Pub play: 2 round (switch race) game in built mechanics
Viajero
Join Date: 2012-09-21 Member: 160238Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-09-21 Member: 160238Members, Reinforced - Shadow
While all the balance issues are still dicussed and properly addressed on an ongoing basis, I was wondering if there could be anyways an option when creating a server/game that "forces" each game to be actually composed of 2 rounds. Once teams are established in the first round and after that first round has finished then an automatic 2nd round starts in the same map with the same teams but switching races.
After the second round is done and based on the current (or an improved) player points system an overall victory would be awarded to the team with overall more points. So it would not be "Marines Win!" or "Aliens Win!" anymore and rather "Your Team Wins!" or "Your Opponents Win!" kind of thing.
I am not sure if the current points award system would be enough to reflect a fair victory afer the two rounds but I am sure it could be relatively easily tweaked if not.
This could help in making both teams play the best they can with each race in the same map irrespective of the current balance status of the build at the time (or lack thereof). I.e. we could have both teams winning as Aliens and losing as Marines but only the most efficient team in doing so will win.
Players can obviously still change teams if they want etc which will defeat a bit the purpose of the idea but the current team size limit controls will probably help take care of this. Player turnover and ragequitting notwithstanding I think it could be a good tool to prevent the currently prevailing "Aliens are OP" demotivating factor in pub these days.
After the second round is done and based on the current (or an improved) player points system an overall victory would be awarded to the team with overall more points. So it would not be "Marines Win!" or "Aliens Win!" anymore and rather "Your Team Wins!" or "Your Opponents Win!" kind of thing.
I am not sure if the current points award system would be enough to reflect a fair victory afer the two rounds but I am sure it could be relatively easily tweaked if not.
This could help in making both teams play the best they can with each race in the same map irrespective of the current balance status of the build at the time (or lack thereof). I.e. we could have both teams winning as Aliens and losing as Marines but only the most efficient team in doing so will win.
Players can obviously still change teams if they want etc which will defeat a bit the purpose of the idea but the current team size limit controls will probably help take care of this. Player turnover and ragequitting notwithstanding I think it could be a good tool to prevent the currently prevailing "Aliens are OP" demotivating factor in pub these days.
Comments
First of all, it's "Impractical".
Secondly, no.
/thread
Point is CT/Ts in CS swap sides once every map, and their adversity is tiny in comparison to NS2. So why not?
At the very least it might keep players from just up and quitting.
It's not a team fortress 2, where teams are the same in terms of class. and only the map is different.
In that respect i don't even think switching spawn locations should happen either. since some maps have strategical disadvantages depending on spawns, which is why marines in most cases spawn at the same place.
It's not a team fortress 2, where teams are the same in terms of class. and only the map is different.
In that respect i don't even think switching spawn locations should happen either. since some maps have strategical disadvantages depending on spawns, which is why marines in most cases spawn at the same place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Precisely because the two races are assymetrical (and allegedly still unbalanced for pub play) is why a race switch could be interesting. Gives a much more similar opportunity of winning to both player teams.
Regarding initial base/hive spawn points, I dont think it was ever suggested that the spawning points should be kept or switched, if the current system works then I see no issue in leaving it like that. What it´s being proposed is simply to have a 2nd round in the same map where each player team simply changes race (and starts each round from whatever spawning points the current system dictates for each race), and then tally the overall victory points of both rounds. Asuming "Aliens are indeed OP" for pub play then this would give a more even chance of winning to both teams by virtue of the 2 rounds when compared to the current one round system.
In essence, playing a 2nd round switching races allows us to minimize the "race unbalance factor" and favour instead the actual skill of each team (measured through the current, or an updated, point system) as the criteria for awarding a win. This obviously asumes each teams composition remains largely the same in each of the 2 rounds. But player turnover and ragequitting will always be an issue, either in a 1 round system or in a 2 rounds one.
I think it's good people pick a side, Currently i'd say both sides are pretty equally favored.
It makes you good with a certain mechanic and provokes professional play in clans etc.
If there's a forced mechanic that makes you switch, you can never be scouted / show how good you are at the focused game mechanics.
It's like giving everyone in the game a go at commander, not everyone is cut out for it, if the commander on the alien team is good, does definitely not mean he is good as marine commander.
I'd say the only reason game win-loss rates are skewered is because the fact that marine is a LOT easier to pick up. whether you or anyone else likes this truth or not it's clearly evident.
I blame the meta in current day first person shooters everyone always holds a gun. having a giant rack of teeth in your screen wobbling up and down may seem inconvenient to some.
This means new players pick marine. often when i'm alien, i can just tell when a marine is new. He walks backwards when you charge him rather than the whole jumping charade good players do, they can't hit for ######, No awareness of their surroundings like sound etc. they're easy pickings, Most games have like 5/6 players in them like this.
When the alien team has new players, they mostly go gorge or pick a passive role.
Granted its a good idea, and prevents people rapid joining the overpowered side when games end... but debatable if server admins would like this if it lead to player count hemorrhaging every round.
Granted its a good idea, and prevents people rapid joining the overpowered side when games end... but debatable if server admins would like this if it lead to player count hemorrhaging every round.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Shouldnt be an issue if this game mode is made optional at game/server creation and if it is clearly stated in the server list before connecting to a game.
Let both admins and players choose which game mode they prefer, no?
If a player wants to play the same race several times in a row then let them play in the vanilla 1 round servers. If another wants to play the proposed 2 rounds games then he ll chose the corresponding servers.
Why not? It has gained a lot of traction in many other assymetric (and unbalanced) pub games, wheter pc based or table top traditional wargames. Not reinventing the wheel here really. I guess it would all depend on how much bothered people really are with regards to the alleged unbalanced pub play state of affairs.
No scoring metric is acceptable to replace a team actually defeating their opponents.
No scoring metric is acceptable to replace a team actually defeating their opponents.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that is precisely the point. There is an acceptable way as long as you stop thinking in binary.
Most gamers in NS and NS2 seem to only focus in mutually exclusive absolutes for victory conditions. Black or White, Yin or Yan, wipe your enemy or be wiped. This is the way UW have created NS and NS2 and it is therefore the only way everyone around here is used to. By sticking to this binary way of thinking you are left with just one slippery and long winded option to fix the alleged pub game unbalance: To achieve perfect (or almost) balance between the 2 assymetric races at the pub game level of play.
The 2 round switch game mode stems from the asumption that the current pub gaming is skewed towards favouring Alien teams and therefore a 1 round only game, such as things are at the moment, can not be a good measure of which pub team is really the best in a given match up.
In a 2 round switch mode though you eliminate the race balance factor from the equation and both teams can binary "win" 1 of the 2 games and binary "lose" the other. In terms of a 2 round switch therefore you need a reasonable point system to measure who was more efficient at it. The current version of the game has already all the necessary point basics coded in for a a point based victory game mode as proposed here, awarding points for facilities destroyed etc.
You could conceivably think of any other key metrics to award points so to motivate the right behaviours in game: base/hive uptime, res gathered/lost, tech paths researched etc. Weights could also be given to favour certain metrics over others etc. The point being that both teams would have then exactly the same chances to extract victory points according to the exact same rules because they would have to play 2 rounds under the same circumstances. In this "mirrored" system, the best team in average at playing both races should prevail, irrespective of the races imbalances.
The right point system would probably still be quite tricky to set up because some of the metrics may have to be normalized to game duration or made relative to the other team´s etc etc. But imho much less tricky and more transparent than trying to achieve perfect balance for aliens and marines.
Most gamers in NS and NS2 seem to only focus in mutually exclusive absolutes for victory conditions. Black or White, Yin or Yan, wipe your enemy or be wiped. This is the way UW have created NS and NS2 and it is therefore the only way everyone around here is used to. By sticking to this binary way of thinking you are left with just one slippery and long winded option to fix the alleged pub game unbalance: To achieve perfect (or almost) balance between the 2 assymetric races at the pub game level of play.
The 2 round switch game mode stems from the asumption that the current pub gaming is skewed towards favouring Alien teams and therefore a 1 round only game, such as things are at the moment, can not be a good measure of which pub team is really the best in a given match up.
In a 2 round switch mode though you eliminate the race balance factor from the equation and both teams can binary "win" 1 of the 2 games and binary "lose" the other. In terms of a 2 round switch therefore you need a reasonable point system to measure who was more efficient at it. The current version of the game has already all the necessary point basics coded in for a a point based victory game mode as proposed here, awarding points for facilities destroyed etc.
You could conceivably think of any other key metrics to award points so to motivate the right behaviours in game: base/hive uptime, res gathered/lost, tech paths researched etc. Weights could also be given to favour certain metrics over others etc. The point being that both teams would have then exactly the same chances to extract victory points according to the exact same rules because they would have to play 2 rounds under the same circumstances. In this "mirrored" system, the best team in average at playing both races should prevail, irrespective of the races imbalances.
The right point system would probably still be quite tricky to set up because some of the metrics may have to be normalized to game duration or made relative to the other team´s etc etc. But imho much less tricky and more transparent than trying to achieve perfect balance for aliens and marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
.... but none of those numerical metrics conclusively tell you who is winning. You're basically suggesting that players play for score instead of playing to defeat their opponents. Do you really think people want to play a game of NS2 where your victory condition is kdr or killing RTs? You basically eliminate a huge swath of strategies because they'll never score well.
Imagine if Starcraft was not about destroying your opponent but instead about first-one-to-kill 50k resources worth of units. Or first one to harvest 30k resources.
And what kind of specific scoring are you going to use for this? You say that ns2 already has a framework to run this kind of victory condition, but I contest that the current scoring is complete crap. How are you going to balance the scoring?
Imagine if Starcraft was not about destroying your opponent but instead about first-one-to-kill 50k resources worth of units. Or first one to harvest 30k resources.
And what kind of specific scoring are you going to use for this? You say that ns2 already has a framework to run this kind of victory condition, but I contest that the current scoring is complete crap. How are you going to balance the scoring?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeh, I am not saying a scoring system is the "dogs bollocks" or that it will be trouble free, but I think it could be a perfetcly valid stop gap or alternative mode for those players who may be relaly pissed off at the current unbalnce situation. Less problematic at least in the sense that players will know for sure the game is at least "balanced" from a mirror switch point of view if not for race.
With regards to your comment on "Do you really think people want to play a game of NS2 where your victory condition is kdr or killing RTs?", my answer is again that it will depend on how much pissed off we are about the current unbalanced race situation. I for one know that I would want to, yes :-) Not saying those 2 two would be the only metrics Id use but hey.
The scoring system does not need to be "balanced" because both teams will be exposed to it exactly in the same way given the 2 round switch. Balancing the scoring system, or balancing the races under this mode is meaningless. What matters is that the scoring system be one that motivates the teams to play in a fun way.
You can set up those victory conditions and metrics in any way you can consider motivating. There can be tons of different ways to measure how efficient you are at winning, and all of them still very much aligned with how the game is played to get an absolute win under a binary concept anyways. Think about what it is you do that generally makes you win any given game at the moment: starve your opponent Tres, maximize your own, keep your bases up, destroy the enemy´s, number of techs developed, etc you name it. The possibilities are endless. You could for example gear the point system to deincentivize early rushes if that is what you want. Or not if you consider early rushes are a valid way of winning, etc etc.
In a 2 round switch system, and given some reasonable motivating metrics you would still be probably doing most of the same things you do today to defeat your opponent anyways. You would just have to do it in a more efficient way than your opponent team.
Precisely. It's also the reason Random All is highly frustrating to some people.