An opinion about NS2
bonage
Join Date: 2012-10-13 Member: 162230Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-10-13 Member: 162230Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Disclaimer: Please do not construe this post as one of negativity – it couldn’t be further from the truth. I have long been a supporter and advocate for the franchise and believe that the best is yet to come. This post is simply to stimulate discussion about the future of the franchise.
This piece might ruffle a few feathers, but I think it’s a healthy discourse that is long overdue and has been on the mind of many community members like myself. As time has passed, and we've had enough time to examine the work of the PDT, of phase 1, the beginnings of Phase 2, I think this is a good time to talk about NS2 and where it's going.
For me, Natural Selection 2 has failed to evolve - therefore it must die. Arguably, its population is unrecoverable and is certain to become extinct in due time. The game is showing its age and it’s time to prepare ourselves for its inevitable death.
All of this has been said before. Though NS2 might be terminal, this is not to suggest that the franchise has to die, or that elements of NS2 cannot continue to be a part of the future of the franchise. However, as it stands, NS2 has reached a point of no return. Unfortunately ive come to believe that anyobe who says otherwise is either ignorant or needs to come to grips with the reality of the situation. Small figures of improved populace are not enough to eliminate the issues that come with defective foundations.
Many will argue that the decline began soon after launch when concurrent numbers never reached the same point as release, but for many like myself the moment the game began to die was shortly after the NS2WC. The WC was a triumph of an event for both UWE and its community. UWE really didn’t have to help fund the event, and should be eternally thanked for how much money they sunk into it 2 years after launch. It’s easy to forget they are an indie company with limited staff and resources and we should all be more mindful of this.
Understandably, UWE had to move on from the game after this – it wanted to explore new ideas, and obvious have a new product to put food on the table. Cue the CDT.
The CDT did a wonderful job after the departure of UWE. They made many QoL improvements that should have been in the game since launch. The CDT exemplified just how passionate and talented this community is, and sort to address many of the core issues that community members like themselves had issue with. They did an incredible job with what skills they had, and within the stringent boundaries they were confined to. Yes – there were boundaries. Ultimately, decisions of major changes had to be run by UWE to ensure that they were in line with the philosophy of the original devs.
The PDT has followed in a similar vein. Much of the work and changes they have done/are doing are good and well received, but ultimately like the CDT, they have lacked overarching direction, autonomy, and the necessary authority to elevate NS2 to a point of true recovery (Obraxis I can already see you shaking your head :P) A proper refresh is needed to achieve the targets that everyone wants.
In all the games I’ve played, I’ve never seen such a passionate, dedicated community as this one. The irony of this whole situation is that the devs have created such an open ecosystem for development that they were not prepared for the barrage of feedback that came with it, especially when that feedback was negative in nature. Many times this community has been called toxic, which might occur in some instances, but the majority of the time this couldn’t be further from the truth. Healthy discourse has often been mistaken as trolling, and good ideas are the collateral damage. This has occurred since beta, when people like Fana would write up large well-constructed essays with constructive criticism that were largely ignored.
You need only to look at the success of the development cycle of Blizzard’s overwatch to see the benefits of community driven multiplayer game development with solid foundations and a clear overarching direction. Obviously this is starting from scratch whereas all the additions to NS2 have been taking place whilst the game is live and on the market, but I still believe that there are lessons to be learned in overwatch’s approach. Nothing is off limits – from gameplay mechanics to simple things such as a characters pose, the blizzard team have shown they are open to ideas and changes, but necessarily governed by them. They have found a healthy balance, and have found a system to sort the good ideas from the bad/troll ones. They might be a AAA dev team, but these principles can be translated back to the indie world – many of which UWE might be doing already, but there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to areas like game mechanics and balance.
So back to NS2 - where to from here? I believe the answer isn't as complex as some might imagine. The franchise, in its current FPS/RTS form has 2 directions – one is to make a large NS3 product similar to NS2, but the other, which I believe might be the smarter option at this point in time for both UWE and it’s community is to take what the PDT are doing now and inject it with a serious dose of steroids. To that end - I have outlined a simple version of what I believe is the realm of possibility here. The majority of community members I've asked about this plan have strongly supported it, and very much welcome the idea of change, new milestones and ultimately something new.
NS1 was a great game, but had its own set of flaws – some which nostalgia might get in the way of sometimes. NS2 was a triumph of hard work and passion but was by no means perfect. The best way to look at NS2 is as a giant experiment – there were things that worked, and things that didn’t. Mistakes were made. As soon as we come to accept that as a community and move on, the better.
Now for the assumptions. Assuming UWE want to continue to develop the franchise in one form or another (they may choose not to), it’s time to grow from this game, and use all the knowledge and experience from it to create something even better. To that end - I implore UWE to see the value in letting NS2 die. It has a had a great run, but it’s time to move on. I’m not ignorant of the fact that this is easier said than done, but I’ve seen and followed for years what UWE and this community are capable of, and believe it is possible.
Please give your franchise the right opportunity to grow again. Please let us help you grow it – you have some really bright people playing your games – some of them you have employed part time already, others are willing to help you shape your games for free. You have a unique product in the marketplace that just needs the right circumstances and healthy foundations to grow. Take the ideas of your PDT and give them the proper opportunity to help flesh them out. Let us help pay for these ideas so that you can achieve what you could not have achieved before. There is plenty of opportunity and possibilities that can come with a proper refresh, but it's time to let NS2 go.
This piece might ruffle a few feathers, but I think it’s a healthy discourse that is long overdue and has been on the mind of many community members like myself. As time has passed, and we've had enough time to examine the work of the PDT, of phase 1, the beginnings of Phase 2, I think this is a good time to talk about NS2 and where it's going.
For me, Natural Selection 2 has failed to evolve - therefore it must die. Arguably, its population is unrecoverable and is certain to become extinct in due time. The game is showing its age and it’s time to prepare ourselves for its inevitable death.
All of this has been said before. Though NS2 might be terminal, this is not to suggest that the franchise has to die, or that elements of NS2 cannot continue to be a part of the future of the franchise. However, as it stands, NS2 has reached a point of no return. Unfortunately ive come to believe that anyobe who says otherwise is either ignorant or needs to come to grips with the reality of the situation. Small figures of improved populace are not enough to eliminate the issues that come with defective foundations.
Many will argue that the decline began soon after launch when concurrent numbers never reached the same point as release, but for many like myself the moment the game began to die was shortly after the NS2WC. The WC was a triumph of an event for both UWE and its community. UWE really didn’t have to help fund the event, and should be eternally thanked for how much money they sunk into it 2 years after launch. It’s easy to forget they are an indie company with limited staff and resources and we should all be more mindful of this.
Understandably, UWE had to move on from the game after this – it wanted to explore new ideas, and obvious have a new product to put food on the table. Cue the CDT.
The CDT did a wonderful job after the departure of UWE. They made many QoL improvements that should have been in the game since launch. The CDT exemplified just how passionate and talented this community is, and sort to address many of the core issues that community members like themselves had issue with. They did an incredible job with what skills they had, and within the stringent boundaries they were confined to. Yes – there were boundaries. Ultimately, decisions of major changes had to be run by UWE to ensure that they were in line with the philosophy of the original devs.
The PDT has followed in a similar vein. Much of the work and changes they have done/are doing are good and well received, but ultimately like the CDT, they have lacked overarching direction, autonomy, and the necessary authority to elevate NS2 to a point of true recovery (Obraxis I can already see you shaking your head :P) A proper refresh is needed to achieve the targets that everyone wants.
In all the games I’ve played, I’ve never seen such a passionate, dedicated community as this one. The irony of this whole situation is that the devs have created such an open ecosystem for development that they were not prepared for the barrage of feedback that came with it, especially when that feedback was negative in nature. Many times this community has been called toxic, which might occur in some instances, but the majority of the time this couldn’t be further from the truth. Healthy discourse has often been mistaken as trolling, and good ideas are the collateral damage. This has occurred since beta, when people like Fana would write up large well-constructed essays with constructive criticism that were largely ignored.
You need only to look at the success of the development cycle of Blizzard’s overwatch to see the benefits of community driven multiplayer game development with solid foundations and a clear overarching direction. Obviously this is starting from scratch whereas all the additions to NS2 have been taking place whilst the game is live and on the market, but I still believe that there are lessons to be learned in overwatch’s approach. Nothing is off limits – from gameplay mechanics to simple things such as a characters pose, the blizzard team have shown they are open to ideas and changes, but necessarily governed by them. They have found a healthy balance, and have found a system to sort the good ideas from the bad/troll ones. They might be a AAA dev team, but these principles can be translated back to the indie world – many of which UWE might be doing already, but there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to areas like game mechanics and balance.
So back to NS2 - where to from here? I believe the answer isn't as complex as some might imagine. The franchise, in its current FPS/RTS form has 2 directions – one is to make a large NS3 product similar to NS2, but the other, which I believe might be the smarter option at this point in time for both UWE and it’s community is to take what the PDT are doing now and inject it with a serious dose of steroids. To that end - I have outlined a simple version of what I believe is the realm of possibility here. The majority of community members I've asked about this plan have strongly supported it, and very much welcome the idea of change, new milestones and ultimately something new.
NS1 was a great game, but had its own set of flaws – some which nostalgia might get in the way of sometimes. NS2 was a triumph of hard work and passion but was by no means perfect. The best way to look at NS2 is as a giant experiment – there were things that worked, and things that didn’t. Mistakes were made. As soon as we come to accept that as a community and move on, the better.
Now for the assumptions. Assuming UWE want to continue to develop the franchise in one form or another (they may choose not to), it’s time to grow from this game, and use all the knowledge and experience from it to create something even better. To that end - I implore UWE to see the value in letting NS2 die. It has a had a great run, but it’s time to move on. I’m not ignorant of the fact that this is easier said than done, but I’ve seen and followed for years what UWE and this community are capable of, and believe it is possible.
Please give your franchise the right opportunity to grow again. Please let us help you grow it – you have some really bright people playing your games – some of them you have employed part time already, others are willing to help you shape your games for free. You have a unique product in the marketplace that just needs the right circumstances and healthy foundations to grow. Take the ideas of your PDT and give them the proper opportunity to help flesh them out. Let us help pay for these ideas so that you can achieve what you could not have achieved before. There is plenty of opportunity and possibilities that can come with a proper refresh, but it's time to let NS2 go.
Comments
Mmmhhmm...
ps. Agreed with pretty much everything BONAGE, see you guys in Overwatch.
You'd probably need to read the post rather than just the title, it helps the discussion. He said let ns2 die so that the franchise can live on.
The extra entities that were being worked on would have allowed mappers to create single player esk missions. However this idea has been put on hold due to the amount of time that would be required to get it working so as far as I know its not dead just on hold most likely permanently.
All the above is just for NS2 ofc (and its continued development)
Essentially yes - sometimes, you need to end a product in order to give it the best chance of success in another form. Think about everything you love in NS2 now, and what's in the pipeline, and imagine if you had all of that and more as a foundation back at launch with 9000 concurrent players. It would be electric.
I dont think anyone is naive enough to believe that a reboot would bring in player counts as high as something like csgo etc - but the point of this discussion is to look at an alternate means of boosting player count and adding features in a better way
An updated re-release of ns2 might be smart to get players back and some cash flowing. That said, it kinda feels inappropriate considering the way ns2 and it's updates have been handled so far. (I.e. everything new is free.)
Man, I wish UWE would be working on ns3...
I can see your point about it being inappropriate - but it's best to consider it not as a re-release, but as a new product with solid foundations to work off of.
Regarding your desire for 'NS3' - let me ask you this - for you, does 'NS3' have to be a big brand new game with a large and expensive development cycle, or can it be something similar to what we have now with an agile rolling development, but with a lot more manpower, content and money behind it?
For me, 'NS3' doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t need to be a brand new game with tonnes of brand new mechanics that feel completely different from NS2 or NS1. It just needs to take the best of what was in NS2, fuse it together with good performance and some great new features and ideas and sell at a price point that isn’t unreasonable. This sets a great platform to work with and has the potential to keep the community happy, reinvigorated and engaged.
All I want is a state of the art reiteration of the franchise that learns from the mistakes, flaws and problems ns2 faced, brings back players and maybe introduces some fresh new ideas.
Of course I realize that this is a huge challenge to tackle.
That's what every sequel tries to do, but it is not something that necessarily comes out right..
What you suggest would be a massive undertaking for a small indie team (even if you threw the engine work out and used Unreal 4 or something) and you would essentially be throwing away all the progress and polish NS2 has received over its life cycle. It's also worth noting that the tech may be slightly outdated but I don't believe that's a factor for the low player count.
Most work that is currently being done on NS2 is under-the-hood and frankly doesn't make the news outside the active community and probably wouldn't draw players even if it did simply due to the nature of the patches. On top of that the balance changes that are being made are polish or 'quality of life' which again don't mix up the formula enough for people to reinstall and see the impact.
I cannot speak for the devs but I would assume a lot of this stuff they are doing is laying for the foundation for greater changes further down the road. I whole heartedly believe that with new content that changes the nature of the game and improves the game play could revive the player count in a significant way.
Now there are problems that prevent NS2 from receiving the kind of changes it needs. One of the problems is that a lot of the community members fight 'evolution' at every turn which makes developing the game a complete mine field to navigate. Another problem is the target audience for NS2 has become skilled players that enjoy very deep tactical games and this is reflected in the game mechanically. You don't get any points for realising that's a very small niche and in turn a small audience. Personally I think the focus should shift more towards just being a deep tactical team game and less on having such a high skill ceiling for individual players. This would lower the level of entry but open up the potential audience massively. But the establishment mostly recoil at that idea as it lessens the value of high skill players. The flame I'll receive for saying that should illustrate my point nicely.
I would say NS2 just needs a bit of shaking up. Some of the mechanics that exist in the game that cater to this niche but alienate the vast majority of average joes. Things like the marines mobility (dodge jump), small bite cones, the impact of wall jumping on skulk movement speed... etc etc. These are things core NS2 players like but are a stopping block for a lot of people. When they just want to have fun with their friends why do they have to learn such unintuitive features that are basically a requirement to play the game? I am not saying these need changing but I can empathise with new players that move on before learning these things.
Moreover, active development that adds meaningful changes to games does not harm their player count; the evidence suggests the opposite even when said changes are controversial or disliked. Look at the player counts on steam charts for CS:GO, EVOLVED, TF2, DOTA; which have all had some seriously troublesome content patches. The evidence suggests change is good even when change is bad (as long as it gets fixed in good time). Though I would never suggest intentionally making controversial or poorly thought out additions to a game is a good idea; just that upsetting the apple cart is part of the parcel when actively developing established multiplayer games.
Again NS2 is not necessarily terminal, if with phase 3 or 4 we'll see new content and some of the fundamentals rethought, coupled with a lot of news exposure, 1000's of old ns2 players may come back to try it and find the game refreshingly new enough to stay around again. Lowering the level of entry would also open up the potential audience so new players did not abandon it with frustration after the first few hours.
So If the objectively for the devs is solely to polish the game; then yes the game is a terminal lost cause. However with strong vision for changing the fundamentals, refreshing new content combined with continued polish and development the game can easily be revived. Just keep in mind you may not like every change that comes with that but then the alternative is a dead game. As far as I can tell that is the choice and one that needs to be made.
is a huge task, I'm not sure weither it's necessary or worth it.
" Match Making for 6v6 "
This is an excellent idea, it's literally impossible to find a 6v6 server beside competitive ones.
It seems everyone likes 10v10 unbalanced nonsense?!
Even NS2 large is less unbalanced as at this point ridiculously broken things start to even out and single player skill matters less.
" New Marine weapons and new alien class"
This would be awesome! I think the biggest problem with NS2 atm is that every round follows the same predictable steps, with some variants but following 1 single pattern.
We have lerk time, fade time onos time. For marines it's, shotguns, gls, jetpacks/exos.
If there were at least 2 options at each step to chose from (like exo and jetpacks) you could not expect always the same thing to happen in the same order.
And each choice has advantage and disadvantage, say if HMG was added to vanilla and was competing with shotgun, you would have a real choice there with pros cons for both.
Same with lifeforms, 2 lifeforms at 20, 35 and 50.
Any ideas for a new lifeforms btw?
I have one, it would basically look like a xenomorph cost 35 res, have 1.5x fade hp
but bigger and slower, could climb on walls like a skulk and sprint silently (on walls only).
(but cannot wall jump), also have a burst mid-range attack on right click (tail swipe) that can be used at the same time as the melee attack,
basically a lifeform that has a hard time retreating but can ambush like a skulk with a lot more of hps and very high dps with the tail strike + melee attacks.
Yay, turn-based combat is coming!
Good response @Howser - I agree with you on some of your points. I just want to look at this one in particular though. Essentially, NS2 from this point could get it 100% right with development decisions and features people want and it would still struggle to build an audience. This is due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, you're starting from a low player count and trying to build back to a position the game was in 3 years ago - that's a massive undertaking in itself.
Secondly, it's also because you have people who have tried the game, developed their own biases and opinions about it, and decided to never try it again because of their experiences. Then there's the fact that majority of press have already talked about it because it's a 3 year old game already - it's old news. This has a lot to do with consumer sentiment towards products these days.
Now when you release a new product, you have a tabula rasa. Past players are likely to come back to try it because it represents something new. Past players and lost potential long term players are also more willing to forgo their past experiences with the product and try the new one because they haven't played/judged it yet. Gaming press are more likely to cover the game and it's developments and generate new hype and buzz, again, leading to more awareness of the new features etc.
Imagine trying to do what UWE is doing now, but with a daily player base of 6k-9k instead of 300 and a heap of extra cash intake to help. That's why I believe the benefits of a new product can provide a much better platform for the ideas and features we all want.
@bonage I agree with that, its just with the amount of content and time it takes to build a game like NS2 I just don't believe there's the demand to make it financially viable. There's a lot of the community members with fond memories who just got bored. Even if you don't bring new people in re-energizing the old blood with some new additions may be enough to keep the player base large to extend it's life for a few more years yet. It's certainly less risky anyhow.
I feel the same argument could've been made about NS2 a good ten years ago.
Something like that already exist in the mod Last Resistance. Marines have missions they need to solve before they can escape with a spaceship from the kharaa's
The reputation of development from UWE hasn't really earned a great deal of respect...from the history, they will do in their next game's life cycle just the same as NS1 and NS2....or may just keep it at Subnautica development instead.
NS2 again or NS3 by the same people, are they going to sell it without a skin market then sell it with a skin market and see if the population suffers again...
Want to save NS2? want to have a future?, quit micro marketing.
An interesting post, but one I have to wholeheartedly disagree with.
The new Development Team are working on new ideas all of the time, in line with the mandates that UWE gives them.
This.
As a community, we need to stop expecting things to happen in the next 5 minutes. We need to be patient and open to any changes. Try the changes, if they honestly don't work, they will be tweaked/reverted. Case in point - Atmospheric Territories (which by the way I absolutely love and would love to see back in the game, but was essentially killed by rancorous comments from certain subsets of the community).
I have every hope for the future of NS2. I believe it is in exactly the right hands to make it the success it deserves to be.
Would be more happy to help fund a new project in the NS timeline maybe on another engine where previous mistakes will not be repeated again. This train has already left and all we are left with now is a minority of hopefuls and a mere shadow of a competitive community inhabited with trolls and lastly a rookie population whose IQ rests in the double digits.
I think it's time to let go and breathe life into a new project and to stop flogging a dead horse which has been long over due.
When the first several thoughts ("it's failed", "let it die", "this isn't negative", "the best is yet to come") so contradict each other, I'm left to debate whether the post (the text, nevermind its author) has a tired flare for the dramatic or is just really sloppy at expressing itself, and, given that it's a tall wall in and of itself, I'm inclined to just wait for the same thought to come along from a text more efficient at expressing its points.
If my server is still hosting games every night when the title dies, someone please PM me so I know to take it down.
But seriously, this thread would be a lot less complicated if the PDT would tell us what are the big changes they said would come.
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
It's not new anymore.
He said "big".
If I had a million dollars, I would build NS3 and all your goodies.
You know how it ends...
I don't speak for UWE, but I would be very surprised if they attempted to develop a competitive game again.
And even if it were a remote possibility, I'm sorry but the changes you mention are not enough to put the game on the same level as Overwatch as you presumed.
You'd have to redesign NS from the ground up, more than likely remove most RTS elements, lower the skill ceiling, and severely simplify the game.
It would be NS universe, but not the NS you know. Such a move would still be risky, investment wise.
As much as I've railed against F2P... I know that it is more than likely the eventual end game for NS2. I just hope we can get everything in place before that day comes.
So aside from seeing Hive v2/3, Revamp Tutorial, New Main Menu and Shadow Fade/Onos, what do you consider to be 'big'?
You seem grumpy. Have your feathers been ruffled?
@IronHorse good to see that you awesomed this guy. Great forum culture you're encouraging.
As for the rest of your post IH, i made no assumptions about it being a AAA title like overwatch, i refered to the style of community focussed development they do (which uwe already partially does) but made reference to the fact that nothing is off limits ( eg balance and mechanics). Both uwe and this community will need to get over the fear od change moving forward (assuming there is a forward).