For someone like YOU @mofo1 especially who favors one team over the other (you're literally the problem you complain about), there is no way for the balance to be like "o he wants to play aliens and he's x good at" and then cherry pick each person similarly to be put on a team.
How am I even remotely the problem I complain about?!? It's not like my preference in playing Aliens is the reason I suck at Marine?
Most people are a lot better at one side than the other... You could have a player who is SO bad at playing Alien that they're utterly worthless, barely worthy of 500 skill points... Yet that same player could have amazing aim and be a 2k+ Marine player.. With the current hive being one lump score their skill would hover around 1k and NEVER be useful for determining what team they should be shuffled to for balance.
You do yourself no favour in using such a ridiculous example. Sure you have players who are worth different skill values based on faction. But a 2k marine worth only 500 as alien? You may be able to find an example or two, I'll give you the benefit of doubt there, but that is not a common example you're giving at all... Usually the good marines will be able to do some legwork on alien side, even if they are a little bit bad. The system should not account for extreme outliers like what you present. So you really do yourself no favour by giving this shitty example.
However, I really write to you here, because I think you ignore the most important aspect of this. Let us use your, absurd, example and say you have 2k marine skill and 500 alien skill. The skill system should still switch you over to alien, if only to make sure that one less 2k player is on the marine side. It becomes less important, that the aliens now have a 500 skill player, what's important is that marines have one less 2k player. -See what I'm saying?
I have a hypothesis for why skills are generally climbing. I think the effect of rookies dampening skill values was larger for hive 1 than it is for hive 2.
In hive1 rookies started at 0 and climbed very slowly to their real skill value. This meant that their skill value spent a long time as an underestimate, and siphoned skill from other players as a result. In hive2, rookies still start at zero, but their skill can climb very quickly and even be an overestimate before oscillating around the real value. This means that they don't tend to siphon skill from other players after their first few games.
I think you can still see this affect today by comparing NA and EU avg skill and the affect when an EU player joins an NA server. 1 skill point for NA does not equal 1 skill point for EU in publics. When I join an NA server I often find hive shuffled games extremely easy, and then when I go back to EU with my inflated skill, the games are extremely more challenging.
I suspect that this has huge implications for hive shuffle for servers that are mostly populated by regulars. They live in their own sort of closed system skill chamber with rookies coming in and out as their source of skill "income", but as soon as a foreign veteran player (+3000 skill) comes in, the values mean very little in comparison. This would not be a problem with a simple Score/Time system.
Exactly, that's basically what I talked about in this thread. As I wrote back then, I believe that each community ought to use their own private ranking, instead of relying on Hive 2's global ranking.
Edit: Oh wait hang on.. What makes you think that wouldn't happen in a Score/Time system? You'd have the exact same inflation principle as far as I can tell.
Might have something to do with you sitting in a vent all day as marine.
I think it's sad how often people bring this up, and it shows what's so wrong with this community...
It's one map that I would do that on (veil) which (before I started doing it) was my worst map as Marine by far, then I realized one day that by chilling in that vent I could hear when Aliens pushed C12 or Topo, and a good 8 out of 10 times I could crawl out and ambush them, getting the kill (one I would NEVER get running around!) and saving the extractor (which would've died had I not been there!) I was also often in the perfect position to pinch Lerks, Fades, and Oni on many many many occasions... Plus I could easily hear and hunt down Gorges, and stop any tunnel attempts since I could hear them the instant they were dropped. I surprised and killed soooooo many early game Gorges from that spot.
Then people would start bitching... as if having me running around with 5-10% accuracy, doing very little damage, getting a handful of skulk kills, getting yelled at for not being able to kill that Alien they did 90% of the damage to, dying constantly and staring at a respawn queue, spending a ton of my res on buying a welder every time I spawn... was better than having me consistently killing Aliens as they attacked extractors (I could get as high as 40% accuracy playing this way!) rebuilding/welding said extractors, hunting Gorges, pinching lerks/fades/oni, shutting down tunnels, and then once we tech up using the res I saved to buy JP + FT/GL or Exo and start pushing their hives....
If people would leave me the fuck alone to play my way (smarter not harder!) I'd often end up doing extremely well and contributing a great deal. Keeping two res towers up for most of the game by myself with minimal comm support, downing several higher life forms, preventing tunnel rush attempts.. But when people started bitching I'd either get distracted arguing with them, or I'd leave my spot and start running around with other Marines, and literally every single time we would immediately lose that entire side of the map and Aliens would get a tunnel in Topographical.
Sorry for that little side tangent, but I'm getting so tired of people acting like playing defensively to ambush like I do somehow makes me worse at Marine.. My highest scoring games ever on Marine were ones where I "sat in a vent all day" as people love to incorrectly phrase it.
Also I don't know how you can say "most people who are good at Marine are also good at Alien" when it seems pretty clear that most rookies are way WAY better at Marine than they are at Alien due to how similar playing Marine is to other FPS games they've played.
What is sad is that you think that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Anyone with half a brain would just parasite you and continue chewing res after the first time. But I guess you play against people with quarter brains. Holding lanes is a thing. What you are doing is barely that.
And the veteran will smack the rookie silly with both aliens and marines. And the competitive players will do the same to the veterans and so on.
I have a hypothesis for why skills are generally climbing. I think the effect of rookies dampening skill values was larger for hive 1 than it is for hive 2.
In hive1 rookies started at 0 and climbed very slowly to their real skill value. This meant that their skill value spent a long time as an underestimate, and siphoned skill from other players as a result. In hive2, rookies still start at zero, but their skill can climb very quickly and even be an overestimate before oscillating around the real value. This means that they don't tend to siphon skill from other players after their first few games.
I think you can still see this affect today by comparing NA and EU avg skill and the affect when an EU player joins an NA server. 1 skill point for NA does not equal 1 skill point for EU in publics. When I join an NA server I often find hive shuffled games extremely easy, and then when I go back to EU with my inflated skill, the games are extremely more challenging.
I suspect that this has huge implications for hive shuffle for servers that are mostly populated by regulars. They live in their own sort of closed system skill chamber with rookies coming in and out as their source of skill "income", but as soon as a foreign veteran player (+3000 skill) comes in, the values mean very little in comparison. This would not be a problem with a simple Score/Time system.
Edit: Oh wait hang on.. What makes you think that wouldn't happen in a Score/Time system? You'd have the exact same inflation principle as far as I can tell.
Because score is a universal conceptualisation of impact that is equal on every server. It has been configured in a way where if you kill an impactful (high score) fade you can get 50+ points, and if you kill a bad fade you get 20 regardless of which server you play on. So kill a NA fade with 3000 ELO who is (relatively) bad to an EU fade with 3000 ELO and you might get 30 instead of 40.
I feel like I'm not articulating myself well on this issue, and I also now feel like there's another flaw in score/time which I might not be thinking of
Really interesting seeing some hard facts that actually supports my impression, especially about many low skill (rookies) players and a few hardcore high skill ones on pubs. This situation should be manageable (it was in ns1) even if it is frustrating on all sides. I just wish some (a few) were a little nicer to the rookies, and didn't take out their frustration on other players....;)
Yea that is nonsense @Wob. You can have a shitty player be an "impactful fade" provided he plays on a community server with weak enough players. So not only will his score/time be inflated because he gets easy frags, but his killer will also have his score/time inflated for killing an "impactful fade".
In addition to that, there's a ceiling where a fade can't gain any more score point potential. So you can have a mediocre fade be as valuable, score-wise, as a world-class fade? And you can have a world-class fade not reaching that ceiling, because he is getting tougher competition.
The ELO model is absolutely fine. The problem is the attempt at making a global implementation.
It's like Starcraft. A master-class NA player, doesn't hold a candle to many diamond Korean players. It wouldn't make any sense for an NA player to use his NA-ranking on Korean servers. So when NA players join Korean servers, he has to start over in his ranking. Blizzard did well in separating these rankings imo. That's the approach I'd mimic for NS2, wrt each community individually.
Phullleaseee...... The EU bashing on NA is kinda getting out of hand here. I pub on NA, EU, RU servers alike. The 1000 skill bracket players in EU are just as dumb as the NA ones. I've seen plenty of 2500+ skill EU players that don't live up to their billing. To suggest we need separate location rankings in a community this small is absurd.
Maybe 2 years ago your suggestion would make sense. But I would have lobbied for a gating system rather than separate community ELO scores back then. Or get rid of the server browser entirely and make "Play Now" effectively sort you into correct skill bracketed servers with similarly skilled players regardless of location. Imaging a pub even right now where everyone is within 500 skill points of you and how much more fun that would be.
But these are pipe dreams. Just look at how long it took them to finally implement rookie-only servers, the most basic of all gating systems? Or finally remove the god awful, lazy, and misleading "rookie-friendly" tag? So many mistakes were made when it could have mattered.
@SantaClaws@Wob I am not so sure that is even an issue right now because the community is so small. EU players and NA players often have to play across the pond. I have seen you play in NA. I know I play in EU. This doesn't even include Aus players who play anywhere they can manage to not get ping kicked.
The fact that there is random mixing between NA, EU, and Aus means that there should be little if any regional differences. If NS2 ever quadruples its player base, then maybe this might be an issue. For the time being, regional separation is not really necessary.
NS2 has about 200 average daily players but they don't play every day. 25,090 unique NS2 players in the last 45 days. 5,808 of those unique players were not rookies. The irony is that NS2 does have that many players trying NS2. If even half of them, nearly 10,000 players, stuck around NS2 wouldn't have the concurrent playerbase problem it does anymore. You are right @jrgn that there are a lot more players trying NS2 than one would expect.
Do you know what makes them leave? Most rookies stick around until they are kicked out of rookie only servers. Then they leave. They are deterred by the sheer skill difference. If NS2 could somehow group players of similar skill into separate servers, it could improve gameplay quality and dramatically improve player retention. NotPalagi is exactly right with this.
Imagine there are 192 NS2 players like I mentioned before. That is enough for 8 courts, each with large 12 versus 12 games. 12 players are pro level players. 72 players are veterans. 108 players are rookies. This leaves 2 pros, 4 veterans, and 14 rookies per server. Hive can make the teams balanced, but it can't change the skill difference. Games are not going to be that good in this scenario.
Imagine if instead the players were put into servers with near skill players. That would be servers with:
12 high skill players and 12 high skill veterans, split evenly among the teams.
24 veterans.
24 veterans.
12 veterans and 12 low skill veterans, split evenly among the teams.
Please actually read the links because it is not a traditional matchmaking. It is not a party system, it will not guarantee you can play on the same team as your friends.
It is not a competitive / gather mode. It is not going to replace community servers.
UWE appears to be planning some sort of mass server seeding system that tries to group players of similar skill. It looks like an expansion of the play now system if anything, which is almost what NotPalagi just recommended.
I don't think it is too late for such a system, although it is late. NS2 still has a lot of players trying NS2. There were 19,282 rookies in the last 45 days. Some sort of grouping system could help keep a lot of those players. Even if this grouping system was only used by the top 10% of skilled players, those over 1500 hive skill.
Comments
However, I really write to you here, because I think you ignore the most important aspect of this. Let us use your, absurd, example and say you have 2k marine skill and 500 alien skill. The skill system should still switch you over to alien, if only to make sure that one less 2k player is on the marine side. It becomes less important, that the aliens now have a 500 skill player, what's important is that marines have one less 2k player. -See what I'm saying?
Edit: Oh wait hang on.. What makes you think that wouldn't happen in a Score/Time system? You'd have the exact same inflation principle as far as I can tell.
What is sad is that you think that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Anyone with half a brain would just parasite you and continue chewing res after the first time. But I guess you play against people with quarter brains. Holding lanes is a thing. What you are doing is barely that.
And the veteran will smack the rookie silly with both aliens and marines. And the competitive players will do the same to the veterans and so on.
Because score is a universal conceptualisation of impact that is equal on every server. It has been configured in a way where if you kill an impactful (high score) fade you can get 50+ points, and if you kill a bad fade you get 20 regardless of which server you play on. So kill a NA fade with 3000 ELO who is (relatively) bad to an EU fade with 3000 ELO and you might get 30 instead of 40.
I feel like I'm not articulating myself well on this issue, and I also now feel like there's another flaw in score/time which I might not be thinking of
In addition to that, there's a ceiling where a fade can't gain any more score point potential. So you can have a mediocre fade be as valuable, score-wise, as a world-class fade? And you can have a world-class fade not reaching that ceiling, because he is getting tougher competition.
The ELO model is absolutely fine. The problem is the attempt at making a global implementation.
It's like Starcraft. A master-class NA player, doesn't hold a candle to many diamond Korean players. It wouldn't make any sense for an NA player to use his NA-ranking on Korean servers. So when NA players join Korean servers, he has to start over in his ranking. Blizzard did well in separating these rankings imo. That's the approach I'd mimic for NS2, wrt each community individually.
Maybe 2 years ago your suggestion would make sense. But I would have lobbied for a gating system rather than separate community ELO scores back then. Or get rid of the server browser entirely and make "Play Now" effectively sort you into correct skill bracketed servers with similarly skilled players regardless of location. Imaging a pub even right now where everyone is within 500 skill points of you and how much more fun that would be.
But these are pipe dreams. Just look at how long it took them to finally implement rookie-only servers, the most basic of all gating systems? Or finally remove the god awful, lazy, and misleading "rookie-friendly" tag? So many mistakes were made when it could have mattered.
The fact that there is random mixing between NA, EU, and Aus means that there should be little if any regional differences. If NS2 ever quadruples its player base, then maybe this might be an issue. For the time being, regional separation is not really necessary.
NS2 has about 200 average daily players but they don't play every day. 25,090 unique NS2 players in the last 45 days. 5,808 of those unique players were not rookies. The irony is that NS2 does have that many players trying NS2. If even half of them, nearly 10,000 players, stuck around NS2 wouldn't have the concurrent playerbase problem it does anymore. You are right @jrgn that there are a lot more players trying NS2 than one would expect.
Do you know what makes them leave? Most rookies stick around until they are kicked out of rookie only servers. Then they leave. They are deterred by the sheer skill difference. If NS2 could somehow group players of similar skill into separate servers, it could improve gameplay quality and dramatically improve player retention. NotPalagi is exactly right with this.
Imagine there are 192 NS2 players like I mentioned before. That is enough for 8 courts, each with large 12 versus 12 games. 12 players are pro level players. 72 players are veterans. 108 players are rookies. This leaves 2 pros, 4 veterans, and 14 rookies per server. Hive can make the teams balanced, but it can't change the skill difference. Games are not going to be that good in this scenario.
Imagine if instead the players were put into servers with near skill players. That would be servers with:
UWE does have some plans to do some sort of player grouping system but I don't know the details more than the trello says.
https://trello.com/c/Zk5778Qu/28-match-seeding-system
https://trello.com/c/s7ONC9b7/21-matchmaking-system
Please actually read the links because it is not a traditional matchmaking. It is not a party system, it will not guarantee you can play on the same team as your friends.
It is not a competitive / gather mode. It is not going to replace community servers.
UWE appears to be planning some sort of mass server seeding system that tries to group players of similar skill. It looks like an expansion of the play now system if anything, which is almost what NotPalagi just recommended.
I don't think it is too late for such a system, although it is late. NS2 still has a lot of players trying NS2. There were 19,282 rookies in the last 45 days. Some sort of grouping system could help keep a lot of those players. Even if this grouping system was only used by the top 10% of skilled players, those over 1500 hive skill.