So much negativity here.
Swiftspear
Custim tital Join Date: 2003-10-29 Member: 22097Members
Custim tital Join Date: 2003-10-29 Member: 22097Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Lets compliment the NS team</div>No empty stuff like "good job guys!", if the NS team wants to feel good about the yes man public all they have to do is look at their back accounts or the user score on metacritic (9.3 is very high) In this thread post aspects about NS2 that you really deeply like, things that you think were very well done.
I'll go first.
I'm a big gameplay design nut, I read Sirlin's, Mojang & Notch's, Frictional games', Jonathan Blow's, etc blogs, anywhere I can get information, techniques or ideas about game design. So I want to compliment Flayra specifically on the following game design elements.
- Removing HMG from the game and bolting a weapon with a similar role on the Exo was a stroke of brilliance. Jetpacks in the hands of high skilled players were an absurdity in the late game in NS, largely because weilding an HMG made them godly against basically everything. The only downside with the increase in expense over shotguns, but bolting the whole thing to the Exo and making that the only way to get it was REALLY smart. It was the one thing that single-handedly made the onos a viable lifeform for NS2, where it was a joke in NS1.
- The alien commander added a whole other level of depth to the game. NS was already a very deep game, but issues like controlling cyst network and khammander abilities have SO much potential for NS2. I do feel there's more work to be done on it, it's not finished yet. But when I first heard the idea of the alien commander being talked about, I didn't really see how it would work for the game compared to NS. When I look at it now, it's SO interesting, and there's SO much potential for the alien commander, I really can't wait to see where this game is going from here on out.
- Marine weapons are all sidegrades, and not direct upgrades. This makes the starcraft/rts fan in me grin so much! Because things are sidegrades of eachother, it's almost never better to have 6 shotguns than a composition of many different loadouts. 6 of any given weapon alone is weaker than mixing and matching things to fill all the roles you need. There's more work to be done here tweaking things, but it makes NS2 so interesting, trying to root out ideal compositions for specific scenarios, deciding when and why to buy the gun you buy. The metagames for this kind of thing in the competitive community are going to shift constantly. How many GL's do you have and what should they be doing? What about flame throwers? Do you buy mines or save for shotguns later? There are a lot of different choices to make that will potentially make the game shifts very interesting. It's all a tiny bit broken now because marine p-res flow is a bit too fast, but that's nice for the pubs, so it's very forgivable.
I also just wanted to give Max a huge thumbs up for building a frankly amazing engine. It has it's bugs, but spark is an engine that legitimately competes with many of the modern FPS engines everyone's addicted to using today. I'm not sure it was the right choice to go with spark, but it sure was amazing that it was even possible! Engines are usually something you see teams of people work on for generations!
I'll go first.
I'm a big gameplay design nut, I read Sirlin's, Mojang & Notch's, Frictional games', Jonathan Blow's, etc blogs, anywhere I can get information, techniques or ideas about game design. So I want to compliment Flayra specifically on the following game design elements.
- Removing HMG from the game and bolting a weapon with a similar role on the Exo was a stroke of brilliance. Jetpacks in the hands of high skilled players were an absurdity in the late game in NS, largely because weilding an HMG made them godly against basically everything. The only downside with the increase in expense over shotguns, but bolting the whole thing to the Exo and making that the only way to get it was REALLY smart. It was the one thing that single-handedly made the onos a viable lifeform for NS2, where it was a joke in NS1.
- The alien commander added a whole other level of depth to the game. NS was already a very deep game, but issues like controlling cyst network and khammander abilities have SO much potential for NS2. I do feel there's more work to be done on it, it's not finished yet. But when I first heard the idea of the alien commander being talked about, I didn't really see how it would work for the game compared to NS. When I look at it now, it's SO interesting, and there's SO much potential for the alien commander, I really can't wait to see where this game is going from here on out.
- Marine weapons are all sidegrades, and not direct upgrades. This makes the starcraft/rts fan in me grin so much! Because things are sidegrades of eachother, it's almost never better to have 6 shotguns than a composition of many different loadouts. 6 of any given weapon alone is weaker than mixing and matching things to fill all the roles you need. There's more work to be done here tweaking things, but it makes NS2 so interesting, trying to root out ideal compositions for specific scenarios, deciding when and why to buy the gun you buy. The metagames for this kind of thing in the competitive community are going to shift constantly. How many GL's do you have and what should they be doing? What about flame throwers? Do you buy mines or save for shotguns later? There are a lot of different choices to make that will potentially make the game shifts very interesting. It's all a tiny bit broken now because marine p-res flow is a bit too fast, but that's nice for the pubs, so it's very forgivable.
I also just wanted to give Max a huge thumbs up for building a frankly amazing engine. It has it's bugs, but spark is an engine that legitimately competes with many of the modern FPS engines everyone's addicted to using today. I'm not sure it was the right choice to go with spark, but it sure was amazing that it was even possible! Engines are usually something you see teams of people work on for generations!
Comments
BUT, I love this game, I love flame throwers. This game is awesoem amazing fun especially tonight with mega awesome games of awesomenesss.
Competition players dont like it when you nerf skulk jump and dont tell them.
A true glimmer of hope that the future of gaming isn't filled with COD/BF clones :-) .
UWE did do a good job on NS2, however. Their greatest achievement, to my mind, is that they were able to create a competitive shooter (by that I don't mean organized competition, but the gameplay "genre") without "free to play (pay to win)", kill streaks or other similar gimmicks that infest all modern games, in the current game development climate. That is no small feat.
There are of course many other things worth mentioning, but I don't want to make this a long post.
I agree. All source games are just so smooth and fluid, its a really bad feel. NS2 on the other hand...
What I'd like to express the most is that they've built a fantastic foundation for the future of this game. It made for a more difficult launch, but it sets the stage for the future. It's only going to get better from here. And despite all those obstacles throughout development, this team managed to pull through and deliver. There are several areas in the game that surpassed my expectations. Even the performance, which many people complain about, was better for 1.0 than I thought it was going to be based on beta performance. Obviously I'd love 120FPS and ALL THE FEATURES, but I'm still having fun NOW, and that's what matters most.
Here's to the great work they've done, and here's to the future of NS2!
Please this thread is SUPPOSED to be about things UWE did right. Put the heavy negativity aside and try to be as positive as you can. For people who really just hate this game and see little to no hope left in it, this isn't the thread for you. Too bad you're the minority, but it's really not right to blame UWE, one of the many out of hundreds of gaming companies, for failing to be the one to make the game you really wanted. If you can't go to another forum, at least go to another thread.
I admit like I've said before the stuff you come up with is really funny sometimes..
But it starts to become less funny when every single post is basically flamebaiting the developers ._.
I agree with the excessive negativity on the forums. It's actually discouraged me from wanting to even come into NS2 General Discussion. The NS2 community is known for being helpful in game but come on to the forms (General Discussion specifically) and it's the opposite. I'd almost like to see a new <i>strictly</i> moderated subforum created for the discussion of NS2.
Anyway, things I think they did right;
-Marines can buy their own gear
-Aliens have a commander (unified res model)
-The 'feel' of spark. It's hard to explain in words, but I can tell immediately when I'm playing a game on a crappy engine like Source. Aside from certain restrictions (like no marine bhop) Spark feels just like how NS1 felt. That's a big achievement because it's so critical yet so difficult to put a finger on.
-The Marine commander has been massively improved over it's NS1 counterpart. The NS1 commander was nothing more than a babysitter who dropped medkits. The addition of AI controlled units allows the commander something extra to do while still supporting his team.
-Streamlining hotkeys for certain abilities/attacks. No longer do I have to press 2, +attack, invprev, +attack just to leap and then bite as a skulk.
-Initial balance. Compare NS1 1.0 to NS2 1.0 and you'll see a world of difference. Right now every chamber has a use right from the get go. Whether it be camo, celerity, or cara/regen. The balance isn't perfect, but lessons learned in NS1 have clearly carried over into NS2.
I'd rather wait a bit longer before seeing the menu and have the game preload stuff that it is going to need in every match (HUD, infestation, structure, character and weapon models and textures) rather than waiting for it to load that stuff for two minutes or longer on every new map again.
Natural Selection takes everything I enjoy in gaming and puts it into one amazing experience. The combination of FPS and RTS elements, melee combat, tactics, cooperation and the thick atmosphere clearly inspired by Starcraft and Aliens (with a small drop of Doom 3 here and there perhaps) - all brilliantly pieced together to create a true masterpiece. And finally, the crowning aspect of Natural Selection 2 - it is hard. A rare feature in modern gaming, where most games have a pitifully low skill ceiling. NS2 reminds me of the good old days of Quake and Unreal Tournament, when fresh players were little more than punching bags for the experienced.
Another amazing aspect of Natural Selection is the community. Most people found on the servers are kind and helpful, easing the learning process. I really enjoy playing in a team with many mike-using players, constantly reporting enemy positions and coordinating our next moves. It's quite telling that the level of cooperation in NS2 public games is often comparable to that found in competitive matches in some other games.
In my opinion Unknown Worlds gave us something truly amazing and deserving highest praise. Hats off to them.
Wasn't such a big deal or that scary in NS1 when someone was in HA but in NS2 it feels like a real game changer when someone gets ahold of one. First time I jumped into one it was awesome as well.
The only thing I really feel is an issue (and it was the same in NS1) is where you need a commander for each team but I still have quite a few games where nobody wants to go commander and you're basically waiting for the end. I can jump in as alien comm, place a few cysts and take resource towers because it's so simple to contribute something.
I think it would be nice if there was some way to ensure every team on every server had at least a commander and I'm not even sure how you would go about doing this.
Perhaps you could have a preference checkbox like: Marine, Alien, Marine Comm, Alien Comm and then you would know at the server browser level if there are Comm preferenced players in the server you're joining. Kind of like match-making.
And I think on top of this I would really love some sort of player statistics/achievements system where you can see the total amount of marines/aliens/won games and the amount of times you've won a game as commander for each team etc.
Also want more maps :D
Seeing as I intend to develop games myself, I love you for this. All of the comments in your Lua documents made it extremely simple to break down how Lua is structured and learn it without any sort of guide.
Honestly, I have only one gripe with the way you're doing things right now. Please don't balance based on win/loss. Get yourself a nice spectator client built, and watch what happens.
That aside, let me say, "Thank you, so very, very much!"
UWE is imo doing something that can't be done better. For me this is my favorite game since a very long time... A real hardcore multiplayer game, wich I love.
There aren't just enough games that have the same multiplayer experience as NS2 since all the HL1 mods...
There should be only 1 very important thing that UWE must remember at all time:
==> : Message to UWE:
Dear UWE,
Keep the game skill based! There are alot of new-players (read: new gamers, young players (the age) that are used to the newest game merchandises ...) that don't even like improving their skills. They all want an easy game where you can be good from the very start!
IMO a multiplayer game should be very skill based, where players who enjoy the game can improve their skills and be very good.
Games like TS, VS, ESF, Hidden are all kinda skill-based: the longer you play, how longer you practice, how more you try, how more you die and fail, will -at the end- make you a pro player!
Short: Don't make the both sides to easy and easy to play. Make it hard and enjoyable (but ofcourse this is my opinion, wich i hope most people will agree with)
I hope you can understand my crappy english :p
Anyway, keep up the good work UWE, and thank you for the entertainment you give me in my free time!!! I really enjoy playing your game(s). Just keep it skill-based with stuff like walljumping, bhoping, etc etc etc etc..
Ty
Specific things I love? The exos in general. When I turned on the spotlight for the first time, I grinned. I love the way the BWWAAAARRTTT minigun sound echoes through half the map.
I love the depth, especially for the alien commander with all the different abilities you can use, if you can learn how to do it effectively.
I love it when the lights go out in a heavily-defended marine base.
I love it when skulks pour out of the goddamned walls. I love leaping silently from the ceiling onto a lone marine's head.
I love some of the insane comebacks I've seen, where a dominant team doesn't press their advantage or leaves an opening, and the defenders snipe a victory.
I love zooming about the place with blink, and flying as a lerk.
I love the way onoses make the walls rattle. And how terrifying it is to see one charging down the corridor towards you at full speed.
And so much more. Awesome game! Fact is!
Well played, UWE, well played...
I’ve been a part of this community for over a decade and the work and talent put in by this team has never ceased to amaze me.
When I first starting playing NS1 it blew me away, there was nothing else like it at the time, really there still isn’t. God knows how many countless hours I spent playing that game, some of the epic 3 hour back and forth battles are easily my favorite moments in gaming.
To see them continue with this same brilliant game and bring it into the future is awesome. The game is still brilliant and I know this community and team have the talent and drive and keep improving upon it.
I’m hooked and I’ll be here as long as I have a computer.
- Unlocks / levels / ranks etc.
- Iron sights / aiming
- Sniper rifles
- Single player
- DLCs
I just watched "The People vs George Lucas" last night. Lot's of parallels with NS2 development & the community's reaction. Actually, it seems to be the norm for fan to creator relationships as new versions or reimaginings are released.
But George Lucas deserves all the grief he gets. :)
Specific things I love? The exos in general. When I turned on the spotlight for the first time, I grinned. I love the way the BWWAAAARRTTT minigun sound echoes through half the map.
I love the depth, especially for the alien commander with all the different abilities you can use, if you can learn how to do it effectively.
I love it when the lights go out in a heavily-defended marine base.
I love it when skulks pour out of the goddamned walls. I love leaping silently from the ceiling onto a lone marine's head.
I love some of the insane comebacks I've seen, where a dominant team doesn't press their advantage or leaves an opening, and the defenders snipe a victory.
I love zooming about the place with blink, and flying as a lerk.
I love the way onoses make the walls rattle. And how terrifying it is to see one charging down the corridor towards you at full speed.
And so much more. Awesome game! Fact is!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I forgot to mention this, there are so many things like this in NS2, where the game really feels super nicely polished and the atmosphere is palpable. Not every game does that very well at all. NS2 is really a gem in that regard.
But it starts to become less funny when every single post is basically flamebaiting the developers ._.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd say it's around half my posts not all
What I would really like to show appreciation to UWE for is the continued after launch patches and improvements. Developers who continue to enthusiastically improve and add to their games after you have bought them are my favourite type of developers.
On another forum I have seen people whinging about NS2 in one sentence then comparing it to BF3 in the next. It’s like they had forgotten how frequently patches were released for PC BF3. Dice decided to berk it up by only releasing PC patches at the same time as console patches, which were months apart due to some kind of fee arrangement allegedly. So you would wait 3 months with a broken game only for them to fix some things and break others, then repeat. The reasoning behind this? I don’t know. I cannot see any reason not have released the PC patches frequently. They could have used PC as a testing ground for balance even. But no, one can only assume Dice didn’t give a flying F#^* about people who had bought the game on PC. They were more interested in wringing a few dollars out of the player base with some “new†unimaginative expansion maps and pay or grind to unlock weapons.
This is where in my view UWE is like the polar opposite of Dice and really excels.
For example patch comes out -> B231 -> some things need fixed -> fixed in 232 a day later. Frequent patches are a good thing people!
Also another positive is allowing mods and custom maps. It will certainly extend the life of the game.
+1 on the no unlocks, ranks or any of that COD/BF manure. I hate that stuff so much, I’m sure it’s geared towards allowing people with low skills to have the upper hand on someone new who if given the same unlocks would probably beat them in no time. I love that at the start of the round the only differentiator between two skulks or two marines is the person sitting at the computer controlling them.