the aliens just need their old hitboxes back. its not just a problem of the early game with skulks. there were never easier times to kill a fade or lerk then now. lifeforms die so often these days. i do not understand why there needed to be something done. i would rather take hitreg-errors than this marine-stompings.
back these days you needed SKILL to kill aliens and lifeforms. Now every rookie can shoot a lerk from the sky. marines are too easy to play now and aliens are nearly impossible whenn marines have at least 2 or 3 comp players
~65% of games played are on rookie only servers.~80% of unique players quit NS2 in the first 20 hours of gameplay. It takes the average rookie 25 hours of gameplay to get out of rookie only servers. Think about that for a moment. ... ~65% of games are played by rookies, with 80% of those players playing quitting in the first 20 hours, before they are done with what the game considers rookies.
Rookies play on rookie only servers, where the oh so evil (sarcasm) veterans can't get to them. The skill gap is a big problem in NS2, but it is not the root cause of poor player retention. So what is?
Statistics man strikes again!
It's hard to say why, exactly, most people leave the game that early. Then again, how do these numbers compare to other games? Personally I own a lot of games I played for maybe 10 - 30 hours, then never picked them up again. It's not that I didn't like them particularly, it was just... meh. They didn't catch me, either. I think this is normal. Just because a game is great does not mean everyone who tries it will enjoy it. Actually only a minority will, probably.
So, if 80% of players leave within the first 20 hours, what does that mean? Is it good? Is it bad? I honestly can't tell for lack of reference.
Create some drill instructor icons, give it to volunteers / sociable persons, put them ingame and have some icons floating above them when they talk using the instructor power.
If they add the badge to the game do you promise to never post that picture again? My nightmares are bad enough thank you.
Playtesters, [...] you guys should feel EMBARRASSED for the state you have brought the game to. None of you are able to put your own agendas or egos aside to take any sort of criticism constructively, consider what the overwhelming majority of the once existing player base was telling you guys. You all act like you can do no wrong, like you've got it all figured out, like YOUR ideas and answers for the game are the only ones worth a damn. You cannot even start to accuse ppl of wanting to stroke their own egos when that is essentially all you pts [...] do. Your ideas are best, there's no reasoning with the rest of the benighted community, so forget em - they just have to deal with it. Your way or the highway. It is total bs.
Hey now, not all playtesters are so self-assured like that. Some of us just don't care.
The very reason this game still has a playerbase is it's complexity. That's the benefit. The more you take away from what made this game unique to begin with, the more you'll dilute the core community that's kept this game alive for such a long time.
So then you need to be content about having only 300 players to play with, along with it eventually dying a slow death with said core group, and never act surprised how it got to this.
I am one of those core players, yet I recognize the complexity and the skill curve and skill gap are exactly what negatively affect retention. While you and me may enjoy things as they are.. it has no mass appeal.
So if you're unwilling for the game to adapt or evolve.. then you need to be content with it dying.
Everyone and their mother wants the game to be easier to learn yet difficult to master, but the current route is going towards easier to learn and easier to master.
Easy to learn means you relinquish some of the difficulty in mastery. You cannot have a game this complex with the skill curve it has and tip toe around that 800 lb gorilla.
Especially not when ~50% of players don't even complete tutorials or watch videos or read wikis like you mentioned.
Here's an example:
In early alpha CS days you could bunny hop and there was no loss in shooting accuracy while jumping.
It required skill (and FPS) to attain high velocity skilled movement through a map where you could HS someone before they could react, forsaking all travel timings.
Good players were notably separated from the lesser by a large distance while this existed.
Then they removed bunny hopping entirely and made it so that you had stupid unreliable accuracy when jumping.
This lowered an aspect of the skill ceiling.. it wasn't reduced overall.. but a certain mechanic was.. and thus so was the skill gap.
Now if I were to take your argument and apply it here: this action would've been a tragic mistake, this would've driven away core players, and this would've had no benefit to retention.
Instead it had the opposite effect - and the skill ceiling was again discovered through the nuanced mechanics within, such as positioning and recoil control and team strategy.
Amazing how depth was found within such a limited remaining skillset, right??
There is so much depth to NS2, and such a high ceiling that still hasn't been tapped by anyone, (are marines shooting anywhere near 100% yet?? ok then) that there is little harm in making the game easier to play...
If you truly want easy to learn, difficult to master... you're going to have to settle for a simplified game.. you cannot have complexity and easy to learn... but you can have simplicity and nuanced depth.
When you still suck, you want to learn from the best, playing with and against them and watching youtube/twitch channels from those who are better than you. It's not the fact that you beat players of lower skill than you that keeps you going, it's the fact that you're beating your earlier self by improving.
Look at @Nordic 's post and tell me again how this playerbase is supposed to grow or even retain players if no one enjoys this painfully slow progress you just described?
If I drew a graph of the skillcurve of CS vs NS you'd see a stark difference in the hours required to be adequate.
Same with the hours required for your own skill level to be accurate. (so in the meantime you either stomp or get stomped. Yay.)
But oh lawd, don't you dare decrease that skill gap or else you somehow "take away" from those who've put so much time in.. /s
Dumb the game down and lower the skill ceiling, and suddenly you hit your apex much quicker and lose interest.
BS. This is like calling a progressive idea communism without understanding the nuances involved. It's dismissive and hyperbolic, based on fear of something that is so far away from occurring.
There is such an insanely high skill ceiling in NS that there's very little real possibility of inhibiting all aspects of a skilled players' ability to express their own skill.
Moreover, such a large ceiling provides an almost infinite path to improve yourself. You can attest that a player has an intrinsic limit or peak.. but I don't believe that.. and professional Esport teams don't believe that. I believe that a player can keep training and will keep getting better. There are multiple times I have considered myself at my own apex before a better player took the time to train me with drills that showed me how much more I was capable of.
If CS has depth and a high skill ceiling despite its incredibly shallow simplicity, surely the binder-full of complexity and stratosphere ceiling that NS has to offer can compete when it comes to depth, even if it lost some of that complexity.
Next you will argue that the cause for a small playerbase is the skill gap, but there is absolutely no evidence about that.
You need to read through all the negative steam reviews.
Or just play pubs more where the server gets emptied out because of a high KDR player. (yes.. this would still happen with a larger playerbase. It only takes 1 for 12 others to feel like its useless to try)
TLDR; You need to accept that this game needs to adapt and evolve into an easier to play, easier to master game.. with a more shallow skill gap... in order to survive.
OR you need to speak your last words now and let it die as the rejected stepchild that you were unwilling to feed because of your masochistic ideological views.
Those are your only two choices, because all else has been exhausted already and has proven to be either not impactful enough or not practical.
Even if you had F2P tomorrow along with hive 2.0, matchmaking, 64 bit and weekly skins for sale.. you'd still see a measly ~20% retention rate because of how difficult and niche this game is. @2cough
I don't mind the flak.. never have. I rather speak my mind and speak up every time than try to win agrees. (I have enough of those already according to my profile)
What I do mind is groupthink and circle jerks that come to conclusions without thoughtful consideration, and that alone is what encourages me to speak up regardless of the reception and regardless of how strongly I actually advocate for it. (In truth I am more like these people who love the complexity.. but I also recognize that I / we are a rare breed and will soon be without others to play with - So "adapt or perish")
Instead you meddle with the balance under the impression that it will appeal to new players.
I do personally think that it feels better, as a non new player, and have to assume that it also feels better as a new player.. since missing when you feel like you should be hitting is frustrating.
Are we talking about shooting between skulk legs, or delayed hitbox vs model?
If the former, then whatthehell, you should't be hitting the skulk if you shoot between its legs.
If the latter, then whatthehell, you're enlarging the hitboxes to hide hitreg issues
It's all about the feels. Sid Meier had to redesign Civilisation's combat because the math said that a soldier with 5 hitpoints can lose fairly regularly to one with only 3, but that's not satsfying, so he changed it so that the soldier with 5 hitpoints would win way more often than it technically should.
~65% of games played are on rookie only servers.~80% of unique players quit NS2 in the first 20 hours of gameplay. It takes the average rookie 25 hours of gameplay to get out of rookie only servers. Think about that for a moment. ... ~65% of games are played by rookies, with 80% of those players playing quitting in the first 20 hours, before they are done with what the game considers rookies.
Rookies play on rookie only servers, where the oh so evil (sarcasm) veterans can't get to them. The skill gap is a big problem in NS2, but it is not the root cause of poor player retention. So what is?
It's also likely that they simply get bored by then.
It's hard to say why, exactly, most people leave the game that early. Then again, how do these numbers compare to other games?
This is not something that needs to be analyzed quantitatively. It honestly does not matter how this compares to other games. You can empirically look at the state of the game to determine if it is good. In June 2016 NS2 had an average concurrent player count of 243. Is that good?
As a community we want more players. 243 average is not enough. 1000 is not enough. NS2 had a supposed 1.6 million copies sold, yet we have had about 200 players daily since April 2015.
It does not matter how that compares to other games. We don't have the player numbers we want. ~65% of games are played by rookies, with 80% of those players playing quitting in the first 20 hours, before they are done with what the game considers rookies. The game is doing something wrong, and it happens in that first 20 hours. I don't know what it is, but that is what needs addressed to improve player retention.
It's also likely that they simply get bored by then.
Why did they get bored? Why was NS2 not a compelling enough game for them to stick around? What is wrong with NS2 on the design level that does retain players.
If the devs are unable to address that, then whats the point?
I'm not going to respond to each of your points, since all of them seem to lack the understanding of how changes like these affect the gameplay and enjoyment of high-skill players. I know it might be hard to see from the outside. You also keep making ridiculous straw men implying that if we don't want these changes, we surely only want the game to die and stagnate. You keep saying how none of these changes affect a player's potential skill and possibility to get better, but the game just simply feels too easy and trivial, there is no motivation or drive to improve anymore.
And yes, you are right that not dumbing the game down leads to lower player counts and maybe even the game dying sometime in the future (which might not be close, seeing as the death of the game has been predicted for over 3 years now with no end in sight). But I think that a large number of the veterans, especially us NS1 veterans, are okay with a low-playerbase niche game that has good gameplay. That's what we bought ourselves into. However, you are trying to make it sound like a black-and-white issue, that either the game stays as it is with no improvements whatsoever and dies, or the game gets dumbed down to the max and is suddenly invigorated. There's no guarantee of that, but if the game keeps getting easier, don't expect people like me to stick around.
Edit: I'd also like to add that you and the devs might very well be right. I do not know any better. Maybe these changes will, in the long run, make new players stick to the game longer and create a larger, more casual playerbase. I find this highly unlikely, but I might be wrong. But you cannot expect the veterans to not complain, and at the moment only the veterans remain. To us, the game is starting to be poor compared to other games out there. NS2 has always had an enormous number of flaws, some of them even game-breaking, but the unique gameplay and challenge has always brought us back. Now the only reason for us to touch the game are being removed piece by piece. At the moment, the devs are playing a huge gamble by alienating the existing players while trying to cater to an uncertain demographic. What happens when the first disappear while the latter never show up?
I find the drive to make NS2 more appealing to the masses quixotic.. I loved NS2 but the game in its current state is not the game that I fell in love with. Even if there is some massive PR campaign in the works, I don't see how it could possibly bring in enough players to sustain it much longer. I am reminded of the handful of PC games getting "redux" versions for console release.. packaged and marketed as new and improved, but actually inferior to the original vision. Maybe it's time to leave it be and move on.
I really am baffled why you went through all the trouble to edit the hit-boxes when you could have just edited a few numbers; the amount of damage each weapon does, or how much health or armour the aliens have.
This has got to be the most laughable design decision ever.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
@Nordic I almost quitted ns2 in the forst 100 hours back then aswell. The reason was I had no friends to play with. I felt like I was on my own and that was boring. So I decided to look for a competitive team instead of leaving. The next 3 years were a blast in ns2. So I think if ns2 would offer a way to open a lobby with your friends and then play together in the SAME team then the game would be much more engaging. This would also encourage what this game is about but never happens on pub games (especially rookie only)
I loved NS2 but the game in its current state is not the game that I fell in love with.
For me its same, but are the last changes the reason for that?
From my point of view, no.
I believe the reason why it is different now is the change of playerbase.
In the past i was distracting a marine as skulk with the knowledge "buy time, reinforcement is coming soon", now im doing this with the knowledge "noone will come" (in 90% of the cases)
In the past people communicate, made good calls and group up for packplay. Today most of the skulks running around alone.
If all the changes are the reason for a bad gaming experience, just show the change that forces skulks to engage alone all the time.
And Ironhorse had some very good points in his post.
There is a reason why playerbase is low after 1.6 million sold copys.
You want more players then you have to adress the reason.
And the simple truth is:
NS2 is not a casual game, never was (cant count how often i said that before btw)
So you want more players? Then you have to deal with an more casual friendly NS2. (aka dumbed down)
But the same people who crying for F2P didnt want a dumbdown = You didnt fix the reason for low playerbase wich leads to an low playerbase F2P.
I have no problems with an low playerbase but i believe the current playerbase need some changes on alienside cause most of them failing hard here.
Yea that helps... but it's pretty much never going to happen. So next suggestion?
I know you're not the only dev and the team is not monolithic, but youre telling us, that instead of implementing a good feature (however labour intese that may be), you meddle with small stuff that completely throws off balance without any obvious appeal to new players?
Compare these two changelog messages from the viewpoint of a potential buyer:
a) We increased hitbox size for aliens, to _insert_dumb_reason_.
- Meh, I dont know what it was like before
b) We added killcam, so you can learn from your mistakes.
- OK, that seems nice
At the moment, the devs are playing a huge gamble by alienating the existing players while trying to cater to an uncertain demographic. What happens when the first disappear while the latter never show up?
Better do something than let it die because the first group is going to disappear as it did before in NS1.
The resistance to unreasonable change... That's is a big difference imo
And again, if there was any obvious improvement in player count, I think most of us would stfu and play on
This is a pretty long detour for marine learning curve and maybe too much work, but could the skulk movement and early game approach be changed somehow?
If you look at the differences between NS1 Veil and NS2 Veil, the NS1 version looks much more comprehensible for a marine player. Most of the attack routes are quite easy to recognize even on the first times playing the map, but mastering the use of the space in various situations is still a very interesting challenge even for an experienced player. Meanwhile the NS2 Veil is cluttered with all kinds of small ambush positions that make the whole map feel almost claustrophobic at times. As far as I can tell, this is partitially because NS2 early game skulks in open spaces are very much sitting ducks and they always require a wall to have access to most of their tools. This forces a specific kind of map design to allow skulks to operate early game.
While there's certain atmospheric appeal to the cluttered and claustrophobic map design, being limited to that makes NS2 map design a bit repetetive and hard to learn as a marine. Until you learn all the nooks and crannies of the map, you're in constant confusion about possible attack directions and all that. If the aliens had more tools to operate on open spaces, the map design would become less dependend on cluttered spaces and some areas could be made less stressful for inexperienced marines while still allowing skilled alien players to operate in them with comfort and decent set of options.
Of course the atmospheric cramped spaces could still be included in the maps, but they wouldn't be as much required as they are now.
At the moment, the devs are playing a huge gamble by alienating the existing players while trying to cater to an uncertain demographic. What happens when the first disappear while the latter never show up?
Better do something than let it die because the first group is going to disappear as it did before in NS1.
The resistance to change is incredibly high here.
This is an absolute non-reason for horrible changes. Think again.
@Bacillus I dont know... I kind of liked the stress right from the beginning as a marine
Yeah, the cramped spaces may be just NS2's thing and that's fine. I just felt like it's worth discussing if some of the stuff can be improved without sacrificing too much on other areas. I really want it to be clear that the present stuff doesn't have to go completely. It just wouldn't be as much present in each and every area of all the maps.
The only kind if alien ability that comes to my mind is ranged.... which would decrease asymmetry. It may not be that bad (especially for rookies)
I don't think aliens really need more ranged abilities to conquer open space. It's more about having movement options that allow aliens to accelerate and move efficiently in open areas as much as possible. Better options to use the high ceiling areas are beneficial too. NS1 had a lot of speed preservation abilities for example.
It is also possible to give aliens more umbra-like abilities that reduce the marine range advantage momentarily, but that probably involves loads of redesign and possibly new ability implementation too.
I'm obviously an old NS1 fan and I absolutely love how fluently the aliens can operate there in all kinds of spaces. I'm not going to suggest something like bhop or NS1 blink should be implemented in NS2 (although I think the right implementations could have solved so, so many issues), but I think the differences need to be understood when you're looking at the skulk vs marine gameplay and its learning curve in NS2.
Anyway, let it go, lets lower the skill gap, try to get new people and offer them a way to feel thay can achieve something in less than 800 hours, then evolve again from there maybe.
Per definition, competition can happen around anything, beeing as "simple" as running 100 meters , running a F1 Grand Prix or qualify as the next Space Shuttle pilot.
NS2 has enough strategies and tactics room to makes some concessions.
With friends, we tried to learn GO by the books, we failed, and we never had the oppotunity to meet GO players to learn.
But we had many enjoyable games of Othello.
@Wake but that's whole the point regarding the new hitboxes. It will not reduce the skill gap, top players as well as rookies land more hits now. It circumvents nothing and drops away a good, unique aspect of the game (hit what you actually point at)
This is an absolute non-reason for horrible changes. Think again.
Horrible from your or the new player view?
Looks like some still dont understand what Ironhorse wrote.
After 4 years of mentor programs, nonstop teaching on the servers and better tutorials now some people still believe: Just make more and better tutorials, thats enough.
No it is not.
And to believe that people stop playing cause some healthbars introduced is a bit naive.
Im sure most players have stopped playing cause one simple reason:
They got bored of the game.
Some reach this state after 20hrs others after 2000h
Per definition, competition can happen around anything, beeing as "simple" as running 100 meters , running a F1 Grand Prix or qualify as the next Space Shuttle pilot.
I noticed the parenthesis, but cmon, physical sports as simple? Those are like the most bloody complex challenges you can have as a human. Putting your legs after the other for 100 meters is just the tip of the iceberg. You need years of training, years of coaching, mental and physical fitness... your whole body and soul has to be in perfect harmony for that ~10 seconds. The rules may be simple, but not challenge itself
This is an absolute non-reason for horrible changes. Think again.
Horrible from your or the new player view?
Looks like some still dont understand what Ironhorse wrote.
After 4 years of mentor programs, nonstop teaching on the servers and better tutorials now some people still believe: Just make more and better tutorials, thats enough.
No it is not.
And to believe that people stop playing cause some healthbars introduced is a bit naive.
Im sure most players have stopped playing cause one simple reason:
They got bored of the game.
Some reach this state after 20hrs others after 2000h
Getting bored of the game is just part of the picture... There is a good reason why you have the current playerbase; the game attracts these kind of players. You cant expect to fiddle with CS a bit, and siphon a chunk of SC players.
Now you can start shifting it to be more comprehensible from the start, but that would require huge changes (bigger than HP bars and hitboxes) and produce a completely different game. The logical route imo would be to LISTEN to the outrage about HP bars and hitboxes, drop it/fix them, and carry on with their other ideas. But I guess that's losing face in their view, so will never happen
EDIT:
And as "they" I mean the whole dev team, from top to bottom. I have no insight who originated these ideas, it may be totally out of control of the PDT and come from higher up, so they have to carry out against their better jugdement
the NS2 Veil is cluttered with all kinds of small ambush positions that make the whole map feel almost claustrophobic at times.
You're not going to like some of the changes I've suggested for ns2_summit then...
I'm not sure if I particularly even dislike it that much. It just makes the game quite a bit harder for a new player, which is kind of counterintuitive to what the whole thing is about.
If I was an active comp player, I'd probably have some strong opinions. Right now I'm more curious about whatever there's to learn about game design and all that stuff and also kind of worried people do not understand some of the underlying mechanics that make things work they way they do.
This is a pretty long detour for marine learning curve and maybe too much work, but could the skulk movement and early game approach be changed somehow?
If you look at the differences between NS1 Veil and NS2 Veil, the NS1 version looks much more comprehensible for a marine player. Most of the attack routes are quite easy to recognize even on the first times playing the map, but mastering the use of the space in various situations is still a very interesting challenge even for an experienced player. Meanwhile the NS2 Veil is cluttered with all kinds of small ambush positions that make the whole map feel almost claustrophobic at times. As far as I can tell, this is partitially because NS2 early game skulks in open spaces are very much sitting ducks and they always require a wall to have access to most of their tools. This forces a specific kind of map design to allow skulks to operate early game.
Wow if NS2 skulks in open spaces are sitting ducks, then NS1 skulks were already dead. But then again, bunnyhopping. So kind of
The logical route imo would be to LISTEN to the outrage about HP bars and hitboxes, drop it/fix them, and carry on with their other ideas. But I guess that's losing face in their view, so will never happen
Why is it logical to listen to people that want basicly b249 back or NS1 with better graphics?
"carry on with their other ideas"
And then they have to listen and have to remove the change again?
You cannot please every1 you know.
Maybe the devs listened for to long?
Comments
the aliens just need their old hitboxes back. its not just a problem of the early game with skulks. there were never easier times to kill a fade or lerk then now. lifeforms die so often these days. i do not understand why there needed to be something done. i would rather take hitreg-errors than this marine-stompings.
back these days you needed SKILL to kill aliens and lifeforms. Now every rookie can shoot a lerk from the sky. marines are too easy to play now and aliens are nearly impossible whenn marines have at least 2 or 3 comp players
Statistics man strikes again!
It's hard to say why, exactly, most people leave the game that early. Then again, how do these numbers compare to other games? Personally I own a lot of games I played for maybe 10 - 30 hours, then never picked them up again. It's not that I didn't like them particularly, it was just... meh. They didn't catch me, either. I think this is normal. Just because a game is great does not mean everyone who tries it will enjoy it. Actually only a minority will, probably.
So, if 80% of players leave within the first 20 hours, what does that mean? Is it good? Is it bad? I honestly can't tell for lack of reference.
Jesus i love this Video!
The music is awesome and i like the logo. Haha. Tutorials with some beats
If they add the badge to the game do you promise to never post that picture again? My nightmares are bad enough thank you.
Hey now, not all playtesters are so self-assured like that. Some of us just don't care.
So then you need to be content about having only 300 players to play with, along with it eventually dying a slow death with said core group, and never act surprised how it got to this.
I am one of those core players, yet I recognize the complexity and the skill curve and skill gap are exactly what negatively affect retention. While you and me may enjoy things as they are.. it has no mass appeal.
So if you're unwilling for the game to adapt or evolve.. then you need to be content with it dying.
Easy to learn means you relinquish some of the difficulty in mastery. You cannot have a game this complex with the skill curve it has and tip toe around that 800 lb gorilla.
Especially not when ~50% of players don't even complete tutorials or watch videos or read wikis like you mentioned.
Here's an example:
In early alpha CS days you could bunny hop and there was no loss in shooting accuracy while jumping.
It required skill (and FPS) to attain high velocity skilled movement through a map where you could HS someone before they could react, forsaking all travel timings.
Good players were notably separated from the lesser by a large distance while this existed.
Then they removed bunny hopping entirely and made it so that you had stupid unreliable accuracy when jumping.
This lowered an aspect of the skill ceiling.. it wasn't reduced overall.. but a certain mechanic was.. and thus so was the skill gap.
Now if I were to take your argument and apply it here: this action would've been a tragic mistake, this would've driven away core players, and this would've had no benefit to retention.
Instead it had the opposite effect - and the skill ceiling was again discovered through the nuanced mechanics within, such as positioning and recoil control and team strategy.
Amazing how depth was found within such a limited remaining skillset, right??
There is so much depth to NS2, and such a high ceiling that still hasn't been tapped by anyone, (are marines shooting anywhere near 100% yet?? ok then) that there is little harm in making the game easier to play...
If you truly want easy to learn, difficult to master... you're going to have to settle for a simplified game.. you cannot have complexity and easy to learn... but you can have simplicity and nuanced depth.
Look at @Nordic 's post and tell me again how this playerbase is supposed to grow or even retain players if no one enjoys this painfully slow progress you just described?
If I drew a graph of the skillcurve of CS vs NS you'd see a stark difference in the hours required to be adequate.
Same with the hours required for your own skill level to be accurate. (so in the meantime you either stomp or get stomped. Yay.)
But oh lawd, don't you dare decrease that skill gap or else you somehow "take away" from those who've put so much time in.. /s
BS. This is like calling a progressive idea communism without understanding the nuances involved. It's dismissive and hyperbolic, based on fear of something that is so far away from occurring.
There is such an insanely high skill ceiling in NS that there's very little real possibility of inhibiting all aspects of a skilled players' ability to express their own skill.
Moreover, such a large ceiling provides an almost infinite path to improve yourself. You can attest that a player has an intrinsic limit or peak.. but I don't believe that.. and professional Esport teams don't believe that. I believe that a player can keep training and will keep getting better. There are multiple times I have considered myself at my own apex before a better player took the time to train me with drills that showed me how much more I was capable of.
If CS has depth and a high skill ceiling despite its incredibly shallow simplicity, surely the binder-full of complexity and stratosphere ceiling that NS has to offer can compete when it comes to depth, even if it lost some of that complexity.
You need to read through all the negative steam reviews.
Or just play pubs more where the server gets emptied out because of a high KDR player. (yes.. this would still happen with a larger playerbase. It only takes 1 for 12 others to feel like its useless to try)
TLDR; You need to accept that this game needs to adapt and evolve into an easier to play, easier to master game.. with a more shallow skill gap... in order to survive.
OR you need to speak your last words now and let it die as the rejected stepchild that you were unwilling to feed because of your masochistic ideological views.
Those are your only two choices, because all else has been exhausted already and has proven to be either not impactful enough or not practical.
Even if you had F2P tomorrow along with hive 2.0, matchmaking, 64 bit and weekly skins for sale.. you'd still see a measly ~20% retention rate because of how difficult and niche this game is.
@2cough
I don't mind the flak.. never have. I rather speak my mind and speak up every time than try to win agrees. (I have enough of those already according to my profile)
What I do mind is groupthink and circle jerks that come to conclusions without thoughtful consideration, and that alone is what encourages me to speak up regardless of the reception and regardless of how strongly I actually advocate for it. (In truth I am more like these people who love the complexity.. but I also recognize that I / we are a rare breed and will soon be without others to play with - So "adapt or perish")
It's also likely that they simply get bored by then.
This is not something that needs to be analyzed quantitatively. It honestly does not matter how this compares to other games. You can empirically look at the state of the game to determine if it is good. In June 2016 NS2 had an average concurrent player count of 243. Is that good?
As a community we want more players. 243 average is not enough. 1000 is not enough. NS2 had a supposed 1.6 million copies sold, yet we have had about 200 players daily since April 2015.
It does not matter how that compares to other games. We don't have the player numbers we want. ~65% of games are played by rookies, with 80% of those players playing quitting in the first 20 hours, before they are done with what the game considers rookies. The game is doing something wrong, and it happens in that first 20 hours. I don't know what it is, but that is what needs addressed to improve player retention.
Why did they get bored? Why was NS2 not a compelling enough game for them to stick around? What is wrong with NS2 on the design level that does retain players.
If the devs are unable to address that, then whats the point?
I'm not going to respond to each of your points, since all of them seem to lack the understanding of how changes like these affect the gameplay and enjoyment of high-skill players. I know it might be hard to see from the outside. You also keep making ridiculous straw men implying that if we don't want these changes, we surely only want the game to die and stagnate. You keep saying how none of these changes affect a player's potential skill and possibility to get better, but the game just simply feels too easy and trivial, there is no motivation or drive to improve anymore.
And yes, you are right that not dumbing the game down leads to lower player counts and maybe even the game dying sometime in the future (which might not be close, seeing as the death of the game has been predicted for over 3 years now with no end in sight). But I think that a large number of the veterans, especially us NS1 veterans, are okay with a low-playerbase niche game that has good gameplay. That's what we bought ourselves into. However, you are trying to make it sound like a black-and-white issue, that either the game stays as it is with no improvements whatsoever and dies, or the game gets dumbed down to the max and is suddenly invigorated. There's no guarantee of that, but if the game keeps getting easier, don't expect people like me to stick around.
Edit: I'd also like to add that you and the devs might very well be right. I do not know any better. Maybe these changes will, in the long run, make new players stick to the game longer and create a larger, more casual playerbase. I find this highly unlikely, but I might be wrong. But you cannot expect the veterans to not complain, and at the moment only the veterans remain. To us, the game is starting to be poor compared to other games out there. NS2 has always had an enormous number of flaws, some of them even game-breaking, but the unique gameplay and challenge has always brought us back. Now the only reason for us to touch the game are being removed piece by piece. At the moment, the devs are playing a huge gamble by alienating the existing players while trying to cater to an uncertain demographic. What happens when the first disappear while the latter never show up?
This has got to be the most laughable design decision ever.
teamplay
For me its same, but are the last changes the reason for that?
From my point of view, no.
I believe the reason why it is different now is the change of playerbase.
In the past i was distracting a marine as skulk with the knowledge "buy time, reinforcement is coming soon", now im doing this with the knowledge "noone will come" (in 90% of the cases)
In the past people communicate, made good calls and group up for packplay. Today most of the skulks running around alone.
If all the changes are the reason for a bad gaming experience, just show the change that forces skulks to engage alone all the time.
And Ironhorse had some very good points in his post.
There is a reason why playerbase is low after 1.6 million sold copys.
You want more players then you have to adress the reason.
And the simple truth is:
NS2 is not a casual game, never was (cant count how often i said that before btw)
So you want more players? Then you have to deal with an more casual friendly NS2. (aka dumbed down)
But the same people who crying for F2P didnt want a dumbdown = You didnt fix the reason for low playerbase wich leads to an low playerbase F2P.
I have no problems with an low playerbase but i believe the current playerbase need some changes on alienside cause most of them failing hard here.
I know you're not the only dev and the team is not monolithic, but youre telling us, that instead of implementing a good feature (however labour intese that may be), you meddle with small stuff that completely throws off balance without any obvious appeal to new players?
Compare these two changelog messages from the viewpoint of a potential buyer:
a) We increased hitbox size for aliens, to _insert_dumb_reason_.
- Meh, I dont know what it was like before
b) We added killcam, so you can learn from your mistakes.
- OK, that seems nice
Better do something than let it die because the first group is going to disappear as it did before in NS1.
The resistance to change is incredibly high here.
And again, if there was any obvious improvement in player count, I think most of us would stfu and play on
If you look at the differences between NS1 Veil and NS2 Veil, the NS1 version looks much more comprehensible for a marine player. Most of the attack routes are quite easy to recognize even on the first times playing the map, but mastering the use of the space in various situations is still a very interesting challenge even for an experienced player. Meanwhile the NS2 Veil is cluttered with all kinds of small ambush positions that make the whole map feel almost claustrophobic at times. As far as I can tell, this is partitially because NS2 early game skulks in open spaces are very much sitting ducks and they always require a wall to have access to most of their tools. This forces a specific kind of map design to allow skulks to operate early game.
While there's certain atmospheric appeal to the cluttered and claustrophobic map design, being limited to that makes NS2 map design a bit repetetive and hard to learn as a marine. Until you learn all the nooks and crannies of the map, you're in constant confusion about possible attack directions and all that. If the aliens had more tools to operate on open spaces, the map design would become less dependend on cluttered spaces and some areas could be made less stressful for inexperienced marines while still allowing skilled alien players to operate in them with comfort and decent set of options.
Of course the atmospheric cramped spaces could still be included in the maps, but they wouldn't be as much required as they are now.
The only kind if alien ability that comes to my mind is ranged.... which would decrease asymmetry. It may not be that bad (especially for rookies)
This is an absolute non-reason for horrible changes. Think again.
I don't think aliens really need more ranged abilities to conquer open space. It's more about having movement options that allow aliens to accelerate and move efficiently in open areas as much as possible. Better options to use the high ceiling areas are beneficial too. NS1 had a lot of speed preservation abilities for example.
It is also possible to give aliens more umbra-like abilities that reduce the marine range advantage momentarily, but that probably involves loads of redesign and possibly new ability implementation too.
I'm obviously an old NS1 fan and I absolutely love how fluently the aliens can operate there in all kinds of spaces. I'm not going to suggest something like bhop or NS1 blink should be implemented in NS2 (although I think the right implementations could have solved so, so many issues), but I think the differences need to be understood when you're looking at the skulk vs marine gameplay and its learning curve in NS2.
Per definition, competition can happen around anything, beeing as "simple" as running 100 meters , running a F1 Grand Prix or qualify as the next Space Shuttle pilot.
NS2 has enough strategies and tactics room to makes some concessions.
@IronHorse mentionned Othello, which is a very simplified version of GO game
With friends, we tried to learn GO by the books, we failed, and we never had the oppotunity to meet GO players to learn.
But we had many enjoyable games of Othello.
You're not going to like some of the changes I've suggested for ns2_summit then...
Horrible from your or the new player view?
Looks like some still dont understand what Ironhorse wrote.
After 4 years of mentor programs, nonstop teaching on the servers and better tutorials now some people still believe: Just make more and better tutorials, thats enough.
No it is not.
And to believe that people stop playing cause some healthbars introduced is a bit naive.
Im sure most players have stopped playing cause one simple reason:
They got bored of the game.
Some reach this state after 20hrs others after 2000h
I noticed the parenthesis, but cmon, physical sports as simple? Those are like the most bloody complex challenges you can have as a human. Putting your legs after the other for 100 meters is just the tip of the iceberg. You need years of training, years of coaching, mental and physical fitness... your whole body and soul has to be in perfect harmony for that ~10 seconds. The rules may be simple, but not challenge itself
Getting bored of the game is just part of the picture... There is a good reason why you have the current playerbase; the game attracts these kind of players. You cant expect to fiddle with CS a bit, and siphon a chunk of SC players.
Now you can start shifting it to be more comprehensible from the start, but that would require huge changes (bigger than HP bars and hitboxes) and produce a completely different game. The logical route imo would be to LISTEN to the outrage about HP bars and hitboxes, drop it/fix them, and carry on with their other ideas. But I guess that's losing face in their view, so will never happen
EDIT:
And as "they" I mean the whole dev team, from top to bottom. I have no insight who originated these ideas, it may be totally out of control of the PDT and come from higher up, so they have to carry out against their better jugdement
I'm not sure if I particularly even dislike it that much. It just makes the game quite a bit harder for a new player, which is kind of counterintuitive to what the whole thing is about.
If I was an active comp player, I'd probably have some strong opinions. Right now I'm more curious about whatever there's to learn about game design and all that stuff and also kind of worried people do not understand some of the underlying mechanics that make things work they way they do.
Wow if NS2 skulks in open spaces are sitting ducks, then NS1 skulks were already dead. But then again, bunnyhopping. So kind of
Why is it logical to listen to people that want basicly b249 back or NS1 with better graphics?
"carry on with their other ideas"
And then they have to listen and have to remove the change again?
You cannot please every1 you know.
Maybe the devs listened for to long?