Such a stupid community, gonna quit playing
MisterYoon
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
It is sad that i should write this thread. But i do need to write this because i am really shocked by this 'new' NS2 community. Because of them i am going to quit playing the game, at least for a while.
I have played Natural Selection since 2002? 2003? cannot remember. I was a small kid back then. Somehow i've loved to play as commander even as kid. Despite of being immature, having childish voice, i remember i haven't ever had any problem with NS community at all. They were mostly kind to me and i also kind of did great job, mostly. This is why i have great memory and feeling doing commanding.
However, today, on my first time joining a non-rookie vanilla server after long and long break with this game(for more than a year), i am pretty shocked with what i experienced. (Btw. i've played in rookie servers for about a week, mostly as commander, to learn the changes and to help new players to win)
I do know this is one of things about which i read several times on steam community and here in the forum. I however didn't take it that seriously. But whatever. Now i feel like vomitting.
This is what happened: Today i thought i've helped rookies enough. I wanted to play with some more skilled playerd and joined a vanilla server(Thirsty Onos #18).
Joined marines, and as nobody wanted to comm, as expected, i gladly got into command chair.
Then i just got confused with key binding(which is my fault, yes), and dropped armory instead of arms lab in the base. I immediately said sorry, explained that i got wrong key binding and just told them to move out and play regardlessly. Still, they complained about this tiny mistake massively a lot, as if i did some kind of big crime. And yes, i got ejected within 15 secs, directly.
I was pretty surprised and got a bit angry but i thought i would just ignore and play.
The match btw. ended really quickly and 2nd match started right after. I joined comm chair again to do what i can do. But after the countdown, right on the beginning of the round, the game was frozen like for 7 secs on my screen. Everything disappeared and frozen while i was spamming X to drop arms lab not to make these arrogant idiotics angry again. Then.. you know what? I already got ejected! Again because i didn't drop arms lab right after! Seriously wow, my screen was frozen.. what the hell?
I didn't know NS2 community has become so vomitting. I know not everyone is like this, but i don't consider this as coincidence because this happened in one of 3 full servers in europe.
I've loved this game, a lot. Tracked NS2 for years. Because of performance issue and busy life i did quit playing for quite long time but i gladly came back recently, and have enjoyed the game again. Today however i suddenly lost all my interest. So i gotta quit at least for a while.
Sorry for writing such annoying story but i just wanted to tell devs and you all, as i find this really serious. These kinds of players, some of those who consider themselves as "older" players, are definately killing this game. I'm pretty shocked. I haven't ever experienced this kind of stupidity between 2003-2014 at all, during all my good old time with Natural Selection franchise. Whatever. I've written enough and have no more words to say...
Btw. for more than 10 years i've played hundreds of matches as commander and also for each once participated in official competitive leagues. Please do not question about my knowledge and skill as commander.
I have played Natural Selection since 2002? 2003? cannot remember. I was a small kid back then. Somehow i've loved to play as commander even as kid. Despite of being immature, having childish voice, i remember i haven't ever had any problem with NS community at all. They were mostly kind to me and i also kind of did great job, mostly. This is why i have great memory and feeling doing commanding.
However, today, on my first time joining a non-rookie vanilla server after long and long break with this game(for more than a year), i am pretty shocked with what i experienced. (Btw. i've played in rookie servers for about a week, mostly as commander, to learn the changes and to help new players to win)
I do know this is one of things about which i read several times on steam community and here in the forum. I however didn't take it that seriously. But whatever. Now i feel like vomitting.
This is what happened: Today i thought i've helped rookies enough. I wanted to play with some more skilled playerd and joined a vanilla server(Thirsty Onos #18).
Joined marines, and as nobody wanted to comm, as expected, i gladly got into command chair.
Then i just got confused with key binding(which is my fault, yes), and dropped armory instead of arms lab in the base. I immediately said sorry, explained that i got wrong key binding and just told them to move out and play regardlessly. Still, they complained about this tiny mistake massively a lot, as if i did some kind of big crime. And yes, i got ejected within 15 secs, directly.
I was pretty surprised and got a bit angry but i thought i would just ignore and play.
The match btw. ended really quickly and 2nd match started right after. I joined comm chair again to do what i can do. But after the countdown, right on the beginning of the round, the game was frozen like for 7 secs on my screen. Everything disappeared and frozen while i was spamming X to drop arms lab not to make these arrogant idiotics angry again. Then.. you know what? I already got ejected! Again because i didn't drop arms lab right after! Seriously wow, my screen was frozen.. what the hell?
I didn't know NS2 community has become so vomitting. I know not everyone is like this, but i don't consider this as coincidence because this happened in one of 3 full servers in europe.
I've loved this game, a lot. Tracked NS2 for years. Because of performance issue and busy life i did quit playing for quite long time but i gladly came back recently, and have enjoyed the game again. Today however i suddenly lost all my interest. So i gotta quit at least for a while.
Sorry for writing such annoying story but i just wanted to tell devs and you all, as i find this really serious. These kinds of players, some of those who consider themselves as "older" players, are definately killing this game. I'm pretty shocked. I haven't ever experienced this kind of stupidity between 2003-2014 at all, during all my good old time with Natural Selection franchise. Whatever. I've written enough and have no more words to say...
Btw. for more than 10 years i've played hundreds of matches as commander and also for each once participated in official competitive leagues. Please do not question about my knowledge and skill as commander.
Comments
Pro tip: don't let the Internet get to you that much. I feel like that should go without saying. I'd say you need to develop thick skin, but i think even thin skin would be a good place to start for you.
Edit: for the record, everybody gets ejected. Whether by trolls or ppl who dont recognize you or whatever, it happens all the time. After literally thousands of hours and matches played, one ejection is a drop in the ocean. It's really not a big deal, just move on to the next.
You know what? On the rookie servers, where i played for last week, i've never ever got ejected, even by trolls. People were decent enough. And then, on my first match with vanilla server, this happened. This is vomitting. (Don't consider the word 'vomitting' so seriously and realistically btw.
Edit : Getting ejected and getting ejected within 10 secs is different imo btw. These were serious as well, 3-4 players instantly whining together.
p.s. i am not asking for some life-advising comments. Sorry if i misunderstood, but i do in fact feel something wrong in your comment already..
And by the way, NS2 freezes EVERYTIME when I start the first match and pretty often at the start of a new match when it is not the first, often for 5+ seconds. And I never got ejected beacause of that (only for other reasons).
If you're talking (with mic is more helpful) and responding to what your team asks for, getting upgrades, capturing res nodes, etc.. you know, actually trying to learn and do well.. You'll be fine the vast majority of the time...
However if you are silent, ignore what your team asks for, makes stupid mistakes repeatedly even after being told why they're bad, etc.. you know, not really trying to learn or win.. You'll get a TON of hate (and rightfully so)
Not too long ago I played with a Marine comm who at 10+ minutes hadn't gotten armor/weapon uprades or shotguns.. When we asked for them (very nicely I might add) we were ignored.. Asked again and explained why we needed them (again quite nicely) and was told "I know shut the **** up"... Then he proceeded to waste the res he was floating on everything except upgrades and shotguns (arcs he sent out from main, power surge research, and sentries in main) Plus he was completely ignoring calls from his team to drop extractors in rooms we had secured... And to top it all off he left that game thinking we were an extremely toxic room who were being mean to him for no reason...
So it's all about perspective really. Dropping an Armory at the start shouldn't have been enough to get you ejected (after all PG rush is a valid strategy) so I'd wager you made some other mistake you were unaware of... Then having the same comm that they ejected go comm again and not do anything (because you were lagging as you said) and it's understandable that they'd want to eject you quickly...
It's nothing to get too upset about.. You just had a bad run trying to comm in a server of players who happened to be touchy about commanding... I should also add that in that game I mentioned above, my team refused to eject that commander because "he was new and needed to learn" despite the fact that he was ignoring us and making no effort whatsoever to try..
- You went into the chair without a comm badge (Yeah, you need to command to get one, it's a little circular)
- You started out with an armory, indicating early pgs, which has become unpopular
- Someone checked your recorded hive time because of this, and because you haven't played in a long time people thought you're a rookie who doesn't know what he's doing
- The second time around people just remembered that the comm they ejected hopped in again so they eject again
I have no idea what the circumstances where like, for example if you used voice chat or didn't communicate at all. So it's hard to judge. But unfortunate things happen and as 2cough said, you may need a thicker skin. Judging a whole community by what sounds like a ten minute experience seems a little unfair. I'd say just try again.
But seriously, if you com on a server like TO#18, people expect you to do your job flawlessly, since the com is the smallest bottleneck on the marine team.
Ok, sure, you had good intentions and explained it to them, but that already degraded your respect. Having your screen freeze for N seconds is also a bad thing to have as a com. What if your marine is fighting a lerk and needs meds the next time that happens?
If you expect others to be considerate towards you, then you should provide the same towards them. (re)Learn the hotkeys, and give it another try.
You know how much shit I have to put up with as a com?
Yesterday I almost got ejected because I refused to research phasetech until the 8min mark and spent our res on upgrades instead. Sure, you may argue which one is better, but neither defaults to winning/losing...
I miss the revolving door OC spam in ns_bast
But again there is a hugh skill gap in the style of commanding coming from a rookie only server to a server like TTO. Just dont let that fact get to you, learn and improve. I like to say, that its only a mistake if do it twice.
While experience is good, not wanting to be questioned is not. With this mentality you are stuck, and unable to improve, and unable to follow the metagame. The game has changed several times in extreeme degrees, and if you are still playing a 2003 strategy, you are sorely lacking behind, and a detriment to your team.
Relearn everything - its difficult AF, but it is possible. A new season is about to start and some teams are still quite good at the game.
There are several facts you must accept. You must tailor your build to your team - rookies and non-rookies need different builds. Pretending that they need the same, is not using your brain.
In extreeme cases, which I have only found on russian servers, players will sit and do nothing untill you do what they want you to do. Killing the game, and ejecting you when you dont do it, even if it is as stupid as waiting 2 minutes in pipeline for a PG, when they could go cargo, dome or eastjunction to get a PG up, which all are so much more powerful positions for PGs. Idiocrasy is out there, and it cannot be fought. But when it did happen, I questioned everything i did that game. I talked with friends. Am i wrong about PG pipeline?. I found out that the consensus was that it was childish idiots I was playing with. Cases like these have repeatedly happened to me on russian servers. I dont command on russian servers anymore....
Learn to learn, and you migh find ns2 a much more interesting, fun, awesome game.
To add to this.. EVERYONE gets shit as comm no matter how good they are..
I've had games where I comm marines and will have a2 in around 3 min, w2 and shotguns in 5-6 min, and jps up before Onos... Yet still get blamed for the loss when my team refuses to push a hive..
Its part of an old NS rule...
If you win, it's due to your team carrying a bad comm...
If you lose its due to your team having a bad comm...
A comm could literally win the game alone and still get called bad.. I've seen it happen! Comm gets gorge bile, drops a bunch of whips and a gorge egg in base, jumps out of the hive and goes gorge, builds whips, then goes to their main and kills the chair with no backup, thus winning the game... Only to be called a bad comm for not staying in the hive..
i know some russian, so i might've gained their trust falsely xD
About the russian servers I must say that I have a different experience. They speak mostly russian but since most of the NS2 terminology is in english I can understand enough to get by and I've never been treated badly because I don't speak russian. The skill level is pretty high and I've had many good rounds on them.
i remember a game a long time ago, we ejected every comm until finallly there was literally nobody that could get into the chair... but yeah, it was amusing.
each comm lasted about 30 seconds. until we realized that there was someone in the chair, then we ejected.
i think we were in a trollie mood that game.
A prime example of the stupid sh*t that happens on the internet. Grown men acting like children.
the difference between counter strike and ns2 is the fact that ns2 needs a lot more teamwork and interaction with the commander. the commander is bad = you will have no fun.
but it is part of the gamedesign and so i don't have any idea how we can make the game more friendly for new players
The skill difference in the community is staggering. The jump from rookie servers to TTO (arguably the most skilled server at times) is not recognised by people like the OP. Unfortunately the community is too small to have proper skill segregated servers (or matchmaking).
There needs to be more environments between rookie servers and TTO (higher skilled). Perhaps @SupaFred can make artifical environments for commanders so that:
A 1k skill player can only command in an avg skill <1.3k game?
A 1.5k skill player can only command in an avg skill <2.0k game?
etc etc
This could indeed be a good idea.
But still not feasible given the player size. 50% of the players are between 880 and 1580 hive skill. If you filled a server with players in this skill bracket, it would have a standard deviation of about 200. Theoretically such a server would have the most balanced public games imaginable.
Ghoul tried making a server like this. We tried seeding it for a few days but we never could. Not many people joined, and most of those who did were not a fan of the restriction.
You cannot say people did not play on the server because there was a comm restriction. There are TOO many factors why people play or do not play on servers. For example I did not even know there was a comm restriction on ghouls server, I do not even know what his server is.
I also never knew about that server... So it's failure to populate doesn't really prove anything. (other than maybe you should've advertised it more or something)
I have played quite a bit on DungeonGaming's <1800 hive <2.0 kdr server.. and when there isn't anyone over that restriction the games there are extremely well balanced. Lots of back and forth action.
Skill level is not a good surrogate for comm-ability. Need a comm score based on number of wins as comm.
Foxy has his server restricted to the bottom 83% of players in terms of skill, and the bottom 95% of players in terms of KDR. This does lessen the standard deviation, but it does not do it to the levels I would consider near skill. His server may be restricted, but not by much making it far more seedable.
The experiment Ghoul tried was restricted to the middle 50% of players. This as it turned out, was not realistically possible to seed as I have been saying. We would get a handful of players, maybe 5. I don't know how many of you have tried seeding regularly, but when you get about 4 players during prime time the server starts to fill up pretty quickly. This did not happen.
This is the exact proposal I have suggested in the past for hive restricted servers. Ghoul went with the middle one, although at the time we had slightly different numbers.
If you want to segregate players by skill, ideally you want to have as small of segments of possible. 50% skill segments appear to be too small to seed. 83% segments are big enough to seed. There may be a balance between the two but I have not sought it out because the few server operators I have talked to are not really interested in hive skill restrictions.
Here is a reference table I made showing the percentiles of skill. I actually made this by Foxy's request right when he was deciding on the 1800 hive skill restriction. You will notice it says veterans. For this table I defined veterans as players with 50 hours or more. You may not like that definition but too bad. It works for this purpose.
Perhaps if 50% is too low to seed, and 83% is big enough to seed then a middle ground might work. Maybe 70% hive skill restrictions would be realistic. In that case I might recommend these three skill restricted servers.
1. Lower skill server, restricted to the bottom 70% of player skill for players with a hive skill of 1466 or below.
2. Middle skill server, restricted to the middle 70% of players skill for players with a hive skill between 667 and 1895.
3. Higher skill server, restricted to the top 70% of player skill for players with 897 hive skill or greater.
The middle 70% skill segment would have an average standard deviation of 350. This is not as low as the average standard deviation of 200 found with the middle 50% skill segment, but is still better than most games in NS2. For comparison, Dungeon Gamings <1800 hive skill server has an estimated average standard deviation of 516. I estimate the average standard deviation of skill on any given server that is not hive skill restricted is about 700. The lower the standard deviation, the higher the chance of a quality shuffle. Even 70% skill segregation would still be a significant improvement over most pubs in terms of shuffle quality.
@Mofo, oh yes you did too know about it. Don't give me that. I just wasted a stupid amount of time finding the following comments.
You may notice that the the middle 50% I gave to Ghoul in February is different than the middle 50% I have in this same post. That is because in February I was working with an older and less complete dataset. In February I got new hive data.
Hive skill measures ability to win based on how you play. If a player only commanded, hive skill would reflect their ability to command. Only about 5% of players have a commander badge. That is 1/20, which is just barely enough for every game. That means most people are field players. Their hive skill reflects their ability to win on the field, not as commander.
So what has that to do with what Wob suggested.