As such these players might not be able to develop the reaction or eye hand coordination necessary to compete against people who are better than them.
Everyone seems to keep focusing on this type of statement.
THIS IS NOT THE AREA THAT WOB/ANZESTRAL/KING_YO/ETC. HAVE BEEN SUGGESTING PLAYERS NEED TO IMPROVE.
When I first started playing competitive NS2 (which is when I started playing the game) I was unable to compete on a strictly reactionary level with any of the players I competed against. I made up for it, and still do as my aim isn't the strongest these days, by trying to perfect my positioning (macro and micro) and out-thinking my opponent. If you've ever watched my stream or PUG'ed with me, you've probably heard me call out what the opposing team is going to do a good 10-12 seconds before they do it.
This is the kind of area where all the competitive players are suggesting that pub players improve. In pattern-recognition, in responding to situations faster, in learned the faster ways to cross the map, in positioning themselves in such a way that they don't have to shoot 30% accuracy to get a kill. You can buy yourself so much time to aim just by standing a little bit further back in the room. It isn't hard stuff.
The problem is that those of us that already know these things find it hard to impart our knowledge on people that have shown that they just don't want to learn. You mention some small change they could make to their play to improve by a large margin (10% on an arbitrary, made up skill curve), and what do they do? They argue with you. For 10 minutes. About how their way is better, or you're a no-life loser that can't get laid.
Pardon me if I'm misunderstanding your method, but you seems to be saying "put time in and get better or too bad" after all if you could do it, then anyone can. (and I don't mean that to be offensive). Certainty there is a debate about Nature versus Nurture here, but I won't go into that.
As we all have preached, yes trial and error and practise is a solid route, but that takes times, and certainty with the inclusion of decent tutorials, match making, skill detection, etc will make everything honkey dorkey and get to the root of the problem, but they take time to make.
However, we all also know that they don't exist or are inadequate. No time is wasted in using this Handicap system as it is already created as a mod, and who knows how long it will take for the CDT or anyone to create a robust super solution, how much time are we willing to bank on NS2's future by hoping people will get better. I just feel there is more we can do rather than playing the tough love card.
What solution would you suggest that we can complete in the interim?, because "put time in and get better or too bad" is what we've been doing for a very long time, and looking at our player retention, it hasn't been working out.
Our player retention is a problem that is the result of a multitude of issues. Don't try and stick that on just people weren't getting better.
The suggestion for the interim?
Play the game, have fun and learn after every death.
I've been playing public NS since I was 12 and that's what I did.. though mostly it was "play the game, have fun" and the learning part didn't start to be a focus until 2012 when NS2 was in Beta and I wanted to get competent at the game.
If you really want to improve it's pretty easy to start surrounding yourself with people that are better and are probably open to helping you improve. I started playing in public games in March 2012 and by the Summer I was practicing and learning with a competitive team.
I had ZERO FPS competitive experience. 2 years later I played in the NS2WC. Sure, I didn't work my ass off and practice every day those 2 years .. but I improved steadily with just a positive mindset focused on learning.
If you just want to pub this game and be average - that's your choice and there is nothing wrong with that.
It's Super Effective!Join Date: 2012-08-28Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Yes, we all know it's a multitude of issues, so why try to make some steps to remedy the symptoms. I really don't get why some people are so put off by this handicap OPTION.
Otherwise, then I guess the pub stomping continues and is acceptable until everyone gets to the same level of play, move along folks, nothing to see here.
As such these players might not be able to develop the reaction or eye hand coordination necessary to compete against people who are better than them.
Everyone seems to keep focusing on this type of statement.
THIS IS NOT THE AREA THAT WOB/ANZESTRAL/KING_YO/ETC. HAVE BEEN SUGGESTING PLAYERS NEED TO IMPROVE.
When I first started playing competitive NS2 (which is when I started playing the game) I was unable to compete on a strictly reactionary level with any of the players I competed against. I made up for it, and still do as my aim isn't the strongest these days, by trying to perfect my positioning (macro and micro) and out-thinking my opponent. If you've ever watched my stream or PUG'ed with me, you've probably heard me call out what the opposing team is going to do a good 10-12 seconds before they do it.
This is the kind of area where all the competitive players are suggesting that pub players improve. In pattern-recognition, in responding to situations faster, in learned the faster ways to cross the map, in positioning themselves in such a way that they don't have to shoot 30% accuracy to get a kill. You can buy yourself so much time to aim just by standing a little bit further back in the room. It isn't hard stuff.
The problem is that those of us that already know these things find it hard to impart our knowledge on people that have shown that they just don't want to learn. You mention some small change they could make to their play to improve by a large margin (10% on an arbitrary, made up skill curve), and what do they do? They argue with you. For 10 minutes. About how their way is better, or you're a no-life loser that can't get laid.
Pardon me if I'm misunderstanding your method, but you seems to be saying "put time in and get better or too bad" after all if you could do it, then anyone can. (and I don't mean that to be offensive). Certainty there is a debate about Nature versus Nurture here, but I won't go into that.
As we all have preached, yes trial and error and practise is a solid route, but that takes times, and certainty with the inclusion of decent tutorials, match making, skill detection, etc will make everything honkey dorkey and get to the root of the problem, but they take time to make.
However, we all also know that they don't exist or are inadequate. No time is wasted in using this Handicap system as it is already created as a mod, and who knows how long it will take for the CDT or anyone to create a robust super solution, how much time are we willing to bank on NS2's future by hoping people will get better. I just feel there is more we can do rather than playing the tough love card.
What solution would you suggest that we can complete in the interim?, because "put time in and get better or too bad" is what we've been doing for a very long time, and looking at our player retention, it hasn't been working out.
your numerous uses of certainty where i presume you mean certainly, misspelling of practice, and butchering of hunky dory... is troubling... please edit yourself in the future.
Dude, neither is his text unreadable nor does this have anything to do with his argument.
Our player retention is a problem that is the result of a multitude of issues. Don't try and stick that on just people weren't getting better.
The suggestion for the interim?
Play the game, have fun and learn after every death.
Loosely speaking that is what people have done since release and it hasn't worked. With a sub 1000 average player count ignoring the issue isn't helping. Since release the only thing I can think about that was aimed at helping this was build 250, the skill bar in front of servers and the matchmaking that never worked. I think its time to try something else...anything really. =/
@ISE - You're fooling yourself if you think that the handicap OPTION does anything to prevent pub stomping at all. If anything it gives people a NEW item to complain about to comp players who elect not to use it.
At best it serves as a precurser (by that I mean something we can add now as a "bandaid", and remove later as it's no longer needed), but even that I'd argue can blow in your faces. Because every time you remove a feature, people who don't understand the original purpose for its implementation WILL complain (See removal of glancing bites as one of many examples).
@ISE - You're fooling yourself if you think that the handicap OPTION does anything to prevent pub stomping at all. If anything it gives people a NEW item to complain about to comp players who elect not to use it.
At best it serves as a precurser (by that I mean something we can add now as a "bandaid", and remove later as it's no longer needed), but even that I'd argue can blow in your faces. Because every time you remove a feature, people who don't understand the original purpose for its implementation WILL complain (See removal of glancing bites as one of many examples).
This.
As I stated in a previous post, the people who will elect to use a Handicap option probably already handicap themselves in some way (pistols only, off-lifeforming, picking one marine and trying to keep him alive forever). The players who are actually the problem, with regards to Pub Stomping, will NEVER EVER EVER use this. They want to see that high score and **** everyone else.
And yes, ISE, I'm saying that anyone can do it... if they're willing to put in the time and effort to practice and learn. If they're open to being taught by people who are, quite simply, better than them at games. The number of people who refuse to believe that others can be better than them at something is simply astounding.
Also, I never suggested a solution. I simply pointed out that this solution will do piss all to solve any problem whatsoever. If I knew of a viable solution, I would've already put the work in and gotten it out there.
Our player retention is a problem that is the result of a multitude of issues. Don't try and stick that on just people weren't getting better.
The suggestion for the interim?
Play the game, have fun and learn after every death.
Loosely speaking that is what people have done since release and it hasn't worked. With a sub 1000 average player count ignoring the issue isn't helping. Since release the only thing I can think about that was aimed at helping this was build 250, the skill bar in front of servers and the matchmaking that never worked. I think its time to try something else...anything really. =/
I'm no way saying that things are fine and if people follow my mantra then things will magically be better.
Change is welcome - trying something else is very welcome..
But let's not waste time on changes and things that won't solve the core problem.. too many bandaids (symptom treating via half ass implementations of "rookie friendly" - tips and trick videos etc.. "fake" matchmaking system that does nothing, etc..) in the history of this game.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2014
I've got 1800+ hours registered in NS2, and I am not going to get better than the basic level I am currently at.
I have recently started playing NS2 as often as I did in the beta, which was a lot, but I still will not improve much above my current level.
Why not? Well, it's called being human.. Not that I am saying you pro players are not-human...
You see, thankfully, everyone of us is unique, and because of that, we have unique skills and abilities.
Some people have the required skills to get to the very top of the tree in Sports. Let's look at people like Usain Bolt. That guy is supremely talented, and put in a huge amount of work to get where he is. Now, do you think, if I put in as much work as Usain Bolt, heck, I'll put in twice as much work as Usain Bolt. Who would win in a race?
You see, some people are able to do things that others just cannot. To you 'Pro' players, all the advice you offer makes perfect sense, and should assist with improving players, but the truth is you guys have a talent and an understanding for computer games that others don't.
Before you tell me L2P, I have been playing computer games for over 30 years now. I've played every sort of game that can be played, and I know what my gaming limitations are. According to you guys, if I practised a little harder, and 'better', I would become a higher level player than I am, this is not true.
Let's start with awareness. I have tunnel focus. I specialise in single tasks. I will do one single task extremely well. The more tasks you add for me to do, the less quality is in each task. So let's take a simple game like Loadout.
Movement, yes I can control and co-ordinate movement and plan my routes and learn them. What happens though, it is not just a case of my movement. I also have to be aware of other players and their movements. So while concentrating on their movements, I begin to lose concentration on my own.
Now, 'enemy' players are in the area, so I need to not only concentrate on my movement, and their movement, I need to take on board, combat. What am i going do in combat? What are they going to do in combat? Guess what happens as this and other stuff starts building up in my brain? Suddenly movement concentration is all out of the window, suddenly I am pressing 'W' and trying to get my mouse into a position where the crosshairs sit on the opponent.
All that is hard enough, with just those two little things going on. Now imagine a game like NS2, where things like positioning, etc are all crucial...
Oh and the killer... Reloading. I always forget to reload, I just don't have the capacity to do all those things at once.
I guess it won't surprise you to learn, that RTS games are about the worst time of game I can try and play, Closely followed by MOBA's, RPG's and the list goes on. There is not a single game I can play to a 'good' standard. I am not alone in this, in fact, I am more representative of the average gamer than you 'pro' players.
It is not an issue of learn to play, learn to think differently, learn to anything. It is an issue of what people are capable of and what people aren't. If you think I can get any better at games than I currently am after 30 years of trying (I played with one of the top100 helicopter pilots in the world in BF2, and even with his skills and training, I could not make the grade as his missile pilot) you are living in a dream world.....
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
edited June 2014
Wow.. I am amazed at how many are putting forth straw man arguments here in an attempt to shut down this idea, with comp players (only) following with clicking the agree button..
First of all, lets settle one thing once and for all: NO ONE HAS SAID THIS OPTIONAL HANDICAP WOULD OUTRIGHT SOLVE PUB STOMPING.
So everyone just stop posting "This isn't a solution / addressing the core of the issue" ... It doesn't make the idea any less useful, as that was never the goal.
All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
It is not for "training"! That's what PCWs, gathers, reddit, and combat mod are for.
Dragon even mentions this fact about pubs, yet many of you who agreed to this post argue this point nonetheless directly after! :
Any 'comp' player trying to challenge them-self in a pub is either full of ****, or making stuff up. Playing pubs only reinforces bad playstyles, outside of a few specific routines to try to improve awareness.
So everyone just stop posting "It will negatively effect training in pubs" because you are fooling yourself if you think you have been bettering yourself in that environment, previously.
All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
Right now better players are targeted and blamed due to their impact in a round, which provides a perception of unfairness that players feel is intentional and malicious.
If anything it gives people a NEW item to complain about to comp players who elect not to use it.
Good. Working as intended, imo.
Also, I predict that if pro players were to use this when necessary, you'd see less complaints from the players overall, as they would recognize that it was not intentional or malicious.
This would separate actual malicious pubstompers from those who are just playing for fun with a friend and do not wish to create an unfair scenario.
It stands to reason that the players in a server would NOT complain about a user NOT using the handicap - unless they felt it was needed... in which case.. that's what this optional feature is for!
Those who do not wish to use it despite lesser players requesting it, only serves to define what kind of pro player they are... it draws a clear line in the sand, imo.
Which leads me to the next point..
The players that will use it already self-regulate by gorging, commanding, pistols only, etc.
Except not everyone wants to self regulate using those boring and restricting methods??? Like @current1y already stated pages ago..
I personally would use it in rookie servers because i grow very very tired of such mundane self regulation.. sometimes i just want to play to the best of my ability, and would not mind being artificially nerfed in order to do so.
I have to imagine other players somewhere feel this same way..
Again: All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
I am honestly surprised at the hollow arguments that have been propped up as rebuttals to this idea - it gives the impression that some of you are worried about this existing for some other reason..
I do not see this optional tool hurting anyone or anything, and only improving the situation by allowing better players to play with friends and environments of lesser skill without upsetting others.
I've got 1800+ hours registered in NS2, and I am not going to get better than the basic level I am currently at.
But would you go onto the highest skill public server, and abuse players who are doing a lot better than you? Or would you reflect back on yourself and think that it's better for you to play in an environment you're more comfortable in?
I would think (hope) someone as reasonable as yourself who can reflect back on themselves and appreciate their limitations would choose the latter or just not complain.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2014
I tend to play with high skilled players because I like the more organised games. If anything, I'm normally the one getting the abuse for being so crap, rather than the other way around.. (tongue-in-cheek, I don't get abuse, banter definitely exists though).
My point was just to try and get across to people that in general, people who are able to get good at computers games, and certainly to reach a comp level, are a small minority. It is not a case of L2P for others.
The high level players just have to realise they posses abilities not available to the rest of us mere mortals, which unfortunately in a game with such a small playerbase and a high skill ceiling, makes it much more pronounced.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
I've had experience in matches where I played with high skill tiered players, while it does provide an enjoyable and balanced playingfield(for the most part), being an average at best skilled player I was generally regarded as a handicap and it was no fun for anyone involved.
On the opposite end of the spectrum your average pub-game team balance goes out the window because there are new players, unskilled players, old players, pub heroes, comp players, and your potential comp player pub stomping under a different name. What this means obviously is the NS2 experience that is playtested or competitively played is never accurately replicated by the ns2 community and more often then not the noob friendly servers are the worst servers to start off on.
It's a community and playerbase issue, not a L2P issue.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I made this myself when it was initially raised in the Comp forum a few months ago when I was working on GorgeCraft, I just forgot about it and never published it :P
Band aid for what, playing with lesser skilled friends??
How else would you accomplish this? Neither matchmaking nor a player base 20 times what we have now would remedy this skill difference between players when they desire to be in the same server.
You'd have to make core, sweeping design changes to NS2 that is just not going to happen. Not to mention such a fundamental solution has yet to even be proposed by anyone.
Again: All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.[/list]
Praising this handicap idea as a quick help for this game you seem to forget there already is a feature implemented in the game that helps players to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round and allows them to play without having to change their gamestyle in any way.
It is called the server browser and it helps lower skilled and/or brainless players to voluntarily lessen their impact on rounds on high skilled servers.
What hinders these players to go on lower skilled servers instead of blocking the rare slots on the high skilled servers and afterwards even complaining about getting stomped?
We DO NOT WISH to play with players who are of lesser skill than ourselves!!!
That is why whenever we want to play some pubs we go on the highest skilled servers out there if possible and even try to improve the overall playerskill by giving advice that unfortunatly falls on deaf ears and ignorance a lot.
We DO NOT WISH to play against players that think they are already pros at this game because they can manage to kill handicaped premier division lifeforms and therefore see no reason to fix their own mistakes and improve their game.
This wouldn't effect me at all were it implemented, as I have for the most part stopped spending time in public games.
Just simply stating that it would be a waste of programming time and effort.
I'd rather see the effort go towards something actually useful on a larger scale. These small band aid ideas don't appeal to me.
As others already said... it's a mod... and it's already out there.
And shooting for the moon fixing core issues is nice and everything, but if you run out of fuel in the stratosphere you end up with nothing but a lot of debris. (I played KSP, I know what I'm talking about.)
We've tried that method. It didn't work. (See organized play.)
What's wrong with going smaller steps which might not change the overall paradigm but at least helps a little, instead of failing in a glorious fireball?
you seem to forget there already is a feature implemented in the game that helps players to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round and allows them to play without having to change their gamestyle in any way.
It is called the server browser
And you seem to forget that
1) there are less and less players, therefore less and less servers to play on
2) people of ALL skill levels may in fact wish to play with friends in a server that is appropriate for their friend, and may not be the highly skilled server you frequent on
3) you do not speak for all competitive players, let alone all skilled players, who may in fact wish to play against players who do not wish to improve.
No offense but that was a pretty narrowly scoped and thought out response, anzestral. This option applies to such a large range of players, (including non competitive like myself) I can't imagine why you'd attempt speak for all of them.
Allowing players to pre-evolve gorge in the pregame might help with getting balanced games (albeit only slightly - it doesn't solve the major issues being talked about currently).
If the lifeforms are also visible in the scoreboard for marines/rr then it will make it easier to know what team to join (or whether a swap is necessary). For example, if the alien team has only slightly better players but you can already see that the best players are gorging, then perhaps it's better to join the alien team if you're a player that would buff it based on the current readyroomers (likewise if you're the type of player that would handicap the team then you should probably join the marines instead). This assumes those players are less effective as gorge. If they have a reputation for being more effective as gorge then maybe buffing the marines would be the best option. Anyway, whether they're a hero gorge or not, not knowing that these players are gorging could cause an imbalance based on what team you (and the other readyroomers) decide to join.
Obviously, you could still gorge after the pregame finishes if you choose. Which would allow things like surprise gorge rushes. I can see why sometimes the aliens wouldn't want to reveal their lifeform spread (e.g. you're going heavy gorge with multiple tunnels in a pub) so it's totally up to them whether they would even want to use the pre-gorge tool.
This would also have the benefit of mitigating the problem of too many players gorging in pubs. Hopefully if enough players have already pre-evolved gorge, people won't then gorge after the game starts (although I've definitely played pubs where a couple people late gorge even after we already have 3 gorges already evolved - so a pre-gorge ability won't stop this from happening completely).
If there's a balance issue with allowing players to immediately be gorge at game start, pre-gorges could just automatically revert back to skulk when the countdown starts, and have them auto-gorge once the countdown finishes (to add the time it takes to evolve rather than bypassing it).
Commander should probably be visible to both teams (and rr/spec) too for the same reason. If somebody who is a more effective on the field is commanding then that is useful information to have with regard to choosing which team to play on to get a balanced game. Likewise if a bad field player but good comm is commanding, that is useful information too.
No offense but that was a pretty narrowly scoped and thought out response, anzestral. This option applies to such a large range of players, (including non competitive like myself) I can't imagine why you'd attempt speak for all of them.
I am not attempting to speak for all of them at all, I am speaking for a large group of high skilled (prem, div 1 etc...) competitive players. Maybe you haven't read the whole thread, but actually it was about high level competitive players stacking and stomping on the highest skill public servers. All that I am trying to do is point out why I think a handicap system is not the right way to go and that there are other ways people who do not want to improve can prevent to get stomped.
But to try it, why not implement this on on yoclan or hbz and see how it works out?
sv_mydmg 0.5 gogo...
No offense but that was a pretty narrowly scoped and thought out response, anzestral. This option applies to such a large range of players, (including non competitive like myself) I can't imagine why you'd attempt speak for all of them.
I am not attempting to speak for all of them at all, I am speaking for a large group of high skilled (prem, div 1 etc...) competitive players. Maybe you haven't read the whole thread, but actually it was about high level competitive players stacking and stomping on the highest skill public servers. All that I am trying to do is point out why I think a handicap system is not the right way to go and that there are other ways people who do not want to improve can prevent to get stomped.
But to try it, why not implement this on on yoclan or hbz and see how it works out?
sv_mydmg 0.5 gogo...
Actually this thread is for ALL high skill players not just the competitive "being stomped by a team of mostly competitive players & high skill pub players" to quote myself in the opening post. I was just trying to get other competitive players to help me out by leading by example to encourage positive behaviors in others as the higher div players are the ones most known and people follow them. I also said "Now the purpose of this thread is not to name and shame" in the first sentence so it is irrelevant who does or doesn't do it.
I would rather get all of us to help solve this problem proactively and stop with the who does what arguments and lets be productive people, lead by example and lets think how we can help our community grow with less of these issues. The handicap mod doesn't solve the problem granted but it does make a move in the right direction by at least giving us a tool to use, you can never really have to many tools as something you have as tool may fix a problem or even a combination of tools. I also like the idea of having the single player missions to be played as an interactive tutorial to be played before the online section of the game becomes available as long as its quick (as it realistically can be), informative (obviously), fun (most importantly) and adequately prepares the new players ready for online play. I would be happy to test this and give ideas/feedback if anyone is willing to begin work on it?
Putting it bluntly the main issue is people, without bringing attention to this nothing would have been done at all so the very fact that there are ideas being spoke of is progress. Keep the ideas coming and hopefully we will come across one that will nail the issue so we can move forward and get this community to grow.
We've tried that method. It didn't work. (See organized play.)
More like, IT doesn't work because it's broken and they spent almost 0 time working on it from what I can tell lol. It literally does nothing.
It's a bandaid for a core problem IronHorse. The problem is that there is no player base so the skill gap is astronomical in some cases and the way to fix it is definitely not this "mod" or whatever.
Uhm, yeah if we had 20 times the player base like you said and we had a decent matchmaking system like in CS:GO.. people would be queuing up with friends and getting matches through that skill system. Higher skilled players that desire to be in the same server as lower skilled friends? They can queue together in the matchmaking system. So, I don't see the issue with that system.
NS2 using the archaic server browser / community server design always seemed pretty silly to me anyways. This isn't HL1 era any more.
If this thing is already programmed in a mod, whatever.. I'm just not in favor of the CDT spending time programming something like this when it doesn't really fix the true problem.
@ISE - You're fooling yourself if you think that the handicap OPTION does anything to prevent pub stomping at all. If anything it gives people a NEW item to complain about to comp players who elect not to use it.
At best it serves as a precurser (by that I mean something we can add now as a "bandaid", and remove later as it's no longer needed), but even that I'd argue can blow in your faces. Because every time you remove a feature, people who don't understand the original purpose for its implementation WILL complain (See removal of glancing bites as one of many examples).
This.
As I stated in a previous post, the people who will elect to use a Handicap option probably already handicap themselves in some way (pistols only, off-lifeforming, picking one marine and trying to keep him alive forever). The players who are actually the problem, with regards to Pub Stomping, will NEVER EVER EVER use this. They want to see that high score and **** everyone else.
And yes, ISE, I'm saying that anyone can do it... if they're willing to put in the time and effort to practice and learn. If they're open to being taught by people who are, quite simply, better than them at games. The number of people who refuse to believe that others can be better than them at something is simply astounding.
Also, I never suggested a solution. I simply pointed out that this solution will do piss all to solve any problem whatsoever. If I knew of a viable solution, I would've already put the work in and gotten it out there.
that keeping a marine alive thing, sounds really fun. I'll be your angel.
Comments
Our player retention is a problem that is the result of a multitude of issues. Don't try and stick that on just people weren't getting better.
The suggestion for the interim?
Play the game, have fun and learn after every death.
I've been playing public NS since I was 12 and that's what I did.. though mostly it was "play the game, have fun" and the learning part didn't start to be a focus until 2012 when NS2 was in Beta and I wanted to get competent at the game.
If you really want to improve it's pretty easy to start surrounding yourself with people that are better and are probably open to helping you improve. I started playing in public games in March 2012 and by the Summer I was practicing and learning with a competitive team.
I had ZERO FPS competitive experience. 2 years later I played in the NS2WC. Sure, I didn't work my ass off and practice every day those 2 years .. but I improved steadily with just a positive mindset focused on learning.
If you just want to pub this game and be average - that's your choice and there is nothing wrong with that.
Otherwise, then I guess the pub stomping continues and is acceptable until everyone gets to the same level of play, move along folks, nothing to see here.
Dude, neither is his text unreadable nor does this have anything to do with his argument.
Loosely speaking that is what people have done since release and it hasn't worked. With a sub 1000 average player count ignoring the issue isn't helping. Since release the only thing I can think about that was aimed at helping this was build 250, the skill bar in front of servers and the matchmaking that never worked. I think its time to try something else...anything really. =/
At best it serves as a precurser (by that I mean something we can add now as a "bandaid", and remove later as it's no longer needed), but even that I'd argue can blow in your faces. Because every time you remove a feature, people who don't understand the original purpose for its implementation WILL complain (See removal of glancing bites as one of many examples).
This.
As I stated in a previous post, the people who will elect to use a Handicap option probably already handicap themselves in some way (pistols only, off-lifeforming, picking one marine and trying to keep him alive forever). The players who are actually the problem, with regards to Pub Stomping, will NEVER EVER EVER use this. They want to see that high score and **** everyone else.
And yes, ISE, I'm saying that anyone can do it... if they're willing to put in the time and effort to practice and learn. If they're open to being taught by people who are, quite simply, better than them at games. The number of people who refuse to believe that others can be better than them at something is simply astounding.
Also, I never suggested a solution. I simply pointed out that this solution will do piss all to solve any problem whatsoever. If I knew of a viable solution, I would've already put the work in and gotten it out there.
I'm no way saying that things are fine and if people follow my mantra then things will magically be better.
Change is welcome - trying something else is very welcome..
But let's not waste time on changes and things that won't solve the core problem.. too many bandaids (symptom treating via half ass implementations of "rookie friendly" - tips and trick videos etc.. "fake" matchmaking system that does nothing, etc..) in the history of this game.
I have recently started playing NS2 as often as I did in the beta, which was a lot, but I still will not improve much above my current level.
Why not? Well, it's called being human.. Not that I am saying you pro players are not-human...
You see, thankfully, everyone of us is unique, and because of that, we have unique skills and abilities.
Some people have the required skills to get to the very top of the tree in Sports. Let's look at people like Usain Bolt. That guy is supremely talented, and put in a huge amount of work to get where he is. Now, do you think, if I put in as much work as Usain Bolt, heck, I'll put in twice as much work as Usain Bolt. Who would win in a race?
You see, some people are able to do things that others just cannot. To you 'Pro' players, all the advice you offer makes perfect sense, and should assist with improving players, but the truth is you guys have a talent and an understanding for computer games that others don't.
Before you tell me L2P, I have been playing computer games for over 30 years now. I've played every sort of game that can be played, and I know what my gaming limitations are. According to you guys, if I practised a little harder, and 'better', I would become a higher level player than I am, this is not true.
Let's start with awareness. I have tunnel focus. I specialise in single tasks. I will do one single task extremely well. The more tasks you add for me to do, the less quality is in each task. So let's take a simple game like Loadout.
Movement, yes I can control and co-ordinate movement and plan my routes and learn them. What happens though, it is not just a case of my movement. I also have to be aware of other players and their movements. So while concentrating on their movements, I begin to lose concentration on my own.
Now, 'enemy' players are in the area, so I need to not only concentrate on my movement, and their movement, I need to take on board, combat. What am i going do in combat? What are they going to do in combat? Guess what happens as this and other stuff starts building up in my brain? Suddenly movement concentration is all out of the window, suddenly I am pressing 'W' and trying to get my mouse into a position where the crosshairs sit on the opponent.
All that is hard enough, with just those two little things going on. Now imagine a game like NS2, where things like positioning, etc are all crucial...
Oh and the killer... Reloading. I always forget to reload, I just don't have the capacity to do all those things at once.
I guess it won't surprise you to learn, that RTS games are about the worst time of game I can try and play, Closely followed by MOBA's, RPG's and the list goes on. There is not a single game I can play to a 'good' standard. I am not alone in this, in fact, I am more representative of the average gamer than you 'pro' players.
It is not an issue of learn to play, learn to think differently, learn to anything. It is an issue of what people are capable of and what people aren't. If you think I can get any better at games than I currently am after 30 years of trying (I played with one of the top100 helicopter pilots in the world in BF2, and even with his skills and training, I could not make the grade as his missile pilot) you are living in a dream world.....
So everyone just stop posting "This isn't a solution / addressing the core of the issue" ... It doesn't make the idea any less useful, as that was never the goal.
All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
Dragon even mentions this fact about pubs, yet many of you who agreed to this post argue this point nonetheless directly after! :
So everyone just stop posting "It will negatively effect training in pubs" because you are fooling yourself if you think you have been bettering yourself in that environment, previously.
All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
Also, I predict that if pro players were to use this when necessary, you'd see less complaints from the players overall, as they would recognize that it was not intentional or malicious.
This would separate actual malicious pubstompers from those who are just playing for fun with a friend and do not wish to create an unfair scenario.
It stands to reason that the players in a server would NOT complain about a user NOT using the handicap - unless they felt it was needed... in which case.. that's what this optional feature is for!
Those who do not wish to use it despite lesser players requesting it, only serves to define what kind of pro player they are... it draws a clear line in the sand, imo.
Which leads me to the next point..
I personally would use it in rookie servers because i grow very very tired of such mundane self regulation.. sometimes i just want to play to the best of my ability, and would not mind being artificially nerfed in order to do so.
I have to imagine other players somewhere feel this same way..
Again: All this accomplishes is a better player to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round when they wish to play with players who are of lesser skill than themselves, yet allows them to play to their full extent without withholding or mundane self regulating methods.
I am honestly surprised at the hollow arguments that have been propped up as rebuttals to this idea - it gives the impression that some of you are worried about this existing for some other reason..
I do not see this optional tool hurting anyone or anything, and only improving the situation by allowing better players to play with friends and environments of lesser skill without upsetting others.
Just simply stating that it would be a waste of programming time and effort.
I'd rather see the effort go towards something actually useful on a larger scale. These small band aid ideas don't appeal to me.
But would you go onto the highest skill public server, and abuse players who are doing a lot better than you? Or would you reflect back on yourself and think that it's better for you to play in an environment you're more comfortable in?
I would think (hope) someone as reasonable as yourself who can reflect back on themselves and appreciate their limitations would choose the latter or just not complain.
My point was just to try and get across to people that in general, people who are able to get good at computers games, and certainly to reach a comp level, are a small minority. It is not a case of L2P for others.
The high level players just have to realise they posses abilities not available to the rest of us mere mortals, which unfortunately in a game with such a small playerbase and a high skill ceiling, makes it much more pronounced.
On the opposite end of the spectrum your average pub-game team balance goes out the window because there are new players, unskilled players, old players, pub heroes, comp players, and your potential comp player pub stomping under a different name. What this means obviously is the NS2 experience that is playtested or competitively played is never accurately replicated by the ns2 community and more often then not the noob friendly servers are the worst servers to start off on.
It's a community and playerbase issue, not a L2P issue.
The only time wasted here is trying to convince people of its merits. Which had been over 20 minutes ironically.
How else would you accomplish this? Neither matchmaking nor a player base 20 times what we have now would remedy this skill difference between players when they desire to be in the same server.
You'd have to make core, sweeping design changes to NS2 that is just not going to happen. Not to mention such a fundamental solution has yet to even be proposed by anyone.
Praising this handicap idea as a quick help for this game you seem to forget there already is a feature implemented in the game that helps players to voluntarily lessen their impact on a round and allows them to play without having to change their gamestyle in any way.
It is called the server browser and it helps lower skilled and/or brainless players to voluntarily lessen their impact on rounds on high skilled servers.
What hinders these players to go on lower skilled servers instead of blocking the rare slots on the high skilled servers and afterwards even complaining about getting stomped?
We DO NOT WISH to play with players who are of lesser skill than ourselves!!!
That is why whenever we want to play some pubs we go on the highest skilled servers out there if possible and even try to improve the overall playerskill by giving advice that unfortunatly falls on deaf ears and ignorance a lot.
We DO NOT WISH to play against players that think they are already pros at this game because they can manage to kill handicaped premier division lifeforms and therefore see no reason to fix their own mistakes and improve their game.
As others already said... it's a mod... and it's already out there.
And shooting for the moon fixing core issues is nice and everything, but if you run out of fuel in the stratosphere you end up with nothing but a lot of debris. (I played KSP, I know what I'm talking about.)
We've tried that method. It didn't work. (See organized play.)
What's wrong with going smaller steps which might not change the overall paradigm but at least helps a little, instead of failing in a glorious fireball?
1) there are less and less players, therefore less and less servers to play on
2) people of ALL skill levels may in fact wish to play with friends in a server that is appropriate for their friend, and may not be the highly skilled server you frequent on
3) you do not speak for all competitive players, let alone all skilled players, who may in fact wish to play against players who do not wish to improve.
No offense but that was a pretty narrowly scoped and thought out response, anzestral. This option applies to such a large range of players, (including non competitive like myself) I can't imagine why you'd attempt speak for all of them.
Its another band aid solution for sure but its better than no solution.
If the lifeforms are also visible in the scoreboard for marines/rr then it will make it easier to know what team to join (or whether a swap is necessary). For example, if the alien team has only slightly better players but you can already see that the best players are gorging, then perhaps it's better to join the alien team if you're a player that would buff it based on the current readyroomers (likewise if you're the type of player that would handicap the team then you should probably join the marines instead). This assumes those players are less effective as gorge. If they have a reputation for being more effective as gorge then maybe buffing the marines would be the best option. Anyway, whether they're a hero gorge or not, not knowing that these players are gorging could cause an imbalance based on what team you (and the other readyroomers) decide to join.
Obviously, you could still gorge after the pregame finishes if you choose. Which would allow things like surprise gorge rushes. I can see why sometimes the aliens wouldn't want to reveal their lifeform spread (e.g. you're going heavy gorge with multiple tunnels in a pub) so it's totally up to them whether they would even want to use the pre-gorge tool.
This would also have the benefit of mitigating the problem of too many players gorging in pubs. Hopefully if enough players have already pre-evolved gorge, people won't then gorge after the game starts (although I've definitely played pubs where a couple people late gorge even after we already have 3 gorges already evolved - so a pre-gorge ability won't stop this from happening completely).
If there's a balance issue with allowing players to immediately be gorge at game start, pre-gorges could just automatically revert back to skulk when the countdown starts, and have them auto-gorge once the countdown finishes (to add the time it takes to evolve rather than bypassing it).
Commander should probably be visible to both teams (and rr/spec) too for the same reason. If somebody who is a more effective on the field is commanding then that is useful information to have with regard to choosing which team to play on to get a balanced game. Likewise if a bad field player but good comm is commanding, that is useful information too.
I am not attempting to speak for all of them at all, I am speaking for a large group of high skilled (prem, div 1 etc...) competitive players. Maybe you haven't read the whole thread, but actually it was about high level competitive players stacking and stomping on the highest skill public servers. All that I am trying to do is point out why I think a handicap system is not the right way to go and that there are other ways people who do not want to improve can prevent to get stomped.
But to try it, why not implement this on on yoclan or hbz and see how it works out?
sv_mydmg 0.5 gogo...
Actually this thread is for ALL high skill players not just the competitive "being stomped by a team of mostly competitive players & high skill pub players" to quote myself in the opening post. I was just trying to get other competitive players to help me out by leading by example to encourage positive behaviors in others as the higher div players are the ones most known and people follow them. I also said "Now the purpose of this thread is not to name and shame" in the first sentence so it is irrelevant who does or doesn't do it.
I would rather get all of us to help solve this problem proactively and stop with the who does what arguments and lets be productive people, lead by example and lets think how we can help our community grow with less of these issues. The handicap mod doesn't solve the problem granted but it does make a move in the right direction by at least giving us a tool to use, you can never really have to many tools as something you have as tool may fix a problem or even a combination of tools. I also like the idea of having the single player missions to be played as an interactive tutorial to be played before the online section of the game becomes available as long as its quick (as it realistically can be), informative (obviously), fun (most importantly) and adequately prepares the new players ready for online play. I would be happy to test this and give ideas/feedback if anyone is willing to begin work on it?
Putting it bluntly the main issue is people, without bringing attention to this nothing would have been done at all so the very fact that there are ideas being spoke of is progress. Keep the ideas coming and hopefully we will come across one that will nail the issue so we can move forward and get this community to grow.
More like, IT doesn't work because it's broken and they spent almost 0 time working on it from what I can tell lol. It literally does nothing.
It's a bandaid for a core problem IronHorse. The problem is that there is no player base so the skill gap is astronomical in some cases and the way to fix it is definitely not this "mod" or whatever.
Uhm, yeah if we had 20 times the player base like you said and we had a decent matchmaking system like in CS:GO.. people would be queuing up with friends and getting matches through that skill system. Higher skilled players that desire to be in the same server as lower skilled friends? They can queue together in the matchmaking system. So, I don't see the issue with that system.
NS2 using the archaic server browser / community server design always seemed pretty silly to me anyways. This isn't HL1 era any more.
If this thing is already programmed in a mod, whatever.. I'm just not in favor of the CDT spending time programming something like this when it doesn't really fix the true problem.
Doesn't matter why it doesn't work - it doesn't work at all, and that's my point.
Remove Kills/Deaths from scoreboard, only show score.
Pros - Less average players whining about high kdr
- Less good players padding their kdr
- maybe more team play?
Cons - ?
I guess you don't actually have to cure skill imbalance as long as you can reduce the perception of it.
that keeping a marine alive thing, sounds really fun. I'll be your angel.
That's the same point I am making rofl. I'm just saying IF IT DID WORK (matchmaking system) it would be useful.