risk will drive innovative strategies for reaching certain areas like choke points or resource locations. Do you turtle and harass or spread out and chance faster upgrades? Today you get both.
Slowing gameplay would also put a greater emphasis on map design. It would offer more time to evaluate the enemies approach and give commanders more time to decide territorial advancement or pay for upgrades.
I believe the argument could be made that slowing play and softening up the early defenses can create a skill gap that higher level players desire. The lone wolf player would require great skill to survive early game.
tl:dr I think slowing gameplay down, especially in early game, will help to reintroduce the RTS elements back into NS2.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2015
We had a similar dicsussion ages ago short before a free weekend.
And as an ex serveradmin who hosted a server for the high skill players that time i was always for 3 types of servers.
- Rookies
- Average
- Pro
Sad thing is, now its to late for this cause the low playerbase,
I personally think that rookies learning the game best by playing the game against there skill,
So they can tryout out things without getting harrased by pseudo pros or getting slaughtered nonstop by real ones.
This plus a more intuitive way ingame to teach them the basics should be enough.
And i still think that every huge server >24 is part of the problem that players learning the game in a wrong way.
Every rookie alienplayer no matter what lifeform just get melted there with 6-7 marines at every corner.
While it might fun for them to play marines there, its the opposite on alienside.
Maybe thats why we have so many bad alienplayers out there and many of them should be far beyon rookie skill, but they are not.
CS:Go has official servers and community ones.
The official ones are 5v5, so players learning the game in the same enviroment like the pro players.
By doing this the transition is much easier for them.
On the other hand there 64 slots community servers, but people cant rank up there or cant getting other stuff.
To sum it up:
- Introduce some rank specific stuff like extra skins or something.
Or you can introduce "missions" like other games doing it "build 20 restowers", "defend 25 phase gates" to gain extra points or other cool stuff.
This would give players progression and helping them to learn things.
- Ranking is only possible on official size servers.
- Introduce 3 kind of servers based on rank and skill. (right now players joining a server called >40hrs for example and getting kicked without knowing why")
- Without the needed rank/skill you get an ingame info like "Sorry, you cant play here,your rank is not high enough" if you try to join a pro server as rookie.
- Pro players cant join the rookie servers to prevent stomping.
- Finetune the "balanced-teams" mechanism to be more elo-like
I ran a tweaked version of the ns2stats elo shuffle back in the days on the HBZ server. And from my point of view it was doing a great job.
I never liked the current system based on winning rounds only. With an more elo based system you would still progress your skill if you kill players above your skill wich is rewarding instead of losing skill points simply by losing.
And again, try to find a way to teach new players elementar stuff of the game instead of dumbing it down by removing working and proved mechanism.
And i still think that every huge server >24 is part of the problem that players learning the game in a wrong way.
Every rookie alienplayer no matter what lifeform just get melted there with 6-7 marines at every corner.
While it might fun for them to play marines there, its the opposite on alienside.
Maybe thats why we have so many bad alienplayers out there and many of them should be far beyon rookie skill, but they are not.
CS:Go has official servers and community ones.
The official ones are 5v5, so players learning the game in the same enviroment like the pro players.
By doing this the transition is much easier for them.
On the other hand there 64 slots community servers, but people cant rank up there or cant getting other stuff.
After over a year pause coming back to NS2 its funny to see that almost the entire player base are playing on 2 servers, the problem for me is that those servers are 40+ slotted.
I'm not trying to say that those who are playing on these kind of servers shouldn't and that these servers shouldn't exist, more power to you if you enjoy them and keep playing because of that.
The negative aspect is that server hosts are unintentionally forcing the (new)players to join them, because they are most (over)populated, and people usually join servers where the players are. To a rookie it might be a little confusing and making the learning curve hectic because of the amount of players they are countering. Servers of 20+ players are kinda pushing the limits already imho.
Larger servers can also lead to the situation that you are selling the game to those players that enjoy that battlefield kind of play style and those who don't like that quit. If the game had a larger player base this wouldn't be a problem because you would have these different sized servers running side by side, but now you have almost half of the players playing on the mega servers.
Since NS2 lost its competitive side I don't think that many new players know that the game have different styles of gameplay from 6vs6 to 22vs22 and they only experience the bigger ones. Players just join a random server and the first impression they get stays, and maybe that impression don't really show the depth or atmosphere that NS can offer.
Since NS2 isn't forcing any standard size plays, and in a way it's a good thing but it's harder to balance the game and maybe sell it compared to other tactical FPS/Moba games. I think even the new Disney DM shooter games like overwatch/paladins have a official player size servers that is the standard these days. Just something I think should be made clear to a wider audience when you try to revive the players.
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
On the simplification google doc it states "Remove upgrade chambers and tie them to crag/shift/shade" . Can I suggest making Upgrade chambers tie to the hive directly, once a hive is upgraded it acts as chamber 1, when you research biomass stage 1, once it completes it acts as chamber 2 and so on?
it also says "Bioluminescence to provide light in unpowered room (could lead to rookies not killing their only source of light?)"
This could potentially be solved by replacing the flashlight with thermal/UV goggles (permanently or via Tres upgrade in game).
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
On the subject of medpacks, I honestly think the best solution is to do this -
In spectate, you can see all aliens and marines... if the Marine Commander HUD were to be updated to show the field marines in a similar way, and allow med packs/ammo/catpacks etc to be dropped onto those nameplates.
You would need to apply a cooldown to how often a marine can be medded by the commander (0.2 seconds ish) to avoid ridiculous spam, but I honestly think that this would be the best solution to the medding issue.
More commander functionality could come from this too. when someone calls for a med or ammo it could flash different colours... by double clicking on a marine your camera is instantly moved to their location etc.
I'm not sure if lerk movement should be looked into because it's the only way lerks can stay alive against good shots.
Wrong. And I'll repeat myself again and again until this sticks
To stay alive against good shots; Make good decisions.
And/or as you correctly mention yourself, compensate by buffing them in some other area like eHP.
Clearly you've never played against the caliber of players we're talking about. You want to keep new players but you better be able to keep old players too. Unless you're going to refund all my DLC
On the simplification google doc it states "Remove upgrade chambers and tie them to crag/shift/shade" . Can I suggest making Upgrade chambers tie to the hive directly, once a hive is upgraded it acts as chamber 1, when you research biomass stage 1, once it completes it acts as chamber 2 and so on?
it also says "Bioluminescence to provide light in unpowered room (could lead to rookies not killing their only source of light?)"
This could potentially be solved by replacing the flashlight with thermal/UV goggles (permanently or via Tres upgrade in game).
By removing upgrades chambers, same with arms lab, you removing a deeper strategic part of the game.
These types of structures are the 1st target for example in valid situation in clanmatches.
Instead of removing them, explain the rookies how important they are.
In clanmatches a arms lab has a very high priority when aliens going for the base.
In pub matches this is nearly never happen.
That what i mean with "explaining the game" vs "dumbing down".
Most players didnt realize that you only need parasite+2 bites after marines lost there arms lab.
And also exos are very vulnerable after the arms lab is gone.
I would miss the "arms down, i repeat, arms lab down. Go and kill the exos"
I left this thread alone awhile, and I would like to comment on changing lerk movement.
Back before b250 I mained fade. I was kind of skilled, but not high level by any measure. Almost half the reason I played ns2 was for the old shadowstep fade. It provided me with that much enjoyment. Blink does not provide me that level of fun. I try fading again every once in awhile, and I do ok but I just find blink to be a boring movement mechanic.
Since fading was not fun anymore after b250 I decided to instead main lerk. Lerk is a lot of fun right now. I am not super skilled either. I am a good pub lerk, but I would flash my lerk if I were to join a gather. Lerking replaced the enjoyment I got out of fading. If that were to change into something unfun I would strongly consider quitting ns2.
My point is that the movement mechanics, although difficult to a rookie, are loved by what little community we have left. They should not be touched.
By removing upgrades chambers, same with arms lab, you removing a deeper strategic part of the game.
These types of structures are the 1st target for example in valid situation in clanmatches.
Instead of removing them, explain the rookies how important they are.
In clanmatches a arms lab has a very high priority when aliens going for the base.
In pub matches this is nearly never happen.
That what i mean with "explaining the game" vs "dumbing down".
Most players didnt realize that you only need parasite+2 bites after marines lost there arms lab.
And also exos are very vulnerable after the arms lab is gone.
I would miss the "arms down, i repeat, arms lab down. Go and kill the exos"
I know it would be something that is missed by some people.. but currently the idea is that the upgrades get tied into the shifts/shades/crags... this the chambers won't exist anyway... if the chambers don't exist, why ty them to a structure that already has purpose on the field? inking, echoing and heal waves are all very useful tools of those structures... why add in the chamber mechanic? doesn't that over complicate the structure? shouldn't the structure cost of them go up to compensate? does that mean that we will see way less field crags because of it? etc etc... My idea of tying the chambers directly to the hive/biomass system stops any of that being an issue, but still removes the chambers (which seems to be the main goal of tying them to structures in the first place)
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2015
The only movement part that maybe should be adressed is the marine-jumping.
While skilled marines didnt jump that much anyway, mid and low skilled marines tend to jump-spam.
A skilled skulk can easy deal with that while it must be very frustrating for a new skulk to miss all bites to crazy jumping marine.
Maybe a little higher cool down could help here without affecting the overall movement too much.
But yes, dumbing down movement would be a very bad idea in general.
The low but steady playerbase love the game for the fact that it is not like a typical shooter.
By dumbing down too many apspects at the same time to atract more players it would lose what it makes special.
The movement in CS:Go is joke for example compared to NS2.
People running around there like they have a stick in the ass.
I have a suggestion that might help rookies......MAKE TEAMS STOP CONCEDING SO MUCH.
While I myself am not a Rookie,i'm still learning a few new things,and it's VERY hard to learn things when the team just gives up after losing 1 res tower when the game starts.
It's also very unfun to play when every round ends with a surrender. I know concede is used for when you know you're gonna lose,but it's just spammed way too much!
It also takes away that feel of "YEAH! KHARAA RULES!" for example,and instead is replaced 95% of the time with "Oh,they gave up....again....yay."
What i'm trying to say is that it must be hard for Rookies to try and use new tactics when they don't even get the chance to use tier 2 tech!
For example,let's say there's a rookie who has recently been practicing the use of Spores. Spores are often researched mid game. But every time he's almost to mid game,aliens concede,or the marines give up way too soon,disabling him from learning! It's frustrating,boring,unfun,and pathetic that teams give up so easily!
I agree that gameplay should be a bit slower than it is now. It would encourage commanders to use often ignored abilities like Webs or Catalyst Packs,and it would allow rookies to actually learn mid/late game abilities! Plus,it would just be more fun for everyone in general! I mean imagine a game that lasts more than 10 minutes,and instead lasts a whole hour!
Back in 2012,I used to see more games that lasted quite a while......now games are either done in 15 minutes,a team gives up right away,or teams just rush the base at the start.
(I HATE base rushes early on!) It would bring back the nostalgic feel of NS2,back when it was in it's prime! Let's bring all of that back!
TL;DR:Gameplay should be slower/teams shouldn't give up so easily. Rookies should be able to learn how to do something and actually have time to learn it/have time to access what they want to learn.
As far as slowing the game down and reducing the "slippery-slope" feel:
Change the resource income per tower to have diminshing returns over some threshold.
A hidden mechanic and does not simplofy the game, I know, but it lets a team that can only hold 2-3 RTs stay in the game longer, and still let the team with 5-6 RTs have an advantage, that advantage would just compound slower.
Comments
Where aliens saw any attacking blip in their real world? Where you always saw the hives as a blip in your world? I think you even saw teammates, but do not quite me on that.
You would also get the structure under attack warning.
For the folk who did not play ns1 and do not know what I mean. Imagine summit. You are in crossroads. If you look to atrium, you see a atrium blip (or I guess in ns2 icon) of a hive, if you have a hive. If its being attacked it pulsing red.
That RT in crevice? If its being hit you see a pulsing red blip where your RT is, all while standing in crossraids.
So you do not need a minimap. You see the various blips on your screen and you react. It was different from marines yes, but not at all inferior.
NS2 does not have this, so the lack of a minimap always seems odd in comparison.
What a brilliant post, from one end to the other. Well thought out, from a perspective we rarely see on these forums.
I agree with the crux of every single point, some of the details I'd argue on though, but the point is; you have accurately identified a lot of real underlying issues here.
This I totally agree with, and I've said something to the same effect a couple of times in the past. The responses I got in a nutshell was; 'no we won't remove babblers, it would be a waste of the development time spent'. So I'm glad to see a 'rookie' (by your own admission) agree to this. -because veterans sure as hell don't care about it, so what demographic are they really left for?
Turrets do have their place in the game though, they don't need to be removed.
I just want to use this opportunity to highlight this point well-made.
I'd contest points about the movement systems, I believe their complexity is important, and if they were removed to streamline the game for rookies, I would probably quit. That being said, the issue is resolved by your point about making actual rookie servers.
So essentially if we get more players, some things become non-issues. I'm all for different game modes allowing rookies to learn the game better.
I do wish you mentioned learning maps even earlier as I believe it to restrict everything in this game, especially the complex movement you're not so keen on!
For example said turrets. Yes rookie comms spam the map with them and that is a mistake.
But Id not be the first experienced commander who puts em near a phasegate for chip damage. They still can and should be used correctly.
And therein lies the whole thing. Correctly. Almost nothing is near useless. Just for some correctly is few and rare.
Id say flamethrowers have more use in (big) teams then webs do, but I can think of uses for both. Although the web list is very short.
Comma could spawn as gorge and drifters no longer build stuff. They just drift and enzyme. Boom. Fun times
I don't think cysts are a huge problem, rookies com figure them out quit quickly (in 1 or 2 games). They have difficulties with drifters. And even then these are commander difficulties and not rookie's one. You can simplify commander mechanics (power node, cyst) by removing them but commanding won't be easier since you'll still need the map awareness, the knowledge of the different BO.
If you want to simply commander mechanics specifically though you should look at NS2 pre Blance Mod, when infestation spread much faster, when you needed much less cysts and when drifters were only here for support; while keeping the auto chain cyst system.
On an other note a lot of things from preBM could be reintroduce. As a player it looks like balance mod was here to complexify the game. Now that the global level is lower a lot of these mechanics looks out of place (navazka talk about some of them).
cent 1: General stuff
First, NS2 doesn't have a problem with it's mechanics. Some of these mechanics are partly counterintuitive, but they've been developed in a long and arduous process into something that, currently, works. At least in my opinion, balance seems fine right now, and the past has shown that this could change rather quickly to a point where it's hard to fix. As such, I advise not doing any large, sweeping changes, unless they serve a clear and and desirable goal; especially since there's a lot, and I mean lot to do that can improve NS2 without even touching balance.
I think that NS2's biggest problem is how it presents those mechanics. Tutorial, noob flash Onos, yadda yadda, it's been told. I think @navazka did a great job at giving an idea of what I mean. I don't agree with everything he says, and there's other people's posts, too, but I think his' gets the point across.
It's second biggest problem is, in my opinion, the lack of progression. I'm actually surprised it only came up once here. Personally, I don't mind it; I like the game for what it is. But I understand the problem of having a game where everything is available from the start. (Disregarding teching up in a match here; the possibility of getting all the gear is inherent to every match alike.) Thus, the game is very static: Fundamentally, the only thing different between your first game and your 200th is YOU. This is not enough to motivate a less than highly enthusiastic player. It's why Battlefield, Call of Duty etc. have progression systems: There's still things left to see, discover and unlock. In NS2, once you've played on every map, tried every bit of marine equipment and every alien lifeform, the game can get stale very fast, especially if you're a newbie that doesn't feel his skills get any better and keeps getting stomped, further adding to the no progression feel. (Fun fact: This is the exact reason I stopped playing chivalry after 10 hours.)
Sadly, I don't have an idea to fix this - at least none that works. And I spent quite some time thinking about it in the past. Sorry. Maybe you can come up with something. (Badges?)
cent 2: Specific stuff
I want to take a quick look at the suggestions of the doc, and what I think of them.
As for powernodes... I see that they're a point of confusion for newbies. But they also serve tactical and atmospheric purpose, and I think removing them would detract from the game. I suggest having every room start with broken power, and reducing the amount of time it takes to fix a broken powernode. Reasons why I think this is a good idea:
1. Alien territory wouldn't constantly lit up like it is now. It's been brought up before and I, too, wonder why you have to set up small auxiliary power generators that take down the entire room's lights with them if they go down.
2. It preserves the tactical possibilites powernodes bring with them in the first place.
3. Building a powernode the first time wouldn't have it be invincible anymore; admittedly removing a gimmicky tactical advantage, but removing a lot of confusion for newbies.
Since unbuilt powernodes wouldn't be lit up blue anymore, there'd probably need to be a different indicator that they exist.
Eh... this ended up having headlines and stuff. I didn't mean to write that much.
edit: formatting
Well, at first I was apprehensive, at the point about movement, as well. I don't think having skillbased movement is bad for the game - look at overwatch, it has all kinds of skillbased movements and nobody complains (minejump junkrat, wallrolling lucio, phara-knockback etc.).
However, @navazka criticism seemed to mostly revolve around the lerk. And I fully agree that the lerk's movement is just way too strong. I main lerk myself, and it pains me to see bad players getting away with bad decisions, because the movement is so ridiculous.
I'm not sure how to balance it. I fear if you mess too much with the turn acceleration, then you risk making cqc too 'unnatural'.
Naturally, you'd probably also have to buff the lerks hp to compensate with nerfed movement.
But I definitely agree with @navazka that the lerk movement in particular needs reform.
Bunnyhop on gorge would be cool. Skulk and fade movements are being discussed, but I'm for the most part content with those two lifeforms for now.
Also pancaking is a staple of the game for 10+ years. Long live it.
But to address your point; lerks shouldn't be engaging in 1v1 fights in the first place against competent players, unless they have a clear opening (out of ammo, lack of awareness, lack of los, low on hp etc.). This is the sort of 'bad decisions' I was initially talking about, that I don't want to see excused. These mistakes should be punished imo.
2.Focus on rewards for playing the game, at the moment the only reward is the gameplay itself. Gameplay alone isn't enough for modern players it seems, one problem of course is the low player base that you are trying to fix. Most of the players don't want to invest time if it isn't rewarding in a long run. By only focusing on the fun factor for new players you wont keep them motivated for long.
a.Fun factor (Different game modes/Balance/Community/Simplify learning) (Casual players)
b.Cosmetics/ranks/achievements (Modern players)
c.Skill/Competetive (More ambitious players)
d.Dev attitude: Are the devs going to keep going with the franchise, or leave and focus on other games. NS2 comeback now -> NS3 in the future (Future oriented players)
3.Try to make clear for new players the depth of the game, maybe balance the rookie experience equally with 6vs6 and 20vs20 games, some people want that sneaky and tactical gameplay, and some those massive battles. At the moment rookies join the most populated servers like wooza(40players). Im not saying that you should take those away, but maybe its too messy/confusing to new players, or maybe they think thats all the game has to offer. So perhaps you could tell that the game is played in different formats (competetive 6vs6 and casual up to 20vs20 players)
4.Forward the rookies to the community, @rantology if you are making that new main menu can you add ENSL link to it!
As a player who started playing NS around it's final release, I never experienced Lerk spikes and the game was better for it overall. Lerks had to Bite res towers to harass and fly in at the right moment to bite marines, or just gas them from a safer distance to soften them up for the next engagement. This made Lerks much easier to deal with as their range of effective damage was much smaller and their attack pattern was much more predictable. It also kept the theme where the aliens' best source of damage would be at the melee range, since the marines are supposed to have ranged superiority.
I'm not saying completely remove them from the game, but it should be moved to Hive 3 instead.
I think Lerk spikes is an important part of the game that shouldn't be removed. It gives the aliens a counter to shotguns early game, and allows for lerks to be support for the fades later on in the game. This is really needed once marines get upgrades and weapons. Giving lerks gas early and not allowing spikes early force the lerk to get close and would make it very difficult to take down shotguns.
Regarding the lerks moving quickly and being difficult to hit, I'm sure it's really frustrating and seems impossible for many players to hit a fast moving lerk. It takes awhile to learn when the lerk is most vulnerable, when to save your ammo and so on. I'm not sure if lerk movement should be looked into because it's the only way lerks can stay alive against good shots. There could be a movement penalty to moving too many directions in a row, but then lerk hp would have to probably be increased.
To stay alive against good shots; Make good decisions.
And/or as you correctly mention yourself, compensate by buffing them in some other area like eHP.
I'm not against looking at a movement penalty for lerks and increasing their health. It would make lerks a lot less frustrating for many players. It would probably be more beneficial for players to feel like they could hit a lerk even if it still took a lot to kill them with the increased hp. Not sure how the movement penalty would work. Would require a lot of play testing.
IMHO, it's the pace of gameplay that is the main culprit.
Consider what happens at the start of a round: everyone sprints as fast as possible to resource points. Players from both sides fan out all around the map. For a new player, this looks like every other team deathmatch approach to play. Why would anyone be surprised then that they fail to respond to situations that require teamwork?
While aliens should be moving freely about the map in early game, they should be initially very weak in any solo engagement. A reduced speed of marine territorial advance would allow skulks the time they need to establish ambush locations while parasiting to report enemy locations. There should also be a bit more penalty for early skulk deaths to prevent the spawn->die->repeat approach to play.
Marines in the early game should also be very weak in small numbers. Reducing their actual movement speed would give them a sense that venturing too far out without protection will make them vulnerable.
Each side must face great risk when initially advancing. That risk will drive innovative strategies for reaching certain areas like choke points or resource locations. Do you turtle and harass or spread out and chance faster upgrades? Today you get both.
Slowing gameplay would also put a greater emphasis on map design. It would offer more time to evaluate the enemies approach and give commanders more time to decide territorial advancement or pay for upgrades.
I believe the argument could be made that slowing play and softening up the early defenses can create a skill gap that higher level players desire. The lone wolf player would require great skill to survive early game.
tl:dr I think slowing gameplay down, especially in early game, will help to reintroduce the RTS elements back into NS2.
And as an ex serveradmin who hosted a server for the high skill players that time i was always for 3 types of servers.
- Rookies
- Average
- Pro
Sad thing is, now its to late for this cause the low playerbase,
I personally think that rookies learning the game best by playing the game against there skill,
So they can tryout out things without getting harrased by pseudo pros or getting slaughtered nonstop by real ones.
This plus a more intuitive way ingame to teach them the basics should be enough.
And i still think that every huge server >24 is part of the problem that players learning the game in a wrong way.
Every rookie alienplayer no matter what lifeform just get melted there with 6-7 marines at every corner.
While it might fun for them to play marines there, its the opposite on alienside.
Maybe thats why we have so many bad alienplayers out there and many of them should be far beyon rookie skill, but they are not.
CS:Go has official servers and community ones.
The official ones are 5v5, so players learning the game in the same enviroment like the pro players.
By doing this the transition is much easier for them.
On the other hand there 64 slots community servers, but people cant rank up there or cant getting other stuff.
To sum it up:
- Introduce some rank specific stuff like extra skins or something.
Or you can introduce "missions" like other games doing it "build 20 restowers", "defend 25 phase gates" to gain extra points or other cool stuff.
This would give players progression and helping them to learn things.
- Ranking is only possible on official size servers.
- Introduce 3 kind of servers based on rank and skill. (right now players joining a server called >40hrs for example and getting kicked without knowing why")
- Without the needed rank/skill you get an ingame info like "Sorry, you cant play here,your rank is not high enough" if you try to join a pro server as rookie.
- Pro players cant join the rookie servers to prevent stomping.
- Finetune the "balanced-teams" mechanism to be more elo-like
I ran a tweaked version of the ns2stats elo shuffle back in the days on the HBZ server. And from my point of view it was doing a great job.
I never liked the current system based on winning rounds only. With an more elo based system you would still progress your skill if you kill players above your skill wich is rewarding instead of losing skill points simply by losing.
And again, try to find a way to teach new players elementar stuff of the game instead of dumbing it down by removing working and proved mechanism.
After over a year pause coming back to NS2 its funny to see that almost the entire player base are playing on 2 servers, the problem for me is that those servers are 40+ slotted.
I'm not trying to say that those who are playing on these kind of servers shouldn't and that these servers shouldn't exist, more power to you if you enjoy them and keep playing because of that.
The negative aspect is that server hosts are unintentionally forcing the (new)players to join them, because they are most (over)populated, and people usually join servers where the players are. To a rookie it might be a little confusing and making the learning curve hectic because of the amount of players they are countering. Servers of 20+ players are kinda pushing the limits already imho.
Larger servers can also lead to the situation that you are selling the game to those players that enjoy that battlefield kind of play style and those who don't like that quit. If the game had a larger player base this wouldn't be a problem because you would have these different sized servers running side by side, but now you have almost half of the players playing on the mega servers.
Since NS2 lost its competitive side I don't think that many new players know that the game have different styles of gameplay from 6vs6 to 22vs22 and they only experience the bigger ones. Players just join a random server and the first impression they get stays, and maybe that impression don't really show the depth or atmosphere that NS can offer.
Since NS2 isn't forcing any standard size plays, and in a way it's a good thing but it's harder to balance the game and maybe sell it compared to other tactical FPS/Moba games. I think even the new Disney DM shooter games like overwatch/paladins have a official player size servers that is the standard these days. Just something I think should be made clear to a wider audience when you try to revive the players.
PS: Thx for HBZ for hosting the best pubserver
it also says "Bioluminescence to provide light in unpowered room (could lead to rookies not killing their only source of light?)"
This could potentially be solved by replacing the flashlight with thermal/UV goggles (permanently or via Tres upgrade in game).
In spectate, you can see all aliens and marines... if the Marine Commander HUD were to be updated to show the field marines in a similar way, and allow med packs/ammo/catpacks etc to be dropped onto those nameplates.
You would need to apply a cooldown to how often a marine can be medded by the commander (0.2 seconds ish) to avoid ridiculous spam, but I honestly think that this would be the best solution to the medding issue.
More commander functionality could come from this too. when someone calls for a med or ammo it could flash different colours... by double clicking on a marine your camera is instantly moved to their location etc.
Clearly you've never played against the caliber of players we're talking about. You want to keep new players but you better be able to keep old players too. Unless you're going to refund all my DLC
By removing upgrades chambers, same with arms lab, you removing a deeper strategic part of the game.
These types of structures are the 1st target for example in valid situation in clanmatches.
Instead of removing them, explain the rookies how important they are.
In clanmatches a arms lab has a very high priority when aliens going for the base.
In pub matches this is nearly never happen.
That what i mean with "explaining the game" vs "dumbing down".
Most players didnt realize that you only need parasite+2 bites after marines lost there arms lab.
And also exos are very vulnerable after the arms lab is gone.
I would miss the "arms down, i repeat, arms lab down. Go and kill the exos"
Back before b250 I mained fade. I was kind of skilled, but not high level by any measure. Almost half the reason I played ns2 was for the old shadowstep fade. It provided me with that much enjoyment. Blink does not provide me that level of fun. I try fading again every once in awhile, and I do ok but I just find blink to be a boring movement mechanic.
Since fading was not fun anymore after b250 I decided to instead main lerk. Lerk is a lot of fun right now. I am not super skilled either. I am a good pub lerk, but I would flash my lerk if I were to join a gather. Lerking replaced the enjoyment I got out of fading. If that were to change into something unfun I would strongly consider quitting ns2.
My point is that the movement mechanics, although difficult to a rookie, are loved by what little community we have left. They should not be touched.
I know it would be something that is missed by some people.. but currently the idea is that the upgrades get tied into the shifts/shades/crags... this the chambers won't exist anyway... if the chambers don't exist, why ty them to a structure that already has purpose on the field? inking, echoing and heal waves are all very useful tools of those structures... why add in the chamber mechanic? doesn't that over complicate the structure? shouldn't the structure cost of them go up to compensate? does that mean that we will see way less field crags because of it? etc etc... My idea of tying the chambers directly to the hive/biomass system stops any of that being an issue, but still removes the chambers (which seems to be the main goal of tying them to structures in the first place)
While skilled marines didnt jump that much anyway, mid and low skilled marines tend to jump-spam.
A skilled skulk can easy deal with that while it must be very frustrating for a new skulk to miss all bites to crazy jumping marine.
Maybe a little higher cool down could help here without affecting the overall movement too much.
But yes, dumbing down movement would be a very bad idea in general.
The low but steady playerbase love the game for the fact that it is not like a typical shooter.
By dumbing down too many apspects at the same time to atract more players it would lose what it makes special.
The movement in CS:Go is joke for example compared to NS2.
People running around there like they have a stick in the ass.
While I myself am not a Rookie,i'm still learning a few new things,and it's VERY hard to learn things when the team just gives up after losing 1 res tower when the game starts.
It's also very unfun to play when every round ends with a surrender. I know concede is used for when you know you're gonna lose,but it's just spammed way too much!
It also takes away that feel of "YEAH! KHARAA RULES!" for example,and instead is replaced 95% of the time with "Oh,they gave up....again....yay."
What i'm trying to say is that it must be hard for Rookies to try and use new tactics when they don't even get the chance to use tier 2 tech!
For example,let's say there's a rookie who has recently been practicing the use of Spores. Spores are often researched mid game. But every time he's almost to mid game,aliens concede,or the marines give up way too soon,disabling him from learning! It's frustrating,boring,unfun,and pathetic that teams give up so easily!
I agree that gameplay should be a bit slower than it is now. It would encourage commanders to use often ignored abilities like Webs or Catalyst Packs,and it would allow rookies to actually learn mid/late game abilities! Plus,it would just be more fun for everyone in general! I mean imagine a game that lasts more than 10 minutes,and instead lasts a whole hour!
Back in 2012,I used to see more games that lasted quite a while......now games are either done in 15 minutes,a team gives up right away,or teams just rush the base at the start.
(I HATE base rushes early on!) It would bring back the nostalgic feel of NS2,back when it was in it's prime! Let's bring all of that back!
TL;DR:Gameplay should be slower/teams shouldn't give up so easily. Rookies should be able to learn how to do something and actually have time to learn it/have time to access what they want to learn.
Change the resource income per tower to have diminshing returns over some threshold.
A hidden mechanic and does not simplofy the game, I know, but it lets a team that can only hold 2-3 RTs stay in the game longer, and still let the team with 5-6 RTs have an advantage, that advantage would just compound slower.