The LARGEST frustration with this game is that it is a year and a half old and the average player base skill level is still extremely low. Typically I would point to the fact that we have people with 2+ years experience playing with 5 hour rookies, but that is not even the root of the issue.
On the majority of pubs right now, if one team shows any amount of coordination and awareness, they will stomp. Matchmaking had the potential to fix this and players would be able to learn at a steady pace. Is anyone really learning anymore? The bar needs to be raised up so NS2 can actually shine and be played the way it's supposed to be played, instead of the shitshow of incompetence it is on pubs right now that drives the good players away.
I think most of us can agree that the majority of pub games are a "shitshow of incompetence" as you put it. But the solution is not education at this point. We've had 2 years to educate the public, it's clearly not working by your own admission. And as others have pointed out in this thread, pubbers don't always want to improve to a competetive level for a variety of legitimate reasons.
Instead of education, we need to separate the casuals and the competetive, and possibly offer a transitional ground. Perhaps the player base is too small for that, but if we don't improve the quality of games somehow, then NS2 will surely die a slow and painful death.
Matchmaking has been discussed to death over the years. And I'm inclined to agree that automatic matchmaking is not an option. We need a way for the players to separate themselves. A simple classification like (Low/Mid/High) Skill label on the servers might actually do wonders. Or perhaps some kind of voting system. And get rid of that awfully vague 'rookie' term.
Unfortunately in my experience getting pubbers to listen or coordinate is a rare thing, and it's unrealistic wishful thinking to expect a team of pubbers to counter a god-like player with coordination and teamwork. Especially when that god-like player can harass one map location and tie up half of the opposing team, which makes it pretty damn hard to defend or take territory against the other 11 players pushing the opposite side of the map. So just like "L2P" or "get better" the "use teamwork" reply is not really a solution.
But just for the sake of discussion, here's a scenario for you that happened last night. I don't see anything else I could have done to make people listen, maybe you can tell me if there's anything I did "wrong"
So we're playing on Veil, a pretty even game that went back and forth for about 30 minutes or so... Then Marines grouped up for their final push, targeting Nano and taking it fairly quickly with Jetpacks and Shotguns. As they start to push Pipe our team is trying to coordinate a defense (which is failing horribly) when I spoke up with "Guys we need to hit their main base. They only have 1 chair, if we get 3-4 Gorges to rush we can win easily." To which our commander followed up by saying "ok I want everyone to meet up in Skylights vent and go Gorge for a base rush"
30 minute game and it's pretty even...
Marines have Jetpacks and walk into nano. Doesn't sound very even, sounds like you had lost lifeforms and are about to lose the game without lifeforms.
They push pipe. You just lost nano to jetpacks, I imagine people are conceding and just giving up. SG/JP vs skulks is pretty boring for most people and they might switch off.
"Guys we need...". <---- Problem. Using "guys" as a general term is much less engaging than using personal names. You should be using personal names all game to build rapport with players to build teamwork. Positive reinforcement with congratulations goes a long way especially if you've been playing for 30 minutes. It's apparent that a lot of people lack the appropriate social skills used to build rapport and teamwork. Blame culture is negative, positive reinforcement is... well positive.
3-4 gorges... Yeah 3-4 gorges... you've lost if you need to commit to 4 players going gorge. Even if you do get the people then it's easy for commanders to drop sub CC with 7 RTs. And even if you do win, it doesn't really matter. It's a bad way to win and not as fun as being able to kill the jetpackers and move on to win.
Having watched someone who was convinced they were positioning themselves optimally and knew a lot of tricks and that their main flaw was aim, when clearly that wasn't the case; forgive me for not taking everything you say at full face value anymore. I think you've probably deliberately, unknowingly, and reasonably left out other important details leading to this perceived problem.
Did someone play soccer? Im sure we have some here.
Lets say a manager is coming to an regional league club and says:
"You want to play in the champions league? We can make this but you have to train very hard for this."
Do you think this could work? Well, no.
Why?
- 4 of the team have not the talent for this mission
- 4 of them dont want to spend so much time cause they have family and have to work hard.
- 2 of them are no real teamplayers
Only 1 left, but cant do this alone.
But these players loving soccer and thats why they are team. They train to improve things but only within there limits from above, wich is ok for them.
Why?
They have fun and have no problem to be a regional team.
This "be a premium div player is no magic, everyone can be one" attitude is just nonsense.
The F*** is this bull. Football has a lot of unmodifiable factors (or highly inflexible factors) in player skill. Height, speed, agility, stamina, technical ability. These factors set players apart much much more than simple positioning and map reading that you find in ns2 and is available to everyone.
Not to mention that prem div IS NOT CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LOL. The top of CS:GO players would probably bend us over and give us quite a rough time, but the whole football analogy is simply too difficult to compare because the factors in place are so different.
I just wonder how much pro the normal pub player wants to become. Always perfect positioning? Only attack in a big group and use competitive tactics? Force everyone in the team to unity and play every game with the same dry notation and stress? I am just guessing here, but I don't think most pubbers will enjoy that.
If you find it fun running around corners tightly without checking hide spots and getting ambushed consistently (This happens, it's not a fantasy scenario), then why are people complaining when they die?
If you find it stressful to run around corners widely and check spots and keep range, I advise you don't go outside and interact in real life situations which has a much bigger impact (read more than 0) on things that matter.
The F*** is this bull. Football has a lot of unmodifiable factors (or highly inflexible factors) in player skill. Height, speed, agility, stamina, technical ability. These factors set players apart much much more than simple positioning and map reading that you find in ns2 and is available to everyone.
Not to mention that prem div IS NOT CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LOL. The top of CS:GO players would probably bend us over and give us quite a rough time, but the whole football analogy is simply too difficult to compare because the factors in place are so different.
The premium division is the champions league for NS2.
And im sure the best of the best CS:Go team would not beat Snails lets say within 3 month minimum.
NS2 is too different compared to CS.
e-Sport follows the same rules like "normal" sport.
Lets stick with your examples:
technical ability: Power of PC, Aiming
agility: dodging abilitys
speed: mapawareness
stamina: keep up the motivation in hopeless situations
Your "simple positioning" is a combination of these factors and the main difference between the divisions.
You can have Div3 teams with good players but they making the wrong descisions in needed situations.
These teams training much in terms of team and p-skill and fail in term of positioning (more or less).
And you want pub players with the same or better sense for the game?
cmon
I can get killed by alien lifeforms all day long, I don't mind it. You still have a chance to kill and there is this dance before they get you. But a never missing shotgun? Twenty res and you are invincible...awesome. There is no "might I win or not?" There is just "BAM dead, you had your try". And then they go rine again next round and buy another shotgun. They wouldn't have gone far into alien territory on their own in ns1. Or survived in a Hive where aliens spawn out of thin air without showing some eggs first.
Many say UWE did learn a lot by making ns2. I sure hope they don't forget the strong points of ns1 if they ever make another sequel...
A shotgun marine with absolutely perfect aim is not invincible (except perhaps to single skulks). Shotguns can only shoot so fast.
Some of the comments here are ridiculous.
Im really impressed, like the football analogy.
If you soccer team lose 22 to 0 because no one knew how to position themselve on the field, or because they never passed the ball to each other, would you say "ok guys we lost only because one player on the other team was SOOOOOOOO good et won by himself by scoring 20 goals, its not our fault there is nothing we can do/want to do because its not fun"
No you would start to organize your shit and get people stand in there positions with sommes defensive some offensive and so on. Individual skill cant do everything in team oriented sport/game and thats how its works.
Sure individual performance matters but not that much at the end.
Learn the basic of the sports/games get some coordination (basic one) like dont go one by one, use parasites, dont go 8 gorges and no lerk/no fade/4 onos, and you will see it'll be more fun in the end.
The premium division is the champions league for NS2.
And im sure the best of the best CS:Go team would not beat Snails lets say within 3 month minimum.
NS2 is too different compared to CS.
Right, ok NS2 is too different compared to CS, but football isn't ahahahahahahahaha
e-Sport follows the same rules like "normal" sport.
Lets stick with your examples:
technical ability: Power of PC, Aiming
agility: dodging abilitys
speed: mapawareness
stamina: keep up the motivation in hopeless situations
You clearly have very little understanding of what I'm trying to say.
Speed, stamina, agility, technical ability are highly inflexible things meaning you can't change them easily. These things are mostly affected by GENETIC factors, akin to reflexes in ns2.
Dodging, map awareness, positioning, and "motivation" are all easily learnt like a goalkeeper standing in goal (I don't know why I'm still entertaining you're awful football analogy)
Your "simple positioning" is a combination of these factors and the main difference between the divisions.
You can have Div3 teams with good players but they making the wrong descisions in needed situations.
These teams training much in terms of team and p-skill and fail in term of positioning (more or less).
And you want pub players with the same or better sense for the game?
cmon
You don't think I'm asking div3 teams to go through these simple processes as well to benefit the competitive only side of things too? I'm asking everyone to improve these things. I've been through the motions from rookie player, pub player, div 3 player, div 2 player, div 1 player, prem div. I've done the whole sha-bang. It only took me 500 hours game time (what a lot of "veteran" but no "pro" players have minimum) to get to div 1 (top tier when it was) and the vast majority of those hours were public exclusive.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
I think some overestimate the linearity of the NS2 learning process. I dare say that at least most of the players learn from their experiences and mistakes - but the conclusions they draw are not necessarily the right ones. You end up with players who have several hundred hours of experience, but unfortunately, their experience tells them to do things differently than they actually should be done, because they made the wrong conclusions.
Learning is not just like
"Player makes mistake A -> Player thinks about mistake -> Player draws conclusion B and gets better"
A great many players will instead try to avoid their mistake with strategy C, or attitude D or behavior Z.
"I ran into the hive and shot at eggs and the hive all game and ended up with a score of 1-20"
"I know, I should stand outside the hive all game and shoot them when they try to get me"
*team loses due to no res, but player runs a score of 4-15*
"Thats not good but its way better, maybe I just need to get better at doing this"
Having watched someone who was convinced they were positioning themselves optimally and knew a lot of tricks and that their main flaw was aim, when clearly that wasn't the case; forgive me for not taking everything you say at full face value anymore. I think you've probably deliberately, unknowingly, and reasonably left out other important details leading to this perceived problem.
(Clarification: He is talking about me here.)
I never said I was positioning myself optimally. I said I check corners, and know how positioning works, but I never said I do anything optimally. And I still have a lot to learn, apparently.
But this also touches the non-linearity of learning again. You think you know something, because you've drawn different conclusions than others (note that I'm generally speaking now, and not about my positioning). Turns out you didn't, but you won't notice.
Learning is just not *make mistake* *think about it* *develop pro-tactic* (at least not for everyone)
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
You want to work. I want to play.
I want to play like everyone else. I only play on the top servers available to me. I stick to the 2-3 servers I know will provide me with the most challenge. If you find yourself not enjoying these rounds, and you don't want to improve, please find a server more adaptable to your skill level at that time of day. I have little alternative options, you have the rest of the server browser.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
You want to work. I want to play.
I want to play like everyone else. I only play on the top servers available to me. I stick to the 2-3 servers I know will provide me with the most challenge. If you find yourself not enjoying these rounds, and you don't want to improve, please find a server more adaptable to your skill level at that time of day. I have little alternative options, you have the rest of the server browser.
That's not what I meant. I meant that there's different mentalities here about how the game should be played and enjoyed, and those collide.
edit: This may sound ridiculous to you now, but on many of the other available servers - e.g. the UWE officials - I feel like you feel when playing with people like me. There's a whole new level of dumb down there
So no, not necessarily "the whole server browser".
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
You want to work. I want to play.
I want to play like everyone else. I only play on the top servers available to me. I stick to the 2-3 servers I know will provide me with the most challenge. If you find yourself not enjoying these rounds, and you don't want to improve, please find a server more adaptable to your skill level at that time of day. I have little alternative options, you have the rest of the server browser.
That's not what I meant. I meant that there's different mentalities here about how the game should be played and enjoyed, and those collide.
And yet it appears competitive players are the only ones making a compromise (read playing on 2-3 servers only) because they don't particularly enjoy stomp stomp stomp.
I like how the OP says to not turn this into a name and shame thread and it promptly devolves into personal attacks with a tiny bit of wisdom in between.
Marines have Jetpacks and walk into nano. Doesn't sound very even, sounds like you had lost lifeforms and are about to lose the game without lifeforms.
They push pipe. You just lost nano to jetpacks, I imagine people are conceding and just giving up. SG/JP vs skulks is pretty boring for most people and they might switch off.
The game went back and forth for awhile, I'm not sure why them taking Nano makes you think we lost all our lifeforms? Either way isn't that sort of irrelevant? We needed Gorges for the rush not Lerks/Fades/Oni.
Also just for the record I didn't notice anyone trying to concede until we lost Cargo.
"Guys we need...". <---- Problem. Using "guys" as a general term is much less engaging than using personal names. You should be using personal names all game to build rapport with players to build teamwork. Positive reinforcement with congratulations goes a long way especially if you've been playing for 30 minutes. It's apparent that a lot of people lack the appropriate social skills used to build rapport and teamwork. Blame culture is negative, positive reinforcement is... well positive.
Fair enough, I probably should start trying to call people by name. I tend to stick with generalized terms mainly because I sometimes have a little trouble reading the small names on the map. (would be nice if we could change text size)
3-4 gorges... Yeah 3-4 gorges... you've lost if you need to commit to 4 players going gorge.
??? What? How on Earth does committing 3-4 players for a Gorge rush mean you've lost? I've seen so many games won at the last second by a large bile rush I couldn't even begin to count. - Seriously please explain this logic.
Even if you do get the people then it's easy for commanders to drop sub CC with 7 RTs. And even if you do win, it doesn't really matter. It's a bad way to win and not as fun as being able to kill the jetpackers and move on to win.
Either you didn't read my post very well, or I didn't explain it well enough... We had Sub as our main (so they couldn't drop a CC there) and if people would have listened and grouped for the push right away we could probably have killed their chair before they took down the Pipeline hive. (so no CC there either) Also they only had at most 5 RT's at that point (control, topo, c12, nano) - We had 4 (sub, cargo, pipe, overlook) Neither team had Skylights.
Hell even if they were able to drop a CC in pipe, I think the chances of them coming back after losing their AA, proto, arms lab, and IP's would have been pretty slim...
Marines have Jetpacks and walk into nano. Doesn't sound very even, sounds like you had lost lifeforms and are about to lose the game without lifeforms.
They push pipe. You just lost nano to jetpacks, I imagine people are conceding and just giving up. SG/JP vs skulks is pretty boring for most people and they might switch off.
The game went back and forth for awhile, I'm not sure why them taking Nano makes you think we lost all our lifeforms? Either way isn't that sort of irrelevant? We needed Gorges for the rush not Lerks/Fades/Oni.
Also just for the record I didn't notice anyone trying to concede until we lost Cargo.
If you have 3 hives, nano, and overlook, and the game was even, I don't understand in what world you let jetpack marines into nano at 30 minutes with lifeforms. Heck surely you have xenocide which is OP as hell. This is where important information has been omitted and makes rounds hard to analyse in text focussing on blip moments.
3-4 gorges... Yeah 3-4 gorges... you've lost if you need to commit to 4 players going gorge.
??? What? How on Earth does committing 3-4 players for a Gorge rush mean you've lost? I've seen so many games won at the last second by a large bile rush I couldn't even begin to count. - Seriously please explain this logic.
3-4 gorges is an "all in" and means you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel. You've essentially lost. Yeah you might win but after everyone of those games it always comes down to "omg commander didn't beacon", "Commander should have dropped 2nd CC", "marines should have had that." Everyone knows aliens should have lost regardless of the banner at the end. Seeing as it's public and the actual win doesn't matter, if you have to gorge rush last minute whatever, you've lost in my eyes. I'm not going to dispute this further, sure you've seen the "alien wins" banner pop up, whatever. It doesn't matter. There are more common mistakes and easier things to fix in the lead up to that "all in" play. I care not for "all ins" in public.
Even if you do get the people then it's easy for commanders to drop sub CC with 7 RTs. And even if you do win, it doesn't really matter. It's a bad way to win and not as fun as being able to kill the jetpackers and move on to win.
Either you didn't read my post very well, or I didn't explain it well enough... We had Sub as our main (so they couldn't drop a CC there) and if people would have listened and grouped for the push right away we could probably have killed their chair before they took down the Pipeline hive. (so no CC there either) Also they only had at most 5 RT's at that point (control, topo, c12, nano) - We had 4 (sub, cargo, pipe, overlook) Neither team had Skylights.
Hell even if they were able to drop a CC in pipe, I think the chances of them coming back after losing their AA, proto, arms lab, and IP's would have been pretty slim...
Dude, if you lost from this position, just give credit to the marines. Sounds like they WERE organised. It also sounds like neither team had a "pro" so it's got to be easy to analyse these problems yourself because it can't be down to the "wtf 1 SG vs 10 skulk gg omg pew pew".
3-4 gorges is an "all in" and means you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel. You've essentially lost. Yeah you might win but after everyone of those games it always comes down to "omg commander didn't beacon", "Commander should have dropped 2nd CC", "marines should have had that." Everyone knows aliens should have lost regardless of the banner at the end. Seeing as it's public and the actual win doesn't matter, if you have to gorge rush last minute whatever, you've lost in my eyes. I'm not going to dispute this further, sure you've seen the "alien wins" banner pop up, whatever. It doesn't matter. There are more common mistakes and easier things to fix in the lead up to that "all in" play. I care not for "all ins" in public.
3-4 gorges is an "all in" and means you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel. You've essentially lost. Yeah you might win but after everyone of those games it always comes down to "omg commander didn't beacon", "Commander should have dropped 2nd CC", "marines should have had that." Everyone knows aliens should have lost regardless of the banner at the end. Seeing as it's public and the actual win doesn't matter, if you have to gorge rush last minute whatever, you've lost in my eyes. I'm not going to dispute this further, sure you've seen the "alien wins" banner pop up, whatever. It doesn't matter. There are more common mistakes and easier things to fix in the lead up to that "all in" play. I care not for "all ins" in public.
If you get gorge rushed it's because the team/commander didn't have the map awareness to see it coming, it's a preventable tactic. After a certain point in the game - assuming marines are dominating, it's pretty much the only thing aliens can do. If aliens are not conceding then expect a rush. A win is a win and it's all part of the game.
3-4 gorges is an "all in" and means you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel. You've essentially lost. Yeah you might win but after everyone of those games it always comes down to "omg commander didn't beacon", "Commander should have dropped 2nd CC", "marines should have had that." Everyone knows aliens should have lost regardless of the banner at the end. Seeing as it's public and the actual win doesn't matter, if you have to gorge rush last minute whatever, you've lost in my eyes. I'm not going to dispute this further, sure you've seen the "alien wins" banner pop up, whatever. It doesn't matter. There are more common mistakes and easier things to fix in the lead up to that "all in" play. I care not for "all ins" in public.
I see what you're getting at in that the win isn't really earned through skillful play and that it comes down to marines commander making a mistake.
However, I disagree with the sentiment that you've lost if you have to resort to gorge rush. If the marines miss the beacon or don't drop a second command station then it's their fault and they deserve to lose - even more than alien team even though they were getting smashed. And aliens deserve their victory for capitalizing on the marines comm's mistake and getting a win out of it.
There's a very simple counter for a gorge rush. If the commander fails to do so, your team doesn't get the win. It may be one person's mistake, but if the cost of making such a mistake is losing the game, and everyone knows it and how to avoid it - then if the person who's responsible for not making said mistake (the commander) makes said mistake you shouldn't put an asterisk next to the alien win.
Next time the comm shouldn't overcommit his attention to medpacking marines. Or keep res open to beacon/2ndCC. Maybe keeping the res constantly spent and/or not worrying about keeping an eye on base was giving the marine team the edge they needed and the aliens should be able to capitalize on this without it being chalked up to cheesing. It's similar to base-rushes. If you don't want to lose to a rush, don't overcommit and instead laneblock or you deserve to lose. Marines shouldn't be allowed to just completely disregard defending against a rush as it gives them an unfair advantage. Similarly, marine commanders shouldn't be allowed to just completely disregard keeping an eye on base. If the penalty for failing to do so is losing the game, then that penalty should be paid.
Y'all focusing way too much on this gorge rush stuff. Yes it wins the game, but you need to focus on early game engagements and teamwork and communication. This gorge rush nonsense is a symptom of the problem that persists throughout the game. BAD COMMUNICATION. I'm going to speak no more about these all-in tactics.
or you know it could be folks feel they are on the back foot and it's an entertaining jaunt. most of the gorge rushes I've been part of have been mad adventures. it's for shits and giggles not serious business.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to..
This sounds shortsighted and anecdotal, as it isn't really addressing the entirety of the issue. By only defending a reasonable scenario that I don't think most would have a problem with (div 1 player in an expressly NO ROOKIE server), you make it seem like that's the extent of the issue.
It's not as though other pros, not just div 1, don't join other servers, to include UWE officials.. Where they damn well know what they will find.
I don't mean to nitpick here. It's just that while I realize this topic quickly dove into an anecdotal experience in the beginning, if we're going to make generalizations and suggestions about this sensitive topic as a whole (and that's all I've read in here, to include what I quoted above) for 8 bloody pages, it really shouldn't be limited to one specific story about one specific server.
Y'all focusing way too much on this gorge rush stuff. Yes it wins the game, but you need to focus on early game engagements and teamwork and communication. This gorge rush nonsense is a symptom of the problem that persists throughout the game. BAD COMMUNICATION. I'm going to speak no more about these all-in tactics.
A gorge rush requires organisation.
Besides, it's a valid tactic and if I lose to one as marine comm I know that it was my fault for not spotting or preparing for it.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to..
It's not as though other pros, not just div 1, don't join other servers, to include UWE officials.. Where they damn well know what they will find.
This is exactly what is not happening. These people that go on rookie servers are NOT pros. They are NOT prem players. They are NOT div 1 players. Stop slandering an entire section of the community "competitive players" and focus on those players I posted a couple of pages back from the HIVE stats showing UWE rookie server stomping with 1500-1800 points per round. Those players are NOT competitive, they are STOMPERS.
Comments
I think most of us can agree that the majority of pub games are a "shitshow of incompetence" as you put it. But the solution is not education at this point. We've had 2 years to educate the public, it's clearly not working by your own admission. And as others have pointed out in this thread, pubbers don't always want to improve to a competetive level for a variety of legitimate reasons.
Instead of education, we need to separate the casuals and the competetive, and possibly offer a transitional ground. Perhaps the player base is too small for that, but if we don't improve the quality of games somehow, then NS2 will surely die a slow and painful death.
Matchmaking has been discussed to death over the years. And I'm inclined to agree that automatic matchmaking is not an option. We need a way for the players to separate themselves. A simple classification like (Low/Mid/High) Skill label on the servers might actually do wonders. Or perhaps some kind of voting system. And get rid of that awfully vague 'rookie' term.
30 minute game and it's pretty even...
Marines have Jetpacks and walk into nano. Doesn't sound very even, sounds like you had lost lifeforms and are about to lose the game without lifeforms.
They push pipe. You just lost nano to jetpacks, I imagine people are conceding and just giving up. SG/JP vs skulks is pretty boring for most people and they might switch off.
"Guys we need...". <---- Problem. Using "guys" as a general term is much less engaging than using personal names. You should be using personal names all game to build rapport with players to build teamwork. Positive reinforcement with congratulations goes a long way especially if you've been playing for 30 minutes. It's apparent that a lot of people lack the appropriate social skills used to build rapport and teamwork. Blame culture is negative, positive reinforcement is... well positive.
3-4 gorges... Yeah 3-4 gorges... you've lost if you need to commit to 4 players going gorge. Even if you do get the people then it's easy for commanders to drop sub CC with 7 RTs. And even if you do win, it doesn't really matter. It's a bad way to win and not as fun as being able to kill the jetpackers and move on to win.
Having watched someone who was convinced they were positioning themselves optimally and knew a lot of tricks and that their main flaw was aim, when clearly that wasn't the case; forgive me for not taking everything you say at full face value anymore. I think you've probably deliberately, unknowingly, and reasonably left out other important details leading to this perceived problem.
The F*** is this bull. Football has a lot of unmodifiable factors (or highly inflexible factors) in player skill. Height, speed, agility, stamina, technical ability. These factors set players apart much much more than simple positioning and map reading that you find in ns2 and is available to everyone.
Not to mention that prem div IS NOT CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LOL. The top of CS:GO players would probably bend us over and give us quite a rough time, but the whole football analogy is simply too difficult to compare because the factors in place are so different.
If you find it fun running around corners tightly without checking hide spots and getting ambushed consistently (This happens, it's not a fantasy scenario), then why are people complaining when they die?
If you find it stressful to run around corners widely and check spots and keep range, I advise you don't go outside and interact in real life situations which has a much bigger impact (read more than 0) on things that matter.
The premium division is the champions league for NS2.
And im sure the best of the best CS:Go team would not beat Snails lets say within 3 month minimum.
NS2 is too different compared to CS.
e-Sport follows the same rules like "normal" sport.
Lets stick with your examples:
technical ability: Power of PC, Aiming
agility: dodging abilitys
speed: mapawareness
stamina: keep up the motivation in hopeless situations
Your "simple positioning" is a combination of these factors and the main difference between the divisions.
You can have Div3 teams with good players but they making the wrong descisions in needed situations.
These teams training much in terms of team and p-skill and fail in term of positioning (more or less).
And you want pub players with the same or better sense for the game?
cmon
A shotgun marine with absolutely perfect aim is not invincible (except perhaps to single skulks). Shotguns can only shoot so fast.
Im really impressed, like the football analogy.
If you soccer team lose 22 to 0 because no one knew how to position themselve on the field, or because they never passed the ball to each other, would you say "ok guys we lost only because one player on the other team was SOOOOOOOO good et won by himself by scoring 20 goals, its not our fault there is nothing we can do/want to do because its not fun"
No you would start to organize your shit and get people stand in there positions with sommes defensive some offensive and so on. Individual skill cant do everything in team oriented sport/game and thats how its works.
Sure individual performance matters but not that much at the end.
Learn the basic of the sports/games get some coordination (basic one) like dont go one by one, use parasites, dont go 8 gorges and no lerk/no fade/4 onos, and you will see it'll be more fun in the end.
This is just so funny to me really.
Right, ok NS2 is too different compared to CS, but football isn't ahahahahahahahaha
You clearly have very little understanding of what I'm trying to say.
Speed, stamina, agility, technical ability are highly inflexible things meaning you can't change them easily. These things are mostly affected by GENETIC factors, akin to reflexes in ns2.
Dodging, map awareness, positioning, and "motivation" are all easily learnt like a goalkeeper standing in goal (I don't know why I'm still entertaining you're awful football analogy)
You don't think I'm asking div3 teams to go through these simple processes as well to benefit the competitive only side of things too? I'm asking everyone to improve these things. I've been through the motions from rookie player, pub player, div 3 player, div 2 player, div 1 player, prem div. I've done the whole sha-bang. It only took me 500 hours game time (what a lot of "veteran" but no "pro" players have minimum) to get to div 1 (top tier when it was) and the vast majority of those hours were public exclusive.
Positioning and map reading is available for everyone. Everyone can learn it, everyone can improve it at the same rate. There is NO reason that one person can do these things better than someone else apart from ignorance and lack of trying. Those people who don't want to do these things should not be complaining on the higher skill servers which is where the prem div players limit themselves to. Those people should appreciate, if they dont want to improve, that there is no other public option for us to go to whereas they have the other white servers and rookie servers. Why we should get abuse on these top servers that imply "competitive, NO ROOKIES, slaughter house" is the real "bullying" in the community that goes on but no one brings up.
I'm not sure what you want to tell me with this.
(Clarification: He is talking about me here.)
I never said I was positioning myself optimally. I said I check corners, and know how positioning works, but I never said I do anything optimally. And I still have a lot to learn, apparently.
But this also touches the non-linearity of learning again. You think you know something, because you've drawn different conclusions than others (note that I'm generally speaking now, and not about my positioning). Turns out you didn't, but you won't notice.
Learning is just not *make mistake* *think about it* *develop pro-tactic* (at least not for everyone)
You want to work. I want to play.
I want to play like everyone else. I only play on the top servers available to me. I stick to the 2-3 servers I know will provide me with the most challenge. If you find yourself not enjoying these rounds, and you don't want to improve, please find a server more adaptable to your skill level at that time of day. I have little alternative options, you have the rest of the server browser.
But im sure something like this wont help to solve this:
That's not what I meant. I meant that there's different mentalities here about how the game should be played and enjoyed, and those collide.
edit: This may sound ridiculous to you now, but on many of the other available servers - e.g. the UWE officials - I feel like you feel when playing with people like me. There's a whole new level of dumb down there
So no, not necessarily "the whole server browser".
And yet it appears competitive players are the only ones making a compromise (read playing on 2-3 servers only) because they don't particularly enjoy stomp stomp stomp.
I like how the OP says to not turn this into a name and shame thread and it promptly devolves into personal attacks with a tiny bit of wisdom in between.
The game went back and forth for awhile, I'm not sure why them taking Nano makes you think we lost all our lifeforms? Either way isn't that sort of irrelevant? We needed Gorges for the rush not Lerks/Fades/Oni.
Also just for the record I didn't notice anyone trying to concede until we lost Cargo.
Fair enough, I probably should start trying to call people by name. I tend to stick with generalized terms mainly because I sometimes have a little trouble reading the small names on the map. (would be nice if we could change text size)
??? What? How on Earth does committing 3-4 players for a Gorge rush mean you've lost? I've seen so many games won at the last second by a large bile rush I couldn't even begin to count. - Seriously please explain this logic.
Either you didn't read my post very well, or I didn't explain it well enough... We had Sub as our main (so they couldn't drop a CC there) and if people would have listened and grouped for the push right away we could probably have killed their chair before they took down the Pipeline hive. (so no CC there either) Also they only had at most 5 RT's at that point (control, topo, c12, nano) - We had 4 (sub, cargo, pipe, overlook) Neither team had Skylights.
Hell even if they were able to drop a CC in pipe, I think the chances of them coming back after losing their AA, proto, arms lab, and IP's would have been pretty slim...
If you have 3 hives, nano, and overlook, and the game was even, I don't understand in what world you let jetpack marines into nano at 30 minutes with lifeforms. Heck surely you have xenocide which is OP as hell. This is where important information has been omitted and makes rounds hard to analyse in text focussing on blip moments.
3-4 gorges is an "all in" and means you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel. You've essentially lost. Yeah you might win but after everyone of those games it always comes down to "omg commander didn't beacon", "Commander should have dropped 2nd CC", "marines should have had that." Everyone knows aliens should have lost regardless of the banner at the end. Seeing as it's public and the actual win doesn't matter, if you have to gorge rush last minute whatever, you've lost in my eyes. I'm not going to dispute this further, sure you've seen the "alien wins" banner pop up, whatever. It doesn't matter. There are more common mistakes and easier things to fix in the lead up to that "all in" play. I care not for "all ins" in public.
Dude, if you lost from this position, just give credit to the marines. Sounds like they WERE organised. It also sounds like neither team had a "pro" so it's got to be easy to analyse these problems yourself because it can't be down to the "wtf 1 SG vs 10 skulk gg omg pew pew".
Relevant microtalk:
If you get gorge rushed it's because the team/commander didn't have the map awareness to see it coming, it's a preventable tactic. After a certain point in the game - assuming marines are dominating, it's pretty much the only thing aliens can do. If aliens are not conceding then expect a rush. A win is a win and it's all part of the game.
I see what you're getting at in that the win isn't really earned through skillful play and that it comes down to marines commander making a mistake.
However, I disagree with the sentiment that you've lost if you have to resort to gorge rush. If the marines miss the beacon or don't drop a second command station then it's their fault and they deserve to lose - even more than alien team even though they were getting smashed. And aliens deserve their victory for capitalizing on the marines comm's mistake and getting a win out of it.
There's a very simple counter for a gorge rush. If the commander fails to do so, your team doesn't get the win. It may be one person's mistake, but if the cost of making such a mistake is losing the game, and everyone knows it and how to avoid it - then if the person who's responsible for not making said mistake (the commander) makes said mistake you shouldn't put an asterisk next to the alien win.
Next time the comm shouldn't overcommit his attention to medpacking marines. Or keep res open to beacon/2ndCC. Maybe keeping the res constantly spent and/or not worrying about keeping an eye on base was giving the marine team the edge they needed and the aliens should be able to capitalize on this without it being chalked up to cheesing. It's similar to base-rushes. If you don't want to lose to a rush, don't overcommit and instead laneblock or you deserve to lose. Marines shouldn't be allowed to just completely disregard defending against a rush as it gives them an unfair advantage. Similarly, marine commanders shouldn't be allowed to just completely disregard keeping an eye on base. If the penalty for failing to do so is losing the game, then that penalty should be paid.
Jump to the 4 min mark.
It's not as though other pros, not just div 1, don't join other servers, to include UWE officials.. Where they damn well know what they will find.
I don't mean to nitpick here. It's just that while I realize this topic quickly dove into an anecdotal experience in the beginning, if we're going to make generalizations and suggestions about this sensitive topic as a whole (and that's all I've read in here, to include what I quoted above) for 8 bloody pages, it really shouldn't be limited to one specific story about one specific server.
A gorge rush requires organisation.
Besides, it's a valid tactic and if I lose to one as marine comm I know that it was my fault for not spotting or preparing for it.
This is exactly what is not happening. These people that go on rookie servers are NOT pros. They are NOT prem players. They are NOT div 1 players. Stop slandering an entire section of the community "competitive players" and focus on those players I posted a couple of pages back from the HIVE stats showing UWE rookie server stomping with 1500-1800 points per round. Those players are NOT competitive, they are STOMPERS.