Just like sewlek and UWE can't seem to articulate specifics about where and why some of the changes were made in the first place. A simple change to Skulk to have wall-jump would've been understandable. The tech-tree, I can tolerate.
But a wider LMG spread?
1ST-TECHPOINT PROTOLAB?
BIOMASS? BIOMASS??
There are very specific reasons behind every change that has been made, they have just been spread out over many forum posts, interviews, and interactions with Sewlek on the BT servers during the testing phase. It is a very time consuming process to write up all of the months of thought and back and forth discussion that are behind every change in that changelog, and at the end of the day, it will just lead to more arguments because not everyone is going to agree with our reasons behind the changes. We spend our time trying to improve the game in the ways that we feel are right, we can't be spending all of our time constantly and repeatedly defending those decisions.
For example the Rifle spread change. We've observed the difficulty that new and casual players have in hitting fast moving aliens, due to the very tight cluster of bullets that the rifle fired, yet in the hands of pro players with very good aim, it became basically a sniper rifle. Ideally all weapons scale with skill, of course, but we felt that the base weapon that marines start with should be a little more forgiving to players of all levels, and we wanted it to be harder to snipe aliens from such extreme distances. So, the spread was increased from 2 to 2.8, which is really not that large of a difference, and if it results in pro players not just relying on their aim but also on their strategic timing - do they allow that alien to get just a little bit closer to insure that more of their bullets don't miss, for example - then that is a good thing.
Now, of course there are going to be plenty of people who argue with that reasoning, and in fact many pages were filled in the BT mod thread with arguments on both sides regarding the rifle spread changes. Sewlek has heard from all sides, and at the end of the day he made the decision he felt was best. You just have to trust that a lot of deep thought, intense testing and observation, and a lot of serious discussion has gone into the changes that went live in 250, whether you've seen them specifically articulated or not.
The irony! This game is called Natural Selection. People who can't adapt to the changes, will not get Selected and save their genes.
You know what I think, People must step back from the keyboards and go breath some fresh air outside. Return to the game some days later, play it again and when you have something CONSTRUCTIVE to say, then kindly post it on the forums. I've seen this Doom and Gloom theme going in other games and when I returned some months later, what did I see: thriving games, that have no signs of the troubles they've been put through.
Changes like this were blessings in older games, when they were needed but why in this game, which promotes Change in its name, is treated like this? The hate must stop and friendship, love and tolerance, we must find among each other.
This has been a hot topic. The idea is that it makes it slightly easier close range while reducing extreme long range fully automatic snipes that are normally in the realm of the pistol. I'm personally not sold on this one.
This is a BIG deal and was absolutely needed. Seriously. Biomass fills a few roles:
1) Allows better adjustment of the alien economy by giving more TRes sinks which lessens the opportunities to spam out lifeform eggs
2) Allows alien tier abilities to be more smoothly delegated through out the game rather than front loaded by hive
3) Adds minor HP scaling reducing the dependency on carapace and slightly offsetting the huge advantage weapon level upgrades give. This allowed the skulk to be a tad less frustrating near the end and the onos to be properly toned down for early appearances. These res costs and hp scaling values are by no means perfect but in my mind this was the biggest change that NEEDED to happen to NS2.
I'd like to expand on the second point. The alien tech was always extremely bursty in its earlier incarnations due to the inclusion of the alien commander yet the clinging to the idea of so much tech being tied to hives. Often times alien teams would pool res for a massive techsplosion on the second hive. It is jarring from a marine standpoint. One moment you have 1 upgrade lower lifeforms then suddenly in what seems like an instant you have higher lifeforms with 2 upgrades and tier 2 abilities. The change to the biomass system allows for a slower more paced progression and also gives the option of having some tier 2 abilities be available on one hive without them being instant researches (like the days of 25 second leap in the beta) making one hive situations way less frustrating for the alien team.
These points were all discussed in the balance mod thread in great detail with posts from Sewlek. Should this information be more accessible? Absolutely, but it is out there.
I have never been on these forums before now but I registered today due to the 250 build. I really liked the 249 gameplay and the previous incarnations of NS2. I have played a few games of NS2 since this build dropped and I hate the new gameplay. 249 had its share of balance problems but in general the better team would always win. I can't say for sure whether the win/loss ratio is more balanced with the new build but the gameplay to me is not fun at all. I loved the 249 game state but the new changes just killed the game for me. I love(d) the game before this and hopefully the devs can reconsider this build and revert to 249. I have tried to like the new changes as they seemed interesting when I read the patch notes but after a few games I just can't bring myself to play any more games with the new mechanics. The game is just not fun anymore to me. I understand this may have helped competitive games or whatever but to a player like me that plays on public servers with a few people I recognize from day to day, the new mechanics are not exciting and have killed what the game I knew and enjoyed. Please don't flame guys, I'm not a forum warrior, I'm just a player that loved playing NS2 before this patch but cannot find any enjoyment out of the new build/mechanics.
To clarify, I cannot argue about the merit of any of the changes and their affect on balance. But this new build feels like a completely different game, and personally, I do not enjoy it at all.
Ok, time for more "constructive" criticism. First of all let's start with the alien tech three. It's no longer a three, just a very long branch. Before you had to adapt to your aliens, strategy and your opponents. Now it is very linear. Parts of the changes are not innovative at all, just taken from NS1, not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel UWE can do better than this.
The alien com does have have more thing he can do to keep himself busy, but I do not think it is worth the trade-off.
This is a good example of constructive feedback that initiates discussion - I hope other b250 haters start learning. However i think you have got it the wrong way around!
b249 alien tech tree
Carapace -> hive -> leap or fade egg -> bile -> spam fade eggs
b250 tech tree Tried writing it out, but realised it was way too complicated to illustrate all viable tech choices and tres expenditures. This isn't to snob you off. I just don't have an hour to write it all out, whereas i can write the equilibrium tech path in b249 in basically 1 line.
Too me it seems very unbalanced, at least the games I have played so far has been. (Perhaps this will change with time)
Yes, b250 is definitely unbalanced (though not too severely). I hope people remember that even though it may have been called 'balance test', the point of b250 was beyond just simple 50/50 balancing of the game. Now we have a much better framework for balancing. Just like how you don't want to optimize game code before you've finished writing it.
I did not think the bt mod was testing of a new version, I thought it was testing of various changes that *might* be implemented into the game.
One at a time. And I hoped that most would not.
Yes, i am also disappointed in the PR, communication, and imaging from UWE in this regard. It was definitely lacking.
The community seems very divided on this, some like it, many hate it. On the forums many seems positive to the new changes, but when you play you will get a totally different impression.
While first impressions are important, they are often unreliable. This goes both for people who like b250 and people who dislike b250. I hope you approach the build with an open mind as if you were a new player . Play the game, see if you can intuitively understand the changes, and if not point out where. Once you have a basic understanding of how all the changes come together, you should start giving feedback on what works and what doesn't!
I met this sweet lass 8 months ago and it has been a productive relationship. Oh sure she may have changed changed here and there, but these are miniscule and I still love her for it. But then suddenly I had to leave for a month and forgot to call. Yeah sure that's a bad thing to do to such a fine lady, but I'm sure she'll understand. Then I return to find that my fine lady became a man after undergoing transgender surgery. I try to tell myself that she...he's the same person I fell for, but everything is so different now. Not only has...he changed aesthetically, but nothing is the same anymore! This is not the same person I met on that fateful autumn night all those months ago!
Things can never be the same between...he and I, but I'm sure we can still be friends.
PS: It's bad enough with 1-base proto, but seriously the nades? I'm sure there's some logical explanation for it, but it's very frustrating to deal with. And frustrating isn't the kind of thing you want in a game when the previous option worked just fine in my opinion.
Even so ppl cried and called ns2 to be dead when 250 will be out, the players numbers are higher now.
We just need to see how high they stay.
Yeah I bet those 7 dollar steam players who start playing now are really gonna love a game in which they have no idea what to do and has a broken explore mode/tutorial.
Even so ppl cried and called ns2 to be dead when 250 will be out, the players numbers are higher now.
*laugh out loud* has nothing to do with weekend sale right?
But to be honest, i see more empty servers, then ever.
Yesterday at evening, i saw like 5 full servers, thats it.
People are complaining a lot ingame, but you know, people always do that, like they did with windows 7 and now it's like everybody use it, but Windows 8 still sucks :P
I played two rounds as alien commander and get used to it, it's very confusing at first, but the really new thing is the biomass(level) and the updates in the chambers.
But it seems, that the aliens are weaker then marines.
The Grenade Launcher and Flamethrower in the first 3 minutes is just annyoing.
Why did you made the Grenade Launcher fire so fast and usefull?
The update just feel rushed.
The Webs in the Code is working, why not activate it for the gorge?
Jetpacks in the fist 5 minutes isn't a rare thing...
Who needs to uninstall when there are at least 2 revert mods in the works? Why accept defeat? If the person I've talked to doesn't release theirs in the next couple of days like they've said I will release the one I am working on. Currently it runs on 250 and seems fairly bug free. I'm working on ironing out the bugs that pop up during testing.
I've also been working on this and thought it was ready, seemed to work, had some issues (which turned out to just be a missing Lua file). But it seems to be working now http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=156091637 and is ready for testing on servers. I haven't been able to get a dedicated server working right to test it on ATM, so if anyone that has access to on decides to use it, I'd love to play on it.
I don't like seeing all this negativity towards this. If someone doesn't like it, that's their opinion. People should be able to have a choice. I prefer 249, and it has taken me a little over 300 hours to start getting descent at the game, and now I have to spend even longer with the new changes. I played BT a few times during development(around 20 games total) before build 250, and around 10 on 250, and I haven't gotten used to it yet. It just feels awkward, and too different.
Also, oddly just mounting build 249 doesn't revert back, so it made it a little more challenging
The new patch fecking sucks. It is too complicated and IMHO game breaking for aliens. Whilst this is only my opinion I would hazard to say it is the nail in the coffin for newbies. Aliens will never win without an experienced khammander. at least in the past it wasnt too bad if someone got silence/cloak first, that sort of mistake is a death sentence for aliens to get the wrong upgrade now.
Even so ppl cried and called ns2 to be dead when 250 will be out, the players numbers are higher now.
We just need to see how high they stay.
Yeah I bet those 7 dollar steam players who start playing now are really gonna love a game in which they have no idea what to do and has a broken explore mode/tutorial.
Totally agree on this one, even no tutorial is better than misleading tutorials.
as for the quitters, dare I say it? I'll proabably play more combat now until someone else gets better at khamming (I dont like khamming, dont mind comming occasionally though). For me this game is second to others now.
I think it is kind of naiv to state the balance of this patch just by taking 1 Game in consideration. Those "comebacks" could be done before too with arcs and aggressive teamplay. Fade was never "meant" to be a killing machine, it is a fast, precise assassin (luv me some Gls ^^) , but overall I know what you are trying to say. Nevertheless the same can't be done by aliens due to biomass limitations altough rines can upgrade even JP/Exo with one cc so where is the gameplay-mechanics for aliens in this case ?
Just for the record: I was not judging balance, I just wanted to share some exilharating moments...
And the Fade was a killing machine before, assassin or not :9
Yeah I bet those 7 dollar steam players who start playing now are really gonna love a game in which they have no idea what to do and has a broken explore mode/tutorial.
Also, there are servers that run 250, but crash because various mods are not updated yet. One server I played on seemed to run fine, only to crash to a black screen on map change. If I didn't know how to disconnect via console, I'd have been stuck there.
Actually, after testing the 250 build, I thought "all nice and well, but this really needs a 251 with fixes/tweaks/balance before they present it to new players." Then I learned (from this thread) that they were running a Steam sale right now and thought... omg...?
I mean... it was *obvious* long ago that this patch would stir up the existing community. Nobody knows how this will turn out yet, for better or worse. But throwing people who just bought the game into servers that are filled with players screaming "WTF I HATE THIS PATCH" etc. ... how is this making a good first impression?
With the gorgeous update, I could understand the reasoning - putting new players and veterans on a more even ground, as the changes were new to both of them. But with such disruptive changes as in 250, running the Steam sale later would have been a better idea IMO.
On the other hand, the fact that there is a Steam sale might explain why 250 feels so rushed and unpolished. I would assume they booked the sale in advance, so the date was set, no matter what. And as game releases tend to take longer than expected (Valve time, anyone?), they might have simply run out of time.
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
The patch was supposed to be out last week and you cant delay a sale. But overall the release is less bumpy than i anticipated. So if by 251 the tutorials can be fixed that would be great
We spend our time trying to improve the game in the ways that we feel are right, we can't be spending all of our time constantly and repeatedly defending those decisions.
I don't think many people expect you to defend those changes. But they would like to understand them in the first place, which they can't right now.
There was an annotated changelog for one version of the BT Mod floating around. I don't remember if it was written by Sewlek or somebody else, but it was extremely helpful to understand the rationale behind the changes. It basically looked like this (made up example):
> MACs don't heal each other, and only one target
Prevent Exo/MAC "ball of death"; promote teamplay
Something like that would help a lot.
For example, one question that has been asked many times is "Why were Fade and Lerk movement changed? What was broken about them?" There are tons of discussion and guesswork, but nothing official. And I think that would help a lot.
You can do everything you prevoiusly could + MORE!
This. If the current movement had been there from the start and we had now switched to b249 skulk movement there would be absolute f****** anarchy on here right now for seriously nerfing skulks, far worse than the arguing currently going on. It would be like when cs 1.4 patch came out... oh god the memories.
Okay I've tried to pin down this fade clipping bug (and before you ask, yes I can play the new fade). I have been clipped on the top of an extractor, and get clipped on marines quite a lot. That particular game I spent being desperately careful to avoid getting stuck, which was fine, but the very next game I lost my fade very quickly through getting stuck on a marine again.
For people who don't know how to fade, this is probably the least of their problems with the new fade. For those of us who do, it can be devastating (and if you're the fade keeping the team together... it's pretty much gg).
Really need to get to the bottom of this one. @Ironhorse, any ideas?
Nothings reported - got any detailed reproduction steps?
Will investigate, and thanks!
@Ironhorse, I think it's related to all collisions, not just fades. I might try it out with lerk as well to confirm this. As skulk, I've occasionally got stuck to marines mid-combat, so it's not limited to the fade. Not just player-player collision, but player-structure too (hence the extractor sticking I've found now with both skulk and fade).
Will try to find out what conditions lead to this...
It doesent matter if some changes are good for balance or not. Some of them are just annoying and makes me rage about this game. Like an armory that doesnt heal armor. I have noticed that it is sometimes a very time-intensive action if u try to get fully repaired. To find a marine who welds u or weldding stuff by yourself to get welded(<-- WTF is the sense of that) is awful in NS2.
Same to regen/carapace/cragstations . Seriously . The time u need to get healed by regen, u can simply travel back to the hive and u will save a lot more time.Two times! Carapace isent a choice . It adds 20 armor to fade,100 to onos o_O. No comment.
The action is way to much interrupted now . And just running around or waiting, most of the time, makes me bored.
I've heard of some lerks getting stuck in the walls for a moment, then suddenly popping out of them. I did get stuck sometimes as a Fade in certain spots but I was able to get out by blinking.
Comments
There are very specific reasons behind every change that has been made, they have just been spread out over many forum posts, interviews, and interactions with Sewlek on the BT servers during the testing phase. It is a very time consuming process to write up all of the months of thought and back and forth discussion that are behind every change in that changelog, and at the end of the day, it will just lead to more arguments because not everyone is going to agree with our reasons behind the changes. We spend our time trying to improve the game in the ways that we feel are right, we can't be spending all of our time constantly and repeatedly defending those decisions.
For example the Rifle spread change. We've observed the difficulty that new and casual players have in hitting fast moving aliens, due to the very tight cluster of bullets that the rifle fired, yet in the hands of pro players with very good aim, it became basically a sniper rifle. Ideally all weapons scale with skill, of course, but we felt that the base weapon that marines start with should be a little more forgiving to players of all levels, and we wanted it to be harder to snipe aliens from such extreme distances. So, the spread was increased from 2 to 2.8, which is really not that large of a difference, and if it results in pro players not just relying on their aim but also on their strategic timing - do they allow that alien to get just a little bit closer to insure that more of their bullets don't miss, for example - then that is a good thing.
Now, of course there are going to be plenty of people who argue with that reasoning, and in fact many pages were filled in the BT mod thread with arguments on both sides regarding the rifle spread changes. Sewlek has heard from all sides, and at the end of the day he made the decision he felt was best. You just have to trust that a lot of deep thought, intense testing and observation, and a lot of serious discussion has gone into the changes that went live in 250, whether you've seen them specifically articulated or not.
You know what I think, People must step back from the keyboards and go breath some fresh air outside. Return to the game some days later, play it again and when you have something CONSTRUCTIVE to say, then kindly post it on the forums. I've seen this Doom and Gloom theme going in other games and when I returned some months later, what did I see: thriving games, that have no signs of the troubles they've been put through.
Changes like this were blessings in older games, when they were needed but why in this game, which promotes Change in its name, is treated like this? The hate must stop and friendship, love and tolerance, we must find among each other.
Peace!
1) Allows better adjustment of the alien economy by giving more TRes sinks which lessens the opportunities to spam out lifeform eggs
2) Allows alien tier abilities to be more smoothly delegated through out the game rather than front loaded by hive
3) Adds minor HP scaling reducing the dependency on carapace and slightly offsetting the huge advantage weapon level upgrades give. This allowed the skulk to be a tad less frustrating near the end and the onos to be properly toned down for early appearances. These res costs and hp scaling values are by no means perfect but in my mind this was the biggest change that NEEDED to happen to NS2.
I'd like to expand on the second point. The alien tech was always extremely bursty in its earlier incarnations due to the inclusion of the alien commander yet the clinging to the idea of so much tech being tied to hives. Often times alien teams would pool res for a massive techsplosion on the second hive. It is jarring from a marine standpoint. One moment you have 1 upgrade lower lifeforms then suddenly in what seems like an instant you have higher lifeforms with 2 upgrades and tier 2 abilities. The change to the biomass system allows for a slower more paced progression and also gives the option of having some tier 2 abilities be available on one hive without them being instant researches (like the days of 25 second leap in the beta) making one hive situations way less frustrating for the alien team.
These points were all discussed in the balance mod thread in great detail with posts from Sewlek. Should this information be more accessible? Absolutely, but it is out there.
b249 alien tech tree
Carapace -> hive -> leap or fade egg -> bile -> spam fade eggs
b250 tech tree
Tried writing it out, but realised it was way too complicated to illustrate all viable tech choices and tres expenditures. This isn't to snob you off. I just don't have an hour to write it all out, whereas i can write the equilibrium tech path in b249 in basically 1 line.
Yes, b250 is definitely unbalanced (though not too severely). I hope people remember that even though it may have been called 'balance test', the point of b250 was beyond just simple 50/50 balancing of the game. Now we have a much better framework for balancing. Just like how you don't want to optimize game code before you've finished writing it.
Yes, i am also disappointed in the PR, communication, and imaging from UWE in this regard. It was definitely lacking.
While first impressions are important, they are often unreliable. This goes both for people who like b250 and people who dislike b250. I hope you approach the build with an open mind as if you were a new player
We just need to see how high they stay.
Best argument in this thread so far is "its called Natural Selection" evolve or die.
Things can never be the same between...he and I, but I'm sure we can still be friends.
PS: It's bad enough with 1-base proto, but seriously the nades? I'm sure there's some logical explanation for it, but it's very frustrating to deal with. And frustrating isn't the kind of thing you want in a game when the previous option worked just fine in my opinion.
Yeah I bet those 7 dollar steam players who start playing now are really gonna love a game in which they have no idea what to do and has a broken explore mode/tutorial.
But to be honest, i see more empty servers, then ever.
Yesterday at evening, i saw like 5 full servers, thats it.
People are complaining a lot ingame, but you know, people always do that, like they did with windows 7 and now it's like everybody use it, but Windows 8 still sucks :P
I played two rounds as alien commander and get used to it, it's very confusing at first, but the really new thing is the biomass(level) and the updates in the chambers.
But it seems, that the aliens are weaker then marines.
The Grenade Launcher and Flamethrower in the first 3 minutes is just annyoing.
Why did you made the Grenade Launcher fire so fast and usefull?
The update just feel rushed.
The Webs in the Code is working, why not activate it for the gorge?
Jetpacks in the fist 5 minutes isn't a rare thing...
I've also been working on this and thought it was ready, seemed to work, had some issues (which turned out to just be a missing Lua file). But it seems to be working now http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=156091637 and is ready for testing on servers. I haven't been able to get a dedicated server working right to test it on ATM, so if anyone that has access to on decides to use it, I'd love to play on it.
I don't like seeing all this negativity towards this. If someone doesn't like it, that's their opinion. People should be able to have a choice. I prefer 249, and it has taken me a little over 300 hours to start getting descent at the game, and now I have to spend even longer with the new changes. I played BT a few times during development(around 20 games total) before build 250, and around 10 on 250, and I haven't gotten used to it yet. It just feels awkward, and too different.
Also, oddly just mounting build 249 doesn't revert back, so it made it a little more challenging
The new patch fecking sucks. It is too complicated and IMHO game breaking for aliens. Whilst this is only my opinion I would hazard to say it is the nail in the coffin for newbies. Aliens will never win without an experienced khammander. at least in the past it wasnt too bad if someone got silence/cloak first, that sort of mistake is a death sentence for aliens to get the wrong upgrade now.
GLs are appearing before shotguns now. Good lord.
Totally agree on this one, even no tutorial is better than misleading tutorials.
Just for the record: I was not judging balance, I just wanted to share some exilharating moments...
And the Fade was a killing machine before, assassin or not :9
Actually, after testing the 250 build, I thought "all nice and well, but this really needs a 251 with fixes/tweaks/balance before they present it to new players." Then I learned (from this thread) that they were running a Steam sale right now and thought... omg...?
I mean... it was *obvious* long ago that this patch would stir up the existing community. Nobody knows how this will turn out yet, for better or worse. But throwing people who just bought the game into servers that are filled with players screaming "WTF I HATE THIS PATCH" etc. ... how is this making a good first impression?
With the gorgeous update, I could understand the reasoning - putting new players and veterans on a more even ground, as the changes were new to both of them. But with such disruptive changes as in 250, running the Steam sale later would have been a better idea IMO.
On the other hand, the fact that there is a Steam sale might explain why 250 feels so rushed and unpolished. I would assume they booked the sale in advance, so the date was set, no matter what. And as game releases tend to take longer than expected (Valve time, anyone?), they might have simply run out of time.
There was an annotated changelog for one version of the BT Mod floating around. I don't remember if it was written by Sewlek or somebody else, but it was extremely helpful to understand the rationale behind the changes. It basically looked like this (made up example): Something like that would help a lot.
For example, one question that has been asked many times is "Why were Fade and Lerk movement changed? What was broken about them?" There are tons of discussion and guesswork, but nothing official. And I think that would help a lot.
Other than that Im really enjoying the new build!
This. If the current movement had been there from the start and we had now switched to b249 skulk movement there would be absolute f****** anarchy on here right now for seriously nerfing skulks, far worse than the arguing currently going on. It would be like when cs 1.4 patch came out... oh god the memories.
@Ironhorse, I think it's related to all collisions, not just fades. I might try it out with lerk as well to confirm this. As skulk, I've occasionally got stuck to marines mid-combat, so it's not limited to the fade. Not just player-player collision, but player-structure too (hence the extractor sticking I've found now with both skulk and fade).
Will try to find out what conditions lead to this...
Same to regen/carapace/cragstations . Seriously . The time u need to get healed by regen, u can simply travel back to the hive and u will save a lot more time.Two times! Carapace isent a choice . It adds 20 armor to fade,100 to onos o_O. No comment.
The action is way to much interrupted now . And just running around or waiting, most of the time, makes me bored.
It was never used.
Eg. Stopping gorge bile.
Out of the 1000+ hours of NS2 I've played, I've only ever seen EMP used once.
If something isn't needed or used, there isnt a reason for it to be there. You either make it better, or you get rid of it.