I think he did too, but it was an opportunity for me to remind people. It is an idea I want to kill, bury, and set the grave ablaze. I did keep it on topic though. See, at the end.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
So rookies dont need coaches, most of them leaving the game within 25 hrs for whatever reason, noone in this community has a real idea how to improve the game for new players, noone want a dumbdown version of ns2 but new players should be able compete against better players.
On the other side:
EVERYONE in this community knows A is a bad change, B is not needed and C is a change noone wanted.
More tutorials and whatever other minor balance tweaks aren't going to "save" NS2. If you want to turn NS2 around, then you have to push some drastic QOL and accessibility changes. The game has to be more accommodating to new players. The game has to be more forgiving. The game has to be easier to step into and be effective.
I dunno DePara I've seen plenty of ideas thrown out there since I started playing and most of them are far better than hp bars, larger hitboxes, and more skulk hp...
It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that all their recent changes benefit high skill players WAY more than casual/rookie players, and they've made the stomping problem much worse...
Also coming up with things that benefit low skill players and not high skill players is hard with a game like this..
We need things that function somewhat like noob tubes.. Where a low skill player can use them to get kills and/or survive, but a high skill player wouldn't benefit because their higher accuracy makes the rifle/shotty a better option..
Problem is you already have something like that on marine (GL) and coming up with an alien skill (or maybe a new life form) to accomplish that is hard considering the way aliens are played...
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
@MoFo1
Well, feel free to make a list of the plenty ideas you have seen.
Here is my little dumbdown idea:
How about a timer somewhere in the upper hud, where you can see the time where Lerks, fades and Onos can be on the field.
This timer dont need to be exact but should be based on the harvester ammount.
All the vets know the timings where higher lifeforms popup anyway.
This would give new players a direct feedback when you kill an harvester (harvester dead, timer goes up).
Also how about showing spottet harvesters and extrator longer on the map (thats why vets parasite them). The vets already know the ammount of enemy harvesters/extractor most of the time.
New players would benefit from both changes while vets have this information anyway.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
Another idea:
How about to change the lightning in that way, that typical good defend or ambush positions are highlighted in some way.
This change could be subtle.
On rookie server you could give a player some soundfeedback like (awesome positioning) and extra points if he kills aliens from that position or after an good ambush as skulk.
This is rewarding, vets know these positions anyway and people learn to position themself.
Isolating rookies amongst themselves is a terrible idea. They will get an extremely shifted version of the game for a couple of hours, then suddenly be released into the 'real' game, being utterly destroyed. Yeah they know the very basics by then, but does that REALLY make a difference?
Ah, I see... so we should allow them to be "utterly destroyed" before knowing the very basics... is that really your argument?
You guys need to understand that if we had a good engine, good marketing, easy to access information (this includes tutorials), and proper matchmaking AT LAUNCH, this game would have gone A LOT better. I cannot emphasize this point enough. Unfortunately, this is not the time for any of those changes to be developed. The best we can hope for is that the devs learn what they need from this game, leave it in a good state, and go onto other projects.
More tutorials and whatever other minor balance tweaks aren't going to "save" NS2. If you want to turn NS2 around, then you have to push some drastic QOL and accessibility changes. The game has to be more accommodating to new players. The game has to be more forgiving. The game has to be easier to step into and be effective.
To accommodate players, you'll have to drastically dumb down the game.
So the whole character of the game changes, old players leave because this is not what they purchased, while the game is still 4 years old. There will be no big influx of players, simply because it's old. You'll end up on the floor between two chairs.
If drastic changes are what the devs are after, they WILL kill the game sooner than it would die out on it's own.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
Ok, then lets please the remaining community as much as possible and wait till NS2 is bleeded out.
Meanwhile you should stop with "The game need more players"-whining, ok?
Why is the whole character of the game changing with changes i mentioned above?
The core game stays untouched.
Changes like this give new players the same informations vets already have.
You cannot transform a new player with zero aim into a killing machine with balance patches.
Things like that would be horrible cause players with higher skill would be bored of the game if every idiot can have the same results caus the game want this.
But you can atleast try to help new players with important informations.
Another idea:
If the "Base under attack" sound gets played, show a small not distracting map that shows the position of the attacked structure related to your position.
Vets would press the map key in that situation right away. If its done in a nice way vets would also profit from this change cause they can concentrate on a fight while they see there next target without an extra click on the keyboard.
Im sure 80% of the new players dont use the map or dont know the map key.
Another idea for an ingame "mentor program":
Vets can place little holographic informations on key positions for marines behind them like:
"Some1 stay here for laneblocking". If someone is doing this, reward this guy with extra points, a heroic music or whatever.
No concede votes happen, cause new players dont knnow how to concede.
Why?
Mapvote and balance is on M, concede is on X.
Put all gamerelated votes into one menu instead of splitting them.
If the someone is pressing concede, he must click on a reason button like "only 1 rt", "Com sux", "Enemy team to strong".
New players dont know why people are conceding, with this change they would see the reasons.
HP bars are in the same categorie like the changes i mentioned btw.
They give new players informations vets already have.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The point is: You dont need to dumb down the core game that much.
The problem is this:
Lets say UWE is implementing my timer idea.
The result would be a nonstop discussion why this timer would be bad for the game.
And after 8 pages it would end with the typical "The devs are killing the game" and "Another feature noone asked for".
Sure noone asked for features like this, cause you already know how to play the game.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
And another idea:
If an phase gate is under attack, play a extra warning and not the typical "base under attack".
Cant count the games where 7 marines where welding the base while our only Phase gate on the field was going down to 2 skulks.
HandschuhJoin Date: 2005-03-08Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
There were lots of good ideas already like improved. minimaps which show the area marines have under control for easier laneblooking for rookies...or useful challenges which would improve skills .. with enough widesight it would really improve the game and gameplay.. but it doesn't seem something like this will ever be done
Drastic changes begin with HP bars and skulk HP increase (hitbox is not, albeit its a bad change).
I have no idea what other horrid stuff they have on their mind, but having a timer is not a drastic change imo :] It's an informative addition, so you dont have to know how much yield a harvester has and do math in your head (I like it, but I concede that it's not a "game depth" feature)
HP bars are in the same categorie like the changes i mentioned btw.
They give new players informations vets already have.
I'd agree with you here if the hp bar was positioned either
- how the numbers were (only showing where you hit = no tracking assist)
- locked on the crosshair (=no tracking assist)
- locked somewhere else on the hud (=no tracking assist)
However since the giant red bar perfectly follows the alien you shot in real time, it acts like a big brightly colored "shoot here" sign that helps 30%+ acc vets much MUCH more than 10% acc casual/rookie players...
It provides so much more than just health information.. It's an insane amount of assistance keeping track of the target you hit. (especially when engaging multiple aliens)
Also I might take the time to dig through the forums to make that list... But honestly what's the point? Devs have already seen and ignored them all.
(And this is coming from a team captain who is highly MOTIVATED being utterly CRUSHED 4 weeks in a row in competitive, because those matches while not balanced were GOOD. Stuff happened, interesting stuff.. strategy, gameplay.
Thx @DC_Darkling without you and your team ns2 would be boring af for me. And I want to see you guys improve to the point where we have balanced games. So keep training
Here in the forum i read only "usless changes" but no real ideas how to deal with the learning curve problem beside "Tutorials and UI changes".
I didnt have an idea either.
And Ironhorse is right about comparing a super simple gamemode like capture the point with NS2.
Well I have said that ages ago and combat did a great job with it. A new gamemode that is simpler to understand, is more forgiving (also where you are punished less when losing lifeforms or weapons) and also isolates the RTS aspect of the game. Meaning rookies who play this gamemode have enough time to learn movement, weapon behaviour and just all of the FPS aspects. If they feel they are ready they can move on to the ns2 gamemode which introduces the RTS aspect
So is there a possibilty that we can work out a gamemode we think that helps rookies to learn stuff
(also counterstrike has the competitive gamemode as main gamemode but also things like TDM and gungame to help as training area to learn weapon behaviour)
The point is: You dont need to dumb down the core game that much.
The problem is this:
Lets say UWE is implementing my timer idea.
The result would be a nonstop discussion why this timer would be bad for the game.
And after 8 pages it would end with the typical "The devs are killing the game" and "Another feature noone asked for".
Sure noone asked for features like this, cause you already know how to play the game.
Sometimes players gaining more information/better displaying information is good, and sometimes it is bad. The community has made it very clear that the implementation of health bars is controversial. This is partially because new information is being presented - the actual HP values of enemies. There is also the issue of it acting as a tracking assist, which is an unintentional side effect. I'm still not quite sure what to think about them. Lifeform timers wouldn't be new information, but they would be an assist to alien players. It reminds me of the timer controversy in another game. If you are at all familiar, League of Legends has a timer that shows when certain mobs on the map respawn once your team has witnessed their deaths. Not new information, but it was still met with criticism. Some people wanted to retain the advantage of timing respawns themselves because they picked it up as a skill. The appropriate question to ask is "Is this a part of gameplay, and a skill that people are expected to learn?" In that case, the answer was no, and the timers stayed in one form or another.
The skill ceiling of NS2 is partially caused by complexity and difficult to learn mechanics. Those who have mastered skills will have an inherent bias if the playing field is leveled out. They will feel as if they have learned certain skills all for nothing, and that the next generation of players is getting it easy. The problem with reversionism - the idea that all recent (and possibly future) updates should be tossed - is that there will be no next generation of players. As iron horse has said, the game will die, and we will have to accept it. I like complexity and can work with it, but if some of it has to go away for the experience as a whole to improve, I personally don't mind. NS2 isn't getting dumbed down or watered down. I haven't liked all of the changes, and I kind of miss my exo punch kills, but there isn't some conspiracy to turn NS2 into mobile shovelware a toddler can play and mature gamers can't enjoy.
How about a timer somewhere in the upper hud, where you can see the time where Lerks, fades and Onos can be on the field.
gotta be careful not to confuse people with this information since its a "can be" rather than a "will be". maybe it could be communicated as total-enemy-tres with visual indicators (on a growing bar or something) for lerk, fade, onos and hive costs.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2016
@Bike_Man Funny thing that you should mention the Exo fist. I had a strange dream last night about punching swarms of aliens with metal fists. Maybe it's a sign I need to tone down my time spent on Evolve Stage 2...
Regarding the health bars in NS2. I think it wouldn't hurt to experiment with shorter display time on those bars (cut it to 1 second or maybe even half a second).
There were lots of good ideas already like improved. minimaps which show the area marines have under control for easier laneblooking for rookies...or useful challenges which would improve skills .. with enough widesight it would really improve the game and gameplay.. but it doesn't seem something like this will ever be done
I'm not sure if someone can come up with a smart implementation that actually gets used, but contextual waypoints could be huge for newbies. Rather than "Go to waypoint" commander could set waypoints like "Destroy alien infestation", "Capture resource for marines" and "Create a foothold here" kind of waypoints depending on what they're supposed to do.
When a newbie sees the mission type, he can quickly start recognizing the various common scenarios during rounds, such as securing locations, capturing marine res nodes and eliminating alien res nodes or hives. Often these also help them to understand the dangerous areas of the map and so on.
You could probably use some kind of quick rightclick popup menu (NS1 style for example) for quickly selecting a contextual waypoint without slowing down the commanding experience that much. Rather than rclicking for waypoint you hold down the right mouse and nudge your mouse to a specific direction to create a much more informative waypoint.
--
For aliens, maybe some basic skulkpack communication could get direct UI support too. "Hold" and "Rush now" communication can already go a long way when you're trying to help people recognize situations where walking into a marine line of fire isn't the best approach.
I think you should consider hiring an ex competitive player with editting skills like the one who made this video, comp players have the most understanding of games mechanic, and build that way a solid database of tips that can be linked ingame and to the new wiki.
Regarding the health bars in NS2. I think it wouldn't hurt to experiment with shorter display time on those bars (cut it to 1 second or maybe even half a second).
I guess this is the accessibility suggestion thread - I was thinking recently, why do marines still have such a crummy minimap? I can't think of a single time I've ever used it. I don't see any reason the icons shown on there shouldn't be the same as the icons on the full map.
Furthermore I think Aliens should (optionally) have the same minimap. For most of us it's second nature to constantly be pulling up the full-screen map as we play, but that's actually a pretty awkward skill to learn and most players won't think of it. No the minimap doesn't give you full map awareness, but it does help with getting lost and being aware of enemies in the area.
I guess this is the accessibility suggestion thread - I was thinking recently, why do marines still have such a crummy minimap? I can't think of a single time I've ever used it. I don't see any reason the icons shown on there shouldn't be the same as the icons on the full map.
Furthermore I think Aliens should (optionally) have the same minimap. For most of us it's second nature to constantly be pulling up the full-screen map as we play, but that's actually a pretty awkward skill to learn and most players won't think of it. No the minimap doesn't give you full map awareness, but it does help with getting lost and being aware of enemies in the area.
I disable the minimap because it is useless. I think it is more important to explain to new players how to use the map key because it is much more powerful. I am annoyed everytime I player other multiplayer FPS because there is either only a minimap or No map at all.
The marine's minimap is very powerful imo. Often it allows you to look behind you without turning. It also allows you to scan big, complex rooms very quickly since every enemy in LOS shows up on it. I use it extensively and would not call it useless.
The marine's minimap is very powerful imo. Often it allows you to look behind you without turning. It also allows you to scan big, complex rooms very quickly since every enemy in LOS shows up on it. I use it extensively and would not call it useless.
Even enemies not in los will show up on the minimap... It's broken as hell when you sucessfuly sneak past a marine only to have them double back because you pinged on their map..
I've always thought it was the worst most broken unbalanced feature in NS2..
Comments
There is no template, just lots of plagiarising myself and editing a post as necessary. That one hasn't needed an edit in awhile.
On the other side:
EVERYONE in this community knows A is a bad change, B is not needed and C is a change noone wanted.
Aehm. Aehm, Hmm, ok, but, but , but
"The devs killing the game"
More tutorials and whatever other minor balance tweaks aren't going to "save" NS2. If you want to turn NS2 around, then you have to push some drastic QOL and accessibility changes. The game has to be more accommodating to new players. The game has to be more forgiving. The game has to be easier to step into and be effective.
It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that all their recent changes benefit high skill players WAY more than casual/rookie players, and they've made the stomping problem much worse...
Also coming up with things that benefit low skill players and not high skill players is hard with a game like this..
We need things that function somewhat like noob tubes.. Where a low skill player can use them to get kills and/or survive, but a high skill player wouldn't benefit because their higher accuracy makes the rifle/shotty a better option..
Problem is you already have something like that on marine (GL) and coming up with an alien skill (or maybe a new life form) to accomplish that is hard considering the way aliens are played...
Well, feel free to make a list of the plenty ideas you have seen.
Here is my little dumbdown idea:
How about a timer somewhere in the upper hud, where you can see the time where Lerks, fades and Onos can be on the field.
This timer dont need to be exact but should be based on the harvester ammount.
All the vets know the timings where higher lifeforms popup anyway.
This would give new players a direct feedback when you kill an harvester (harvester dead, timer goes up).
Also how about showing spottet harvesters and extrator longer on the map (thats why vets parasite them). The vets already know the ammount of enemy harvesters/extractor most of the time.
New players would benefit from both changes while vets have this information anyway.
How about to change the lightning in that way, that typical good defend or ambush positions are highlighted in some way.
This change could be subtle.
On rookie server you could give a player some soundfeedback like (awesome positioning) and extra points if he kills aliens from that position or after an good ambush as skulk.
This is rewarding, vets know these positions anyway and people learn to position themself.
To accommodate players, you'll have to drastically dumb down the game.
So the whole character of the game changes, old players leave because this is not what they purchased, while the game is still 4 years old. There will be no big influx of players, simply because it's old. You'll end up on the floor between two chairs.
If drastic changes are what the devs are after, they WILL kill the game sooner than it would die out on it's own.
Meanwhile you should stop with "The game need more players"-whining, ok?
Why is the whole character of the game changing with changes i mentioned above?
The core game stays untouched.
Changes like this give new players the same informations vets already have.
You cannot transform a new player with zero aim into a killing machine with balance patches.
Things like that would be horrible cause players with higher skill would be bored of the game if every idiot can have the same results caus the game want this.
But you can atleast try to help new players with important informations.
Another idea:
If the "Base under attack" sound gets played, show a small not distracting map that shows the position of the attacked structure related to your position.
Vets would press the map key in that situation right away. If its done in a nice way vets would also profit from this change cause they can concentrate on a fight while they see there next target without an extra click on the keyboard.
Im sure 80% of the new players dont use the map or dont know the map key.
Another idea for an ingame "mentor program":
Vets can place little holographic informations on key positions for marines behind them like:
"Some1 stay here for laneblocking". If someone is doing this, reward this guy with extra points, a heroic music or whatever.
No concede votes happen, cause new players dont knnow how to concede.
Why?
Mapvote and balance is on M, concede is on X.
Put all gamerelated votes into one menu instead of splitting them.
If the someone is pressing concede, he must click on a reason button like "only 1 rt", "Com sux", "Enemy team to strong".
New players dont know why people are conceding, with this change they would see the reasons.
HP bars are in the same categorie like the changes i mentioned btw.
They give new players informations vets already have.
Calm down dude, sheesh.
The problem is this:
Lets say UWE is implementing my timer idea.
The result would be a nonstop discussion why this timer would be bad for the game.
And after 8 pages it would end with the typical "The devs are killing the game" and "Another feature noone asked for".
Sure noone asked for features like this, cause you already know how to play the game.
If an phase gate is under attack, play a extra warning and not the typical "base under attack".
Cant count the games where 7 marines where welding the base while our only Phase gate on the field was going down to 2 skulks.
I have no idea what other horrid stuff they have on their mind, but having a timer is not a drastic change imo :] It's an informative addition, so you dont have to know how much yield a harvester has and do math in your head (I like it, but I concede that it's not a "game depth" feature)
Hiperbole alert
EDIT:
But I think it should be displayed with the minimap, to keep the HUD clean
I'd agree with you here if the hp bar was positioned either
- how the numbers were (only showing where you hit = no tracking assist)
- locked on the crosshair (=no tracking assist)
- locked somewhere else on the hud (=no tracking assist)
However since the giant red bar perfectly follows the alien you shot in real time, it acts like a big brightly colored "shoot here" sign that helps 30%+ acc vets much MUCH more than 10% acc casual/rookie players...
It provides so much more than just health information.. It's an insane amount of assistance keeping track of the target you hit. (especially when engaging multiple aliens)
Also I might take the time to dig through the forums to make that list... But honestly what's the point? Devs have already seen and ignored them all.
Thx @DC_Darkling without you and your team ns2 would be boring af for me. And I want to see you guys improve to the point where we have balanced games. So keep training
Well I have said that ages ago and combat did a great job with it. A new gamemode that is simpler to understand, is more forgiving (also where you are punished less when losing lifeforms or weapons) and also isolates the RTS aspect of the game. Meaning rookies who play this gamemode have enough time to learn movement, weapon behaviour and just all of the FPS aspects. If they feel they are ready they can move on to the ns2 gamemode which introduces the RTS aspect
So is there a possibilty that we can work out a gamemode we think that helps rookies to learn stuff
(also counterstrike has the competitive gamemode as main gamemode but also things like TDM and gungame to help as training area to learn weapon behaviour)
Sometimes players gaining more information/better displaying information is good, and sometimes it is bad. The community has made it very clear that the implementation of health bars is controversial. This is partially because new information is being presented - the actual HP values of enemies. There is also the issue of it acting as a tracking assist, which is an unintentional side effect. I'm still not quite sure what to think about them. Lifeform timers wouldn't be new information, but they would be an assist to alien players. It reminds me of the timer controversy in another game. If you are at all familiar, League of Legends has a timer that shows when certain mobs on the map respawn once your team has witnessed their deaths. Not new information, but it was still met with criticism. Some people wanted to retain the advantage of timing respawns themselves because they picked it up as a skill. The appropriate question to ask is "Is this a part of gameplay, and a skill that people are expected to learn?" In that case, the answer was no, and the timers stayed in one form or another.
The skill ceiling of NS2 is partially caused by complexity and difficult to learn mechanics. Those who have mastered skills will have an inherent bias if the playing field is leveled out. They will feel as if they have learned certain skills all for nothing, and that the next generation of players is getting it easy. The problem with reversionism - the idea that all recent (and possibly future) updates should be tossed - is that there will be no next generation of players. As iron horse has said, the game will die, and we will have to accept it. I like complexity and can work with it, but if some of it has to go away for the experience as a whole to improve, I personally don't mind. NS2 isn't getting dumbed down or watered down. I haven't liked all of the changes, and I kind of miss my exo punch kills, but there isn't some conspiracy to turn NS2 into mobile shovelware a toddler can play and mature gamers can't enjoy.
Regarding the health bars in NS2. I think it wouldn't hurt to experiment with shorter display time on those bars (cut it to 1 second or maybe even half a second).
I'm not sure if someone can come up with a smart implementation that actually gets used, but contextual waypoints could be huge for newbies. Rather than "Go to waypoint" commander could set waypoints like "Destroy alien infestation", "Capture resource for marines" and "Create a foothold here" kind of waypoints depending on what they're supposed to do.
When a newbie sees the mission type, he can quickly start recognizing the various common scenarios during rounds, such as securing locations, capturing marine res nodes and eliminating alien res nodes or hives. Often these also help them to understand the dangerous areas of the map and so on.
You could probably use some kind of quick rightclick popup menu (NS1 style for example) for quickly selecting a contextual waypoint without slowing down the commanding experience that much. Rather than rclicking for waypoint you hold down the right mouse and nudge your mouse to a specific direction to create a much more informative waypoint.
--
For aliens, maybe some basic skulkpack communication could get direct UI support too. "Hold" and "Rush now" communication can already go a long way when you're trying to help people recognize situations where walking into a marine line of fire isn't the best approach.
Not a bad idea at all...
https://trello.com/c/g57PpePk/413-307-enemy-marking-persists-through-structures
Furthermore I think Aliens should (optionally) have the same minimap. For most of us it's second nature to constantly be pulling up the full-screen map as we play, but that's actually a pretty awkward skill to learn and most players won't think of it. No the minimap doesn't give you full map awareness, but it does help with getting lost and being aware of enemies in the area.
I disable the minimap because it is useless. I think it is more important to explain to new players how to use the map key because it is much more powerful. I am annoyed everytime I player other multiplayer FPS because there is either only a minimap or No map at all.
Even enemies not in los will show up on the minimap... It's broken as hell when you sucessfuly sneak past a marine only to have them double back because you pinged on their map..
I've always thought it was the worst most broken unbalanced feature in NS2..