Still standing by my opinion that alien commanders ruined NS2.

13

Comments

  • HolyTealHolyTeal Join Date: 2011-03-09 Member: 85427Members
    If people were happy with the game we have right now and stop complaining about everything maybe new players will feel that too and enjoy the game more. I think a good community is the one who stop dreaming and bothering developpers about what they find fabulous to add but concentrate on the experience offered to them right now and how to squeeze the best from it ^^
  • joohoo_n3djoohoo_n3d Join Date: 2012-10-30 Member: 164703Members, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Supporter
    in the end its all about the player - do they know the rules, the mechanics, do they make good decisions for the team, do they blah blah...

    no matter what the developers do there will always be immature people who aren't effective working with teams and/or communicating...hello, we're playing video games for christ sake lol
    THAT is our curse.

    ns1 was wayyy more frustrating than ns2 (alien team).
    charlie just should never have commited himself to being afraid of "player versus structures" because andy has brought it back and with flying colors!

    GO ANDY OR SEWLEK!

  • ellnicellnic Join Date: 2010-07-19 Member: 72559Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I have to disagree, sorry but I think it brings a better gaming experience to us then NS1 with the marine only com.
  • bizbiz Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167386Members
    pre 250 alien comm wasn't a big deal

    the game didn't educate people that it was supposed to be a shared duty anyways...

    what teams needed was 1 person giving orders about how to spend tres, but somehow people thought comm was supposed to be a full-time thing
  • Soylent_greenSoylent_green Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    biz wrote: »
    performance isn't binary...

    it was never "fixed"
    it has gone from terrible to less terrible

    It's gone from 60 FPS feels like 20 FPS to 60 FPS feels like 60 FPS. But in terms of raw framerate the improvement isn't nearly as huge.
  • MisterNubsMisterNubs Join Date: 2012-03-01 Member: 147912Members
    @wulf that's ignoring the 100+ patches since release.. Progress that has only made the game better, Imo. Progress that came mostly from listening to the feedback of said community.

    Funny. I remember a lot of feedback being ignored until recently with the 250 patch.

    Then again, I also remembered that a lot of the feedback was constantly drowned out by the incessantly screaming fan-puppies saying UWE couldn't do anything wrong. Hah. Also, one could not forget the 60/40 marine tears anytime someone mentioned alien changes during beta. Or that "such and such" was broken (ranged spores), while forgetting that hitreg was atrocious. So much good testing back then when the best frame rate you could get was 15.

    Now all I see is a complete 180 with NS2 with more and more changes reflecting those of the original game. UWE should have just made NS2 3.0+ v2 and focused on the coding during beta. Then once the code was stable, then they could have gone to town with testing changes. But they chose to fiddle around with terrible ideas that the community knew was terrible (and was ignored) while the coding was moving at a snails pace. Now this is what we have.

    Now let's down vote the heathens who disagree with anything in NS2 while circlejerkliking each other.
  • male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
    edited July 2013
    Now let's down vote the heathens who disagree with anything in NS2 while circlejerkliking each other.

    HAHA ^^ This is quite a plague on these forums, same idiots up-voting themselves and their merry band of fan boys and down-voting anyone else that played NS1.

    I just went through my disagree's on my profile. 80% of them are from the same 5 people lol.
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Now let's down vote the heathens who disagree with anything in NS2 while circlejerkliking each other.

    HAHA ^^ This is quite a plague on these forums, same idiots up-voting themselves and their merry band of fan boys and down-voting anyone else that played NS1.

    That goes both ways actually.
  • RockyMarcRockyMarc Join Date: 2009-11-24 Member: 69519Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Just the ways you like it ghost eh eh eh!
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I think it's an exaggeration to claim that the alien commander ruined NS2, but I would agree that the alien game was considerably more fun in NS1, when gorges were a lot more meaingful and fun to play.
  • MinimumMinimum Join Date: 2012-12-27 Member: 176382Members
    biz wrote: »
    performance isn't binary...

    it was never "fixed"
    it has gone from terrible to less terrible

    Graphical performance may still suffer but since B249 the performance on my rig has shot up dramatically. I'm running an almost 6 year old Q6600. It was nice to actually be able to play the game without it being a lag fest 90% of the time.
    Therius wrote: »
    Minimum wrote: »
    Therius wrote: »
    Perhaps consider that despite my opinion being a minority view here on this forum, it actually is the majority view among all buyers of the game. They see the changes to the game, go to their steam library, and uninstall.

    Perhaps consider that despite you feel like you know what the majority view is, you probably have no idea.

    Or you can see how player peaks went from 2,924 people to 1,477 people in 1 week following the last sale. That's a 49.5% loss. It's still dropping too.

    The majority of players who try out this game end up quitting. The issue now isn't performance because that was fixed in 249. What else can it be? Sunspots?

    Source: http://steamcharts.com/app/4920

    It's always been like this, after every single sale and free weekend. It's the game, not 250.

    You people use the argument of dropping player numbers to back up anything, absolutely anything you don't personally like. Every time someone points out that maybe you're making too big of a fuss out of something and, behold, someone whips up a declining chart and yells "THIS IS WHATS KILLING NS THIS IS PROOF ENJOY YOUR DEAD GAME". We've been through the concede function, the shotgun, the steep learning curve, the movement, the new Docking, performance and Hugh knows what else. And now B250. It's hilariously sad.

    The whole point of BT was to stop the player hemorrhaging. Not only has BT failed to stop that but it has also alienated a good portion of the community.

    I've been saying this from the beginning. If you want to keep the majority of players playing you have to lower the barrier of entry, not raise the skill ceiling. You don't even have to lower the skill floor to do this. You just have to design mechanics in a way that it comes naturally to people. Easy to pick up, difficult to master should be the name of the game.
    HolyTeal wrote: »
    If people were happy with the game we have right now and stop complaining about everything maybe new players will feel that too and enjoy the game more. I think a good community is the one who stop dreaming and bothering developpers about what they find fabulous to add but concentrate on the experience offered to them right now and how to squeeze the best from it ^^

    Your solution to this whole mess is to just keep quiet and deal with it? That doesn't solve anything. The majority of people keep quiet but move on to another game and never come back. Those of us who are complaining are passionate enough to stick around and voice our concerns. It would be a lot easier to give up and never come back. We stick around and voice our concerns because we care.
  • kk20kk20 Join Date: 2012-10-30 Member: 164592Members
    The problem I have found is that now you need two decent teams to play. A decent team vs a non decent team can play but a single mistake is a death knell; the server will drop to concede or lose players who don't want to sit out a slow death. It isn't fun on a pub server these days. Don't get me wrong, on certain servers you can still get good games and there are some where people actively change sides to have fun. Overall though, 250 brought a complex alien comm to the fore. That seems a great idea for people who know what they are doing. It becomes a nightmare on a normal skilled game. I for one don't want to sit in the chair everygame - im happy to coach new comms if they want a go (often do along with many others with microphones).

    Res for aliens is paramount too, one wrong purchase and they are screwed in my experience. Then again I don't play on the competitive servers at all - only pubs.
  • JirikiJiriki retired ns1 player Join Date: 2003-01-04 Member: 11780Members, NS1 Playtester, Squad Five Silver
    edited July 2013
    I think prima facie, NS2 is more complicated than NS1.

    But people getting stomped when joining a game the first time. Well you can do a lot about.

    I don't see how high-level gameplay changes matter that much if you have guys who have played <15 hours.

    But you should not have gameplay, where if someone makes a mistake, the game turns into 40min stalemate that was decided 35 mins ago. Happened in NS1 unfortunately, and was a real problem on public. I don't have a silver bullet, but good understanding and analysis of the game can provide solutions.

    Game should have exponential tech curve, which means that as soon as enemy team starts teching up ahead there becomes a slippery slope to quick end. Giving n+1 comeback chances sounds fun on paper but its not in reality.

    That's just my 5c.
  • dragonmithdragonmith Join Date: 2013-02-04 Member: 182817Members, Reinforced - Diamond
    This is entirely unrelated but @Soylent_green, there are like 3 NZ servers, don't go there...

    Anyway, I think while adding a karm (might have?) reduced the asymmetric aspects a bit, the two commanders must play very differently, more so now with drifters "buffed" and arcs more expensive.

    like Jirki, just my opinion.
  • amoralamoral Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177250Members
    arcs are so incredibly slow now.
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    amoral wrote: »
    arcs are so incredibly slow now.

    They move more slowly but it's quicker to start the siege. I like this better.

    Now, I'm not against the arcs moving, but it unfortunately makes commanders overuse the ability.

  • StardogStardog Join Date: 2004-10-25 Member: 32448Members
    We just need to go back to the simplicity of NS1. 3 hives for an onos. Then it's clear to the noobies that they have to attack bases to progress.

    Gorges building things instead of a commander is also way more fun.
  • FearOfCalamariFearOfCalamari Join Date: 2013-07-22 Member: 186298Members
    edited July 2013
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Someone saving for a hive was still teamwork.
    Regardless of that semantic though, i find "teamwork" not only existed in ns1 for aliens as well, but ns2's khamm mechanic doesn't really require team work.. In fact you can have an absolutely silent khamm..

    Try that on marines without getting ejected.

    So, i fail to see your point
    It works for marines as well. I am fairly new to the game but I've commanded for marines multiple times on non-green servers without saying a word. We did just fine.
  • BestProfileNameBestProfileName Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177320Members
    edited July 2013
    What was it that Einstein said about repetition, outcomes and madness?
    And the definition of practice is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different result.

    @Soylent_green
    What?! How on earth could you possibly think that? Practise is trying X to produce effect, Y, finding that X appears to produce a sub-optimal effect, and thus, if you are capable, altering X and seeing what that does. That is what practise is about.

    I think what you meant by your sentence is that in order to get better at football you need to practise it over and over, and in this sense you're practising the same thing - but that's because you did not analyse the game on the correct level. If you look deeper you will find that you are doing the same thing in a different way over and over until you think you have the best method. Once you have the best method that brings about the desired effect, you practise that over and over to produce that very same result.
  • Metal ManMetal Man Join Date: 2011-11-13 Member: 132717Members
    edited July 2013
    *snip * treat other members of the community with respect, or do not post at all. - Ironhorse
  • Soylent_greenSoylent_green Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    @Soylent_green
    What?! How on earth could you possibly think that? Practise is trying X to produce effect, Y, finding that X appears to produce a sub-optimal effect, and thus, if you are capable, altering X and seeing what that does. That is what practise is about.

    Two problems with this.

    1) UWE isn't doing exactly the same thing over and over. If they did exactly the same thing the patches should be byte-wise identical. Clearly this isn't what we're talking about.

    2) Most of the time you know exactly what to do, but you are physically unable to do it. Either because your muscles are too weak, or you haven't acquired the fine motor skill or motor-memory to do it. Your trying to do EXACTLY the same thing over and over and over until your body cooperates.

    If you're experimenting with lots of different approaches, you're learning, but you're no longer practicing. Practicising specifically refers to repetion.

    You can argue that the line is blurry, and that practice actually entails lots of subtle variations; but then, if the variations are so subtle people will still say you're doing the same thing over and over because that's what it looks like.
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited July 2013
    The good thing about the old alien teamwork setup at least is that it didn't rely on just 1 person, i.e if your commander is a total novice he can essentially ruin the game, and while the alien comm isn't exactly very hard, it sure as hell is confusing for any new player giving it a first go. In NS1, all you had to do was tell somebody to gorge and drop a hive, fairly straight forward. In NS2 however, you have to tell somebody to not only drop a hive but also explain the entire comming process... Decentralised over centralised decision making, basically.

    From a new player accessibility point of view, the NS 1 setup was far far more preferable. And it was more fun imo, as gorges, despite the love they got in the Gorgeous update are still a pretty boring class to play until Bile comes around. (3 whopping hydras, some clogs and some useless babblers)

    That and there weren't any lifeform explosions like there are today. Overall I'd still say gameplay was better.
  • SkyPirateSkyPirate Join Date: 2012-02-19 Member: 146845Members
    There was a server with a old school ns1 mod, gorge builds rts and hive and stuff, old skills. I played it, it was fun but I can't find the server anymore? If you really care about this the mod is out there just rent your own server and mod it please i would enjoy playing some old school style ns2 once in a while.
  • SkyPirateSkyPirate Join Date: 2012-02-19 Member: 146845Members
    edited July 2013
    And I like the new ns2 way the current alien com and everything, but the game could have been good if they went no alien com. It was actually kinda the trade mark thing for aliens, no com. free for all, the raw killing skill of each alien vs. the marines organized, strategic group attacks. marines capture and defend while aliens run around in chaos killing. that was the core of the game, it has changed and I don't wanna say for worse because I really love this game.
  • hf_hf_ Join Date: 2011-06-10 Member: 103639Members
    Let's be honest with ourselves about why these changes were made. UWE wants NS2 to have a huge competitive scene -- like LoL or SC2 -- with impressive stages, lots of live coverage, and massive prize pools. Tournaments that are live-broadcasted throughout the Web are essentially free advertising for the game, so it's not a bad strategy in terms of attracting new customers, but I also think there's an ego component associated with this as well, a gloating that comes with seeing hordes of players drooling over your game, which I find irritating.

    FPS competitive scene for PC essentially died with TFC. Strategy games, however, are hugely popular, and thus the decision to implement a Khaaramander -- make both sides have a RTS feel to them so that more strategy game lovers feel compelled to play, and hopefully, these types of players will contribute to a healthy competitive scene.

    The Natural Selection franchise, however, at its core is an asymmetrical FPS game. Marines represent this novelty concept of a traditional RTS game with your units being other players instead of being directly commander-controlled, and the focus is on team play / working together. Aliens represent a more individualistic approach where your lone actions contribute to the collective success of the team, and advanced evolutions increase your power and strength in annihilating marines.

    The introduction of the Khaaramander ruined the original design of the alien style of gameplay. What you have seen in NS2 is UWE constantly changing alien components to make them more similar to the marine style of play. Teamwork is now required for aliens -- lifeform evolutions across the board are weaker than in NS with Fade armor being diminished, the Onos essentially useless, and the Lerk very fragile. To succeed as aliens means to work together in conjunction with the Khaaramander (drifter support) to attack marine strongholds.

    In my opinion, these changes have gone against the original tenets of Natural Selection, and the sequel is now an unappealing mish-mash of half-assed ideas that are trying to make a game work for the sole purpose of driving a competitive scene. As a result, the game is needlessly complicated with no clear direction for the future, and the essence of Natural Selection is now gone, leaving behind a confused mess that is incomprehensibly difficult for new players and extremely disappointing for long-time NS fans.

    At this point, only fanboys are left vehemently defending the game. If you think things are going well for NS2, the constant discounts on Steam should be the only evidence to contradict this obvious misconception. I hope that in future content and update releases UWE re-discovers what made NS so successful, and that they are able to build upon those tenets to introduce new mechanisms that make the game more fun, less complicated, and still true to an asymmetrical FPS, while maintaining balanced sides and a constant dedication to increase performance.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Yeah because ns1 wasn't incomprehensibly difficult for new players... *rolls eyes *
  • bERt0rbERt0r Join Date: 2005-03-23 Member: 46181Members
    Thats exactly what hf said only that beyond that, NS1 had this organized Marines vs barbaric Kharra element which was a huge selling point for the game.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited July 2013
    No one with half a brain suggests NS1 (i hope) was easy to get into, but NS2 hasnt made any major changes that actually improve upon the ease of learning, and has honestly made a couple steps backwards (more complicated damage types, more class specific features). Most people ended up turning them off but NS1 had good tooltips for each weapon that would display on switch, which gave a brief description of what it did, and/or how much damage. It also had many basics which held common for all classes - the base movement of all classes was identical, aside from max speeds. The progression of the game was also much more granular, and more forgiving in public play. Thats not to say NS1 didnt have issues, there were many that were present even in the final version, but many of those issues still live on in NS2 today.

    I personally do not think any one thing 'ruined' NS2, because it is still a good game to play casually. However for more serious play I think there are a lot of flaws, many of which really hurt the enjoyability and excitement of the game. In that sense I would say that the resource system changes and alien commander are the 2 biggest there.

    Probably the biggest loss from the resource change is the loss of the 'carry' player - the person going fade first, or the person with the early shotgun. For both spectators (and players) it created so much more interest - similar to watching the carry hero in Dota or LoL. You know that person has the ability to completely control the outcome of a battle, and its those successes and failures which made the gameplay infinitely more interesting.
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