HandschuhJoin Date: 2005-03-08Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
Is hiveskill broken or why are there no changes since the patch? Especially after gathering it always bounced up and down since there is no shuffle, but now it's stuck
Congratulations on making a spectator slot system that is objectively worst then what everybody was already using.
Yes because joining a server under the assumption of being able to play yet be told that you can't join the game since the teams were full was a great system.
Congratulations on making a spectator slot system that is objectively worst then what everybody was already using.
Yes because joining a server under the assumption of being able to play yet be told that you can't join the game since the teams were full was a great system.
I have never joined a server with the expectation I'd be able to play. And most servers stated what their limitation is in the text, it was easy to see what ones were specs only and what ones likely had playing slots.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
The skulk challenge is awesome. It makes me want to try all of the other tutorial bits that I'd never touched before. One suggestion, the speedometer is hard to read at a glance. It would be wonderful for it to change color as you approach max speed.
The skulk challenge is awesome. It makes me want to try all of the other tutorial bits that I'd never touched before. One suggestion, the speedometer is hard to read at a glance. It would be wonderful for it to change color as you approach max speed.
But what is max speed? My personal speed record so far is 11.7
It would be wonderful for it to change color as you approach max speed.
Make it bronze if your speed is above the average speed you need for bronze. Same for silver, gold, and platinum.
Oooh! I got an idea. For a while now I've been thinking that there should be some visual feedback when a skulk is walljumping correctly, or moving in a correct speed. For example a little trail of sparks or something. That way rookies can go "Wow look! How do ***I*** make my skulk do those pretty sparky things?" - and just like that they are introduced to the somewhat hidden mechanic of walljumping.
Well, to expand on that idea, why not make the sparks in the same color as your skulk challenge medal?
It would be wonderful for it to change color as you approach max speed.
Make it bronze if your speed is above the average speed you need for bronze. Same for silver, gold, and platinum.
Oooh! I got an idea. For a while now I've been thinking that there should be some visual feedback when a skulk is walljumping correctly, or moving in a correct speed. For example a little trail of sparks or something. That way rookies can go "Wow look! How do ***I*** make my skulk do those pretty sparky things?" - and just like that they are introduced to the somewhat hidden mechanic of walljumping.
Well, to expand on that idea, why not make the sparks in the same color as your skulk challenge medal?
I don't think we need annoying fantasy glitter in this game to clutter the view.
I have never joined a server with the expectation I'd be able to play.
Surely you see how this could be a problem for new players that don't know to expect this...
It's not worth it.
It's not worth losing f4's reliability. (This is by far the most angering change, before f4 has always took me to the ready room, and something about that not being a constant is extremely jarring.)
It's not worth losing joining from shortcuts.
It's not worth losing joining from friends list.
It's not worth being unable to browse the ready room for hidden rooms while the teams are full.
It's not worth breaking the ability to use my karma to bump people on tgns.
It's not worth turning spectate until what is basically a jail you can't leave once you enter.
It's not worth breaking the ability to wait for a slot to open up without getting presented with information about the other team you normally wouldn't know. (some people do avoid spectate for this reason, in fact I remember a server that wouldn't let you join a team if you spectated recently to avoid metagaming with spectate)
It's not worth breaking the ability to fix spectate bugs by going to the ready room then re-spectating (Something i have had to do at least once a day from the disappearing mouse cursor bug)
The pros are heavily outweighed by the cons. This system is poorly designed, poorly executed, and one minor benefit to new players does not negate that.
HandschuhJoin Date: 2005-03-08Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
edited August 2017
Had a weird bug: I was normal rifle marine with exo and had welder equipped.. was a long round, while being in the minigun exo even lost our base.. so I was more than 15min. in that exo..some time later I got almost crushed, needed to leave my exo with 22 armor left.. I survived and I had literally no weapons, no axe or welder.. till a mate from another exo gave me his rifle... that was pretty weird
It's not worth breaking the ability to use my karma to bump people on tgns.
I would argue that kicking an active player out of a slot simply because you're more popular on a server is the exact sort of thing we don't want new players experiencing.
The rest of what you're complaining about is just small quality of life things. Nothing really game breaking.
It's not worth breaking the ability to use my karma to bump people on tgns.
I would argue that kicking an active player out of a slot simply because you're more popular on a server is the exact sort of thing we don't want new players experiencing.
The rest of what you're complaining about is just small quality of life things. Nothing really game breaking.
Irritating? Yes. But not the end of the world.
I'd probably say that not being able to join from friends list would be extremely irritating, but alas none of my friends play NS2.
Had a weird bug: I was normal rifle marine with exo and had welder equipped.. was a long round, while being in the minigun exo even lost our base.. so I was more than 15min. in that exo..some time later I got almost crushed, needed to leave my exo with 22 armor left.. I survived and I had literally no weapons, no axe or welder.. till a mate from another exo gave me his rifle... that was pretty weird
I've seen this bug a lot. The server log has a Lua error with something to do with "activeWeapon" when this happens.
It's not worth breaking the ability to use my karma to bump people on tgns.
I would argue that kicking an active player out of a slot simply because you're more popular on a server is the exact sort of thing we don't want new players experiencing.
The rest of what you're complaining about is just small quality of life things. Nothing really game breaking.
Irritating? Yes. But not the end of the world.
New players are exempt from being bumped. and karma on tgns is earned by doing things that are helpful to the overall server like taking over when a comm drops out, swapping teams when they become unbalanced, joining the server when its low, etc. Not "being more popular".
Remember, assuming makes an ass out of u and me
Oh, and you should read the full comment thread before replying. I was not arguing they were end of the world things, nor was I even arguing they were irritating. My argument is that is it objectively worse than the existing mods for spectator slots. Nothing more, nothing less.
if UWE is going to make a native replacement to an existing mod, it needs be at the very least, as good as that existing mod.
Last night i experienced a new rookie make the spec slot mistake. She was in spec when a spot opened. But she couldnt f4. So she exited to the server browser then tried to rejoin only by the time she got to the browser the slot was filled. Came back quite pissed. Isnt that what we are trying to avoid.
I agree that their should be a distinction between active slots and spec slots. But disabling either specs or active slots from joining the ready room is very frustrating. And seeding a new server isnt at all a thing a rookie would to do as no other game has seeding.
It also diminishes the integrity of the game in the sense that now active slots cant be filled instantly from spectator. And the rookies that do spectate cant just easily slide into a slot in a game where they have been watching for awhile. You have to remember NS2 games are very long sometimes and being able to sub in and out fluidly keeps that game going smoothly. It would be like in soccer
If everytime you had to sub someone you had to call the guy from the locker room instead of just pulling them from the bench. Sure you can do it but those minutes left without a teammate hurt. Especially with their being no guarantee that you get the spot. And if you are trying to get rookies to seed empty servers then that is just wishful thinking.
I tried explaining to the rookie btw that this change was new even offering my spot. I think the map changed and she was still in spec slot. She said something about how she wasted her money and left.
Just trying to feed you guys some input. A lot of people seem to be fuming about it. Hope it gets addressed .
I'll just add here that the quick play feature doesn't work either.
I was trying to join a server using the old steam friends method, didn't work. So I clicked quick play, tabbed out, forgot about it for HOURS, played other games and stuff, came back, still searching.
There are so many barriers to entry in this game right now that I'm starting to think organising gathers is more convenient.
New players are exempt from being bumped. and karma on tgns is earned by doing things that are helpful to the overall server like taking over when a comm drops out, swapping teams when they become unbalanced, joining the server when its low, etc. Not "being more popular".
Remember, assuming makes an ass out of u and me
Oh, and you should read the full comment thread before replying. I was not arguing they were end of the world things, nor was I even arguing they were irritating. My argument is that is it objectively worse than the existing mods for spectator slots. Nothing more, nothing less.
if UWE is going to make a native replacement to an existing mod, it needs be at the very least, as good as that existing mod.
It is not.
I did read the whole thread. Did you so soon forget what you said about assuming?
Besides that, you're missing the entire point or you conveniently ignored it to point out how "wrong" I was about how karma worked. I frankly don't care how it works. A player shouldn't be bumped from actively playing. Period. If this breaks that system, then great. Bringing up how "karma" works or how wrong I am for making an assumption about how it works does not change the underlying message.
I'm fully of the belief that these servers that change gameplay, balance, or how and when you get to actually play in the server from anything but the base of how NS2 is built need to be thrown into the arcade tab. But that's not really relevant to this discussion.
I'm a server op. I love this change. It's been needed for a while.
Could it have been done better? Probably. Am I frustrated with some aspects of it? Hell yeah I am. But frankly we don't have a large enough team to troubleshoot every possible outcome of the implementation of this system. That's where feedback and offering solutions come into play. And that's exactly what I've been doing behind the scenes. Offering help, bug reporting, and possible solutions to those who can make a change.
Very few people offer constructive help or possible solutions for what they consider problems. They just expect the team to make it perfect the first try. And if it doesn't? Non-stop complaining with no alternatives that try to match the goal or intent behind the change. Honestly? It's disappointing.
@MrStonedOne, you should recognize me as a long time TGNS regular. I play there because the games are usually higher quality than the typical pub game while having a refreshing amount of maturity. I am not a TGNS hater.
Bumping players has been one of the most annoying things TGNS does. It is disruptive and frustrating.
You said this update made the spectating system OBJECTIVELY worse. I disagree with most of your so called objective reasons. I think the system is better. Your opinions are not facts.
UWE does not and should not be responsible for every mod. That is a horrible precedent.
Can you think of a way that could let this new system work with TGNS better?
In what ways could this system be improved?
How can we make NS2 more intuitive without lowering the skill ceiling?
TGNS is still one of the subjectively best NS2 servers. It is like the country club of NS2. Lets go enjoy the game.
>UWE does not and should not be responsible for every mod. That is a horrible precedent.
They aren't responsible for every mod, but if they put out a feature already covered by a mod, they need to understand that said mod has set the bar, and if their feature doesn't meet that bar, it will be looked down upon for that reason.
End of discussion, the "hard" ness of spec slots, the limited ways players can move between the two slot styles, and the fact they don't let admins nor scripts manually correct any misplacements is bad, and it taints every good thing about the system.
The second thing, and by far the most angering change is the f4 blocking. Like I had to flat out stop playing since this update dropped because of how frustrating it is. Maybe it's just me, hell it likely is, but it is extremely frustrating and extremely jarring. If that's non-negotiable, tell me now and I can uninstall ns2 and stop caring. I'm here under the hope it is negotiable.
> Can you think of a way that could let this new system work with TGNS better?
Don't block f4 from spectate.
Allow admins and scripts to force players onto slot categories. (player to spectate, spectate to player) regardless of if the target category is full.
>In what ways could this system be improved?
Don't block f4 from spectate.
Allow admins and scripts to force players onto slot categories. (player to spectate, spectate to player) regardless of if the target category is full.
It's just that simple.
>You said this update made the spectating system OBJECTIVELY worse. I disagree with most of your so called objective reasons. I think the system is better. Your opinions are not facts.
The spectate slot mod does not have the f4 blocking. Therefore the spectate slot mod is better. end of story.
I very rarely see people get slotted on tgns. Most of them are of the opinion of you guys that it is annoying. Let alone most of them are primers and cant be slotted. And rookies cant be slotted.
Spectating those games are generally a treat anyways. A great tool for rookies to see. But then they are denied the ease of joining that game.
You guys really latched onto that specific point of kharma on tgns.
The point is you should be able to go to the readyroom at anytime whether in spec or in an active slot and it has to be seamless to help retain the quality and continuity of the game. Agreed there should be a distinction between the two but they should be bridged in the server.
I agree with all Vman just said. The issue isn't the spectate slots themselves, it's the inability to go back to the readyroom that is causing issues. Just to expand on the kinds of issues it's causing:
One issue that is a bit more minor, but still annoying, is being unable to go back to the readyroom when there is an open slot on a team, just because someone from a previous game is afking in the ready room. I believe there is a afk timer that'll kick them *eventually*, but it still seems like an unnecessary nuisance.
Or, depending on the server, people in spectate may be unable to communicate with the players on teams (limited to only chatting with other spectators), which can be an issue when you have a new person on a team asking crucial questions but no one playing is answering because they don't notice the text, or are too busy to stop and type. In the past I could just F4 and explain to them whatever questions/issues they're having (since I'm not playing so I have all the time in the world to help them), but now that's not possible.
And even other sillier stuff, maybe you just want to jump around the readyroom, go to the secret room, do some fun stunts with other people waiting.
I personally believe we should be able to go to the readyroom at any time, I'm not sure that the benefit that block is supposed to give outweighs all the nuisances it can cause people.
All that said, I don't want to be misunderstood: I really appreciate all the attention and hard work NS2 has been getting. Thank you to all who are involved in this great game.
Although vman, nyon, and stoned have similar feedback vman and nyons is far more productive. How you say your message is often more important than the message itself.
>Although vman, nyon, and stoned have similar feedback vman and nyons is far more productive. How you say your message is often more important than the message itself.
I wasn't giving feedback.
Somebody stated something about a earlier comment I made that was incorrect. I was correcting them. My replies to nordic was exclusively about addressing their replies to a comment of mine. No more, no less.
Just letting you know that a ghost isn't exactly going exactly the same position or speed the other person actually is, watch crazycat jumping, he's litterly leaping/flying and maintaining speed, or in crazys case it's just bugged(jumping in one spot)
Here's an example.
I find that i have problems on the docking part or that gay as staircase the entrance or jumping over the little bit at the res tower to go around the corner of docking) I'll be contempt that i've surpassed his ghost, that's enough for me i tried with 2 mice, an optical and a laser, the optical is much better for this and even dropped me down 20 points, what's worse is dropping my resolution down for more FPS actually made me slower, is there some dependence on FPS too? seems like gravity/physics is slowed down the higher my fps is, too low and i get warping..
edit:from what i read in the thread, the option is to not use a ghost, i get bad interp on jumps sometimes that makes me slow down or fail the jump.
I must agree on this spec thingy, i just joined TTO to spec, then a player slot opened. I tried to press f4 but to no avail. Tried Esc>go to readyroom. Didn't work. Tried reconnecting (typed it into console) and was denied connection. This has to be adressed since the logic is lacking in what to do in this situation. And even after the map change i was still in a spec slot...? Spec is only for speccing, not intended for people (like most i assume) who spec to wait for a slot to open.
I personally believe we should be able to go to the readyroom at any time, I'm not sure that the benefit that block is supposed to give outweighs all the nuisances it can cause people.
I have to agree that there's never any reason to prevent f4'ing to the ready room when spectating. Maybe one of the devs could take a sec to hop on here and explain the reasoning behind this change?
It's not like people in the ready room can join a team when they're full anyway? So what does it matter whether they're in the ready room or spec mode?
Comments
Yes because joining a server under the assumption of being able to play yet be told that you can't join the game since the teams were full was a great system.
I have never joined a server with the expectation I'd be able to play. And most servers stated what their limitation is in the text, it was easy to see what ones were specs only and what ones likely had playing slots.
Surely you see how this could be a problem for new players that don't know to expect this...
But what is max speed? My personal speed record so far is 11.7
Make it bronze if your speed is above the average speed you need for bronze. Same for silver, gold, and platinum.
Oooh! I got an idea. For a while now I've been thinking that there should be some visual feedback when a skulk is walljumping correctly, or moving in a correct speed. For example a little trail of sparks or something. That way rookies can go "Wow look! How do ***I*** make my skulk do those pretty sparky things?" - and just like that they are introduced to the somewhat hidden mechanic of walljumping.
Well, to expand on that idea, why not make the sparks in the same color as your skulk challenge medal?
I don't think we need annoying fantasy glitter in this game to clutter the view.
It's not worth it.
It's not worth losing f4's reliability. (This is by far the most angering change, before f4 has always took me to the ready room, and something about that not being a constant is extremely jarring.)
It's not worth losing joining from shortcuts.
It's not worth losing joining from friends list.
It's not worth being unable to browse the ready room for hidden rooms while the teams are full.
It's not worth breaking the ability to use my karma to bump people on tgns.
It's not worth turning spectate until what is basically a jail you can't leave once you enter.
It's not worth breaking the ability to wait for a slot to open up without getting presented with information about the other team you normally wouldn't know. (some people do avoid spectate for this reason, in fact I remember a server that wouldn't let you join a team if you spectated recently to avoid metagaming with spectate)
It's not worth breaking the ability to fix spectate bugs by going to the ready room then re-spectating (Something i have had to do at least once a day from the disappearing mouse cursor bug)
The pros are heavily outweighed by the cons. This system is poorly designed, poorly executed, and one minor benefit to new players does not negate that.
I would argue that kicking an active player out of a slot simply because you're more popular on a server is the exact sort of thing we don't want new players experiencing.
The rest of what you're complaining about is just small quality of life things. Nothing really game breaking.
Irritating? Yes. But not the end of the world.
I'd probably say that not being able to join from friends list would be extremely irritating, but alas none of my friends play NS2.
I've seen this bug a lot. The server log has a Lua error with something to do with "activeWeapon" when this happens.
New players are exempt from being bumped. and karma on tgns is earned by doing things that are helpful to the overall server like taking over when a comm drops out, swapping teams when they become unbalanced, joining the server when its low, etc. Not "being more popular".
Remember, assuming makes an ass out of u and me
Oh, and you should read the full comment thread before replying. I was not arguing they were end of the world things, nor was I even arguing they were irritating. My argument is that is it objectively worse than the existing mods for spectator slots. Nothing more, nothing less.
if UWE is going to make a native replacement to an existing mod, it needs be at the very least, as good as that existing mod.
It is not.
I agree that their should be a distinction between active slots and spec slots. But disabling either specs or active slots from joining the ready room is very frustrating. And seeding a new server isnt at all a thing a rookie would to do as no other game has seeding.
It also diminishes the integrity of the game in the sense that now active slots cant be filled instantly from spectator. And the rookies that do spectate cant just easily slide into a slot in a game where they have been watching for awhile. You have to remember NS2 games are very long sometimes and being able to sub in and out fluidly keeps that game going smoothly. It would be like in soccer
If everytime you had to sub someone you had to call the guy from the locker room instead of just pulling them from the bench. Sure you can do it but those minutes left without a teammate hurt. Especially with their being no guarantee that you get the spot. And if you are trying to get rookies to seed empty servers then that is just wishful thinking.
I tried explaining to the rookie btw that this change was new even offering my spot. I think the map changed and she was still in spec slot. She said something about how she wasted her money and left.
Just trying to feed you guys some input. A lot of people seem to be fuming about it. Hope it gets addressed .
I was trying to join a server using the old steam friends method, didn't work. So I clicked quick play, tabbed out, forgot about it for HOURS, played other games and stuff, came back, still searching.
There are so many barriers to entry in this game right now that I'm starting to think organising gathers is more convenient.
I did read the whole thread. Did you so soon forget what you said about assuming?
Besides that, you're missing the entire point or you conveniently ignored it to point out how "wrong" I was about how karma worked. I frankly don't care how it works. A player shouldn't be bumped from actively playing. Period. If this breaks that system, then great. Bringing up how "karma" works or how wrong I am for making an assumption about how it works does not change the underlying message.
I'm fully of the belief that these servers that change gameplay, balance, or how and when you get to actually play in the server from anything but the base of how NS2 is built need to be thrown into the arcade tab. But that's not really relevant to this discussion.
I'm a server op. I love this change. It's been needed for a while.
Could it have been done better? Probably. Am I frustrated with some aspects of it? Hell yeah I am. But frankly we don't have a large enough team to troubleshoot every possible outcome of the implementation of this system. That's where feedback and offering solutions come into play. And that's exactly what I've been doing behind the scenes. Offering help, bug reporting, and possible solutions to those who can make a change.
Very few people offer constructive help or possible solutions for what they consider problems. They just expect the team to make it perfect the first try. And if it doesn't? Non-stop complaining with no alternatives that try to match the goal or intent behind the change. Honestly? It's disappointing.
Bumping players has been one of the most annoying things TGNS does. It is disruptive and frustrating.
You said this update made the spectating system OBJECTIVELY worse. I disagree with most of your so called objective reasons. I think the system is better. Your opinions are not facts.
UWE does not and should not be responsible for every mod. That is a horrible precedent.
Can you think of a way that could let this new system work with TGNS better?
In what ways could this system be improved?
How can we make NS2 more intuitive without lowering the skill ceiling?
TGNS is still one of the subjectively best NS2 servers. It is like the country club of NS2. Lets go enjoy the game.
They aren't responsible for every mod, but if they put out a feature already covered by a mod, they need to understand that said mod has set the bar, and if their feature doesn't meet that bar, it will be looked down upon for that reason.
End of discussion, the "hard" ness of spec slots, the limited ways players can move between the two slot styles, and the fact they don't let admins nor scripts manually correct any misplacements is bad, and it taints every good thing about the system.
The second thing, and by far the most angering change is the f4 blocking. Like I had to flat out stop playing since this update dropped because of how frustrating it is. Maybe it's just me, hell it likely is, but it is extremely frustrating and extremely jarring. If that's non-negotiable, tell me now and I can uninstall ns2 and stop caring. I'm here under the hope it is negotiable.
> Can you think of a way that could let this new system work with TGNS better?
Don't block f4 from spectate.
Allow admins and scripts to force players onto slot categories. (player to spectate, spectate to player) regardless of if the target category is full.
>In what ways could this system be improved?
Don't block f4 from spectate.
Allow admins and scripts to force players onto slot categories. (player to spectate, spectate to player) regardless of if the target category is full.
It's just that simple.
>You said this update made the spectating system OBJECTIVELY worse. I disagree with most of your so called objective reasons. I think the system is better. Your opinions are not facts.
The spectate slot mod does not have the f4 blocking. Therefore the spectate slot mod is better. end of story.
Spectating those games are generally a treat anyways. A great tool for rookies to see. But then they are denied the ease of joining that game.
You guys really latched onto that specific point of kharma on tgns.
The point is you should be able to go to the readyroom at anytime whether in spec or in an active slot and it has to be seamless to help retain the quality and continuity of the game. Agreed there should be a distinction between the two but they should be bridged in the server.
One issue that is a bit more minor, but still annoying, is being unable to go back to the readyroom when there is an open slot on a team, just because someone from a previous game is afking in the ready room. I believe there is a afk timer that'll kick them *eventually*, but it still seems like an unnecessary nuisance.
Or, depending on the server, people in spectate may be unable to communicate with the players on teams (limited to only chatting with other spectators), which can be an issue when you have a new person on a team asking crucial questions but no one playing is answering because they don't notice the text, or are too busy to stop and type. In the past I could just F4 and explain to them whatever questions/issues they're having (since I'm not playing so I have all the time in the world to help them), but now that's not possible.
And even other sillier stuff, maybe you just want to jump around the readyroom, go to the secret room, do some fun stunts with other people waiting.
I personally believe we should be able to go to the readyroom at any time, I'm not sure that the benefit that block is supposed to give outweighs all the nuisances it can cause people.
All that said, I don't want to be misunderstood: I really appreciate all the attention and hard work NS2 has been getting. Thank you to all who are involved in this great game.
I wasn't giving feedback.
Somebody stated something about a earlier comment I made that was incorrect. I was correcting them. My replies to nordic was exclusively about addressing their replies to a comment of mine. No more, no less.
Here's an example.
I find that i have problems on the docking part or that gay as staircase the entrance or jumping over the little bit at the res tower to go around the corner of docking) I'll be contempt that i've surpassed his ghost, that's enough for me i tried with 2 mice, an optical and a laser, the optical is much better for this and even dropped me down 20 points, what's worse is dropping my resolution down for more FPS actually made me slower, is there some dependence on FPS too? seems like gravity/physics is slowed down the higher my fps is, too low and i get warping..
edit:from what i read in the thread, the option is to not use a ghost, i get bad interp on jumps sometimes that makes me slow down or fail the jump.
I have to agree that there's never any reason to prevent f4'ing to the ready room when spectating. Maybe one of the devs could take a sec to hop on here and explain the reasoning behind this change?
It's not like people in the ready room can join a team when they're full anyway? So what does it matter whether they're in the ready room or spec mode?