Ghouls Balance Mod

[adoidos15]

I'm tired of this balance mod. For me it's like the Ghouls Unbalanced Mod. Why is it so popular and that lots of servers have it? My main issues are when I play aliens and all the traits are messed around.

[adoidos15]

Almost everything about the game is balanced to me. Why do they need to break stuff that were already fixed? Shotguns were already expensive enough. The traits being messed around means you have to go for an entire different strategy that isn't the standard in most servers.

[Wooza]

Funnily we have an extra tab in the server browser for servers with alternate game play (or for custom game modes and 24+ players) but the mod seems to be counted as 'vanilla'.

There is not much you can adoidos15 but to remember the server who use it and just not visit them. In the server browser you can right click (when it's not buggy) and you will see a list of mods the server is running.

Also server ops can add what they want on their server, so also understand their view.

[adoidos15]

Originally posted by ᵡᴳḽᴰ::Vertex:

Ask server operators to use my balance mod[github.com] instead. It has much more consertative balance changes. And inherits a few good things from Ghouls Balance mod.

While your balance mod is A LOT better, there are still some things I dont like about it, like increasing shotgun research time and making mucus shield for onos. Although you did fix some of the few things I thought could need improvement in NS2

[Foxy]

Ghouls Balance Mod is compiled of items discussed and agreed by the Balance Commitee, which includes people from all aspects of the community including former and current comp players. Please note if you run your own version of balance mods on your server you risk losing your whitelist!

[adoidos15]

Originally posted by Foxy:

Ghouls Balance Mod is compiled of items discussed and agreed by the Balance Commitee, which includes people from all aspects of the community including former and current comp players. Please note if you run your own version of balance mods on your server you risk losing your whitelist!

What about rookie/somewhat new-ish players? Or some of the other people on the forums? Will they have a say in what gets changed or not? It seems weird that only the really competitve players are making the changes. This makes it seem like they'll make the game more hardcore for themselves.

[Foxy]

Please stop spreading dissent. I said the balance committee INCLUDES comp players and it does so because they have many thousands of hours of experience. I also said you RISK losing your whitelist which you do, all servers are reviewed for active mods periodically so run any balance changes at your own risk.

[.neo (っ◔◡◔)っ.]

Originally posted by Foxy:

Please stop spreading dissent. I said the balance committee INCLUDES comp players and it does so because they have many thousands of hours of experience. I also said you RISK losing your whitelist which you do, all servers are reviewed for active mods periodically so run any balance changes at your own risk.

These "white listed" servers are so modded. We can't take you seriously anymore... you do realize that, right?

Edit: I've been saying this for years, this community is TOO SMALL to whitelist and blacklist. It's ridiculous. Stop trying to fragment it even further with tabs, or blacklisting of servers. I'm still mind moggled by how hard that is for you to understand.

[Foxy]

@neo The idea that every server should report to Hive is nonsense and you full well know it. It has never been about fragmenting anything, it has always been about preserving the integrity of the system the best way possible.

@Vertex you haven't actually said anything I haven't already seen you say and my advisories still stand.

For anyone else curious, I'll reiterate what I've already said. Ghouls balance mod is the culmination of discussions between several people to try and balance the game for the widest possible audience. No one has ever claimed it to be perfect and some ideas in it are drastic but running it is entirely optional.

Finally, please stop referencing individual servers in a negative way. You cannot judge an entire server based on a win rate you have personally observed over a limit cycle of rounds.

[Foxy]

Ok, let me break this down for you.

The difference between your balance mod and Ghoul's is that yours is based solely on your opinions and your perception of data. That is why I initially put a warning here. Also hijacking multiple threads linking to your balance mod is getting pretty tiresome so please stop.

I'm well aware of the server browser options and a condescending attitude isn't going to engage me in conversation. Your whitelist knowledge is old and outdated. Servers are automatically whitelisted after a few hours online now (providing they report as running "ns2"/"ns2+")

When I'm talking about preserving integrity, I'm referring to the fact that custom game modes don't get a whitelist because if they reported to Hive, it would drastically skew individuals' data. This same logic applies to balance mods.

There have been huge strides over the past year into improving NS2 for first time players to increase player retention. Whitelisting is part of that. Balance is part of that. It's important that balance changes are handled in a consistent way and regardless of your intentions introducing your own version of a balance mod that is solely authored by you won't help.