Hey, great mod and I'm glad to see NS combat return ! I used to play on the BAD combat servers a lot which had /xmenu and combatbuildings. Now, people may dislike /xmenu but it added a huge variety to the game mode IMO.
It allowed more skill variation and allowed you to try different "builds" (for example, battle gorge, late game, level 20+ was really common and doable by maxing out the heal spray upgrade + getting max out acidic death, since it got a bonus for gorges + getting hunger upgrades).
Any chance this can be added to the mod too?
Combatbuildings really added depth to the game mode and made it similar to NS classic. With things like ninja PGs, forward Movement Chambers, Defense Chambers, or Sensory Chambers (built by gorges, cost 1 point, it's refunded if it's destroyed though) etc all added a huge layer of gameplay to the NS mod.
IMO, NS1 Combat was probably one of the best FPS gameplay experiences I've ever had. It was also very strategic and required a lot of team work to win. The way /xmenu worked was that it (in the end game) favored marines a bit more than aliens, which meant aliens had to work on defending more than marines attacking (at the end game anyway, early to mid game, it was fairly balanced for both sides).
Anyway, good work on the mod .
Agreed. xmenu + combatbuildings added A LOT more long-term motivation to NS1 Combat.
Should be properly restricted and configurable by server admins though, as one of the nice things in NS2 Combat is the greatly improved performance due to less structures.
Just makes sense that the marines should be able to build some stuff too, as the gorge has some structures by default already. :]
Anyone else think that Ink is obscenely overpowered? It lasts so long, can't be countered and the entire team can basically spam it, giving marines no moment of clear sight anymore. It takes a lot of fun out of the game for marines if you can't see shit anymore in the lategame. I guess thus far it was never really considered because not many people were using it, but if you have the majority of a team spam it, it gets a pain in the ass.
It really needs a nerf of some description. Let it cover a smaller area, increase the timer for reusing it, make it a once-per-spawn thing or maybe have it be countered by Grenade Launchers (explosion blows the clouds away; deliberately not going for the Flamethrower here because that one is already a hard counter to Lerks).
The marine's taunt attack is pretty abysmal compared to that.
Completely agree. Also, it remains the ugliest visual in the entire game and reminds me of some bad pixel art from the age of commodore 64. If only there was a way to make it less painful on the eyes.
Lerks with spores/umbra/ink are the fucking worst, if you run around with a flamethrower it just replaces spores/umbra with fire effects anyway, both being equally vision impairing.
Also notice a lot of times as marines flamethrower effect comes out of the gun when using LMG/SG.
Would also like to see all alien life forms cost one more res or a fade limit, I don't understand why there's a GL limit and no fade limit, having 5-6 fades out on a field is just ridiculous in a team of 8.
I've been working on our builder tool this morning (part of the new, secret mod!) but it should be possible to back-integrate it into Combat. So far I've made a weapon that mirrors the gorge build weapon but with a welder view model. I think I'll make it so you can access it by using secondary fire on the welder. How does that sound?
I'm on the fence about ink - if it was toned down I'm not sure I would bother getting it until I have points to spare. That said the visual is really ugly and very difficult to deal with as marine.
Would also like to see all alien life forms cost one more res or a fade limit, I don't understand why there's a GL limit and no fade limit, having 5-6 fades out on a field is just ridiculous in a team of 8.
MCMLXXXIV - could you please, instead of devour, give onos an instant kill ability with some cooldown? For me, together with spammable ink, devour provides the worst combat experience. Being locked out of control, every minute, having to look at another ugly visual gives me stomach ache, out of sheer anti aesthetic overload.
Also, the ultra spammability of ink, devour, spores, gls, onos, exos makes it a game of pure frustration, where you're completely out of control and see almost nothing most of the time. The only time when combat is pleasant is the first five minutes, with only skulks, lerks and a few fades vs rifles and shotguns. I used to play combat all the time, as a means of practicing for regular ns2, now, it's completely lost any appeal in that respect.
This post was made out of frustration and how insufferable combat had become. Please, be aware of this and maybe make a few changes to make it pleasant again.
I've been working on our builder tool this morning (part of the new, secret mod!) but it should be possible to back-integrate it into Combat. So far I've made a weapon that mirrors the gorge build weapon but with a welder view model. I think I'll make it so you can access it by using secondary fire on the welder. How does that sound?
MCMLXXXIV - could you please, instead of devour, give onos an instant kill ability with some cooldown? For me, together with spammable ink, devour provides the worst combat experience. Being locked out of control, every minute, having to look at another ugly visual gives me stomach ache, out of sheer anti aesthetic overload.
I like the general idea of devour in combat. :] I'm still sad that it didn't make it from NS1 to NS2.
It does need some work, I agree. The visual is very ugly indeed and should be replaced with the original one from NS1.
The time it takes to devour could be shorter too.
Remember that this is on a fresh install of ns2 dedicated server. I install dedicated server and add the required settings for combat from the op only.
@ZEROibis: I think I've been able to reproduce and solve your problem. Two of the map mods you had in the list (6523544 and 5faeac4) are no longer working as they haven't been updated since build 233. I'll remove them from the server guide if you got the initial list from there...
Can you try using this as your mod string in the server launch options: -mods "5f35045 55e90a3 4d41f11 4fd7fd4 57c685f 57f5f9a 662442f" and see if that works?
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Should do another rerelaunch of this. Constant exos and onos for 15 minutes with no penalty of death isn't enjoyable.
Hope there's some design changes in the pipeline.
Should do another rerelaunch of this. Constant exos and onos for 15 minutes with no penalty of death isn't enjoyable.
Hope there's some design changes in the pipeline.
Have you played NS1 Combat? Any constructive suggestions on how to improve things?
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited April 2013
Not really. Do you disagree?
I'd like the time at which exos and onos can become available to be pushed back. You can do this by either raising the cost at which it is effective or slowing down the average leveling process overall, or even reducing the round time from 25 minutes to something that has players exhausting the tech tree during the entirety of the round.
I'd also like the death of an end game unit to be more meaningful - perhaps you cannot regain a point when one of these units is lost resulting in only being able to use it a specific amount of times per round. Requiring players to be more thoughtful in how they play the units and use their upgrades.
Then again, some people legitimately enjoy the second half of a combat round, that rush as onos vs exo fight it out in a mad dash to see who can suicide on each other the fastest.
I'd like the time at which exos and onos can become available to be pushed back. You can do this by either raising the cost at which it is effective or slowing down the average leveling process overall, or even reducing the round time from 25 minutes to something that has players exhausting the tech tree during the entirety of the round.
I'd also like the death of an end game unit to be more meaningful - perhaps you cannot regain a point when one of these units is lost resulting in only being able to use it a specific amount of times per round. Requiring players to be more thoughtful in how they play the units and use their upgrades.
Then again, some people legitimately enjoy the second half of a combat round, that rush as onos vs exo fight it out in a mad dash to see who can suicide on each other the fastest.
This is an example why making things like requirements xp gain ect configurable would be great. B/c then this guy can do it his way and we can do it ours and the players will decide what they like best.
I'd like the time at which exos and onos can become available to be pushed back. You can do this by either raising the cost at which it is effective or slowing down the average leveling process overall, or even reducing the round time from 25 minutes to something that has players exhausting the tech tree during the entirety of the round.
I'd also like the death of an end game unit to be more meaningful - perhaps you cannot regain a point when one of these units is lost resulting in only being able to use it a specific amount of times per round. Requiring players to be more thoughtful in how they play the units and use their upgrades.
I think that you are missing the point of the combat mode, which is why I asked if you played the original NS1 Combat at all.
Consequences for death, such as the loss of points, would defeat the mods purpose. If you want players to be thoughtful about their units and punished for their loss, you can just play vanilla NS2.
This is an example why making things like requirements xp gain ect configurable would be great. B/c then this guy can do it his way and we can do it ours and the players will decide what they like best.
Indeed. More configurability would be nice generally. :]
I agree that the default round time is too long. Then again the servers I usually play on are set to 25minutes - which I think is well balanced for Combat, and still is around 10-15 min of exo push. 35 minutes is 20-25 min of exo push, and that's just too fucking much.
Longer spawn time for onos/exo might be a good replacement for the recent timer (which was removed).
@ZEROibis: I think I've been able to reproduce and solve your problem. Two of the map mods you had in the list (6523544 and 5faeac4) are no longer working as they haven't been updated since build 233. I'll remove them from the server guide if you got the initial list from there...
Can you try using this as your mod string in the server launch options: -mods "5f35045 55e90a3 4d41f11 4fd7fd4 57c685f 57f5f9a 662442f" and see if that works?
That fixed the problem. Still that is pretty bad that having "bad maps" in your launch options will crash the server even if said maps are not currently being played.
I suppose after each build we should try to recompile a list of what maps work as to save server operators the time of individually testing every map.
The abilities from what I recall were:
Marines
Cybernetics: run faster
Reinforced Armor: more armor
Nano Armor: armor regens
Advanced Ammopack: increase amo clip size
Static Field: electric shock damages any enemy within range every Xsec
Uranium Ammunition: increase weapon dmg
Alines
Thickened Skin: more armor
Ethereal Shift: cloak partly even at full speed
Blood Lust: Increase energy recharge
Hunger: attack faster for a time after you kill
Acidic Vengeance: explode on death (like xeno)
Sense of Ancients: something awesome? forgot
In our new mod we've got Cybernetics, Reinforced Armor/Thickened Skin, Advanced Ammopack and Uranium Ammunition. If I can do it I'll try and port them over once I've finished the builder tool and backported that. Architecturally the mods are quite different though (we learned a lot from making Combat!), and it may throw the balance a little when we introduce them.
As for the customisable levels, I think I know how to do it but unfortunately it's non-trivial to implement and my first go didn't work very well. If I work out how to do it in the new mod, again I'll find a way to backport it.
Yea hopefully if we can get the rest it will balance out more. Somethings like Uranium Ammunition and Sense of Ancients were not available until much higher levels. Hunger required Blood Lust and Blood Lust required adrl i think. Nano Armor required Reinforced Armor and Reinforced Armor required A3 for example.
you can create a map as you would for ns2 ( using all entities that comes with the game/editor ) you also have the extraentitymod by Jim West that adds portals, weldable doors etc. for map testing just drop the word here and we will see if we can orginize a playtest.
Best thing you can do is to open your own topic in the mapping forum and post regular updates preferably with some screenshots to get the community and server hosts to get excited for your map.
ok thx, ill have something in 2 or 3 days, just wanted to know the required entities specific for combat mode (if there are any) so first playtest isnt a total failure because i missed something.
np you can make sure you have all entites by launching the map on LAN and testing for youself, things like every team is spawning correctly, be able to spectate, tech station and other stuff aren't floating, players not getting stuck on surfaces, then should be a good start for a public playtest.
OK some ideas for the next version, what do you think about:
- adding build menu (currently working on)
- keeping time limit but after time reached "last stand" mode, no respawn,
player lose periodically health so nobody will camp?
- giving more options to server admins, like chaning upgrade costs, xp,
disabling or enabling upgrades
OK some ideas for the next version, what do you think about:
- adding build menu (currently working on)
- keeping time limit but after time reached "last stand" mode, no respawn,
player lose periodically health so nobody will camp?
- giving more options to server admins, like chaning upgrade costs, xp,
disabling or enabling upgrades
Sounds awesome. :]
Just make sure to add config options in CombatMod.cfg for everything please. (Numbers and sort of buildings per player/team would be important)
I'd personally also love an option to enable/disable/edit the combat motd.
Edit: In fact, as much configurability as somehow possible would be nice (for all mods and plugins, really), as steamwork mods can not be easily edited by admins, without uploading a whole separate version.
OK some ideas for the next version, what do you think about:
- adding build menu (currently working on)
- keeping time limit but after time reached "last stand" mode, no respawn,
player lose periodically health so nobody will camp?
- giving more options to server admins, like changing upgrade costs, xp,
disabling or enabling upgrades
For the time limit it should be less detrimental to the players experience than losing health or unable to spawn, no one likes dieing because the took unavoidable damage, or being locked out of respawning because they had the bad luck of being eaten by an onos as the time ran out.
a couple of ideas of modifiers to kick on in last stand.
- Increased damage.
- Increased movement speed
- Increasing the timer on the group spawning so larger waves of players are spawned at a time.
- Removing the ability to weld/heal the Command Chair/Hive
Removing the ability to heal/weld the CC/Hive and displaying a message to the players telling them that would be a good way to encourage both side to rush in to chip off damage until one side goes down.
Comments
Agreed. xmenu + combatbuildings added A LOT more long-term motivation to NS1 Combat.
Should be properly restricted and configurable by server admins though, as one of the nice things in NS2 Combat is the greatly improved performance due to less structures.
Just makes sense that the marines should be able to build some stuff too, as the gorge has some structures by default already. :]
Completely agree. Also, it remains the ugliest visual in the entire game and reminds me of some bad pixel art from the age of commodore 64. If only there was a way to make it less painful on the eyes.
Also notice a lot of times as marines flamethrower effect comes out of the gun when using LMG/SG.
Would also like to see all alien life forms cost one more res or a fade limit, I don't understand why there's a GL limit and no fade limit, having 5-6 fades out on a field is just ridiculous in a team of 8.
This isn't a bad idea.
Any chance you can create it so mappers can create dynamic infestation spreading, so we can cover more of the alien side of the map if we want?
Also, the ultra spammability of ink, devour, spores, gls, onos, exos makes it a game of pure frustration, where you're completely out of control and see almost nothing most of the time. The only time when combat is pleasant is the first five minutes, with only skulks, lerks and a few fades vs rifles and shotguns. I used to play combat all the time, as a means of practicing for regular ns2, now, it's completely lost any appeal in that respect.
This post was made out of frustration and how insufferable combat had become. Please, be aware of this and maybe make a few changes to make it pleasant again.
Sounds awesome! :]
I like the general idea of devour in combat. :] I'm still sad that it didn't make it from NS1 to NS2.
It does need some work, I agree. The visual is very ugly indeed and should be replaced with the original one from NS1.
The time it takes to devour could be shorter too.
Here is another log this time with all client mods turned off: http://www.ibisgaming.com/media/log.txt
Remember that this is on a fresh install of ns2 dedicated server. I install dedicated server and add the required settings for combat from the op only.
Can you try using this as your mod string in the server launch options: -mods "5f35045 55e90a3 4d41f11 4fd7fd4 57c685f 57f5f9a 662442f" and see if that works?
Hope there's some design changes in the pipeline.
Have you played NS1 Combat? Any constructive suggestions on how to improve things?
I'd like the time at which exos and onos can become available to be pushed back. You can do this by either raising the cost at which it is effective or slowing down the average leveling process overall, or even reducing the round time from 25 minutes to something that has players exhausting the tech tree during the entirety of the round.
I'd also like the death of an end game unit to be more meaningful - perhaps you cannot regain a point when one of these units is lost resulting in only being able to use it a specific amount of times per round. Requiring players to be more thoughtful in how they play the units and use their upgrades.
Then again, some people legitimately enjoy the second half of a combat round, that rush as onos vs exo fight it out in a mad dash to see who can suicide on each other the fastest.
This is an example why making things like requirements xp gain ect configurable would be great. B/c then this guy can do it his way and we can do it ours and the players will decide what they like best.
I think that you are missing the point of the combat mode, which is why I asked if you played the original NS1 Combat at all.
Consequences for death, such as the loss of points, would defeat the mods purpose. If you want players to be thoughtful about their units and punished for their loss, you can just play vanilla NS2.
Indeed. More configurability would be nice generally. :]
Longer spawn time for onos/exo might be a good replacement for the recent timer (which was removed).
That fixed the problem. Still that is pretty bad that having "bad maps" in your launch options will crash the server even if said maps are not currently being played.
I suppose after each build we should try to recompile a list of what maps work as to save server operators the time of individually testing every map.
The abilities from what I recall were:
Marines
Cybernetics: run faster
Reinforced Armor: more armor
Nano Armor: armor regens
Advanced Ammopack: increase amo clip size
Static Field: electric shock damages any enemy within range every Xsec
Uranium Ammunition: increase weapon dmg
Alines
Thickened Skin: more armor
Ethereal Shift: cloak partly even at full speed
Blood Lust: Increase energy recharge
Hunger: attack faster for a time after you kill
Acidic Vengeance: explode on death (like xeno)
Sense of Ancients: something awesome? forgot
As for the customisable levels, I think I know how to do it but unfortunately it's non-trivial to implement and my first go didn't work very well. If I work out how to do it in the new mod, again I'll find a way to backport it.
Looking forward to the new features.
thx!
Best thing you can do is to open your own topic in the mapping forum and post regular updates preferably with some screenshots to get the community and server hosts to get excited for your map.
Ill be creating a topic on mapping forum soon.
Thx!
- adding build menu (currently working on)
- keeping time limit but after time reached "last stand" mode, no respawn,
player lose periodically health so nobody will camp?
- giving more options to server admins, like chaning upgrade costs, xp,
disabling or enabling upgrades
Sounds awesome. :]
Just make sure to add config options in CombatMod.cfg for everything please. (Numbers and sort of buildings per player/team would be important)
I'd personally also love an option to enable/disable/edit the combat motd.
Edit: In fact, as much configurability as somehow possible would be nice (for all mods and plugins, really), as steamwork mods can not be easily edited by admins, without uploading a whole separate version.
For the time limit it should be less detrimental to the players experience than losing health or unable to spawn, no one likes dieing because the took unavoidable damage, or being locked out of respawning because they had the bad luck of being eaten by an onos as the time ran out.
a couple of ideas of modifiers to kick on in last stand.
- Increased damage.
- Increased movement speed
- Increasing the timer on the group spawning so larger waves of players are spawned at a time.
- Removing the ability to weld/heal the Command Chair/Hive
Removing the ability to heal/weld the CC/Hive and displaying a message to the players telling them that would be a good way to encourage both side to rush in to chip off damage until one side goes down.