Congrats NS2! - Newb Issues Inside!
Dtere
Join Date: 2004-01-15 Member: 25349Members
Join Date: 2004-01-15 Member: 25349Members
Just wanted to say, this game has really came a long way in the past year. Last date played for me was October 2010. There is hardly any of the jittery bugs in the game anymore... it's really starting to feel fluid. I honestly didn't expect that many bugs / gameplay issues to be squashed that quickly. For that, good work!
Now, onto newb issues, that were really a deal-breaker for intuition of how to play the game:
1.) Units are the same color as buildings on the minimap. I am having one hell of a time identifying where my character is on the minimap. At first, I was looking for a grey character like the other skulks... kept getting confused between buildings and units not moving. I finally found my own character after hunting for it. I think a really quick 0.5 second ping with echo when you pull up the minimap on your current location would be helpful. Don't make it too bright that it would cluster the main screen, but make it bright and quick enough to be seen. It seems like the green character is hard to identify on the mini-map.
2.) Small jitters experienced (nothing like before, but still noticeable). When changing to a different gun, I notice it. When being bit by a skulk, I notice it. When pulling my gun out after building, I notice it.
3.) Armory is not intuitive how you get ammo. The game suggests I click on the armory by using "E", but nowhere is there text that identifies how to get ammo.
4.) Lastly, sounds. I kept hearing what sounded like a siege cannon next to every hive I spawned at, but could never find one. Also, having issues identifying 3D sounds (is a skulk coming behind me, or in front of me. Is the marine behind the wall to my left, or to my front).
Coming from a newb (but pro from NS1), I hope you understand that these problems are pretty hefty (but need to be fixed!). Hopefully these problems don't take too much development time to fix.
Now, onto newb issues, that were really a deal-breaker for intuition of how to play the game:
1.) Units are the same color as buildings on the minimap. I am having one hell of a time identifying where my character is on the minimap. At first, I was looking for a grey character like the other skulks... kept getting confused between buildings and units not moving. I finally found my own character after hunting for it. I think a really quick 0.5 second ping with echo when you pull up the minimap on your current location would be helpful. Don't make it too bright that it would cluster the main screen, but make it bright and quick enough to be seen. It seems like the green character is hard to identify on the mini-map.
2.) Small jitters experienced (nothing like before, but still noticeable). When changing to a different gun, I notice it. When being bit by a skulk, I notice it. When pulling my gun out after building, I notice it.
3.) Armory is not intuitive how you get ammo. The game suggests I click on the armory by using "E", but nowhere is there text that identifies how to get ammo.
4.) Lastly, sounds. I kept hearing what sounded like a siege cannon next to every hive I spawned at, but could never find one. Also, having issues identifying 3D sounds (is a skulk coming behind me, or in front of me. Is the marine behind the wall to my left, or to my front).
Coming from a newb (but pro from NS1), I hope you understand that these problems are pretty hefty (but need to be fixed!). Hopefully these problems don't take too much development time to fix.
Comments
This is an excellent suggestion. Knowing the maps inside and out is one of the most important things in NS, and map complexity is a big part of the game. I can't be the only person that runs around holding down "c" and I often spend several seconds right at the start wiggling my screen back and forth to try to help locate myself (my little icon on the map will wiggle too). If not the ping, then some sort of way of quickly notifying the player "this is you" on the minimap would be <i>very</i> helpful, especially for new players.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3.) Armory is not intuitive how you get ammo. The game suggests I click on the armory by using "E", but nowhere is there text that identifies how to get ammo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe it just automatically fills up your ammo, health, and armor.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->4.) Lastly, sounds. I kept hearing what sounded like a siege cannon next to every hive I spawned at, but could never find one. Also, having issues identifying 3D sounds (is a skulk coming behind me, or in front of me. Is the marine behind the wall to my left, or to my front).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To piggyback on this, greater differentiation between alien/marine sounds would be helpful. I rarely got kicked for "aimbotting" in ns1 because my aim wasn't that great, but I was semi-frequently kicked for "wallhacking" because I listened to the sound. Unfortunately in ns2, especially on metal floors, skulks and marines sound pretty identical.
Oh, and your player is green on the map and nothing else is.
Are two maps needed?
How can I enable vsync?
It can still be pretty tough to find yourself. Maybe this is my (mostly mild and irrelevant to daily life) color blindness in play, but I wasn't kidding about having to look around the map and waggle my mouse a lot to find my own little icon. I can sometimes spend 10-15 seconds looking before I find where I am, and that can be a pretty serious problem if a major push is happening somewhere.
Oh, and your player is green on the map and nothing else is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Had been some time since i played NS1 but the in-game map certainly is not the same.
It's either the scale beeing different or the colors, but it's really difficult to see at a quick glance who is where because using "grey" for teammates and team structures in such an dark game with such an dark map doesn't really help.
Sure the people who have been using the current map are happy there finnaly is one and are probably allready used to it.
But for people not used to the map it's allways looks like a cluster###### and adds to the overall chaos of the game that get's new players confused.
Shouldn't be too hard to change the colors for teammates and structures to something more "obvious" or bright so they stick out at first glance on the map, right now they look too much like "neutral" points on the map with them beeing grey too. At least that's what keeps me confusing, stuff looks "too much the same".
This.
I agree with the suggestion of making the unit and building icons a different color than gray. It is difficult to tell between the resource nodes/command point nodes and the built harvesters/hives/command chairs.
It's also annoying that the icons cover up the names of the areas that they're in.
This is what happens in almost every game of mine:
"Yeah, the marines are attacking us at uhhh..."
>checks map.
"uhh.....fffffff, the right side of the map? I don't know. Data core? Power Core? Something with a core."
It's either the scale beeing different or the colors, but it's really difficult to see at a quick glance who is where because using "grey" for teammates and team structures in such an dark game with such an dark map doesn't really help.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This bothers me too actually; shouldn't Kharaa be orange and Frontiersmen teal?
Though the NS1 map wasn't much better:
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/static/manual_files/images/interface_minimap.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
...Or was this the official one?:
<img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/ns_achio2/officialscreenshots/minimap_v2b5.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I agree with the suggestion of making the unit and building icons a different color than gray. It is difficult to tell between the resource nodes/command point nodes and the built harvesters/hives/command chairs.
It's also annoying that the icons cover up the names of the areas that they're in.
This is what happens in almost every game of mine:
"Yeah, the marines are attacking us at uhhh..."
>checks map.
"uhh.....fffffff, the right side of the map? I don't know. Data core? Power Core? Something with a core."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I also agree with this. It's pretty hard to tell the difference between the empty res/tech nodes and own buildings, and it's also very hard to tell where the enemy is attacking. You hear "Our hive/command station is under attack", then I'm like "omg, which hive? which command station?" - I check the map, but I cannot figure it out if there are enemies more than one place on it.
For the alien side of the map, it's a great idea to show the infested areas, but I'm not perfeclty sure we should see the dying infestation in red while not seeing which buildings are attacked. :)
+1 !!
this....
i cant tell you how often i make the mistake of getting issued a waypoint and then checking my mini map to see what room that waypoint is in, only to remember that its <u><b>never</b></u> been on the mini map.. i just have to follow that blue marker and hopefully dont need to plan an alternative route?! maybe then i ask my mute comm what room is that going to so i dont have to cut through deadly crossroads? theres definitely some room for improvement on the mini map side. but i do LOVE it, and use it constantly! a small white glow behind your own icon would do the trick.
The patch we released today had some minimap improvements.
Also, what about support for choosing monitor refresh rate together with resolution like most fps? And is there a max fps?
Still think that teammates and team buildings need an different color then "everything else", that way we maybe could shrink it back a little bit and still have everything easy to see? :D