I won't ever be making a 'goodbye NS2' thread, because I don't think anyone cares that much, but his post shouldn't be ignored. NS2 was probably successful enough for UWE's first game, and that's awesome. Assuming that's accurate, that's a pretty amazing achievement for an indie studio's first game.
Even if we don't compare NS2 to NS1 at all, but other modern games (LoL, DOTA2, SC2, CS:GO), and speaking from both a pub prescriptive (though it may apply to competitive as well) I feel like NS2 really lacks a lot of those big tense moments we see elsewhere. I think I have this impression because death seems so trivial and common. In the games I mentioned above, losing an army/team fight/2 members of your team can significantly set you behind. Even though your goal is to defeat your oppoents in these games, the games aren't constant battles, so when there is a team fight/battle/gunfire it's intense.
In NS2 I feel like it's the exact opposite. I'm constantly in combat and if I die, for the most part, it's not really a big deal. If I perform really well, again, it's not really a big deal. For example, if I solo two or three skulks I don't have enough time to follow up with something useful (like killing an RT). In another handful of seconds I'll have another wave of skulks on me. In the end, I don't feel like my performance, whether it be negative or positive, really has any impact on the outcome of the game. If I were to go back and compare this exact example to NS1, I would typically have enough time to significantly damage/kill the RT due to the larger maps. Living was so important because it meant map control.
I think the constant fighting actually decreases tension and encourages repetitive behavior from the players (going to the same combat hot spots over and over again). Then, when there is a really important moment or battle, I feel desensitized. I clench by butthole more in just about every other game I play because intense moments happen a handful of times and are meaningful. In NS2 I go 'oh, well, they bilebomed the powernode when I was walking down a hallway... so we lost now...'
You need to play on smaller servers, dude! Try out www.ensl.org for a much better gaming experience.
Some people like to see actual innovation in the gaming industry, I guess you're just not one of those people.
Yes, NS2 is dumbed down from NS1 so that it can appeal to more people. You'll have to admit that NS2 is more popular than NS1 was in terms of number of people who have actually played it. The general population is mildly retarded and have problems playing NS2...do you really think they could play NS1?
I don't think i have to admit that NS2 is more popular than NS1 was, even in terms of number of people who have actually played it.
Maybe it's just rose colored nostalgic glasses, but to me it feels/looks like NS2 is not even close to being as popular as NS1 had been in it's best times, as much as i wish that would actually be the case.
And that applies to the competitive side as the public side. In it's best days NS1 had a very vibrant and diverse German community. Several competitive teams, half a dozen servers with only Germans playing on them, which also helped new players getting into the game as they didn't run into an additional language barrier. NS2? Not even close to that in terms of public population or team diversity on the competitive side.
Tbh that's only to be expected, as the entry barrier to NS2 is much higher compared to what NS1's had been, due to NS1 being a free mod and NS2 an actual game you have to pay for if you want to get into it (Performance also factors into this).
But i still have to cringe when people claim that NS2 did manage to do what it set it out to do: Elevate NS to CoD like levels of popularity due to being more like CoD.
Yes NS2 is more like CoD than NS1, many of the freedoms that made NS1 a unique (and more difficult) experience are gone, for the sake of easing in players that rather want the "CoD FPS experience, without being held back by the RTS side" while not really offering something new in exchange. But did it really pay off in terms of having a much broader playerbase? Sadly, as much as i wish that would be true, i just don't see it. Maybe i'm totally off, maybe NS2's active population eclipses that of NS1 by far, i don't have any numbers for an hard comparison so i can only go with my gut-feeling.
The worst part about all this being that you can't even voice such concerns or observations anymore without a certain part of the community jumping at your throat for merely speaking your mind, even if that requires misinterpreting what one said in the first place. You either sing the "Everything is awesome!" song or your are an "Stupid new age CoD kiddie that's not part of the community". Is that really the way to go, shredding each other apart just for having contrary opinions and views?
And yes this post lacks constructive advice in terms of "what to do", but after all these years of participating, all those gifted away copies and all those fruitless attempts to get friends and old clanmates into the game, some people simply can't or don't want to do it anymore.
The fact that they worked on features like the spark engine and the graphics and everything else, when the main thing that NS1 vets cared about was the quality of the movement... IDK.
I care about the qualtiy of movement, and playing aliens or marines feels like walking in mush. Totally unappealing, and yes, NS2 is a different game, obviously, but its like you shouldnt take away one of the core principles - the snappy, precise, rewarding basic aspect of movement. Walking, jumping, skulking, fading, Jetpacking, everything. Its just completely ruined in NS2.
Yes, NS2 is my default game and obviously alot more fun than everything else, but thats only because I enjoyed NS1 so much.
Yeah, I'm going to have to second a lot of these critiques made by several people in this thread. I've never been much of a forum contributor, but I've read them throughout the development process and most of my views echo CWAG's views.
I got a lot of people to pre-order this game, probably over 20 (between NS1 vets, competitive battlefield players, and random other people). None of us play NS2. Not a single one. Performance and just boring, slow game play were the major contributors to this fact.
I tried playing throughout the development process. Thinking - hey! I wonder what they've done now, I hope they've improved it! It's come a long way and I'm not saying it hasn't, but the game just feels stagnant and wrong.
Movement is slow and boring. Skill based movement was a fun thing in NS1. People even made maps dedicated solely to bunny hopping and learning how to bunny hop effectively. Everyone could learn how to do it. Wall jumping is OK, but honestly - it's not very exciting. Waiting around in pre-game in competitive matches was even fun due to this mechanic, can't say that much for this game.
Animations are truly dreadful. Skulks bodies are snapping to random curves, turning their bodies in un-fluid ways as they slowly creep across the floor/wall/ceiling. Just watching these models turn like they're on a lazy susan makes me wonder "what the heck am I even looking at?"
I understand that NS2 wants to be different than NS1. I just don't understand why you couldn't take almost all of the features in NS1, get those correct and square first, then start adding features. The development process here just felt like "hey, let's add a flamethrower, that'd be cool," instead of focusing on more core drivers of the game.
The games are supposed to be quicker, but features like power nodes and the movement system slow it right back down. The game was always asymmetrical. What warranted the need for an alien commander then? Symmetry? The alien resource model is off. Personal resources allows people to have what they want, instead of what the commander wants you to have at the given point in the game.
I've played NS2 off and on, generally when patches come out. I've played this game "competitively." I play one round now and my eyes glaze over. I just think to myself "Why? Why isn't this game enjoyable?" Now I just throw it into the pile of what-ifs and what-could-have-been's.
It's a good prototype, but a game? Nope. Needs more development.
I play one round now and my eyes glaze over. I just think to myself "Why? Why isn't this game enjoyable?" Now I just throw it into the pile of what-ifs and what-could-have-been's.
It's odd on the first day gorgeous patch a few non rookie players reflected the same sentiments. Hard to pinpoint but the quality of movement and the base classes may be part of the issue. It does feel sort of a chore to play.
I think I read a post on how if they entire game was a perfect skulk vs marine in terms of fun, balance, and complex movement it would still be fun. The features still feel tacked on and not very enjoyable. For example the exo is a giant cool suit with heavy firepower but you soon see the disadvantages and how shotgun jetpack is better. Everything feels so restricted which is why you see the same things in competitive play most of the time. In fact shotgun jetpack is what awaits engame because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are pretty bad and exos as well in certain cases. Alien life forms are also becoming more limited for the sake of balance now. Either way I may sound like an amateur but I am just throwing in how I feel along with the others.
SMNC's forum actually has a forum rule that forbids "I quit" threads since "nothing good ever comes from them".
That's because SMNC is a terrible game and Uber is a terrible developer, and they don't need to know whenever one of their ~50 or so dedicated players quits, since it's a devastating blow to their money-grubbing pay-to-win schema.
But that's neither here nor there~
Pay to win? You can only buy cosmetic items and pros.
You can buy boosts to increase your intake of in game currency, but again you don't have to. Played with some old friends still active in the game last night, and we all played default endos and products (to not be recognized). Very fun.
Also they had the smoothest closed beta of any game I have ever play tested. You shouldn't hate on things with little-to-no information.
Smnc suffers from having a very high skill ceiling, which makes the game a complete meat grinder for new players (likely what you ran into when trying it). This is also Imo the exact reason this game has become a ghost town Imo.
Yeah, I'm going to have to second a lot of these critiques made by several people in this thread. I've never been much of a forum contributor, but I've read them throughout the development process and most of my views echo CWAG's views.
I got a lot of people to pre-order this game, probably over 20 (between NS1 vets, competitive battlefield players, and random other people). None of us play NS2. Not a single one. Performance and just boring, slow game play were the major contributors to this fact.
I tried playing throughout the development process. Thinking - hey! I wonder what they've done now, I hope they've improved it! It's come a long way and I'm not saying it hasn't, but the game just feels stagnant and wrong.
Movement is slow and boring. Skill based movement was a fun thing in NS1. People even made maps dedicated solely to bunny hopping and learning how to bunny hop effectively. Everyone could learn how to do it. Wall jumping is OK, but honestly - it's not very exciting. Waiting around in pre-game in competitive matches was even fun due to this mechanic, can't say that much for this game.
Animations are truly dreadful. Skulks bodies are snapping to random curves, turning their bodies in un-fluid ways as they slowly creep across the floor/wall/ceiling. Just watching these models turn like they're on a lazy susan makes me wonder "what the heck am I even looking at?"
I understand that NS2 wants to be different than NS1. I just don't understand why you couldn't take almost all of the features in NS1, get those correct and square first, then start adding features. The development process here just felt like "hey, let's add a flamethrower, that'd be cool," instead of focusing on more core drivers of the game.
The games are supposed to be quicker, but features like power nodes and the movement system slow it right back down. The game was always asymmetrical. What warranted the need for an alien commander then? Symmetry? The alien resource model is off. Personal resources allows people to have what they want, instead of what the commander wants you to have at the given point in the game.
I've played NS2 off and on, generally when patches come out. I've played this game "competitively." I play one round now and my eyes glaze over. I just think to myself "Why? Why isn't this game enjoyable?" Now I just throw it into the pile of what-ifs and what-could-have-been's.
It's a good prototype, but a game? Nope. Needs more development.
And the saddest part of all is, our opinions mean less than squat. When a playtester flags your posts are abuse just because he doesn't like them really explains a lot of things. To be very frank, I'd suggest that we follow the fool me twice rule. Unless something major is changed regarding how the game gets balance, designed, and what exactly is happening behind the curtain the Wizard of Oz has, then fool me thrice, shame on me. I don't want to walk away from this community and game but honestly, It's tempting sometimes.
I know I've repeated this far too often already, but whatever...
If we go looking for things that cause addiction to a game, I think NS1 nailed the addictive looking gameplay better than almost any other game I've seen. Every time I see a HLTV demo, every time I watch a fragmovie and every time I spectate a good player while I'm on the spawn queue, it makes me want to play the game and try to replicate what I see.
I still have personal favourites on players just because I like how their 1st person view looks on spectate, I still can't understand how Ed|Rush navigates Tanith double ceiling area with bhop, I still laugh at Zakj juking 3 highly skilled skulks on ns_lost cargo boxes and pistoling them separately. I'm still in awe of how rationally Peach sometimes manages to cope with baserushes, maximizing the every bit of advantage he can get while the enemy team chews his base.
Basically every time I see something happen in NS1, it makes me want to play the game and try out stuff. The RTS/FPS combined with a crisp movement system gives you a constant flow of opportunities, possibilities and choices. Even the often repeated situations usually have possible variation you can bring out at your will and even the most repeated FPS performances can be combined with a slightly more efficient dodge, tracking or timing. Seeing and catching ideas from what other people are doing keeps you inspired.
Meanwhile NS2 now has the so-so 1st person spec. There are hardly any frag movies, and practically no demos to see. Most of the action you see from organized play is shown through the birdeye view that loses a lot of the details. All this kind of leaves you alone with your own play.
I feel this is kind of nostalgic and all that, but I think it's pretty important that we realize how good NS1 was at some of the things it did.
I played NS1 for a while after it released (maybe 1-2 years), but like some others have said in this thread, it's been so long since I last played it that I'd completely forgotten its mechanics. I remember the fun I had, but the temporal distance is just so great, I can't objectively compare it to NS2.
That being said, I still enjoy the hell out of NS2. I try to alternate teams I'm on round-to-round, just so it doesn't get too redundant for me, and I must say, since Gorgeous, Marines have been winning much more noticeably, and in a much more dominant fashion. Whatever its cause is—skulk movement, hitboxes or whatever—I'm in no position to speculate.
I play on KKG a lot, and last night, the only way we got a legitimate non-BS alien win (i.e. not base-rushing 20 seconds into the game) was by literally stacking every 'good' player on Aliens—and even then, the marines had 3 CC's to our 2 hives for much of the game until we bile bomb rushed one of them.
There's a lot of work to be done, sure, but the patch is less than a week old. I know the OP's (and many others', for that matter) gripes are deeply rooted and go back beyond Gorgeous, but this should be expected from DLC/content patches. Perhaps we should at least wait for the follow-up patch before having such a drastic reaction? I just think that content patches are focused on content, not balance, and shouldn't be the event upon which you decide whether or not to quit the game.
Not that anybody cares about me or knows who I am, but I plan on sticking around for a while. I want to see what the next patch will change and what the future holds for NS2.
At the very least, UWE should be taking notice of the influx of "I'm quitting" threads and address the most common issues accordingly (i.e. skulk movement which may or may not be a bug, perhaps hitboxes, etc.).
I don't know the OP, but given his registration date and amount of posts, he's clearly been an avid supporter of UWE. And whether you agree with his premise or not, the fact that someone as devoted as him—as well as some of the others—is calling it quits should speak volumes.
—————
And a little off-topic but, am I the only one who thinks that lerk spike-tracers are the most infuriating [intentional] change with Gorgeous?
Alien commanders ruined this game IMHO. That's what made NS1 fun for me. If I had time and could be more involved, I'd go Marines. If I wanted a quick, more independent experience, I'd go Aliens. It satisfied me in both counts. I rarely find myself going Aliens in NS2 as I find it too similar to Marines.
I found the game well to play. you people need to stop complaining
Please don't compare NS1 and NS2 in terms of population of players. You must take into account the amount of publicity and marketing that was involved in both games.
NS1 didn't keep players away because it was hard, not a lot of people even knew it existed. It wasn't as integrated into Steam as NS2.
I found the game well to play. you people need to stop complaining
Please don't compare NS1 and NS2 in terms of population of players. You must take into account the amount of publicity and marketing that was involved in both games.
NS1 didn't keep players away because it was hard, not a lot of people even knew it existed. It wasn't as integrated into Steam as NS2.
You also shouldn't compare them in terms of polish and features. NS1 had years of updates. NS2 was released a few months ago. NS2 is also on a custom game engine.
Anyways, I find it funny that some are putting in hundreds of hours on this game as they do nothing but complain about how bad it is.
NS2 is an amazing game, however there is a thought in the back of my head, where some day (if they don't do anything about it) this wonderful game is going to go down like the titanic. (
Ugh, this thread bothers me. I've been hanging around these forums for a while (been gone for a year) and come back with the interest to work on a map again only to see this.
Ever since the Engine test the marine rifle alone hasn't felt quite right in compared to NS1. I guess it has more to do with the Spark Engine compared to HL1's engine. Eh well.. It is great to see how far along NS2 has come over the last year and I'm not ready to give up on it yet.
I found the game well to play. you people need to stop complaining
Please don't compare NS1 and NS2 in terms of population of players. You must take into account the amount of publicity and marketing that was involved in both games.
NS1 didn't keep players away because it was hard, not a lot of people even knew it existed. It wasn't as integrated into Steam as NS2.
You also shouldn't compare them in terms of polish and features. NS1 had years of updates. NS2 was released a few months ago. NS2 is also on a custom game engine.
Anyways, I find it funny that some are putting in hundreds of hours on this game as they do nothing but complain about how bad it is.
They BUILT the engine. How can it possibly NOT be as polished as NS1 on release? It was built to basically mimic the HL1 engine (which was actually a modified quake engine) almost perfectly, but allow them to sell it as their own code. The fact they even made their own engine in the first place is all about money.
If the game isn't polished enough to play in a balanced fashion, perhaps it should not have been released for play in the first place.
/sarcasmactivate!
After all, its not like they had all that time when crafting the engine balance the game properly or anything, not like the engine was specifically designed to run this game or anything and therefore could be balanced during the same time it was being written. Also, its not like they had all the YEARS of NS1 balance to work with...so they could throw most of it away and come back with something unbalanced.
/sarcasmoff
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any literature where anybody from the current iteration of UWE spoke about the mechanics of NS1 in detail or perhaps something where Flayra spoke about what liked and disliked about NS1 in general i.e. not in the context NS2? I can only recall one interview but it had more of a "it's cool, but..." vibe about it. I'm also really interested in seeing an equivalent of the steam concurrent players for NS1 if anyone knows where I could find that or could show me how I could work it out?
Also, sad to see Sckorpio leave and we would do well to not flippantly disregard the thoughts of such a frequent contributor who has clearly given the game a chance.
Ns1 was and still is better than NS2 in many aspects. However, I still think it's fun. I agree that there is a lack of depth right now; however I disagree that this depth will not be achieved. It may take some time, but I think it'll get there.
This reminds me a lot of the cs community. Many people in trying to make the transition from 1.6 to source or global offensive. Most vets hated the new movement, hit reg , etc.
Ns1 was and still is better than NS2 in many aspects. However, I still think it's fun. I agree that there is a lack of depth right now; however I disagree that this depth will not be achieved. It may take some time, but I think it'll get there.
This is how I feel about NS2, it is a great game is really fun to play. But I still believe NS1 was a lot better the game just had some many little things that made it fun. People who didn't get to play NS1 truly missed out and they will never get know what it's like to have that HMG in your hands and the heavy trains, devour, jp savoir, crazy good fades, OCS. The chuckles in the vent after you get parasited and had to be seen until death.
But I believe NS2 will get to that point it just takes time and NS1 took some time before we had all the good stuff, lerk spike was taken and given back and all kinds of changes that game went through. So NS2 will see the same changes and in the end I'm sure it will be a great game because it does have a good feel for it. Just missing a few things is all.
I know I've repeated this far too often already, but whatever...
...I feel this is kind of nostalgic and all that, but I think it's pretty important that we realize how good NS1 was at some of the things it did.
I've also said this a time or two... (and no offense to you Bacillus)
Folks that keep comparing what we have now to NS1 never seem to remember what NS1 was like at early on. We're fond of remembering the later years. Here's a vid Team EU vs Team US game almost a year after release.
This is kinda similar to where we are at now, and I'm fairly sure this isn't what folks think of when they say " NS1 "
You'd be surprised at how far the nostalgia goggles carry some people (1.04 everywhere), every time I've read "crisp" or "skilled" movement of NS1 I've chuckled a bit.
Someone cited lack of comp footage hinders interest in NS2, I agree, people like All In Colt who delete their footage when they're arguably the best fade in the world does no one any favours to showcasing NS2 to comp players in other games, gliss has a channel, some aus players have channels, the overhead streams will never cut it for people wanting to just watch raw skill, in todays day and age when I can watch pro streams 24/7 (props to all in edak for poop socking NS2 lately) or watch their first person through in game spectate or VODs in comparison to NS2's near black out of competition play is a bit ridick. Wasabi and Straya put a lot of good effort in covering games and in colour commentary but are largely useless for explaining the meta game and significance of some things that happen in games.
The real factor for a majority of people leaving or having no interest in competitive play is performance, the game runs like arse on a stock CPU at 3.5k which is just unacceptable when the game's player base of who you would like to encroach on can nearly run on a toaster, TF 2, CoDs, BF, LoL, Dota 2, WoW, etc. Playing a FPS with rocket arena type physics and wall climbing on <30 tick rate servers with FPS drops down to 40-60 for people with 1k boxes won't cut it, no amount of content, graphics, immersion, replays or anything will help if every 3rd-4th death you could have sworn you pistol ed that skulk at least 4 times before he jumped through you and bit you from behind with his arse.
I know I've repeated this far too often already, but whatever...
...I feel this is kind of nostalgic and all that, but I think it's pretty important that we realize how good NS1 was at some of the things it did.
I've also said this a time or two... (and no offense to you Bacillus)
Folks that keep comparing what we have now to NS1 never seem to remember what NS1 was like at early on. We're fond of remembering the later years. Here's a vid Team EU vs Team US game almost a year after release.
-- youtube vid --
This is kinda similar to where we are at now, and I'm fairly sure this isn't what folks think of when they say " NS1 "
I don't think it's meaningful or financially possible for UWE to be working on NS2 for the next 5 years and make 2 huge reworks on a commercial product. Those were mod times and the game hadn't been in development for 5 years prior to 1.0.
Commercial product needs to deliver the big payload at release and definitely not year or two after the release.
You dont get what so many publishers dont get either. If you make a great game, lots of people will buy the sequel. If you hype a game and then dissapoint people, they remember that. I would have bought NS2 no matter what. I advertised it to my friends. I can't say the same for NS3.
Comments
You need to play on smaller servers, dude! Try out www.ensl.org for a much better gaming experience.
I don't think i have to admit that NS2 is more popular than NS1 was, even in terms of number of people who have actually played it.
Maybe it's just rose colored nostalgic glasses, but to me it feels/looks like NS2 is not even close to being as popular as NS1 had been in it's best times, as much as i wish that would actually be the case.
And that applies to the competitive side as the public side. In it's best days NS1 had a very vibrant and diverse German community. Several competitive teams, half a dozen servers with only Germans playing on them, which also helped new players getting into the game as they didn't run into an additional language barrier. NS2? Not even close to that in terms of public population or team diversity on the competitive side.
Tbh that's only to be expected, as the entry barrier to NS2 is much higher compared to what NS1's had been, due to NS1 being a free mod and NS2 an actual game you have to pay for if you want to get into it (Performance also factors into this).
But i still have to cringe when people claim that NS2 did manage to do what it set it out to do: Elevate NS to CoD like levels of popularity due to being more like CoD.
Yes NS2 is more like CoD than NS1, many of the freedoms that made NS1 a unique (and more difficult) experience are gone, for the sake of easing in players that rather want the "CoD FPS experience, without being held back by the RTS side" while not really offering something new in exchange. But did it really pay off in terms of having a much broader playerbase? Sadly, as much as i wish that would be true, i just don't see it. Maybe i'm totally off, maybe NS2's active population eclipses that of NS1 by far, i don't have any numbers for an hard comparison so i can only go with my gut-feeling.
The worst part about all this being that you can't even voice such concerns or observations anymore without a certain part of the community jumping at your throat for merely speaking your mind, even if that requires misinterpreting what one said in the first place. You either sing the "Everything is awesome!" song or your are an "Stupid new age CoD kiddie that's not part of the community". Is that really the way to go, shredding each other apart just for having contrary opinions and views?
And yes this post lacks constructive advice in terms of "what to do", but after all these years of participating, all those gifted away copies and all those fruitless attempts to get friends and old clanmates into the game, some people simply can't or don't want to do it anymore.
Can't drop a Comm chair in a hall wall/vent. Set-up a base in Nano. JP+GL a Hive as the last man standing.
Can't survive as the last Gorge (self-spray), no Hives, sneak into a Hive room and drop a hive.
No rose tinted glasses here. I enjoy NS2, but I don't think of it as the better game. It's simply a different game, with many similar aspects.
I care about the qualtiy of movement, and playing aliens or marines feels like walking in mush. Totally unappealing, and yes, NS2 is a different game, obviously, but its like you shouldnt take away one of the core principles - the snappy, precise, rewarding basic aspect of movement. Walking, jumping, skulking, fading, Jetpacking, everything. Its just completely ruined in NS2.
Yes, NS2 is my default game and obviously alot more fun than everything else, but thats only because I enjoyed NS1 so much.
I got a lot of people to pre-order this game, probably over 20 (between NS1 vets, competitive battlefield players, and random other people). None of us play NS2. Not a single one. Performance and just boring, slow game play were the major contributors to this fact.
I tried playing throughout the development process. Thinking - hey! I wonder what they've done now, I hope they've improved it! It's come a long way and I'm not saying it hasn't, but the game just feels stagnant and wrong.
Movement is slow and boring. Skill based movement was a fun thing in NS1. People even made maps dedicated solely to bunny hopping and learning how to bunny hop effectively. Everyone could learn how to do it. Wall jumping is OK, but honestly - it's not very exciting. Waiting around in pre-game in competitive matches was even fun due to this mechanic, can't say that much for this game.
Animations are truly dreadful. Skulks bodies are snapping to random curves, turning their bodies in un-fluid ways as they slowly creep across the floor/wall/ceiling. Just watching these models turn like they're on a lazy susan makes me wonder "what the heck am I even looking at?"
I understand that NS2 wants to be different than NS1. I just don't understand why you couldn't take almost all of the features in NS1, get those correct and square first, then start adding features. The development process here just felt like "hey, let's add a flamethrower, that'd be cool," instead of focusing on more core drivers of the game.
The games are supposed to be quicker, but features like power nodes and the movement system slow it right back down. The game was always asymmetrical. What warranted the need for an alien commander then? Symmetry? The alien resource model is off. Personal resources allows people to have what they want, instead of what the commander wants you to have at the given point in the game.
I've played NS2 off and on, generally when patches come out. I've played this game "competitively." I play one round now and my eyes glaze over. I just think to myself "Why? Why isn't this game enjoyable?" Now I just throw it into the pile of what-ifs and what-could-have-been's.
It's a good prototype, but a game? Nope. Needs more development.
It's odd on the first day gorgeous patch a few non rookie players reflected the same sentiments. Hard to pinpoint but the quality of movement and the base classes may be part of the issue. It does feel sort of a chore to play.
I think I read a post on how if they entire game was a perfect skulk vs marine in terms of fun, balance, and complex movement it would still be fun. The features still feel tacked on and not very enjoyable. For example the exo is a giant cool suit with heavy firepower but you soon see the disadvantages and how shotgun jetpack is better. Everything feels so restricted which is why you see the same things in competitive play most of the time. In fact shotgun jetpack is what awaits engame because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are pretty bad and exos as well in certain cases. Alien life forms are also becoming more limited for the sake of balance now. Either way I may sound like an amateur but I am just throwing in how I feel along with the others.
You can buy boosts to increase your intake of in game currency, but again you don't have to. Played with some old friends still active in the game last night, and we all played default endos and products (to not be recognized). Very fun.
Also they had the smoothest closed beta of any game I have ever play tested. You shouldn't hate on things with little-to-no information.
Smnc suffers from having a very high skill ceiling, which makes the game a complete meat grinder for new players (likely what you ran into when trying it). This is also Imo the exact reason this game has become a ghost town Imo.
And the saddest part of all is, our opinions mean less than squat. When a playtester flags your posts are abuse just because he doesn't like them really explains a lot of things. To be very frank, I'd suggest that we follow the fool me twice rule. Unless something major is changed regarding how the game gets balance, designed, and what exactly is happening behind the curtain the Wizard of Oz has, then fool me thrice, shame on me. I don't want to walk away from this community and game but honestly, It's tempting sometimes.
If we go looking for things that cause addiction to a game, I think NS1 nailed the addictive looking gameplay better than almost any other game I've seen. Every time I see a HLTV demo, every time I watch a fragmovie and every time I spectate a good player while I'm on the spawn queue, it makes me want to play the game and try to replicate what I see.
I still have personal favourites on players just because I like how their 1st person view looks on spectate, I still can't understand how Ed|Rush navigates Tanith double ceiling area with bhop, I still laugh at Zakj juking 3 highly skilled skulks on ns_lost cargo boxes and pistoling them separately. I'm still in awe of how rationally Peach sometimes manages to cope with baserushes, maximizing the every bit of advantage he can get while the enemy team chews his base.
Basically every time I see something happen in NS1, it makes me want to play the game and try out stuff. The RTS/FPS combined with a crisp movement system gives you a constant flow of opportunities, possibilities and choices. Even the often repeated situations usually have possible variation you can bring out at your will and even the most repeated FPS performances can be combined with a slightly more efficient dodge, tracking or timing. Seeing and catching ideas from what other people are doing keeps you inspired.
Meanwhile NS2 now has the so-so 1st person spec. There are hardly any frag movies, and practically no demos to see. Most of the action you see from organized play is shown through the birdeye view that loses a lot of the details. All this kind of leaves you alone with your own play.
I feel this is kind of nostalgic and all that, but I think it's pretty important that we realize how good NS1 was at some of the things it did.
That being said, I still enjoy the hell out of NS2. I try to alternate teams I'm on round-to-round, just so it doesn't get too redundant for me, and I must say, since Gorgeous, Marines have been winning much more noticeably, and in a much more dominant fashion. Whatever its cause is—skulk movement, hitboxes or whatever—I'm in no position to speculate.
I play on KKG a lot, and last night, the only way we got a legitimate non-BS alien win (i.e. not base-rushing 20 seconds into the game) was by literally stacking every 'good' player on Aliens—and even then, the marines had 3 CC's to our 2 hives for much of the game until we bile bomb rushed one of them.
There's a lot of work to be done, sure, but the patch is less than a week old. I know the OP's (and many others', for that matter) gripes are deeply rooted and go back beyond Gorgeous, but this should be expected from DLC/content patches. Perhaps we should at least wait for the follow-up patch before having such a drastic reaction? I just think that content patches are focused on content, not balance, and shouldn't be the event upon which you decide whether or not to quit the game.
Not that anybody cares about me or knows who I am, but I plan on sticking around for a while. I want to see what the next patch will change and what the future holds for NS2.
At the very least, UWE should be taking notice of the influx of "I'm quitting" threads and address the most common issues accordingly (i.e. skulk movement which may or may not be a bug, perhaps hitboxes, etc.).
I don't know the OP, but given his registration date and amount of posts, he's clearly been an avid supporter of UWE. And whether you agree with his premise or not, the fact that someone as devoted as him—as well as some of the others—is calling it quits should speak volumes.
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And a little off-topic but, am I the only one who thinks that lerk spike-tracers are the most infuriating [intentional] change with Gorgeous?
Please don't compare NS1 and NS2 in terms of population of players. You must take into account the amount of publicity and marketing that was involved in both games.
NS1 didn't keep players away because it was hard, not a lot of people even knew it existed. It wasn't as integrated into Steam as NS2.
You also shouldn't compare them in terms of polish and features. NS1 had years of updates. NS2 was released a few months ago. NS2 is also on a custom game engine.
Anyways, I find it funny that some are putting in hundreds of hours on this game as they do nothing but complain about how bad it is.
Ever since the Engine test the marine rifle alone hasn't felt quite right in compared to NS1. I guess it has more to do with the Spark Engine compared to HL1's engine. Eh well.. It is great to see how far along NS2 has come over the last year and I'm not ready to give up on it yet.
It definitely was a wall, but a wall of love. lol.
Not sure how new YOU are to Natural Selection (1 or 2), but longtime fans of this franchise tend to be very passionate regarding NS2.
They BUILT the engine. How can it possibly NOT be as polished as NS1 on release? It was built to basically mimic the HL1 engine (which was actually a modified quake engine) almost perfectly, but allow them to sell it as their own code. The fact they even made their own engine in the first place is all about money.
If the game isn't polished enough to play in a balanced fashion, perhaps it should not have been released for play in the first place.
/sarcasmactivate!
After all, its not like they had all that time when crafting the engine balance the game properly or anything, not like the engine was specifically designed to run this game or anything and therefore could be balanced during the same time it was being written. Also, its not like they had all the YEARS of NS1 balance to work with...so they could throw most of it away and come back with something unbalanced.
/sarcasmoff
This argument is weak.
Also, sad to see Sckorpio leave and we would do well to not flippantly disregard the thoughts of such a frequent contributor who has clearly given the game a chance.
This is how I feel about NS2, it is a great game is really fun to play. But I still believe NS1 was a lot better the game just had some many little things that made it fun. People who didn't get to play NS1 truly missed out and they will never get know what it's like to have that HMG in your hands and the heavy trains, devour, jp savoir, crazy good fades, OCS. The chuckles in the vent after you get parasited and had to be seen until death.
But I believe NS2 will get to that point it just takes time and NS1 took some time before we had all the good stuff, lerk spike was taken and given back and all kinds of changes that game went through. So NS2 will see the same changes and in the end I'm sure it will be a great game because it does have a good feel for it. Just missing a few things is all.
I've also said this a time or two... (and no offense to you Bacillus)
Folks that keep comparing what we have now to NS1 never seem to remember what NS1 was like at early on. We're fond of remembering the later years. Here's a vid Team EU vs Team US game almost a year after release.
This is kinda similar to where we are at now, and I'm fairly sure this isn't what folks think of when they say " NS1 "
Yes.
Someone cited lack of comp footage hinders interest in NS2, I agree, people like All In Colt who delete their footage when they're arguably the best fade in the world does no one any favours to showcasing NS2 to comp players in other games, gliss has a channel, some aus players have channels, the overhead streams will never cut it for people wanting to just watch raw skill, in todays day and age when I can watch pro streams 24/7 (props to all in edak for poop socking NS2 lately) or watch their first person through in game spectate or VODs in comparison to NS2's near black out of competition play is a bit ridick. Wasabi and Straya put a lot of good effort in covering games and in colour commentary but are largely useless for explaining the meta game and significance of some things that happen in games.
The real factor for a majority of people leaving or having no interest in competitive play is performance, the game runs like arse on a stock CPU at 3.5k which is just unacceptable when the game's player base of who you would like to encroach on can nearly run on a toaster, TF 2, CoDs, BF, LoL, Dota 2, WoW, etc. Playing a FPS with rocket arena type physics and wall climbing on <30 tick rate servers with FPS drops down to 40-60 for people with 1k boxes won't cut it, no amount of content, graphics, immersion, replays or anything will help if every 3rd-4th death you could have sworn you pistol ed that skulk at least 4 times before he jumped through you and bit you from behind with his arse.
Commercial product needs to deliver the big payload at release and definitely not year or two after the release.