I was always curious about why they don't have different tiers for competitve play?
6v6 is great, but who plays on 12 person servers? PUGs, Scrims and so on do for the most part, which is largely for vet players which is great.
If you want to draw more casuals then balance for a larger teams, let's say 8v8.
The reasoning is if you balance for 8v8 instead of 6v6 you'll hit a sweet spot with servers that helps players who want to play 6v6 but also give a reason to give more attention to pub style of play with the 10v10. Sure there's going to be balance issues, but they won't be radically different in the same way when you stretch from 6 v6 to 10v10 which is the what I see played more often on in pubs.
Also the maps become more compatible for the pub style of play if you know the balance is set at 8v8. I think that 6v6 is fun to watch and all, but the casual player will be able to relate more to the tactics of 8v8 or 10v10 and incorporate them into the game.
Good examples, but F2P has alot of down sides and require significant development time (ie: creating f2p system) that UWE cannot afford to invest into NS2.
AiorosJoin Date: 2003-03-24Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Before NS 2.0 you could go rampage on any server ... even more then you can in ns2 now.
In any FPS or good RTS game a players with high skill can kill casuals as he likes and they will feel always like the game is unbalanced.
The only diffrence is the casuals in other games listen at least a little more to the competitiv players and what they call "balance".
Like every noob in NS2 who got no clue how to play the game thinks his idea of balance would fix all the issues.
If Sewlek would change the game into something @Talesin would hope for ... the player base would go down in like 1 week.
The issue is like MF already said.
The good changes for NS2 did come way to late after release. NS2 could have had more active players if the so called community manager and other parts of the game would have been executed right.
NS2 has been a rly long project for UWE and i think they have put more time and money into it then i would have hoped for. They have done horrible mistakes overall in terms of balance (thanks sewlek for hotfixing it) and many more parts of the game:
- patching the game and making sure that mods are not breaking (possible)
- Introduce Combat with full support and make it a game in the game. (but they got scared it would split the community)
- Use the community more in terms of balance (like i said sewlek did that but to late)
- Use the community more for awesome mods (NS2 stats, Lowlightmods, Chud). It was all already given to them but not used. (bla bla that it takes long time to add to the game, but even writing it new would have been faster).
The Community created all the important thinks they wanted to have ingame, to fix all the issues. But they didnt take it.
Like i said, i am thankful for UWE for creating this game (i loved ns1), they put a lot of money, time and heart into this game but they have done many mistakes on their way to the final game. I can only hope they will learn from their mistakes in the future. Even big studios do all this mistakes.
Its how they try to prevent it in the future, that splits a good studio from a bad one.
For me the Beta test of NS2 will end with the next patch and the game will finaly remove its "beta" status for me.
its bullshit what you are talking about @hakenspit
if you balance a game arround casual players basicly new players and noobs. They will leave the game after at least 4 weeks because they will see how unbalanced and shit the game is which you created ...
The reason why Starcraft2 and other games got a big player base?
Its much easier to access and learn and to play against other with a matchmaking system.
You got 100 streams, ppl like Day9 explaining the game step by step and so on.
The issue is not the gamebalance ... because the gamebalance is better then ever. (not perfect but for 260 builds the best i have seen)
People dont understand Ns2, i see players with 100 hours of ns2 (or even more) who still got no clue how to play this game.
We need a better way to explain/teach players how to play NS2. Myb even force people to play the tutorial mode before you got access to ns2 servers.
And rework the tutorial mode, so even "so called 200 hours veterans of ns2" start learning the game ....
And Ns2 needs the matchmaking system asap, a better ranking system and performance.
Well if they hung around for 4 weeks that would be about 4 times longer than they are currently.
The issue with this game is entirely is balance, coupled with the disparity of skill based movement and its impacts on the balance.
This game has one side that is a lot harder to learn (aliens) and takes even longer to be able to get to a passable level of skill.
We have a reduced cone for skulks due to experienced players ability to aim bites in melee combat (something new players struggle with), and some affront to gaming to aiming that was caused when we had the wider bite cone (one that actually makes sense given the teeth on the screen).
Having a wider bite cone would not impact skilled players in anyway other than meaning they go 50-20 instead of 50-2 but would help new players get kills and not just spend hours simply dieing.
Ns was better set up for aliens, primarily due to the fact new players could feel like they were contributing via temp gorging and dropping chambers, oc's, harvesters or even hives.
This meant that they had a way of feeling like they contributed even with their 0-30 K:D ratio.
But ns2 has become more complicated on alien side, more removed due to alien comm and harder to learn.
With people being too worried about whether 1 specific individual will still be playing in 4 years time, rather than attracting new players, we have created a game thats too unfriendly to new players and is balanced with the wrong player skill level in mind.
Something I found worth mentioning is that Respawn Entertainment announced that Titanfall will support a maximum of 12 players, because everything above turned out to be an absolute mess, that hurt the game play experience.
THIS is something that should have been enforced in ns2 (vanilla) by UWE, because the usual high slot count unarguably has hurt the game play experience for many reasons. I remember that it was one of Charlie's design goals to make ns2 scale with higher players counts (unlike ns1), but they failed to make that happen, and In my opinion, they should have dropped that design goal at some point in the beta.
Yes, I agree a lot of issues could have been avoided by setting a stricter limit on playercounts to begin with. I'm sure a lot of casual pubbers will disagree, saying they like larger battles, and though that may be up to preference, participating in +10vs10 zerg matches will hardly teach you anything about map awareness, lane-blocking, strategic pushes/counter pushes, proper co-ordination, communication and all that jazz... Which is why the gap between pub play and comp play is also so immense. Not to mention the game runs much much smoother at 6vs6. ^^
I for one became very excited for Titanfall once I heard about their 6vs6 limit.
I guess it's the problem of the used engine and it's probably a good thing UWE licensed a reliable 3rd party engine, but it still spoils the experience.
wat
= UWE next game won't run on the same engine as NS2.
The issue with this game is entirely is balance, coupled with the disparity of skill based movement and its impacts on the balance.
This game has one side that is a lot harder to learn (aliens) and takes even longer to be able to get to a passable level of skill.
The funny part about that issue you mention is diffrent from my PoV.
When i see a rooky filled server (with no players with more then 20 hours) you will see something diffrent happen.
No matter what the Alien kham does (spamming whips or anything) the result will be aliens winning this game. Because aliens are more diffcult to play (i totally agree), but as marins you need way better teamplay to make something happen since you need marins to build and protect the stuff.
So overall the aliens running arround without knowing what to do and the aliens slowly taking over the entire map ...
If they keep playing the game it will shift torwards marins. As soon as marins know what to do, they become stronger because the movement and aim is much easier compared to the alien play. Thats what your said, but aliens will abuse gorgetunnel and the PVE play (they learn the game too) .... with marins needing more teamplay and a good commander to break a wall of hydras.
So overall the game is balanced either way and will switch either side being overpowerd until all players have the same knowledge of the game.
Any player with more experience on one side of a rookie will instantly switch the balance to the side he is on.
If you improve the bitecone (we had that in NS2 way back), aliens will become overpowerd like hell. This was already tested and the result was alien wins all over the play no matter which player skill you look at.
The good changes for NS2 did come way to late after release. NS2 could have had more active players if the so called community manager and other parts of the game would have been executed right.
It's kindof sad. I'm from NZ, and we had a pretty strong community for ns1 which would have practically ensured a playerbase for ns2 large enough that it could have existed independent of Australia (as it once was). A lot of people were excited when the ns2 beta first came to light and brought a large portion of the old community together briefly - all amped to play the new game - with talk of reformation of some of the old clans.
However, by the time of release when most people tried it out hands on for the first time, the game was simply in too disappointing a state, and many people pegged the game as simply not worth playing. I tried to convince everybody to give it a another shot as things improved but it fell on deaf ears as the state of the game at release left far too bad a taste in their mouths to even bother. I feel like if first impressions were better, and that the initial flock of players got to experience something closer to the post-BT patches, then the NSNZ forums which were reopened for release wouldn't now exist as a desolate wasteland that even a tumbleweed wouldn't be caught dead in. Now we have maybe 3 people who play from the old scene, and a total active NZ playerbase in the single digits.
For me the Beta test of NS2 will end with the next patch and the game will finaly remove its "beta" status for me.
Eh, tbh that's prob not giving enough credit. I think the rollout of BT was enough of a milestone that it should be considered NS2's unofficial release.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2014
I am really confused. Why would a match-making skill system aid player retention and development? People are talking about it as if it could save the world. I'd like to point out a few things...
I've played PC games for 20+ years, and I have never once used a match-making skill balanced system. I always pick and choose the server I want to play on, the only time I 'balance' my skill is in single player games where I have to choose the difficulty level.
Why would forcing players to play with people of their own skill increase player retention? Despite having over 1500 hours of NS2, admittedly only about 1000 hours playing NS2, I am still crap. If you force me to play with players of my skill level, I will be playing Rookies forever. Rookies don't know how to play the game, I do, I am just bloody useless!! I have to say as well, most of my early playing time was spent as Alien Comm in the early beta's, as I didn't have the PC to play on the field. Although I jumped in the Kham chair the other day and was completely bewildered, so I had to get back out again. Changes eh..
Forcing a load of new people to play with other new people will result in games that play out nothing along the lines of how NS2 is supposed to be played. I learned NS1 through playing with RL friends and joining a community, unfortunately, most of those skilled NS1 players never got into NS2 as far as I am aware. (Although Sgt Barlow did, but he doesn't count as he is now a dev).
What we need are communities, support groups and rookie encouragement, not locking people together to only play with people of their skill level. Way to ruin my NS2 experience.
I may be rubbish, but I know how to play the game and enjoy playing with people who know how to play the game. BTW, FWIW, my skill rating in NS2 is 156. Definitely not a comp player, but someone who has been retained anyway, because I like the game, not because I play with similar skilled players.
Force me to play with similar skilled players and I'll quit playing NS2 immediately.... (that probably wouldn't be a great loss to the community, but it would be to me.. )
I am really confused. Why would a match-making skill system aid player retention and development? People are talking about it as if it could save the world. I'd like to point out a few things...
I've played PC games for 20+ years, and I have never once used a match-making skill balanced system. I always pick and choose the server I want to play on, the only time I 'balance' my skill is in single player games where I have to choose the difficulty level.
Why would forcing players to play with people of their own skill increase player retention? Despite having over 1500 hours of NS2, admittedly only about 1000 hours playing NS2, I am still crap. If you force me to play with players of my skill level, I will be playing Rookies forever. Rookies don't know how to play the game, I do, I am just bloody useless!! I have to say as well, most of my early playing time was spent as Alien Comm in the early beta's, as I didn't have the PC to play on the field. Although I jumped in the Kham chair the other day and was completely bewildered, so I had to get back out again. Changes eh..
Forcing a load of new people to play with other new people will result in games that play out nothing along the lines of how NS2 is supposed to be played. I learned NS1 through playing with RL friends and joining a community, unfortunately, most of those skilled NS1 players never got into NS2 as far as I am aware. (Although Sgt Barlow did, but he doesn't count as he is now a dev).
What we need are communities, support groups and rookie encouragement, not locking people together to only play with people of their skill level. Way to ruin my NS2 experience.
I may be rubbish, but I know how to play the game and enjoy playing with people who know how to play the game. BTW, FWIW, my skill rating in NS2 is 156. Definitely not a comp player, but someone who has been retained anyway, because I like the game, not because I play with similar skilled players.
Force me to play with similar skilled players and I'll quit playing NS2 immediately.... (that probably wouldn't be a great loss to the community, but it would be to me.. )
It would increase player retention, because theoretically new players wouldn't get stomped by veteran players and veteran players wouldn't have to play with "those noobs". That is the whole point.
Your current skill level is meaningless, since the relative skill of the other players has not been considered. Even if you had an accuracy of 5%, you should still be shuffled with the average ns2 players. It's not like you can't have play time flow into the match making calculation.
Also, this is not about taking down the regular community servers in exchange for the match making servers. They can coexist, but the match making system should be the standard entry point for playing a game. Matches on community servers can not be rated matches however. IIRC CS:GO does it like that.
The questions is, if people will actually use it. Other games already have a match making system on release and the players use it for pubbing, even though they had the option to play on their own servers. Wacraft 3 comes to mind. Creating your own lobby was possible, but usually players went through the match making process and rarely opened lobbies for an actual game (it was used for mods most of the times).
I fear that the NS2 match making system will be seen as the 'competitive mode' and hence rejected just like the current gather system.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I love Gathers, but you have agreed with my point, the match-making system is unlikely to save this game or retain players, purely because games aren't as much fun when no-one on the team knows what to do.
Forcing rookies together means they don't get stomped, but also means the don't get to play with people who could teach them what to do, unless they ignore the system, but then we are back to square one..
My favorite idea so far to help both long-term new player retention and short-term server population retention is the "pre-game sandbox" where all lifeforms/upgrades/tech items are available, free, and instant. With damage on and instant spawns, people could get used to high tech stuff in the useless time while everyone is waiting for someone to give in and play commander.
Though, after thinking about this for a moment, I don't know if my fragile mortal mind could handle seeing 12 oni in the same room while these shenanigans are going on.
Call me weird or whatever, but main reason that keeps me from playing is the lack of progression.
It was fine 10 years a go with NS1, as at least i didn't know better back then and half-life and its mods were basically the only game(s) i played.
But since then FPS games have evolved and nearly every game got the standard battlefield feature of progression (i don't claim that battlefield was the first game use or invent that, but it was the first for me). Call it RPG elements or whatever.
For balance's sake it could have been just cosmetic stuff, and it could have kept me playing way longer than I've played now (13 hours in steam, vs. hundreds of hours of NS1). "2 more levels and i will unlock that cool skulk skin. must.keep.playing." "20 more kills with pistol and i unlock new sounds & skin. must.keep.playing." "1 more level and i unlock cool horns for onos" etc. etc.
They also removed the most fun part of NS1 (most fun for me), and that was 'gorging' in public servers. "Now, this room is mine and your commander either wastes resources on siege, or you take longer route and go around". And the many laughs that i had with other players back then, as a gorge.
these forums are sorta pointless... not trying to be a jerk. people are talking and arguing over a game that is finished by the developers. whatever player retention that we needed is pretty much gone. the game is only in the hands of modders and play testers.
every thread has been made at least twice, if not more, and beaten to death each time. sadly, I visit the forums mostly for shits and giggles, and play the actual game like 2 rounds every few days. the games either end up stacked, or just noobfest with no strat. then I have to wait way too long, just to wait for a map to load or join another server.
I know I'll get flagged for whatever reason, but sorry about my... negative view. the WC hasn't really gotten into full-swing, but I honestly see it bringing as many, if not less, than a regular steam sale. then, as always, the player base will slowly dwindle back to 800+. the real annoying part is the money put into it for, what I believe, is just as effective as a sale. another thread, another topic to be beaten to death.
again, this is just what I've seen and believe will, and already has, continue to happen.
I guess the game is 5 yrs old (pre-alpha until... this (many in-game players still call this a beta)). so, maybe that is the lifetime for most of these games and it is inevitable. I guess I'm just dissapointed in how quickly it got to that point.
flag away my friends. just don't drink and drive (if you disagree with everything I said then you should at least agree with that).
and I do see the irony in how this post is much like the ZOMG THE GAME IS DEAD threads. those are usually over balance and minor things, and rarely about the overall picture.
The reason NS2 has such a low retention rate is because the skill floor for the basic units (AR marine and skulk) is too high for the casual noob to be able to achieve anything.
Give marines the option for an assault rifle or grenade launcher on every spawn, and give aliens the option between invisibility or speed on every spawn, and you create a game that allows the good and the bad to achieve something on their own level. Noobs will go for their common crutches (aoe dmg/stealth) while the skilled will go for precise dmg and speed.
And each will have the ability to kill the other without too much of a skill imbalance. Much like TF2.
The future of NS2 is obviously bleak. We have been left with a semi-finished product with incomplete features:
- Alien vision is atrocious in its current form, but nobody will obviously do frop about it.
- Weapons were supposed to have secondary attack modes, but we are left with useless rifle bash
- Babblers, grenades, webs are basically redundant baggage
- Commander interface is really poor by any standard, especially the marine side. Attacked important points like power nodes are not properly communicated, there is no visual indication of player health and ammo which even the simplest RTS games feature, the enemies and friendlies should have overlay with important info ala Homeworld.
- There are still numerous technical problems with various microlags, stutters, etc. I guess it's the problem of the used engine and it's probably a good thing UWE licensed a reliable 3rd party engine, but it still spoils the experience.
- The meta-features for organizing a meaningful match are missing. Even counter-strike which I tried recently has a system that motivates the players to stay till the end and to put some effort in the game. As a result, most pub games are total chaos that often lacks appeal for newcomers and veterans alike.
That all said, the conclusion of the NS2 development left a somewhat bitter aftertaste. I expected more finished product, more careful troubleshooting and polishing instead of adding largely meaningless features like babblers. I am not very interested in what the next game has to offer, because - fool me once...
This is why the developers probably threw their hands up and went "hey, lets make a new game, our NS2 playerbase are a bunch of whingers who ruin their own game."
This is why the developers probably threw their hands up and went "hey, lets make a new game, our NS2 playerbase are a bunch of whingers who ruin their own game."
That's not the reason. They will need extra revenue eventually. They need to make a new game. They can't just sit on ns2 forever - that would quite simply be dumb from a financial perspective.
If it were the reason it's rather petty to abandon a game just because of a handful of people being critical on the forums. But that's not the reason.
Besides, there's still people working on ns2 isn't there? My understanding was that there's not going to be any major content updates but it will still be updated?
I really don't like the idea of giving uwe leeway on this game. was it an experiment? kinda. they put ns1 (only a few did) together, yet the team has gotten thousands of dollars for this. few will even compare this to ns2 (hey its a different game, right?) to the fun of ns1. making this game less fun to try and make a competitive game... well, you lost the essence of ns1.
I really only think of that picture of the dev team holding cash. I guess this is my last post (hurray bc its negative!), but I just would like you guys to know that this was a jump-starter game. I wish I'd spent whatever change it was worth for these steam sales, instead of the 40 bucks I handed them. no way to get money back, I know, but from the 2100+ hrs I've put in, this game has been, only worth, those steam sale prices.
suggestion for next game: don't try to involve the community. stay out. people will expect something in return. and, as this game has shown, they will not get it (hard to please one person, let alone a community).
uwe... well, what's left of you that reads these forums, I won't be one to buy your next game. until its a dollar on steam. now let's all hold money and say how we tried hard but failed so we have to move to a different game.
you lost your touch with the "community". sorry. maybe I'm the only one who thinks this. if that's the case, then keep on carrying on. good luck to ya.
The issue with this game is entirely is balance, coupled with the disparity of skill based movement and its impacts on the balance.
This game has one side that is a lot harder to learn (aliens) and takes even longer to be able to get to a passable level of skill.
The funny part about that issue you mention is diffrent from my PoV.
When i see a rooky filled server (with no players with more then 20 hours) you will see something diffrent happen.
No matter what the Alien kham does (spamming whips or anything) the result will be aliens winning this game. Because aliens are more diffcult to play (i totally agree), but as marins you need way better teamplay to make something happen since you need marins to build and protect the stuff.
So overall the aliens running arround without knowing what to do and the aliens slowly taking over the entire map ...
If they keep playing the game it will shift torwards marins. As soon as marins know what to do, they become stronger because the movement and aim is much easier compared to the alien play. Thats what your said, but aliens will abuse gorgetunnel and the PVE play (they learn the game too) .... with marins needing more teamplay and a good commander to break a wall of hydras.
So overall the game is balanced either way and will switch either side being overpowerd until all players have the same knowledge of the game.
Any player with more experience on one side of a rookie will instantly switch the balance to the side he is on.
If you improve the bitecone (we had that in NS2 way back), aliens will become overpowerd like hell. This was already tested and the result was alien wins all over the play no matter which player skill you look at.
So you feel marines is harder to learn? it is harder for new players to learnt to point and shoot compared to mastering all the alien lifeforms?
The only thing more complicated on marine side is the role of comm...even then only marginally compared to alien comm.
Alien khamm can and does lose games I guess your exposure is limited despite your supposed lengtrh of time playhing (based on join date) if you think a khamm can do what they want and still win.
In the same way aliens can zerg rush...marines can do the same (and did through out stages of the beta which is why the egg model got changed so many times).
Sorry but hydras are a nuisance and hardly requiring a good comm.
If the games so balanced why have there been so many balance mods and tweaks?
I shant bother continuing this as over the last few years I have grown weary of being one of the few voicing issues for the less skilled/new players.
I will though draw some satisfaction from who has liked my posts given all they have done to help the community over the journey and confirms I am not as deluded in my understanding as you would like me and others to believe.
The most annoying thing is UWE's continued silence on everything. I think we should all make a pact to boycott subnautica as a scrub is a developer that won't get no love from me
I love Gathers, but you have agreed with my point, the match-making system is unlikely to save this game or retain players, purely because games aren't as much fun when no-one on the team knows what to do.
Forcing rookies together means they don't get stomped, but also means the don't get to play with people who could teach them what to do, unless they ignore the system, but then we are back to square one..
I get what you're saying and you are right, those rookie matches will be a mess, but I'd still say they would enjoy it way more than being killed over and over again. They need some time to get to know the maps, and the most basic concepts of the game.
After winning some of those kindergarten matches, they will eventually play with better players who will teach them some more.
I don't think it'll save the game though, but that is because I think most players won't give it a second try.
The most annoying thing is UWE's continued silence on everything. I think we should all make a pact to boycott subnautica as a scrub is a developer that won't get no love from me
I'm guessing they are busy working on Subnautica and I will buy the shit out of it some day. Besides, there isn't much they could say.
Alien khamm can and does lose games I guess your exposure is limited despite your supposed lengtrh of time playhing (based on join date) if you think a khamm can do what they want and still win.
In the same way aliens can zerg rush...marines can do the same (and did through out stages of the beta which is why the egg model got changed so many times).
I wish I'd spent whatever change it was worth for these steam sales, instead of the 40 bucks I handed them. no way to get money back, I know, but from the 2100+ hrs I've put in, this game has been, only worth, those steam sale prices.
Comments
6v6 is great, but who plays on 12 person servers? PUGs, Scrims and so on do for the most part, which is largely for vet players which is great.
If you want to draw more casuals then balance for a larger teams, let's say 8v8.
The reasoning is if you balance for 8v8 instead of 6v6 you'll hit a sweet spot with servers that helps players who want to play 6v6 but also give a reason to give more attention to pub style of play with the 10v10. Sure there's going to be balance issues, but they won't be radically different in the same way when you stretch from 6 v6 to 10v10 which is the what I see played more often on in pubs.
Also the maps become more compatible for the pub style of play if you know the balance is set at 8v8. I think that 6v6 is fun to watch and all, but the casual player will be able to relate more to the tactics of 8v8 or 10v10 and incorporate them into the game.
CSGO is not F2P
In any FPS or good RTS game a players with high skill can kill casuals as he likes and they will feel always like the game is unbalanced.
The only diffrence is the casuals in other games listen at least a little more to the competitiv players and what they call "balance".
Like every noob in NS2 who got no clue how to play the game thinks his idea of balance would fix all the issues.
If Sewlek would change the game into something @Talesin would hope for ... the player base would go down in like 1 week.
The issue is like MF already said.
The good changes for NS2 did come way to late after release. NS2 could have had more active players if the so called community manager and other parts of the game would have been executed right.
NS2 has been a rly long project for UWE and i think they have put more time and money into it then i would have hoped for. They have done horrible mistakes overall in terms of balance (thanks sewlek for hotfixing it) and many more parts of the game:
- patching the game and making sure that mods are not breaking (possible)
- Introduce Combat with full support and make it a game in the game. (but they got scared it would split the community)
- Use the community more in terms of balance (like i said sewlek did that but to late)
- Use the community more for awesome mods (NS2 stats, Lowlightmods, Chud). It was all already given to them but not used. (bla bla that it takes long time to add to the game, but even writing it new would have been faster).
The Community created all the important thinks they wanted to have ingame, to fix all the issues. But they didnt take it.
Like i said, i am thankful for UWE for creating this game (i loved ns1), they put a lot of money, time and heart into this game but they have done many mistakes on their way to the final game. I can only hope they will learn from their mistakes in the future. Even big studios do all this mistakes.
Its how they try to prevent it in the future, that splits a good studio from a bad one.
For me the Beta test of NS2 will end with the next patch and the game will finaly remove its "beta" status for me.
You sound like an entitled baby really.
The issue with this game is entirely is balance, coupled with the disparity of skill based movement and its impacts on the balance.
This game has one side that is a lot harder to learn (aliens) and takes even longer to be able to get to a passable level of skill.
We have a reduced cone for skulks due to experienced players ability to aim bites in melee combat (something new players struggle with), and some affront to gaming to aiming that was caused when we had the wider bite cone (one that actually makes sense given the teeth on the screen).
Having a wider bite cone would not impact skilled players in anyway other than meaning they go 50-20 instead of 50-2 but would help new players get kills and not just spend hours simply dieing.
Ns was better set up for aliens, primarily due to the fact new players could feel like they were contributing via temp gorging and dropping chambers, oc's, harvesters or even hives.
This meant that they had a way of feeling like they contributed even with their 0-30 K:D ratio.
But ns2 has become more complicated on alien side, more removed due to alien comm and harder to learn.
With people being too worried about whether 1 specific individual will still be playing in 4 years time, rather than attracting new players, we have created a game thats too unfriendly to new players and is balanced with the wrong player skill level in mind.
Yes, I agree a lot of issues could have been avoided by setting a stricter limit on playercounts to begin with. I'm sure a lot of casual pubbers will disagree, saying they like larger battles, and though that may be up to preference, participating in +10vs10 zerg matches will hardly teach you anything about map awareness, lane-blocking, strategic pushes/counter pushes, proper co-ordination, communication and all that jazz... Which is why the gap between pub play and comp play is also so immense. Not to mention the game runs much much smoother at 6vs6. ^^
I for one became very excited for Titanfall once I heard about their 6vs6 limit.
= UWE next game won't run on the same engine as NS2.
The funny part about that issue you mention is diffrent from my PoV.
When i see a rooky filled server (with no players with more then 20 hours) you will see something diffrent happen.
No matter what the Alien kham does (spamming whips or anything) the result will be aliens winning this game. Because aliens are more diffcult to play (i totally agree), but as marins you need way better teamplay to make something happen since you need marins to build and protect the stuff.
So overall the aliens running arround without knowing what to do and the aliens slowly taking over the entire map ...
If they keep playing the game it will shift torwards marins. As soon as marins know what to do, they become stronger because the movement and aim is much easier compared to the alien play. Thats what your said, but aliens will abuse gorgetunnel and the PVE play (they learn the game too) .... with marins needing more teamplay and a good commander to break a wall of hydras.
So overall the game is balanced either way and will switch either side being overpowerd until all players have the same knowledge of the game.
Any player with more experience on one side of a rookie will instantly switch the balance to the side he is on.
If you improve the bitecone (we had that in NS2 way back), aliens will become overpowerd like hell. This was already tested and the result was alien wins all over the play no matter which player skill you look at.
It's kindof sad. I'm from NZ, and we had a pretty strong community for ns1 which would have practically ensured a playerbase for ns2 large enough that it could have existed independent of Australia (as it once was). A lot of people were excited when the ns2 beta first came to light and brought a large portion of the old community together briefly - all amped to play the new game - with talk of reformation of some of the old clans.
However, by the time of release when most people tried it out hands on for the first time, the game was simply in too disappointing a state, and many people pegged the game as simply not worth playing. I tried to convince everybody to give it a another shot as things improved but it fell on deaf ears as the state of the game at release left far too bad a taste in their mouths to even bother. I feel like if first impressions were better, and that the initial flock of players got to experience something closer to the post-BT patches, then the NSNZ forums which were reopened for release wouldn't now exist as a desolate wasteland that even a tumbleweed wouldn't be caught dead in. Now we have maybe 3 people who play from the old scene, and a total active NZ playerbase in the single digits.
Eh, tbh that's prob not giving enough credit. I think the rollout of BT was enough of a milestone that it should be considered NS2's unofficial release.
I've played PC games for 20+ years, and I have never once used a match-making skill balanced system. I always pick and choose the server I want to play on, the only time I 'balance' my skill is in single player games where I have to choose the difficulty level.
Why would forcing players to play with people of their own skill increase player retention? Despite having over 1500 hours of NS2, admittedly only about 1000 hours playing NS2, I am still crap. If you force me to play with players of my skill level, I will be playing Rookies forever. Rookies don't know how to play the game, I do, I am just bloody useless!! I have to say as well, most of my early playing time was spent as Alien Comm in the early beta's, as I didn't have the PC to play on the field. Although I jumped in the Kham chair the other day and was completely bewildered, so I had to get back out again. Changes eh..
Forcing a load of new people to play with other new people will result in games that play out nothing along the lines of how NS2 is supposed to be played. I learned NS1 through playing with RL friends and joining a community, unfortunately, most of those skilled NS1 players never got into NS2 as far as I am aware. (Although Sgt Barlow did, but he doesn't count as he is now a dev).
What we need are communities, support groups and rookie encouragement, not locking people together to only play with people of their skill level. Way to ruin my NS2 experience.
I may be rubbish, but I know how to play the game and enjoy playing with people who know how to play the game. BTW, FWIW, my skill rating in NS2 is 156.
Force me to play with similar skilled players and I'll quit playing NS2 immediately.... (that probably wouldn't be a great loss to the community, but it would be to me.. )
It would increase player retention, because theoretically new players wouldn't get stomped by veteran players and veteran players wouldn't have to play with "those noobs". That is the whole point.
Your current skill level is meaningless, since the relative skill of the other players has not been considered. Even if you had an accuracy of 5%, you should still be shuffled with the average ns2 players. It's not like you can't have play time flow into the match making calculation.
Also, this is not about taking down the regular community servers in exchange for the match making servers. They can coexist, but the match making system should be the standard entry point for playing a game. Matches on community servers can not be rated matches however. IIRC CS:GO does it like that.
The questions is, if people will actually use it. Other games already have a match making system on release and the players use it for pubbing, even though they had the option to play on their own servers. Wacraft 3 comes to mind. Creating your own lobby was possible, but usually players went through the match making process and rarely opened lobbies for an actual game (it was used for mods most of the times).
I fear that the NS2 match making system will be seen as the 'competitive mode' and hence rejected just like the current gather system.
Forcing rookies together means they don't get stomped, but also means the don't get to play with people who could teach them what to do, unless they ignore the system, but then we are back to square one..
Though, after thinking about this for a moment, I don't know if my fragile mortal mind could handle seeing 12 oni in the same room while these shenanigans are going on.
It was fine 10 years a go with NS1, as at least i didn't know better back then and half-life and its mods were basically the only game(s) i played.
But since then FPS games have evolved and nearly every game got the standard battlefield feature of progression (i don't claim that battlefield was the first game use or invent that, but it was the first for me). Call it RPG elements or whatever.
For balance's sake it could have been just cosmetic stuff, and it could have kept me playing way longer than I've played now (13 hours in steam, vs. hundreds of hours of NS1). "2 more levels and i will unlock that cool skulk skin. must.keep.playing." "20 more kills with pistol and i unlock new sounds & skin. must.keep.playing." "1 more level and i unlock cool horns for onos" etc. etc.
They also removed the most fun part of NS1 (most fun for me), and that was 'gorging' in public servers. "Now, this room is mine and your commander either wastes resources on siege, or you take longer route and go around". And the many laughs that i had with other players back then, as a gorge.
But that is just me.
every thread has been made at least twice, if not more, and beaten to death each time. sadly, I visit the forums mostly for shits and giggles, and play the actual game like 2 rounds every few days. the games either end up stacked, or just noobfest with no strat. then I have to wait way too long, just to wait for a map to load or join another server.
I know I'll get flagged for whatever reason, but sorry about my... negative view. the WC hasn't really gotten into full-swing, but I honestly see it bringing as many, if not less, than a regular steam sale. then, as always, the player base will slowly dwindle back to 800+. the real annoying part is the money put into it for, what I believe, is just as effective as a sale. another thread, another topic to be beaten to death.
again, this is just what I've seen and believe will, and already has, continue to happen.
I guess the game is 5 yrs old (pre-alpha until... this (many in-game players still call this a beta)). so, maybe that is the lifetime for most of these games and it is inevitable. I guess I'm just dissapointed in how quickly it got to that point.
flag away my friends. just don't drink and drive (if you disagree with everything I said then you should at least agree with that).
and I do see the irony in how this post is much like the ZOMG THE GAME IS DEAD threads. those are usually over balance and minor things, and rarely about the overall picture.
Give marines the option for an assault rifle or grenade launcher on every spawn, and give aliens the option between invisibility or speed on every spawn, and you create a game that allows the good and the bad to achieve something on their own level. Noobs will go for their common crutches (aoe dmg/stealth) while the skilled will go for precise dmg and speed.
And each will have the ability to kill the other without too much of a skill imbalance. Much like TF2.
This is why the developers probably threw their hands up and went "hey, lets make a new game, our NS2 playerbase are a bunch of whingers who ruin their own game."
That's not the reason. They will need extra revenue eventually. They need to make a new game. They can't just sit on ns2 forever - that would quite simply be dumb from a financial perspective.
If it were the reason it's rather petty to abandon a game just because of a handful of people being critical on the forums. But that's not the reason.
Besides, there's still people working on ns2 isn't there? My understanding was that there's not going to be any major content updates but it will still be updated?
I really only think of that picture of the dev team holding cash. I guess this is my last post (hurray bc its negative!), but I just would like you guys to know that this was a jump-starter game. I wish I'd spent whatever change it was worth for these steam sales, instead of the 40 bucks I handed them. no way to get money back, I know, but from the 2100+ hrs I've put in, this game has been, only worth, those steam sale prices.
suggestion for next game: don't try to involve the community. stay out. people will expect something in return. and, as this game has shown, they will not get it (hard to please one person, let alone a community).
uwe... well, what's left of you that reads these forums, I won't be one to buy your next game. until its a dollar on steam. now let's all hold money and say how we tried hard but failed so we have to move to a different game.
you lost your touch with the "community". sorry. maybe I'm the only one who thinks this. if that's the case, then keep on carrying on. good luck to ya.
The only thing more complicated on marine side is the role of comm...even then only marginally compared to alien comm.
Alien khamm can and does lose games I guess your exposure is limited despite your supposed lengtrh of time playhing (based on join date) if you think a khamm can do what they want and still win.
In the same way aliens can zerg rush...marines can do the same (and did through out stages of the beta which is why the egg model got changed so many times).
Sorry but hydras are a nuisance and hardly requiring a good comm.
If the games so balanced why have there been so many balance mods and tweaks?
I shant bother continuing this as over the last few years I have grown weary of being one of the few voicing issues for the less skilled/new players.
I will though draw some satisfaction from who has liked my posts given all they have done to help the community over the journey and confirms I am not as deluded in my understanding as you would like me and others to believe.
I get what you're saying and you are right, those rookie matches will be a mess, but I'd still say they would enjoy it way more than being killed over and over again. They need some time to get to know the maps, and the most basic concepts of the game.
After winning some of those kindergarten matches, they will eventually play with better players who will teach them some more.
I don't think it'll save the game though, but that is because I think most players won't give it a second try.
I'm guessing they are busy working on Subnautica and I will buy the shit out of it some day. Besides, there isn't much they could say.
This made me chuckle.
Are you for real?