Frankly I'm shaking my head at how people could be arguing against putting more fun into the game - since that is what this is about - FUN. Concede is not fun - large scale conflicts with end-game tech on both sides is fun.
if that's why you play NS2 you must be miserable. the whole game is designed around making those situations rare...
but now we see the point of this thread.
just make a mod that achieves this. (i.e. full techs unlocked, lots of resources). it will work 100x better than any random stuff you force into the base game
I think you should to move on to another game Savant, don't try to change the NS brand into another call of duty.
I not trying to change the game, I'm trying to change it BACK to when it was fun and had an endgame. The addition of concede has sucked a lot of fun out of the game.
So what do you make of my suggestion? Or shall I post it in the ideas and suggestions forum in its own thread where it doesn't get buried by a load of talk about concede and the end game (which I think is actually off topic here...)?
I think you should to move on to another game Savant, don't try to change the NS brand into another call of duty.
I not trying to change the game, I'm trying to change it BACK to when it was fun and had an endgame. The addition of concede has sucked a lot of fun out of the game.
There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself.
Thats why concede exists in "snowbally" games and thats why it is here to stay.
@Savant Yes, many of the points you make are the points I want you to make; make the game mechanics so that end-game tech can be reached and used for comeback even when things are not going your way. I may not agree with this, but it makes for an interesting discussion and I totally understand your point of view. YES, conceding is a symptom just like you said! But very often your posts are directed at the feature itself, not the underlying reasons for people conceding. The bottom line is that you cannot force people to play, and as such concede only functions as a feature to make ending a frustrating game more convenient. It would happen anyway with people either f4ing or leaving the server, but this way you won't kill a server or ruin a team's comeback with nothing but your own opinion by making the teams unbalanced via f4. Stick to the reasons why people concede and not to the concession feature itself and we will have a meaningful conversation.
People don't play because they like welding stuff - or building extractors - or any of the other inane RTS elements, they play because they want to use these cool weapons/units to kill opponents.
This seems to be something that's shadowing your reasoning all the time. If you really think this way, then I'm sorry to say that NS2 isn't a game for you. For the 10 years I played NS1, all the people I got to know and who actually sticked to playing it played it because of the hybrid-nature of the game, i.e. the inclusion of RTS-elements. In other words, people played NS1 to weld stuff, build extractors and the other 'inane' RTS elements in it. Combat maps served as an intermission from all the normal playing and even in the lead designer's own visions was intended as a TRAINING MODE for the actual game (source needed, but I know this to be true). If you really think that people play Natural Selection just to shoot stuff, well, I've got another thing coming for you.
Frankly I'm shaking my head at how people could be arguing against putting more fun into the game - since that is what this is about - FUN. Concede is not fun - large scale conflicts with end-game tech on both sides is fun.
Why can't building extractors and welding be fun? You're too stuck up in your own idea that only shooting things and watching things die is fun. I played World of Warcraft PvE for a year as a healer, and as such I never killed anything in raids. But it was still FUN. Nobody needed to stick a sword in my hand and tell me to slay beasts to make it more fun for me.
I think you should to move on to another game Savant, don't try to change the NS brand into another call of duty.
I not trying to change the game, I'm trying to change it BACK to when it was fun and had an endgame. The addition of concede has sucked a lot of fun out of the game.
Here again you're making the point that concede is the one sucking the fun out of the game, and not the problems making people to concede. You keep trying to tell us that you have no problem with it, but every other post you keep bashing it. The same problems causing people to concede now existed before the feature existed, but you say the game was more fun then? So your problem aren't the underlying reasons that make the game unforgiving after all, but that vote concede is the one sucking the fun out of the game?
Test, one, two... Anyone listening? this thread is now so far off topic...
This thread is rather on-topic, though it trying to drift towards a discussion about concede all the time, which I'm trying to prevent.
But about your idea: On the top of my head I can't really say how your implementation would work, but it would be rather unintuitive in the very least. Would this residual res only flow in the early game, or during the entirety of the game?
I could see it resulting in a loss of incentive to destroy marine buildings (other than extractors) and only boosting the FPS part of the game (which Savant would most likely like, but not me).
So what do you make of my suggestion? Or shall I post it in the ideas and suggestions forum in its own thread where it doesn't get buried by a load of talk about concede and the end game (which I think is actually off topic here...)?
Off the top of my head, that was slowing down the early game right? Frankly, I'm all for anything (balanced) that will provide more stable gameplay. As for how it might work in practice, it's hard to predict since sometimes major changes do nothing and minor ones have huge impact.
While the early game is important, there is only a segment of games that are lost early because of destroyed structures. So I'm not sure what the impact would be. I'm game to test anything (on a beta server) should someone want to try.
There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself. Thats why concede exists in "snowbally" games
That's not why it exists. Read the patch notes when it was implemented.
I agree with you, "There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself." - so instead of everyone quitting, how about we change things so people *CAN* defend themselves? That's what I have been saying all along, but far too many people here have defeatist ideologies which don't let them see past 'I quit'.
@Savant Yes, many of the points you make are the points I want you to make; make the game mechanics so that end-game tech can be reached and used for comeback even when things are not going your way. I may not agree with this, but it makes for an interesting discussion and I totally understand your point of view. YES, conceding is a symptom just like you said! But very often your posts are directed at the feature itself, not the underlying reasons for people conceding.
Sadly that is out of response to those who keep suggesting that my post is some means to remove concede from the game, despite my repeated claims otherwise.
The bottom line is that you cannot force people to play, and as such concede only functions as a feature to make ending a frustrating game more convenient.
I agree 100% and I said so in earlier threads that were created to advocate for removing concede.
My issue isn't (and has never been) about *IF* people concede, it's about *HOW OFTEN* it happens.
Combat maps served as an intermission from all the normal playing and even in the lead designer's own visions was intended as a TRAINING MODE for the actual game
Actually combat mode was created as a way to play with small numbers of people to fill servers - at which point people would transition into a 'normal' game. Then they found people liked it - LOTS of people liked it. In NS2 the devs said they would NOT be creating a combat mode, and yet it was the first game mod created by the community. There's a reason for that.
Why can't building extractors and welding be fun?
Hmmmm... Weld? Stand with welder out, press M1. Build? Stand with build tool out and press M1. Am I missing the fun? By all means fill me in.
Yeah building and welding has a role to play, but it's a means to an end. Let me use a very basic comparison to TF2 with respect to the game mechanic. I say welding isn't fun. Well in TF2 people have to stand beside a cart to push it along some rails. Not fun. However the game is fun because of the conflict pushing that cart will create. Same for building/welding. I have NEVER heard anyone say "Yeah! I get to weld stuff!" If you have a video of this, please link it for me because I GOT to see that. No, what is fun is the conflict created by building that building.
Building a phase gate isn't fun. The conflict created from building that phase gate *IS* fun.
The same problems causing people to concede now existed before the feature existed, but you say the game was more fun then?
Yes. Why? Because it was much harder to end a game before concede. Aliens can't recycle, and F4 only works if you get enough people.
Concede made it so that all you have to do to end the game is click a couple buttons. That ease is why we have no endgame now. However, despite concede sucking a lot of fun out of the game, it's not the root of the problem. It's a symptom.
Just because I want to eliminate the symptom, doesn't mean I want to eliminate the feature. I would much rather have concede be one of these things that rarely gets used, so that people can have fun playing the game. The problem is that we have so little forgiveness that people want to quit at the drop of the hat.
It would be nice if the player who is commander( and has been more than 50% of the current game) could "resign" and end the match. Not in the first 5-10min, but after that. Commander is the player who knows if his team has any chance left.
Sadly that is out of response to those who keep suggesting that my post is some means to remove concede from the game, despite my repeated claims otherwise.
You cannot claim that you don't want to remove it in one post, and say how concede sucks the fun out of a game and you want the game back into a state it was before concede was implemented in the next without acknowledging that people might point this out to you.
Actually combat mode was created as a way to play with small numbers of people to fill servers - at which point people would transition into a 'normal' game. Then they found people liked it - LOTS of people liked it. In NS2 the devs said they would NOT be creating a combat mode, and yet it was the first game mod created by the community. There's a reason for that.
Combat was still played a lot less than vanilla, despite combat being official, and usually functioned as a no-brainer relief from all the 'serious' ns-gaming. I would venture to say it serves the same purpose in NS2. I still don't believe any people buy NS2 because they want to shoot at things, and if they do, I'm pretty sure those are the people who stop playing altogether after a while.
Hmmmm... Weld? Stand with welder out, press M1. Build? Stand with build tool out and press M1. Am I missing the fun? By all means fill me in.
Stop making strawmen. Shoot? Stand with a rifle, press M1 until something dies. Commander? Look at the map and randomly drop a few things and hope someone else wins the game for you. Yes, you are missing the fun. The fun isn't as much in the action itself but in the sense of accomplishment, at least for me and a lot of people I know. A lot of people questioned why to play PvE in WoW, especially as a healer, and that's for the same reasons.
Because it was much harder to end a game before concede. Aliens can't recycle, and F4 only works if you get enough people.
Concede made it so that all you have to do to end the game is click a couple buttons. That ease is why we have no endgame now.
These arguments are pretty weak. Why is conceding easier than f4? Are you saying that conceding works even if you don't get enough people to agree with you? Why is it a GOOD thing that games were much harder to end? You know you have won and still have to go through the motions. You know you have lost and still have to be the punching bag of the opposing team for a while longer.
Does end game, in your opinion, mean that one team gets to stomp the other with overpowered tech? Because what the concede function is doing right now is preventing this from happening. It's certainly not preventing an interesting end-game where both teams are vying for victory.
There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself. Thats why concede exists in "snowbally" games
That's not why it exists. Read the patch notes when it was implemented.
I agree with you, "There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself." - so instead of everyone quitting, how about we change things so people *CAN* defend themselves? That's what I have been saying all along, but far too many people here have defeatist ideologies which don't let them see past 'I quit'.
There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself. Thats why concede exists in "snowbally" games
That's not why it exists. Read the patch notes when it was implemented.
I agree with you, "There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself." - so instead of everyone quitting, how about we change things so people *CAN* defend themselves? That's what I have been saying all along, but far too many people here have defeatist ideologies which don't let them see past 'I quit'.
I absolutely agree that the losing team shouldn't be rewarded. By reducing the severity of the slippery slope, you still reward the winning team, just not by quite as much of a margin as at present. The knock on of that means that a winning team has to chain together a few more victories to get the same degree of advantage compared with the current build.
My suggestion of recovering a portion of res from destroyed buildings is designed to still keep it worthwhile destroying buildings, but for these not to constitute quite as much of a setback on their own as they currently do.
I absolutely agree that the losing team shouldn't be rewarded. By reducing the severity of the slippery slope, you still reward the winning team, just not by quite as much of a margin as at present. The knock on of that means that a winning team has to chain together a few more victories to get the same degree of advantage compared with the current build.
My suggestion of recovering a portion of res from destroyed buildings is designed to still keep it worthwhile destroying buildings, but fit these not to constitute quite as much of a setback on their own as they currently do.
I think this idea is kinda cool, but it may promote bad play in the long run.
Hmmmm... Weld? Stand with welder out, press M1. Build? Stand with build tool out and press M1. Am I missing the fun? By all means fill me in.
Yeah building and welding has a role to play, but it's a means to an end. Let me use a very basic comparison to TF2 with respect to the game mechanic. I say welding isn't fun. Well in TF2 people have to stand beside a cart to push it along some rails. Not fun. However the game is fun because of the conflict pushing that cart will create. Same for building/welding. I have NEVER heard anyone say "Yeah! I get to weld stuff!" If you have a video of this, please link it for me because I GOT to see that. No, what is fun is the conflict created by building that building.
Building a phase gate isn't fun. The conflict created from building that phase gate *IS* fun.
Except how many people play Engineers in TF2? So many that many servers place a hard limit on how many Engys can be on a team. Many people (myself included) enjoy playing "Healers" in MMOs; which many people tout as "boring". I promise you it is anything but boring when the fighting starts.
No, building things, and repairing things in NS2 is NOT boring. Plenty of people enjoy the support role; even back in NS1. I was a perma gorge in NS1 constantly building hives, upgrades, strategically building healing stations, blocking off access to areas of the map. It wasn't because the gorge was some massive killing machine. It's because it was fun. Fun to control the map, fun to accelerate my team's resource accumulation, fun to get the tools into the other players hands on my team faster than the other team got them.
If NS2 was "first and foremost" an FPS game it should be pretty easy to ignore the RTS elements and easily win the game. Try only killing other players in NS2 and not killing structures or building resources or other tech and see how far it gets you. The bottom line is your team needs people to do the "boring" stuff as much as it needs xXxLeetoMarineRambo420xXx to kill everything on the screen. The RTS portion is intrinsic to the games success, and simply cannot be relegated to a lesser status because of a design statement.
More on topic, I agree that concede votes happen too quickly, but I view this as a behavior in the gamers than a failing on the part of the system. It directly correlates to the amount of effort required to stage a comeback, not necessarily the chance of the comeback working. I think people concede when they want the team stack in their favor next round; not that they have been played in the corner. I would like to see changes that make the earlier part of the game a little less slippery of a slope while the late game getting slightly more slippery; but at the same time I also realize that as long as people are playing the game they will likely take the path of least resistance to get out of a bad situation and typically that is conceding. How to change that is a great question.
Building a phase gate isn't fun. The conflict created from building that phase gate *IS* fun.
Except how many people play Engineers in TF2? So many that many servers place a hard limit on how many Engys can be on a team. Many people (myself included) enjoy playing "Healers" in MMOs; which many people tout as "boring".
...
No, building things, and repairing things in NS2 is NOT boring. Plenty of people enjoy the support role; even back in NS1.
That's the thing though, there is no real support role for marines. They are all expected to do 'support role' type activities despite the fact they may not want to fill a support role.
You brought up TF2. I consider myself a lightweight at only ~1350 hours played (no idle) and my top class is medic at 467 hours, and number 3 is engy at 215 hours. I'm all for playing support classes - WHEN IT SUITS ME. There are many times when I really don't want to bother. It's why some games I'll go gorge and others I won't. The problem is that marines are all expected to take on a support role, and many do NOT like it. So yeah, they're not gonna be jumping for joy every time they have to stand looking at an inanimate object while they press and hold M1.
The bottom line is your team needs people to do the "boring" stuff as much as it needs xXxLeetoMarineRambo420xXx to kill everything on the screen. The RTS portion is intrinsic to the games success, and simply cannot be relegated to a lesser status because of a design statement.
It's not a design statement, it's a design principle. The RTS elements are a means to an end, but they are not what defines NS2. It is the FPS combat that defines this game, and it is the FPS combat that is used to sell this game.
When NS2 goes on special, what images are potential customers treated to? A picture of an harvester? Or maybe a marine with a build tool out repairing a power node?
Uh, No.
The first picture on the NS2 store page is of an Onos barrelling down a crowded hallway towards a few marines with guns blazing. Of the 17 images for the game, 14 show FPS combat, 2 show the top-down commander view and 1 is a look at a hive room. No images of welders. No images of extractors or harvesters. Here is the first sentence of the game description.
"Natural Selection 2 is an immersive, multiplayer shooter that pits aliens against humans in a strategic and action-packed struggle for survival."
I don't know why people want to deny the overwhelming FPS elements in NS. We had the same discussion in NS1 and Charlie said the same back then as he did now, this is an FPS first and foremost, with some RTS elements. If we want to address the issues then we need to address them based on what the game is, not on what it is not.
The vast majority of people buy and play this game to kill stuff. While the game is obviously more complicated than that, we can't deny that the FPS elements are what sell this game.
More on topic, I agree that concede votes happen too quickly, but I view this as a behavior in the gamers than a failing on the part of the system. It directly correlates to the amount of effort required to stage a comeback, not necessarily the chance of the comeback working.
Ehh... I can see your point and it does have some merit, but I think you're trying to split hairs here.
The chance a team has to make a comeback will likely determine the amount of effort that is needed to execute that comeback. Marines without advanced weapons (since they lost them in a base push) aren't going to have much of a chance to make a comeback when they are facing Onos and Fade with stock weapons. While the chance isn't nil, it is also true that it will take more effort to pull off a win. Since the chances are slim that increases the level of teamwork and skill needed to pull off a win. So yeah it takes more effort, but it takes more effort because the chances are slim to begin with. (imho anyway)
I would like to see changes that make the earlier part of the game a little less slippery of a slope while the late game getting slightly more slippery; but at the same time I also realize that as long as people are playing the game they will likely take the path of least resistance to get out of a bad situation and typically that is conceding. How to change that is a great question.
I think if you give people a CHANCE to win, they'll take it. Give them something to play for and they'll play.
Even if it is one of those 'self-destruct' scenarios that require the stronger team to finish the game in a set time or be destroyed. If players (who felt the game was lost) could trigger an end-game that would end the game in 5-10 minutes, and the end game would be repeated assaults from the enemy while they hung on for dear life, I think people would hang around for that. It would be fast-paced intense combat and they would have a chance to win in the end.
Take a turtle from a couple months ago and imagine yourself in it. Now imagine you could trigger a vote to use a 'charred earth' style weapon to end the game in 10 minutes. Your team only has to survive. The other team needs to use all their power to finish the game, while your team needs to do everything they can do to survive. Would knowing the game will end one way or another in 10 minutes (or 5) not make that final period of battle an intense fun fight?
That's the kind of thing that can change the way people think. While it's only one example, it is something that people would play for. Like I said, give people a reason to play and they'll play. If there is no (realistic) hope of winning, why expect people to play? That's what needs to be addressed right now.
That's the thing though, there is no real support role for marines. They are all expected to do 'support role' type activities despite the fact they may not want to fill a support role.
You brought up TF2. I consider myself a lightweight at only ~1350 hours played (no idle) and my top class is medic at 467 hours, and number 3 is engy at 215 hours. I'm all for playing support classes - WHEN IT SUITS ME. There are many times when I really don't want to bother. It's why some games I'll go gorge and others I won't. The problem is that marines are all expected to take on a support role, and many do NOT like it. So yeah, they're not gonna be jumping for joy every time they have to stand looking at an inanimate object while they press and hold M1.
Here is the good news, you don't need everyone to fill a support role. Back in the day, we would often have a "base bitch"; one player on the marine team designated (usually a volunteer) to hang around the base at start to build important structures, and later hop between bases via the PG to keep things repaired and built and watch for ninja attacks. A similar thing can happen today, but is less needed with MACs.
The bottom line is your team needs people to do the "boring" stuff as much as it needs xXxLeetoMarineRambo420xXx to kill everything on the screen. The RTS portion is intrinsic to the games success, and simply cannot be relegated to a lesser status because of a design statement.
It's not a design statement, it's a design principle. The RTS elements are a means to an end, but they are not what defines NS2. It is the FPS combat that defines this game, and it is the FPS combat that is used to sell this game.
You can't have RTS elements exist in a vacuum. If they are going to be meaningful, as they are in NS2, they need weight. If they have weight they are going to need attention, despite what the design statement principle states. You can't have an FPS/RTS hybrid and remove the RTS portion when it makes people do something other than "shoot the aliens".
When NS2 goes on special, what images are potential customers treated to? A picture of an harvester? Or maybe a marine with a build tool out repairing a power node?
Uh, No.
The first picture on the NS2 store page is of an Onos barrelling down a crowded hallway towards a few marines with guns blazing. Of the 17 images for the game, 14 show FPS combat, 2 show the top-down commander view and 1 is a look at a hive room. No images of welders. No images of extractors or harvesters. Here is the first sentence of the game description.
"Natural Selection 2 is an immersive, multiplayer shooter that pits aliens against humans in a strategic and action-packed struggle for survival."
To me it sounds as if the advertising is misrepresenting the whole of the game. I've not seen an advertising for Starcraft the only shows the first couple of minutes of a match where the only action is building workers and making them harvest. You wouldn't argue that it needs to be removed from SC2 because it wasn't in the ads would you?
I don't know why people want to deny the overwhelming FPS elements in NS. We had the same discussion in NS1 and Charlie said the same back then as he did now, this is an FPS first and foremost, with some RTS elements. If we want to address the issues then we need to address them based on what the game is, not on what it is not.
The vast majority of people buy and play this game to kill stuff. While the game is obviously more complicated than that, we can't deny that the FPS elements are what sell this game.
I bought it because of everything other than the FPS elements; I'm sure I wasn't alone. The FPS elements are the same old same old; click mouse -> gib player. This hasn't really changed since Rise of the Triads. It is the RTS aspects that make this game unique. Casting parts of it aside because it has FPS elements in the advertising is doing a disservice to people who enjoy NS2 because of the RTS elements. There are plenty of FPS games out there with no annoying RTS elements. If RTS elements hamper someone's enjoyment of NS2, they can go play one of the infinite number of FPS games out there; or play combat.
More on topic, I agree that concede votes happen too quickly, but I view this as a behavior in the gamers than a failing on the part of the system. It directly correlates to the amount of effort required to stage a comeback, not necessarily the chance of the comeback working.
Ehh... I can see your point and it does have some merit, but I think you're trying to split hairs here.
The chance a team has to make a comeback will likely determine the amount of effort that is needed to execute that comeback. Marines without advanced weapons (since they lost them in a base push) aren't going to have much of a chance to make a comeback when they are facing Onos and Fade with stock weapons. While the chance isn't nil, it is also true that it will take more effort to pull off a win. Since the chances are slim that increases the level of teamwork and skill needed to pull off a win. So yeah it takes more effort, but it takes more effort because the chances are slim to begin with. (imho anyway)
The point I was trying to make is that it is infinitely easier to concede than it is to make ANY type of comeback. The path of least resistance for your average gamer today is in this order: Concede->F4->Disconnect->Organize a comeback. Since we all agree you can't force a person to play a game they don't want to play, it will always be this way. I'm not splitting hairs here, I truly believe this is the state of gaming today, and it saddens me.
I would like to see changes that make the earlier part of the game a little less slippery of a slope while the late game getting slightly more slippery; but at the same time I also realize that as long as people are playing the game they will likely take the path of least resistance to get out of a bad situation and typically that is conceding. How to change that is a great question.
I think if you give people a CHANCE to win, they'll take it. Give them something to play for and they'll play.
Even if it is one of those 'self-destruct' scenarios that require the stronger team to finish the game in a set time or be destroyed. If players (who felt the game was lost) could trigger an end-game that would end the game in 5-10 minutes, and the end game would be repeated assaults from the enemy while they hung on for dear life, I think people would hang around for that. It would be fast-paced intense combat and they would have a chance to win in the end.
Take a turtle from a couple months ago and imagine yourself in it. Now imagine you could trigger a vote to use a 'charred earth' style weapon to end the game in 10 minutes. Your team only has to survive. The other team needs to use all their power to finish the game, while your team needs to do everything they can do to survive. Would knowing the game will end one way or another in 10 minutes (or 5) not make that final period of battle an intense fun fight?
That's the kind of thing that can change the way people think. While it's only one example, it is something that people would play for. Like I said, give people a reason to play and they'll play. If there is no (realistic) hope of winning, why expect people to play? That's what needs to be addressed right now.
Aside from the problem of "Marines being more fun to lose on" (which has been the case since NS1), I would love to see some mini end game tried. I just don't see the Aliens winning many of these games because the marine turtle is so strong.
I think it's more helpful to think about it like this. Games with winner/loser end states require mechanisms that push the game state towards such outcomes. In ns2 these are divided into either FPS, or RTS power. FPS play (dynamic progression) allows RTS play to lock in power (static progression) and give it back to FPS play. FPS play also defends the power locked in by RTS play.
For simplicity, power progression is passed along something like this,
FPS(1) -> RTS -> FPS(2).
(I would also talk more about unhealthy RTS power feedback looping in ns2, but that would be tldr).
What gliss and many others are correctly getting at is that the only real solution to a lack of 'forgiveness' is in fact to empower and reward FPS effort (most tangibly represented as ground player 'skill' among other things) relative to RTS. Buffing or adding things on the RTS side in order to achieve the same goal tends to lead only to artificial and predictable gimmicks, longer ping pong stalemates, and less long term fun due to player disempowerment. Simply adding or buffing RTS power is the hallmark suggestion of people who don't truly understand ns2 gameplay.
e.g. Fast spawns empower RTS and disempower FPS by causing FPS power to artificially approach the respective RTS power. (Imagine what happens if we slowly keep increasing spawn rates to infinity). The end result being the team with more RTS power tending to more likely eventually brickwall the other team into a win with less risk.
What you are seeing in current competitive match ups is infact this RTS power-transfer multiplier in the middle being both too immediate and too powerful, hence the cost increases in the balance mod. So while it may seem on the surface like FPS power is too determining and unforgiving, its only so because of the RTS side. The less relevant you make static power progression (RTS) relative to dynamic power progression (FPS), the more sensible comeback opportunity you get, and with less unforgiving brickwalling.
Yes there needs to be a healthy level of RTS power, but right now we have relatively too much of it.
I would completely agree.
So without breaking down every single interaction in the game, and changing the values all at a set value based on a ratio of difference (To simulate 30% less RTS impact, for example, by lowering the weapon upgrade impacts and everything else at an equal amount of change) - what could be a simpler way to accomplish this?
Slow the resource income rate again? idk..
There has to be something simple to adjust like that which would universally effect everything on an even plane by a set value or similar amount of change, giving less impact to RTS elements...
Frankly, the real problem isn't that the game is too unforgiving. Small mistakes and advantages are made all the time but games don't often snowball out of control on a single RT setup or lost, it's an accumulation of many mistakes and advantages. Even large mistakes can sometimes be recovered from. The real root cause is that the skill level of both teams is fairly constant throughout the game, so the longer it goes on, the more the difference in skill accumulates.
I'm sorry to stray away towards the conceede option once again, but I just wanted to say I've seen more alt+f4:ing than vote conceede when games are ending. I haven't played an aweful lot, but when I'm on a loosing team, often aliens, I see people leaving the team. Not just f4, but leaving the server and then autobalance gets on. This is just a completely awful way of enduring until the end and it would be much less painfull if everyone just used the conceede option than exit the server.
To have the same people stay until next map rotation would be more fun so you get a better feel towards the players skillset and their competence. If 3 or more is quitting the game I get tempted to do the same (alltho as of yet I haven't) cause it might just be quicker to find another server. The effect on me as a remaining player is just not good at all. If you could come up with something to prevent players from manually disconnecting from the server in a loosing game it would be more than awesome!
You can't have RTS elements exist in a vacuum. If they are going to be meaningful, as they are in NS2, they need weight.
Don't get me wrong here, you know I respect you and your opinion. I know we're really not that far apart. The difference is that I see the RTS elements as a means to an end. The RTS elements support the FPS nature of the game by providing the impetus for the conflict. Without it then it would basically be 'combat mode' - and that is not how I see NS2. In my case I see the RTS elements as a means to provide that conflict, to provide that objective, which the players then accomplish in a FPS environment.
Remember, the reason why this whole 'RTS' issue came up was because people were saying that because concede is common in RTS games, that this should mean that every game ending in concede in NS2 is all fine and dandy.
That's where I disagree.
There are *way* too many games ending in concede now, and in fact concede has become the norm. The reality is that concede is rare in FPS games, and my point was that NS2 is an FPS game first above all else. So my position is that concede should be the exception and not the rule. Yeah it has its place in the game, but as a last resort rarely used option to end a game that cannot come to a natural conclusion.
So I'm not dismissing the RTS elements of the game, I'm dismissing the suggestion that NS2 be treated as a RTS with respect to conceded games.
The point I was trying to make is that it is infinitely easier to concede than it is to make ANY type of comeback. The path of least resistance for your average gamer today is in this order: Concede->F4->Disconnect->Organize a comeback. Since we all agree you can't force a person to play a game they don't want to play, it will always be this way.
While I agree with your first point, I disagree with the second. It doesn't always have to be that way. I contend that if you give people something to play for, then they will play. Honestly, I believe that changes could be made that would make playing out a game a more attractive option. People don't like quitting. They quit because they feel they HAVE to, not because they want to. No one plays a game thinking that they'll want to quit before it is over. What we need to do is provide teams with a means to remain competitive in a game so that they don't feel that the game has become hopeless.
I agree with you in that there is a psychological aspect here, and that is something that needs to be addressed. People primarily concede because they feel morally defeated. They have lost hope and the outcome of the game is not in doubt. When the outcome isn't in doubt, it's no longer fun to play.
I've been in a few rare games when the *winning* team conceded since they knew they would win, but the marine team wanted to play a turtle-fest. The aliens had the whole map, they knew they won, but it ceased being fun.
If the developers wanted to put a dent in this, I think they could. There are plenty of ways that the game could give the 'underdog' a reason to continue playing. It could be something as simple as making tech linear. IE, once you research it, then it's yours for the remainder of the game. (IOW, if you need two hives for something, but you lose the second hive, then you keep whatever you had researched before you lost that second hive.) This keeps the team competitive, yet they are still 'weak' in the sense that they are now down to one hive and losing that hive will cost them the game.
Will this make it harder to win? To a certain extent, yes. But is that a bad thing? Frankly there is nothing more satisfying than a hard fought victory in my books. There are ways to keep people 'engaged' in the game so that concede doesn't look like the only option for them. In my example a team could still have a chance to recover a tech point and claw their way back. Why not give people that chance and see if they will take it?
On Veil Marines had control, Sub and Cargo. We needed one more concede. For a laugh I hopped into control. I took out the PG and the obs. We took control. Then we took sub sector.
It was the craziest comeback ever. However, it was probably because marines were lazy in that they;'d already presumed their win. I CBA to read this whole thread but I would certainly like to see the snowball effect be lessened.
@ SAVANT: until you lose your last chair, you should be able to recover. It will take team coordination and it also comes down to choice... do you take back the room you just lost or do you go and take one of their other locations?
I don't disagree with you here. The issue is that if you lose that tech point you become weaker - so recovering from that lost tech point just became a lot harder.
I do agree that coming back sometimes can be hard... Maybe the Marines can have some sort of nuke device they can use once per match if X amount of time has gone by in the match and decimate a tech point they want... but only if they have lost their second CP and it will cost them something big as well (lose their exos, and jetpacks).
@ SAVANT: until you lose your last chair, you should be able to recover. It will take team coordination and it also comes down to choice... do you take back the room you just lost or do you go and take one of their other locations?
I don't disagree with you here. The issue is that if you lose that tech point you become weaker - so recovering from that lost tech point just became a lot harder.
I do agree that coming back sometimes can be hard... Maybe the Marines can have some sort of nuke device they can use once per match if X amount of time has gone by in the match and decimate a tech point they want... but only if they have lost their second CP and it will cost them something big as well (lose their exos, and jetpacks).
Yeah call in an airstrike! Instantly annihilate all aliens!
I see too many people treating the "RTS element" of NS2 like its an all or nothing deal. With a FPS/RTS hybrid, there is going to be a gradient between the two. Minimizing the aspect of one in favor of the other doesn't mean removing it all together.
I also want to touch more on the psychological impact the lack of forgiveness has. When you have a team that finds themselves in a no-win situation, they become demoralized. While they concede, they don't do it with a smile on their face.
Instead they head to the ready room not having had a 'gg'.
Yet how many people can remember pre-concede games where it went down to the wire, with a glorious end-game battle that leaves the ready room buzzing afterwards? I sure can. Even the losing team players are hyped about the last game, since it was fun. That makes them all that more likely to play again.
However, many demoralized players quit the server after a concede. The loss via concede leaves a bad taste in their mouth, which drains their willingness to play again.
With wide-open settings - right now - I'm seeing only ~20 populated servers. (This is with performance set at 0, ping set at 600, and full server UNchecked.) There are roughly ~500 servers left after the free weekend, and now we're barely filling 20?
I don't want to sound alarmist, but this is something I find to be concerning. Despite near perfect 50/50 balance, people aren't having fun games. We would be wise not to let this continue.
Yet how many people can remember pre-concede games where it went down to the wire, with a glorious end-game battle that leaves the ready room buzzing afterwards? I sure can. Even the losing team players are hyped about the last game, since it was fun. That makes them all that more likely to play again.
However, many demoralized players quit the server after a concede. The loss via concede leaves a bad taste in their mouth, which drains their willingness to play again.
This is all anecdotal. In my experience, I've seen way more frustrated people yelling "finish it already, stop prolonging", going alt-tab, going f4 or leaving the server altogether when the other team is taking too long to finish a game gone sour.
Besides, these 'glorious end-game battles' only happen when the marines are the ones losing, since they can easily turtle their base. Whether or not you like this last stand is a matter of opinion. As an anecdotal evidence, I find that aliens usually hate these situations, since they don't know how to break the turtle and its frustrating attacking the same heavily fortified room and losing your lifeform over and over again.
I find myself very frustrated and unsatisfied when the opposing team concedes. Sometimes you invest forty, maybe fifty minutes in a game, only to have the losing team flip the board before you're able to enjoy your victory. I'd like to see a team that uses concede sent into spectator mode to watch you destroy their remaining structures. Perhaps the winning team gets twenty or thirty seconds to celebrate/decimate. I know it's not going to happen, but I can dream. As others have said, it is rare to see a round last to endgame these days due to concede, and it's very disappointing.
Many people here seem to define 'end game' as one team getting to research every tech and using their new toys to humiliate the opposing team. Do you really think like this? If one team is pushed into a situation where they concede, the match wouldn't have had a real end game even if they hadn't conceded.
"Pushed into a situation where they concede" = they were outplayed. Cop the loss like a man. A losing team shouldn't be rewarded with a quick escape, running away with their tail between their legs. A team I was playing against today used the concede function whilst still being in command of almost half the map!
You believe that a game should finish when a few players think they can no longer win.
I believe that a game should finish when a team can actually no longer win.
I don't think the concede function in and of itself is a bad thing (for example, I think there are some situations where a concession can dissolve a stalemate). But concede is being used far too readily.
Comments
if that's why you play NS2 you must be miserable. the whole game is designed around making those situations rare...
but now we see the point of this thread.
just make a mod that achieves this. (i.e. full techs unlocked, lots of resources). it will work 100x better than any random stuff you force into the base game
There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself.
Thats why concede exists in "snowbally" games and thats why it is here to stay.
However:
This seems to be something that's shadowing your reasoning all the time. If you really think this way, then I'm sorry to say that NS2 isn't a game for you. For the 10 years I played NS1, all the people I got to know and who actually sticked to playing it played it because of the hybrid-nature of the game, i.e. the inclusion of RTS-elements. In other words, people played NS1 to weld stuff, build extractors and the other 'inane' RTS elements in it. Combat maps served as an intermission from all the normal playing and even in the lead designer's own visions was intended as a TRAINING MODE for the actual game (source needed, but I know this to be true). If you really think that people play Natural Selection just to shoot stuff, well, I've got another thing coming for you.
Why can't building extractors and welding be fun? You're too stuck up in your own idea that only shooting things and watching things die is fun. I played World of Warcraft PvE for a year as a healer, and as such I never killed anything in raids. But it was still FUN. Nobody needed to stick a sword in my hand and tell me to slay beasts to make it more fun for me.
//edit:
Here again you're making the point that concede is the one sucking the fun out of the game, and not the problems making people to concede. You keep trying to tell us that you have no problem with it, but every other post you keep bashing it. The same problems causing people to concede now existed before the feature existed, but you say the game was more fun then? So your problem aren't the underlying reasons that make the game unforgiving after all, but that vote concede is the one sucking the fun out of the game?
Make up your mind.
This thread is rather on-topic, though it trying to drift towards a discussion about concede all the time, which I'm trying to prevent.
But about your idea: On the top of my head I can't really say how your implementation would work, but it would be rather unintuitive in the very least. Would this residual res only flow in the early game, or during the entirety of the game?
I could see it resulting in a loss of incentive to destroy marine buildings (other than extractors) and only boosting the FPS part of the game (which Savant would most likely like, but not me).
While the early game is important, there is only a segment of games that are lost early because of destroyed structures. So I'm not sure what the impact would be. I'm game to test anything (on a beta server) should someone want to try.
That's not why it exists. Read the patch notes when it was implemented.
I agree with you, "There is no fun in killing people who can't fight back, and it isn't fun being killed without any means to defend yourself." - so instead of everyone quitting, how about we change things so people *CAN* defend themselves? That's what I have been saying all along, but far too many people here have defeatist ideologies which don't let them see past 'I quit'.
Sadly that is out of response to those who keep suggesting that my post is some means to remove concede from the game, despite my repeated claims otherwise.
I agree 100% and I said so in earlier threads that were created to advocate for removing concede.
My issue isn't (and has never been) about *IF* people concede, it's about *HOW OFTEN* it happens.
Actually combat mode was created as a way to play with small numbers of people to fill servers - at which point people would transition into a 'normal' game. Then they found people liked it - LOTS of people liked it. In NS2 the devs said they would NOT be creating a combat mode, and yet it was the first game mod created by the community. There's a reason for that.
Hmmmm... Weld? Stand with welder out, press M1. Build? Stand with build tool out and press M1. Am I missing the fun? By all means fill me in.
Yeah building and welding has a role to play, but it's a means to an end. Let me use a very basic comparison to TF2 with respect to the game mechanic. I say welding isn't fun. Well in TF2 people have to stand beside a cart to push it along some rails. Not fun. However the game is fun because of the conflict pushing that cart will create. Same for building/welding. I have NEVER heard anyone say "Yeah! I get to weld stuff!" If you have a video of this, please link it for me because I GOT to see that. No, what is fun is the conflict created by building that building.
Building a phase gate isn't fun. The conflict created from building that phase gate *IS* fun.
Yes. Why? Because it was much harder to end a game before concede. Aliens can't recycle, and F4 only works if you get enough people.
Concede made it so that all you have to do to end the game is click a couple buttons. That ease is why we have no endgame now. However, despite concede sucking a lot of fun out of the game, it's not the root of the problem. It's a symptom.
Just because I want to eliminate the symptom, doesn't mean I want to eliminate the feature. I would much rather have concede be one of these things that rarely gets used, so that people can have fun playing the game. The problem is that we have so little forgiveness that people want to quit at the drop of the hat.
Which brings me back to my OP.
You cannot claim that you don't want to remove it in one post, and say how concede sucks the fun out of a game and you want the game back into a state it was before concede was implemented in the next without acknowledging that people might point this out to you.
Agreed, so let's stick to the problems why people cannot enjoy a game till the very end, and henceforth not speak another word of the concede feature.
Combat was still played a lot less than vanilla, despite combat being official, and usually functioned as a no-brainer relief from all the 'serious' ns-gaming. I would venture to say it serves the same purpose in NS2. I still don't believe any people buy NS2 because they want to shoot at things, and if they do, I'm pretty sure those are the people who stop playing altogether after a while.
Stop making strawmen. Shoot? Stand with a rifle, press M1 until something dies. Commander? Look at the map and randomly drop a few things and hope someone else wins the game for you. Yes, you are missing the fun. The fun isn't as much in the action itself but in the sense of accomplishment, at least for me and a lot of people I know. A lot of people questioned why to play PvE in WoW, especially as a healer, and that's for the same reasons.
So is combat. They're both important.
These arguments are pretty weak. Why is conceding easier than f4? Are you saying that conceding works even if you don't get enough people to agree with you? Why is it a GOOD thing that games were much harder to end? You know you have won and still have to go through the motions. You know you have lost and still have to be the punching bag of the opposing team for a while longer.
Does end game, in your opinion, mean that one team gets to stomp the other with overpowered tech? Because what the concede function is doing right now is preventing this from happening. It's certainly not preventing an interesting end-game where both teams are vying for victory.
There is no point to reward the losing team.
This
My suggestion of recovering a portion of res from destroyed buildings is designed to still keep it worthwhile destroying buildings, but for these not to constitute quite as much of a setback on their own as they currently do.
I think this idea is kinda cool, but it may promote bad play in the long run.
Except how many people play Engineers in TF2? So many that many servers place a hard limit on how many Engys can be on a team. Many people (myself included) enjoy playing "Healers" in MMOs; which many people tout as "boring". I promise you it is anything but boring when the fighting starts.
No, building things, and repairing things in NS2 is NOT boring. Plenty of people enjoy the support role; even back in NS1. I was a perma gorge in NS1 constantly building hives, upgrades, strategically building healing stations, blocking off access to areas of the map. It wasn't because the gorge was some massive killing machine. It's because it was fun. Fun to control the map, fun to accelerate my team's resource accumulation, fun to get the tools into the other players hands on my team faster than the other team got them.
If NS2 was "first and foremost" an FPS game it should be pretty easy to ignore the RTS elements and easily win the game. Try only killing other players in NS2 and not killing structures or building resources or other tech and see how far it gets you. The bottom line is your team needs people to do the "boring" stuff as much as it needs xXxLeetoMarineRambo420xXx to kill everything on the screen. The RTS portion is intrinsic to the games success, and simply cannot be relegated to a lesser status because of a design statement.
More on topic, I agree that concede votes happen too quickly, but I view this as a behavior in the gamers than a failing on the part of the system. It directly correlates to the amount of effort required to stage a comeback, not necessarily the chance of the comeback working. I think people concede when they want the team stack in their favor next round; not that they have been played in the corner. I would like to see changes that make the earlier part of the game a little less slippery of a slope while the late game getting slightly more slippery; but at the same time I also realize that as long as people are playing the game they will likely take the path of least resistance to get out of a bad situation and typically that is conceding. How to change that is a great question.
You brought up TF2. I consider myself a lightweight at only ~1350 hours played (no idle) and my top class is medic at 467 hours, and number 3 is engy at 215 hours. I'm all for playing support classes - WHEN IT SUITS ME. There are many times when I really don't want to bother. It's why some games I'll go gorge and others I won't. The problem is that marines are all expected to take on a support role, and many do NOT like it. So yeah, they're not gonna be jumping for joy every time they have to stand looking at an inanimate object while they press and hold M1.
It's not a design statement, it's a design principle. The RTS elements are a means to an end, but they are not what defines NS2. It is the FPS combat that defines this game, and it is the FPS combat that is used to sell this game.
When NS2 goes on special, what images are potential customers treated to? A picture of an harvester? Or maybe a marine with a build tool out repairing a power node?
Uh, No.
The first picture on the NS2 store page is of an Onos barrelling down a crowded hallway towards a few marines with guns blazing. Of the 17 images for the game, 14 show FPS combat, 2 show the top-down commander view and 1 is a look at a hive room. No images of welders. No images of extractors or harvesters. Here is the first sentence of the game description.
"Natural Selection 2 is an immersive, multiplayer shooter that pits aliens against humans in a strategic and action-packed struggle for survival."
I don't know why people want to deny the overwhelming FPS elements in NS. We had the same discussion in NS1 and Charlie said the same back then as he did now, this is an FPS first and foremost, with some RTS elements. If we want to address the issues then we need to address them based on what the game is, not on what it is not.
The vast majority of people buy and play this game to kill stuff. While the game is obviously more complicated than that, we can't deny that the FPS elements are what sell this game.
Ehh... I can see your point and it does have some merit, but I think you're trying to split hairs here.
The chance a team has to make a comeback will likely determine the amount of effort that is needed to execute that comeback. Marines without advanced weapons (since they lost them in a base push) aren't going to have much of a chance to make a comeback when they are facing Onos and Fade with stock weapons. While the chance isn't nil, it is also true that it will take more effort to pull off a win. Since the chances are slim that increases the level of teamwork and skill needed to pull off a win. So yeah it takes more effort, but it takes more effort because the chances are slim to begin with. (imho anyway)
I think if you give people a CHANCE to win, they'll take it. Give them something to play for and they'll play.
Even if it is one of those 'self-destruct' scenarios that require the stronger team to finish the game in a set time or be destroyed. If players (who felt the game was lost) could trigger an end-game that would end the game in 5-10 minutes, and the end game would be repeated assaults from the enemy while they hung on for dear life, I think people would hang around for that. It would be fast-paced intense combat and they would have a chance to win in the end.
Take a turtle from a couple months ago and imagine yourself in it. Now imagine you could trigger a vote to use a 'charred earth' style weapon to end the game in 10 minutes. Your team only has to survive. The other team needs to use all their power to finish the game, while your team needs to do everything they can do to survive. Would knowing the game will end one way or another in 10 minutes (or 5) not make that final period of battle an intense fun fight?
That's the kind of thing that can change the way people think. While it's only one example, it is something that people would play for. Like I said, give people a reason to play and they'll play. If there is no (realistic) hope of winning, why expect people to play? That's what needs to be addressed right now.
Here is the good news, you don't need everyone to fill a support role. Back in the day, we would often have a "base bitch"; one player on the marine team designated (usually a volunteer) to hang around the base at start to build important structures, and later hop between bases via the PG to keep things repaired and built and watch for ninja attacks. A similar thing can happen today, but is less needed with MACs.
You can't have RTS elements exist in a vacuum. If they are going to be meaningful, as they are in NS2, they need weight. If they have weight they are going to need attention, despite what the design statement principle states. You can't have an FPS/RTS hybrid and remove the RTS portion when it makes people do something other than "shoot the aliens".
To me it sounds as if the advertising is misrepresenting the whole of the game. I've not seen an advertising for Starcraft the only shows the first couple of minutes of a match where the only action is building workers and making them harvest. You wouldn't argue that it needs to be removed from SC2 because it wasn't in the ads would you?
I bought it because of everything other than the FPS elements; I'm sure I wasn't alone. The FPS elements are the same old same old; click mouse -> gib player. This hasn't really changed since Rise of the Triads. It is the RTS aspects that make this game unique. Casting parts of it aside because it has FPS elements in the advertising is doing a disservice to people who enjoy NS2 because of the RTS elements. There are plenty of FPS games out there with no annoying RTS elements. If RTS elements hamper someone's enjoyment of NS2, they can go play one of the infinite number of FPS games out there; or play combat.
The point I was trying to make is that it is infinitely easier to concede than it is to make ANY type of comeback. The path of least resistance for your average gamer today is in this order: Concede->F4->Disconnect->Organize a comeback. Since we all agree you can't force a person to play a game they don't want to play, it will always be this way. I'm not splitting hairs here, I truly believe this is the state of gaming today, and it saddens me.
Aside from the problem of "Marines being more fun to lose on" (which has been the case since NS1), I would love to see some mini end game tried. I just don't see the Aliens winning many of these games because the marine turtle is so strong.
So without breaking down every single interaction in the game, and changing the values all at a set value based on a ratio of difference (To simulate 30% less RTS impact, for example, by lowering the weapon upgrade impacts and everything else at an equal amount of change) - what could be a simpler way to accomplish this?
Slow the resource income rate again? idk..
There has to be something simple to adjust like that which would universally effect everything on an even plane by a set value or similar amount of change, giving less impact to RTS elements...
To have the same people stay until next map rotation would be more fun so you get a better feel towards the players skillset and their competence. If 3 or more is quitting the game I get tempted to do the same (alltho as of yet I haven't) cause it might just be quicker to find another server. The effect on me as a remaining player is just not good at all. If you could come up with something to prevent players from manually disconnecting from the server in a loosing game it would be more than awesome!
Remember, the reason why this whole 'RTS' issue came up was because people were saying that because concede is common in RTS games, that this should mean that every game ending in concede in NS2 is all fine and dandy.
That's where I disagree.
There are *way* too many games ending in concede now, and in fact concede has become the norm. The reality is that concede is rare in FPS games, and my point was that NS2 is an FPS game first above all else. So my position is that concede should be the exception and not the rule. Yeah it has its place in the game, but as a last resort rarely used option to end a game that cannot come to a natural conclusion.
So I'm not dismissing the RTS elements of the game, I'm dismissing the suggestion that NS2 be treated as a RTS with respect to conceded games. While I agree with your first point, I disagree with the second. It doesn't always have to be that way. I contend that if you give people something to play for, then they will play. Honestly, I believe that changes could be made that would make playing out a game a more attractive option. People don't like quitting. They quit because they feel they HAVE to, not because they want to. No one plays a game thinking that they'll want to quit before it is over. What we need to do is provide teams with a means to remain competitive in a game so that they don't feel that the game has become hopeless.
I agree with you in that there is a psychological aspect here, and that is something that needs to be addressed. People primarily concede because they feel morally defeated. They have lost hope and the outcome of the game is not in doubt. When the outcome isn't in doubt, it's no longer fun to play.
I've been in a few rare games when the *winning* team conceded since they knew they would win, but the marine team wanted to play a turtle-fest. The aliens had the whole map, they knew they won, but it ceased being fun.
If the developers wanted to put a dent in this, I think they could. There are plenty of ways that the game could give the 'underdog' a reason to continue playing. It could be something as simple as making tech linear. IE, once you research it, then it's yours for the remainder of the game. (IOW, if you need two hives for something, but you lose the second hive, then you keep whatever you had researched before you lost that second hive.) This keeps the team competitive, yet they are still 'weak' in the sense that they are now down to one hive and losing that hive will cost them the game.
Will this make it harder to win? To a certain extent, yes. But is that a bad thing? Frankly there is nothing more satisfying than a hard fought victory in my books. There are ways to keep people 'engaged' in the game so that concede doesn't look like the only option for them. In my example a team could still have a chance to recover a tech point and claw their way back. Why not give people that chance and see if they will take it?
It was the craziest comeback ever. However, it was probably because marines were lazy in that they;'d already presumed their win. I CBA to read this whole thread but I would certainly like to see the snowball effect be lessened.
I do agree that coming back sometimes can be hard... Maybe the Marines can have some sort of nuke device they can use once per match if X amount of time has gone by in the match and decimate a tech point they want... but only if they have lost their second CP and it will cost them something big as well (lose their exos, and jetpacks).
Yeah call in an airstrike! Instantly annihilate all aliens!
Instead they head to the ready room not having had a 'gg'.
Yet how many people can remember pre-concede games where it went down to the wire, with a glorious end-game battle that leaves the ready room buzzing afterwards? I sure can. Even the losing team players are hyped about the last game, since it was fun. That makes them all that more likely to play again.
However, many demoralized players quit the server after a concede. The loss via concede leaves a bad taste in their mouth, which drains their willingness to play again.
With wide-open settings - right now - I'm seeing only ~20 populated servers. (This is with performance set at 0, ping set at 600, and full server UNchecked.) There are roughly ~500 servers left after the free weekend, and now we're barely filling 20?
I don't want to sound alarmist, but this is something I find to be concerning. Despite near perfect 50/50 balance, people aren't having fun games. We would be wise not to let this continue.
This is all anecdotal. In my experience, I've seen way more frustrated people yelling "finish it already, stop prolonging", going alt-tab, going f4 or leaving the server altogether when the other team is taking too long to finish a game gone sour.
Besides, these 'glorious end-game battles' only happen when the marines are the ones losing, since they can easily turtle their base. Whether or not you like this last stand is a matter of opinion. As an anecdotal evidence, I find that aliens usually hate these situations, since they don't know how to break the turtle and its frustrating attacking the same heavily fortified room and losing your lifeform over and over again.
You believe that a game should finish when a few players think they can no longer win.
I believe that a game should finish when a team can actually no longer win.
I don't think the concede function in and of itself is a bad thing (for example, I think there are some situations where a concession can dissolve a stalemate). But concede is being used far too readily.