Competition Vs "public Fun"
Seth
Join Date: 2003-12-01 Member: 23813Members
Join Date: 2003-12-01 Member: 23813Members
Competition vs "Public Fun"
Were striving so hard for 'balance' at the moment that the challenge, the excitment, the on the edge of year seat game that was NS is slowly diminishing in an attempt to find balance. The compromise to balance as i see it is the public fun factor. While I enjoy competitive game play i think the public scene has lost a lot of what it once had. No more do we see the epic games with both sides fighting for every little bit of ground, the mad scramble of the marines to stop the second or third hive or the frenzy of the aliens when an onos eneterd the field. What i getting at here is a point that has been raised in several topics and that is fun seems to be the trade off to perfect balance. Some of the thrills were and are fighting against changing odds of winning. There needs to be 'turning points' in games to strive for like that second or third hive.
As the game stands the third hive is almost irrelevant in alot of aspects. Arguably even the second. From my experience in playing in public and countless tournament pracs and matches over the course of this beta (In Australia) I have noticed one thing. The game is often won or lost within the first 3-10mins.. not literally but it just as might well be. Either the aliens or the marines will gain an upper hand in the earlier minutes of the game. The very first few i would suggest. Once this occurs most public games are all but lost. Sure their can be a turn around when fades enter the scene but even that is at the 5min mark, and after this it is more often than not one team awaiting their doom. I have certainly noticed the Australian NS community diminishing in numbers and this is sad and I think well why? What I am seeing in public games is people leaving or f4 ing within the first few mins due to one sided dominance or after that about the 15min mark when they are awaiting their doom as one team is clearly going to be the victor. (Note to mention the f4ing players when they get devoured). This would suggest to me that things need steps need to be taken to bring the game back to the gameplay we saw in prior builds. How? I dont know exactly but some points to consider are this:
Bring back the fear/thrill factor that has been mentioned much of late. Fades are well balanced at the moment but the onos has issues. Sure in the hands of the good players onos have some use but our average 2 games a weak public players just aint finding the "ASSAULT BEAST" being able to do very much assulting or very much of a beast.
Bring back the "all out push" to get the second/third hive up or to get the second or thrid hive down... changing the hive res cost would do this but then youve got the marines to balance.
While the 2nd/3rd hives were what aliens pushed for rines pushed for jet packs in 1.04. The old jet pack tactics were fun, where a team achieved a land mark in tech and had to make an all out or stealth attack on that vital second or third hive. We now have lerks with bite to even up early jet pack rushes and their umbra ability should be encouraged more. As long as jp rushes dont occur on hive one early game i dont see where the problem lies. They were fun. Whats fun now for our average joe .. being on the team that pinned down the res and their opposition in the first few mins of the game. This gets them the higher class/ tech and the ability to slaughter their apponents without much of a chance.
While i find tournanment games balanced at the moment this is what I have been seeing in public. My question is how many tournament games are left with a dminishing public interest in the game?? Whether others have foud this the case i do not know.
Discuss Disregard discount at will. <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Were striving so hard for 'balance' at the moment that the challenge, the excitment, the on the edge of year seat game that was NS is slowly diminishing in an attempt to find balance. The compromise to balance as i see it is the public fun factor. While I enjoy competitive game play i think the public scene has lost a lot of what it once had. No more do we see the epic games with both sides fighting for every little bit of ground, the mad scramble of the marines to stop the second or third hive or the frenzy of the aliens when an onos eneterd the field. What i getting at here is a point that has been raised in several topics and that is fun seems to be the trade off to perfect balance. Some of the thrills were and are fighting against changing odds of winning. There needs to be 'turning points' in games to strive for like that second or third hive.
As the game stands the third hive is almost irrelevant in alot of aspects. Arguably even the second. From my experience in playing in public and countless tournament pracs and matches over the course of this beta (In Australia) I have noticed one thing. The game is often won or lost within the first 3-10mins.. not literally but it just as might well be. Either the aliens or the marines will gain an upper hand in the earlier minutes of the game. The very first few i would suggest. Once this occurs most public games are all but lost. Sure their can be a turn around when fades enter the scene but even that is at the 5min mark, and after this it is more often than not one team awaiting their doom. I have certainly noticed the Australian NS community diminishing in numbers and this is sad and I think well why? What I am seeing in public games is people leaving or f4 ing within the first few mins due to one sided dominance or after that about the 15min mark when they are awaiting their doom as one team is clearly going to be the victor. (Note to mention the f4ing players when they get devoured). This would suggest to me that things need steps need to be taken to bring the game back to the gameplay we saw in prior builds. How? I dont know exactly but some points to consider are this:
Bring back the fear/thrill factor that has been mentioned much of late. Fades are well balanced at the moment but the onos has issues. Sure in the hands of the good players onos have some use but our average 2 games a weak public players just aint finding the "ASSAULT BEAST" being able to do very much assulting or very much of a beast.
Bring back the "all out push" to get the second/third hive up or to get the second or thrid hive down... changing the hive res cost would do this but then youve got the marines to balance.
While the 2nd/3rd hives were what aliens pushed for rines pushed for jet packs in 1.04. The old jet pack tactics were fun, where a team achieved a land mark in tech and had to make an all out or stealth attack on that vital second or third hive. We now have lerks with bite to even up early jet pack rushes and their umbra ability should be encouraged more. As long as jp rushes dont occur on hive one early game i dont see where the problem lies. They were fun. Whats fun now for our average joe .. being on the team that pinned down the res and their opposition in the first few mins of the game. This gets them the higher class/ tech and the ability to slaughter their apponents without much of a chance.
While i find tournanment games balanced at the moment this is what I have been seeing in public. My question is how many tournament games are left with a dminishing public interest in the game?? Whether others have foud this the case i do not know.
Discuss Disregard discount at will. <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
Jet-pack rushes... fun? Yea, for marines it's fun to fly like a bird, but to aliens it's frustrating like hell. I'm glad they fixed that. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Now we have insta-gibs and under 5 minute games. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
However, it might just be the fact that we have played the game "through" one too many times. Myself, I have played ever since v1.03, so maybe it's time to forget NS for a while, no? <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
if ppl wana give up, then thats bad community, bad servers, blah blah. PPl that give up in the first few minutes deserve to lose. in a pub, the game can swing very very quickly, ive seen it a hundred times. failed HA or JP rush, rine no res, free map control for aliens. If rines hold back a push long enough, then can break free.
Have you ever played a rts game... ns is must more of a rts than a fps game. Thats were the balance lies, and thats what the devs are looking at. Games like star/warcraft, red alert, generals.... and so on. Either way, in a rts game, if one team falls behind, then, yes, they will lose.
what i think is missing is the act of desperation move than is encountered in many rts games. Such as the weldable on sat com in tanith. A HA/JP rush shouldn't be the an act of desperation, its the standard. Beacon is an act of desperation, but doesn't help enough.
lost my train of thought, ill finish up later.
It's always stupid people, bad server or deserve to lose because they suck. It's never the game. The game is something nobody is allowed to criticize. The devs change the game from version to version. Not only small changes, because the game was perfectly balanced and fun, but large changes.
I haven't played any competitive games in NS. I started playing NS at version 1.04 (just when it was released I think). I played 2.0 and it was different but still fun. I played 3.0 and I quit classic, at first because combat was different and fun to play but soon I realized classic was no fun anymore. From time to time I watch back and play one or two classic games but they all suck. No fun at all.
The key word is "fun". It isn't balanced either (large games... maybe they will realize it one day...) but fun is much more important. The fear factor was part of the fun. Evil creatures lurking in dark corners and so on.
Thats why you balance the game for fun, and not for the sake of balancing. During the days between 1.04 and 2.0, nobody complained (with the exception of the JPs, which, while a good idea in theory, was a huge mistake, GG hindsite. And maybe about turrets in 1.0 and 1.01 too) because the game was fun to play. If we go back to the 1.0x style of playing, which actually WAS fun, the only people complaining will be the clans, and the little **** that complain about everything anyway.
I know, I shouldn't complain, the dev team is trying to make the game better all the time, and we should feel lucky that we have such a dedicated dev team... but still.
Maby we cannot get back the fear factor, but up until the end of 1.04 I was still fearful of skulks lurking asound every corner, and inside every crevice (no matter how many times I checked, I was sure there would be a skulk there to jump onto my face the second I turned around). There were many dark corners for them to hide in. But in 2.0, the're was no more fear... the Higher lifeforms were now not things to be feared, just things that you could shoot more often. and the maps have gotten brighter.... the only other thing they could do to mess up the ambush skulk any more is to put neon signs that say "possible skulk" and arrows pointing to hiding locations... ...*makes a note for a new spray*
The NS team has opened up it's own personal pandora's box, they might be able to close it, but everything already got out; for better or for worse.
The devs constantly strive for the perfect balance of everything, but when everything is balanced what happens? Nothing is uniquely useful, strategy loses importance, and the game becomes bland.
On occasions where I play regular NS, I tend to avoid new maps. I don't really know why, I just don't like them. It may be for some of the reasons mentioned here, the gameplay style simply not the same at all. You may as well frontal rush a marine rather than attempt to hide, atleast then maybe you'll scare them and send their mouse hand flying into the desk (happens to me.. doh).
I like combat, but something really needs to be done to bring back the fun of regular NS. After all, that's why most of us started playing. Not for mindless combat, but for the strategic dark-themed scary NS.
Basically, it isn't the 'fun' that decreases if you're looking for balance. It really depends on the game and the elements in it. It is just that the more elements that exist within a game, the harder it is to balance it. What limits fun is technology and the gameplay that results from the elements that make up a game.
What I see currently in NS is that it has many game elements, but the gameplay is too narrow and simple. The result is that the game ends up with a heavy slippery slope aspect to it (more like a sudden cliff that you fall off from) - once a team fails to meet one of very few objectives, the game goes down the drain. There isn't much choice as to what can be done to win or lose the game.
The second thing is that the objectives that have to be met in order to keep a team in the game are too short and rigid. You don't see partial completions leading to battles, like in chess where you can either screw up completely (leading to a rapid checkmate) or incompletely (but where you can still battle on for some 10-20 moves before either drawing or losing in a spectacular complex combination of moves).
In NS, it is very simple - resources/time and skill/number of players, for a mod of Half-Life. Not enough resources lose time, enough resources ensure for the ability to fight, too much resources give you the ability to take more risks. Then it is up to the skill of the players - if the average level of skill is low enough, then the battles will go on for longer. Higher skill generally emphasizes the slippery slope effect, but if the skill is even and the res/time factor is even, then you see some interesting battles.
It is just that in NS, if one or two people are way above the average skill level of a server, then balance gets upset in that specific game. You can't really do much about that as a developper. It happens in any game. Is it fun to get whipped in CS, Warcraft, or even in chess? Not particularly if you can't or don't want to learn anything from it. What you can deduce is that eventually public level of play moves towards a more competitive level of play. Perhaps make it so that highly skilled play only with the highly skilled on servers? It would be balanced then technically, but the 'fun' part of it is subjective.
As for fun, making NS more sophisticated in terms of goals/objectives may make it more fun overall, but NS already scares away players due to its complexity - which is where the dilemma lies for the developpers. Perhaps there are ways to extend the depth of the game without making it more complex overall, but these should be discussed outside this topic.
public games are becoming more and more boring, the only public games i enjoy are played on restricted access servers (reserved slots), on the other servers it is a shoot them up...
PS: 1.04 was maybe fun for public games but way too boring with team of equal level and competitive play (marines always won).
the game, imho, is decided in the first 3 minutes. maybe less.
The problem is theres no prep-time in pubs, so you spend the first minute or so just trying to get something started. Shrug, on the other hand Aliens suffer the same problem.
Really? I never saw any complaints about 1.04 aside from JPs and hitboxes... I must have been dreaming for 3 months. Youre right about getting used to complainers though, but the problem is when the development team caters to them, kinda like what weve got going on here, so its hard to ignore it when you have to play it everytime you double click on that server.