But most of the players who would reach "advanced" would still be raged by me joining their server and trashing them. I see your point, but it wouldn't really do what it's supposed to do.
If you want the teamplay aspect there are alot of other better ways to go about it. I've used YO-clan and their reg program as an example before and it fits here too.
The issue isn't "teamplay" or "knowing the game". The issue is that people get annoyed and start reviewing demos and hunting down good players, to the detriment of both their and the other player's fun, because they get soundly trounced by superior aim and movement.
So yes, I see your point if the idea would be a means to teach the basics of the game, but not as a way to get rid of "pro" tactics like spawn camping (not really a tactic, simply the manifestation of a much more skilled player taking a dump on worse). "Team play and communication" as a response to Mustang as marine on a server is as much a farse as the same as a response to Walle with an AWP on a CS server. Or boxer in a FFA BGH game.
I must disagree with the milestone system, because, as you've noted, it really doesn't measure skill. Lets say you set a milestone for 100,000 damage dealt - what does it mean when somebody hits that? Nothing, really, besides that somebody has invested enough time in the game to deal that much damage. Maybe they've played for 2000 hours and just reached it, or maybe they reached it in 10 hours - the end result is the same. However, you now have two players with a large gap in actual skill playing on together, because they've hit the same milestone.
A system measuring experience instead of skill is like a math test based on how long you've been adding and subtracting, not how well often you are right. Often the person with more experience is the better player, but this is not always the case.
100,000 dmg dealt total means nothing except played time, but 10,000 dealt in a single life is something else. It's easy enough to vary it to make it meaningful.
<!--quoteo(post=1674040:date=Mar 23 2008, 09:13 PM:name=Underwhelmed)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Underwhelmed @ Mar 23 2008, 09:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674040"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A system measuring experience instead of skill is like a math test based on how long you've been adding and subtracting, not how well often you are right. Often the person with more experience is the better player, but this is not always the case.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Incorrect.
The milestones system measures experience. It ensures that players understand how the game works. Knowledge doesn't have to be acquired quickly, the objective here is to instil a level of knowledge and understanding in a player. Your maths example shows this pertfectly: If someone learns how to do long division and can solve any long division equation, then they are able to understand the root concept behind it and its applications in the real world. It doesn't matter if it took them longer to come to this understanding, the important thing here is that they now understand it. If they understand the concept and have experience of doing equations, they have it within them to solve a long division equation just the same as someone who mastered long division after a 30 minute explanation.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But most of the players who would reach "advanced" would still be raged by me joining their server and trashing them. I see your point, but it wouldn't really do what it's supposed to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The default matchmaking profiles would do exactly what they're supposed to do, and that is to provide protected 'sandpit' servers for total beginners where they can learn the game at their own pace, and to provide a place free from incompetant newbs who have no grasp of the finer points of NS's gameplay are are a hindrance to an intermediate team.
Now, if you read what I said earlier, you will have seen that I also said admins should be able to customise 'matchmaking profiles'. What I'm saying here is that a whole range of stats should be available for admins to use in different combinations to make custom matchmaking profiles. E.g. kills:deaths may not be used to formulate the Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced default server profiles, BUT these stats could still be tracked and used to evaluate a player's eligibility for a custom server running their own custom 'pr0-skillz' profile.
Here, you can cater for the competitive-natured players by allowing them to find competitive servers where you have to be of a certain skill proficiency to even be able to join. This elitist system will be attractive to certain players, but almost certainly not to new players, so it should not be included as a default server profile setting.
At the end of the day, you will never be able to create the perfect experience for everyone. The best servers will always be the ones that are well adminned, because the internet will always be full of ishheads. Even having a custom profile that relies on K:D is still open to hacked stats and griefers, but with a powerful matchmaking system even an admin with no prior experience will be able to set their server to exclude players who have been playing for longer or less time, if they so choose. ---
The question is begged: to what lengths will these 'pr0' players go to secure a good enough K:D rating to join the elite server of their choice? Obviously players will probably look for open servers to pwn some noobs on to get their K:D rating up to speed after getting a minor beating on a server where everyone is actually at the same skill level. But- the important thing here is that Beginner servers will actually have the choice to be 'Beginner-only' and protect themselves against long-term players from exploiting their initiate status. It means the players who truly want to be considered 'skilful' will gravitate to competitive servers, so the clan scene will be healthier and won't have to rely on the pub scene servers so much. There will still be mixed servers, like YO clan, where teamwork is valued above raw skill and beginners and clanners can play side by side, but more customisation is offered on this front.
I've been watching this debate careful and I'm glad to see people discussing this with a passion of coming up with a better solution.
However, I have to say that right now Crispy is making the stronger point. I'm highly skeptical myself, but even I'm becoming convinced of his persuasive argument. I can clearly envision how every new player (or old player with a new SteamID) will want to get those achievements knocked out early so they can move to different servers and at the same time how servers would be diversified by people wanting to set up a newbie trainer or a more competitive space for people who have passed those milestones. This gives servers and their admins much more control over the means to shape the skill curve of their population.
A few comments and concerns though:
Damage milestones are a poor example, especially when we want to promote teamwork. How many seconds of welding, hours commanding or being a squad leader (since things ARE going to be squad based in NS2, as they should), resources shared, structures destroyed, structures built (<u><i>especially</i></u> RTs and IPs/Hives), damage healed with healspray, marines parasited, etc... are much better options that are easy enough to track. The ideal thing would
Also consider two negatives Crispy's theoretical solution might cause:<ul><li>An imbalance of fair servers creating an environment of discrimination against a particular player group would be damaging to the whole community. Servers do cost money to upkeep. We could be trading player elitism for </li><li>An inability to join your friends in a server or on the same team because of your levels.</li></ul> Any suggestions on how to mitigate those concerns?
<!--quoteo(post=1674084:date=Mar 24 2008, 01:34 PM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 24 2008, 01:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674084"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also consider two negatives Crispy's theoretical solution might cause:<ul><li>An imbalance of fair servers creating an environment of discrimination against a particular player group would be damaging to the whole community. Servers do cost money to upkeep. We could be trading player elitism for </li><li>An inability to join your friends in a server or on the same team because of your levels.</li></ul>Any suggestions on how to mitigate those concerns?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> 1. I agree, this could risk fragmenting the global community as a whole. On the other hand, it could help forge stronger, local, server-based communities since it would make customising a server that little bit easier.
2. Join an 'open' or semi-closed server when introducing your friends to the game.
In response to both issues, it is very likely that the major public server providers (don't know the US equivalents, but the big UK ones are Jolt, Multiplay, Wireplay, Rackage) would run a selection of open, unrestricted servers to cater for the maximum amount of people. Matchmaking doesn't need to replace the current options, it can be implemented to provide quick and easy default alternatives and an empowering range of custom alternatives.
Remember that running an organised server is still possible. Certain admins may just want to run their server according to their own rules, and not use matchmaking to sort players by statistics at all.
All servers will have the following options:
- Have no restrictions whatsoever and run a 'vanilla' server (I.e. 'open' server, no extra admin plugins) - Have no restrictions whatsoever and run a fully adminned server (rely on live admins to keep the teams balanced and protect against griefers) - Restrict based on a default profile (I.e. 'Beginner only' would stop any players qualified as Intermediate or Advanced from joining) - Restrict based on a combination of default profiles (e.g. 'Beg/Int' would allow both Beginner and Intermediate level players) - Restrict based on a custom profile (E.g. 'Proskillz' that restricts based on K:D ratio) - Restrict based on 3rd-party server-side plugins. (E.g. a competitive league server could take the SteamIDs of everyone registered to play in that league and provide a private pickup server where only they can play. Some admins already close off their servers a couple of nights a week to allow only members of the community that show a mature attitude to take part in private nights. There is always scope for you to control your server however you like.)
The milestones system measures experience. It ensures that players understand how the game works. Knowledge doesn't have to be acquired quickly, the objective here is to instil a level of knowledge and understanding in a player. Your maths example shows this pertfectly: If someone learns how to do long division and can solve any long division equation, then they are able to understand the root concept behind it and its applications in the real world. It doesn't matter if it took them longer to come to this understanding, the important thing here is that they now understand it. If they understand the concept and have experience of doing equations, they have it within them to solve a long division equation just the same as someone who mastered long division after a 30 minute explanation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that's the thing. Experience and knowing how to do something doesn't equal being able to do it, in a game. You can study a great tennis player and know how to do what he does theoretically, but being pitted against that player every day instead of the dudes you want to play would make you quit the game. This isn't like practicing long division all day and then finally being able to do it. It's like being able to understand the concepts and then do it in your head under duress, no paper and pencil or calculator available.
No, "teamwork" and "experience" never directly combats greater individual skill in FPS games. If those alone do it it's basically an RPG, and we're not discussing an RPG here.
<!--quoteo(post=1674068:date=Mar 24 2008, 08:46 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Crispy @ Mar 24 2008, 08:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674068"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The milestones system measures experience. It ensures that players understand how the game works. Knowledge doesn't have to be acquired quickly, the objective here is to instil a level of knowledge and understanding in a player. Your maths example shows this pertfectly: If someone learns how to do long division and can solve any long division equation, then they are able to understand the root concept behind it and its applications in the real world. It doesn't matter if it took them longer to come to this understanding, the important thing here is that they now understand it. If they understand the concept and have experience of doing equations, they have it within them to solve a long division equation just the same as someone who mastered long division after a 30 minute explanation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You need quite complex milestones then. I've probably been dealing more damage, parasiting more and built more rt:s than 3 makavelis gone pubbing, but it doesn't mean I'd be the one man army that destroys every oppositing team in seconds. I've played since 1.03 and only since some 3.0 I've been clanning and starting to understand the slightly more complex mechanics and advanced teamwork properly. A person might know maths here and there, but it takes quite a few formulas and such to get the whole calculation done. Think you could give and example of a milestone that measures skill or situational awarness?
Milestones might be nice for some warcraft 3 styled icon and badge of honour hunting. That's one way to encourage new people to do the right thing.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1674096:date=Mar 24 2008, 11:41 AM:name=tjosan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tjosan @ Mar 24 2008, 11:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674096"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But that's the thing. Experience and knowing how to do something doesn't equal being able to do it, in a game. You can study a great tennis player and know how to do what he does theoretically, but being pitted against that player every day instead of the dudes you want to play would make you quit the game. This isn't like practicing long division all day and then finally being able to do it. It's like being able to understand the concepts and then do it in your head under duress, no paper and pencil or calculator available.
No, "teamwork" and "experience" never directly combats greater individual skill in FPS games. If those alone do it it's basically an RPG, and we're not discussing an RPG here.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think you're losing sight of the goal here. Any sufficiently determined player can BS/workaround acheivements, requirements, etc. The goal of the achievements is not to teach people how to play but to help them to learn. It's to make them ask "why is parasiting people a requirement to play on a higher level server". A player the BS's all the achievements to get to the next level will get there and either say "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on. This game sucks" or "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on. I guess I should go figure out what all those achievements were." NS2 is simply not a game for the former player. You have to want to learn to play. <!--quoteo(post=1674097:date=Mar 24 2008, 11:54 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bacillus @ Mar 24 2008, 11:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674097"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's one way to encourage new people to do the right thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Exactly.
Why is there an obsession with skill being the determining factor in a player's enjoyment? I have never once said that the milestones suggestion is to measure skill. I would rather play with some unskilled players who at least knew enough about NS to support eachother as a team and use resources effectively than a highly deathmatch-skilled player who wasted res by ramboing away all the team's res in lost equipment because he simply had not taken the time to even try to understand the base mechanics of the game.
I'll spell it out:
- Statistics are taken on a range of data
- DEFAULT matchmaking profiles should avoid drawing on dynamic and/or skill-based data (such as kills:death ratios, accuracy, etc.) but should instead rely on communicating static milestone targets to players in order to progress through the levels of <i>experience</i>
- CUSTOM matchmaking profiles can cherry pick from all of the available player statistics data (e.g. high K:D <i>with</i> 100+ Fade kills)
- servers always have the choice to have matchmaking ENABLED or DISABLED
Of course that's one way to approach the idea, but I don't think it fixes the problem with low skill people getting dominated by more skilled ones. It's quite nasty to enforce people to move from beginner servers to higher servers if they aren't gaining any skill. I'm not sure if any milestone is going to ensure that people understand anything about the game. Playing public games with experienced players only sounds nice though.
<!--quoteo(post=1674105:date=Mar 24 2008, 01:42 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Crispy @ Mar 24 2008, 01:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674105"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why is there an obsession with skill being the determining factor in a player's enjoyment?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Because this is a skill game you're playing.
As to your question more specifically:
1) fun is largely proportionate to the level of balance in a server (which acts as a negation factor). 2) Balance is most directly quantified by skill, not by ability to weld or build or your total number of frags. 3) In order to balance a server holistically (and not just statistically, because statistics don't have a direct first-person fun-factor like holism does) you need to have all the players in <b>roughly</b> the same skill bracket. 4) Therefore, in order to create fun games, you need to create *roughly* appropriate matches between the players based on their ability to perform the <b>most demanding</b> aspects of the game like killing other players.
Don't worry about it so much. If you don't want to be challenged during play, you can filter into "easy" servers relative to your record and play withall the straightlining skulks you want.
If you get bored with that though, there will always be the red servers for a more interesting experience.
But the ability to get more kills than the average player does not directly relate to their ability to spend resources for the benefit of the team, or to stop and help you build a second IP. Usually, but not always, players with outstanding K:D are getting these stats because they aren't pulling their weight in the more mundane tasks. You quickly learn who these idiots are when they demand you weld them and then run off with your welder never to be seen again, because they believe they have more of a right to it than you do (even though you were given the welder in the first place to keep the Heavies alive or to weld the PG to keep the reinforcements coming). Now, an elistist self-obsessed moron will say that the less skilled players should be doing more of the building and leaving the killing up to the 1337-clanboyz. But quite frankly, this means that the less innate skill you have, the more boring your game will be. If everyone followed this sort of kill-frenzied doctrine, NS would not work because the basebuilding would never get done. Now, I cannot understand why you would want the DEFAULT server matchmaking option to promote this sort of behaviour?
The shooting side of NS is very different to the Alien side in terms of skill. Aliens are much more about movement and timing attacks. Marines are more about emptying as much ammo on the enemies that pose the biggest threat with the greatest degree of accuracy in the shortest amount of time. True, movement is also key to Marines at the very upper levels, but the two sides still play very differently. If a K:D rating system were used to determine matchmaking as a DEFAULT option, there is a major problem with an experienced deathmatch player being able to sustain a high K:D merely by excelling at the Marine game. This ability to shoot straight bears no relation on their knowledge and understanding of the gameplay on the Alien side.
Essentially, if you did use K:D as a matchmaking determiner, you would need to average the kills made as Alien AND Marine, using a weighted system. E.g. 'CSPlayer' has played 10 lives as a Marine and got 90 kills, and 90 lives as an Alien and got 10 kills. His resultant K:D ratio should be:
9:1 as Marines (10 lives) weighted against 0.1:1 as Aliens (90 lives)
= [ { (9 x 10) + (0.1 x 90) } / 2 ] / 100 = 0.495 kills per death
This is very different to just averaging the total K:D (which would = 1 kill per death)
This is a much truer reflection of overall skill at NS. I would be far more happy if I joined a server purporting to be using a 'skilled' matchmaking profile knowing that I was playing with someone who had actually bothered to learn the Alien game, than simply a CS kiddy who is all aim and no brain.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
i just don't think you can balance skill, even in a game like battlefield where both teams are 99% the same there is always a player or a group of players that will turn the tide
To further complicate things, I would suggest that only a certain number of the most recent kills and deaths be factored into the calculations to better show the current performances of each player. Then, from that data:
skill = average skill of opponents((total kill points/kills)/(total death points/deaths))
Where "kill points" would be a weighted kill value such as (opponent class value/your class value). Obviously these weighted values would need to be carefully balanced to provide meaningful results. This could of course be done separately for both marines and aliens and then averaged or otherwise manipulated for a total score.
Skill scores could be recalculated periodically, and a finite number of ranks could be dynamically based on the distribution of scores.
A player with fewer than the "certain number" of kills for aliens, marines, or both would simply not be ranked.
Probably flawed and impractical, but I think the intentions are clear.
I think there's a disconnect in communication here - when you talk about skill, you seem to be focusing primarily upon purely mechanical point-and-click skill, separated from game knowledge, situational awareness, etc. When I refer to "skill", I mean an all-encompassing measurement of the overall quality of a player (and I suspect Radix and tjo do as well).
Here's an idea, I hope it helps, what if you made the difficulty rating of a server dynamic based upon which categories the current players fell under?
That is where, a server would be beginner, intermediate, or advanced based on what the majority category of players were. Then a player could just choose for themselves what level of completed achievements aka stat levels they wished to play at, regardless of server.
The benefits I see would be: - server searchable - server side trackable - bang for server buck - less of segregation
Hopefully this helps as a compromise with the ideas I have seen going around this thread.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
edited March 2008
<!--quoteo(post=1674188:date=Mar 25 2008, 12:58 AM:name=Underwhelmed)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Underwhelmed @ Mar 25 2008, 12:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a disconnect in communication here - when you talk about skill, you seem to be focusing primarily upon purely mechanical point-and-click skill, separated from game knowledge, situational awareness, etc. When I refer to "skill", I mean an all-encompassing measurement of the overall quality of a player (and I suspect Radix and tjo do as well).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> K:D skill is the only important skill wrt preventing some players from tearing up newbie servers. If you have good knowledge of the game then you could be beneficial to the newbie server by teaching them some of the finer aspects of the game. I think we agree that we want newbie servers to be a good learning experience and that a good twitch fade would destroy a newbie server if he went early fade and racked up kills with no regards to strategy or even winning. I think that's the scenario we want to limit more than anything, at least on said servers.
Edit: What I'm trying to say is that game knowledge can be taught, but FPS skill has to learned through practice.
Well, I'm starting to like the experience idea (given by.. Crispy?). Rather than matching by skill (which is hard enough to quantify), you balance by experience instead; ie. what you've done, rather than what you can do. Obviously you couldn't become lower in rank then.
And again, keep it as a server-side option, whether to have rank restrictions or not.
Do keep in mind guys that we're going into the details and technicalities of the skill ranking mechanism a lot. Yes there are many different ways to rank skill, and we've all seen here.
But the original intention of this thread was how we USE that skill ranking mechanism. Many people assume it would be in a matchmaking tool to connect a player to a server 'appropriate to his skill'.
My idea, instead, was to use this skill ranking system in-game, in the readyroom, to give a live estimate of the balance before the game begins. If we assume that the skill ranking system <i>already exists</i> in whatever form, I'm suggesting that it be implemented through entities in the FGD that would allow mappers to use it in the RR. As in, players hop into each team zone, and a scoreboard of sorts shows an up-to-date comparison of the balance of teams. Done in such a way, the devs could easily limit the required balance discrepancy to 40/60, or 45/55, or even 30/70.
This is assuming that a skill ranking system has already been decided on. Much of this thread has turned into the debate over how the skill ranking system would work. I'm talking about how it would be used.
<!--quoteo(post=1674188:date=Mar 25 2008, 12:58 AM:name=Underwhelmed)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Underwhelmed @ Mar 25 2008, 12:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a disconnect in communication here - when you talk about skill, you seem to be focusing primarily upon purely mechanical point-and-click skill, separated from game knowledge, situational awareness, etc. When I refer to "skill", I mean an all-encompassing measurement of the overall quality of a player (and I suspect Radix and tjo do as well).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sure they're focusing on that because I said that K:D should be the acid test of a good player, which I think it should.
Underwhelmed, my thesis was (and is) that the objective with matchmaking is to eliminate the frustration of stacking prohibitively good and prohibitively bad players against one another, so it's not that I'm really trying to quantify all of the player's "skills" such as situational awareness and general knowledge with K:D ratio, but rather it's a proposed attempt to negate the first-person rage factor of getting killed over and over.
New players aren't smart enough to realize that they don't understand the game (unless it has no real tactics to speak of, in which case it's a moot point), so that element of play shouldn't bother them very much - but they are smart enough to realize "OH F*** I JUST DIED THIS GAME IS BAD."
I'm not trying to actually balance every element of the game with matchmaking, just to filter players into games where they'll enjoy themselves until they can get over the hurdle of learning the game enough to progress to higher levels of play.
My overarching objective with the proposal is fun. Others are free to suggest systems that are optimized to any number of different ends, but I still hold that matchmaking with twitch skill as the acid test is the best overall option.
<!--quoteo(post=1674224:date=Mar 25 2008, 05:16 PM:name=StixNStonz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StixNStonz @ Mar 25 2008, 05:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My idea, instead, was to use this skill ranking system in-game, in the readyroom, to give a live estimate of the balance before the game begins. If we assume that the skill ranking system <i>already exists</i> in whatever form, I'm suggesting that it be implemented through entities in the FGD that would allow mappers to use it in the RR. As in, players hop into each team zone, and a scoreboard of sorts shows an up-to-date comparison of the balance of teams. Done in such a way, the devs could easily limit the required balance discrepancy to 40/60, or 45/55, or even 30/70.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This seems more like something that would be used to re-balance teams for a deliberately imbalanced scenario. E.g. an attack/defend scenario where the attackers outnumber the defenders but pound for pound the defenders would need to outskill the attackers. I think this is more something for 3rd-party LUA server-side mods to take care of, with custom maps designed for those very mods. ---
There are already admin mods that track local player stats and force teams to balance up before a match starts, but they rely on player persistence, so new players on the server won't have any stats to go on and it isn't always that great at achieving a balance.
You must be seriously retarded if you want to balance 'skill on a server.' YOU CANNOT BALANCE SKILL WTF
Skill comes from playing extensively and knowing everything inside out. What you people are trying to propose is basically reworded into "I wanna be leet without wasting time playing this game" <b>This will NEVER HAPPEN</b> (unless you play a totally retarded game like TF2). I'm assuming most new players of NS were introduced into the world of custom servers where 1 nade could kill the hive and and skulks can solo entire marine teams - unfortunately, this is the retarded truth.
By making servers 'noob/leet only' the community would be torn apart and no-one would gain anything. You need a healthy balance of good players and bad/new players for a server to thrive.. As without the new players nothing is going to become in the future when all the vet's leave and find other things to do with their time.
* On another note, if people quit after having a 'bad experience' (aka playing with someone who is better than them) it's their own loss and is a godsend for the community/game. You don't need retards who ###### and moan because they aren't good.
When i was a noob at NS, everyone else was a noob too. Those were some of the best days of NS for me.
Everyone was learning, nobody was elitest. If you screwed up as commander nobody noticed or cared as much .... it was the best time to learn the game.
After a few months the skill gaps grew apart, soon noobs would get flamed for making the smallest of mistakes, it just got silly, and ultimately drove all the newer players away from NS as well as their friends. All that was left was the bitter old timers and our little community here in NZ crumbled as more and more ppl left.
If you want a larger community ( = more servers <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ) you need a "friendly" sandbox for the noobs to learn.
I Like crispy's idea alot, it kinda encourages new players to at least try out all the classes, be a commander, learn the basics of the game, before entering the "not so friendly" snakepit.
Who knows, noobs might actually enjoy the game then, which will make them want to learn more.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1674305:date=Mar 26 2008, 05:50 AM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 05:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674305"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Skill comes from playing extensively and knowing everything inside out. What you people are trying to propose is basically reworded into "I wanna be leet without wasting time playing this game" <b>This will NEVER HAPPEN</b> (unless you play a totally retarded game like TF2). I'm assuming most new players of NS were introduced into the world of custom servers where 1 nade could kill the hive and and skulks can solo entire marine teams - unfortunately, this is the retarded truth.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Way to make up your own posts in your head and then respond to the topic. There are two ideas people are talking about here:
1.) Having a skill ranking system for matchmaking. You <i>can</i> join servers with people who play at the same level as you. 2.) Having a skill ranking for team auto-balancing. Helps prevent teamstack(at least when the game originally starts).
This topic isn't about TF2, crits, rambos, or anything like that. Read what you're responding to please.
<!--quoteo(post=1674311:date=Mar 26 2008, 07:39 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Mar 26 2008, 07:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674311"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This topic isn't about TF2, crits, rambos, or anything like that. Read what you're responding to please.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Maybe you should take your own advice. The thread itself is named '<b>How to Balance Skill on a server</b>.' The paragraph that you quoted relates to this as it explains the paragraph(s) before it. And for some reason I don't see either crits or rambos mentioned once in my previous post.
I mentioned TF2 because the thread before this was focused around the idea of making this game somewhat more like TF2 (also because TF2 is crap, and if NS2 becomes anything like it I will literally /wrist) in the sense that it would be 'noob friendly' or otherwise skill-less. Maybe you should have read the paragraph <b>under</b> the one you quoted?
I did not reply to the auto team skill balancing because TBH you must be an idiot to actually think that something like that could work in a game with two <b>entirely different teams</b>. If NS2 was to sport servers with auto skill balancing no-one would play on them. What this means is that you're basically forced to play on a team depending on how many new/crap players there are on the server/either team. This would never work and would lead to the better players leaving the server because they don't have a say in what team they want to play on. Even if it were optional for servers, using it would do nothing but hurt the servers and their communities (refer to the previous sentence.)
Also, why are people assuming that there is going to be a huge skill gap between players anyways? THE GAME HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET. When the game IS released, everyone will basically be on the same level due to the fact that It just came out. You can't compare NS's elitism/skill requirements with NS2, It's been around for 5 years (not to mention that it runs on an <i>entirely different engine</i>.)
It seems people are forgetting that NS2 is now a retail game, and not some random mod.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1674337:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674337"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe you should take your own advice. The thread itself is named '<b>How to Balance Skill on a server</b>.' The paragraph that you quoted relates to this as it explains the paragraph(s) before it. And for some reason I don't see either crits or rambos mentioned once in my previous post.
I mentioned TF2 because the thread before this was focused around the idea of making this game somewhat more like TF2 (also because TF2 is crap, and if NS2 becomes anything like it I will literally /wrist) in the sense that it would be 'noob friendly' or otherwise skill-less. Maybe you should have read the paragraph <b>under</b> the one you quoted?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's the point, this thread has <i>nothing</i> to do with making this game more like TF2. That's why I quoted that paragraph. <!--quoteo(post=1674337:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674337"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I did not reply to the auto team skill balancing because TBH you must be an idiot to actually think that something like that could work in a game with two <b>entirely different teams</b>. If NS2 was to sport servers with auto skill balancing no-one would play on them. What this means is that you're basically forced to play on a team depending on how many new/crap players there are on the server/either team. This would never work and would lead to the better players leaving the server because they don't have a say in what team they want to play on. Even if it were optional for servers, using it would do nothing but hurt the servers and their communities (refer to the previous sentence.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just because you haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't work. For example there is an indie teamplay RTS with the unfortunate name "Trash" that had an auto-balance feature based on W-L and games played. This wouldn't be much different than K-D and minutes played. It worked well enough and not every server had it on, but most did because it was convenient and useful. <!--quoteo(post=1674337:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674337"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also, why are people assuming that there is going to be a huge skill gap between players anyways? THE GAME HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET. When the game IS released, everyone will basically be on the same level due to the fact that It just came out. You can't compare NS's elitism/skill requirements with NS2, It's been around for 5 years (not to mention that it runs on an <i>entirely different engine</i>.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As it's been stated, if the game has sufficient depth, after a matter of a couple months the gaps in skill will be large enough to deter new players.
<!--quoteo(post=1674307:date=Mar 26 2008, 05:11 AM:name=mushookees)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mushookees @ Mar 26 2008, 05:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674307"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you want a larger community ( = more servers <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ) you need a "friendly" sandbox for the noobs to learn.
Who knows, noobs might actually enjoy the game then, which will make them want to learn more.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1674341:date=Mar 26 2008, 11:48 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Mar 26 2008, 11:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674341"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As it's been stated, if the game has sufficient depth, after a matter of a couple months the gaps in skill will be large enough to deter new players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm skeptical about these claims. This skepticism arises from my own personal experience as a newbie. The game was fun and different, and I was hooked immediately. Getting killed by players way out of my league in skill was frustrating, though by no means a deterrent to continuing to play. Large skill gaps allow room for large skill improvement, and that was actually one of the motivating factors for continuing to play.
Perhaps it depends on the player. I think it bears repeating that NS is not your typical game and does not appeal to your typical player. I have no "exit poll" information besides that provided by my friends to back this up, but this very untypical nature of NS seems to be by far the largest deterrent to new players becoming engaged. I'm sure the devs already have some great ideas for NS2 prepared in order to jump this hurdle.
Again, I can't emphasize enough the importance of quality admins as far as maintaining a "friendly sandbox for noobs to learn in." I'm thankful for, speaking as the newbie I was once in 1.04 whose first FPS game was NS, that the active admins on servers I frequented allowed for highly skilled players to stay in the mix. Playing against them was how I improved and learned countless new things about the game. Stix mentioned Mr| server which, as I recall, was thought of by many competitive players as a quality pub experience because of active admins as well as the community. I imagine the former regulars of all skill classes would agree. Good, active admins = good balance.
I can't speak for newbies in 3.2, but I can sort of see where they're coming from. For example, I actually wouldn't pick up a game today like Starcraft and attempt to play it competitively based entirely of the perceived opportunity cost it would entail. But I'm sure that there are other players discovering or rediscovering Starcraft today (and loving it), who are up for that challenge
<!--quoteo(post=1674341:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:48 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Mar 26 2008, 01:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674341"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's the point, this thread has <i>nothing</i> to do with making this game more like TF2. That's why I quoted that paragraph.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I kind of have to agree with him there Naggy, no offense meant. It kind of sounds like another topic (a heated debate) is starting up in this thread although I wouldn't recommend it since such a debate could only do damage to the community for both those who like TF2 and see good ideas spawning from it and those that don't like it and are afraid of too much influence.
My two cents? Please, return to the topic here and stop arguing, both of you. This contention isn't helping anybody here, and I'd imagine StixNStonz would be mad if you two got his thread derailed and locked. Try being considerate of him, thanks.
Comments
If you want the teamplay aspect there are alot of other better ways to go about it. I've used YO-clan and their reg program as an example before and it fits here too.
The issue isn't "teamplay" or "knowing the game". The issue is that people get annoyed and start reviewing demos and hunting down good players, to the detriment of both their and the other player's fun, because they get soundly trounced by superior aim and movement.
So yes, I see your point if the idea would be a means to teach the basics of the game, but not as a way to get rid of "pro" tactics like spawn camping (not really a tactic, simply the manifestation of a much more skilled player taking a dump on worse). "Team play and communication" as a response to Mustang as marine on a server is as much a farse as the same as a response to Walle with an AWP on a CS server. Or boxer in a FFA BGH game.
A system measuring experience instead of skill is like a math test based on how long you've been adding and subtracting, not how well often you are right. Often the person with more experience is the better player, but this is not always the case.
The milestones system measures experience. It ensures that players understand how the game works. Knowledge doesn't have to be acquired quickly, the objective here is to instil a level of knowledge and understanding in a player. Your maths example shows this pertfectly: If someone learns how to do long division and can solve any long division equation, then they are able to understand the root concept behind it and its applications in the real world. It doesn't matter if it took them longer to come to this understanding, the important thing here is that they now understand it. If they understand the concept and have experience of doing equations, they have it within them to solve a long division equation just the same as someone who mastered long division after a 30 minute explanation.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But most of the players who would reach "advanced" would still be raged by me joining their server and trashing them. I see your point, but it wouldn't really do what it's supposed to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The default matchmaking profiles would do exactly what they're supposed to do, and that is to provide protected 'sandpit' servers for total beginners where they can learn the game at their own pace, and to provide a place free from incompetant newbs who have no grasp of the finer points of NS's gameplay are are a hindrance to an intermediate team.
Now, if you read what I said earlier, you will have seen that I also said admins should be able to customise 'matchmaking profiles'. What I'm saying here is that a whole range of stats should be available for admins to use in different combinations to make custom matchmaking profiles. E.g. kills:deaths may not be used to formulate the Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced default server profiles, BUT these stats could still be tracked and used to evaluate a player's eligibility for a custom server running their own custom 'pr0-skillz' profile.
Here, you can cater for the competitive-natured players by allowing them to find competitive servers where you have to be of a certain skill proficiency to even be able to join. This elitist system will be attractive to certain players, but almost certainly not to new players, so it should not be included as a default server profile setting.
At the end of the day, you will never be able to create the perfect experience for everyone. The best servers will always be the ones that are well adminned, because the internet will always be full of ishheads. Even having a custom profile that relies on K:D is still open to hacked stats and griefers, but with a powerful matchmaking system even an admin with no prior experience will be able to set their server to exclude players who have been playing for longer or less time, if they so choose.
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The question is begged: to what lengths will these 'pr0' players go to secure a good enough K:D rating to join the elite server of their choice? Obviously players will probably look for open servers to pwn some noobs on to get their K:D rating up to speed after getting a minor beating on a server where everyone is actually at the same skill level. But- the important thing here is that Beginner servers will actually have the choice to be 'Beginner-only' and protect themselves against long-term players from exploiting their initiate status. It means the players who truly want to be considered 'skilful' will gravitate to competitive servers, so the clan scene will be healthier and won't have to rely on the pub scene servers so much. There will still be mixed servers, like YO clan, where teamwork is valued above raw skill and beginners and clanners can play side by side, but more customisation is offered on this front.
However, I have to say that right now Crispy is making the stronger point. I'm highly skeptical myself, but even I'm becoming convinced of his persuasive argument. I can clearly envision how every new player (or old player with a new SteamID) will want to get those achievements knocked out early so they can move to different servers and at the same time how servers would be diversified by people wanting to set up a newbie trainer or a more competitive space for people who have passed those milestones. This gives servers and their admins much more control over the means to shape the skill curve of their population.
A few comments and concerns though:
Damage milestones are a poor example, especially when we want to promote teamwork. How many seconds of welding, hours commanding or being a squad leader (since things ARE going to be squad based in NS2, as they should), resources shared, structures destroyed, structures built (<u><i>especially</i></u> RTs and IPs/Hives), damage healed with healspray, marines parasited, etc... are much better options that are easy enough to track. The ideal thing would
Also consider two negatives Crispy's theoretical solution might cause:<ul><li>An imbalance of fair servers creating an environment of discrimination against a particular player group would be damaging to the whole community. Servers do cost money to upkeep. We could be trading player elitism for </li><li>An inability to join your friends in a server or on the same team because of your levels.</li></ul>
Any suggestions on how to mitigate those concerns?
1. I agree, this could risk fragmenting the global community as a whole. On the other hand, it could help forge stronger, local, server-based communities since it would make customising a server that little bit easier.
2. Join an 'open' or semi-closed server when introducing your friends to the game.
In response to both issues, it is very likely that the major public server providers (don't know the US equivalents, but the big UK ones are Jolt, Multiplay, Wireplay, Rackage) would run a selection of open, unrestricted servers to cater for the maximum amount of people. Matchmaking doesn't need to replace the current options, it can be implemented to provide quick and easy default alternatives and an empowering range of custom alternatives.
Remember that running an organised server is still possible. Certain admins may just want to run their server according to their own rules, and not use matchmaking to sort players by statistics at all.
All servers will have the following options:
- Have no restrictions whatsoever and run a 'vanilla' server (I.e. 'open' server, no extra admin plugins)
- Have no restrictions whatsoever and run a fully adminned server (rely on live admins to keep the teams balanced and protect against griefers)
- Restrict based on a default profile (I.e. 'Beginner only' would stop any players qualified as Intermediate or Advanced from joining)
- Restrict based on a combination of default profiles (e.g. 'Beg/Int' would allow both Beginner and Intermediate level players)
- Restrict based on a custom profile (E.g. 'Proskillz' that restricts based on K:D ratio)
- Restrict based on 3rd-party server-side plugins. (E.g. a competitive league server could take the SteamIDs of everyone registered to play in that league and provide a private pickup server where only they can play. Some admins already close off their servers a couple of nights a week to allow only members of the community that show a mature attitude to take part in private nights. There is always scope for you to control your server however you like.)
The milestones system measures experience. It ensures that players understand how the game works. Knowledge doesn't have to be acquired quickly, the objective here is to instil a level of knowledge and understanding in a player. Your maths example shows this pertfectly: If someone learns how to do long division and can solve any long division equation, then they are able to understand the root concept behind it and its applications in the real world. It doesn't matter if it took them longer to come to this understanding, the important thing here is that they now understand it. If they understand the concept and have experience of doing equations, they have it within them to solve a long division equation just the same as someone who mastered long division after a 30 minute explanation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that's the thing. Experience and knowing how to do something doesn't equal being able to do it, in a game. You can study a great tennis player and know how to do what he does theoretically, but being pitted against that player every day instead of the dudes you want to play would make you quit the game. This isn't like practicing long division all day and then finally being able to do it. It's like being able to understand the concepts and then do it in your head under duress, no paper and pencil or calculator available.
No, "teamwork" and "experience" never directly combats greater individual skill in FPS games. If those alone do it it's basically an RPG, and we're not discussing an RPG here.
You need quite complex milestones then. I've probably been dealing more damage, parasiting more and built more rt:s than 3 makavelis gone pubbing, but it doesn't mean I'd be the one man army that destroys every oppositing team in seconds. I've played since 1.03 and only since some 3.0 I've been clanning and starting to understand the slightly more complex mechanics and advanced teamwork properly. A person might know maths here and there, but it takes quite a few formulas and such to get the whole calculation done. Think you could give and example of a milestone that measures skill or situational awarness?
Milestones might be nice for some warcraft 3 styled icon and badge of honour hunting. That's one way to encourage new people to do the right thing.
No, "teamwork" and "experience" never directly combats greater individual skill in FPS games. If those alone do it it's basically an RPG, and we're not discussing an RPG here.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you're losing sight of the goal here. Any sufficiently determined player can BS/workaround acheivements, requirements, etc. The goal of the achievements is not to teach people how to play but to help them to learn. It's to make them ask "why is parasiting people a requirement to play on a higher level server". A player the BS's all the achievements to get to the next level will get there and either say "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on. This game sucks" or "Hmm, I don't understand what's going on. I guess I should go figure out what all those achievements were." NS2 is simply not a game for the former player. You have to want to learn to play.
<!--quoteo(post=1674097:date=Mar 24 2008, 11:54 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bacillus @ Mar 24 2008, 11:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674097"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's one way to encourage new people to do the right thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly.
I'll spell it out:
- Statistics are taken on a range of data
- DEFAULT matchmaking profiles should avoid drawing on dynamic and/or skill-based data (such as kills:death ratios, accuracy, etc.) but should instead rely on communicating static milestone targets to players in order to progress through the levels of <i>experience</i>
- CUSTOM matchmaking profiles can cherry pick from all of the available player statistics data (e.g. high K:D <i>with</i> 100+ Fade kills)
- servers always have the choice to have matchmaking ENABLED or DISABLED
Because this is a skill game you're playing.
As to your question more specifically:
1) fun is largely proportionate to the level of balance in a server (which acts as a negation factor). 2) Balance is most directly quantified by skill, not by ability to weld or build or your total number of frags. 3) In order to balance a server holistically (and not just statistically, because statistics don't have a direct first-person fun-factor like holism does) you need to have all the players in <b>roughly</b> the same skill bracket. 4) Therefore, in order to create fun games, you need to create *roughly* appropriate matches between the players based on their ability to perform the <b>most demanding</b> aspects of the game like killing other players.
Don't worry about it so much. If you don't want to be challenged during play, you can filter into "easy" servers relative to your record and play withall the straightlining skulks you want.
If you get bored with that though, there will always be the red servers for a more interesting experience.
The shooting side of NS is very different to the Alien side in terms of skill. Aliens are much more about movement and timing attacks. Marines are more about emptying as much ammo on the enemies that pose the biggest threat with the greatest degree of accuracy in the shortest amount of time. True, movement is also key to Marines at the very upper levels, but the two sides still play very differently. If a K:D rating system were used to determine matchmaking as a DEFAULT option, there is a major problem with an experienced deathmatch player being able to sustain a high K:D merely by excelling at the Marine game. This ability to shoot straight bears no relation on their knowledge and understanding of the gameplay on the Alien side.
Essentially, if you did use K:D as a matchmaking determiner, you would need to average the kills made as Alien AND Marine, using a weighted system. E.g. 'CSPlayer' has played 10 lives as a Marine and got 90 kills, and 90 lives as an Alien and got 10 kills. His resultant K:D ratio should be:
9:1 as Marines (10 lives) weighted against 0.1:1 as Aliens (90 lives)
= [ { (9 x 10) + (0.1 x 90) } / 2 ] / 100
= 0.495 kills per death
This is very different to just averaging the total K:D (which would = 1 kill per death)
This is a much truer reflection of overall skill at NS. I would be far more happy if I joined a server purporting to be using a 'skilled' matchmaking profile knowing that I was playing with someone who had actually bothered to learn the Alien game, than simply a CS kiddy who is all aim and no brain.
skill = average skill of opponents((total kill points/kills)/(total death points/deaths))
Where "kill points" would be a weighted kill value such as (opponent class value/your class value). Obviously these weighted values would need to be carefully balanced to provide meaningful results. This could of course be done separately for both marines and aliens and then averaged or otherwise manipulated for a total score.
Skill scores could be recalculated periodically, and a finite number of ranks could be dynamically based on the distribution of scores.
A player with fewer than the "certain number" of kills for aliens, marines, or both would simply not be ranked.
Probably flawed and impractical, but I think the intentions are clear.
That is where, a server would be beginner, intermediate, or advanced based on what the majority category of players were. Then a player could just choose for themselves what level of completed achievements aka stat levels they wished to play at, regardless of server.
The benefits I see would be:
- server searchable
- server side trackable
- bang for server buck
- less of segregation
Hopefully this helps as a compromise with the ideas I have seen going around this thread.
K:D skill is the only important skill wrt preventing some players from tearing up newbie servers. If you have good knowledge of the game then you could be beneficial to the newbie server by teaching them some of the finer aspects of the game. I think we agree that we want newbie servers to be a good learning experience and that a good twitch fade would destroy a newbie server if he went early fade and racked up kills with no regards to strategy or even winning. I think that's the scenario we want to limit more than anything, at least on said servers.
Edit: What I'm trying to say is that game knowledge can be taught, but FPS skill has to learned through practice.
Obviously you couldn't become lower in rank then.
And again, keep it as a server-side option, whether to have rank restrictions or not.
But the original intention of this thread was how we USE that skill ranking mechanism. Many people assume it would be in a matchmaking tool to connect a player to a server 'appropriate to his skill'.
My idea, instead, was to use this skill ranking system in-game, in the readyroom, to give a live estimate of the balance before the game begins. If we assume that the skill ranking system <i>already exists</i> in whatever form, I'm suggesting that it be implemented through entities in the FGD that would allow mappers to use it in the RR. As in, players hop into each team zone, and a scoreboard of sorts shows an up-to-date comparison of the balance of teams. Done in such a way, the devs could easily limit the required balance discrepancy to 40/60, or 45/55, or even 30/70.
This is assuming that a skill ranking system has already been decided on. Much of this thread has turned into the debate over how the skill ranking system would work. I'm talking about how it would be used.
I'm sure they're focusing on that because I said that K:D should be the acid test of a good player, which I think it should.
Underwhelmed, my thesis was (and is) that the objective with matchmaking is to eliminate the frustration of stacking prohibitively good and prohibitively bad players against one another, so it's not that I'm really trying to quantify all of the player's "skills" such as situational awareness and general knowledge with K:D ratio, but rather it's a proposed attempt to negate the first-person rage factor of getting killed over and over.
New players aren't smart enough to realize that they don't understand the game (unless it has no real tactics to speak of, in which case it's a moot point), so that element of play shouldn't bother them very much - but they are smart enough to realize "OH F*** I JUST DIED THIS GAME IS BAD."
I'm not trying to actually balance every element of the game with matchmaking, just to filter players into games where they'll enjoy themselves until they can get over the hurdle of learning the game enough to progress to higher levels of play.
My overarching objective with the proposal is fun. Others are free to suggest systems that are optimized to any number of different ends, but I still hold that matchmaking with twitch skill as the acid test is the best overall option.
This seems more like something that would be used to re-balance teams for a deliberately imbalanced scenario. E.g. an attack/defend scenario where the attackers outnumber the defenders but pound for pound the defenders would need to outskill the attackers. I think this is more something for 3rd-party LUA server-side mods to take care of, with custom maps designed for those very mods.
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There are already admin mods that track local player stats and force teams to balance up before a match starts, but they rely on player persistence, so new players on the server won't have any stats to go on and it isn't always that great at achieving a balance.
You must be seriously retarded if you want to balance 'skill on a server.' YOU CANNOT BALANCE SKILL WTF
Skill comes from playing extensively and knowing everything inside out. What you people are trying to propose is basically reworded into "I wanna be leet without wasting time playing this game" <b>This will NEVER HAPPEN</b> (unless you play a totally retarded game like TF2). I'm assuming most new players of NS were introduced into the world of custom servers where 1 nade could kill the hive and and skulks can solo entire marine teams - unfortunately, this is the retarded truth.
By making servers 'noob/leet only' the community would be torn apart and no-one would gain anything. You need a healthy balance of good players and bad/new players for a server to thrive.. As without the new players nothing is going to become in the future when all the vet's leave and find other things to do with their time.
* On another note, if people quit after having a 'bad experience' (aka playing with someone who is better than them) it's their own loss and is a godsend for the community/game. You don't need retards who ###### and moan because they aren't good.
Everyone was learning, nobody was elitest. If you screwed up as commander nobody noticed or cared as much .... it was the best time to learn the game.
After a few months the skill gaps grew apart, soon noobs would get flamed for making the smallest of mistakes, it just got silly, and ultimately drove all the newer players away from NS as well as their friends. All that was left was the bitter old timers and our little community here in NZ crumbled as more and more ppl left.
If you want a larger community ( = more servers <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ) you need a "friendly" sandbox for the noobs to learn.
I Like crispy's idea alot, it kinda encourages new players to at least try out all the classes, be a commander, learn the basics of the game, before entering the "not so friendly" snakepit.
Who knows, noobs might actually enjoy the game then, which will make them want to learn more.
Way to make up your own posts in your head and then respond to the topic. There are two ideas people are talking about here:
1.) Having a skill ranking system for matchmaking. You <i>can</i> join servers with people who play at the same level as you.
2.) Having a skill ranking for team auto-balancing. Helps prevent teamstack(at least when the game originally starts).
This topic isn't about TF2, crits, rambos, or anything like that. Read what you're responding to please.
Maybe you should take your own advice. The thread itself is named '<b>How to Balance Skill on a server</b>.' The paragraph that you quoted relates to this as it explains the paragraph(s) before it. And for some reason I don't see either crits or rambos mentioned once in my previous post.
I mentioned TF2 because the thread before this was focused around the idea of making this game somewhat more like TF2 (also because TF2 is crap, and if NS2 becomes anything like it I will literally /wrist) in the sense that it would be 'noob friendly' or otherwise skill-less. Maybe you should have read the paragraph <b>under</b> the one you quoted?
I did not reply to the auto team skill balancing because TBH you must be an idiot to actually think that something like that could work in a game with two <b>entirely different teams</b>. If NS2 was to sport servers with auto skill balancing no-one would play on them. What this means is that you're basically forced to play on a team depending on how many new/crap players there are on the server/either team. This would never work and would lead to the better players leaving the server because they don't have a say in what team they want to play on. Even if it were optional for servers, using it would do nothing but hurt the servers and their communities (refer to the previous sentence.)
Also, why are people assuming that there is going to be a huge skill gap between players anyways? THE GAME HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET. When the game IS released, everyone will basically be on the same level due to the fact that It just came out. You can't compare NS's elitism/skill requirements with NS2, It's been around for 5 years (not to mention that it runs on an <i>entirely different engine</i>.)
It seems people are forgetting that NS2 is now a retail game, and not some random mod.
I mentioned TF2 because the thread before this was focused around the idea of making this game somewhat more like TF2 (also because TF2 is crap, and if NS2 becomes anything like it I will literally /wrist) in the sense that it would be 'noob friendly' or otherwise skill-less. Maybe you should have read the paragraph <b>under</b> the one you quoted?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's the point, this thread has <i>nothing</i> to do with making this game more like TF2. That's why I quoted that paragraph.
<!--quoteo(post=1674337:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674337"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I did not reply to the auto team skill balancing because TBH you must be an idiot to actually think that something like that could work in a game with two <b>entirely different teams</b>. If NS2 was to sport servers with auto skill balancing no-one would play on them. What this means is that you're basically forced to play on a team depending on how many new/crap players there are on the server/either team. This would never work and would lead to the better players leaving the server because they don't have a say in what team they want to play on. Even if it were optional for servers, using it would do nothing but hurt the servers and their communities (refer to the previous sentence.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just because you haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't work. For example there is an indie teamplay RTS with the unfortunate name "Trash" that had an auto-balance feature based on W-L and games played. This wouldn't be much different than K-D and minutes played. It worked well enough and not every server had it on, but most did because it was convenient and useful.
<!--quoteo(post=1674337:date=Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Mar 26 2008, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674337"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also, why are people assuming that there is going to be a huge skill gap between players anyways? THE GAME HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET. When the game IS released, everyone will basically be on the same level due to the fact that It just came out. You can't compare NS's elitism/skill requirements with NS2, It's been around for 5 years (not to mention that it runs on an <i>entirely different engine</i>.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As it's been stated, if the game has sufficient depth, after a matter of a couple months the gaps in skill will be large enough to deter new players.
Who knows, noobs might actually enjoy the game then, which will make them want to learn more.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1674341:date=Mar 26 2008, 11:48 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Mar 26 2008, 11:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1674341"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As it's been stated, if the game has sufficient depth, after a matter of a couple months the gaps in skill will be large enough to deter new players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm skeptical about these claims. This skepticism arises from my own personal experience as a newbie. The game was fun and different, and I was hooked immediately. Getting killed by players way out of my league in skill was frustrating, though by no means a deterrent to continuing to play. Large skill gaps allow room for large skill improvement, and that was actually one of the motivating factors for continuing to play.
Perhaps it depends on the player. I think it bears repeating that NS is not your typical game and does not appeal to your typical player. I have no "exit poll" information besides that provided by my friends to back this up, but this very untypical nature of NS seems to be by far the largest deterrent to new players becoming engaged. I'm sure the devs already have some great ideas for NS2 prepared in order to jump this hurdle.
Again, I can't emphasize enough the importance of quality admins as far as maintaining a "friendly sandbox for noobs to learn in." I'm thankful for, speaking as the newbie I was once in 1.04 whose first FPS game was NS, that the active admins on servers I frequented allowed for highly skilled players to stay in the mix. Playing against them was how I improved and learned countless new things about the game. Stix mentioned Mr| server which, as I recall, was thought of by many competitive players as a quality pub experience because of active admins as well as the community. I imagine the former regulars of all skill classes would agree. Good, active admins = good balance.
I can't speak for newbies in 3.2, but I can sort of see where they're coming from. For example, I actually wouldn't pick up a game today like Starcraft and attempt to play it competitively based entirely of the perceived opportunity cost it would entail. But I'm sure that there are other players discovering or rediscovering Starcraft today (and loving it), who are up for that challenge
I kind of have to agree with him there Naggy, no offense meant. It kind of sounds like another topic (a heated debate) is starting up in this thread although I wouldn't recommend it since such a debate could only do damage to the community for both those who like TF2 and see good ideas spawning from it and those that don't like it and are afraid of too much influence.
My two cents? Please, return to the topic here and stop arguing, both of you. This contention isn't helping anybody here, and I'd imagine StixNStonz would be mad if you two got his thread derailed and locked. Try being considerate of him, thanks.