Yes. performance is the most massive reason. NS attracts the old school fps crowd, old school fps people want high fps not 50-60 with high-end computers. Only people with very high OC computers achieve 60+
Sorry but you can't play a fast paced shooter where you need to track multiple targets when FPS is bouncing up & down all over the place.
What really annoyed me is I spent lots of money on a good rig basically just to play NS with good fps. (i7 3770k, 2x GTX 560's, 12gig ram, SSD, ect) and it didn't help at all really. FPS still dropped in places I needed it most making it extremely frustrating to play competitively. Overall I enjoyed public NS2 more in beta than post release.
Oh and I believe the change to cloak so close to launch that made skulks 100% invisible when moving was one of the worst changes possible. It taught all the newbs nothing about playing skulk skillfully & correctly (seeing as it's pretty much the class you'll be spending most time as) and made it super frustrating for marines to play against that.
Overall, the game sold well which i'm happy for UWE but unfortunately rushed it out for the halloween release date and instead should've polished and perfected the game more and it would of retained a lot of a bigger player base.
I can see Natural Selection 2 benefiting from Steam achievements. As long as they weren't "get x number of kills".
Achievements are a sure-fire way of getting some people to come back time and time again, without any derogatory effect in-game like rankings or unlocks would.
Simple achievements to get the ball rolling, and more time-consuming ones too, like:
- Command your first win on Marines
- Build 10 phase gates
- Destroy 25 phase gates
- Kill 10 Marines with hydras
- Destroy an Exo with Bile Bomb
- Kill a Marine whilst under the effect of enzyme cloud
- Run out of jet pack fuel whilst over Crevice and plunge to your death
No, not everyone cares about achievements. But for the some that do, it could bring them back time and time again.
In fact, some achievements could better a players' game, but introducing them to tactics/methods they may have otherwise not thought of.
Sorry but you can't play a fast paced shooter where you need to track multiple targets when FPS is bouncing up & down all over the place.
What really annoyed me is I spent lots of money on a good rig basically just to play NS with good fps. (i7 3770k, 2x GTX 560's, 12gig ram, SSD, ect) and it didn't help at all really. FPS still dropped in places I needed it most making it extremely frustrating to play competitively. Overall I enjoyed public NS2 more in beta than post release.
Oh and I believe the change to cloak so close to launch that made skulks 100% invisible when moving was one of the worst changes possible. It taught all the newbs nothing about playing skulk skillfully & correctly (seeing as it's pretty much the class you'll be spending most time as) and made it super frustrating for marines to play against that.
Overall, the game sold well which i'm happy for UWE but unfortunately rushed it out for the halloween release date and instead should've polished and perfected the game more and it would of retained a lot of a bigger player base.
A friend of mine who has a SLI setup said he had to disable it to make the game perform better, from the sounds of things NS2 isn't multi graphics card friendly!
Also i agree with the invisibility on Aliens, i believe the Aliens to be well over powered, especially the Onus ability 'Stomp' which can take down FLYING marines.
That just makes no sense what so ever, i know this issue was addressed with one of the balance mods but at 2.5mb i think the mods a bit too big to use on a server.
If so many of you believe that removing infestation and power nodes will save the day, why don't one of you mod it? Its only lua. Time to get learning and see if you're right I say.
The problem is too many people like talking and not doing. I'm not denying it might be a better game but we'll never know unless you modify a few lines of code!
If so many of you believe that removing infestation and power nodes will save the day, why don't one of you mod it? Its only lua. Time to get learning and see if you're right I say.
The problem is too many people like talking and not doing. I'm not denying it might be a better game but we'll never know unless you modify a few lines of code!
There will always be a huge perceived threshold in playing a mod, no matter how well done. Servers with such a mod will most likely not boast a lot of players, and it will have nothing to do with the quality of gameplay.
Personally I kind of feel like the infestation should be just a by-product of the alien structures. Where ever structures are built, infestation will begin to grow.
The fact that everything has to be linked back to a hive is an unnecessary constraint, IMO. I get the idea and like it even, but in practice it just limits things way too much.
Therius, you miss the point. How will we know for sure if no power-nodes and infestation is better if we don't have a prototype of gameplay? Its how game development works, things often sound good on paper but in practice they aren't. I don't expect some No infestation mod to become the server standard but you'd certainly have more ground to such statements if people actually tried to prove their theories.
I would guess removing them is not a very good Idea. Power Node and infestation control the pacing of the game and prevent a lot of dirty tactics. I would also guess UWE have prototyped such things and realized it didn't work.
Therius, you miss the point. How will we know for sure if no power-nodes and infestation is better if we don't have a prototype of gameplay? Its how game development works, things often sound good on paper but in practice they aren't. I don't expect some No infestation mod to become the server standard but you'd certainly have more ground to such statements if people actually tried to prove their theories.
I would guess removing them is not a very good Idea. Power Node and infestation control the pacing of the game and prevent a lot of dirty tactics. I would also guess UWE have prototyped such things and realized it didn't work.
But we do have a prototype of gameplay. We have NS1, a superior game in which the main differences are strictly tied to the infestation and power node mechanics, along with things like a different res model and no alien commander. It doesn't take a new mod in NS2 to make people realise that limiting expansion as harshly as NS2 does severely impairs emergent strategies and tactics along with being laborious just for its own sake. Sure, the current game is being balanced around these base mechanics, but it doesn't mean that they are good as they are. NS2 (in my opinion, and that of many others) took a wrong turn in gameplay design way back in the alpha and beta stages and has been building on top of that ever since. I'm not saying that starting to tear those foundations apart should be easy and in no way am I saying it should even be done at all, but I'm still of the opinion that infestation and power nodes only contribute to making the game more stale.
Therius, you miss the point. How will we know for sure if no power-nodes and infestation is better if we don't have a prototype of gameplay? Its how game development works, things often sound good on paper but in practice they aren't.
As Therius said above me, play NS1. No power nodes, no infestation, and arguably a superior game with far more depth.
I love how the NS1 community has been alienated by the additions in NS2. I don't see any of the old competitive players, I see these new guys, that I know nothing of, all raving the game is great, but can't give me a tangible reason why.
I've been playing Natural Selection 2 for 80 hours, but now I have no choice but to quit due to performance.
The game has its share of flaws, but it still provided a unique and enjoyable experience. However, since build 246 I found that I can no longer deal with the terrible performance. I've run NS2 on the lowest settings I could set and still I get an average FPS of 30 that drops as low as 15 during any serious action, on a machine that runs every game released in the last 6 years at least on Medium settings. It is frustrating to play on 8v8 pubs under these conditions, without any prospect of entering competitive.
While I don't want to bash UWE, I can't help but think, that designing their own engine for the sake of ultra-modability while completely neglecting performance concerns, was very short-sighted. NS2's audience was already limited by the game's unusual depth and complexity, and the unreasonably high hardware requirements are doing the game no favors - the exceptionally friendly modding environment is wasted on a tiny audience.
I feel pretty bad about having to abandon the game - especially with the amazing changes that may come from Sewlek's balance mod. Unfortunately, I'm only given a choice between a tremendous hardware upgrade for one indie title, or moving on to other games, which is hardly a choice at all.
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
edited May 2013
@sju Lol I don't think alienate is the right word there.. No one has been made to feel estranged or left out by a video game sequel. Maybe some ns1 vets didn't get the exact sequel they wanted, but that's still not alienating.. Especially given the almost unprecedented open development that occurred for years for said fans.
And the game can be great to people for the same subjective reasons people found ns1 to be great... even with differences between them. The most notable being multiplayer asymmetric gameplay through rts/fps hybrid. But what if you were a ns1 player, and you've already experienced this? Well its a good thing power nodes and infestation aren't the only differences between the two, then ;-)
Personally i don't get all the 20+ player server bashing, i love 24 player servers, if the game wasn't designed for so many players in mind why is there an ability to go up all the way to 32 players?
That 32 man server is from someone who did a little hack. There has been 100 man servers before also.
I love how the NS1 community has been alienated by the additions in NS2. I don't see any of the old competitive players, I see these new guys, that I know nothing of, all raving the game is great, but can't give me a tangible reason why.
There are plenty of us oldies who still love ns2. In my case more than ns1, though there are some little tweaks that I'm sure could improve things even further.
@sju Lol I don't think alienate is the right word there.. No one has been made to feel estranged or left out by a video game sequel. Maybe some ns1 vets didn't get the exact sequel they wanted, but that's still not alienating.. Especially given the almost unprecedented open development that occurred for years for said fans.
And the game can be great to people for the same subjective reasons people found ns1 to be great... even with differences between them. The most notable being multiplayer asymmetric gameplay through rts/fps hybrid. But what if you were a ns1 player, and you've already experienced this? Well its a good thing power nodes and infestation aren't the only differences between the two, then
No no no what sort of primary school 'sporting' behaviour is this, there is a very clear distinction between 'true' NS fans and stupid 'casuals' and 'new players' and 'people I don't like'.
One is good, and should make all the decisions, and have the game designed solely for them, and the other should be lined up and shot at repeatedly and we get to laugh while it happens.
If infestation and powernodes affect performance as much as people say, the value that they add to gameplay is trumped by what they take away.
then again, a 5-10 fps improvement is not really significant, and wont really change opinions about the performance. Right now, I can run Dota 2 on full settings, and not really be affected by the decrease in performance. Despite that fact, I can play on the lowest settings, and not really be bothered by the bad graphics, due to the artstyle and optimization of the game. Its getting harder to boot up ns2 to get repeatedly killed by skulks i had no chance of tracking, than to play dota which is both easier and runs better.
Chiming in about performance... it makes it hard for people who like the game to even play, let alone draw new players when the word is out that it runs like shit.
I love how the NS1 community has been alienated by the additions in NS2. I don't see any of the old competitive players, I see these new guys, that I know nothing of, all raving the game is great, but can't give me a tangible reason why.
I guess people like dux, fana, and syknik (i.e. Andrew from Exigent) don't count? If anything, its mostly certain members of the NS1 community alienating themselves from NS2.
I love how the NS1 community has been alienated by the additions in NS2. I don't see any of the old competitive players, I see these new guys, that I know nothing of, all raving the game is great, but can't give me a tangible reason why.
I love how the NS1 community has been alienated by the additions in NS2. I don't see any of the old competitive players, I see these new guys, that I know nothing of, all raving the game is great, but can't give me a tangible reason why.
I guess people like dux, fana, and syknik (i.e. Andrew from Exigent) don't count? If anything, its mostly certain members of the NS1 community alienating themselves from NS2.
NS1 was far more popular than NS2 at this stage, casual and competitive. Funny that.
NS1 was far more popular than NS2 at this stage, casual and competitive. Funny that.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot with that statement..... I guess you didn't see the NS1 player count graph..... All around much less than NS2.
NS1 was far more popular than NS2 at this stage, casual and competitive. Funny that.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot with that statement..... I guess you didn't see the NS1 player count graph..... All around much less than NS2.
We don't have the data from the first year of NS1. The NS1 graph doesn't start until 2004ish.
Comments
Sorry but you can't play a fast paced shooter where you need to track multiple targets when FPS is bouncing up & down all over the place.
What really annoyed me is I spent lots of money on a good rig basically just to play NS with good fps. (i7 3770k, 2x GTX 560's, 12gig ram, SSD, ect) and it didn't help at all really. FPS still dropped in places I needed it most making it extremely frustrating to play competitively. Overall I enjoyed public NS2 more in beta than post release.
Oh and I believe the change to cloak so close to launch that made skulks 100% invisible when moving was one of the worst changes possible. It taught all the newbs nothing about playing skulk skillfully & correctly (seeing as it's pretty much the class you'll be spending most time as) and made it super frustrating for marines to play against that.
Overall, the game sold well which i'm happy for UWE but unfortunately rushed it out for the halloween release date and instead should've polished and perfected the game more and it would of retained a lot of a bigger player base.
The entire point is that the infestation and power node mechanics limit choices in the RTS aspect of the game.
The fact that everything has to be linked back to a hive is an unnecessary constraint, IMO. I get the idea and like it even, but in practice it just limits things way too much.
But we do have a prototype of gameplay. We have NS1, a superior game in which the main differences are strictly tied to the infestation and power node mechanics, along with things like a different res model and no alien commander. It doesn't take a new mod in NS2 to make people realise that limiting expansion as harshly as NS2 does severely impairs emergent strategies and tactics along with being laborious just for its own sake. Sure, the current game is being balanced around these base mechanics, but it doesn't mean that they are good as they are. NS2 (in my opinion, and that of many others) took a wrong turn in gameplay design way back in the alpha and beta stages and has been building on top of that ever since. I'm not saying that starting to tear those foundations apart should be easy and in no way am I saying it should even be done at all, but I'm still of the opinion that infestation and power nodes only contribute to making the game more stale.
I've been playing Natural Selection 2 for 80 hours, but now I have no choice but to quit due to performance.
The game has its share of flaws, but it still provided a unique and enjoyable experience. However, since build 246 I found that I can no longer deal with the terrible performance. I've run NS2 on the lowest settings I could set and still I get an average FPS of 30 that drops as low as 15 during any serious action, on a machine that runs every game released in the last 6 years at least on Medium settings. It is frustrating to play on 8v8 pubs under these conditions, without any prospect of entering competitive.
While I don't want to bash UWE, I can't help but think, that designing their own engine for the sake of ultra-modability while completely neglecting performance concerns, was very short-sighted. NS2's audience was already limited by the game's unusual depth and complexity, and the unreasonably high hardware requirements are doing the game no favors - the exceptionally friendly modding environment is wasted on a tiny audience.
I feel pretty bad about having to abandon the game - especially with the amazing changes that may come from Sewlek's balance mod. Unfortunately, I'm only given a choice between a tremendous hardware upgrade for one indie title, or moving on to other games, which is hardly a choice at all.
And the game can be great to people for the same subjective reasons people found ns1 to be great... even with differences between them. The most notable being multiplayer asymmetric gameplay through rts/fps hybrid. But what if you were a ns1 player, and you've already experienced this? Well its a good thing power nodes and infestation aren't the only differences between the two, then ;-)
There are plenty of us oldies who still love ns2. In my case more than ns1, though there are some little tweaks that I'm sure could improve things even further.
No no no what sort of primary school 'sporting' behaviour is this, there is a very clear distinction between 'true' NS fans and stupid 'casuals' and 'new players' and 'people I don't like'.
One is good, and should make all the decisions, and have the game designed solely for them, and the other should be lined up and shot at repeatedly and we get to laugh while it happens.
Clearly you are in the wrong group.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot with that statement..... I guess you didn't see the NS1 player count graph..... All around much less than NS2.