New player - disappointed
Jowjow
Join Date: 2012-12-30 Member: 176802Members
Join Date: 2012-12-30 Member: 176802Members
Bought the game a couple of weeks ago and this weekend was the first chance I've had to really run the game through its paces. I'll say this: I've been gaming a long time, 20+ years, and I don't think I've ever encountered a game (MOBAs included) that is so unintuitive and absolutely ruthless to new players. I fought through horrific game after horrific game tonight trying to be patient, getting one-hit by skulks all night long while being seemingly unable to do the same against enemy marines, then switching sides and watching myself suddenly need to hit marines 5-6 times to take them down. I've tried changing video settings in an effort to smooth out the engine to make shooting skulks a little easier with little success. I've read a lot of advice threads and most of what I've read makes sense but at this point, from an admittedly newb perspective, I feel like the combat is so fiddly, a problem compounded by an engine with noticeable performance issues, that it's just not a game I feel like investing the time into to improve. Perhaps as the game matures I may come back to it to check it out again, but as of right now I'm pretty disappointed with my purchase.
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Comments
The game is harder than most games to pick up, but not particularly difficult if you show the smallest amount of interest in learning how to play. There really isn't THAT much to it.
Of course, this is coming from somebody who played ns1 - and I sympathise that there is no proper tutorial mode that can easily show you the basics (beyond explore mode - although a lot of the information is already in there), and that instead you have to rely on being proactive and/or relying on the community to learn the game. People are generally willing to give pointers if you're new and show an interest in how to play and you listen to their advice.
Dunno quite how bad your performance is, and I respect that if it's really bad that no amount of learning the game will increase your enjoyment of it. The game is relatively fast paced, thus your ability in combat is severely reduced at low fps. First patch in the new year should hopefully increase performance substantially, and if you drop the game for now, I'd recommend at least trying it after the game has been optimized better, as your enjoyment will probably increase.
Give it time and it'll grow on you. You'll find out what works and what doesn't. Hell, the first time I went up against Exos I thought they were effectively invincible. When I got my first Exo kill a light went off in my brain. With enough experience and a little help along the way you'll be doing just fine.
I do agree with the performance issues. While my video card doesn't skip a beat, the game bottlenecks on the CPU, using 2 cores to the max in intense situations. It's not enough to really hurt my ability, but it is kind of annoying. I'd like to see CPU performance addressed just as much as you do.
Overall:
- Skulks take 3 hits to kill a marine with no armor if all are direct 75 damage hits, your accuracy must be horrible if you are consistently getting glancing blows 25/50 damage bites which occur when you hit a marine on the side. I also imagine you're one of those players that runs along the floor and holds down LMB while running around marine feet and claim they are too difficult. You should be wall-walking and timing your bites and knowing when to be aggressive or evasive.
- Marines with poor aim really struggle in this game especially vs decent skulks. This isn't call of duty or battlefield, you need to be good to be consistent.
- Your team needs to communicate to win. A team without a single person communicating is going to be a disaster, pickup the mic and talk to people even if you are a noob. Call out incoming attacks, remind the commander of an upgrade, ask him to place a structure, etc.
- Performance and slight balance issues are the only problems I have with this game with skulks being too strong early game unless your marines have excellent aim.
- This game is tough for a lot of players to get into but when you get invested, the experience of an epic 45 minute game is unparalleled in gaming even by MOBAs or RTS games.
As an example, I've been trying to greatly improve my rifle accuracy vs skulks lately as I was really bad before but since trying to improve I'm finding myself doing significantly better on marine and quite often leading my team in average pub servers. Finally, marine is more about accuracy and positioning whereas alien is more about movement, ambush and flanking.
my performance isn't that bad overall. my mobo and cpu are a little over 4 yrs old, an E8400 (3.0 DC). I just upgraded from a GEforce GTX 260 to a 570 about a month ago (literally the same day as I bought NS2) but it feels like RAM and CPU are the real bottlenecks here. When I built that system 4 gigs was plenty, but for NS2 especially I've been seeing disk cache slowdowns that I just don't see in other games. You just really can't have that when you're trying to aim precisely to hit skulks that are rapidly jumping all over the place.
My performance so far really hasn't been that bad. I'm nearly breaking even in terms of K:D, even as a Marine... what's the most frustrating, though, is watching good skulk players basically take out half the marine team on their own. I can't even tell you how many times last night I watched one well-played skulk take out 2 or 3 marines without breaking a sweat, while that same behavior was never witnessed from the other perspective. I'll also say this: there is more to the damage model than what is being discussed here, because I was on the receiving end of a LOT of one-hit skulk kills.
Rookie servers: no. A friend of mine was doing the server hunting and we ended up mixing it up with a LOT of really seasoned players, judging by their play.
Marines struggling vs. good skulks and skulks being too strong early-game is exactly what I'm experiencing and is the crux of the problem. I imagine this is partially the product of so many new players joining as a result of Steam sales and gravitating toward Marines because they expect gameplay to be intuitive and that WILL get better over time...
All that is pretty annoying to me, but an even bigger issue imo is navigation to a new player is incredibly frustrating. In a game where knowing where you are and where to go is so vitally important, having to constantly pull up the minimap manually to reorient yourself and figure out where certain rooms are is REALLY disruptive and wrecks the immersion for me. It's better for marines with their always-on minimap and current location label, but for the aliens i basically find myself sitting on the minimap button and that's just really no fun. I realize some of this, especially for the aliens, is by design, but I think the game would benefit greatly from an improved navigation system that helps players get where they're needed without having to resort to hardcore map memorization and/or spending half the game or more with the minimap key held down.
Sometimes this happens, and I believe it's easier to take out 2-3 marines as a skulk than it is to take out 2-3 skulks as a marine. This is intentional, at least early game. In the extreme early game, skulks are awesome, but the strategy for marines at that point needs to be tech, defense and resources, not attacking. Skulks will attack early game frequently, and the reason is because <i>it works</i>. a group a good vanilla skulks can take out a group of good vanilla marines. But a group of teched up skulks will almost always die to a group of teched up marines. Once shotguns come out, then skulks aren't an issue for a team of marines. The trick (as marines) is to stay together and cover each other until you get the tech needed to survive.
<!--quoteo(post=2053724:date=Dec 31 2012, 10:11 AM:name=Jowjow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jowjow @ Dec 31 2012, 10:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2053724"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All that is pretty annoying to me, but an even bigger issue imo is navigation to a new player is incredibly frustrating. In a game where knowing where you are and where to go is so vitally important, having to constantly pull up the minimap manually to reorient yourself and figure out where certain rooms are is REALLY disruptive and wrecks the immersion for me. It's better for marines with their always-on minimap and current location label, but for the aliens i basically find myself sitting on the minimap button and that's just really no fun. I realize some of this, especially for the aliens, is by design, but I think the game would benefit greatly from an improved navigation system that helps players get where they're needed without having to resort to hardcore map memorization and/or spending half the game or more with the minimap key held down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is something that's going to be true to some extent no matter what. The maps are huge and need to be huge. It's a difficult problem all around, and it's improved in huge amounts over NS1 with how detailed the maps are and the current navigation system. There's still ways that it could be improved (I'm not a big fan of the arrows on the ground, I liked the old dead-space style line from the beta, and aliens need something as well) but nothing is going to beat just playing the maps enough to know them. I'd stick with one map until you know it an understand it, then move on to another, it's how I got used to NS1 maps.
Okay, then answer me this: if the marines are at such a disadvantage early-game, what's to prevent the aliens from gaining map control, establishing a resource advantage, and just continually grinding the marines down?
<!--quoteo(post=2053733:date=Dec 31 2012, 08:22 AM:name=6john)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (6john @ Dec 31 2012, 08:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2053733"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is something that's going to be true to some extent no matter what. The maps are huge and need to be huge. It's a difficult problem all around, and it's improved in huge amounts over NS1 with how detailed the maps are and the current navigation system. There's still ways that it could be improved (I'm not a big fan of the arrows on the ground, I liked the old dead-space style line from the beta, and aliens need something as well) but nothing is going to beat just playing the maps enough to know them. I'd stick with one map until you know it an understand it, then move on to another, it's how I got used to NS1 maps.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Map size is fine - deciding to have every map have completely different room names I think contributes a lot to the confusion and exponentially increases the time it takes to learn the maps. Sticking to one map is a good idea.
Sticking around for the conversation, cus i still find the game very interesting, but I think I'm going to be taking a break for while to play some other things and see what comes down patchwise.
Other than early game skulks, bile is the only other component I find to be too efficient also exos being too detrimental to the team other than defense of bases and escorting ARCs to kill enemy bases. In particular, map abusing gorges are unbelievably infuriating to play against. Without jetpackers it's like having a GL marine that is almost unkillable and with no whips present just raining hell down your base with almost nothing you can do about it. Gorges like this on maps like smelting refinery and docking generator completely change the game.
Game is early in release so balance is something that is being worked on constantly, StarCraft 2 wasn't even close to balanced at release and now is in a spiral of zerg winning tournaments left and right. Even minor balance changes have can have a COLOSSAL impact on the entire game.
Lastly, this game requires dedication to be anything close to resembling good and that's what I'm working on right now is to just improve my marine play so I can deal with early game skulks better although it's a tough road thanks to the isometric gameplay.
shotguns and/or armor 1 are a big leap for marines against skulks. Armor 1 requires another bit for skulks and shotguns can one-shot a skulk. With specific upgrade situations one team is going to be better than the other, like rock paper scissors. For the first minute or 2, skulks are better than marines. but once marines start getting upgrades, skulks quickly become worse than marines. that leapfrogging system happens throughout the game. Aliens get hive 2, leap and blink with a fade, and marines are down a notch again. Marines get phase gates, another tech point and jet packs and they're back up. aliens get onos, third hive and stomp and they're back up, marines get exos and they're about even in the end game (ideally) but there are way too many factors here to spell out what balances the game. having an extra res node at any of those points could move the advantage to a different team, or having an exceptionally awesome player could change things as well.
Balance isn't perfect now, but the game needs to be balanced as a whole, it can't be balanced in pieces or it will never work.
I don't see how you get 1-hit when at game start a skulk takes 3 or so bites to kill you, and can increase to 5 or more with upgrades.
How about working as a team and not walking around on your own. How about and standing far down a corridor with your long range weapon instead of going close quarters.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->seemingly unable to do the same against enemy marines,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->while that same behavior was never witnessed from the other perspective<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your team couldn't shoot straight, so blame the game? What about that marine I saw in a pub server yesterday who had 40:2 k:d? The best team wins. If your team are useless then you lose. That's sport.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Okay, then answer me this: if the marines are at such a disadvantage early-game<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They're not.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All that is pretty annoying to me, but an even bigger issue imo is navigation to a new player is incredibly frustrating.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are arrows on the ground if you have a waypoint. There will always be a need for a map. It's an RTS, so you need the overview map to even know what's happening.
I picked up NS2 on sale from Steam (which I'm sure is super aggravating to seasoned players), but, I was super surprised by how much I dug it.
Anyway, I think my first 4 hours with the game were pretty lackluster. The game definitely needs some bull###### 10 or 15 minute tutorial (that's not a YouTube video) that puts you up against some immobile bots and you learn how the basic mechanics work.
But, after 10 hours of playing, y'know, I kinda wish there was more advanced layers to get into. Hell, I even came to this forum to learn s'more junk about this game.
<!--quoteo(post=2053949:date=Dec 31 2012, 05:16 PM:name=Stardog)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Stardog @ Dec 31 2012, 05:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2053949"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about working as a team and not walking around on your own. How about and standing far down a corridor with your long range weapon instead of going close quarters.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I did that. Especially early on I'd often just follow someone because I had no idea where I was going and figured being with someone else would get me where I needed to go and keep me safe. Did you read that part about being irritated at skulks taking out 2 or 3 marines at a time? How about extrapolating that for a moment instead of assuming I'm a brainless idiot. Perhaps you have some other succinct words of wisdom, like that pressing the fire button tends to keep marines alive a little longer? I'm all ears.
The rest... I find it somewhat ironic that you think the balance is fine when the vast majority of players I've encountered feel that early-game skulks are stronger, but party on, man.
How about working as a team and not walking around on your own. How about and standing far down a corridor with your long range weapon instead of going close quarters.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you serious or are you just trolling? Everybody knows a marine can and does, time and time again go down with one bite from a skulk at game start. It nedds to be solid bite but one bite is all that is required. Once marines get some armor upgrades it takes more.
You know, you have a real condescending attitude. And when you reply with answers completely wrong like above on top of that, you are not helping any new players or the community in any way.
I think you mean Children's Online Daycare. COD.
You know, you have a real condescending attitude. And when you reply with answers completely wrong like above on top of that, you are not helping any new players or the community in any way.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nope, it's never and never will be one bite. A full bite does 75 damage, a marine at the start has 160 effective hp with armor.
I really don't know what to tell you man, but in the little playing time i've logged I've seen one-hits often... usually not super early game, but not long afterward. maybe the aliens have the damage upgrade while the marines don't have any of the armor upgrades? I have no explanation, just telling you what I've experienced.
The only way that's possible is if you've only played on a combat mod server. That is not NS2, that is an NS2 mod. Do you even know what game you're playing?
Aliens don't have a damage upgrade. You are probably being hit by a parasite when getting killed in 2 hits. Simply put - 3 full bites to kill a 0 armor marine or 2 full bites + 1 parasite. It's impossible with anything more than 75 hp to be killed in one bite from a skulk.
Lerk does 60 damage per bite with poison damage overtime
Fade does 81 damage per swipe
Skulk does 75 damage per bite and 10 damage per parasite
Onos does 100 damage per gore I think, I don't play onos much
Gorge does 40 damage per spit
Marine hp as follows:
- 160 0 armor upgrade
- 200 1 armor upgrade
- 240 2 armor upgrade
- 280 3 armor upgrade
Armor upgrades mean a lot. From 0-3, fade goes from 2 hit kills to 4 hit kills.
Moderator: feel free to close this thread.
NS2 automatically downloads mods when you connect to a modded server. These will show as yellow in the server list.
Another possibility is that the skulk has silence, which makes it quite a bit more difficult to notice that you're hit at all. As a silence skulk I can usually get in a bite or 2 (or even a kill) to a marine from behind before they realize i'm there at all.
Another possibility is that 2 skulks attack at the same time and one parasites before. parasites are easy to not notice, and 2 skulks biting simultaneously will kill you instantly if both are accurate.
my performance isn't that bad overall. my mobo and cpu are a little over 4 yrs old, an E8400 (3.0 DC). I just upgraded from a GEforce GTX 260 to a 570 about a month ago (literally the same day as I bought NS2) but it feels like RAM and CPU are the real bottlenecks here. When I built that system 4 gigs was plenty, but for NS2 especially I've been seeing disk cache slowdowns that I just don't see in other games. You just really can't have that when you're trying to aim precisely to hit skulks that are rapidly jumping all over the place.
My performance so far really hasn't been that bad. I'm nearly breaking even in terms of K:D, even as a Marine... what's the most frustrating, though, is watching good skulk players basically take out half the marine team on their own. I can't even tell you how many times last night I watched one well-played skulk take out 2 or 3 marines without breaking a sweat, while that same behavior was never witnessed from the other perspective. I'll also say this: there is more to the damage model than what is being discussed here, because I was on the receiving end of a LOT of one-hit skulk kills.
Rookie servers: no. A friend of mine was doing the server hunting and we ended up mixing it up with a LOT of really seasoned players, judging by their play.
Marines struggling vs. good skulks and skulks being too strong early-game is exactly what I'm experiencing and is the crux of the problem. I imagine this is partially the product of so many new players joining as a result of Steam sales and gravitating toward Marines because they expect gameplay to be intuitive and that WILL get better over time...
All that is pretty annoying to me, but an even bigger issue imo is navigation to a new player is incredibly frustrating. In a game where knowing where you are and where to go is so vitally important, having to constantly pull up the minimap manually to reorient yourself and figure out where certain rooms are is REALLY disruptive and wrecks the immersion for me. It's better for marines with their always-on minimap and current location label, but for the aliens i basically find myself sitting on the minimap button and that's just really no fun. I realize some of this, especially for the aliens, is by design, but I think the game would benefit greatly from an improved navigation system that helps players get where they're needed without having to resort to hardcore map memorization and/or spending half the game or more with the minimap key held down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once you see a seasoned marine destroy aliens early game, you might change your opinion on the dying to skulks too easy thing.
A well played marine will have a greater scoreboard impact than a well played skulk. Early non carapace/celerity skulks are paper thin and if you utilise distance, there is no possible way they can close the gap on you unless you are zerged or are just really bad at the aiming thing. Most new marines struggle because they put themselves in bad positions or pay no attention to audio and map alerts. There is also the meta-game knowing the maps and where to expect to be hit from and the best places to position yourself accordingly.
One hit kills are not possible. You might be facing camo skulks (sometimes a gimmicky first upgrade) that will bite you twice before you probably even realise.
Minimap. I bound the overhead map to a side mouse button. You need to use it. It's not a button to be reserved somewhere off to the side to look at from time to time. That's just part of the game. The game is about territory and control. Cutting expansion angles off the opposition, hitting buildings as far away from the red dots as possible, taking unclaimed ground etc. Everything flashes on the map when something is happening. You'll learn all the map section names over time. Understanding territory control and watching the map is just another dimension a player needs to adapt to. It might seem boring but it sure as hell is difficult to win if nobody pays attention to whats happening around them.
Hang in there. It's steep at times but the rewards are worth it.
Moderator: feel free to close this thread.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When an influx of newcomers who play the game for 5 minutes start inventing stuff about the game (such as skulks killing a marine with 100hp+ when their bite only does 75 damage maximum), it's hard not to be condescending.
Although you did say you had already left and would maybe return - "Perhaps as the game matures I may come back to it to check it out again"
I assume you still have it installed and are playing it right now. It's one of the best PC games that currently exists, after all. :)
If you're playing on a rookie server and silently getting rocked, you're doing it wrong. Ask questions, ask for tips with whatever lifeform you're using, etc.
Also, for the record, i'm not "inventing" anything. Even though the game last night was a much better experience, I still experienced what I'd swear were one-hit kills, several of which occurred while I was crouched and meleeing away at cysts. Perhaps, like someone else suggested, it's a case of multiple attacks from the same or different skulks hitting simultaneously. If that's the case, fine, but it happens a little too often for me to think that's the case.
One other big annoyance from the game last night: moving from location to location via phase gates is extremely clunky. I'm aware that it appears to cycle to a different room each time you walk through a gate, but when you've got 4 or 5 gates up in various rooms this makes getting to a specific room really time-consuming. I'd love for the game to popup a list of possible locations to warp to rather than forcing you to walk through gates over and over just to get to a particular destination. (If I've missed something about how this actually works, let me know)