Why public play and competitive play needs two rulesets
godrifle
Join Date: 2006-12-01 Member: 58815Members
Join Date: 2006-12-01 Member: 58815Members
I believe NS2 needs two rulesets. One for Competitive players, and one for Pub players.
1. NS2 is a special case.
The game is different. It's asymmetrical in not only the races, but individual player skill as well. Take Battlefield for instance. If you're not good at being a sniper, you don't have to be one. An NS2 player is regularly put into situations where he'll have to play as something he might not be good at- ie Fade, Skulk. Alien/Marine win rates will be different, and we can attribute this to either player skill or player count scaling, and don't forget, a player's skill with specific classes.
There's no other shooting game that has asymmetrical gameplay of one race versus another... except Left 4 Dead. L4D has a Normal mode and a Realism mode. Realism is basically balanced for competitive play, as competitive players are unable to have much impact on the survivors in normal mode. L4D has two modes, why can't NS2?
2. Competitive Fun versus Accessible Fun
Competitive players know that being at the right place at the right time is key in NS2. Would you rather shoot a grenade into a vent with two skulks hiding in it, or shoot a grenade at an almost dead harvester? Pubbers will go for the two skulks, but competitive players will take the harvester.
NS2 is a game where Playing to Win does not necessarily equate to Playing for Fun. I’ll give you some examples:
Players that prioritize their K/D ratio above the team’s survival.
Players that shoot every cyst or bite every power node.
Players that don’t want to build.
Players that don’t want to buy their fellow marines a shotgun if they had 100 res, or maybe they want to keep their own guns they bought and won’t tell anyone where they dropped their gun.
Players that don’t want to buy mines, or want to save for Exos.
Players that simply don't cooperate.
Saving Money. Killing things. Seeing extractors go Kaboom. One’s own survival. These are all instincts that we have to occasionally let go of in order to win a match. Is it possible that a player will be given an order that denies that player his very instinctual nature? Should NS2 continue to penalize these players that follow these instincts, or can they perhaps…be rewarded for following them, in a separate ruleset?
3. One skill size does not fit all. Is NS2 actually "Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master"?
Fades aren’t easy to learn. As a khammander, I have never recommended a newbie to buy a fade. You know why. THEY DIE. Newbs can’t bunnyhop, so instead we have Walljump. Easy to learn, but not nearly as difficult to master. Bunnyhopping is difficult to master. Is there a middle ground that fits Easy to Learn and Difficult to Master? Why bother finding one? Just give us two rulesets.
4.On top of arguing for two rulesets, I'll make a fictional proposition for a ruleset. Don't worry about how imbalanced my rules may seem, it's the idea that counts. You don't have to disagree or agree with any of these individual rules, but it is my hope that you see the potential for having two separate modes.
Competitive Mode:
Bunnyhopping is in.
Friendly Fire is On- Friendly Fire is potentially very strategical. Imagine a grenadier deciding on whether or not to shoot a skulk biting an extractor. FF can be devastating and falls in line with tactical play, yet we don't have it, mainly because of potential pub abuse. It would only take one marine to destroy his whole base. Wait, PUB abuse?
Glancing Blows is Off- Skulk bites should be difficult to get, yet rewarding when they happen.
Devour is On- Because we're favoring tactical gameplay over fun.
No kill tracker- You can't read who died anymore. Situational Awareness becomes harder for both sides, and voice communication becomes essential. This would be horrible for pub play, but good for competitive.
Alien Commander can give orders just like the Marine Commander can by being able to select individual aliens.- There's absolutely no reason why a khammander can't order around a player in competitive play. Pub play YES, comp play no.
Pub Play Mode:
Cysts cost 2 res- Marines are rewarded for following their instincts. Destroying anything bad is always good.
Power Nodes cost 5 res to put up again, and cause actual darkness instead of red emergency lights.
Infestation is slightly harder to walk through, with an audible cue that you're stepping in some gross stuff- Intuitively, a marine is never going into alien territory alone if you make it really scary. Reward players for following their intuition, and build the game around that intuition.
Gorges can create 9 hydras, as well as one crag/shift/shade structure if the appropriate hive is already in play.- As evident in tower defense games, players have been asking for a return to the old gorge. The reason is simple... building stuff is fun.
Major sentry buff- Flayra says that he doesn't want the game to turn into a Player versus Environment game. That's fine in competitive play, but a lot of players absolutely love either putting them up, or taking them down.
Medic role for Marines. Allow them to heal each other. Some players love being support and always choose the medic class. So give them a medic gun that replaces your pistol.
HMGs are in. They cost 20 res, act as Level 4 LMGs with a 150 round clip and a lower ROF- Because screw logic, we want big guns.
Blink repels you off of walls, making it easier to blink in and out of the room.- Lower the skill barrier for fades and lerks to be consistent with skill level for other races.
The stomp animation no longer stops an Onos, so Onii can kill instead of being team players.- Role confusion. Onii want to kill, not support.
I know that a different thread is already up in general, but I believe that the thread has been so derailed and doesn't focus on the issue. Mod's discretion of course.
NS2 caters to a very specific audience- One focused on cooperative teamwork and mastering skills. A game where leveling up, k/d ratios, building things, and destroying them is thrown out the window in favor of a strategical decision. We don't have to deny this alternate style of gameplay if we can build a different ruleset around it. I ask of you: Is it possible that the community will benefit from having two rulesets?
1. NS2 is a special case.
The game is different. It's asymmetrical in not only the races, but individual player skill as well. Take Battlefield for instance. If you're not good at being a sniper, you don't have to be one. An NS2 player is regularly put into situations where he'll have to play as something he might not be good at- ie Fade, Skulk. Alien/Marine win rates will be different, and we can attribute this to either player skill or player count scaling, and don't forget, a player's skill with specific classes.
There's no other shooting game that has asymmetrical gameplay of one race versus another... except Left 4 Dead. L4D has a Normal mode and a Realism mode. Realism is basically balanced for competitive play, as competitive players are unable to have much impact on the survivors in normal mode. L4D has two modes, why can't NS2?
2. Competitive Fun versus Accessible Fun
Competitive players know that being at the right place at the right time is key in NS2. Would you rather shoot a grenade into a vent with two skulks hiding in it, or shoot a grenade at an almost dead harvester? Pubbers will go for the two skulks, but competitive players will take the harvester.
NS2 is a game where Playing to Win does not necessarily equate to Playing for Fun. I’ll give you some examples:
Players that prioritize their K/D ratio above the team’s survival.
Players that shoot every cyst or bite every power node.
Players that don’t want to build.
Players that don’t want to buy their fellow marines a shotgun if they had 100 res, or maybe they want to keep their own guns they bought and won’t tell anyone where they dropped their gun.
Players that don’t want to buy mines, or want to save for Exos.
Players that simply don't cooperate.
Saving Money. Killing things. Seeing extractors go Kaboom. One’s own survival. These are all instincts that we have to occasionally let go of in order to win a match. Is it possible that a player will be given an order that denies that player his very instinctual nature? Should NS2 continue to penalize these players that follow these instincts, or can they perhaps…be rewarded for following them, in a separate ruleset?
3. One skill size does not fit all. Is NS2 actually "Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master"?
Fades aren’t easy to learn. As a khammander, I have never recommended a newbie to buy a fade. You know why. THEY DIE. Newbs can’t bunnyhop, so instead we have Walljump. Easy to learn, but not nearly as difficult to master. Bunnyhopping is difficult to master. Is there a middle ground that fits Easy to Learn and Difficult to Master? Why bother finding one? Just give us two rulesets.
4.On top of arguing for two rulesets, I'll make a fictional proposition for a ruleset. Don't worry about how imbalanced my rules may seem, it's the idea that counts. You don't have to disagree or agree with any of these individual rules, but it is my hope that you see the potential for having two separate modes.
Competitive Mode:
Bunnyhopping is in.
Friendly Fire is On- Friendly Fire is potentially very strategical. Imagine a grenadier deciding on whether or not to shoot a skulk biting an extractor. FF can be devastating and falls in line with tactical play, yet we don't have it, mainly because of potential pub abuse. It would only take one marine to destroy his whole base. Wait, PUB abuse?
Glancing Blows is Off- Skulk bites should be difficult to get, yet rewarding when they happen.
Devour is On- Because we're favoring tactical gameplay over fun.
No kill tracker- You can't read who died anymore. Situational Awareness becomes harder for both sides, and voice communication becomes essential. This would be horrible for pub play, but good for competitive.
Alien Commander can give orders just like the Marine Commander can by being able to select individual aliens.- There's absolutely no reason why a khammander can't order around a player in competitive play. Pub play YES, comp play no.
Pub Play Mode:
Cysts cost 2 res- Marines are rewarded for following their instincts. Destroying anything bad is always good.
Power Nodes cost 5 res to put up again, and cause actual darkness instead of red emergency lights.
Infestation is slightly harder to walk through, with an audible cue that you're stepping in some gross stuff- Intuitively, a marine is never going into alien territory alone if you make it really scary. Reward players for following their intuition, and build the game around that intuition.
Gorges can create 9 hydras, as well as one crag/shift/shade structure if the appropriate hive is already in play.- As evident in tower defense games, players have been asking for a return to the old gorge. The reason is simple... building stuff is fun.
Major sentry buff- Flayra says that he doesn't want the game to turn into a Player versus Environment game. That's fine in competitive play, but a lot of players absolutely love either putting them up, or taking them down.
Medic role for Marines. Allow them to heal each other. Some players love being support and always choose the medic class. So give them a medic gun that replaces your pistol.
HMGs are in. They cost 20 res, act as Level 4 LMGs with a 150 round clip and a lower ROF- Because screw logic, we want big guns.
Blink repels you off of walls, making it easier to blink in and out of the room.- Lower the skill barrier for fades and lerks to be consistent with skill level for other races.
The stomp animation no longer stops an Onos, so Onii can kill instead of being team players.- Role confusion. Onii want to kill, not support.
I know that a different thread is already up in general, but I believe that the thread has been so derailed and doesn't focus on the issue. Mod's discretion of course.
NS2 caters to a very specific audience- One focused on cooperative teamwork and mastering skills. A game where leveling up, k/d ratios, building things, and destroying them is thrown out the window in favor of a strategical decision. We don't have to deny this alternate style of gameplay if we can build a different ruleset around it. I ask of you: Is it possible that the community will benefit from having two rulesets?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Unfortunately, there would be no way to force the Competitive rule set to be used only on password-protected clan servers. Both players and server admins will develop preferences regarding which rule set they like. As a result, some Pub servers will end up running the Pub rule set while other Pub servers end up running the Competitive rule set. This creates a rift in the community and makes it harder for players to find the right server to play on.
Battlefield 3, for example, can survive with it's two rule sets (Normal and Hardcore) because it has such an enormous player-base that there is always a good game available in your preferred rule set even in smaller territories. Natural Selection 2 would be ruined by multiple rule sets due to it's much more modest player-base.
I think we actually got a bit lucky with NS1. The weaknesses of alien res model kind of compensated for the challenges of marine public play and loads of other asymmetries drew the game into dozens of different directions. In practise both comp and pub games somehow ended up being somewhat balanced, but for very different reasons and both teams having different strengths and weaknesses in different styles of gameplay.
I don't think it's very reasonable to expect NS2 to magically hit a similar kind of harmony. However, I think we've got quite a lot of understanding on why things turned out the way they did in NS1. By using that knowledge it's probably possible to make some decent educated guesses on how NS2 could function better on various skill levels and playercounts.
There are zero explicit features in NS2 that cater to skilled players.
Everything is easy to master.
The easiest to perform acts are the most effective.
The most difficult acts to perform rely entirely on your opponent taking a nap and eating graham crackers.
Nothing needs to be done to appease new players in terms of approachable game mechanics.
If UWE doesn't put one out, you're more than capable of making your own balance mod for use on independently run servers. While I'd like one, I'm too lazy to make one myself.
If you aren't willing to do the mod yourself, either stop complaining or find someone that will. UWE is obviously not interested in a split rule-set at this time.
I disagree with separate rule sets, especially your suggestions.
Also, why would "Alien Commander can give orders just like the Marine Commander" in competition play? They have voice chat.
People talk about not wanting to see 'nerfs' on certain things since they suggest it will lower the skill ceiling in the game. Well that is the entire point behind an 'advanced' ruleset. You get to *RAISE* the skill ceiling to a level beyond what would ever have been allowed in the 'single' ruleset game at it stands now. So part of me wonders if these people are afraid of the challenge.
The only reason some people trott out against it is some BS line about 'splitting the community'. Firstly, the same people that would start on a 'normal ruleset' server would most likely graduate to an 'advanced ruleset' server after improving their gameplay. Having a second ruleset would allow 'advanced' players to get a challenging game without new or lower skilled players sinking the game.
Instead what happens is that any time anyone suggests a change to help new players in the game, it gets shot down by many of these same people who oppose an advanced ruleset. So to them, it's basically FIOFO to all the new players. Adapt or get lost. There are loads of titles that have advanced modes, and they get along just fine. I can't see how NS2 would be any different. It's a game folks. It's not a lifestyle.
In any case, to the OP, this is pretty much a wasted attempt since aside from battling those who throw a tantrum any time anyone suggests anything that 'changes' the game - the lead developer Charlie has said he "doesn't want to go this way". Hey, that's fine and I respect it if that's what he wants to do. His game, his vision.
Multiple rulesets will split the community and create a larger barrier of entry into the competitive scene of NS2.
Let's just take for an example from the OP - The competitive NS2 is vanilla NS2 + bunny hopping. Now imagine that you're a random pubber playing for months on vanilla servers. You're interested in taking your game to the next level and you start queueing up some gathers. OH WHAT THE F- WHY IS THAT SKULK MOVING SO FAST???
It's easy to understand why forcing players to learn new mechanics (or worse -- different) is going to make it hard for players to jump from one game type into another. It's like having someone who has only played combat to jump into vanilla NS2.
You do know your entire post was a strawman attack on idiots correct? I would love to say something more to counter what you said, but my first line covers it.
Anyways, another reason this is a terrible idea is that it artificially removes content from the game. Another reason that it is bad is that higher level players from the pub side would have such a stupid barrier of entity to get into the competitive play. High level favorite servers with a dedicated community is one of the best ways to get new players to be competitive but this is one of the things that would end up dieing, unless it just used competitive mode anyways. Then if higher level servers use competitive mode, what happens when the new players trained on the lesser mode joins? It is the same bloody thing. It also stands that pub mode would be unbalanced anyways. So any higher level pub players would ruin that game mode. The reason I say this, if pub mode is perfectly balanced for higher level players as well as new players, how is that any different than a normal bloody mode?
Blarg, you can write essays about how this is a bad idea and I don't have the time to do such a thing.
98 percent of competitive players want a kill count thing.
Not going to bother mentioning your many other bad ideas.
I think this is the strongest argument against an UWE supported separate ruleset. Having two rulesets would definitely harm a small userbase. But I don't think people are considering that there's a possibility that it would do good as well.
Left4Dead2 has a realism mode where you can kill your own teammates with half a clip. This is devastating for the survivor team. If everybody playing L4D2 was subject to that, they'd probably stop playing a lot faster... but they have two separate rulesets.
Even if you were right about the bunnyhopping idea, there's still a lot of other ideas like Friendly Fire in NS2 that would serve better for a competitive audience. Are there any good ideas in this thread that would do well for competitive play but bad for pub play, or vice versa? Can you come up with any yourself? Is it possible that by having these rulesets in place, we at first divide the community, but given some time the community will flourish because it's able to cater to a wider audience?
Friendly fire would be bad, imagine shooting skulks off your teammates, gg. Would imba way too much. Not to mention spores and bilebomb and spikes.
The competitive community actually experimented with this back in the beta. We had a few different "balance" mods which ranged from some simple number tweaks (something like HBZ's server), or the first incarnations of NS2b (dragon/grissi/eh's mod), to huge revamps of "problem" mechanics (the later NS2b version).
They split the community even within the competitive players. I recall a number of gathers where players had to be replaced because they refused to play on either the vanilla settings or the balance mod as opposed to the other.
The balance mods were not useless, though. They proved effective as a means to test changes and propagate ideas into a playable form. I'd bet that the beta balance mods' success are responsible for why we have flayra's balance mod today.
Every time this comes up we here the same tired refrain "it will split the community" - then I ask "how". After that I get one of two things. Either I hear crickets, or I get a lot of generic doublespeak that could be applied to ANY change of the game.
So let's hear it. Please, describe the apocalypse of an 'advanced ruleset' in NS2. How long would it take for NS2 to be destroyed by such a change? Weeks? Months?
You know what I would see happening? Not much different from what I see now in some servers where they say "no newbies" or "team play of be kicked" etc. People want a higher level of gameplay, and the same competitive players who advocate to make NS2 as tough as possible for new players, bristle at any suggestion that could make the game 'friendlier'. And yes, rulesets would do that, since the competitive folks wouldn't be cursing out the lesser skilled players like they do in almost every single game I play.
I've given out EIGHT copies of this game. You want to know how many are still playing?
Three.
Two of them didn't last a week since there is no training, the learning curve was too high, and they got yelled for their mistakes. One dropped out because their machine's performance made it unplayable even on the lowest settings. Lastly, two more dropped out because of 'game balance'. (it's more complicated than that, but to keep it short that will suffice.)
Of the remaining three, only 2 have actually 'caught on' and acclimated. The third is still trying to figure it out, since his play time is really limited. I don't know if he's going to bother. Even still, the two that did learn it aren't really impressed by the team balance issues, but they seem willing to wait it out.
That's from eight freaking copies.
I'd love to know how many copies of NS2 have been sold. I know they had 45,000 preorders, since that's how many free copies they gave out. So that's 90,000 copies of the game right there, before a single copy was sold post-launch. The infographic UWE posted said that at the end of the first week they had 144,000 copies in circulation. (including pre-orders, gift copies and post launch sales.) This doesn't include the period between then and the sale at Christmas, or the time since then. Let's use a very conservative number and say they are at 200,000 copies 'in the wild'.
How many people do you see actively playing on the servers? I think I recall that the highest number of active concurrent players was in the 1500ish range. NS2stats shows ~2500 unique players a day on the servers that participate in that project. For the sake of argument, lets quadruple it. Call it 10,000 players who actually play a game of NS2 on any regular basis. That's a retention rate of 5%. Now I'm not suggesting that 100% of people who buy a game will keep playing it indefinitely, not at all.
However, that's a low number this early in the life of the game. If you have 200,000 copies out there and 190,000 people have stopped playing for some reason, then maybe it would be wise to address those reasons.
You fret about the 'competitive community', but I hate to break it to them, if people won't keep playing, they certainly won't be joining any NS2 gaming leagues. When you look at the fact that NS2 has no training mechanism, it makes sense that you would want to ease people into the game so they can acclimate to it. Instead, some feel that it's better to throw the new players into the pool and they'll sink or swim.
The problem is that a heck of a lot of them are 'drowning'.
People are set in their opinions, and that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. However ask yourself if your objection is primarily based on concerns about the game, or concerns about the 'competitive community'. If it is the latter, then people better wake up to the fact that without being able to retain players there won't be any 'competitive community'. Honestly, it seems like some people are quite willing to cut off their nose to spite their face. Why, I really don't know.
What I do know is that the numbers of servers I see on a daily basis is dropping. What started off as over a thousand, is now under five hundred. At least when that number drops to 25 or less people can sleep soundly knowing that the community of the few hundred people left playing wasn't "split".
Clearly the fault of NS2's low player count and player retention is the fault of the competitive community. If we just didn't have any competitive players than I'm sure there would be 8 million casual players like in WoW. Thanks for making the greatest fps game ever. All we had to do was get rid of the most dedicated players!
This isn't about competitive community. It's about the 'average Joe' who buys the game and then stops playing. If you can't retain players, then the GAME has problems - no matter who you are. You have a game with NO training mechanism that has a HUGE learning curve, and yet people want to keep the skill level high and still retain players? Maybe it's because I work in the industry that this doesn't make any sense to me, but either way, people have to know that the harder you make it for players to 'jump in' the fewer you will retain. The best games are easy to learn and hard to master.
Like I said, people are entitled to their opinion, but as I noted above, I have yet to have anyone give me a solid concrete breakdown of exactly what they think will happen if a second ruleset was added. I'm not holding my breath either.
You imply it throughout your entire post (and frequently in other posts). When you're arguing a point and you say "eight of my friends have quit this game" in the middle of your argument, then you're effectively saying "either of my friends quit because of this."
They're the only evolution(besides Onos) that I actually do well with.
Because if not... I'mma go eat cookies instead of reading all this.
Wouldn't Combat/Faded/Classic/etc cover new players?
Even if the OP's changes were implemented, it's still asymmetrical team game. The game will still have balance issues at the pub level. For near perfect balance, you'd need MvM or AvA on symmetrical maps.
Also, the game does have a training mechanism for aliens and for commanders. The learning curve for not very high, compared to other FPS and especially RTS games. Red Orchestra 2 is more complex early on then NS2.
For NS2 we need to be 'in the ballpark', which I really hope will come soon. When it was 51/49 for aliens at launch I thought to myself "impressive" they could balance it that close to the line. Then it started to drift, despite no changes being made. Now we're at about a 62% win rate for aliens. However, back to the issue.
One point behind the two rulesets, based on the opinions I've seen as well as my own, is that the 'normal' ruleset will take the pressure off players. In many games it's a pressure cooker, and I've heard 'pros' (this is NOT a reference to competitive players, it's a generic reference to anyone who thinks 'they know better') who are cursing out people for the smallest things. It's clear the people are still new to the game, but that doesn't seem to matter to some people who make a big deal about it.
This is the same reason why so many people (new or not) favour the larger servers. Despite balance being harder to maintain, one key reason people choose these servers is since they become less important as an individual player. If they mess something up there is usually someone else who can cover. If they don't know which way Skylights is when someone calls out that it's under attack, another person is usually on the way too. It's that margin for error that appeals to many players. That is just one aspect that could be addressed by a second ruleset. The 'pros' could push tactics to the limit on 'advanced' ruleset servers, while new & 'casual' players on 'normal' servers won't be as pressured - and won't get yelled at because they couldn't figure out how to buy a welder. (And don't anyone bring up the 'rookie friendly' server tag, since it's meaningless. I hear the verbal abuse equally across them all.)
Explore mode is hardly training. I played around in explore mode, and while it can help acclimate you to the interface, it teaches you NOTHING about how to command.
While explore mode is definitely better than nothing, this is the one huge Achilles heel in NS2. I know their resources were limited, but that doesn't diminish the fact that people are having a heck of a time learning the more subtle aspects of the game. Meanwhile there seems to be no shortage of impatience for these people, despite reminders from others that some people are still new to the game.