Why does a team based game need to have a high individual skill cap? It makes no sense at all. NS2 is based off of outdated twitch shooter mechanics. Those days are long gone, and no one is interested in a game like that. That's why NS1/NS2 never took off; the game is already complex as it is to a new player, especially when it comes to properly commanding. Then on top of having to learn what does what, how to counter certain things, etc. then you have to deal with the fact that the absurdly high individual skill cap in the game. Sure, maybe diehard hardcore video gamers like it, but a large portion of the gaming community does not.
If you want the game to succeed, you have to give ground somewhere. Every single successful competitive game today allows lesser skilled players to win against higher skilled players. In SC2, you can be mechanically strong as you want, but if someone simply outsmarts you with a better build, they can have inferior mechanics and still beat you. In League of Legends,
Matchmaking doesn't solve the problem. It's too easy for a competitive player/high level pub player to go into a community server and wreck shop. You would have to make matchmaking actually the primary way of playing games, which is not something that is easy to do in a game like this where community servers are always far more prevalent. Sorry to say it, but NS is already complicated as it is for a new player, adding an extra layer of high skill cap on top of everything only discourages them further as they become more and more frustrated.
It makes no sense to say a team based game can't have a high skill ceiling. Those two are not mutually exclusive. It's like saying every football player should have to wear a fatsuit in order to drag everyone down to thesame level, because football is a team game and people who are excelling through their individual skillset are detrimental to the game. If you'd let players like Messi and Ronaldo do their thing unrestricted, they'd just ruin it for everyone else, right? And who'd want to watch that?
No, there are plenty of popular games out there with high skill ceilings. You just need to take some measures to deal with the inevitable skill disparity. One crucial thing is accessibility, giving new players the tools to quickly learn and improve. Another is making sure that new/casual players aren't repeatedly pit against veterans/pros in unbalanced matchups. The most common way is to deal with this is to divide the playerbase based on their skill levels.
Look at SCII and it's ranking system for instance. People can have fun, win some, lose some, regardless of their actual skill level, because they're always pit against players of a similar level. And if they improve significantly, start beating up the players in their league, they are moved up the ladder. It's the perfect example.
So if one could find a way to make sure the overall skill level of both alien and marine teams are somewhat equal to each other, everyone in that game is gonna have a better time. Matchmaking service would help, as would some form of randomisation option based on certain "skill parameters". I think the latter is a more realistic option though.
The most popular team based competitive games today are not 'high skill' games. DotA2/LoL (both which I play at very high levels, page 1 MMR in DotA 2 and Diamond 1 in League) are not 'skill based' games they are knowledge/experience based games. Same with the most popular team based shooters. The reason why people enjoy these games is because one player cannot literally go and carry his team in either of those games; you are only as strong as your weakest link. The reason why people stop playing NS1/NS2 is because someone can go Fade and just literally go roflstomp pubs single handily with almost no help from his team, and the only way for him to die is to literally be stupid and just walk into multiple exos or eat 3 pointblank shotgun blasts to the face.
Thinking that matchmaking will do anything is silly; it's the fact that NS2 is still based on silly ass mechanics from the Quake era where movement/twitch skills rule supreme. There's a reason why Quake died out and CS took over; it's because CS doesn't allow a player to single handily ruin the game for everyone else.
Don't kid yourself. A CS pro would stomp all over the average pub server. It's just less common to encounter highly skilled players on CS pubs in comparison to NS2 because CS has a much larger playerbase.
But you are right, most people don't enjoy it when a person totally destroys their team, which is why a method of segregating players based on their skill levels can help. I don't know why you're trying to claim otherwise. The merit of a matchmaking device is so obvious. Equally balanced teams make for much more enjoyable experiences.
The movement/shooter mechanics also have nothing to do with this discussion. If you don't like them, then play a different game. Don't try to use them as an argument against any form of matchmaking, that's just silly.
A CS Pro would not stomp a pub to the level where people get completely discouraged and just leave the server. A pro can still die in CS if he takes a slightly bad engagement, the room for error on his part is extremely small. One lucky shot and he's dead, so he can't just go charging into 4/5 people and expect to live. When people play NS2, they expect superior teamwork and just strength in numbers to overwhelm even the best of players, but that is clearly not the case. One player can do enough damage to turn the tide and just snowball the advantage in his teams favor. It gets even worse if there are two players, and if three solid players join one team, it's almost 99% autowin for that team.
Essentially in CS, no matter how good you are, you are still vulnerable as hell. In NS2, that's not the case. If you're fucking good enough, you are basically immortal.
I would love to see someone list all the changes that UWE has made solely for comp play, seriously. I don't even think you could come up with 10 valid things. You haven't the slightest clue if you are making comments like that... they have not even added a tournament mode to the game yet, something people have been requesting since.... lets see.. build 170?
The low playercounts has absolutely nothing to do with a supposed focus on competitive play - if anything, UWE has taken a much more public play oriented focus with NS2 (compared to NS1). If you have trouble seeing that, just look at the resource model.
Amen. No res for kill is a travesty we'll have to deal with for a long time coming.
I would love to see someone list all the changes that UWE has made solely for comp play, seriously. I don't even think you could come up with 10 valid things.
Well I can list a few things I always wanted to have clarified.
1. Docking. There was a thread that stated lets make it competitive and all of a sudden we get a 4 tech point docking with dev support. Funny thing is Docking is still not really used in comp though this is limited by the data I get from the games that I watch on twitch. I mean what are you suppose to think with this thread out:
2. Armory not healing armor. This feature was not really much of a game changer in pubs but was still made. Not really suited for pubs but at least the drop in price and the self armor repair when welding was a decent bridge between both modes.
3. Camo nerf from 100% invisibility. I remember seeing posts that it was too OP for comp play so it was dropped to somewhat invisible at the time. Though I found it was a fun ability in pub not too op.
4. Skulk movement speed nerfed and changed in 240 as skulks were too quick in comp. I saw no one really complain about the skulk prior to the nerf and there were topics about the brick skulk at the time. In higher player servers marines dominated skulks and could easily demolish them by hopping away after the change was made.
5. Fade changes made where many thought the fade in 250 was fine. Many posts that argued this. Some said pre 250 Fade was too easy mode and not complicated enough and wanted the hops. Idk if the final result was what people on the balance team wanted though.
6. Onos nerf not really suited for pub play. I assumed it was probably made to accustom 6v6 play to avoid making Onos too tanky and easier to get taken down though in pubs they are demolished. Though I still do not see them used in comp play and see people stating they are not very useful.
7. Alien eggs made more expensive. To avoid having too many lifeform spam in comp games. Comp game I witnessed had too many lifeforms popping out with the prior cheaper eggs so I assumed this change was made to address that.
8. Added a 0.3 second cool down for medpacks.
Plus these changes that were made for the finals for comp as stated by Corys:
or specifically : "We picked balance tweaks that would be easy and fast to make, with relatively little testing time required, in order to be able to get a patch out with enough time before the finals."
9. Increased Infantry Portal cost to 20 (up from 15)
10. Reduced nano shield duration to 3 seconds (down from 8) (Could have left this on structures for higher player servers which aliens tend to break down fast)
11. Increased nano shield effectiveness to 75% (up from 50%)
12. Increased arms lab upgrade costs to 20/30/40 (was 15/25/35)
13. Reduced gorge tunnel research cost to 10 (was 30)
14. Reduced gorge tunnel cost to 5 (was 10)
15. Increased gorge tunnel armor by 100
Not stating they ruined pub play but I always got the impression many changes were aimed for comp. Also I am not blind to the changes made specifically for pubs like egg spawning rates. But the result is a mixture that is not really suited for either game mode. At first I thought getting one balance was best but now I see the player count is too much of an issue when it comes down to it. 6v6 is going to be vastly different than say 10v10 to 12v12.
I mean is comp perfectly balanced at the moment and do all comp players enjoy it? I am no comp player but I do watch a lot of their games and see other comp players post their dissatisfaction with the game when I previously thought the game was balanced for them but I do not really assume it anymore. Have seen comp players frustrated with the direction of NS2 for quite a long time. Now I just get the impression Sewlek determines the direction of the game which is perfectly fine as he is the appointed UWE dev and the few people in that balance group that also have a degree of influence.
1- 8 Only 1 valid point there, and thats tres egg drops, however they also address onos spam issues that occured in pubs. All the other changes were public play focused, and I am not going to concern myself with map balance changes.
Camo being OP in comp is LOL, it was never used in comp play, it completely broke PUB play. Armory not healing armor was solely for public play, as it was rarely relied on in comp play. Skulk movement changes were again done for pubs, as the win rates had begun slipping to be heavily alien biased, with much of that being believe to be centered around skulks. Fade changes were actually much more public focused then honestly I think anyone wanted, because it ended up being a slightly more predictable shadowstep, instead of something that required much more execution. Onos nerf was also done for public play - too often the aliens would get 3-4 onos and the marines just could not do anything to stop that, in comp play the onos is a really big target (but still can be useful).
Medpack cooldown was just changed to be a pickup cooldown, it was there before as a dropping cooldown.
9-15 are some that are potentially valid, but in actuality also benefited public play. The nano changes could be argued to be comp focused.
And to your point, comp play is more imbalanced than public play, so I still fail to see how the game is remotely being balanced around comp play.
1- 8 Only 1 valid point there, and thats tres egg drops, however they also address onos spam issues that occured in pubs. All the other changes were public play focused, and I am not going to concern myself with map balance changes.
9-15 are some that are potentially valid, but in actuality also benefited public play. The nano changes could be argued to be comp focused.
And to your point, comp play is more imbalanced than public play, so I still fail to see how the game is remotely being balanced around comp play.
Well I never said it was balanced around comp play I always thought UWE was trying to do both at the same time. I know comp play is far more imbalanced I was just trying to get some points clarified that I thought were made for comp. I don't get why UWE does not balance 6v6 separately. It is obvious that if 6v6 is balanced well, the pubs which usually have larger player counts are going to demolish aliens so that was always taken into consideration. But comp play will continue to be imbalanced unless the balance is done specifically for player count. Will probably not happen though.
I would love to see someone list all the changes that UWE has made solely for comp play, seriously. I don't even think you could come up with 10 valid things. You haven't the slightest clue if you are making comments like that... they have not even added a tournament mode to the game yet, something people have been requesting since.... lets see.. build 170?
the game has a 90-95% alien win rate in 6v6 with average-skill players because it's designed to be balanced for comp play where marines actually know how to be aggressive, aim and med
even comp play below the highest tier has been extremely alien-favored largely because the aiming/coordination skill isn't high enough on the marine side
UWE nerfed marines for comp play and pub has been horribly broken below 10v10
It would pull a good chunk of the comp scene away from pub servers.
But it probably wouldn't pull away the "lol it's a pub" type of player who are the real problem.
?
The problem is very experienced players can only play public against inexperienced players consistently
The players themselves aren't a problem, and openly welcomed to this game. Anyone can play ns2, the problem is people who are much better than other players consistently play with each other leading to upsetting matches for both players, I don't know any competitive player who enjoys going 70-0 against players who walk in a straight line, and I don't know anyone who enjoys going 0-70 while trying their best to kill someone
Both players are allowed to play, but they really shouldn't be facing each other.. This is less of an issue in more casual games because the more experienced player will be heavily handicapped (ex any fps game past 5 years) which leads to the experienced player getting frustrated cause they're dying a lot of times when they shouldn't be (even if they still win heavily)
Anyway not going further off topic but that's the point
Any1 on marine team that knows anything about this game easily takes advantage of flamers and nades and a few people doing it wins their team the game. Prior to 250, fades were fast but they could easily be taken down if a fade was too careless or if the fade was focused down/trapped. In 250 however, they buff its health, take out double jump, and nerf the speed to a crawl. What the heck? Fades are supposed to be swift, that's the idea behind them, they're not supposed to soak up damage and blink away when low on hp. They are supposed to evade damage and strike at the right time (fades require skill).
And the biomass, now they want us to make 3 buildings for each upgrade without even lowering the cost? Aliens are supposed to expand quickly while marines are supposed to be more stationary (and eat bacon when needed)
249 was fine and most people didn't have a problem with it, but then 250 comes to change the almost perfectly-balanced game. No game is perfectly balanced and as with every other game there were only a few tricks that gave a slight advantage but those tricks aren't a problem and can even be called skillful moves.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't change what was working, just add on to it (like in gorgeous).
Why does a team based game need to have a high individual skill cap? It makes no sense at all. NS2 is based off of outdated twitch shooter mechanics. Those days are long gone, and no one is interested in a game like that. That's why NS1/NS2 never took off; the game is already complex as it is to a new player, especially when it comes to properly commanding. Then on top of having to learn what does what, how to counter certain things, etc. then you have to deal with the fact that the absurdly high individual skill cap in the game. Sure, maybe diehard hardcore video gamers like it, but a large portion of the gaming community does not.
If you want the game to succeed, you have to give ground somewhere. Every single successful competitive game today allows lesser skilled players to win against higher skilled players. In SC2, you can be mechanically strong as you want, but if someone simply outsmarts you with a better build, they can have inferior mechanics and still beat you. In League of Legends,
Matchmaking doesn't solve the problem. It's too easy for a competitive player/high level pub player to go into a community server and wreck shop. You would have to make matchmaking actually the primary way of playing games, which is not something that is easy to do in a game like this where community servers are always far more prevalent. Sorry to say it, but NS is already complicated as it is for a new player, adding an extra layer of high skill cap on top of everything only discourages them further as they become more and more frustrated.
It makes no sense to say a team based game can't have a high skill ceiling. Those two are not mutually exclusive. It's like saying every football player should have to wear a fatsuit in order to drag everyone down to thesame level, because football is a team game and people who are excelling through their individual skillset are detrimental to the game. If you'd let players like Messi and Ronaldo do their thing unrestricted, they'd just ruin it for everyone else, right? And who'd want to watch that?
No, there are plenty of popular games out there with high skill ceilings. You just need to take some measures to deal with the inevitable skill disparity. One crucial thing is accessibility, giving new players the tools to quickly learn and improve. Another is making sure that new/casual players aren't repeatedly pit against veterans/pros in unbalanced matchups. The most common way is to deal with this is to divide the playerbase based on their skill levels.
Look at SCII and it's ranking system for instance. People can have fun, win some, lose some, regardless of their actual skill level, because they're always pit against players of a similar level. And if they improve significantly, start beating up the players in their league, they are moved up the ladder. It's the perfect example.
So if one could find a way to make sure the overall skill level of both alien and marine teams are somewhat equal to each other, everyone in that game is gonna have a better time. Matchmaking service would help, as would some form of randomisation option based on certain "skill parameters". I think the latter is a more realistic option though.
The most popular team based competitive games today are not 'high skill' games. DotA2/LoL (both which I play at very high levels, page 1 MMR in DotA 2 and Diamond 1 in League) are not 'skill based' games they are knowledge/experience based games. Same with the most popular team based shooters. The reason why people enjoy these games is because one player cannot literally go and carry his team in either of those games; you are only as strong as your weakest link. The reason why people stop playing NS1/NS2 is because someone can go Fade and just literally go roflstomp pubs single handily with almost no help from his team, and the only way for him to die is to literally be stupid and just walk into multiple exos or eat 3 pointblank shotgun blasts to the face.
Thinking that matchmaking will do anything is silly; it's the fact that NS2 is still based on silly ass mechanics from the Quake era where movement/twitch skills rule supreme. There's a reason why Quake died out and CS took over; it's because CS doesn't allow a player to single handily ruin the game for everyone else.
Don't kid yourself. A CS pro would stomp all over the average pub server. It's just less common to encounter highly skilled players on CS pubs in comparison to NS2 because CS has a much larger playerbase.
But you are right, most people don't enjoy it when a person totally destroys their team, which is why a method of segregating players based on their skill levels can help. I don't know why you're trying to claim otherwise. The merit of a matchmaking device is so obvious. Equally balanced teams make for much more enjoyable experiences.
The movement/shooter mechanics also have nothing to do with this discussion. If you don't like them, then play a different game. Don't try to use them as an argument against any form of matchmaking, that's just silly.
A CS Pro would not stomp a pub to the level where people get completely discouraged and just leave the server. A pro can still die in CS if he takes a slightly bad engagement, the room for error on his part is extremely small. One lucky shot and he's dead, so he can't just go charging into 4/5 people and expect to live. When people play NS2, they expect superior teamwork and just strength in numbers to overwhelm even the best of players, but that is clearly not the case. One player can do enough damage to turn the tide and just snowball the advantage in his teams favor. It gets even worse if there are two players, and if three solid players join one team, it's almost 99% autowin for that team.
Essentially in CS, no matter how good you are, you are still vulnerable as hell. In NS2, that's not the case. If you're fucking good enough, you are basically immortal.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
Why does a team based game need to have a high individual skill cap? It makes no sense at all. NS2 is based off of outdated twitch shooter mechanics. Those days are long gone, and no one is interested in a game like that. That's why NS1/NS2 never took off; the game is already complex as it is to a new player, especially when it comes to properly commanding. Then on top of having to learn what does what, how to counter certain things, etc. then you have to deal with the fact that the absurdly high individual skill cap in the game. Sure, maybe diehard hardcore video gamers like it, but a large portion of the gaming community does not.
If you want the game to succeed, you have to give ground somewhere. Every single successful competitive game today allows lesser skilled players to win against higher skilled players. In SC2, you can be mechanically strong as you want, but if someone simply outsmarts you with a better build, they can have inferior mechanics and still beat you. In League of Legends,
Matchmaking doesn't solve the problem. It's too easy for a competitive player/high level pub player to go into a community server and wreck shop. You would have to make matchmaking actually the primary way of playing games, which is not something that is easy to do in a game like this where community servers are always far more prevalent. Sorry to say it, but NS is already complicated as it is for a new player, adding an extra layer of high skill cap on top of everything only discourages them further as they become more and more frustrated.
It makes no sense to say a team based game can't have a high skill ceiling. Those two are not mutually exclusive. It's like saying every football player should have to wear a fatsuit in order to drag everyone down to thesame level, because football is a team game and people who are excelling through their individual skillset are detrimental to the game. If you'd let players like Messi and Ronaldo do their thing unrestricted, they'd just ruin it for everyone else, right? And who'd want to watch that?
No, there are plenty of popular games out there with high skill ceilings. You just need to take some measures to deal with the inevitable skill disparity. One crucial thing is accessibility, giving new players the tools to quickly learn and improve. Another is making sure that new/casual players aren't repeatedly pit against veterans/pros in unbalanced matchups. The most common way is to deal with this is to divide the playerbase based on their skill levels.
Look at SCII and it's ranking system for instance. People can have fun, win some, lose some, regardless of their actual skill level, because they're always pit against players of a similar level. And if they improve significantly, start beating up the players in their league, they are moved up the ladder. It's the perfect example.
So if one could find a way to make sure the overall skill level of both alien and marine teams are somewhat equal to each other, everyone in that game is gonna have a better time. Matchmaking service would help, as would some form of randomisation option based on certain "skill parameters". I think the latter is a more realistic option though.
The most popular team based competitive games today are not 'high skill' games. DotA2/LoL (both which I play at very high levels, page 1 MMR in DotA 2 and Diamond 1 in League) are not 'skill based' games they are knowledge/experience based games. Same with the most popular team based shooters. The reason why people enjoy these games is because one player cannot literally go and carry his team in either of those games; you are only as strong as your weakest link. The reason why people stop playing NS1/NS2 is because someone can go Fade and just literally go roflstomp pubs single handily with almost no help from his team, and the only way for him to die is to literally be stupid and just walk into multiple exos or eat 3 pointblank shotgun blasts to the face.
Thinking that matchmaking will do anything is silly; it's the fact that NS2 is still based on silly ass mechanics from the Quake era where movement/twitch skills rule supreme. There's a reason why Quake died out and CS took over; it's because CS doesn't allow a player to single handily ruin the game for everyone else.
Don't kid yourself. A CS pro would stomp all over the average pub server. It's just less common to encounter highly skilled players on CS pubs in comparison to NS2 because CS has a much larger playerbase.
But you are right, most people don't enjoy it when a person totally destroys their team, which is why a method of segregating players based on their skill levels can help. I don't know why you're trying to claim otherwise. The merit of a matchmaking device is so obvious. Equally balanced teams make for much more enjoyable experiences.
The movement/shooter mechanics also have nothing to do with this discussion. If you don't like them, then play a different game. Don't try to use them as an argument against any form of matchmaking, that's just silly.
A CS Pro would not stomp a pub to the level where people get completely discouraged and just leave the server. A pro can still die in CS if he takes a slightly bad engagement, the room for error on his part is extremely small. One lucky shot and he's dead, so he can't just go charging into 4/5 people and expect to live. When people play NS2, they expect superior teamwork and just strength in numbers to overwhelm even the best of players, but that is clearly not the case. One player can do enough damage to turn the tide and just snowball the advantage in his teams favor. It gets even worse if there are two players, and if three solid players join one team, it's almost 99% autowin for that team.
Essentially in CS, no matter how good you are, you are still vulnerable as hell. In NS2, that's not the case. If you're fucking good enough, you are basically immortal.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
A CS pro hears pubbers around 3 corners and headshots them through the wall. At least that's what I did in my old days and I never played CS in a clan.
Funny that you brought up no res for kill since. Getting res for kill rewards you during a round. The lack of these rewards is what creates the frustration, especially for newer players. This is what makes people leave the game. Other games today manage to tie down players with a perfectly aligned string of little rewards. Just one quest, just one item, just one kill, just one achievement. Even though most of these games have far worse balance and gameplay than ns, these little rewards make the game enjoyable.
If it is hard work to learn a computer game, most people wont bother with it. If i want to work hard, i go earn money or do sports.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
I would like to point out though that a pro player in CS is still a very vulnerable player and is still easily punished for slipping up because it does not take more than a few lucky shots to end his round. This is not always true for NS2 fades because it's not exactly as vulnerable as people make it out to be in pubs.
There are multiple problems with the design of fades and onoses (oni? I think of Japanese ogres when using that term instead) when it comes to pub play. Let's leave the onos out of this because that's a huge and different can of worms. Let's just look at one problem with the fade. It takes a tonne of resources to obtain, being the second highest tier alien lifeform. Besides having to make the effect on the game commensurate with its cost, it also needs to make it similarly difficult for others to take down the fade. This is the part that sucks. It requires almost perfect play by marines to take one down. 3 direct shotgun blasts to its face you say? Good luck finding players who can coordinate that in a pub game, with the varying skill levels and lag and assorted other BS flying around because any sizeable squad of marines that can land that many shotgun blasts instantly is not likely to be harassed by just 1 fade. Not to mention that the fade has the mobility to play the attrition game against the marine squad. You do not "win" an engagement by chasing off the fade. The fade will (and should) simply run off to harass another weak point in the marines' set up, or blink back to base to heal and return. The fade alone can slow you down significantly even if your squad is equipped with 3 shotguns (60 res). God forbid the alien team from having other players too. At this point, the question of whether it is even possible to kill the fade is beginning to be irrelevant - the better question (in pub play) is whether or not it is FUN to play against something designed like that.
You can't weaken the fade to accommodate pub players without changing the way the resource system works either - you would then end up with the onos' problem. Is it FUN to save up 50+ resources to evolve into a fully upgraded fade, then make one slip up and lose it all that easily? You see, in CS, if the pro player makes one slip up and dies in round in a pub game, the round times are short enough, and the weapon costs low enough, that he can re-kit and get back into it quickly, unless he has somehow derped and made so many mistakes that his pool of money has been eroded away. Btw this is integral to the idea of "playing" a game. A game HAS to properly allow for slip ups and distribute the punishments and rewards appropriately and not simply declare "don't f*** up or you're permanently out". Make it too much of the latter, and I'd rather be at my job instead. It is impractical most times in a pub NS2 game to save up for either a fade or onos more than once per game. Yet, I'm willing to bet that if nothing is done about good fades singlehandedly shutting down half the map from marines, NS2 is going to die off fast from the joke that is its pub balance, leaving all but the most hardcore of fans, but didn't we want to attract new players?
In comp games where marines have much better aim and awareness, fades are probably fine, if not a little weak due to their predictability, though that should not matter because of the lerk. But I think this exposes the problem with the way the game has been designed and balanced - it's been designed under ideal play conditions and ideal players in mind. There are other elements that exhibit this sort of design paradigm too, e.g. mass exos. That's not going to happen often on pub servers. I will admit that I've been in games that have met such requirements before and they've been exceedingly fun, but most games are not like that.
On a tangential topic, I wish people would stop treating "randomize ready room" as the solution to stacked teams. It will never be, as long as the game does not keep track of player skill/stats. I was just in a game where the marines had a bunch of greens (and so was the commander), while the alien team was a team full of vets. Nobody was willing to switch teams despite the obvious imbalance, citing "but it's a randomized game" as the reason. If NS2 wishes to keep the greens playing, this is a whole pile of fail. I very much doubt that the newbie marines enjoyed barely learning how to navigate mineshaft and getting shotguns moments before the main base got bile-rushed and onos-swarmed while simultaneously losing 9 out of 10 engagements.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
I would like to point out though that a pro player in CS is still a very vulnerable player and is still easily punished for slipping up because it does not take more than a few lucky shots to end his round. This is not always true for NS2 fades because it's not exactly as vulnerable as people make it out to be in pubs.
There are multiple problems with the design of fades and onoses (oni? I think of Japanese ogres when using that term instead) when it comes to pub play. Let's leave the onos out of this because that's a huge and different can of worms. Let's just look at one problem with the fade. It takes a tonne of resources to obtain, being the second highest tier alien lifeform. Besides having to make the effect on the game commensurate with its cost, it also needs to make it similarly difficult for others to take down the fade. This is the part that sucks. It requires almost perfect play by marines to take one down. 3 direct shotgun blasts to its face you say? Good luck finding players who can coordinate that in a pub game, with the varying skill levels and lag and assorted other BS flying around because any sizeable squad of marines that can land that many shotgun blasts instantly is not likely to be harassed by just 1 fade. Not to mention that the fade has the mobility to play the attrition game against the marine squad. You do not "win" an engagement by chasing off the fade. The fade will (and should) simply run off to harass another weak point in the marines' set up, or blink back to base to heal and return. The fade alone can slow you down significantly even if your squad is equipped with 3 shotguns (60 res). God forbid the alien team from having other players too. At this point, the question of whether it is even possible to kill the fade is beginning to be irrelevant - the better question (in pub play) is whether or not it is FUN to play against something designed like that.
You can't weaken the fade to accommodate pub players without changing the way the resource system works either - you would then end up with the onos' problem. Is it FUN to save up 50+ resources to evolve into a fully upgraded fade, then make one slip up and lose it all that easily? You see, in CS, if the pro player makes one slip up and dies in round in a pub game, the round times are short enough, and the weapon costs low enough, that he can re-kit and get back into it quickly, unless he has somehow derped and made so many mistakes that his pool of money has been eroded away. Btw this is integral to the idea of "playing" a game. A game HAS to properly allow for slip ups and distribute the punishments and rewards appropriately and not simply declare "don't f*** up or you're permanently out". Make it too much of the latter, and I'd rather be at my job instead. It is impractical most times in a pub NS2 game to save up for either a fade or onos more than once per game. Yet, I'm willing to bet that if nothing is done about good fades singlehandedly shutting down half the map from marines, NS2 is going to die off fast from the joke that is its pub balance, leaving all but the most hardcore of fans, but didn't we want to attract new players?
In comp games where marines have much better aim and awareness, fades are probably fine, if not a little weak due to their predictability, though that should not matter because of the lerk. But I think this exposes the problem with the way the game has been designed and balanced - it's been designed under ideal play conditions and ideal players in mind. There are other elements that exhibit this sort of design paradigm too, e.g. mass exos. That's not going to happen often on pub servers. I will admit that I've been in games that have met such requirements before and they've been exceedingly fun, but most games are not like that.
On a tangential topic, I wish people would stop treating "randomize ready room" as the solution to stacked teams. It will never be, as long as the game does not keep track of player skill/stats. I was just in a game where the marines had a bunch of greens (and so was the commander), while the alien team was a team full of vets. Nobody was willing to switch teams despite the obvious imbalance, citing "but it's a randomized game" as the reason. If NS2 wishes to keep the greens playing, this is a whole pile of fail. I very much doubt that the newbie marines enjoyed barely learning how to navigate mineshaft and getting shotguns moments before the main base got bile-rushed and onos-swarmed while simultaneously losing 9 out of 10 engagements.
Honestly, without reading the rest of your wall of text (without trying to sound too condescending), you shot your entire argument out of the water when you said that CS players are vulnerable to "lucky shots" and fades aren't. Fades are still paper, and every bit as susceptible to "lucky shots" as any other paper target. They're designed to be hard to hit when played right, yes, but CS players are also along the same lines when played right, substituting "hard to hit" with "kill you before you see them". But caught in a firefight "lucky shots" is every bit as much "lucky" against a fade as it is in CS.
Honestly, without reading the rest of your wall of text (without trying to sound too condescending), you shot your entire argument out of the water when you said that CS players are vulnerable to "lucky shots" and fades aren't. Fades are still paper, and every bit as susceptible to "lucky shots" as any other paper target. They're designed to be hard to hit when played right, yes, but CS players are also along the same lines when played right, substituting "hard to hit" with "kill you before you see them". But caught in a firefight "lucky shots" is every bit as much "lucky" against a fade as it is in CS.
And my entire argument was that lucky shots against pro players in CS is far more likely than lucky shots against pro fades in NS2, and that the punishments are commensurately less in CS, thereby making it more acceptable. I'm sorry, but fades are not as paper as CS players for reasons such as:
1. Very often, the default gun for a marine squad is still the LMG, or at best, the shotgun later on. These are far less punishing than the AK/AWP in CS.
2. Blink. Shadowstep.
3. Multiple things going on in NS2 as opposed to CS. How often do you get fights as chaotic as NS2's in CS?
I'll stop there. The other part of my argument was that such a design does a game no favours. Sure, you could argue all you want about that skill ceiling, but I'll let the player count decide at the end of the day whether such a game design element is fun. In a weird sense, the arguments against the fade also apply to the exosuit problem faced by the alien team. You CAN throw both together and claim that "it all balances out", which is something that I suspect UWE has done.
Not arguing anything about the skill ceiling. I've seen other high skill ceiling games do quite well, even if they seem something of a thing of the past in this genre. My point was if you're going to base an argument around "lucky shots" it's entirely fruitless. "Lucky shots" are, by definitions, LUCKY, and just as lucky against a fade as they are against a CS player, regardless of how often they occur. And to be quite honest, I see far more "lucky shots" against fades then I EVER saw in CS.
I, either, cannot see the difference between lucky shots in CS and lucky shots in NS2. Furthermore, fades can be countered strategically and be killed intelligently as opposed to with pure aiming skills. Cutting off the escape route of a wounded fade gives even the most rheumatic marine a great chance to outsmart and finish off a pro fade. Isn't this exactly what you're advocating for @RequiemDK ? In CS this doesn't really happen, because even though there are positional advantages, it more or less boils down to who aims better and pulls the trigger first. Protip: it's the better player.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
I would like to point out though that a pro player in CS is still a very vulnerable player and is still easily punished for slipping up because it does not take more than a few lucky shots to end his round. This is not always true for NS2 fades because it's not exactly as vulnerable as people make it out to be in pubs.
There are multiple problems with the design of fades and onoses (oni? I think of Japanese ogres when using that term instead) when it comes to pub play. Let's leave the onos out of this because that's a huge and different can of worms. Let's just look at one problem with the fade. It takes a tonne of resources to obtain, being the second highest tier alien lifeform. Besides having to make the effect on the game commensurate with its cost, it also needs to make it similarly difficult for others to take down the fade. This is the part that sucks. It requires almost perfect play by marines to take one down. 3 direct shotgun blasts to its face you say? Good luck finding players who can coordinate that in a pub game, with the varying skill levels and lag and assorted other BS flying around because any sizeable squad of marines that can land that many shotgun blasts instantly is not likely to be harassed by just 1 fade. Not to mention that the fade has the mobility to play the attrition game against the marine squad. You do not "win" an engagement by chasing off the fade. The fade will (and should) simply run off to harass another weak point in the marines' set up, or blink back to base to heal and return. The fade alone can slow you down significantly even if your squad is equipped with 3 shotguns (60 res). God forbid the alien team from having other players too. At this point, the question of whether it is even possible to kill the fade is beginning to be irrelevant - the better question (in pub play) is whether or not it is FUN to play against something designed like that.
You can't weaken the fade to accommodate pub players without changing the way the resource system works either - you would then end up with the onos' problem. Is it FUN to save up 50+ resources to evolve into a fully upgraded fade, then make one slip up and lose it all that easily? You see, in CS, if the pro player makes one slip up and dies in round in a pub game, the round times are short enough, and the weapon costs low enough, that he can re-kit and get back into it quickly, unless he has somehow derped and made so many mistakes that his pool of money has been eroded away. Btw this is integral to the idea of "playing" a game. A game HAS to properly allow for slip ups and distribute the punishments and rewards appropriately and not simply declare "don't f*** up or you're permanently out". Make it too much of the latter, and I'd rather be at my job instead. It is impractical most times in a pub NS2 game to save up for either a fade or onos more than once per game. Yet, I'm willing to bet that if nothing is done about good fades singlehandedly shutting down half the map from marines, NS2 is going to die off fast from the joke that is its pub balance, leaving all but the most hardcore of fans, but didn't we want to attract new players?
In comp games where marines have much better aim and awareness, fades are probably fine, if not a little weak due to their predictability, though that should not matter because of the lerk. But I think this exposes the problem with the way the game has been designed and balanced - it's been designed under ideal play conditions and ideal players in mind. There are other elements that exhibit this sort of design paradigm too, e.g. mass exos. That's not going to happen often on pub servers. I will admit that I've been in games that have met such requirements before and they've been exceedingly fun, but most games are not like that.
On a tangential topic, I wish people would stop treating "randomize ready room" as the solution to stacked teams. It will never be, as long as the game does not keep track of player skill/stats. I was just in a game where the marines had a bunch of greens (and so was the commander), while the alien team was a team full of vets. Nobody was willing to switch teams despite the obvious imbalance, citing "but it's a randomized game" as the reason. If NS2 wishes to keep the greens playing, this is a whole pile of fail. I very much doubt that the newbie marines enjoyed barely learning how to navigate mineshaft and getting shotguns moments before the main base got bile-rushed and onos-swarmed while simultaneously losing 9 out of 10 engagements.
Honestly, without reading the rest of your wall of text (without trying to sound too condescending), you shot your entire argument out of the water when you said that CS players are vulnerable to "lucky shots" and fades aren't. Fades are still paper, and every bit as susceptible to "lucky shots" as any other paper target. They're designed to be hard to hit when played right, yes, but CS players are also along the same lines when played right, substituting "hard to hit" with "kill you before you see them". But caught in a firefight "lucky shots" is every bit as much "lucky" against a fade as it is in CS.
When the marines get a "few lucky shots on the fade", the fade still has enough HP to retreat and heal up. Fades are NOT paper, they take 3 shotgun blasts to the face but are only in your face for the time it takes to fire 1. There's simply no way for a marine to kill a fade if the fade does his job properly, even aimbotters wouldn't have the chance. It takes multiple shotgunners in the same place, or huge numbers of marines, or multiple exos, all of which a decent fade should be avoiding entirely.
What's worse, it doesn't even take a great deal of skill to play an immortal, if not particularly damaging, fade. Prioritize survival over kills and blink away between every swipe and even average players can manage it. I say this because I can do it, and I sure as hell can't shoot one.
Why does a team based game need to have a high individual skill cap? It makes no sense at all. NS2 is based off of outdated twitch shooter mechanics. Those days are long gone, and no one is interested in a game like that. That's why NS1/NS2 never took off; the game is already complex as it is to a new player, especially when it comes to properly commanding. Then on top of having to learn what does what, how to counter certain things, etc. then you have to deal with the fact that the absurdly high individual skill cap in the game. Sure, maybe diehard hardcore video gamers like it, but a large portion of the gaming community does not.
If you want the game to succeed, you have to give ground somewhere. Every single successful competitive game today allows lesser skilled players to win against higher skilled players. In SC2, you can be mechanically strong as you want, but if someone simply outsmarts you with a better build, they can have inferior mechanics and still beat you. In League of Legends,
Matchmaking doesn't solve the problem. It's too easy for a competitive player/high level pub player to go into a community server and wreck shop. You would have to make matchmaking actually the primary way of playing games, which is not something that is easy to do in a game like this where community servers are always far more prevalent. Sorry to say it, but NS is already complicated as it is for a new player, adding an extra layer of high skill cap on top of everything only discourages them further as they become more and more frustrated.
It makes no sense to say a team based game can't have a high skill ceiling. Those two are not mutually exclusive. It's like saying every football player should have to wear a fatsuit in order to drag everyone down to thesame level, because football is a team game and people who are excelling through their individual skillset are detrimental to the game. If you'd let players like Messi and Ronaldo do their thing unrestricted, they'd just ruin it for everyone else, right? And who'd want to watch that?
No, there are plenty of popular games out there with high skill ceilings. You just need to take some measures to deal with the inevitable skill disparity. One crucial thing is accessibility, giving new players the tools to quickly learn and improve. Another is making sure that new/casual players aren't repeatedly pit against veterans/pros in unbalanced matchups. The most common way is to deal with this is to divide the playerbase based on their skill levels.
Look at SCII and it's ranking system for instance. People can have fun, win some, lose some, regardless of their actual skill level, because they're always pit against players of a similar level. And if they improve significantly, start beating up the players in their league, they are moved up the ladder. It's the perfect example.
So if one could find a way to make sure the overall skill level of both alien and marine teams are somewhat equal to each other, everyone in that game is gonna have a better time. Matchmaking service would help, as would some form of randomisation option based on certain "skill parameters". I think the latter is a more realistic option though.
The most popular team based competitive games today are not 'high skill' games. DotA2/LoL (both which I play at very high levels, page 1 MMR in DotA 2 and Diamond 1 in League) are not 'skill based' games they are knowledge/experience based games. Same with the most popular team based shooters. The reason why people enjoy these games is because one player cannot literally go and carry his team in either of those games; you are only as strong as your weakest link. The reason why people stop playing NS1/NS2 is because someone can go Fade and just literally go roflstomp pubs single handily with almost no help from his team, and the only way for him to die is to literally be stupid and just walk into multiple exos or eat 3 pointblank shotgun blasts to the face.
Thinking that matchmaking will do anything is silly; it's the fact that NS2 is still based on silly ass mechanics from the Quake era where movement/twitch skills rule supreme. There's a reason why Quake died out and CS took over; it's because CS doesn't allow a player to single handily ruin the game for everyone else.
Don't kid yourself. A CS pro would stomp all over the average pub server. It's just less common to encounter highly skilled players on CS pubs in comparison to NS2 because CS has a much larger playerbase.
But you are right, most people don't enjoy it when a person totally destroys their team, which is why a method of segregating players based on their skill levels can help. I don't know why you're trying to claim otherwise. The merit of a matchmaking device is so obvious. Equally balanced teams make for much more enjoyable experiences.
The movement/shooter mechanics also have nothing to do with this discussion. If you don't like them, then play a different game. Don't try to use them as an argument against any form of matchmaking, that's just silly.
A CS Pro would not stomp a pub to the level where people get completely discouraged and just leave the server. A pro can still die in CS if he takes a slightly bad engagement, the room for error on his part is extremely small. One lucky shot and he's dead, so he can't just go charging into 4/5 people and expect to live. When people play NS2, they expect superior teamwork and just strength in numbers to overwhelm even the best of players, but that is clearly not the case. One player can do enough damage to turn the tide and just snowball the advantage in his teams favor. It gets even worse if there are two players, and if three solid players join one team, it's almost 99% autowin for that team.
Essentially in CS, no matter how good you are, you are still vulnerable as hell. In NS2, that's not the case. If you're fucking good enough, you are basically immortal.
I respectfully disagree. I've seen competitive CS players go something like 40-1 on pub servers back in my day, being near as unkillable as a good NS2 player now, winning practically every round because of it, and inciting as much anger and frustration amongst the less skilled players. Also, a good fade can die to a few lucky shots as fast as a CS player can. Yes, if we're talking about a fade, it takes more than one shot, but then again it's a fade, you shouldn't be able to one shot it in the first place.
In any case, this doesn't just apply to CS or NS, for every game (be it videogames, sports, boardgames etc.) which has a sizeable skill ceiling, stuff like this is possible. Really good players will dominate average players. But in a small playerbase like NS, consisting of a lot of veteran players, the problem of having to face off against "pros" is more commonly encountered than in a game like CS, which has always attracted a huge amounts of casual players.
So again, changing the very nature of the game by dumbing down the shooter/movement mechanics in order to lower the skill ceiling would be the absolute worst way of solving a skill disparity issue. Like someone else mentioned before, you don't see people dumbing down chess to make it more popular. The best way to solve the issue is by creating balanced teams and/or segregating players based on their skill level.
This particular line of discussion was based on lucky shots. I never said one, or even two, or even 3 are the breaking points for fades. However, I have been killed at least a few times by lucky ass grenades or just getting into more marines then healthy. Shit happens, that's the whole concept with lucky shots.
I, either, cannot see the difference between lucky shots in CS and lucky shots in NS2. Furthermore, fades can be countered strategically and be killed intelligently as opposed to with pure aiming skills. Cutting off the escape route of a wounded fade gives even the most rheumatic marine a great chance to outsmart and finish off a pro fade. Isn't this exactly what you're advocating for @RequiemDK ? In CS this doesn't really happen, because even though there are positional advantages, it more or less boils down to who aims better and pulls the trigger first. Protip: it's the better player.
Maybe I should just say something like: "it's far easier to land the number of shots required to kill and therefore punish a highly skilled player in CS than it is to land the number of shots required to kill and punish a good fade player in NS2." Heck, all you really need in CS to kill Mr. ISoPro is a lucky AWP shot if some other derp on your team managed to flashbang him due to goodness knows what factor. You need railgun shots on a blinking target around you in NS2 to kill that fade, if he hasn't already swiped that low health marine behind you and blinked out of the room. Games usually deal with characters with extreme mobility by providing some form of disable, but the only real hard disable in NS2 comes from the onos. The flamethrower does a much better job of throwing out damage than disabling fades.
I was also arguing that the scenario you described does not happen due to many reasons in an actual pub game with a good fade. It cannot be assumed that the fade is the only alien nearby, and it's quite odd to say that any marine can finish off the fade. You do need proficiency in twitch aiming skills, even if the fade is blinking down a corridor. Honestly, I have yet to see a fade blink in a straight line to or away from a marine. Strategy is something that applies to both the marines and the fade. If you can give the marines enough resources to set up a trap for the fade as you described, what's stopping the aliens from throwing in a few free skulks into the fray that will murder the marines while they attempt to shoot the fade? In pub games, the only reliable counter to fades is an exosuit, because you need to cause enough damage at range to prevent the fade from even approaching the marines and that does not happen with shotguns. If a comm is counting on his pubby marines to land 3 shotgun blasts at point blank on a fade, he would probably have a better chance at the roulette table. Heck, because of the recent flood of greens (who then invariably join marines), I routinely see fades jumping into groups of up to FIVE marines and either completely take them out or nearly do so. Before they can respawn, the fade is already healed up and looking for other marines to slaughter.
The later part of my post about the punishment for fades is that fade players either do not get punished at all due to their mobility, or they get heavily punished due to the huge loss of resource if they die before recuperating that huge resource cost. This makes it so that when you do see a player going fade for a decent amount of time, it's almost always the case that he's a pretty good fade player already and will end up slaughtering half the marine team. Newbies don't get a chance to learn how to play a fade properly and will not find it fun to save all those resources only to lose it within a minute.
Lastly, it's at least pretty obvious to me that all these class balance problems are greatly exaggerated in pub games by stacked teams. Especially in the recent days.
Edit: Can I also just say how amused I am at the forum's "achievement badges" although the game itself is devoid of anything like that? Don't get me wrong. I think achievements in games are the pits, but this is odd irony.
Edited edit: The point about exosuits countering fades? That's under the assumption of a routine game. I've been in games before where the commander did stuff other than the usual obs/pg/sit-and-turtle-to-death routine and we managed to counter fades by not letting them even appear, but that's rare as hell.
You do realize everything you're arguing is situationally based and therefor not the greatest grounds for an actual argument right? I mean, that's the whole basis of 90% of the subject matter in this thread honestly. There ARE great games to be had in this game, and there are also abysmally shitty ones. The question is, are you truly interested in playing it for the good ones, are just content about whining endlessly about the bad ones on the forums?
After all, that is what forums are here for, I reckon.
You do realize everything you're arguing is situationally based and therefor not the greatest grounds for an actual argument right? I mean, that's the whole basis of 90% of the subject matter in this thread honestly. There ARE great games to be had in this game, and there are also abysmally shitty ones. The question is, are you truly interested in playing it for the good ones, are just content about whining endlessly about the bad ones on the forums?
After all, that is what forums are here for, I reckon.
The game's design needs to be more conducive to those good games rather than the bad. Consider this: if 4 out of 5 games end up being boring noobstompfests, why would a new player want to stay for it when he could instead be spending that time playing something that has a much better chance of being fun? Isn't this the question that this thread is about?
Unless of course we as a community are ok with the game going the way of NS1, being left with only a select few hardcore players in the end.
You say "going the way of NS1" like it's a bad thing, yet not realizing that NS1, and now this game, has survived beyond the likes of games of the time like TFC, DOD, Quake, and still on deck with CS (not sure what the scene is like there with the new game since it's arguably far worse then any previous version of that game). And yes, there's TF2, but it's nothing like the TFC I played. Fact remains, this game is still around. Whether it's as popular as others, sure that's obviously disputable, but it still maintains it's faithful following.
And every single one of those games I mentioned, plus the newer ones I've left out, and really any game in existence has just as many bad games, in my experience, as this one does. You win some, you lose some.
But honestly, there's really no point in me typing this. It's not going to change anybody coming on this thread and dumping their version of why this game isn't the super meg popular fps/rts game out there.
You say "going the way of NS1" like it's a bad thing, yet not realizing that NS1, and now this game, has survived beyond the likes of games of the time like TFC, DOD, Quake, and still on deck with CS (not sure what the scene is like there with the new game since it's arguably far worse then any previous version of that game). And yes, there's TF2, but it's nothing like the TFC I played. Fact remains, this game is still around. Whether it's as popular as others, sure that's obviously disputable, but it still maintains it's faithful following.
And every single one of those games I mentioned, plus the newer ones I've left out, and really any game in existence has just as many bad games, in my experience, as this one does. You win some, you lose some.
But honestly, there's really no point in me typing this. It's not going to change anybody coming on this thread and dumping their version of why this game isn't the super meg popular fps/rts game out there.
And that's probably where we disagree. No matter how bad you think CS:GO might be, I have at least as many good games there as bad games. And the bad games are never as frustrating as NS2's. Part of the reason is the existence of casual and competitive game modes in CS:GO with distinct enough rules to cater to the two different types of players.
As for whether the popularity of NS2 matters or not, it does to me. If none of my friends are willing to bother with it anymore, I wouldn't be as inclined to play it as often. It's quite telling that the official servers in my country are already perpetually empty while finding a local CS:GO server is a cinch despite everyone here agreeing that NS1/NS2's concept is, in theory, far more enjoyable than plain old CTs vs Ts. Again, if UWE and the NS2 community is fine with this, I guess there's nothing left to say about the current trajectory of the game.
Any1 on marine team that knows anything about this game easily takes advantage of flamers and nades and a few people doing it wins their team the game. Prior to 250, fades were fast but they could easily be taken down if a fade was too careless or if the fade was focused down/trapped. In 250 however, they buff its health, take out double jump, and nerf the speed to a crawl. What the heck? Fades are supposed to be swift, that's the idea behind them, they're not supposed to soak up damage and blink away when low on hp. They are supposed to evade damage and strike at the right time (fades require skill).
Fades hp got nerfed on 250. Cara for fade got nerfed too. The speed hasn't really been nerfed, it's just not SS jump boost anymore. It's more constant and fluid. They certainly aren't here to soak up damage. They still need to be evasive, and they still require skill (probably more, since they are way more weak). It just isn't SS+swipe SS+swipe SS+swipe easy mode over and over again anymore.
And the biomass, now they want us to make 3 buildings for each upgrade without even lowering the cost? Aliens are supposed to expand quickly while marines are supposed to be more stationary (and eat bacon when needed)
1 building gives you access to both it's path upgrade (read 1 shell gives you cara and regen), and you dont need to upgrade it once you have dropped it. The cost isn't much more than it was in pre 250. The rts cost less though, and aliens are still supposed to expand quiclky, and marines are still more stationary than aliens. I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion.
249 was fine and most people didn't have a problem with it, but then 250 comes to change the almost perfectly-balanced game. No game is perfectly balanced and as with every other game there were only a few tricks that gave a slight advantage but those tricks aren't a problem and can even be called skillful moves.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't change what was working, just add on to it (like in gorgeous).
Heads or tails is a perfectly balanced game. Play it for a week, and tell me if you didn't get bored. NS2 pre 250 was balanced, but it was SO STALE. There was nothing new to do. It was boring as hell. 250 gave the game a breath of fresh air, at the expense of balance. Wich is normal, because there was a lot of new things. But I'd rather have something a bit less balanced that still need some work but is not the same thing over and over again, and can actually bring a bit of excitement, than what we had pre 250.
You say "going the way of NS1" like it's a bad thing, yet not realizing that NS1, and now this game, has survived beyond the likes of games of the time like TFC, DOD, Quake, and still on deck with CS (not sure what the scene is like there with the new game since it's arguably far worse then any previous version of that game).
Actually it is a bad thing if it goes the way of NS1. Especially if you want continued support and updates for this game.
UWE certainly won't, or at least shouldn't, continue to support a game that provides no revenue for them if they want to stay in business. However, the occasional Steam sale may be good enough to provide enough revenue for continued support, even if the player base only has a jump during the sale, then falls back to normal levels and dwindles.
Also... who doesn't want more players than ~1500 during a peak day anyway?.... I think most everyone should agree that the more players the better. It will be very hard for UWE to retain more players than that if they keep doing what they are doing.
When the marines get a "few lucky shots on the fade", the fade still has enough HP to retreat and heal up. Fades are NOT paper, they take 3 shotgun blasts to the face but are only in your face for the time it takes to fire 1. There's simply no way for a marine to kill a fade if the fade does his job properly, even aimbotters wouldn't have the chance. It takes multiple shotgunners in the same place, or huge numbers of marines, or multiple exos, all of which a decent fade should be avoiding entirely.
What's worse, it doesn't even take a great deal of skill to play an immortal, if not particularly damaging, fade. Prioritize survival over kills and blink away between every swipe and even average players can manage it. I say this because I can do it, and I sure as hell can't shoot one.
Well that's simply not true. I blinked in on a GL marine and he killed me by an utter fluke by shooting a few grenades that hit me directly, killing both him and myself.
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
I would like to point out though that a pro player in CS is still a very vulnerable player and is still easily punished for slipping up because it does not take more than a few lucky shots to end his round. This is not always true for NS2 fades because it's not exactly as vulnerable as people make it out to be in pubs.
There are multiple problems with the design of fades and onoses (oni? I think of Japanese ogres when using that term instead) when it comes to pub play. Let's leave the onos out of this because that's a huge and different can of worms. Let's just look at one problem with the fade. It takes a tonne of resources to obtain, being the second highest tier alien lifeform. Besides having to make the effect on the game commensurate with its cost, it also needs to make it similarly difficult for others to take down the fade. This is the part that sucks. It requires almost perfect play by marines to take one down. 3 direct shotgun blasts to its face you say? Good luck finding players who can coordinate that in a pub game, with the varying skill levels and lag and assorted other BS flying around because any sizeable squad of marines that can land that many shotgun blasts instantly is not likely to be harassed by just 1 fade. Not to mention that the fade has the mobility to play the attrition game against the marine squad. You do not "win" an engagement by chasing off the fade. The fade will (and should) simply run off to harass another weak point in the marines' set up, or blink back to base to heal and return. The fade alone can slow you down significantly even if your squad is equipped with 3 shotguns (60 res). God forbid the alien team from having other players too. At this point, the question of whether it is even possible to kill the fade is beginning to be irrelevant - the better question (in pub play) is whether or not it is FUN to play against something designed like that.
You can't weaken the fade to accommodate pub players without changing the way the resource system works either - you would then end up with the onos' problem. Is it FUN to save up 50+ resources to evolve into a fully upgraded fade, then make one slip up and lose it all that easily? You see, in CS, if the pro player makes one slip up and dies in round in a pub game, the round times are short enough, and the weapon costs low enough, that he can re-kit and get back into it quickly, unless he has somehow derped and made so many mistakes that his pool of money has been eroded away. Btw this is integral to the idea of "playing" a game. A game HAS to properly allow for slip ups and distribute the punishments and rewards appropriately and not simply declare "don't f*** up or you're permanently out". Make it too much of the latter, and I'd rather be at my job instead. It is impractical most times in a pub NS2 game to save up for either a fade or onos more than once per game. Yet, I'm willing to bet that if nothing is done about good fades singlehandedly shutting down half the map from marines, NS2 is going to die off fast from the joke that is its pub balance, leaving all but the most hardcore of fans, but didn't we want to attract new players?
In comp games where marines have much better aim and awareness, fades are probably fine, if not a little weak due to their predictability, though that should not matter because of the lerk. But I think this exposes the problem with the way the game has been designed and balanced - it's been designed under ideal play conditions and ideal players in mind. There are other elements that exhibit this sort of design paradigm too, e.g. mass exos. That's not going to happen often on pub servers. I will admit that I've been in games that have met such requirements before and they've been exceedingly fun, but most games are not like that.
On a tangential topic, I wish people would stop treating "randomize ready room" as the solution to stacked teams. It will never be, as long as the game does not keep track of player skill/stats. I was just in a game where the marines had a bunch of greens (and so was the commander), while the alien team was a team full of vets. Nobody was willing to switch teams despite the obvious imbalance, citing "but it's a randomized game" as the reason. If NS2 wishes to keep the greens playing, this is a whole pile of fail. I very much doubt that the newbie marines enjoyed barely learning how to navigate mineshaft and getting shotguns moments before the main base got bile-rushed and onos-swarmed while simultaneously losing 9 out of 10 engagements.
Honestly, without reading the rest of your wall of text (without trying to sound too condescending), you shot your entire argument out of the water when you said that CS players are vulnerable to "lucky shots" and fades aren't. Fades are still paper, and every bit as susceptible to "lucky shots" as any other paper target. They're designed to be hard to hit when played right, yes, but CS players are also along the same lines when played right, substituting "hard to hit" with "kill you before you see them". But caught in a firefight "lucky shots" is every bit as much "lucky" against a fade as it is in CS.
You need 3 lucky full on hit shotgun blasts to kill a Fade. That's not exactly easy on a good player.
In CS, you can hose down 30 bullets in half a second and just need 4 of them to hit, 1 to the head, 2 if they have a helmet. If it's an awp, auto kill if it's not a leg shot. Not to mention health and movement speed in CS are much lower, making it far easier to kill people. In NS2, the speeds of Jetpack Marines/Skulks/Fades is pretty fast, as such it makes it even more difficult to kill.
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A CS Pro would not stomp a pub to the level where people get completely discouraged and just leave the server. A pro can still die in CS if he takes a slightly bad engagement, the room for error on his part is extremely small. One lucky shot and he's dead, so he can't just go charging into 4/5 people and expect to live. When people play NS2, they expect superior teamwork and just strength in numbers to overwhelm even the best of players, but that is clearly not the case. One player can do enough damage to turn the tide and just snowball the advantage in his teams favor. It gets even worse if there are two players, and if three solid players join one team, it's almost 99% autowin for that team.
Essentially in CS, no matter how good you are, you are still vulnerable as hell. In NS2, that's not the case. If you're fucking good enough, you are basically immortal.
Amen. No res for kill is a travesty we'll have to deal with for a long time coming.
Well I can list a few things I always wanted to have clarified.
1. Docking. There was a thread that stated lets make it competitive and all of a sudden we get a 4 tech point docking with dev support. Funny thing is Docking is still not really used in comp though this is limited by the data I get from the games that I watch on twitch. I mean what are you suppose to think with this thread out:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128793/time-to-make-docking-competitive/p1
2. Armory not healing armor. This feature was not really much of a game changer in pubs but was still made. Not really suited for pubs but at least the drop in price and the self armor repair when welding was a decent bridge between both modes.
3. Camo nerf from 100% invisibility. I remember seeing posts that it was too OP for comp play so it was dropped to somewhat invisible at the time. Though I found it was a fun ability in pub not too op.
4. Skulk movement speed nerfed and changed in 240 as skulks were too quick in comp. I saw no one really complain about the skulk prior to the nerf and there were topics about the brick skulk at the time. In higher player servers marines dominated skulks and could easily demolish them by hopping away after the change was made.
5. Fade changes made where many thought the fade in 250 was fine. Many posts that argued this. Some said pre 250 Fade was too easy mode and not complicated enough and wanted the hops. Idk if the final result was what people on the balance team wanted though.
6. Onos nerf not really suited for pub play. I assumed it was probably made to accustom 6v6 play to avoid making Onos too tanky and easier to get taken down though in pubs they are demolished. Though I still do not see them used in comp play and see people stating they are not very useful.
7. Alien eggs made more expensive. To avoid having too many lifeform spam in comp games. Comp game I witnessed had too many lifeforms popping out with the prior cheaper eggs so I assumed this change was made to address that.
8. Added a 0.3 second cool down for medpacks.
Plus these changes that were made for the finals for comp as stated by Corys:
forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2104616/#Comment_2104616
or specifically : "We picked balance tweaks that would be easy and fast to make, with relatively little testing time required, in order to be able to get a patch out with enough time before the finals."
9. Increased Infantry Portal cost to 20 (up from 15)
10. Reduced nano shield duration to 3 seconds (down from 8) (Could have left this on structures for higher player servers which aliens tend to break down fast)
11. Increased nano shield effectiveness to 75% (up from 50%)
12. Increased arms lab upgrade costs to 20/30/40 (was 15/25/35)
13. Reduced gorge tunnel research cost to 10 (was 30)
14. Reduced gorge tunnel cost to 5 (was 10)
15. Increased gorge tunnel armor by 100
Not stating they ruined pub play but I always got the impression many changes were aimed for comp. Also I am not blind to the changes made specifically for pubs like egg spawning rates. But the result is a mixture that is not really suited for either game mode. At first I thought getting one balance was best but now I see the player count is too much of an issue when it comes down to it. 6v6 is going to be vastly different than say 10v10 to 12v12.
I mean is comp perfectly balanced at the moment and do all comp players enjoy it? I am no comp player but I do watch a lot of their games and see other comp players post their dissatisfaction with the game when I previously thought the game was balanced for them but I do not really assume it anymore. Have seen comp players frustrated with the direction of NS2 for quite a long time. Now I just get the impression Sewlek determines the direction of the game which is perfectly fine as he is the appointed UWE dev and the few people in that balance group that also have a degree of influence.
Camo being OP in comp is LOL, it was never used in comp play, it completely broke PUB play. Armory not healing armor was solely for public play, as it was rarely relied on in comp play. Skulk movement changes were again done for pubs, as the win rates had begun slipping to be heavily alien biased, with much of that being believe to be centered around skulks. Fade changes were actually much more public focused then honestly I think anyone wanted, because it ended up being a slightly more predictable shadowstep, instead of something that required much more execution. Onos nerf was also done for public play - too often the aliens would get 3-4 onos and the marines just could not do anything to stop that, in comp play the onos is a really big target (but still can be useful).
Medpack cooldown was just changed to be a pickup cooldown, it was there before as a dropping cooldown.
9-15 are some that are potentially valid, but in actuality also benefited public play. The nano changes could be argued to be comp focused.
And to your point, comp play is more imbalanced than public play, so I still fail to see how the game is remotely being balanced around comp play.
Well I never said it was balanced around comp play I always thought UWE was trying to do both at the same time. I know comp play is far more imbalanced I was just trying to get some points clarified that I thought were made for comp. I don't get why UWE does not balance 6v6 separately. It is obvious that if 6v6 is balanced well, the pubs which usually have larger player counts are going to demolish aliens so that was always taken into consideration. But comp play will continue to be imbalanced unless the balance is done specifically for player count. Will probably not happen though.
the game has a 90-95% alien win rate in 6v6 with average-skill players because it's designed to be balanced for comp play where marines actually know how to be aggressive, aim and med
even comp play below the highest tier has been extremely alien-favored largely because the aiming/coordination skill isn't high enough on the marine side
UWE nerfed marines for comp play and pub has been horribly broken below 10v10
?
The problem is very experienced players can only play public against inexperienced players consistently
The players themselves aren't a problem, and openly welcomed to this game. Anyone can play ns2, the problem is people who are much better than other players consistently play with each other leading to upsetting matches for both players, I don't know any competitive player who enjoys going 70-0 against players who walk in a straight line, and I don't know anyone who enjoys going 0-70 while trying their best to kill someone
Both players are allowed to play, but they really shouldn't be facing each other.. This is less of an issue in more casual games because the more experienced player will be heavily handicapped (ex any fps game past 5 years) which leads to the experienced player getting frustrated cause they're dying a lot of times when they shouldn't be (even if they still win heavily)
Anyway not going further off topic but that's the point
And the biomass, now they want us to make 3 buildings for each upgrade without even lowering the cost? Aliens are supposed to expand quickly while marines are supposed to be more stationary (and eat bacon when needed)
249 was fine and most people didn't have a problem with it, but then 250 comes to change the almost perfectly-balanced game. No game is perfectly balanced and as with every other game there were only a few tricks that gave a slight advantage but those tricks aren't a problem and can even be called skillful moves.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't change what was working, just add on to it (like in gorgeous).
A CS pro absolutely does stomp a pub that hard. He doesn't take bad engagements, that's why he's a pro. It's the same in NS2 - half the skill is knowing what you can and can't do. You perceive the pro player as being invincible without even trying, but in fact there are a ton of things he can't do, and he's just not attempting them.
Damn good post. You sir, get an awesome.
Funny that you brought up no res for kill since. Getting res for kill rewards you during a round. The lack of these rewards is what creates the frustration, especially for newer players. This is what makes people leave the game. Other games today manage to tie down players with a perfectly aligned string of little rewards. Just one quest, just one item, just one kill, just one achievement. Even though most of these games have far worse balance and gameplay than ns, these little rewards make the game enjoyable.
If it is hard work to learn a computer game, most people wont bother with it. If i want to work hard, i go earn money or do sports.
I would like to point out though that a pro player in CS is still a very vulnerable player and is still easily punished for slipping up because it does not take more than a few lucky shots to end his round. This is not always true for NS2 fades because it's not exactly as vulnerable as people make it out to be in pubs.
There are multiple problems with the design of fades and onoses (oni? I think of Japanese ogres when using that term instead) when it comes to pub play. Let's leave the onos out of this because that's a huge and different can of worms. Let's just look at one problem with the fade. It takes a tonne of resources to obtain, being the second highest tier alien lifeform. Besides having to make the effect on the game commensurate with its cost, it also needs to make it similarly difficult for others to take down the fade. This is the part that sucks. It requires almost perfect play by marines to take one down. 3 direct shotgun blasts to its face you say? Good luck finding players who can coordinate that in a pub game, with the varying skill levels and lag and assorted other BS flying around because any sizeable squad of marines that can land that many shotgun blasts instantly is not likely to be harassed by just 1 fade. Not to mention that the fade has the mobility to play the attrition game against the marine squad. You do not "win" an engagement by chasing off the fade. The fade will (and should) simply run off to harass another weak point in the marines' set up, or blink back to base to heal and return. The fade alone can slow you down significantly even if your squad is equipped with 3 shotguns (60 res). God forbid the alien team from having other players too. At this point, the question of whether it is even possible to kill the fade is beginning to be irrelevant - the better question (in pub play) is whether or not it is FUN to play against something designed like that.
You can't weaken the fade to accommodate pub players without changing the way the resource system works either - you would then end up with the onos' problem. Is it FUN to save up 50+ resources to evolve into a fully upgraded fade, then make one slip up and lose it all that easily? You see, in CS, if the pro player makes one slip up and dies in round in a pub game, the round times are short enough, and the weapon costs low enough, that he can re-kit and get back into it quickly, unless he has somehow derped and made so many mistakes that his pool of money has been eroded away. Btw this is integral to the idea of "playing" a game. A game HAS to properly allow for slip ups and distribute the punishments and rewards appropriately and not simply declare "don't f*** up or you're permanently out". Make it too much of the latter, and I'd rather be at my job instead. It is impractical most times in a pub NS2 game to save up for either a fade or onos more than once per game. Yet, I'm willing to bet that if nothing is done about good fades singlehandedly shutting down half the map from marines, NS2 is going to die off fast from the joke that is its pub balance, leaving all but the most hardcore of fans, but didn't we want to attract new players?
In comp games where marines have much better aim and awareness, fades are probably fine, if not a little weak due to their predictability, though that should not matter because of the lerk. But I think this exposes the problem with the way the game has been designed and balanced - it's been designed under ideal play conditions and ideal players in mind. There are other elements that exhibit this sort of design paradigm too, e.g. mass exos. That's not going to happen often on pub servers. I will admit that I've been in games that have met such requirements before and they've been exceedingly fun, but most games are not like that.
On a tangential topic, I wish people would stop treating "randomize ready room" as the solution to stacked teams. It will never be, as long as the game does not keep track of player skill/stats. I was just in a game where the marines had a bunch of greens (and so was the commander), while the alien team was a team full of vets. Nobody was willing to switch teams despite the obvious imbalance, citing "but it's a randomized game" as the reason. If NS2 wishes to keep the greens playing, this is a whole pile of fail. I very much doubt that the newbie marines enjoyed barely learning how to navigate mineshaft and getting shotguns moments before the main base got bile-rushed and onos-swarmed while simultaneously losing 9 out of 10 engagements.
Honestly, without reading the rest of your wall of text (without trying to sound too condescending), you shot your entire argument out of the water when you said that CS players are vulnerable to "lucky shots" and fades aren't. Fades are still paper, and every bit as susceptible to "lucky shots" as any other paper target. They're designed to be hard to hit when played right, yes, but CS players are also along the same lines when played right, substituting "hard to hit" with "kill you before you see them". But caught in a firefight "lucky shots" is every bit as much "lucky" against a fade as it is in CS.
And my entire argument was that lucky shots against pro players in CS is far more likely than lucky shots against pro fades in NS2, and that the punishments are commensurately less in CS, thereby making it more acceptable. I'm sorry, but fades are not as paper as CS players for reasons such as:
1. Very often, the default gun for a marine squad is still the LMG, or at best, the shotgun later on. These are far less punishing than the AK/AWP in CS.
2. Blink. Shadowstep.
3. Multiple things going on in NS2 as opposed to CS. How often do you get fights as chaotic as NS2's in CS?
I'll stop there. The other part of my argument was that such a design does a game no favours. Sure, you could argue all you want about that skill ceiling, but I'll let the player count decide at the end of the day whether such a game design element is fun. In a weird sense, the arguments against the fade also apply to the exosuit problem faced by the alien team. You CAN throw both together and claim that "it all balances out", which is something that I suspect UWE has done.
When the marines get a "few lucky shots on the fade", the fade still has enough HP to retreat and heal up. Fades are NOT paper, they take 3 shotgun blasts to the face but are only in your face for the time it takes to fire 1. There's simply no way for a marine to kill a fade if the fade does his job properly, even aimbotters wouldn't have the chance. It takes multiple shotgunners in the same place, or huge numbers of marines, or multiple exos, all of which a decent fade should be avoiding entirely.
What's worse, it doesn't even take a great deal of skill to play an immortal, if not particularly damaging, fade. Prioritize survival over kills and blink away between every swipe and even average players can manage it. I say this because I can do it, and I sure as hell can't shoot one.
I respectfully disagree. I've seen competitive CS players go something like 40-1 on pub servers back in my day, being near as unkillable as a good NS2 player now, winning practically every round because of it, and inciting as much anger and frustration amongst the less skilled players. Also, a good fade can die to a few lucky shots as fast as a CS player can. Yes, if we're talking about a fade, it takes more than one shot, but then again it's a fade, you shouldn't be able to one shot it in the first place.
In any case, this doesn't just apply to CS or NS, for every game (be it videogames, sports, boardgames etc.) which has a sizeable skill ceiling, stuff like this is possible. Really good players will dominate average players. But in a small playerbase like NS, consisting of a lot of veteran players, the problem of having to face off against "pros" is more commonly encountered than in a game like CS, which has always attracted a huge amounts of casual players.
So again, changing the very nature of the game by dumbing down the shooter/movement mechanics in order to lower the skill ceiling would be the absolute worst way of solving a skill disparity issue. Like someone else mentioned before, you don't see people dumbing down chess to make it more popular. The best way to solve the issue is by creating balanced teams and/or segregating players based on their skill level.
Maybe I should just say something like: "it's far easier to land the number of shots required to kill and therefore punish a highly skilled player in CS than it is to land the number of shots required to kill and punish a good fade player in NS2." Heck, all you really need in CS to kill Mr. ISoPro is a lucky AWP shot if some other derp on your team managed to flashbang him due to goodness knows what factor. You need railgun shots on a blinking target around you in NS2 to kill that fade, if he hasn't already swiped that low health marine behind you and blinked out of the room. Games usually deal with characters with extreme mobility by providing some form of disable, but the only real hard disable in NS2 comes from the onos. The flamethrower does a much better job of throwing out damage than disabling fades.
I was also arguing that the scenario you described does not happen due to many reasons in an actual pub game with a good fade. It cannot be assumed that the fade is the only alien nearby, and it's quite odd to say that any marine can finish off the fade. You do need proficiency in twitch aiming skills, even if the fade is blinking down a corridor. Honestly, I have yet to see a fade blink in a straight line to or away from a marine. Strategy is something that applies to both the marines and the fade. If you can give the marines enough resources to set up a trap for the fade as you described, what's stopping the aliens from throwing in a few free skulks into the fray that will murder the marines while they attempt to shoot the fade? In pub games, the only reliable counter to fades is an exosuit, because you need to cause enough damage at range to prevent the fade from even approaching the marines and that does not happen with shotguns. If a comm is counting on his pubby marines to land 3 shotgun blasts at point blank on a fade, he would probably have a better chance at the roulette table. Heck, because of the recent flood of greens (who then invariably join marines), I routinely see fades jumping into groups of up to FIVE marines and either completely take them out or nearly do so. Before they can respawn, the fade is already healed up and looking for other marines to slaughter.
The later part of my post about the punishment for fades is that fade players either do not get punished at all due to their mobility, or they get heavily punished due to the huge loss of resource if they die before recuperating that huge resource cost. This makes it so that when you do see a player going fade for a decent amount of time, it's almost always the case that he's a pretty good fade player already and will end up slaughtering half the marine team. Newbies don't get a chance to learn how to play a fade properly and will not find it fun to save all those resources only to lose it within a minute.
Lastly, it's at least pretty obvious to me that all these class balance problems are greatly exaggerated in pub games by stacked teams. Especially in the recent days.
Edit: Can I also just say how amused I am at the forum's "achievement badges" although the game itself is devoid of anything like that?
Edited edit: The point about exosuits countering fades? That's under the assumption of a routine game. I've been in games before where the commander did stuff other than the usual obs/pg/sit-and-turtle-to-death routine and we managed to counter fades by not letting them even appear, but that's rare as hell.
After all, that is what forums are here for, I reckon.
The game's design needs to be more conducive to those good games rather than the bad. Consider this: if 4 out of 5 games end up being boring noobstompfests, why would a new player want to stay for it when he could instead be spending that time playing something that has a much better chance of being fun? Isn't this the question that this thread is about?
Unless of course we as a community are ok with the game going the way of NS1, being left with only a select few hardcore players in the end.
And every single one of those games I mentioned, plus the newer ones I've left out, and really any game in existence has just as many bad games, in my experience, as this one does. You win some, you lose some.
But honestly, there's really no point in me typing this. It's not going to change anybody coming on this thread and dumping their version of why this game isn't the super meg popular fps/rts game out there.
And that's probably where we disagree. No matter how bad you think CS:GO might be, I have at least as many good games there as bad games. And the bad games are never as frustrating as NS2's. Part of the reason is the existence of casual and competitive game modes in CS:GO with distinct enough rules to cater to the two different types of players.
As for whether the popularity of NS2 matters or not, it does to me. If none of my friends are willing to bother with it anymore, I wouldn't be as inclined to play it as often. It's quite telling that the official servers in my country are already perpetually empty while finding a local CS:GO server is a cinch despite everyone here agreeing that NS1/NS2's concept is, in theory, far more enjoyable than plain old CTs vs Ts. Again, if UWE and the NS2 community is fine with this, I guess there's nothing left to say about the current trajectory of the game.
Fades hp got nerfed on 250. Cara for fade got nerfed too. The speed hasn't really been nerfed, it's just not SS jump boost anymore. It's more constant and fluid. They certainly aren't here to soak up damage. They still need to be evasive, and they still require skill (probably more, since they are way more weak). It just isn't SS+swipe SS+swipe SS+swipe easy mode over and over again anymore.
1 building gives you access to both it's path upgrade (read 1 shell gives you cara and regen), and you dont need to upgrade it once you have dropped it. The cost isn't much more than it was in pre 250. The rts cost less though, and aliens are still supposed to expand quiclky, and marines are still more stationary than aliens. I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion.
Heads or tails is a perfectly balanced game. Play it for a week, and tell me if you didn't get bored. NS2 pre 250 was balanced, but it was SO STALE. There was nothing new to do. It was boring as hell. 250 gave the game a breath of fresh air, at the expense of balance. Wich is normal, because there was a lot of new things. But I'd rather have something a bit less balanced that still need some work but is not the same thing over and over again, and can actually bring a bit of excitement, than what we had pre 250.
Of course you're going to be able to find more cs servers to play on, thats just a given.
Actually it is a bad thing if it goes the way of NS1. Especially if you want continued support and updates for this game.
UWE certainly won't, or at least shouldn't, continue to support a game that provides no revenue for them if they want to stay in business. However, the occasional Steam sale may be good enough to provide enough revenue for continued support, even if the player base only has a jump during the sale, then falls back to normal levels and dwindles.
Also... who doesn't want more players than ~1500 during a peak day anyway?.... I think most everyone should agree that the more players the better. It will be very hard for UWE to retain more players than that if they keep doing what they are doing.
Well that's simply not true. I blinked in on a GL marine and he killed me by an utter fluke by shooting a few grenades that hit me directly, killing both him and myself.
You need 3 lucky full on hit shotgun blasts to kill a Fade. That's not exactly easy on a good player.
In CS, you can hose down 30 bullets in half a second and just need 4 of them to hit, 1 to the head, 2 if they have a helmet. If it's an awp, auto kill if it's not a leg shot. Not to mention health and movement speed in CS are much lower, making it far easier to kill people. In NS2, the speeds of Jetpack Marines/Skulks/Fades is pretty fast, as such it makes it even more difficult to kill.