Natural Selection 2

[sser]

Why would they let the free play end in the middle of Sunday? If you're gonna let people try out your game, let them get a true weekend with it. I don't understand going halfway.

 

[Kane]

Why would they let the free play end in the middle of Sunday? If you're gonna let people try out your game, let them get a true weekend with it. I don't understand going halfway.

Steam allots the time each game is allowed to be on sale. You as developer have only limited freedom here.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I guess the idea is ending it while the person is still planning on playing some more, hoping he'll buy it on impulse to continue what he stopped halfway through. If you give a whole weekend, it's possible the player will feel "satisfied" with what he saw, and uninstall.

 

[sser]

Game is pretty fun. I'm doing alright (positive kill-ratios and killing buildings etc.) I guess because of my CS days, but I could see how this game wouldn't be that fun if you weren't decent at FPS shooters. I once had a huge amount of resources as a marine. Bought nothing but flamethrowers; wasn't even aware I could buy giant mechsuits... That said, going all Ripley on alien structures is pretty entertaining.

I tried my hand at commanding but simply had zero fucking clue as to what to do; stopped on account of not wanting to ruin people's games.

 

[Zewp]

Just tell people you're new to commanding. The NS2 community is generally very helpful and will give advice and tips as needed.

 

[Konjad]

join the newbie friendly servers (the green ones if i remember well) and you'll be fine doing a bad job as a commander, community is pretty nice and helpful

 

[Ashery]

Just tell people you're new to commanding. The NS2 community is generally very helpful and will give advice and tips as needed.

Yup. First time I commanded, there was some random guy who was more than willing to give the major/meta orders while I focused on getting to grips with the basics. I still don't feel comfortable with the meta game after half a dozen commands (split between teams), but I've got the basics down well enough now to not fuck it up.

 

[Average Manatee]

Gave it a spin. I like it, the changes from NS1 are generally good. Only thing I don't like is the changes to make it more symmetrical (alien comm and individual marines having res). But otherwise the maps are gorgeous, the environmental effects with lighting and all make for great atmosphere, and the gameplay changes seem to be working well.

That said, my interest in FPS has waned since NS1 and I just don't play them as much as I used to. But even if I never play it again past this week I'll still buy it since the hundreds of hours I got out of NS1 for free was more than enough.

 

[sser]

I'm pretty content with letting others command. I had a pretty hilarious 36-3 game as the aliens. I built up a lot of points and then birthed an onos and stalked a corridor, stomping whole groups of marines as they came around the corner. And then my commander dropped a cloaking device nearby, so I would stand right in the middle of the hallway until a group of marines started bumping into me and then I'd spring out of thin air and ruin their day. I was pretty amused. I've seen some people use the phase-shifting alien assassin extremely well; like drop into the marine's base and fight 5-6 marines solo, coming in and out of the fade like Nightstalker invading the White House. Pretty entertaining to watch. I can't fly the "lerk" worth shit, though, and really can't even tell of what use it is. I find the marines to be a little more difficult of the two to play and have strong scores with. That said, there's way more camaraderie with the humans. There's just something really appealing about banding up with another bro and stalking dark hallways together.

Overall, I'm really impressed by this game. I think there should be more like it. I don't know why there are so many games where you just shoot humans who shoot back. Gaming is such an endlessly creative medium and too much of it is wasted on banal concepts.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I think the game's really good but the loadtimes are just atrocious. I'm usually pretty lenient about this sort of stuff but this is just offensively bad. I think the very first load, when the game had to compile updated shaders, took well over 3 minutes. Now the regular loads take about 2. That's pretty unacceptable. There has to be a way to better optimize this.

 

[Elim]

Great Deceiver, did you disable Texture Streaming? If yes, enable it.
Reduces the load times.

 

[MapMan]

Played for a while. It is quite good, plays pretty much like the hl1 mod minus the 12 years old retards who ruined every public game.

 

[Average Manatee]

I'm pretty content with letting others command. I had a pretty hilarious 36-3 game as the aliens. I built up a lot of points and then birthed an onos and stalked a corridor, stomping whole groups of marines as they came around the corner. And then my commander dropped a cloaking device nearby, so I would stand right in the middle of the hallway until a group of marines started bumping into me and then I'd spring out of thin air and ruin their day. I was pretty amused. I've seen some people use the phase-shifting alien assassin extremely well; like drop into the marine's base and fight 5-6 marines solo, coming in and out of the fade like Nightstalker invading the White House. Pretty entertaining to watch. I can't fly the "lerk" worth shit, though, and really can't even tell of what use it is. I find the marines to be a little more difficult of the two to play and have strong scores with. That said, there's way more camaraderie with the humans. There's just something really appealing about banding up with another bro and stalking dark hallways together.

Overall, I'm really impressed by this game. I think there should be more like it. I don't know why there are so many games where you just shoot humans who shoot back. Gaming is such an endlessly creative medium and too much of it is wasted on banal concepts.

Lerks want to use their cloud-generating abilities. The one that does damage is pure hell as a marine trying to hold a position, while the one that provides 50% bullet sponge to aliens is even more hell combined with a Fade or Onos that FUCK JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY GOD HELP US. Arguably the worst solo alien though, any time you can use your ranged attack a marine can kill you before you realize you are being shot, and going in for melee is dangerous with your HP that can't survive a single shotgun. Be sure to utilize the full range of vertical motion while bombing an area. And by that I mean bounce up and down like a rabbit on crack. Sadly as they more of a situational use alien comms tend to not research their upgraded skills until later in the game than the other aliens.

Fades are my favourite, pretty much the ultimate hunter killer. It's basically defined by never dying unless you get overconfident. As soon as you pop out you can zoom around the map and send every lone or double marine group back to their respawn.

Commed a few games as marine. The new autobot repairers seem mad powerful. I don't know if it's because the aliens just aren't attacking them, but the armor and building repair is godly and frees up all marines for more shooty. And the energy-depleting attack is a game changer if you do it right. Onos will suddenly be attacking 50% slower and it's the only way to kill a competent Fade that doesn't involve having someone deep in alien territory to intercept them when they go heal. At 5 res a pop the only bad thing about them is that you can't queue 5 up at the same time. The new mobile siege units are great too, all the power of siege in NS1 except you don't have to build half a base right next to the aliens and you can just run away and save all the res if things go bad. Pity you can't construct a siege base in the vents though

 

[Average Manatee]

I think the game's really good but the loadtimes are just atrocious. I'm usually pretty lenient about this sort of stuff but this is just offensively bad. I think the very first load, when the game had to compile updated shaders, took well over 3 minutes. Now the regular loads take about 2. That's pretty unacceptable. There has to be a way to better optimize this.

Load times for me are just under a minute from a cold boot and about 20-30s (half of this waiting on the server) for subsequent maps, max settings. I'm guessing it's more CPU dependent than hard drive. Slow-ass HDD but CPU is i7 2600k.

 

[sser]

My load times are fine. Not popping into maps with speed a la Counter-Strike or anything, but I don't really notice it taking that long. It sometimes takes a while for everyone on the server to transition to a new map, though, so even if I'm skipping the "loading" I still sorta end up waiting for it anyway.

 

[Bony]

Uninstalled after 5 mins, it's exactly the same thing as the mod 13 years ago and the graphics aren't very much better either. This is even a worse cash grab than EA remaking an old title because everything is the same and there is nothing new. They could atleast add a 3rd race, some high tech powered aliens like protoss if they are ripping off zerg and terrans from sc.

This game was good as a mod, now it doesn't even worth being bothered about. RIP NS on HL 1, had good times with you.

 

[Elim]

One for effort, Bony.

 

[Jaesun]

1 is pretty generous.

 

[Average Manatee]

Commed a few Alien games. It's nice. Feels totally different from Marines. Instead of making me hate myself every time someone dies because I didn't have the 400 APM to medpack them, Alien comming is more akin to a city builder. You hardly need to take notice of what the team is doing other than to give a general direction. Instead it's all about building shit. It's really quite relaxing, rather than micromanging everything you are just researching the tools, getting the res, creeping up the map and creating the forward bases.

Cysts seem kind of silly atm. Any infestation prevents marines from building. If you have 5 cysts in a room marines have to spend minutes either meleeing (leaving them blind) or shooting (leaving them with empty clips) to clear the infestation, THEN wait a minute for the remains to clear, THEN build the RT. And while this is going on you can still spam cysts around the room (they have almost no HP, but it's the constant disruption of the marine's focus as they search the room that matters). Then one or two skulks comes in and murders everyone, and you reset the room. Even if a skulk doesn't come, you've capped two RTs while they were capping one without needing to tie up a single alien to build it.

Aliens do seem to have a bit too much res compared to marines, but that may just be because a decent alien comm can cap everything while a marine comm needs to rely on their team to cap, and cysts are too good at warning of approaching marines if you just keep spamming them as far into marine land as possible.

 

[Berekän]

Gotta say I'm positively surprised by the community in this game, I just had time to play two games in the free weekend, joined some noob servers and the people there were nice and helpful, would buy if I had the moneyz

 

[MapMan]

Played some more. Did they actually add something new to this game? Besides some really minor stuff it seems exactly the same as ns1...

 

[Average Manatee]

Alien commander, infestation, dynamically lit areas (which are both impressive and actually gameplay-relevant, which is the first I've seen), individual marine resources, a handful of new abilities/units scattered around (flamethrower, railgun, autobots, lurk ranged attack, gorge buildings and sliding), and lots of other guns/abilities changed or rebalanced.

One could say that Counter Strike is basically the same game as it was back in the modding days, but its had a half dozen commercial releases by now and players will argue to the death which is the best and nitpick over minor differences. NS2 has certainly changed more than CS has IMO.

 

[Destroid]

I can't fly the "lerk" worth shit, though, and really can't even tell of what use it is.

Lerk's are very potent early on, (the best time is as soon as you can afford them) and before marines get upgrades they can defeat a solitary player quite easily. This advantage wanes as marines gain upgrades and shotguns, but skilled lerks can keep on killing through damage avoidance. I've found the poison gas to be somewhat lacklustre but the protective spores are very strong, even if they are seldom available. Mostly I gorge because it's the least sensitive class to low FPS.

MapMan take a look at the classic mod which reverts a lot of the changes, there's quite a few fundamental differences.

 

[skacky]

I am mostly a Lerk player (75% of the time) and I never use spores, only the bite and spikes. I mostly dive on Marines, bite them once or twice, retreat and spike them from a distance to kill them. If you move correctly (you should never fly straight as a Lerk, never) you can also wreak havoc on shotgunners who are most often overconfident and think they're invincible. When you get Umbra, use it primarily on Fades and Oni. If you're a good Lerk and if you're careful enough you can live through the entire game, I scored 40-2 on a public server once (dying twice as a Skulk).

Also, it is important you use vents as a Lerk, and you can conserve your momentum inside them meaning you can cover ground in a very efficient manner, kill lone marines very easily, retreat in unreachable places and scout ahead faster than a Skulk and deny Marine expansion. Corridors are a shooting gallery and even flying up and down can get you killed in such tight spaces.

 

[Average Manatee]

No offense, but if you survive going in alone once shotguns are out then you are playing against some really shitty players. Or you are one of those weird players whose connection settings are screwed up causing you to teleport around the place on everyone else's screen even with perfect ping. Had a Lerk like that yesterday, you'd hear him biting while 10 feet above you because in reality he was next to your feet and the model hadn't caught up.

 

[skacky]

Some of them are pretty bad, but I play on some european clans servers (YOClan in particular) and most players are either at my level or way better than me. I've been playing NS1 for years though, so I'm intimate with how everything works. I haven't played NS2 in weeks so I don't know if the average player has gotten better.