As bunnyhopping is impossible in NS2, I think that when the term is used, it is relatively easy to figure out that it's talking about bouncing around like a tool, rather than the specific movement exploit/artifact found in old FPS engines.
Basically, the word functions perfectly well to communicate the concept, assuming you're not being anal and pretending to be completely ignorant of its meaning in this context and asserting that it only has one meaning and could not possibly acquire another.
So yes, it's bunnyhopping, because most people call it bunnyhopping, and everyone knows what they mean when they do.
[pedantry]
Then why even bother having proper nouns? Pronouns will suffice in every case. Therefore, I agree with what that guy said back on one of the previous pages, you know, with words and stuff...
Except "bunnyhopping" is such a loaded term thanks to its history and most people, despite their adamant opposition to it, have no real idea of what it is. It just comes with a bunch of baggage and confuses any actual discussion, not to mention it takes away any way of addressing bunnyhopping (the actual thing) only.
I mentioned to Veritas once that Flayra could bring back bunnyhopping under another name and most of the opposition would suddenly disappear... joke is it's probably true.
I think a reasonable way to make the skulk more fun earlier in the game while also making them more combat effective faster would be to change Leap to a single hive upgrade. We all know what Leap is, but it makes the skulk more defensive as well as mobile and offensive. Unless you can land every bite in succession you shouldn't stay in dance range to begin with (but everyone goes frenzy mode with a skulk, once you start biting it is hard to stop)...which goes back to L2P even though dying skulks dont want to hear L2P.
The fact that the actual high-speed competitive bunnyhopping isn't exactly virally popular anymore, frankly something that i thought was long forgotten i might add, i had no idea that anyone cared an eye-bat about in what circumstances that you used this word any longer. It's kind of refreshing to see that some do. Though clinging to words like a grammar-nazi, as they are called, is anything but refreshing. Getting angry over someone else's use of a word which, like in this case, is close enough to what's actually going on is hardly something that just anyone would do.
Then why even bother having proper nouns? Pronouns will suffice in every case. Therefore, I agree with what that guy said back on one of the previous pages, you know, with words and stuff...
Because referring to inorganic "safe-jumping" (in this case; jumping in a game to avoid an enemy that you wouldn't jump for in real life, thus making it look completely wrong and just lame when players do it) in a shooter otherwise as tactical and hard-core as NS2 is as "bunnyhopping" is a good way to put shame on those who rely on it. As in; It is so lame to jump out of danger when facing certain enemies in a game in which this most likely wasn't intended that we should refer to it as bunnyhopping to indirectly ask the people to go back to doing the actual bunny-hopping in UT and Q3.
So, with pardons to those who cling to the name of the hobby of bunnyhopping and who want to protect the actual meaning of the word, i think that this is an excellent case to let us borrow and use it in a way that hopefully could make a difference one day as it also is an indirect way to try and nudge UWE in realizing that a large portion of their player-base are referring to an inorganic play-style that shouldn't be there to uphold the current mirage of almost perfect balance between marine and alien. Something that they should have taken note about and worked out a re-balancing plan for months ago. I stand firm on the point that if bunnyhopping was no longer useful in avoiding skulks, from one build to another, it would drastically change the balance to the favor of the aliens as a LOT more of their bites in the early game would hit.
Granted, that makes myself a bunnyhopper as well as i also rely on this lame method for survival, as it unfortunately works and as i explained earlier is something that i believe is a vital part in keeping the balance between marines and aliens. I am completely behind getting rid of it, but only if its consequences are understood and taken care of.
I think a reasonable way to make the skulk more fun earlier in the game while also making them more combat effective faster would be to change Leap to a single hive upgrade. We all know what Leap is, but it makes the skulk more defensive as well as mobile and offensive. Unless you can land every bite in succession you shouldn't stay in dance range to begin with (but everyone goes frenzy mode with a skulk, once you start biting it is hard to stop)...which goes back to L2P even though dying skulks dont want to hear L2P.
Maybe. Sounds nice.
ATM the game feels awful; you have the choice between a fun but too easy Marine experience and a gimped and deserted by the community Alien experience. I'm forced to shame veterans out of Marines to get one good game as Alien out of five. I already see less and less people playing and I doubt that will change, since people only feel Marine is fun and that they just leave when they can't play Marine.
I think a reasonable way to make the skulk more fun earlier in the game while also making them more combat effective faster would be to change Leap to a single hive upgrade. We all know what Leap is, but it makes the skulk more defensive as well as mobile and offensive. Unless you can land every bite in succession you shouldn't stay in dance range to begin with (but everyone goes frenzy mode with a skulk, once you start biting it is hard to stop)...which goes back to L2P even though dying skulks dont want to hear L2P.
Maybe. Sounds nice.
ATM the game feels awful; you have the choice between a fun but too easy Marine experience and a gimped and deserted by the community Alien experience. I'm forced to shame veterans out of Marines to get one good game as Alien out of five. I already see less and less people playing and I doubt that will change, since people only feel Marine is fun and that they just leave when they can't play Marine.
I think at this point the forum community will only hear some quiet if they get for skulk, either:
A.) Equivalent movement/speed/acceleration before build 240
or
B.) Novel aesthetic additions that are considered "fun" (abilities and upgrades)
so
a.) If you are arguing for balance then you are wanting to do the EXACT same thing with skulk as you do right now. This will make skulk EASIER not fun. There are a lot of posters on here that are using the idea of easy in place of fun and it almost becomes a matter of argument subterfuge.
b.) If you simply want the skulk to be more fun then you will have to change or add an actual mechanic (otherwise skulk is the exact same again just sugar coated), or something that the player is actively doing (i.e. bite, jump, leap, etc.)
There are a lot of people in this thread that are dodging between talking about making the skulk "fun" or "balanced" when all they are actually arguing for is to make the skulk easier. I have even had it argued with me in this thread about whether or not the actual topic is about balance or fun. There is a big difference between the two in my own opinion.
There is and there isn't. Balance on pubs is achieved through fun. It's simple as that; skulks aren't fun to play -> people don't play them -> no balance.
If people were to chose between Marine and Aliens blind folded, I think we'd have a pretty good balance. (I'm not sure about that, because I sometimes feel vanilla Skulk to be a bit weak against vanilla Marine, but had you asked before my intense Skulk training, I would have said Skulk stood no chance)
I don't have an opinion on the best solution; I think they have equal chances to make a difference. Either buff Skulks purely through numbers, or give them an ability, I don't care. Really. Something needs to be done about it, that's the main concern to me.
There is and there isn't. Balance on pubs is achieved through fun. It's simple as that; skulks aren't fun to play -> people don't play them -> no balance.
If people were to chose between Marine and Aliens blind folded, I think we'd have a pretty good balance. (I'm not sure about that, because I sometimes feel vanilla Skulk to be a bit weak against vanilla Marine, but had you asked before my intense Skulk training, I would have said Skulk stood no chance)
I don't have an opinion on the best solution; I think they have equal chances to make a difference. Either buff Skulks purely through numbers, or give them an ability, I don't care. Really. Something needs to be done about it, that's the main concern to me.
Where's this idea that it always has to be fun, don't anyone play for the challenge or experience, Starcraft or Dota isn't particularly fun, but I still play it for the challenge and their unique gaming format.
Maybe we gamers are unable to understand that some games should not exist just to be fun, in a obvious way.
though to chime in with the Skulk talk, most are still over the top rant, I agree the Skulk needs a slight buff, but if used correctly is still mostly still good, today I got 17 to 3 with the Skulk on the Yo Clan server which has quite high level players on, most are regulars.
I wish I could make video on it, though lack the time..... though free at somepoint, will try to make a Skulk video.... though one lifeform that needs help with combat is the Gorge need to increase it's attack speed.
I'm not sure you get the point: what you're saying is true. Except one side (Marine) is dumb easy while the other one (Alien) is down-right hard to just learn, not even master.
Fun does not equal the CoD-style of "fun" (no frustration, quick rewards, no effort necessary, must suit all the ADHD kiddies, etc ... I hope you know what I mean, the "offend nobody" kind of fun).
A challenge or experience (as you call it) IS fun. It's exactly the kind of fun we talk about. Working towards something, and being rewarded.
What is NOT fun (by the most objective metric I can think of) is having the feeling that there is no good effort/reward or skill/reward balance or even to hit a dead end where one might as well give up..
---
This thread was started before the free weekend, which had the problem disappear quite a bit thanks to all the new players.
Did a quick test today, and it's back.
- 24 players servers are not just Marine favored like pre-240 (which wasn't a problem per se, as games could still be fun, plenty of good 24p games), they're downright unplayable. The Skulk weakness (a big part of which is the hopping issue/Skulk slowness) and then the Alien spawn system amplification is just ridiculous.
Before you say "24 player servers, no need to talk further", keep in mind most non-UWE servers have this player number, and people like playing in bigger teams for a change. Why does the game have 24 player servers if they're essentially unusable for normal games?
- Of course nobody wants to go Alien. Everyone spams the Marine entrance. Aliens win if every good player stacks Alien (not happening too often) or Marines are just plain incompetent (one Infantry Portal).
I really wouldn't like to be a new player on the Alien team right now. Must be incredibly frustrating. So many people with 1:4 KD ratios or worse, while it's hard to find more than Marine with a KDR less than 1.
It's sad to see an Alien team lose even after fighting great, holding 3 Hives, harassing, quickly defending against attacks... only to be stomped by an Exo+ARC train effortlessly which comes out of 2 bases and 3 Extractors.
It's not too exciting to command Marines and wondering what you would have needed to do to even lose. "Lost a base? So what, no problem..."
It's just lame. NS2 was much more fun when strategy, timing and build orders mattered much more and battle outcomes were more decisive.
Just saying
Where's this idea that it always has to be fun, don't anyone play for the challenge or experience.
A lot of people don't feel that way by the looks of so many pub ready rooms with most of the players standing in the marines entrance since gorgeous. Having said that I still try to swap every round, but I will leave the server ifthe
alien team I'm on starts to get stomped in the first few minutes.
Also the flip side to this is there is much less of a challenge playing as marine since gorgeous. Ideally both sides should be similar in terms of fun / challenge to play. Right now it's not much fun being an overweight skulk and it's not much of a challenge shooting them as marine.
I don't expect this thread to die until the skulk goes on a diet and gets a gym membership. That or everyone who wants it changed moves on from NS2.
Just because some don't do it as often as a rabbit would it doesn't mean that it's something else than bunnyhopping.
If you're just talking about people jumping up and down a lot, don't call it "bunnyhopping" or some people with nothing better to do will get all bent out of shape. Just call it "bouncing".
"Crackhopping" used to be the defacto term for that. It's almost like quicktime events now, smash spacebar to not die.
I have even had it argued with me in this thread about whether or not the actual topic is about balance or fun. There is a big difference between the two in my own opinion.
Unfortunately UWE doesn't actually think there's a difference. There was a very vocal group when the game first launched that was upset at the lack of innovation, new features, and general lackluster design. I assume most of them quit in frustration by now, but it seemed to me like UWE was more obsessed with making a balanced game rather than making a FUN game. You make all the features you can think of, and make the game fun to play, and from THERE do you dial things up and and down for balance, or cut features.
The fact that aliens had lost almost half of their overall content from NS1 was utterly tragic. Even simple shit like having all the rooms without built power nodes at the beginning of the game being dark. Why did we have to think of that idea? Who actually thought having the hive rooms being brightly lit was a good idea?
Ultimately the biggest problem was UWE's obsession with 50% win ratio being the promised land of gaming. Like if you get 50% win ratios, that means the game is flawlessly balanced, and it's the most fun it could be. Sorry, this isn't 2003 anymore where games are somewhat simple and streamlined through necessity of design. Most people actually expect a little more out of their games these days than just playing for the sake of winning.
Fun does not equal the CoD-style of "fun" (no frustration, quick rewards, no effort necessary, must suit all the ADHD kiddies, etc ... I hope you know what I mean, the "offend nobody" kind of fun).
A challenge or experience (as you call it) IS fun. It's exactly the kind of fun we talk about. Working towards something, and being rewarded.
Where's this idea that it always has to be fun, don't anyone play for the challenge or experience
I used to play a little game called Tribes 2. At its height of gameplay, you had the basics of an outstanding skill shooter - midair shots, high-speed movement, extremely high skill ceiling between ski routes and twitch skills required. At its core, this game was more or less Quake, you just blew around the place and shot people. This isn't fun to me. It's one-dimensional, repetitive, boring. I don't play games just to be told "LOL YOU WIN". That's fucking stupid.
But there was more to Tribes 2 than that. You had the heavy armor classes who could mortar bases from afar and destroy defenses. You had deployable defenses and sensors you could erect in the field. You had tanks, bombers, and (my favorite) interceptor fighters. You had slow-moving, vulnerable mobile bases, targeting lasers, beacons. It was a game of grand strategy in an FPS format. I didn't play only so I could frag people and brag about how awesome I was to compensate for my incredibly tiny penis, I played for the overall experience. If I wasn't good at twitch action shooting, I could work as an engineer at our base. I could grab a satchel charge and try to blow up the enemy generators. I could get a couple of guys to jump in my bomber and rain hell on the enemy base, or I could get in a fighter and escort the bomber.
The more choices and opportunities the games offers you, the more fun the game probably is. The content in Tribes 2 was remarkably streamlined - the vehicles had specific purposes without overlap, the weapons were specifically designed without overlap as well. Yet all of the parts became something greater than the whole. The game offered something for everyone and was extremely feature-rich. And yet, despite all that gobbledy-gook, it was still at its heart a fast-paced, frantic game of capture the flag.
Now compare that to NS2. You get a skulk who can parasite (useless), leap / jump / walljump which are basically variations of the same theme, and volunteer himself to clog the spawn queue with the incredibly useless xenocide. Oh, and you get a fairly useless alien vision.
That's it. That's the pinnacle of innovation we got from UWE. The upgrades are fucking stupid, they're just passive benefits that work in the background (or in the case of regen / celerity, they don't). Literally the only two upgrades that actually can change HOW YOU PLAY is silence / cloaking, and they're pretty much the least popular, because the game punishes you for NOT using celerity / adren / carapace / regen thanks to its atrocious balance.
Would you like me to go compare the HL2 mod Dystopia with NS2 next? Because it's basically the same story - the game was well-balanced, fiercely competitive and fast-paced, and also tons of fun, thanks to the rich feature set, lots of imagination in the design, and some innovative features like Cyberspace. Even if you were losing, the game was fun.
NS2 isn't fun to play if you're an alien, it's hard to say it's even fun to WIN as an alien, and it's definitely not fun to LOSE as an alien. Their feature set is fucking shallow and pathetic, because UWE has this ridiculous idea of minimalism somehow making a game automatically better, when that's not true at all. There's tons of crap in the suggestions forum that could add something to the aliens that would spice up interest in playing one, but UWE has pretty much treated the S&I forum as a shitheap since NS1 days, because they think they know better than the players on what the players want.
There's a reason Combat was most popular than NS1 and was the first mod made for NS2.
I do think you're over the top with how the bad the Aliens are, I'm still having good moments with the Skulk, like I said it only needs a small buff, like an increase in acceleration.... but I'm fine with how it is now.
Maybe my play-style works well with the Skulk, because to me the Aliens are a hit and run team, except the Onus with contradicts the ethos of the Aliens.
I see a lot of the bad play with the Skulk like running into a bunch of marines or not getting be-hide them, or not jumping of the walls. I believe a big problem is the tips, it doesn't say works as a team as much as the marines tips do, I think that's the main issue is teamwork... people aren't use to it, quite a lot of games well there say teamwork is needed, usually you can get one person to carry the game, so negating teamwork, but this game you require teamwork, which is one its best aspect.
When you execute a well timed attack as a team, marines are unable to focus fire, quite a lot of the time, unless in a big open area Aliens always win those engagements.
Also Zenocide is quite fun, and leap is always good, but a suggestion I did like was making it a first hive upgrade, something to compete with the early shotguns.
but the Alien team is mostly fine, as I said the gorge needs help with it's attack speed but that's it.
Lerk and fade are still the best to play, I don't care for the Onus, only means to an end.
"Ultimately the biggest problem was UWE's obsession with 50% win ratio being the promised land of gaming. Like if you get 50% win ratios, that means the game is flawlessly balanced, and it's the most fun it could be. Sorry, this isn't 2003 anymore where games are somewhat simple and streamlined through necessity of design. Most people actually expect a little more out of their games these days than just playing for the sake of winning."
You haven't played RTS games or things similar, if it ain't balanced people go ballistic, you never hear the end of it.
though I would like the game to stay more even and balanced, people are most likely not going to play a team where they going to lose even if they play well.
Probably the difference in mentality, you come more from a FPS prospective while I come from a RTS/Grand Strategy point of view, my gripes are the RTS side, not the FPS side, to be fair you only can do some much with the FPS side of things.
"The more choices and opportunities the games offers you, the more fun the game probably is."
Not sure about this RTS games don't change much and have big followings, more so then games with high amount of choices..... his an extreme case Chess, hasn't changed for a long time still played in high numbers.
Maybe you need to find you own unique style and play, before moaning for more options.. it's more about making something out of it, then wanting new toys.
duel maps like dm4 (QW), dm6 (QL), and cpm3a (CPM) are very unbalanced and yet they remain often played just because they're fun. the person in the lead on these maps has the potential to keep map control for pretty much an entire game if played perfectly. and yet they remain some of the most popular maps to this day and get cross-converted among the same fast-paced competitive shooters. balance is an awful metric for judging enjoyment of the game unless it's severely uneven
a massive discrepancy in the tier 1 matchups that leads to an overall 50/50 is not balance, it just means that they aliens have the potential to win any games that last longer than the period where marines can walk in their hive and egg lock because skulks are awful
6 minute onos was 50/50 too - I don't see how it's not completely obvious by now that fixating on winrate is a waste of time without any kind of overall design direction
I don't see how it's not completely obvious by now that fixating on winrate is a waste of time when you don't have any design direction and overall goals
I always figured it had to do with making NS2 a balanced/competitive esports game.
any thoughts from developers? they know about this "problem"? (damn, they should be aware of, 7000 views on this thread) they're going to do something? or they will not do anything? may have previously been said about this, I just did not notice, maybe somebody can show me post from developers?
Ten pages, and we see only discussion among players, this uncertainty is beginning to annoy me
the mod should not be taken too serious, but serious enough. all features could theoretically be added to the official game, but for every single one i want to rely on community feedback. i wrote a big chunk of the game logic for vanilla ns2, so i would be the one who would in the end integrate the selected changes / features. this balance mod project has the goal to increase fun, depth and replay ability of ns2, so any changes which wont cause one of those 3 things will be removed in the end. there are also few changes which cause an alternative balance, and not really fix something (exosuit changes for example), those should be in the category fun (or fairness) but if nobody likes that alternative, it will be removed. thats the whole purpose of the mod, and its extremely convenient to be able to change things that quickly via steam work shop opposed to how the regular ns2 updates happen.
its a very good opportunity to influence the future development of ns2
Once the tournament is over, we'd like to start bringing over some larger changes from the Balance mod that Sewlek has been working on and testing, though no final decisions have been made yet on what specifically is going to get brought over to start with.
Thus, look to that mod as an indication, i say.
Be sure to join the steam group
Thus, look to that mod as an indication, i say.
Be sure to join the steam group
The only problem I have with the balance mod is that it appears to be continuing in the direction of "throw stuff at the game and see what will stick" rather than coming up with a well thought out plan to make NS2 fun and balanced. Player counts are reaching all new lows, now is not the time to be waiting around testing huge amalgamations of modifications and features all thrown in together. It's just going to end up just as broken but in a different way. You can only rebump the player counts with random changes so many times.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
This is the best thing that's come along in a while, addressing many points at once, some that have lingered as far back as late alpha days.
And its been getting worked on for a long time now by Sewlek, directed very much by the feedback from those who care to give it.
So saying its like "throwing stuff and seeing what sticks" in this occurence is inaccurate and disingenuous imo.
In some of the first patches after launch, maybe. This honed and beautiful well thought out Balance Test? Not so much.
No offense, but have you played some games with it yet?
If not, I'm hosting a game with the PTs today after our usual work (Loosely ~17:30-1800 PST) feel free to join off of me from that steam group link.
This is the best thing that's come along in a while, addressing many points at once, some that have lingered as far back as late alpha days.
And its been getting worked on for a long time now by Sewlek, directed very much by the feedback from those who care to give it.
So saying its like "throwing stuff and seeing what sticks" in this occurence is inaccurate and disingenuous imo.
In some of the first patches after launch, maybe. This honed and beautiful well thought out Balance Test? Not so much.
No offense, but have you played some games with it yet?
If not, I'm hosting a game with the PTs today after our usual work (Loosely ~17:30-1800 PST) feel free to join off of me from that steam group link.
I think (hope) what Farknut was trying to say is similar to the way I see the Balance Mod. The balance mod is great to test things yes. The only problem I have (and why I only stay for a round usually) is that there are two many variables that have been changed. That is one of the fundamental rules of an experiment. You test a single variable to gauge its effect on a system. If I have a squeaky door and I replace the slab, screws, hinges, frame, and all, of course its not going to squeak anymore but I'll never know what was causing the problem. There are just way too many changes in the balance mod for me to look at a single change and gauge its effect on the overall game experience. I think the balance mod could do with fewer signifcant changes rather than all at once.
The balance mod is great to test things yes. The only problem I have (and why I only stay for a round usually) is that there are two many variables that have been changed. That is one of the fundamental rules of an experiment. You test a single variable to gauge its effect on a system. If I have a squeaky door and I replace the slab, screws, hinges, frame, and all, of course its not going to squeak anymore but I'll never know what was causing the problem. There are just way too many changes in the balance mod for me to look at a single change and gauge its effect on the overall game experience. I think the balance mod could do with fewer signifcant changes rather than all at once.
Perfect explanation, thanks. The worst thing is that what happens next is that ~parts~ (who knows what, noone seems to be telling) of the balance mod get thrown in the actual game. How can there be any correlation between how these individual parts work (and are tested) in a balance mod with so many different changes, and how they work when they get put in vanilla NS2? It makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean if the balance mod was good (which I don't agree that it is) and it basically replaced the current vanilla version of NS2, that would be another matter. It would be a bizarre decision in itself to change the game in such a big way, especially given how good Hugh/the pr team seem to think the game currently is in both terms of fun and balance, but it certainly wouldn't be throwing stuff to see what sticks, which is exactly what the entire process of the balance mod and of moving its features to vanilla appears to be.
Nothing will be solved by changing ~everything~, nor will anything be solved by testing in a ~completely different environment~. We need to get some basic science up in here.
duel maps like dm4 (QW), dm6 (QL), and cpm3a (CPM) are very unbalanced and yet they remain often played just because they're fun. the person in the lead on these maps has the potential to keep map control for pretty much an entire game if played perfectly. and yet they remain some of the most popular maps to this day and get cross-converted among the same fast-paced competitive shooters. balance is an awful metric for judging enjoyment of the game unless it's severely uneven
a massive discrepancy in the tier 1 matchups that leads to an overall 50/50 is not balance, it just means that they aliens have the potential to win any games that last longer than the period where marines can walk in their hive and egg lock because skulks are awful
6 minute onos was 50/50 too - I don't see how it's not completely obvious by now that fixating on winrate is a waste of time without any kind of overall design direction
I think the balance test mod is actually more of a questionnaire than an actual balance mod. It's asking for feedback on a large number of individual changes. This allows one to try out a lot of new stuff in a short timeframe (in contrary to a more scientific testing approach), and see what people think of it. Whatever works and is fun can then be subjected to further, more rigid, testing and tweaking.
You have this many-dimensional landscape with lots of little local peaks. If you just follow the steepest gradient one little change at a time you end up firmly stuck on this local peak in the landscape.
What you're looking for is a good approximation of the global optimum. You need a method like simulated annealing.
You have this many-dimensional landscape with lots of little local peaks. If you just follow the steepest gradient one little change at a time you end up firmly stuck on this local peak in the landscape.
What you're looking for is a good approximation of the global optimum. You need a method like simulated annealing.
So (in respect of the topic of this thread) if in the balance mod both alien movement was restored to previous values and marine movement was changed to completely different values than they are now. Would it accurately reflect balance of vanilla skulks and marines? No. There is no way possible.
The only time testing many variables works in a game like this is with completely NEW content (i.e. railguns, gorge tunnels, babblers). It works fine for that. But when you want to test changes to basic physics like movement, you can not change the value of every class and expect that to give perspective on vanilla ns2.
I'd love to play some more of the BT mod, but I just can't get used to sliding all over the place by just barely brushing a movement key as a skulk. TBH, imho, the skulk movement is even worse than atm because it's impossible for accurate movement.
I think the balance test mod is actually more of a questionnaire than an actual balance mod. It's asking for feedback on a large number of individual changes. This allows one to try out a lot of new stuff in a short timeframe (in contrary to a more scientific testing approach), and see what people think of it. Whatever works and is fun can then be subjected to further, more rigid, testing and tweaking.
Some major changes(Armouries not healing armour, in the previous iteration) should be in the balance mod with no other changes.
I'd love to play some more of the BT mod, but I just can't get used to sliding all over the place by just barely brushing a movement key as a skulk.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm not really sure if this is intended or not to be honest, but it reminds me a bit of HL1 when you stepped in water.
You haven't played RTS games or things similar, if it ain't balanced people go ballistic, you never hear the end of it.
And you know what, most players would never actually know the difference.
It took over 10 years of patches for Starcraft to reach the balanced state it's praised for, and even still, there's plenty of useless units that only show up in trick plays or are simply not used at all. Protoss Scouts, for example, immediately spring to mind.
How would you define balance anyway? Counter-Strike is a quite poorly-balanced game. There's like fifty weapons, and yet only about eight of them ever get used on a routine basis. Do you remember when Valve played with dynamic pricing based on supply / demand? Desert Eagles went up to around $2,000-something dollars. The team vs. team balance might be 'fair' because both sides have access to broken weapons, but when the majority of the game content is excluded due to its inferiority to a few 'all-star players', I would argue that the game as a whole is poorly balanced.
Battlefield 3 is more properly received to this demand. There's something like 20 assault rifles, and yet the only rifle you actually need to use is the M16A4 or the M416, because they're so obviously the best weapons. A lot of people complain that this is poor balance, because despite the fact that both sides can use the rifles, it means that the remaining 18 rifles (or however many) are just useless and underperform. You're forced to use one of the two rifles because they're simply better, which cheapens the gameplay and dumbs it down considerably.
It would take the absolute best players, remaining completely objective, and probably weeks of playing to identify real balance issues. Most balance issues are so minor that they honestly aren't going to have any serious impact on the game. Do you think all successful multiplayer shooter games are actually properly balanced? That the handful of patches with various number changes were scientifically derived from running hours of simulations? Or maybe they just went 'this could work', tested it for a few days, figured it was good enough, and put it out there? And you know what, this actually works for the majority of games.
Because like I said - most players don't actually notice.
What were the win stats for NS1? How come "50% win rate" was never made such a big deal about in NS1? I definitely recall aliens winning most games in NS1, and I definitely recall never actually giving a shit, because the game was much more fun and even losing was pretty fun.
people are most likely not going to play a team where they going to lose even if they play well.
Right now we have an issue where one side is easy to play, is more fun to play in all aspects, is easier to learn, and has a lower skill requirement to play well, and a side that is the exact opposite. Why should the win rate be 50%? Why should the easier team deserve an equal chance of winning?
Not sure about this RTS games don't change much and have big followings, more so then games with high amount of choices..... his an extreme case Chess, hasn't changed for a long time still played in high numbers.
1) Amongst English-speaking countries, RTS is absolutely nowhere near as popular as FPS. Korea doesn't count any more than we could say shitty grindtastic MMOs are popular because the entire country of China plays them until they literally die. The most optimistic sales count for Starcraft was 9 million units, which was worldwide and 10 years of sales. Battlefield 3 sold over half that many copies in North America in the first week, and Modern Warfare 3 moved over 6 million copies in the first day.
2) NS2 is not a real RTS game. Having a commander and some buttons to push and buildings to plop doesn't make it an RTS game any more than earning experience points in a shooter suddenly makes it a role-playing game. Determining what makes a game fit into a genre takes more than just excising individual features and tossing them in respective piles and then looking at which pile is higher.
3) I'll let you off this time but please don't compare RTS games to chess ever again. There isn't really a single concept in chess that can even remotely be applied to how RTS games function without some serious effort taken to shoehorn in concepts that aren't even unique to chess. If you can invite a comparison between chess and your typical RTS game, you might as well invite the comparison that Starcraft is a lot like Go. Because you place pieces (units). And have to plan. And eventually you might win? If you think you'd like to argue this I'll start you off with this: In a way that doesn't sound totally insane, please explain to me what chess has that's directly analogous to build orders, rock-paper-scissors balance, territory control, and micro.
Comments
[pedantry]
Then why even bother having proper nouns? Pronouns will suffice in every case. Therefore, I agree with what that guy said back on one of the previous pages, you know, with words and stuff...
[/pedantry]
I mentioned to Veritas once that Flayra could bring back bunnyhopping under another name and most of the opposition would suddenly disappear... joke is it's probably true.
Because referring to inorganic "safe-jumping" (in this case; jumping in a game to avoid an enemy that you wouldn't jump for in real life, thus making it look completely wrong and just lame when players do it) in a shooter otherwise as tactical and hard-core as NS2 is as "bunnyhopping" is a good way to put shame on those who rely on it. As in; It is so lame to jump out of danger when facing certain enemies in a game in which this most likely wasn't intended that we should refer to it as bunnyhopping to indirectly ask the people to go back to doing the actual bunny-hopping in UT and Q3.
So, with pardons to those who cling to the name of the hobby of bunnyhopping and who want to protect the actual meaning of the word, i think that this is an excellent case to let us borrow and use it in a way that hopefully could make a difference one day as it also is an indirect way to try and nudge UWE in realizing that a large portion of their player-base are referring to an inorganic play-style that shouldn't be there to uphold the current mirage of almost perfect balance between marine and alien. Something that they should have taken note about and worked out a re-balancing plan for months ago. I stand firm on the point that if bunnyhopping was no longer useful in avoiding skulks, from one build to another, it would drastically change the balance to the favor of the aliens as a LOT more of their bites in the early game would hit.
Granted, that makes myself a bunnyhopper as well as i also rely on this lame method for survival, as it unfortunately works and as i explained earlier is something that i believe is a vital part in keeping the balance between marines and aliens. I am completely behind getting rid of it, but only if its consequences are understood and taken care of.
Maybe. Sounds nice.
ATM the game feels awful; you have the choice between a fun but too easy Marine experience and a gimped and deserted by the community Alien experience. I'm forced to shame veterans out of Marines to get one good game as Alien out of five. I already see less and less people playing and I doubt that will change, since people only feel Marine is fun and that they just leave when they can't play Marine.
I think at this point the forum community will only hear some quiet if they get for skulk, either:
A.) Equivalent movement/speed/acceleration before build 240
or
B.) Novel aesthetic additions that are considered "fun" (abilities and upgrades)
so
a.) If you are arguing for balance then you are wanting to do the EXACT same thing with skulk as you do right now. This will make skulk EASIER not fun. There are a lot of posters on here that are using the idea of easy in place of fun and it almost becomes a matter of argument subterfuge.
b.) If you simply want the skulk to be more fun then you will have to change or add an actual mechanic (otherwise skulk is the exact same again just sugar coated), or something that the player is actively doing (i.e. bite, jump, leap, etc.)
There are a lot of people in this thread that are dodging between talking about making the skulk "fun" or "balanced" when all they are actually arguing for is to make the skulk easier. I have even had it argued with me in this thread about whether or not the actual topic is about balance or fun. There is a big difference between the two in my own opinion.
If people were to chose between Marine and Aliens blind folded, I think we'd have a pretty good balance. (I'm not sure about that, because I sometimes feel vanilla Skulk to be a bit weak against vanilla Marine, but had you asked before my intense Skulk training, I would have said Skulk stood no chance)
I don't have an opinion on the best solution; I think they have equal chances to make a difference. Either buff Skulks purely through numbers, or give them an ability, I don't care. Really. Something needs to be done about it, that's the main concern to me.
Where's this idea that it always has to be fun, don't anyone play for the challenge or experience, Starcraft or Dota isn't particularly fun, but I still play it for the challenge and their unique gaming format.
Maybe we gamers are unable to understand that some games should not exist just to be fun, in a obvious way.
though to chime in with the Skulk talk, most are still over the top rant, I agree the Skulk needs a slight buff, but if used correctly is still mostly still good, today I got 17 to 3 with the Skulk on the Yo Clan server which has quite high level players on, most are regulars.
I wish I could make video on it, though lack the time..... though free at somepoint, will try to make a Skulk video.... though one lifeform that needs help with combat is the Gorge need to increase it's attack speed.
A challenge or experience (as you call it) IS fun. It's exactly the kind of fun we talk about. Working towards something, and being rewarded.
What is NOT fun (by the most objective metric I can think of) is having the feeling that there is no good effort/reward or skill/reward balance or even to hit a dead end where one might as well give up..
---
This thread was started before the free weekend, which had the problem disappear quite a bit thanks to all the new players.
Did a quick test today, and it's back.
- 24 players servers are not just Marine favored like pre-240 (which wasn't a problem per se, as games could still be fun, plenty of good 24p games), they're downright unplayable. The Skulk weakness (a big part of which is the hopping issue/Skulk slowness) and then the Alien spawn system amplification is just ridiculous.
Before you say "24 player servers, no need to talk further", keep in mind most non-UWE servers have this player number, and people like playing in bigger teams for a change. Why does the game have 24 player servers if they're essentially unusable for normal games?
- Of course nobody wants to go Alien. Everyone spams the Marine entrance. Aliens win if every good player stacks Alien (not happening too often) or Marines are just plain incompetent (one Infantry Portal).
I really wouldn't like to be a new player on the Alien team right now. Must be incredibly frustrating. So many people with 1:4 KD ratios or worse, while it's hard to find more than Marine with a KDR less than 1.
It's sad to see an Alien team lose even after fighting great, holding 3 Hives, harassing, quickly defending against attacks... only to be stomped by an Exo+ARC train effortlessly which comes out of 2 bases and 3 Extractors.
It's not too exciting to command Marines and wondering what you would have needed to do to even lose. "Lost a base? So what, no problem..."
It's just lame. NS2 was much more fun when strategy, timing and build orders mattered much more and battle outcomes were more decisive.
Just saying
A lot of people don't feel that way by the looks of so many pub ready rooms with most of the players standing in the marines entrance since gorgeous. Having said that I still try to swap every round, but I will leave the server ifthe
alien team I'm on starts to get stomped in the first few minutes.
Also the flip side to this is there is much less of a challenge playing as marine since gorgeous. Ideally both sides should be similar in terms of fun / challenge to play. Right now it's not much fun being an overweight skulk and it's not much of a challenge shooting them as marine.
I don't expect this thread to die until the skulk goes on a diet and gets a gym membership. That or everyone who wants it changed moves on from NS2.
"Crackhopping" used to be the defacto term for that. It's almost like quicktime events now, smash spacebar to not die.
Unfortunately UWE doesn't actually think there's a difference. There was a very vocal group when the game first launched that was upset at the lack of innovation, new features, and general lackluster design. I assume most of them quit in frustration by now, but it seemed to me like UWE was more obsessed with making a balanced game rather than making a FUN game. You make all the features you can think of, and make the game fun to play, and from THERE do you dial things up and and down for balance, or cut features.
The fact that aliens had lost almost half of their overall content from NS1 was utterly tragic. Even simple shit like having all the rooms without built power nodes at the beginning of the game being dark. Why did we have to think of that idea? Who actually thought having the hive rooms being brightly lit was a good idea?
Ultimately the biggest problem was UWE's obsession with 50% win ratio being the promised land of gaming. Like if you get 50% win ratios, that means the game is flawlessly balanced, and it's the most fun it could be. Sorry, this isn't 2003 anymore where games are somewhat simple and streamlined through necessity of design. Most people actually expect a little more out of their games these days than just playing for the sake of winning.
I used to play a little game called Tribes 2. At its height of gameplay, you had the basics of an outstanding skill shooter - midair shots, high-speed movement, extremely high skill ceiling between ski routes and twitch skills required. At its core, this game was more or less Quake, you just blew around the place and shot people. This isn't fun to me. It's one-dimensional, repetitive, boring. I don't play games just to be told "LOL YOU WIN". That's fucking stupid.
But there was more to Tribes 2 than that. You had the heavy armor classes who could mortar bases from afar and destroy defenses. You had deployable defenses and sensors you could erect in the field. You had tanks, bombers, and (my favorite) interceptor fighters. You had slow-moving, vulnerable mobile bases, targeting lasers, beacons. It was a game of grand strategy in an FPS format. I didn't play only so I could frag people and brag about how awesome I was to compensate for my incredibly tiny penis, I played for the overall experience. If I wasn't good at twitch action shooting, I could work as an engineer at our base. I could grab a satchel charge and try to blow up the enemy generators. I could get a couple of guys to jump in my bomber and rain hell on the enemy base, or I could get in a fighter and escort the bomber.
The more choices and opportunities the games offers you, the more fun the game probably is. The content in Tribes 2 was remarkably streamlined - the vehicles had specific purposes without overlap, the weapons were specifically designed without overlap as well. Yet all of the parts became something greater than the whole. The game offered something for everyone and was extremely feature-rich. And yet, despite all that gobbledy-gook, it was still at its heart a fast-paced, frantic game of capture the flag.
Now compare that to NS2. You get a skulk who can parasite (useless), leap / jump / walljump which are basically variations of the same theme, and volunteer himself to clog the spawn queue with the incredibly useless xenocide. Oh, and you get a fairly useless alien vision.
That's it. That's the pinnacle of innovation we got from UWE. The upgrades are fucking stupid, they're just passive benefits that work in the background (or in the case of regen / celerity, they don't). Literally the only two upgrades that actually can change HOW YOU PLAY is silence / cloaking, and they're pretty much the least popular, because the game punishes you for NOT using celerity / adren / carapace / regen thanks to its atrocious balance.
Would you like me to go compare the HL2 mod Dystopia with NS2 next? Because it's basically the same story - the game was well-balanced, fiercely competitive and fast-paced, and also tons of fun, thanks to the rich feature set, lots of imagination in the design, and some innovative features like Cyberspace. Even if you were losing, the game was fun.
NS2 isn't fun to play if you're an alien, it's hard to say it's even fun to WIN as an alien, and it's definitely not fun to LOSE as an alien. Their feature set is fucking shallow and pathetic, because UWE has this ridiculous idea of minimalism somehow making a game automatically better, when that's not true at all. There's tons of crap in the suggestions forum that could add something to the aliens that would spice up interest in playing one, but UWE has pretty much treated the S&I forum as a shitheap since NS1 days, because they think they know better than the players on what the players want.
There's a reason Combat was most popular than NS1 and was the first mod made for NS2.
Maybe my play-style works well with the Skulk, because to me the Aliens are a hit and run team, except the Onus with contradicts the ethos of the Aliens.
I see a lot of the bad play with the Skulk like running into a bunch of marines or not getting be-hide them, or not jumping of the walls. I believe a big problem is the tips, it doesn't say works as a team as much as the marines tips do, I think that's the main issue is teamwork... people aren't use to it, quite a lot of games well there say teamwork is needed, usually you can get one person to carry the game, so negating teamwork, but this game you require teamwork, which is one its best aspect.
When you execute a well timed attack as a team, marines are unable to focus fire, quite a lot of the time, unless in a big open area Aliens always win those engagements.
Also Zenocide is quite fun, and leap is always good, but a suggestion I did like was making it a first hive upgrade, something to compete with the early shotguns.
but the Alien team is mostly fine, as I said the gorge needs help with it's attack speed but that's it.
Lerk and fade are still the best to play, I don't care for the Onus, only means to an end.
"Ultimately the biggest problem was UWE's obsession with 50% win ratio being the promised land of gaming. Like if you get 50% win ratios, that means the game is flawlessly balanced, and it's the most fun it could be. Sorry, this isn't 2003 anymore where games are somewhat simple and streamlined through necessity of design. Most people actually expect a little more out of their games these days than just playing for the sake of winning."
You haven't played RTS games or things similar, if it ain't balanced people go ballistic, you never hear the end of it.
though I would like the game to stay more even and balanced, people are most likely not going to play a team where they going to lose even if they play well.
Probably the difference in mentality, you come more from a FPS prospective while I come from a RTS/Grand Strategy point of view, my gripes are the RTS side, not the FPS side, to be fair you only can do some much with the FPS side of things.
"The more choices and opportunities the games offers you, the more fun the game probably is."
Not sure about this RTS games don't change much and have big followings, more so then games with high amount of choices..... his an extreme case Chess, hasn't changed for a long time still played in high numbers.
Maybe you need to find you own unique style and play, before moaning for more options.. it's more about making something out of it, then wanting new toys.
a massive discrepancy in the tier 1 matchups that leads to an overall 50/50 is not balance, it just means that they aliens have the potential to win any games that last longer than the period where marines can walk in their hive and egg lock because skulks are awful
6 minute onos was 50/50 too - I don't see how it's not completely obvious by now that fixating on winrate is a waste of time without any kind of overall design direction
I always figured it had to do with making NS2 a balanced/competitive esports game.
Ten pages, and we see only discussion among players, this uncertainty is beginning to annoy me
Thus, look to that mod as an indication, i say.
Be sure to join the steam group
The only problem I have with the balance mod is that it appears to be continuing in the direction of "throw stuff at the game and see what will stick" rather than coming up with a well thought out plan to make NS2 fun and balanced. Player counts are reaching all new lows, now is not the time to be waiting around testing huge amalgamations of modifications and features all thrown in together. It's just going to end up just as broken but in a different way. You can only rebump the player counts with random changes so many times.
And its been getting worked on for a long time now by Sewlek, directed very much by the feedback from those who care to give it.
So saying its like "throwing stuff and seeing what sticks" in this occurence is inaccurate and disingenuous imo.
In some of the first patches after launch, maybe. This honed and beautiful well thought out Balance Test? Not so much.
No offense, but have you played some games with it yet?
If not, I'm hosting a game with the PTs today after our usual work (Loosely ~17:30-1800 PST) feel free to join off of me from that steam group link.
I think (hope) what Farknut was trying to say is similar to the way I see the Balance Mod. The balance mod is great to test things yes. The only problem I have (and why I only stay for a round usually) is that there are two many variables that have been changed. That is one of the fundamental rules of an experiment. You test a single variable to gauge its effect on a system. If I have a squeaky door and I replace the slab, screws, hinges, frame, and all, of course its not going to squeak anymore but I'll never know what was causing the problem. There are just way too many changes in the balance mod for me to look at a single change and gauge its effect on the overall game experience. I think the balance mod could do with fewer signifcant changes rather than all at once.
Perfect explanation, thanks. The worst thing is that what happens next is that ~parts~ (who knows what, noone seems to be telling) of the balance mod get thrown in the actual game. How can there be any correlation between how these individual parts work (and are tested) in a balance mod with so many different changes, and how they work when they get put in vanilla NS2? It makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean if the balance mod was good (which I don't agree that it is) and it basically replaced the current vanilla version of NS2, that would be another matter. It would be a bizarre decision in itself to change the game in such a big way, especially given how good Hugh/the pr team seem to think the game currently is in both terms of fun and balance, but it certainly wouldn't be throwing stuff to see what sticks, which is exactly what the entire process of the balance mod and of moving its features to vanilla appears to be.
Nothing will be solved by changing ~everything~, nor will anything be solved by testing in a ~completely different environment~. We need to get some basic science up in here.
This x1000.
specially the bolded part.
You have this many-dimensional landscape with lots of little local peaks. If you just follow the steepest gradient one little change at a time you end up firmly stuck on this local peak in the landscape.
What you're looking for is a good approximation of the global optimum. You need a method like simulated annealing.
So (in respect of the topic of this thread) if in the balance mod both alien movement was restored to previous values and marine movement was changed to completely different values than they are now. Would it accurately reflect balance of vanilla skulks and marines? No. There is no way possible.
The only time testing many variables works in a game like this is with completely NEW content (i.e. railguns, gorge tunnels, babblers). It works fine for that. But when you want to test changes to basic physics like movement, you can not change the value of every class and expect that to give perspective on vanilla ns2.
Some major changes(Armouries not healing armour, in the previous iteration) should be in the balance mod with no other changes.
And you know what, most players would never actually know the difference.
It took over 10 years of patches for Starcraft to reach the balanced state it's praised for, and even still, there's plenty of useless units that only show up in trick plays or are simply not used at all. Protoss Scouts, for example, immediately spring to mind.
How would you define balance anyway? Counter-Strike is a quite poorly-balanced game. There's like fifty weapons, and yet only about eight of them ever get used on a routine basis. Do you remember when Valve played with dynamic pricing based on supply / demand? Desert Eagles went up to around $2,000-something dollars. The team vs. team balance might be 'fair' because both sides have access to broken weapons, but when the majority of the game content is excluded due to its inferiority to a few 'all-star players', I would argue that the game as a whole is poorly balanced.
Battlefield 3 is more properly received to this demand. There's something like 20 assault rifles, and yet the only rifle you actually need to use is the M16A4 or the M416, because they're so obviously the best weapons. A lot of people complain that this is poor balance, because despite the fact that both sides can use the rifles, it means that the remaining 18 rifles (or however many) are just useless and underperform. You're forced to use one of the two rifles because they're simply better, which cheapens the gameplay and dumbs it down considerably.
It would take the absolute best players, remaining completely objective, and probably weeks of playing to identify real balance issues. Most balance issues are so minor that they honestly aren't going to have any serious impact on the game. Do you think all successful multiplayer shooter games are actually properly balanced? That the handful of patches with various number changes were scientifically derived from running hours of simulations? Or maybe they just went 'this could work', tested it for a few days, figured it was good enough, and put it out there? And you know what, this actually works for the majority of games.
Because like I said - most players don't actually notice.
What were the win stats for NS1? How come "50% win rate" was never made such a big deal about in NS1? I definitely recall aliens winning most games in NS1, and I definitely recall never actually giving a shit, because the game was much more fun and even losing was pretty fun.
Right now we have an issue where one side is easy to play, is more fun to play in all aspects, is easier to learn, and has a lower skill requirement to play well, and a side that is the exact opposite. Why should the win rate be 50%? Why should the easier team deserve an equal chance of winning?
1) Amongst English-speaking countries, RTS is absolutely nowhere near as popular as FPS. Korea doesn't count any more than we could say shitty grindtastic MMOs are popular because the entire country of China plays them until they literally die. The most optimistic sales count for Starcraft was 9 million units, which was worldwide and 10 years of sales. Battlefield 3 sold over half that many copies in North America in the first week, and Modern Warfare 3 moved over 6 million copies in the first day.
2) NS2 is not a real RTS game. Having a commander and some buttons to push and buildings to plop doesn't make it an RTS game any more than earning experience points in a shooter suddenly makes it a role-playing game. Determining what makes a game fit into a genre takes more than just excising individual features and tossing them in respective piles and then looking at which pile is higher.
3) I'll let you off this time but please don't compare RTS games to chess ever again. There isn't really a single concept in chess that can even remotely be applied to how RTS games function without some serious effort taken to shoehorn in concepts that aren't even unique to chess. If you can invite a comparison between chess and your typical RTS game, you might as well invite the comparison that Starcraft is a lot like Go. Because you place pieces (units). And have to plan. And eventually you might win? If you think you'd like to argue this I'll start you off with this: In a way that doesn't sound totally insane, please explain to me what chess has that's directly analogous to build orders, rock-paper-scissors balance, territory control, and micro.