NS2 will never grow by UWE constantly only supporting and throwing money at the esports side of things...
However, they are starting to realize that NS2 is not going to grow, as referenced by their statement that they are not going to work on NS2 full time anymore,
I like how you made two unrelated subjects connect magically.
If i'm understanding the connection you're attempting to make:
UWE "only" supports and throws money at esports and hasn't been continuing to develop the game this whole time.. and as a result they now can no longer work on NS2 fulltime.
Tell me i got that wrong, and that's not actually what you are trying to say, please.. because otherwise 8-}
NS2 will never grow by UWE constantly only supporting and throwing money at the esports side of things...
However, they are starting to realize that NS2 is not going to grow, as referenced by their statement that they are not going to work on NS2 full time anymore,
I like how you made two unrelated subjects connect magically.
If i'm understanding the connection you're attempting to make:
UWE "only" supports and throws money at esports and hasn't been continuing to develop the game this whole time.. and as a result they now can no longer work on NS2 fulltime.
Tell me i got that wrong, and that's not actually what you are trying to say, please.. because otherwise 8-}
I never said UWE hasn't been developing the game this whole time. I'm saying most of the changes they have made to the game catered more towards veterans of the game without any thinking whatsoever about the changes that should be made in order to help retain newer players. They would rather support esports than try to retain players.
Thus, this has resulted in less players and thereby less revenue for them.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@res
Ah, i see.
I guess your use of "only" made it sound a bit exclusive.
I do disagree with your point, though. If they made any actual gameplay changes to benefit new/casual players i believe you'd just piss off all the hardcore/vets and end up with pages and pages of yelling and "why did you water down my game" etc.
Eventually no hardcore crowd would remain, considering it seems universally agreed upon that casuals do not stick around like vets - which i guess fits the non serious and non committing playstyle of "casuals"? *Shrug*
It's awfully telling that RedDog, Hugh, et al rally to "refute" someone with a tenuous grasp of the English language.
@eh? pssst, don't know if you caught it, but reddog only posted graphs in direct response to someone saying that ns2 has never achieved over 1,000 viewers.
@Res Nice side step! Completely missing the mark yet again, though! We must agree to disagree, sir!
@res
Ah, i see.
I guess your use of "only" made it sound a bit exclusive.
I do disagree with your point, though. If they made any actual gameplay changes to benefit new/casual players i believe you'd just piss off all the hardcore/vets and end up with pages and pages of yelling and "why did you water down my game" etc.
Eventually no hardcore crowd would remain, considering it seems universally agreed upon that casuals do not stick around like vets - which i guess fits the non serious and non committing playstyle of "casuals"? *Shrug*
I played thousands of hours of NS1, and I have over 1300 so far in NS2, but I still consider myself a 'casual' because I only play pub games and give 0 flips about competitive play. I know a lot of people that are the exact same way, the type who play the game every night but aren't interested in taking it to the next level. Unfortunately, most of those people don't read the forums and don't give their input on gameplay or balance, and simply stop playing when the experience becomes too frustrating. Most of the people I know in this category have quit for THAT reason, and not because they merely lack dedication.
So I'm in largely the same camp as Res, and I think that a lot more time and attention should have been put into retaining new players right out of the gate. I don't think that trying to address the learning curve or improving the pub experience must necessarily come at the cost of making the game more shallow, but if it had then I think it would have been a fair trade to make at least initially, and then work on tightening up the competitive experience farther down the road, after a hopefully much larger 'casual' playerbase had been established.
It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.
@Havoc , thank you for that post, I was going to post something similar but didn't feel like it.
Making changes to figure out how to retain new players doesn't necessarily mean those players will all be casual players.
Just like Havoc, I have over 1100 hours in NS2 , I played quite a bit but never felt like going into comp play and only quit playing because of the changes UWE made.
It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.
It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.
I get what you mean, but you know that almost every one of those players would never suggest that casual players be the foundation for anything due to variance of feedback, right?
In fact, every argument i've read in these forums (and in balance discussions in general) has been not to use the casual /pub player base for any form of feedback.
While i tend to see their point, I personally think there is still value in their feedback, even if its not as reliable.
My point being, that your suggestion of how to design the game (from the bottom up) is exactly opposite to how nearly everyone suggests, and more importantly, i definitely do not think it would have been possible to preserve what makes Natural Selection amazing in regards to game concept.
As i think in order to design for the masses, you need to have a low skill ceiling with frequent token rewards (even if placebo, like rank), and most importantly streamlined/incredibly simple mechanics... like... capture the flag, or king of the hill, or plant the bomb.
NS2 just doesn't have any of that - and while i am also a lowly 1,000 hr pubber myself, i am very happy that is the case.
In fact, every argument i've read in these forums (and in balance discussions in general) has been not to use the casual /pub player base for any form of feedback.
I and many others have advocated for the pub player when it comes to certain balance decisions UWE made. However, we are not only talking about some balance changes , but other things as well that could be done to better retain players.
My point being, that your suggestion of how to design the game (from the bottom up) is exactly opposite to how nearly everyone suggests,
This is not true at all as I said above. Some of us have always advocated the other way. The reason I do is because I've seen it done the way UWE is doing it and it always results in the game never growing past it's original loyal playerbase that slowly diminishes.
As i think in order to design for the masses, you need to have a low skill ceiling with frequent token rewards (even if placebo, like rank), and most importantly streamlined/incredibly simple mechanics... like... capture the flag, or king of the hill, or plant the bomb.
That's a matter of opinion, obviously, and i'll have to disagree with you there. However, on one thing, I've said this before on here, a lower skill ceiling does not necessarily hurt competitive play.
There's also a reason why most FPS games these days have gone with a reward/ranking/achievement system, it has been proven to help retain players, even if all it is is just fluff.
For example, you could have weapons that track how many kills/assists you get and when you reach a certain amount on that gun, it ranks up with a different name such as "World Ender Shotgun", but doesn't actually affect stats or could get a badge that goes on the shoulder of the marine or both.
[/quote]
I do agree that casual player feedback is typically unreliably at the very best. That definitely complicates things.
Nevertheless, I disagree about the token rewards. Maybe I am just a statistical anomaly, but I just need the game to be fun and balanced, and I will play it 'casually' every night for years.
-It's fun for the people who already own the game (our commoeniti!1).
-It's living advertisement for people who dont own the game, and directed at people who might enjoy NS2 (gamers who are involved enough to watch e-sports).
"Look we got so many visitors to our website that it crashed!!!"
"So how many people actually signed up?"
"Oh.... a hundred or so."
@Res, I am really suprised to see you making a snarky, negative comment. I've grown fond of your well researched, positive contributions to forum debates.
In this case, given that the 165,940 unique visitors coincided with thousands of copies sold, and one of NS2's biggest ever sales days, you appear to have really missed the mark to a ridiculous degree.
Once you've thought of a witty come back that dismisses those viewers and sales, I'll still be here!
I see a lot of hate for Obama care on the internet but I just don't get it. I mean, as a Canadian who's too lazy and uninterested to research what's going on with the American healthcare system all I can assume is that Americans are happy being the only first world country without socialized health care. I'm undoubtedly missing something but from the outside that's what it looks like. If someone could give me the summed up unbiased version that'd be great. I see it mentioned all over the net but I don't care quite enough to do a lot of reading about it.
Force everyone to have an insurance for their car and no one bats an eye.
Force everyone to have an insurance for their health and everybody loses their minds...
Right?
Disclaimer: I did not research the facts. Over here in Europe, no healthcare would be a no-go...
-It's fun for the people who already own the game (our commoeniti!1).
-It's living advertisement for people who dont own the game, and directed at people who might enjoy NS2 (gamers who are involved enough to watch e-sports).
What other marketingtool combines these two?
Of course the World Cup is good advertising, no one doubts that.
But you need a stable engine and after that, optimizations for competitive play - I think NS2 is still away from that, every game takes some time especially balancing and fixing around competitive play. Even Blizzard experimented around with damage numbers or new elements in Starcraft 2, which were possibly reverted or changed in the next patch but after all, they tried out things, analysed competitive matches and fixed the game accordingly, Sewleks balance mod is a good start, not sure if many people use that. After all it's the finetuning and lacking of polished visuals which make me feel the game is not ready for a "World Cup".
NS2WC is like going to a race with a half finished race car, the engine works somehow but it is not tuned, tires are not pumped up and the paintjob hasn't been finished either.
It's still early to make assumptions tho, with a ton of patches this may look very different in the next months. I hope for the best.
I'm saying most of the changes they have made to the game catered more towards veterans of the game without any thinking whatsoever about the changes that should be made in order to help retain newer players. They would rather support esports than try to retain players.
Well, as a relatively new player myself (bought the game a couple of weeks before Reinforced landed) I have no idea what you are talking about here. I played the tutorial back then, and I have played the new one, and both were really helpful, albeit in different ways. I'm pretty certain those additions were of absolutely no use to veteran or competitive players.
How exactly would you go about retaining players (as you seem to believe you have the answers)? Bear in mind, player retention is a HUGE problem for almost every game developer/publisher in today's market, and even bending over backwards for new players isn't enough to keep them playing any given game these days.
If someone could give me the summed up unbiased version that'd be great. I see it mentioned all over the net but I don't care quite enough to do a lot of reading about it.
While this is off-topic of the thread, i'll try to sum it up simply.
Americans don't like being forced to have or get something, especially if it means it will hurt them financially.
It is causing health premiums to sky rocket.
It is causing many companies to reduce employees to part-time hours so they don't have to get healthcare for them.
Many companies have already layed off employees attributing it to increased costs in healthcare in obamacare.
It is essentially an expensive tax that many people can't afford.
Majority of americans were initially for obamacare as many thought it would reduce costs or thought they would get free healthcare, but as the truth started coming out, most americans are against it now.
How exactly would you go about retaining players (as you seem to believe you have the answers)?
I've mentioned it before, but changes that either employ a "carrot on a stick" routine or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further. Whether that make the skill ceiling lower or not, so be it, but as I said before, a lower skill ceiling doesn't necessarily hurt comp play.
In this case, given that the 165,940 unique visitors coincided with thousands of copies sold, and one of NS2's biggest ever sales days, you appear to have really missed the mark to a ridiculous degree.
Once you've thought of a witty come back that dismisses those viewers and sales, I'll still be here!
@Hugh, I'd be more impressed if you could tell me how many of those players were retained and kept playing the game. If you can't retain players, you can't keep a healthy competitive scene. Eventually, the comp scene dwindles and dies, always with a few holdouts though, but certainly not enough to support a $30k donation tournament.
I've mentioned it before, but changes that either employ a "carrot on a stick" routine or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further. Whether that make the skill ceiling lower or not, so be it, but as I said before, a lower skill ceiling doesn't necessarily hurt comp play.
And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own. The ones that play the game would still be playing anyway whether it was there or not, and anyone that was dumb enough to play a game they didn't enjoy because of a reward system would actually drag the game down. What NS2 needs is more skilled and intelligent players that use their mics and are capable of learning from their mistakes, not the other kind.
Games with depth, that require a wide range of skills (as NS2 does) are always going to attract fewer players in today's market. It takes time to learn, skill and dedication to master, and every player needs a good sense of team work. That is actually asking a lot of today's PC gaming crowd (:() This type of game is far more enjoyable than shallow games like CoD, but at the same time require the players to play the game the way it is supposed to be played, or else it ruins it. That means either a small community but very enjoyable games, or a large community but with awful games (much like TF2 became after it went F2P).
Also, why did you mention lowering the skill ceiling? Lowering the skill floor would be better for new players (in particular the Skulk which is the base Alien unit, and requires a lot of skill to play effectively) but lowering the skill ceiling (i.e. dumbing the game down) would make the game worse for new players, because more players would be in a position to dominate them.
every time performance is brought up in the face of additions such as babblers, railgun, alien vision, I have always been given a reply along the lines of "I guess we shouldn't add cool stuff to the game anymore". that's not really a fair answer, and it's being used here as well. no one is saying that these events aren't good - the previous two Germany LANs were incredible and amazing experiences for gaming and for NS2, and I am endlessly thankful to UWE for allowing that opportunity. how many other indie game development studios can boast about being at ESL or i49, allowing many players the chance to travel across the world and compete?
at the same time however; I've never felt - even once - that the game has ever been in a "playable" state. (competitive or otherwise.)
the sales numbers don't tell the whole story. I've seen and talked to countless other competitive players from other games who willingly try out NS2 and are unable to play after finding out the actual gameplay and performance. no other "eSport" I know of has these issues completely unaddressed: no replay support, FPS problems, UI clutter as a feature, anti-cheat, config support, (first person) spectator support, and the list goes on. marketing to that competitive community is a great idea if you have the product for it, but I really don't see the point when these are the true "hardcore" gamers who care about the aforementioned things.
pouring more money and more events into NS2 doesn't make the game competitive. the effort doesn't go unappreciated by any means. but it just seems silly to me. this isn't exactly a new conversation, either.
And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own.
Actually, the "carrot on a stick" works quite well. Why do you think so many games do it now? Just one of the reasons game developers started turning to psychologists for help was for learning how to retain players and keep them playing. It is part of the psychology of gaming and it works.
If it is done tactfully enough, it can be a great addition without hindering gameplay and would certainly keep players playing for longer.
Also, I never said it should be the only thing that should be done.
And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own.
Actually, the "carrot on a stick" works quite well. Why do you think so many games do it now? Just one of the reasons game developers started turning to psychologists for help was for learning how to retain players and keep them playing. It is part of the psychology of gaming and it works.
If it is done tactfully enough, it can be a great addition without hindering gameplay and would certainly keep players playing for longer.
Also, I never said it should be the only thing that should be done.
It's the only thing you even remotely gave any specification on though.
It's the only thing you even remotely gave any specification on though.
I also said
or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further.
Which could result in a wide array of changes. I'm not the one that would need to figure out those specific changes. That would be UWE's job. Although I could certainly come up with some.
It only works on players that are stupid/bad enough to believe that they have actually earned something. MMORPG players are some of the worst gamers I have ever played with, and pretty much every player I have ever met that approves of progression/reward systems is usually bad at gaming, and are extremely casual in mentality (as in, they only play for fun and have no competitive streak whatsoever).
The good players (i.e. the kind that NS2 needs right now) care far more about increasing their own skill at games, they don't actually need rewards to be motivated to play. Becoming a better player is its own reward. So the better option for this game is to reach out to skilled, intelligent and motivated players, which means better performance, better balance and better matches. Either that or encourage the bad players to improve their skills, which means removing all crutches (which is what reward/progression systems are) and forcing them to improve, but it is highly unlikely that would work, because bad players are quitters by nature (which is why they stay bad).
And despite your vague reply there are far more games with progression/reward systems that have failed than there are that have succeeded. And all of those games that became extremely popular did so because of the sheeple effect, not because they offered rewards.
Pretty much every game that has achieved a large measure of success has done so because of a small core of loyal players that served as the foundation. If World of Warcraft had started out with today's typical MMORPG player (instant gratification mentality), it would have died after 6 months. But the hardcore players who stuck with it kept it alive, allowing it to grow and eventually become incredibly successful.
I hated all the mmorpg games I tried, and I am highly driven to improve my own game, but I just can't agree with what you just said. This game needs more players of all types, not just the like-minded comp players!
I hated all the mmorpg games I tried, and I am highly driven to improve my own game, but I just can't agree with what you just said. This game needs more players of all types, not just the like-minded comp players!
Oh, I don't disagree with that, but I think first and foremost the game needs a solid core of good players that know how to play the game. The same goes with the community, it is far better to have motivated players that write mods, make videos, stream on twitch, write guides and run fansites early on, as it is all good publicity for the game.
First impressions matter, and I was lucky in that my first few games were ones with lots of good teamwork, communication and leadership from the commander. If my first few matches had been disorganised clusterf**ks, I might well have stopped playing early on (as I hate games that play out that way). And the same goes with the community, there was no shortage of helpful advice, video tutorials as well as the built in training to help me get to grips with the game.
But my main point was that I don't believe that reward/progression systems work, I have seen too many games try that approach (sometimes as a band aid for weak gameplay) and seen them all fail to believe that rewards are necessary to build a core player base. First and foremost, the game needs to be fun to play, so that means it needs to be fun for both comp players and noobs in equal measure. Currently that isn't the case, because the base Alien lifeform, the Skulk, has too high a skill (and hardware) requirement for the casual player.
That could really do with being addressed soon, publicity for the World Championship isn't going to help if new players are put off after their first few games playing as Aliens because it requires a lot of time just to reach a basic level of effectiveness.
Pretty much every game that has achieved a large measure of success has done so because of a small core of loyal players that served as the foundation.
That's one of the most false statements I've ever read. Simply not true at all. Every game that has achieved any level of success has had their largest demographic in the casual players. They didn't have a small core of players and then all these casual players started flocking to it as a result. Even WoW to this day has the majority as casual players. Believe it or not, even casual players will play a game for years.
Whether you decide to believe it or not, a reward/progression system does help to retain a significant amount of players for a longer period, but obviously I agree that it isn't the only thing that should be done.
Comments
If i'm understanding the connection you're attempting to make:
UWE "only" supports and throws money at esports and hasn't been continuing to develop the game this whole time.. and as a result they now can no longer work on NS2 fulltime.
Tell me i got that wrong, and that's not actually what you are trying to say, please.. because otherwise 8-}
Also.. @kurupt .. your fans are waiting..
I mean all that effort for what exactly.
I never said UWE hasn't been developing the game this whole time. I'm saying most of the changes they have made to the game catered more towards veterans of the game without any thinking whatsoever about the changes that should be made in order to help retain newer players. They would rather support esports than try to retain players.
Thus, this has resulted in less players and thereby less revenue for them.
That is where the connection lies.
Ah, i see.
I guess your use of "only" made it sound a bit exclusive.
I do disagree with your point, though. If they made any actual gameplay changes to benefit new/casual players i believe you'd just piss off all the hardcore/vets and end up with pages and pages of yelling and "why did you water down my game" etc.
Eventually no hardcore crowd would remain, considering it seems universally agreed upon that casuals do not stick around like vets - which i guess fits the non serious and non committing playstyle of "casuals"? *Shrug*
@eh? pssst, don't know if you caught it, but reddog only posted graphs in direct response to someone saying that ns2 has never achieved over 1,000 viewers.
@Res Nice side step! Completely missing the mark yet again, though! We must agree to disagree, sir!
"But one thing the site hasn’t lacked is traffic: It saw 4.7 million unique visitors in its first 24 hours online. "
-Washington Post
I played thousands of hours of NS1, and I have over 1300 so far in NS2, but I still consider myself a 'casual' because I only play pub games and give 0 flips about competitive play. I know a lot of people that are the exact same way, the type who play the game every night but aren't interested in taking it to the next level. Unfortunately, most of those people don't read the forums and don't give their input on gameplay or balance, and simply stop playing when the experience becomes too frustrating. Most of the people I know in this category have quit for THAT reason, and not because they merely lack dedication.
So I'm in largely the same camp as Res, and I think that a lot more time and attention should have been put into retaining new players right out of the gate. I don't think that trying to address the learning curve or improving the pub experience must necessarily come at the cost of making the game more shallow, but if it had then I think it would have been a fair trade to make at least initially, and then work on tightening up the competitive experience farther down the road, after a hopefully much larger 'casual' playerbase had been established.
It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.
Making changes to figure out how to retain new players doesn't necessarily mean those players will all be casual players.
Just like Havoc, I have over 1100 hours in NS2 , I played quite a bit but never felt like going into comp play and only quit playing because of the changes UWE made.
This is well said.
In fact, every argument i've read in these forums (and in balance discussions in general) has been not to use the casual /pub player base for any form of feedback.
While i tend to see their point, I personally think there is still value in their feedback, even if its not as reliable.
My point being, that your suggestion of how to design the game (from the bottom up) is exactly opposite to how nearly everyone suggests, and more importantly, i definitely do not think it would have been possible to preserve what makes Natural Selection amazing in regards to game concept.
As i think in order to design for the masses, you need to have a low skill ceiling with frequent token rewards (even if placebo, like rank), and most importantly streamlined/incredibly simple mechanics... like... capture the flag, or king of the hill, or plant the bomb.
NS2 just doesn't have any of that - and while i am also a lowly 1,000 hr pubber myself, i am very happy that is the case.
I and many others have advocated for the pub player when it comes to certain balance decisions UWE made. However, we are not only talking about some balance changes , but other things as well that could be done to better retain players.
This is not true at all as I said above. Some of us have always advocated the other way. The reason I do is because I've seen it done the way UWE is doing it and it always results in the game never growing past it's original loyal playerbase that slowly diminishes.
That's a matter of opinion, obviously, and i'll have to disagree with you there. However, on one thing, I've said this before on here, a lower skill ceiling does not necessarily hurt competitive play.
There's also a reason why most FPS games these days have gone with a reward/ranking/achievement system, it has been proven to help retain players, even if all it is is just fluff.
For example, you could have weapons that track how many kills/assists you get and when you reach a certain amount on that gun, it ranks up with a different name such as "World Ender Shotgun", but doesn't actually affect stats or could get a badge that goes on the shoulder of the marine or both.
[/quote]
*Special CLOGS* for reward levels too! Everyone loves CLOGS, see below
One Contributor will win a trip to the LIVE Final
Clog = 1 Clog
Extractor - 3 Clogs
Crag = 7 Clogs
Arms Lab = 12 Clogs
Bio Mass = 20 Clogs
Contaminate = 55 Clogs
Prototype Lab = 120 Clogs
Command Station = 250 Clogs
Does this give us extra clogs to use in game? Or are these entries that go towards winning a trip to the final?
An explanation would be nice.
Thanks
I do agree that casual player feedback is typically unreliably at the very best. That definitely complicates things.
Nevertheless, I disagree about the token rewards. Maybe I am just a statistical anomaly, but I just need the game to be fun and balanced, and I will play it 'casually' every night for years.
-It's fun for the people who already own the game (our commoeniti!1).
-It's living advertisement for people who dont own the game, and directed at people who might enjoy NS2 (gamers who are involved enough to watch e-sports).
What other marketingtool combines these two?
@Res, I am really suprised to see you making a snarky, negative comment. I've grown fond of your well researched, positive contributions to forum debates.
In this case, given that the 165,940 unique visitors coincided with thousands of copies sold, and one of NS2's biggest ever sales days, you appear to have really missed the mark to a ridiculous degree.
Once you've thought of a witty come back that dismisses those viewers and sales, I'll still be here!
Force everyone to have an insurance for their health and everybody loses their minds...
Right?
Disclaimer: I did not research the facts. Over here in Europe, no healthcare would be a no-go...
Of course the World Cup is good advertising, no one doubts that.
But you need a stable engine and after that, optimizations for competitive play - I think NS2 is still away from that, every game takes some time especially balancing and fixing around competitive play. Even Blizzard experimented around with damage numbers or new elements in Starcraft 2, which were possibly reverted or changed in the next patch but after all, they tried out things, analysed competitive matches and fixed the game accordingly, Sewleks balance mod is a good start, not sure if many people use that. After all it's the finetuning and lacking of polished visuals which make me feel the game is not ready for a "World Cup".
NS2WC is like going to a race with a half finished race car, the engine works somehow but it is not tuned, tires are not pumped up and the paintjob hasn't been finished either.
It's still early to make assumptions tho, with a ton of patches this may look very different in the next months. I hope for the best.
Well, as a relatively new player myself (bought the game a couple of weeks before Reinforced landed) I have no idea what you are talking about here. I played the tutorial back then, and I have played the new one, and both were really helpful, albeit in different ways. I'm pretty certain those additions were of absolutely no use to veteran or competitive players.
How exactly would you go about retaining players (as you seem to believe you have the answers)? Bear in mind, player retention is a HUGE problem for almost every game developer/publisher in today's market, and even bending over backwards for new players isn't enough to keep them playing any given game these days.
While this is off-topic of the thread, i'll try to sum it up simply.
Americans don't like being forced to have or get something, especially if it means it will hurt them financially.
It is causing health premiums to sky rocket.
It is causing many companies to reduce employees to part-time hours so they don't have to get healthcare for them.
Many companies have already layed off employees attributing it to increased costs in healthcare in obamacare.
It is essentially an expensive tax that many people can't afford.
Majority of americans were initially for obamacare as many thought it would reduce costs or thought they would get free healthcare, but as the truth started coming out, most americans are against it now.
I've mentioned it before, but changes that either employ a "carrot on a stick" routine or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further. Whether that make the skill ceiling lower or not, so be it, but as I said before, a lower skill ceiling doesn't necessarily hurt comp play.
@Hugh, I'd be more impressed if you could tell me how many of those players were retained and kept playing the game. If you can't retain players, you can't keep a healthy competitive scene. Eventually, the comp scene dwindles and dies, always with a few holdouts though, but certainly not enough to support a $30k donation tournament.
And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own. The ones that play the game would still be playing anyway whether it was there or not, and anyone that was dumb enough to play a game they didn't enjoy because of a reward system would actually drag the game down. What NS2 needs is more skilled and intelligent players that use their mics and are capable of learning from their mistakes, not the other kind.
Games with depth, that require a wide range of skills (as NS2 does) are always going to attract fewer players in today's market. It takes time to learn, skill and dedication to master, and every player needs a good sense of team work. That is actually asking a lot of today's PC gaming crowd (:() This type of game is far more enjoyable than shallow games like CoD, but at the same time require the players to play the game the way it is supposed to be played, or else it ruins it. That means either a small community but very enjoyable games, or a large community but with awful games (much like TF2 became after it went F2P).
Also, why did you mention lowering the skill ceiling? Lowering the skill floor would be better for new players (in particular the Skulk which is the base Alien unit, and requires a lot of skill to play effectively) but lowering the skill ceiling (i.e. dumbing the game down) would make the game worse for new players, because more players would be in a position to dominate them.
at the same time however; I've never felt - even once - that the game has ever been in a "playable" state. (competitive or otherwise.)
the sales numbers don't tell the whole story. I've seen and talked to countless other competitive players from other games who willingly try out NS2 and are unable to play after finding out the actual gameplay and performance. no other "eSport" I know of has these issues completely unaddressed: no replay support, FPS problems, UI clutter as a feature, anti-cheat, config support, (first person) spectator support, and the list goes on. marketing to that competitive community is a great idea if you have the product for it, but I really don't see the point when these are the true "hardcore" gamers who care about the aforementioned things.
pouring more money and more events into NS2 doesn't make the game competitive. the effort doesn't go unappreciated by any means. but it just seems silly to me. this isn't exactly a new conversation, either.
idk what im talking about im dumb
Actually, the "carrot on a stick" works quite well. Why do you think so many games do it now? Just one of the reasons game developers started turning to psychologists for help was for learning how to retain players and keep them playing. It is part of the psychology of gaming and it works.
If it is done tactfully enough, it can be a great addition without hindering gameplay and would certainly keep players playing for longer.
Also, I never said it should be the only thing that should be done.
It's the only thing you even remotely gave any specification on though.
I also said
Which could result in a wide array of changes. I'm not the one that would need to figure out those specific changes. That would be UWE's job. Although I could certainly come up with some.
The good players (i.e. the kind that NS2 needs right now) care far more about increasing their own skill at games, they don't actually need rewards to be motivated to play. Becoming a better player is its own reward. So the better option for this game is to reach out to skilled, intelligent and motivated players, which means better performance, better balance and better matches. Either that or encourage the bad players to improve their skills, which means removing all crutches (which is what reward/progression systems are) and forcing them to improve, but it is highly unlikely that would work, because bad players are quitters by nature (which is why they stay bad).
And despite your vague reply there are far more games with progression/reward systems that have failed than there are that have succeeded. And all of those games that became extremely popular did so because of the sheeple effect, not because they offered rewards.
Pretty much every game that has achieved a large measure of success has done so because of a small core of loyal players that served as the foundation. If World of Warcraft had started out with today's typical MMORPG player (instant gratification mentality), it would have died after 6 months. But the hardcore players who stuck with it kept it alive, allowing it to grow and eventually become incredibly successful.
Oh, I don't disagree with that, but I think first and foremost the game needs a solid core of good players that know how to play the game. The same goes with the community, it is far better to have motivated players that write mods, make videos, stream on twitch, write guides and run fansites early on, as it is all good publicity for the game.
First impressions matter, and I was lucky in that my first few games were ones with lots of good teamwork, communication and leadership from the commander. If my first few matches had been disorganised clusterf**ks, I might well have stopped playing early on (as I hate games that play out that way). And the same goes with the community, there was no shortage of helpful advice, video tutorials as well as the built in training to help me get to grips with the game.
But my main point was that I don't believe that reward/progression systems work, I have seen too many games try that approach (sometimes as a band aid for weak gameplay) and seen them all fail to believe that rewards are necessary to build a core player base. First and foremost, the game needs to be fun to play, so that means it needs to be fun for both comp players and noobs in equal measure. Currently that isn't the case, because the base Alien lifeform, the Skulk, has too high a skill (and hardware) requirement for the casual player.
That could really do with being addressed soon, publicity for the World Championship isn't going to help if new players are put off after their first few games playing as Aliens because it requires a lot of time just to reach a basic level of effectiveness.
That's one of the most false statements I've ever read. Simply not true at all. Every game that has achieved any level of success has had their largest demographic in the casual players. They didn't have a small core of players and then all these casual players started flocking to it as a result. Even WoW to this day has the majority as casual players. Believe it or not, even casual players will play a game for years.
Whether you decide to believe it or not, a reward/progression system does help to retain a significant amount of players for a longer period, but obviously I agree that it isn't the only thing that should be done.