What's a "regular" game like?
razzed
Canberra Join Date: 2016-07-08 Member: 219839Members
Canberra Join Date: 2016-07-08 Member: 219839Members
hey,
So, I've been giving NS2 another crack after a bit of a break. A day or so ago I got into a game as marine with an active commander, and it was a blast. He called the shots, we went out and followed orders, was a close game, lots of back and forth.
Since that day, it's been a mixed bag really.
Last night nearly had me at uninstalling . I jumped into a server, and had a quick look at the score screen. One player stood out with a score like 150/5 . No worries, a challenge is always good. There wasn't even a confrontation with that player. As marine, I'd be dead before I noticed he was even there. Next game, loads up, he goes 50/3 early game. Couldn't get anywhere near him without being shot to pieces. 3 games of that and I figure I'm out of my league and change servers.
What followed was the slowest hour and a bit of all time. No commanders, no communication, no teamwork. Just a long, slow grind to an eventual death. Mas as well have been playing with a team of bots just bouncing around doing what ever they felt like.
I really want to like this game. Whoever that first marine commander was, you made my day! It was great. But its feeling like that was the exception to the rule after last night.
Suggestions? Are there communities or whatnot to join where some of those issues can be avoided/helped?
So, I've been giving NS2 another crack after a bit of a break. A day or so ago I got into a game as marine with an active commander, and it was a blast. He called the shots, we went out and followed orders, was a close game, lots of back and forth.
Since that day, it's been a mixed bag really.
Last night nearly had me at uninstalling . I jumped into a server, and had a quick look at the score screen. One player stood out with a score like 150/5 . No worries, a challenge is always good. There wasn't even a confrontation with that player. As marine, I'd be dead before I noticed he was even there. Next game, loads up, he goes 50/3 early game. Couldn't get anywhere near him without being shot to pieces. 3 games of that and I figure I'm out of my league and change servers.
What followed was the slowest hour and a bit of all time. No commanders, no communication, no teamwork. Just a long, slow grind to an eventual death. Mas as well have been playing with a team of bots just bouncing around doing what ever they felt like.
I really want to like this game. Whoever that first marine commander was, you made my day! It was great. But its feeling like that was the exception to the rule after last night.
Suggestions? Are there communities or whatnot to join where some of those issues can be avoided/helped?
Comments
You'll have games that are great and those that aren't. It all depends on the players who are in the server. The players who are more energetic and love talking and love playing as a team are great. Those are you're more aggressive, passionate players. The ones who don't talk are the meat shields most of the time. If your team doesn't talk, just bait them and try to do your best getting all the kills to push a position. That usually works for me.
All the more reason why Hive 2.0 needs to be addressed and considered number 1 priority, you've got your retention with dumbed down mechanics now how you gonna keep them staying around for longer when imbalanced games are taking place at a regular basis.
This is ns2 in a nutshell, basically. You've got to decided for yourself if you want to stick around for those absolutely amazing games that happen every few hours or so. If you do, and decide to become good at it, you'll slowly find yourself creeping up the skill curve, getting closer to that god like player and moving away from being mere cannon fodder. It's not an easy process, though.
I recommend sticking to servers with lots of regulars. I usually play on the Thirsty Onos servers (EU). If you're American, I can recommend Tactical Freedom. The likelihood to find good games, communicating players and an overall higher skill level there is bigger than in most random servers.
All the more reason why Hive 2.0 needs to be addressed and considered number 1 priority, you've got your retention with dumbed down mechanics now how you gonna keep them staying around for longer when imbalanced games are taking place at a regular basis.
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I am told hive 2.0 is a priority, but don't expect it to really fix the problem. It will make it better, but the real problem is that we have a small playerbase and a high skill curve.
These people are the cancer in every online game and skill based shuffle is pretty useless cause them.
Especial when you see these scores on a rookie server, just kick him.
And with luck an admin is online to ban this cancer.
NS2 is double edged sword.
In 90% of the games you have an wide mix of different skills.
This was always a problem in NS2 and cause the low playerbase we wont see a solution for this.
Back in the early days i was posting nonstop here to promote skill based servers.
At least the rookies have there servers now but this change came way to late.
The time for high skilled servers is over since ages sadly.
Its frustarting that you end up with >30% accuracy as rine but didnt get any meds and your teammates have 7% accuracy and running around brainless.
For the new players its frustrating that someone is yelling something nto the mic that they dont understand.
Its also frustrating that there many players out there with zero clue of the game trying to sound like they knew everything.
But NS2 is still special compared to all the shooters out there. Thats why i dont care about playernumbers aslong i can find a server to play.
Also you can join TAW, they are the last remaining NS2 community/clan/whatever.
Our recruitment thread on these forums can be found here.
Hope to hear from you.
o/
Come join Wooza's Playground if you like to play with large numbers, we have teamplay mic users and regulars that been with us since 2014.
Its also a great place to spectate rounds to learn for yourself how to play, more players is more intense and requires you to act faster.
But if you manage to do that switching over to small servers and playing there will be a piece of cake.
Nope
You learn basicly nothing there.
Thats why its under the Arcade tab.
Laneblocking? Who cares
Aim? Pff, Grenadespam ftw
Mapawareness? Whats that
I highly recommend to join TAW, there you can learn from comp players in a friendly environment.
There you can get the basics of laneblockling, rotating, resbiting, baiting, trapping and just general gamesense.
If you want to spec and learn the game, there's plenty of servers that have free spectator slots that don't run as badly. (I've been playing on wooza's recently for that achievement and had to find out that yes, the server really runs worse than smaller ones.) Personally, I've been spectating on Thirsty Onos quite a bit lately, waiting for a match I could join. Spectating ns2 pubs can actually be quite fun
Neither me nor Depara are TAW.
To be frank Vetinari I don't think that's really the case, I don't really have performance problems on there aside from the occasional redplug which doesn't happen all that often, which by no means hurts performance as people make it out to be, I kind of think it's been exaggerated somewhat by players who only been on there for 5 minutes. Its like chinese whispers.
If you have joined the server recently you may have noticed a dip in performance due to the latest patch causing an redplug issue which is substantially more problematic than before. This was mentioned in the server's MOTD upon joining ready room. Please take into account that this may be an irregularity you are experiencing.
I thought exactly the same thing (benefit of doubt and all that), until I actually went there and saw for myself. And I'm not talking about redplugs; it just felt vaguely stutter-y, like playing with low fps.
edit: I assume you don't notice anymore since you're used to it
That may possibly the case, I frequent there personally because a large number of friends play there and games are just more fun when you play with friends. right?
one of them had an open steam account and i saw two vac-bans in the last 2 years.........
when you get better in this game you get a feeling of what is possible and what not.
but this is just my personal expirience. some kdr are just too good to be true. and not even with the most defensive playstyle its possible to get so few deaths in a medium skill server.
but as always all of this hackers are mostly in servers where specc is not possible. so no 100% guarantee that he is hacking, but 90%.
when you see really good marines in thirsty onos with 2 spec slots and he has just 500 hive: smurf.
when you see a marine with dumb laining, no corner checking and bad alien play in a server with no specc: maybe hacker.
Thats your opinion no need to bash what you don't like. I could also play your game and bash the other servers but i dont play that toxic game.
And if you had any knowledge about the server and about me you would know that i tell rookies gameplay mechanics ways to play during the game. So dont come talking there is nothing to learn when all i do is make them learn.
I only had problems on the server with my notebook now i get 100+ frames so yeah no problems here all depending on your hardware.
You have your veteran, usually (old) competitive, players who sort of know what they are doing. Depending on motivation, they can be a huge carry or somewhat on the high end of your general skilled players.
They will laneblock, hit pressure points and play a big part in the game, even if noone else sees there value. (omg look that person is nonstop dying, while the comp player is destroying yet another RT or occupying the other teams carry)
Then you have the 'veterans'. People who have been playing for a while, are mostly used to just pub play, and in general make bad decisions. Their ideas dont work because they are good, but because the other team is making mistakes just as idiotic.
There calls are either bad, to slow, not relevant or in rare occasion good. They can provide a medium but good portion of the teams total strength, but may obstruct the actions of the competitive players who are actually trying to get this around within respectable limits.
In the middle are the medium players. Worse then above, better then new players. generally okish to play with although easy to beat.
Then you have the noobs. New, unwilling to listen to anyone or forgetting anything you explained 6 times, only 2 minutes ago. Often forming a quick opinion of their own, they complain about balance a lot without improving.
Last are your precious newbies.. new, want to learn and improve. A server filled with these is a gift. And if they can somewhat aim and read names on the map, you can even command to victory vs the 'veteran' players.
The big problem with the above list is well.. the list.
The biggest portion of the player base either doesnt know what they are doing or thinks they do know while they dont. (Hell even lower div comp folk like me, make enough mistakes.. but details.)
The sad part is that once they hit 'veteran' most are unwilling to learn. They are right, and you are wrong and no ocean of comments is going to change their opinion.
"I won so many fights as comm with Phase Gate start" is not a valid comment to prove PG first is a good strategy. (its not, your marines lack needed upgrades to fight any even remotely competent alien team.)
But they did win (vs equally incompetent teams), so they shall never improve. (Although I am sure the matches could have been fun. After all, low skill vs low skill is still equal)
You need to organize these - well, the lower ones - into "communicates" and "does not communicate". Otherwise accurate.
I prefer a communicative player of rank X over a non-communicative player of rank X + 1, for X < X_max - 1.
Stop denying what you are Tyrwing. You're not fooling anyone.
thanks for all of the comments :-)
I am quite enjoying the Game. I'll have a look at the groups mentioned above.
how are the ranks measured, decided?
I've had a few highs and lows, so I've just focused on my solo play ( hiding and ambush as skulk, holding areas as marine etc), seems to be going well, slowly bringing my kd to an even count :-p
a few times a match has deteriorated to a half hour + stalemate against the last marine base, which has degenerated to onos 's faceplanting into a wall of grenades and machine gun fire, and any pushes out from the marines getting collapsed in on by all of the awaiting alien. from playing sc2, if it's clear that it's over, it's good manner to gg on out and concede. is there a way as either team to move the game along from this state?
Yes. The alien commander can spam contamination in the marine base, getting some damage in before it gets destroyed. You can whittle them down fairly easily like that.
That said, yes, conceding is good etiquette. From my personal experience it seems like this is more of an issue on US servers than EU, but I may be biased.
Either aliens get their play together and finish the game. Or marines decide to hold down X and press concede. Some individuals enjoy the last stand so it might be difficult on public servers, I have never understood what is so fun about it. Massive waste of time just idling in one base.
So what is this harvester you are talking about?
I'd also take a look at the people who flame his server, and then the first person in this thread that wrote about it. It's clear which of them is more mature.
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