can someone link me the full list of xmenu stuff?
I'm currently rethinking the new buy menu and I think I have something that looks and feels far better than the early prototype UI I made a couple of months back, it will also bring both UIs ( marine and alien ) a bit closer and should feel very familiar and not as different as it is now, it should also make it more clear which upgrades depend on getting others first( like dmg1 to unlock SG ), cause it seem very clear to me that the text we have now is easily missed by new players.
Sense of Ancients = class depending upgrade
Skulk = parasite more damage and chance to parasite nearby players
Gorge = stronger healspray
Lerk = gas damages HA (only the armor)
Fade = blink energy is reduced
Onos = devour multiple players
Gestate = more armor
requirements: lvl 10 / 1 upgrade of each upgrade chamber / 1 point
You can find further documentation, including the full source code and config files for both xmenu (ExtraLevels 3), CombatBuildings and LateJoinXP here:
This might have been reported already but 90% of the time when I spawn...I have no axe, that is, I switch to weapon 3 "axe" and NOTHING comes out.
Also and I'm sure this one is known, on map change somehow the load screen file doesn't load.
EDIT: Also I know this has been talked about and such already, but about onos and exos, fine, you didn't end up keeping them removed, I can live with that, but can we get a server variable to disable them? I know I for one don't care so much about the "balance" and one team winning over the other after 20 minutes every game, as much as I care about not dying to skill-less bullshit every time I engage in combat.
@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?
You should update the OP.
Those maps are still causing a bugged server.
Would the combat team be interested in chatting to me about doing a big promotional push on the NS2 social feeds? And perhaps having some of the official server pool turned over to combat?
Going to talk a lot about /xmenu in this post (as a long time fan of the mod).
A very important thing to note to those who disliked or had bad experiences with /xmenu is that "it depends on how servers set their settings. /xmenu and combatstructures were highly customizable which meant that in some cases, the games would be silly. But on the servers I played on, where things were set fairly tamed, /xmenu really added a lot to the game.
Oh yeah, Xmenu, the most irritating part of ns1 combat, i'm so glad we're bringing that back. *Thumbs up* </sarcasm>
Xmenu and combatbuildings are good in my experience.
I've played basically all forms of NS Combat (which is basically between the various versions of the regular version which were tweaked constantly to the final version with /xmenu) and /xmenu adds a lot.
First of all, an important thing to note about /xmenu is that it favors marines (end game) more than aliens.
This is intentional and part of the whole "Aliens defend to win" (or they can destroy the marine base) while marines have to attack. This is also the easiest way to combat the issue of stand offs.
Anyway, now here are the advantages of /xmenu (and combatbuildings):
1. It adds more "build variety" (I say build, as in skill build or what type of "role" or "class" you'd like to play as).
More upgrades, more skills, and more anything to chose from usually adds more to the game (unless something is grossly imbalanced but we can usually balance anything).
With more options, it adds more everything to the game (strategy, fun, etc).
2. As marines, you had a variety of builds to chose from. For example, regular/vanilla Combat mode meant that marines should probably just go HMG because honestly, nothing ever beat HMG in terms of DPS.
HMG did cost an extra point but in vanilla combat, there wasn't really anything else to spend points on. (As marines, all you need is jetpack, resupply, and put the rest to as much firepower as possible... that was the gist of it in regular combat mode.)
More than 1 or 2 marines getting a welder was also pointless too (plus no one wanted to get a welder). With Combatbuildings + /xmenu, players had "actual incentives" to get a welder (besides "someone has to weld the CC") because it enabled you to build structures (if you wanted to play sort of a "builder marine", you could).
In vanilla combat, you were just locked into specific builds and that's not really fun for any game (you want variety and builds).
The capped levels made things even less reasonable too. /xmenu uncapped the levels (well, it was capped at 50 but in most cases, that was rarely ever achieved due to the time limit and things like that).
This means if you wanted to invest in mines or some support ability, you could without locking yourself out of jetpacks or HMGs (for example).
Speaking of HMGs, with /xmenu, you didn't have to go HMGs. I know HMGs are non-existent in NS2, but the point was that it existed in NS1.
And the other point is that /xmenu helped deal with the problem of "you need to go HMGs" by adding more alternative choices.
You could stick with a shotgun (which lots of players did, especially since combined with a jetpack, it actually meant that you jetpack is more able to boost you up the lighter the weapon you had) or you could even stick with the LMG (which wasn't really effective but it worked since it had fast reload speed).
3. On the alien side, it made playing anything other than Fade or Onos viable. In vanilla NS1 combat, there wasn't much incentive to stay skulk (for example) but in NS1 combat, "super skulks" (a random term people made out to people who built off of skulks instead of evolving to a higher lifeform) were very common and very viable.
Skulks with thickened skin (for extra health), hunger (which is the main thing, it gave you extra health, movement speed, and primal scream whenever you got kills, it was also stacking so if you could keep getting kills, you would move faster and faster with more life) + silence + leap allowed skulks to fight marines with HMGs or heavies or any of the big guns.
Super skulks were fun.
You could also do the same with Lerk too.
Battle gorges (my favorite build) were also doable too. However, battle gorges weren't easy to do. You need to max 5/5 to sense of ancients (+30% to heal spray heal and damage). Plus, you needed to use hunger. Finally, you needed "Acidic vengeance" (as it had a bonus to gorges, like 1.5x or 2x, I forgot exactly).
A maxed out alien as a gorge was actually as effective (in certain situations) as a maxed out fade or onos. The main reason was that in the supreme late game (where marines do have a huge advantage over aliens, if both are even on levels), the gorges can actually heal/damage enough that marines (in direct combat with a gorge) can't kill the gorge before the gorge kills the marine (and if the gorge doesn't kill the marine, acidic vengeance would finish them off).
Battle gorges weren't often seen (and they shouldn't be running around all the time as the gorge is usually viewed as a support/builder class usually) but they could be a battle gorge if a player invested a lot into one in the late game.
4. Not only the above, but combat buildings which added structures added depth and strategy to the game. Vanilla Combat didn't have structures. With combatbuildings (a plugin which usually was used with /xmenu) marines with welders or gorges could build strucutres.
Combat buildings is very important as it really adds a lot of strategic element to an otherwise "team deathmatch" game.
Ninja phase gates and forward defensive chambers, etc added a lot to the game.
An important thing to remember is again that while the marines only have 1 way to win (destroy the hive), aliens have two ways to win (destroy the CC "or" stay alive for a certain duration).
/xmenu favored marines towards the end game more than aliens (thickened skin does add a bit of life but is no match for all the damage upgrades marines can get). This makes the game less of a "team deathmatch game" and a game mode that has depth and objectives.
This is where things like ninja phase gates came in. Combat became more like NS1 classic and it made the game an extremely fun FPS experience.
Overall, /xmenu and combatbuildings (if done right) add a lot to combat mode. It makes the game more fun and more replayed by adding more roles and options to each side. Instead of "aww, I got to get a welder because no one else has a welder to weld the CC", you had reasons to want to get one because maybe you wanted to play a builder marine? Instead of having to go fade or onos, you could stay skulk and try to build into a "super skulk".
(Again take note, it really depends on how servers set their settings. /xmenu and combatstructures were highly customizable which meant that in some cases, the games would be silly. But on the servers I played on, where things were set fairly tamed, /xmenu really added a lot to the game.)
To sort of sum up how /xmenu and combatbuildings affected the game (in terms of balance) again:
1. Early game, the marines had an advantage (though this is always the case, even without combat structures). This is just the nature of skulks vs marines.
2. Mid game, aliens had an advantage. The advantage wasn't huge though. This is usually the point where aliens want to keep getting as many advantages as possible.
3. Late game - Marines had the advantage again (and they will continue to become more stronger as the game goes on). Aliens either have to survive as long as possible (I say half the wins from aliens) or "ninja onos and gorge rush" their command center (the other half of alien wins I've experienced).
The latter becomes more and more hard to do the later the game goes on.
This sort of dynamic prevents "stale mate" situations and it worked really well IMO. Vanilla NS1 combat didn't really do much for this, marines weren't really that strong compared to aliens late game actually. /xmenu adds less to aliens than it does to marines in the end game (mainly because /xmenu stuff for aliens are really "situational" while most of it for marines just make them stronger overall... like increased movement speed, extended ammo capabilities, more damage from weapons, extra armor, armor that self repairs, those things are all things that always help, while compared to the alien side something like "acidic vengeance" which is situationally and only really useful for onos and gorges aren't that great).
Again, that's intended (marines get better and "less situational" upgrades than aliens, which usually have mostly "situational" /xmenu upgrades) and it contributes to the dynamic that is "marines strong early > aliens strong mid game > marines strong late game " = "Aliens try to defend as much as possible, to win via timer expiration or via CC destruction". It helps prevents stalemates and from my experiences, it works well.
___________________________________
(Sorry for the long post, here is some more "food for thought" and just my experiences from what could make combat mode better.)
Edit (also the tl;dr version) - One important thing to note about /xmenu in general is that it doesn't need to be added back exactly the way it was... you just need to look at the concept of what /xmenu tried to do (though I think most of the abilities and upgrades provided from /xmenu fit really well, so it doesn't need too much change).
The main gist of it should be (why /xmenu made combat better, and if we are added /xmenu back, what type of things we should expect from it returning):
1. It should add more options for players to play a specific way that is viable through the entire game because that equals fun! If you want to play as a super skulk, you should be able to. If you want to play builder marine, you should be able to. Basically, more ways to play the game and more ways to play things a specific way you'd like it (and more ways to stand out... super skulks and battle gorges were fairly rare but when you did it and succeeded at it, it really felt good).
2. None of the abilities or stuff should be frustrating to deal with or frustrating to play against. Things like super skulks and battle gorges, no one complained about them and they were fun to fight against.
In terms of abilities, "Ethereal Shift" actually used to be really overpowered and allowed aliens to be basically cloaked 100% of the time while even attacking (mainly because you could keep using the ability since it had no cooldown).
However, after they added a cooldown, it became a much more reasonable ability.
So I'm not saying that abilities should be outrageous or unfun to deal with. Most of /xmenus abilities are tame (again, they did even nerf Ethereal Shift to be less overpowered and more situational).
In case any ability seems too frustrating, I agree it can be toned down (like what was done with ethereal shift).
Again, the point of /xmenu wasn't to make the game "crazy" or "ridiculous", it was supposed to add more options and more depth to the combat mode.
3. I like the dynamic that /xmenu promotes (again, the whole marines are stronger than aliens late game because one of the objectives in combat mode is for aliens to just stay alive). This helps prevent stalemates which makes the game more exciting and fun IMO.
4. All of the above should contribute to more fun gameplay that is still "clean and clear" (you know what to do against what, etc, it isn't confusing) and it should add more strategy and depth to to the game. IMO, (again, remember that servers can tweak the settings, so your experiences may vary from mines) I've felt that /xmenu fulfilled this role well.
Sorry for making a long post (and sometimes a bit redundant, I think the last part with the 4 points really sums up the good points /xmenu brings really well).
I am only making this big post because this really has a lot of potential to make combat really great, and I think people should give it a chance. (Again, things do not have to return exactly the same way, just as long as the above 4 points still stand.)
Would the combat team be interested in chatting to me about doing a big promotional push on the NS2 social feeds? And perhaps having some of the official server pool turned over to combat?
Sure! If you need to reach someone today, the best person to contact for that is probably Jibrail or JimWest as I'm not consistently online on Steam (work commitments). We also have a weekly Xenoswarm/Combat meeting on Teamspeak on Tuesdays at 9PM CET if you want to talk to all of us at once. I think you should be able to find us via the Combat Mode steam group (we're all admins).
Just an heads-up, we're working on a total rewrite of Combat, staggered with a release of Xenoswarm when the maps are ready, but it's probably not going to be ready for a first release for a few weeks (we've done a lot of the technical work but there's still a few remaining things we need to get in there and then of course there's balance and bug fixing), but we should be able to fix some of the more visible Combat bugs (XP bar weirdness etc.) this week if you did want to promote combat on the official servers...
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
I would like to see combat be less about kill for xp, and more about holding capturable res points that generate xp. Right now it seems to be a bit mindless when it could offer much more interesting game play.
I would like to see combat be less about kill for xp, and more about holding capturable res points that generate xp. Right now it seems to be a bit mindless when it could offer much more interesting game play.
As someone who plays a considerable amount of Combat, I agree. It would be nice to see some kind of objective woven into it to a) get away from that "mindless fragfest" feel, and b) reduce the snowball effect of new players feeding the other team.
The hive/cc kill victory and XP for healing/welding is nice, but more depth needs to be added.
There seems to be an annoying bug involved in alien upgrades in the lategame. I don't know what exactly triggered it, but from a certain point on would the game always respawn me with only the first three traits active that I chose in that order.
I was playing Skulk pretty much all the time (just went Gorge once in between to heal the Hive) and went for Xenocide in the end. The issues appeared after I got killed before Xenocide could activate, but that might be a coincidence. From there on I was pretty much limited to just three abilities, despite being on lvl 13. I could refund the points and distribute them then to fix the issue, but it would only last for one live and the issue would be back upon the next respawn. It also seemed to carry over when I would evolve to a higher lifeform, for instance the Gorge. No 2nd or 3rd Tier abilities were available either.
As for Combat itself: I agree that a bit less mindless killing would be nice. It's fun for a while but gets boring at some point when you just keep getting spammed with grenades in hallways and Exos constantly shooting your Hive from the distance and jetpackers everywhere. Or the other way around and you are getting constantly swarmed by hundreds of Lerks who just keep putting Spores everywhere so that you can't see anything at all.
- Not sure if the Umbra effect on respawning is just visuals or an actual Umbra, but if it's the latter then there is no protection against grenade spawnkilling at all since Umbra only accounts for bullets.
- I would not mind if there was some more freedom for differentiation in the marine tech trees. It also seems a bit odd that you are required to purchase a Shotgun in order to get a Flamethrower or Grenade Launcher.
I know it might overcomplicate things a bit, but perhaps introducing non-integer costs and giving the players two upgrade points per level would give you more freedom to tweak things. You could have Scans cost 2.5 upgrade points, Catalyst packs could cost 1.5, Jetpacks could cost 5, Flamethrowers could go down to 1.5, GLs could stay at 2, etc.
- It would actually be nice to get some use out of Power Nodes in Combat again. Even if it's just merely for changing the lighting conditions so that aliens can get a slight advantage until marines get the power back on. Of course this task would be one that the mappers had to take care of, but it should be at least possible.
- Perhaps allow marines to deploy a single Sentry (with cooldown for redeployment and global limit on the total number) for the cost of 2 upgrade points, similar to what we saw in the Last Stand mod (marines have to build it manually). If the Power Node revival would be implemented as well, you could make it so that the Sentry only works in powered rooms.
- Perhaps allow marines to deploy a MAC (for 2-3 points) that will follow it's owner to provide welding support. The MAC is on a global limit and has a cooldown after being destroyed. The player has to be near the CC to summon one. Talking to the MAC by using the E key could trigger the EMP instead of using it as taunt ability.
- Marine taunt key should be used for something different than EMP. A temporary Nanoshield could work, but in that case the version from Sewlek's mod that blocks 75% damage for 3 seconds instead of the vanilla 50% for 8 seconds.
- Gorges should be able to deploy Whips at the cost of 1 upgrade point and with a cooldown, so they can provide some defense against GL spam. Investing another upgrade point could upgrade the Whip to one that throws Bile Bombs. Or perhaps make this the Gorge's 3rd tier ability.
- Sewlek's Balance Mod is doing some changes to the weapon balance as well. I wonder how these changes would play out in Combat (considering that they might hit the vanilla game at some point anyway, would Combat be affected automatically or does it have it's own weapon balance?).
-- Shotgun: spread adjusted (less outer deviation but also more inner deviation), pellet damage reduced from 11 to 10.
-- Grenade Launcher: cheaper, more ammo (28 reserve), fuse time up to 3 secs.
-- Flamethrower: less weight, more ammo (50 instead of 30 per clip), increased range, no damage ramp up, disables abilities of alien structure when hit, burns Bile Bombs midair, Hydras are now considered flammable and take extra damage.
-- Exos: have also horizontal thrusters, weapon upgrades affect the primary weapon damage (now 20/22/24/26 at W0 - W3 instead of flat 25 regardless), less armor (now 285/330/375/420 at A0 - A3).
-- Welder can be used while sprinting.
-- New Nano Armor upgrade which slowly regenerates marine armor (0.75 per second) while out of combat. [This might be a nice additional upgrade to unlock in Combat.]
On the alien side:
-- Evolved traits can be changed at any time.
-- Onos: less HP and armor, gore damage and range down, added new 2nd tier ability Bone Shield that makes the Onos nearly invulnerable but slows it down, prevents attacking and drains energy.
-- Fade: Shadowstep is 2nd tier ability, Blink is unlocked by default; new Shadowstep is faster and also works vertically; Vortex creates an entity in the world if it doesn't hit a valid target and this vortex blocks any bullets.
-- Lerk: Umbra is now 2nd tier and only blocks 33% of bullets, Spores are 3rd tier and are cheaper to use and cover a larger area.
-- Adrenaline increases energy regeneration and energy pool by 30%.
-- Regeneration is weaker but is not interrupted by own attacks.
-- Camouflage and Silence merged into one upgrade "Phantom".
-- Added new trait "Aura" (aka Scent of Fear) which shows colored icons on marines so that you can see them through walls. The color indicates the health of the marine.
Static field in NS1 xmenu was a degen aura that took off a % of enemy health when they got in range.
So if you (Marine) had 10%, all aliens near you would have their maximum hp/armour set at 90% while they were in range, and they had to heal that back when they left.
It was actually a very OP and boring ability (no skill required) but not that often used because the requirements were all defensive (IIRC it was armor 2/3, scan, and a point in cybernetics).
I would like to see combat be less about kill for xp, and more about holding capturable res points that generate xp. Right now it seems to be a bit mindless when it could offer much more interesting game play.
I really like this idea, but it should be a different mod. Some sort of capture & hold mod sounds great, but I don't think it should change combat gameplay.
As for xmenu & buildmod: xmenu can be cool and add more depth to gameplay, but is intended for longer games and more than 13 levels. Creating and then attempting to balance this is opening a whole new can of worms. I think regular play should be balanced before trying to balance xmenu's late game additions.
@Gorginator your summary of how it affected balance is also a fairly true summary of current combat balance. Marines strong, then aliens strong. The late game is an issue right now and will depend on whether the combat team really wants to keep the alien default win. In my opinion compensating marines late game because aliens have default win at time is a shitty way to go about balancing.
I have issues with the current state of combat, and i guess keeping alien default win and giving marines xmenu benefit would help balance, I just personally don't care for giving one side an advantage over the other to compensate for easily changeable game mechanics.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Any possible chance you can implement experience for the nearby opposite team if a player chooses to kill themselves. It's rather frustrating at the moment with people who keybind the "kill" command so the other team loses out on experience.
hi all
I seem to be having a problem playing on combat mode servers can anyone help.
I have subscribed to pretty much all combat maps, as well as the mod, but when i go into the server, im stuck in this forever downloading mods... screen
how can I fix this? did I do anything wrong?
thanks
I would like to see combat be less about kill for xp, and more about holding capturable res points that generate xp. Right now it seems to be a bit mindless when it could offer much more interesting game play.
Combat CTF?
I could see it when you have a few (like 2-4) res nodes between the two hives in which you need to push and capture via building either an extractor or harvester. Make it so both sides have to build the RT manually and give it a slow enough build time that it takes like 60s to build and I think it should work.
However, would still love the mindless zerging style of gameplay to still be an option to allow for comp teams to do simple 2v2/3v3-type drills.
hi all
I seem to be having a problem playing on combat mode servers can anyone help.
I have subscribed to pretty much all combat maps, as well as the mod, but when i go into the server, im stuck in this forever downloading mods... screen
how can I fix this? did I do anything wrong?
thanks
Had the same issue it was firewall in my antivirus program blocking downloads. Try turning things off or add steam to exceptions.
Static field in NS1 xmenu was a degen aura that took off a % of enemy health when they got in range.
So if you (Marine) had 10%, all aliens near you would have their maximum hp/armour set at 90% while they were in range, and they had to heal that back when they left.
It was actually a very OP and boring ability (no skill required) but not that often used because the requirements were all defensive (IIRC it was armor 2/3, scan, and a point in cybernetics).
Yes that is correct it took a % of health and that is why it was so important once aliens started to get maxed out thickened skin, especially with onos.
I would like to see combat be less about kill for xp, and more about holding capturable res points that generate xp. Right now it seems to be a bit mindless when it could offer much more interesting game play.
Combat CTF?
I could see it when you have a few (like 2-4) res nodes between the two hives in which you need to push and capture via building either an extractor or harvester. Make it so both sides have to build the RT manually and give it a slow enough build time that it takes like 60s to build and I think it should work.
However, would still love the mindless zerging style of gameplay to still be an option to allow for comp teams to do simple 2v2/3v3-type drills.
Have one sort of 'super RT point' in the middle, as long as a team's structure stands on it they are detracting the enemy's point. Both teams have like 500 points. Once the enemy's structure on this point is destroyed you can (slowly) build your own. Building it should require gorges (faster base building speed) or welders (to speed up the slower marine base building speed)
I think that would make combat dramatically more fun. Though maps would probably have to be a wee bit larger as well. And annihilation should still be an alternate victory condition (so base rushes/raids would still be viable for both sides as well)
hi all
I seem to be having a problem playing on combat mode servers can anyone help.
I have subscribed to pretty much all combat maps, as well as the mod, but when i go into the server, im stuck in this forever downloading mods... screen
how can I fix this? did I do anything wrong?
thanks
You can also try to unsub all those mods delete your workshop folder and just connect to a combat server as it will auto download everything you need.
Thanks for all the latest feedback I have been going thru it all and thinking about some of the points you made, also this week we are focusing on fixing some major bugs and possibly polishing some other minor things in preperation for the Combat promotion we are working on with UWE so I'm not sure there will be any major changes.
I like the idea of capture points and we will see if we can push out atleast one map wih that gameplay type soonish just to see how it will work out, not sure if this will happen before the promotion as it requires some major work and might break existing stuff.
We now have a twitter account for Combat https://twitter.com/NS2Combat , so please follow us for updates on development and announcements for patch releases and other stuff, we have posted two pictures one of the new marine buy menu UI ( still not final ) and the other is a WIP of the onos stomach for devour made by the awsome modeler Ice.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Woohoo guys, keep up the good work. I almost have a computer now. I finally have internet, and just need a case, power supply and monitor, and I'll be back in the world. I really hope to get back into the programming very soon The mod looks like it's coming on a dream
Woohoo guys, keep up the good work. I almost have a computer now. I finally have internet, and just need a case, power supply and monitor, and I'll be back in the world. I really hope to get back into the programming very soon The mod looks like it's coming on a dream
Hey Soul long time no see buddy, good to hear your new rig is on its way man!
Edit: which reminds me can you PM me the combat moddb page info as we gonna prolly need to update that.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
You need to sign up to ModDB, then I need to invite you to the Mod Beans developer page. You can then update any of the mods. Only members of the Mod Beans developer group can update the mods.
Comments
I'm currently rethinking the new buy menu and I think I have something that looks and feels far better than the early prototype UI I made a couple of months back, it will also bring both UIs ( marine and alien ) a bit closer and should feel very familiar and not as different as it is now, it should also make it more clear which upgrades depend on getting others first( like dmg1 to unlock SG ), cause it seem very clear to me that the text we have now is easily missed by new players.
EDIT:
I managed to find a server running them
http://i.imgur.com/0DJQnji.png
http://i.imgur.com/P3xK0Dg.jpg
now not all of these might make it in or might be tweaked to fit in with the rest of the existing stuff, as always will see once we get there.
You can find further documentation, including the full source code and config files for both xmenu (ExtraLevels 3), CombatBuildings and LateJoinXP here:
http://www.nsmod.org/index.php?showtopic=6694
http://www.nsmod.org/index.php?showtopic=1345
http://www.nsmod.org/index.php?showtopic=3512
Also and I'm sure this one is known, on map change somehow the load screen file doesn't load.
EDIT: Also I know this has been talked about and such already, but about onos and exos, fine, you didn't end up keeping them removed, I can live with that, but can we get a server variable to disable them? I know I for one don't care so much about the "balance" and one team winning over the other after 20 minutes every game, as much as I care about not dying to skill-less bullshit every time I engage in combat.
You should update the OP.
Those maps are still causing a bugged server.
Thanks for the reminder! I'll try and update the OP today...
A very important thing to note to those who disliked or had bad experiences with /xmenu is that "it depends on how servers set their settings. /xmenu and combatstructures were highly customizable which meant that in some cases, the games would be silly. But on the servers I played on, where things were set fairly tamed, /xmenu really added a lot to the game.
Static Field reduced max health of aliens actually (it used the same sound effect as electrified TFs).
It was expensive and usually only 1-2 marines on a team got it.
Xmenu and combatbuildings are good in my experience.
I've played basically all forms of NS Combat (which is basically between the various versions of the regular version which were tweaked constantly to the final version with /xmenu) and /xmenu adds a lot.
First of all, an important thing to note about /xmenu is that it favors marines (end game) more than aliens.
This is intentional and part of the whole "Aliens defend to win" (or they can destroy the marine base) while marines have to attack. This is also the easiest way to combat the issue of stand offs.
Anyway, now here are the advantages of /xmenu (and combatbuildings):
1. It adds more "build variety" (I say build, as in skill build or what type of "role" or "class" you'd like to play as).
More upgrades, more skills, and more anything to chose from usually adds more to the game (unless something is grossly imbalanced but we can usually balance anything).
With more options, it adds more everything to the game (strategy, fun, etc).
2. As marines, you had a variety of builds to chose from. For example, regular/vanilla Combat mode meant that marines should probably just go HMG because honestly, nothing ever beat HMG in terms of DPS.
HMG did cost an extra point but in vanilla combat, there wasn't really anything else to spend points on. (As marines, all you need is jetpack, resupply, and put the rest to as much firepower as possible... that was the gist of it in regular combat mode.)
More than 1 or 2 marines getting a welder was also pointless too (plus no one wanted to get a welder). With Combatbuildings + /xmenu, players had "actual incentives" to get a welder (besides "someone has to weld the CC") because it enabled you to build structures (if you wanted to play sort of a "builder marine", you could).
In vanilla combat, you were just locked into specific builds and that's not really fun for any game (you want variety and builds).
The capped levels made things even less reasonable too. /xmenu uncapped the levels (well, it was capped at 50 but in most cases, that was rarely ever achieved due to the time limit and things like that).
This means if you wanted to invest in mines or some support ability, you could without locking yourself out of jetpacks or HMGs (for example).
Speaking of HMGs, with /xmenu, you didn't have to go HMGs. I know HMGs are non-existent in NS2, but the point was that it existed in NS1.
And the other point is that /xmenu helped deal with the problem of "you need to go HMGs" by adding more alternative choices.
You could stick with a shotgun (which lots of players did, especially since combined with a jetpack, it actually meant that you jetpack is more able to boost you up the lighter the weapon you had) or you could even stick with the LMG (which wasn't really effective but it worked since it had fast reload speed).
3. On the alien side, it made playing anything other than Fade or Onos viable. In vanilla NS1 combat, there wasn't much incentive to stay skulk (for example) but in NS1 combat, "super skulks" (a random term people made out to people who built off of skulks instead of evolving to a higher lifeform) were very common and very viable.
Skulks with thickened skin (for extra health), hunger (which is the main thing, it gave you extra health, movement speed, and primal scream whenever you got kills, it was also stacking so if you could keep getting kills, you would move faster and faster with more life) + silence + leap allowed skulks to fight marines with HMGs or heavies or any of the big guns.
Super skulks were fun.
You could also do the same with Lerk too.
Battle gorges (my favorite build) were also doable too. However, battle gorges weren't easy to do. You need to max 5/5 to sense of ancients (+30% to heal spray heal and damage). Plus, you needed to use hunger. Finally, you needed "Acidic vengeance" (as it had a bonus to gorges, like 1.5x or 2x, I forgot exactly).
A maxed out alien as a gorge was actually as effective (in certain situations) as a maxed out fade or onos. The main reason was that in the supreme late game (where marines do have a huge advantage over aliens, if both are even on levels), the gorges can actually heal/damage enough that marines (in direct combat with a gorge) can't kill the gorge before the gorge kills the marine (and if the gorge doesn't kill the marine, acidic vengeance would finish them off).
Battle gorges weren't often seen (and they shouldn't be running around all the time as the gorge is usually viewed as a support/builder class usually) but they could be a battle gorge if a player invested a lot into one in the late game.
4. Not only the above, but combat buildings which added structures added depth and strategy to the game. Vanilla Combat didn't have structures. With combatbuildings (a plugin which usually was used with /xmenu) marines with welders or gorges could build strucutres.
Combat buildings is very important as it really adds a lot of strategic element to an otherwise "team deathmatch" game.
Ninja phase gates and forward defensive chambers, etc added a lot to the game.
An important thing to remember is again that while the marines only have 1 way to win (destroy the hive), aliens have two ways to win (destroy the CC "or" stay alive for a certain duration).
/xmenu favored marines towards the end game more than aliens (thickened skin does add a bit of life but is no match for all the damage upgrades marines can get). This makes the game less of a "team deathmatch game" and a game mode that has depth and objectives.
This is where things like ninja phase gates came in. Combat became more like NS1 classic and it made the game an extremely fun FPS experience.
Overall, /xmenu and combatbuildings (if done right) add a lot to combat mode. It makes the game more fun and more replayed by adding more roles and options to each side. Instead of "aww, I got to get a welder because no one else has a welder to weld the CC", you had reasons to want to get one because maybe you wanted to play a builder marine? Instead of having to go fade or onos, you could stay skulk and try to build into a "super skulk".
(Again take note, it really depends on how servers set their settings. /xmenu and combatstructures were highly customizable which meant that in some cases, the games would be silly. But on the servers I played on, where things were set fairly tamed, /xmenu really added a lot to the game.)
To sort of sum up how /xmenu and combatbuildings affected the game (in terms of balance) again:
1. Early game, the marines had an advantage (though this is always the case, even without combat structures). This is just the nature of skulks vs marines.
2. Mid game, aliens had an advantage. The advantage wasn't huge though. This is usually the point where aliens want to keep getting as many advantages as possible.
3. Late game - Marines had the advantage again (and they will continue to become more stronger as the game goes on). Aliens either have to survive as long as possible (I say half the wins from aliens) or "ninja onos and gorge rush" their command center (the other half of alien wins I've experienced).
The latter becomes more and more hard to do the later the game goes on.
This sort of dynamic prevents "stale mate" situations and it worked really well IMO. Vanilla NS1 combat didn't really do much for this, marines weren't really that strong compared to aliens late game actually. /xmenu adds less to aliens than it does to marines in the end game (mainly because /xmenu stuff for aliens are really "situational" while most of it for marines just make them stronger overall... like increased movement speed, extended ammo capabilities, more damage from weapons, extra armor, armor that self repairs, those things are all things that always help, while compared to the alien side something like "acidic vengeance" which is situationally and only really useful for onos and gorges aren't that great).
Again, that's intended (marines get better and "less situational" upgrades than aliens, which usually have mostly "situational" /xmenu upgrades) and it contributes to the dynamic that is "marines strong early > aliens strong mid game > marines strong late game " = "Aliens try to defend as much as possible, to win via timer expiration or via CC destruction". It helps prevents stalemates and from my experiences, it works well.
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(Sorry for the long post, here is some more "food for thought" and just my experiences from what could make combat mode better.)
Edit (also the tl;dr version) - One important thing to note about /xmenu in general is that it doesn't need to be added back exactly the way it was... you just need to look at the concept of what /xmenu tried to do (though I think most of the abilities and upgrades provided from /xmenu fit really well, so it doesn't need too much change).
The main gist of it should be (why /xmenu made combat better, and if we are added /xmenu back, what type of things we should expect from it returning):
1. It should add more options for players to play a specific way that is viable through the entire game because that equals fun! If you want to play as a super skulk, you should be able to. If you want to play builder marine, you should be able to. Basically, more ways to play the game and more ways to play things a specific way you'd like it (and more ways to stand out... super skulks and battle gorges were fairly rare but when you did it and succeeded at it, it really felt good).
2. None of the abilities or stuff should be frustrating to deal with or frustrating to play against. Things like super skulks and battle gorges, no one complained about them and they were fun to fight against.
In terms of abilities, "Ethereal Shift" actually used to be really overpowered and allowed aliens to be basically cloaked 100% of the time while even attacking (mainly because you could keep using the ability since it had no cooldown).
However, after they added a cooldown, it became a much more reasonable ability.
So I'm not saying that abilities should be outrageous or unfun to deal with. Most of /xmenus abilities are tame (again, they did even nerf Ethereal Shift to be less overpowered and more situational).
In case any ability seems too frustrating, I agree it can be toned down (like what was done with ethereal shift).
Again, the point of /xmenu wasn't to make the game "crazy" or "ridiculous", it was supposed to add more options and more depth to the combat mode.
3. I like the dynamic that /xmenu promotes (again, the whole marines are stronger than aliens late game because one of the objectives in combat mode is for aliens to just stay alive). This helps prevent stalemates which makes the game more exciting and fun IMO.
4. All of the above should contribute to more fun gameplay that is still "clean and clear" (you know what to do against what, etc, it isn't confusing) and it should add more strategy and depth to to the game. IMO, (again, remember that servers can tweak the settings, so your experiences may vary from mines) I've felt that /xmenu fulfilled this role well.
Sorry for making a long post (and sometimes a bit redundant, I think the last part with the 4 points really sums up the good points /xmenu brings really well).
I am only making this big post because this really has a lot of potential to make combat really great, and I think people should give it a chance. (Again, things do not have to return exactly the same way, just as long as the above 4 points still stand.)
Just an heads-up, we're working on a total rewrite of Combat, staggered with a release of Xenoswarm when the maps are ready, but it's probably not going to be ready for a first release for a few weeks (we've done a lot of the technical work but there's still a few remaining things we need to get in there and then of course there's balance and bug fixing), but we should be able to fix some of the more visible Combat bugs (XP bar weirdness etc.) this week if you did want to promote combat on the official servers...
Looking forward to having a chat!
As someone who plays a considerable amount of Combat, I agree. It would be nice to see some kind of objective woven into it to a) get away from that "mindless fragfest" feel, and b) reduce the snowball effect of new players feeding the other team.
The hive/cc kill victory and XP for healing/welding is nice, but more depth needs to be added.
I was playing Skulk pretty much all the time (just went Gorge once in between to heal the Hive) and went for Xenocide in the end. The issues appeared after I got killed before Xenocide could activate, but that might be a coincidence. From there on I was pretty much limited to just three abilities, despite being on lvl 13. I could refund the points and distribute them then to fix the issue, but it would only last for one live and the issue would be back upon the next respawn. It also seemed to carry over when I would evolve to a higher lifeform, for instance the Gorge. No 2nd or 3rd Tier abilities were available either.
As for Combat itself: I agree that a bit less mindless killing would be nice. It's fun for a while but gets boring at some point when you just keep getting spammed with grenades in hallways and Exos constantly shooting your Hive from the distance and jetpackers everywhere. Or the other way around and you are getting constantly swarmed by hundreds of Lerks who just keep putting Spores everywhere so that you can't see anything at all.
- Not sure if the Umbra effect on respawning is just visuals or an actual Umbra, but if it's the latter then there is no protection against grenade spawnkilling at all since Umbra only accounts for bullets.
- I would not mind if there was some more freedom for differentiation in the marine tech trees. It also seems a bit odd that you are required to purchase a Shotgun in order to get a Flamethrower or Grenade Launcher.
I know it might overcomplicate things a bit, but perhaps introducing non-integer costs and giving the players two upgrade points per level would give you more freedom to tweak things. You could have Scans cost 2.5 upgrade points, Catalyst packs could cost 1.5, Jetpacks could cost 5, Flamethrowers could go down to 1.5, GLs could stay at 2, etc.
- It would actually be nice to get some use out of Power Nodes in Combat again. Even if it's just merely for changing the lighting conditions so that aliens can get a slight advantage until marines get the power back on. Of course this task would be one that the mappers had to take care of, but it should be at least possible.
- Perhaps allow marines to deploy a single Sentry (with cooldown for redeployment and global limit on the total number) for the cost of 2 upgrade points, similar to what we saw in the Last Stand mod (marines have to build it manually). If the Power Node revival would be implemented as well, you could make it so that the Sentry only works in powered rooms.
- Perhaps allow marines to deploy a MAC (for 2-3 points) that will follow it's owner to provide welding support. The MAC is on a global limit and has a cooldown after being destroyed. The player has to be near the CC to summon one. Talking to the MAC by using the E key could trigger the EMP instead of using it as taunt ability.
- Marine taunt key should be used for something different than EMP. A temporary Nanoshield could work, but in that case the version from Sewlek's mod that blocks 75% damage for 3 seconds instead of the vanilla 50% for 8 seconds.
- Gorges should be able to deploy Whips at the cost of 1 upgrade point and with a cooldown, so they can provide some defense against GL spam. Investing another upgrade point could upgrade the Whip to one that throws Bile Bombs. Or perhaps make this the Gorge's 3rd tier ability.
- Sewlek's Balance Mod is doing some changes to the weapon balance as well. I wonder how these changes would play out in Combat (considering that they might hit the vanilla game at some point anyway, would Combat be affected automatically or does it have it's own weapon balance?).
-- Shotgun: spread adjusted (less outer deviation but also more inner deviation), pellet damage reduced from 11 to 10.
-- Grenade Launcher: cheaper, more ammo (28 reserve), fuse time up to 3 secs.
-- Flamethrower: less weight, more ammo (50 instead of 30 per clip), increased range, no damage ramp up, disables abilities of alien structure when hit, burns Bile Bombs midair, Hydras are now considered flammable and take extra damage.
-- Exos: have also horizontal thrusters, weapon upgrades affect the primary weapon damage (now 20/22/24/26 at W0 - W3 instead of flat 25 regardless), less armor (now 285/330/375/420 at A0 - A3).
-- Welder can be used while sprinting.
-- New Nano Armor upgrade which slowly regenerates marine armor (0.75 per second) while out of combat. [This might be a nice additional upgrade to unlock in Combat.]
On the alien side:
-- Evolved traits can be changed at any time.
-- Onos: less HP and armor, gore damage and range down, added new 2nd tier ability Bone Shield that makes the Onos nearly invulnerable but slows it down, prevents attacking and drains energy.
-- Fade: Shadowstep is 2nd tier ability, Blink is unlocked by default; new Shadowstep is faster and also works vertically; Vortex creates an entity in the world if it doesn't hit a valid target and this vortex blocks any bullets.
-- Lerk: Umbra is now 2nd tier and only blocks 33% of bullets, Spores are 3rd tier and are cheaper to use and cover a larger area.
-- Adrenaline increases energy regeneration and energy pool by 30%.
-- Regeneration is weaker but is not interrupted by own attacks.
-- Camouflage and Silence merged into one upgrade "Phantom".
-- Added new trait "Aura" (aka Scent of Fear) which shows colored icons on marines so that you can see them through walls. The color indicates the health of the marine.
But without changing the core mechanics/principles please. Res for kill and a more deathmatchy gameplay is the whole purpose of combat.
Good options for more depth (some of which have already proven to be good in NS1 Combat) would be:
- Adding Buildings (see NS1 buildmenu plugin)
- Adding further upgrades (NS1 xmenu plugin)
- Adding weldables / destroyables to the maps (which enable/disable lights, open/close phasegates, open/close vents, open/close new ways)
So if you (Marine) had 10%, all aliens near you would have their maximum hp/armour set at 90% while they were in range, and they had to heal that back when they left.
It was actually a very OP and boring ability (no skill required) but not that often used because the requirements were all defensive (IIRC it was armor 2/3, scan, and a point in cybernetics).
I really like this idea, but it should be a different mod. Some sort of capture & hold mod sounds great, but I don't think it should change combat gameplay.
As for xmenu & buildmod: xmenu can be cool and add more depth to gameplay, but is intended for longer games and more than 13 levels. Creating and then attempting to balance this is opening a whole new can of worms. I think regular play should be balanced before trying to balance xmenu's late game additions.
@Gorginator your summary of how it affected balance is also a fairly true summary of current combat balance. Marines strong, then aliens strong. The late game is an issue right now and will depend on whether the combat team really wants to keep the alien default win. In my opinion compensating marines late game because aliens have default win at time is a shitty way to go about balancing.
I have issues with the current state of combat, and i guess keeping alien default win and giving marines xmenu benefit would help balance, I just personally don't care for giving one side an advantage over the other to compensate for easily changeable game mechanics.
I seem to be having a problem playing on combat mode servers can anyone help.
I have subscribed to pretty much all combat maps, as well as the mod, but when i go into the server, im stuck in this forever downloading mods... screen
how can I fix this? did I do anything wrong?
thanks
I could see it when you have a few (like 2-4) res nodes between the two hives in which you need to push and capture via building either an extractor or harvester. Make it so both sides have to build the RT manually and give it a slow enough build time that it takes like 60s to build and I think it should work.
However, would still love the mindless zerging style of gameplay to still be an option to allow for comp teams to do simple 2v2/3v3-type drills.
Had the same issue it was firewall in my antivirus program blocking downloads. Try turning things off or add steam to exceptions.
Yes that is correct it took a % of health and that is why it was so important once aliens started to get maxed out thickened skin, especially with onos.
Have one sort of 'super RT point' in the middle, as long as a team's structure stands on it they are detracting the enemy's point. Both teams have like 500 points. Once the enemy's structure on this point is destroyed you can (slowly) build your own. Building it should require gorges (faster base building speed) or welders (to speed up the slower marine base building speed)
I think that would make combat dramatically more fun. Though maps would probably have to be a wee bit larger as well. And annihilation should still be an alternate victory condition (so base rushes/raids would still be viable for both sides as well)
Somebody make this please!
Thanks for all the latest feedback I have been going thru it all and thinking about some of the points you made, also this week we are focusing on fixing some major bugs and possibly polishing some other minor things in preperation for the Combat promotion we are working on with UWE so I'm not sure there will be any major changes.
I like the idea of capture points and we will see if we can push out atleast one map wih that gameplay type soonish just to see how it will work out, not sure if this will happen before the promotion as it requires some major work and might break existing stuff.
We now have a twitter account for Combat https://twitter.com/NS2Combat , so please follow us for updates on development and announcements for patch releases and other stuff, we have posted two pictures one of the new marine buy menu UI ( still not final ) and the other is a WIP of the onos stomach for devour made by the awsome modeler Ice.
Edit: which reminds me can you PM me the combat moddb page info as we gonna prolly need to update that.