Aiming at a slow-moving terrorist in CS is one thing, but aiming at a fade flying from a room to another in a few seconds is another. Yes, the changes seem radical, but the effect is the goal here. And the effect is we shorten the physical skill gap between players, since no skill-matching or handicap system is used here.
You can't change the players, so you have to change the game. If you reduce the difficulty of playing the game, you get results that are similar. So no more 9-22 and 50-5 skill distances. No more one man leading the team situations.
You can whine about aliens or marines being too strong, but what everyone doesn't state is the skill of that person. In the same way you have different weight classes in wrestling, there has to be a divider to maintain equal games. I'm sure many of you would like a game where it's close rather than one you win easily or get blown off, spawn-camped or electrified hive.
So that's the changes I'm interested in seeing happening. If helping the community is too much for you, then believe what you want. NS won't be fixed with some hp buffs here; it takes broad, sweeping changes to get somewhere. That's how blink was re-invented. That's how focus was born.
<!--quoteo(post=1615473:date=Mar 18 2007, 08:52 PM:name=StixNStonz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StixNStonz @ Mar 18 2007, 08:52 PM) [snapback]1615473[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Well, try the Captains games. They have them on some servers. Admins put on Tourney mode, pick teams one person at a time, use the ready command, use good amount of strategy and tac, etc. Basically a larger pub, where people arent all necessarily pro skill, but do listen. And they're pretty balanced from the team picking method. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's true, I've played captains games on tg with at least 8v8 and they actually work fairly well. Although there still is the problem with low player counts, and I haven't seen it extrapolated into a truly extreme situation (16 on 16 or more).
PS: If you're reading this thread to better the game rather than just for message boarding entertainment, please ignore Smood in favor of people like Stix or any of the other MANY constructive contributors. Thanks.
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1615523:date=Mar 18 2007, 11:29 PM:name=Harrower)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Harrower @ Mar 18 2007, 11:29 PM) [snapback]1615523[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's true, I've played captains games on tg with at least 8v8 and they actually work fairly well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> see sig. saturday nights. balanced. sorry bad typing. holding baby. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
he says hi. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1615421:date=Mar 18 2007, 04:10 PM:name=StixNStonz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StixNStonz @ Mar 18 2007, 04:10 PM) [snapback]1615421[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> A 9v9 veteran NS game? So what, the aliens will cap one node and then get 8 fades at 12 minutes, and the marines will all just rambo around with each other muted? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know it isn't exactly true, but I seriously laughed out loud at the image of this.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
captain night pubs <b>!=</b> competitive scrims. over and out.
TOmekki, there isn't anything worthwhile left of competitive NS anyway. Looking at it this way, it doesn't really matter if the game sees major changes to defensive play and slightly longer rounds. If the changes draw a good amount of new players, then the competitive scene can get regenerated. However, the way NS is right now, players are just leaving.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What kinds of things could be done to the existing game, or seen by Flayra on these forums and done differently so that the game whose complexity we have come to respect is reformed in a better manner than the current existence of NS whose existence is so ill-received that a horrible game like Combat could overtake it in popularity?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm giving MY perspective on a question like this. If you can't handle it, then learn to tolerate opinions. Or rather, prepare for something you were asking for in the first place.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1615541:date=Mar 19 2007, 06:59 AM:name=Sarisel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sarisel @ Mar 19 2007, 06:59 AM) [snapback]1615541[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> captain night pubs <b>!=</b> competitive scrims. over and out.
TOmekki, there isn't anything worthwhile left of competitive NS anyway. Looking at it this way, it doesn't really matter if the game sees major changes to defensive play and slightly longer rounds. If the changes draw a good amount of new players, then the competitive scene can get regenerated. However, the way NS is right now, players are just leaving. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As much as I hate to admit it, the man is has a point. There really isn't much point in focusing on competitive play anymore. Hell, even way back when, when we still had a decently active competitive community, we were still a joke by any real competitive game (CS, Q3, CoD, ET) standards. By logical reasoning (for the developers): If they want to at least halt the downward spiral of the NS playerbase, catering to pubbers may very well be the only viable approach.
Obviously this will turn NS into a terrible game for the few competitive players that still hang around, and I'm sure for some of the pubbers as well. Hell, it might not work, it might even reinforce the downward spiral of the NS playerbase. Still, it might be a risk worth taking?
If the choice was made to make NS more 32 player friendly and less geared towards competitive gameplay, I certainly wouldn't stick around for long. So why am I saying all this? Obviously because I plan quiting before said changes even have a chance to occur. :|
Going pubber friendly would probably reduce the quit-rate a bit, but there's still the fact that ns is just a hl1 mod. I don't think its possible to revive this one anymore since not that many new players end up trying such old mods anymore. I guess its about preserving some playerbase until the next gen ns. Whether its competetive, pubbers or a little bit of both is probably the thing we should be discussing, not how to revive this one.
Okay, So I read this entire thread, and I can't understand where you people come up with your statements.
There are not enough ns servers? I show 185 on steam server list, half of those are empty, another 30% or so have 1 player, or have bots in them. The rest are the servers that people always play on.
More classic/vanilla servers? I host ns servers. At one point I had 5 I think. 2 combat with 50 lvl, 1 combat with 50 lvl and luild,, 1 siege/custom ns, 1 ns vanilla. The most popular servers are the ones I still host. 50lvl combat with build. Custom ns/siege with 50lvl for combat maps.
Dying player count? I've seen nothing but an increase in the traffic on my server since we started. (A day before Aero Died) In a couple months our buildmenu server had out ranked 187's combat server in traffic. Then we switched around ips for a couple months, and got lost in the server list for a bit. Now we have a packed combat server and a packed siege server everyday. It's not full all day, but for a few hours the siege is packed, and for twice that amount of time the combat server is packed.
I've got more regs on my servers than I can remember seeing on [Fat's] or all of the aero servers combined.
I guess my point is, NS is not dying for the servers that take the time to cater to their players. I don't make my servers ns classic because I prefer it, I make the servers provide the fun that my community wants.
And as far as lack of teamwork, or long rounds... come on.... I have to rage through at least 1 62 minute round on my combat server whenever I play for a good amount of the day.
It pained me to read everyone's negative outlook towards the current state of ns. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of 3.2 yet, it's still a great game, it will continue to be a great game, and the only thing the NS community is in need of is some faith and patience.
Check out my combat server some day, if you don't have fun, then it's an off day, or you're socially inept.. hahah.
The problem is, you're not actually playing Classic. The fact that THOSE are popular is fine, good job on making a community. But what I'm concerned about is the original game of Natural-Selection Classic and why it's been ignored and replaced by the other variants like xmenu combat.
<!--quoteo(post=1615578:date=Mar 19 2007, 10:08 AM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fanatic @ Mar 19 2007, 10:08 AM) [snapback]1615578[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->we might need to sacrifice competitive play in order to revive ns<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't agree. Many good games have both depth and an intuitive learning curve. NS turns new players off with its initial steps I think, but that's a longshot from being in a state of "let's give up and go home, we'll never get anywhere if we keep up the complex gameplay."
About the only 2 things I have negative feelings about are: lerks can't accelerate while diving anymore, which defies the laws of gravity, ( glad they fixed the climb rate but why did they put a cap on diving acceleration ? ) and the onos charge is all but broken now, the aliens really got dumbed down in 3.2. maybe the developers are the ones who intend to kill NS, think about it. 3.2 sabotaged a great game.
try lerk diving; WTH ? why am I stalling ? bap bap bap, pistol death from a mile away since you can't dodge out of your stall.
for all the ns junkies, please uncap the lerk dive acceleration, and for gods sake fix charge. All onos are good for now is blocking doors. they can't even get the hell outta the way anymore w/o the normal charge effect.
bad job developers, or, good job if the end game is killing NS. it's understandable, this is a business more than anything, and in business, sometimes taking a loss is a good thing. Who payed you ?
Ase leads a terrific community of men women blacks whites dogs cats, everyone welcome. His servers are almost always full. Alot of fun and funny people, the chat get's a bit raunchy sometimes, but that's usually 1 drunk player who offers people $1,000 dollar to come kill him, it's a riot ! and top notch admins who arn't afraid of random all. Stop by sometime and show your skills. He even let's in the pros as long as they don't abuse stacking.
<!--quoteo(post=1615651:date=Mar 19 2007, 08:36 PM:name=TheAse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheAse @ Mar 19 2007, 08:36 PM) [snapback]1615651[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Most of the pros I let in. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=Nov 26 2006, 05:08 PM:name=Spr33)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spr33 @ Nov 26 2006, 05:08 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> First of all, we do not want pros in our server. That just makes the server pointless when a guy just goes 50 - 2 and just completely demolishes the other team. Stick to pro gaming. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dying player count? I've seen nothing but an increase in the traffic on my server since we started. (A day before Aero Died) In a couple months our buildmenu server had out ranked 187's combat server in traffic. Then we switched around ips for a couple months, and got lost in the server list for a bit. Now we have a packed combat server and a packed siege server everyday. It's not full all day, but for a few hours the siege is packed, and for twice that amount of time the combat server is packed.
I've got more regs on my servers than I can remember seeing on [Fat's] or all of the aero servers combined.
I guess my point is, NS is not dying for the servers that take the time to cater to their players. I don't make my servers ns classic because I prefer it, I make the servers provide the fun that my community wants.
...
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not that NS isn't losing players, it's that the remaining players are flocking to servers that are populated. Yes, there is still a slight influx of players and those players may go to your server. Some may stay, but overall the trend is negative as seen <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=754403034785691264&showtopic=100878" target="_blank">here</a>.
Wow, you people really have no common sense. I don't know if less and less people are playing NS, but the fact is that a new era has arrived. Xbox360, PS3, Wii, and a bunch of PC games taking players away such as WoW. And notice the large number of people who play years old games like Starcraft, Diablo and WC3. People get tired of games if they play it for too long for example I've gotten tired of SC and I barely play my PS2 anymore. But I still get the thrill in playing NS because I'm a regular and I play a lot with other regulars on servers. And It's always fun to have a fun score like 40-16 as a marine or 80-6 as aliens.
And Harrower, NS Classic isn't being ignored, if you actually go on servers that host classic maps. You'll see that many of the people who play know what to do on certain maps for strategies and what not. Why is Combat more popular? Because players don't have to deal with following orders so they can just play and start shooting aliens. Also in Classic, skulks have to deal with HMGs or marines have to deal with fades. Rather in Combat, each player recieves a different amount of experience to level up, get a point and upgrade. Combat is more individual than the counting on your team to win based Classic.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
Who cares if a new era has arrived? CS is doing well, DoD is doing well. Even HL deathmatch, TFC Classic, and Garry's Mod are doing better than NS. This is wrong. NS should at least be more popular than TFC Classic. That is why it needs to be re-evaluated.
<!--quoteo(post=1615641:date=Mar 19 2007, 02:39 PM:name=TheAse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheAse @ Mar 19 2007, 02:39 PM) [snapback]1615641[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Okay, So I read this entire thread, and I can't understand where you people come up with your statements.
There are not enough ns servers? I show 185 on steam server list, half of those are empty, another 30% or so have 1 player, or have bots in them. The rest are the servers that people always play on.
More classic/vanilla servers? I host ns servers. At one point I had 5 I think. 2 combat with 50 lvl, 1 combat with 50 lvl and luild,, 1 siege/custom ns, 1 ns vanilla. The most popular servers are the ones I still host. 50lvl combat with build. Custom ns/siege with 50lvl for combat maps. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, you'll have to forgive me; when I say server, I mean vanilla classic NS with <18 slots. I could go into why, but I don't feel like arguing it because I'm pretty sure no one reads it. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to elaborate why the above prerequisites have been chosen.
As of right now, there are 27 servers less than 100 ping under "Natural Selection" that are running an ns_ map.
Of that 27, 10 have 18 or less slots.
Of that 10, 9 are not playing seige.
Of those 9, 4 are not with bots.
Of those 4, 3 are version 3.2, the other is 1.04.
That leaves 3 "vanilla" classic NS servers right now.
Smood, what you want to do to NS is turn it into starcraft. What you want isn't possible when the units that commanders have to work with are human, you can't balance for skill differences, good players are supposed to kill worse off players, it happens in all games, that's why they're defined as good. Different humans will have different skill levels, whilst yes you want to make the game easy to grasp for new people through tutorials, training maps, guides, videos, whatever, you need to maintain a skill curve for players who enjoy the challenge of bettering themselves. The game should be easy to learn, difficult to master and as long as there's an FPS aspect to the game, individual skill will have a massive influence on your ability to execute a strategy. That's how it's meant to be.
NS has a very small sized community, experienced clanners know all enjoyable, playabe servers on their continent and as such you can expect said servers to suffer from the supposed issue of one player carrying the team. The answer to this? Well it's not to whine on the forums about making the game easier, why not put some effort into improving yourself too and maybe you'll stop them next time.
<!--quoteo(post=1615723:date=Mar 20 2007, 02:10 AM:name=Sarisel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sarisel @ Mar 20 2007, 02:10 AM) [snapback]1615723[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Who cares if a new era has arrived? CS is doing well, DoD is doing well. Even HL deathmatch, TFC Classic, and Garry's Mod are doing better than NS. This is wrong. NS should at least be more popular than TFC Classic. That is why it needs to be re-evaluated. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
CS, DoD and TFC are doing well because they got a huge playerbase at first. I'm not sure about the statistics, but I don't think they are getting much new players either.
I'm quite confidend that the re-evaluation isn't going to increase amount of players starting ns. Its more like saving whats left of the players. Personally I'd love to have the focus more and more on the next gen ns, not changing this one anymore.
<!--quoteo(post=1615739:date=Mar 19 2007, 11:24 PM:name=F4tManMGS2)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F4tManMGS2 @ Mar 19 2007, 11:24 PM) [snapback]1615739[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Ok, you'll have to forgive me; when I say server, I mean vanilla classic NS with <18 slots. I could go into why, but I don't feel like arguing it because I'm pretty sure no one reads it. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to elaborate why the above prerequisites have been chosen.
As of right now, there are 27 servers less than 100 ping under "Natural Selection" that are running an ns_ map.
Of that 27, 10 have 18 or less slots.
Of that 10, 9 are not playing seige.
Of those 9, 4 are not with bots.
Of those 4, 3 are version 3.2, the other is 1.04.
That leaves 3 "vanilla" classic NS servers right now.
Of those 3, yours is not listed. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, so if you actually read my post, you'd see I told you what servers I used to host, and what servers survived. My NS classic server while up for 3 months, had no traffic to speak of, during those three months, the siege and 50lvl w/build server were packed daily, that's why they are still around, and my ns classic serve isn't. Now when I have a few regs playing with me, and we are tired of siege or combat, I'll change my siege server to a classic map, or do a classic night. Hell, I do lmg skulk rounds in my 50 lvl combat server to make things fun, a lvl 5 ua lmger vs a lvl 5 hunger thickened skulk is fun to watch, and fun to play. Also, Knife Challenge, more fun than I usually have in any server. I do it if I'm feeling fun, marine with most knife kills wins. I've gotten 26 on kestrel before and we still won.
Ok aside from the game play issues that people want looked at like acceleration and such, why can't the res system be made to scale with player number? It seems like an experienced plug in coder could do this to test it.
When you start a listen server the option to change marine and alien damage percent is right there on the GUI, why can't there also be options to scale the resource percentages for each team.
Then take this idea one step further by checking the player count and adjusting it on the fly in game every time someone leaves or joins the server.
Like So:
1. Scale alien resource percentage down increasingly for each player below 12.
2. Keep resources at 100% for both teams when there is between 12 and 18 players.
3. Scales marine resource percentage down increasingly with each player over 18.
Also standardize the amount of res a player gets for a kill. The less random factors that go into the res system the easier it will be to balance.
Or if it would help, apply the same idea to res for kills.
<!--quoteo(post=1615879:date=Mar 20 2007, 05:09 PM:name=Dogbite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dogbite @ Mar 20 2007, 05:09 PM) [snapback]1615879[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Then take this idea one step further by checking the player count and adjusting it on the fly in game every time someone leaves or joins the server. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
G4B2S just implemented a new resource mod that increases res flow, making nodes now more important than hives... and the game (15v15) is fun again.
<!--quoteo(post=1615787:date=Mar 20 2007, 04:32 AM:name=MrBen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MrBen @ Mar 20 2007, 04:32 AM) [snapback]1615787[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Smood, what you want to do to NS is turn it into starcraft. What you want isn't possible when the units that commanders have to work with are human, you can't balance for skill differences, good players are supposed to kill worse off players, it happens in all games, that's why they're defined as good. Different humans will have different skill levels, whilst yes you want to make the game easy to grasp for new people through tutorials, training maps, guides, videos, whatever, you need to maintain a skill curve for players who enjoy the challenge of bettering themselves. The game should be easy to learn, difficult to master and as long as there's an FPS aspect to the game, individual skill will have a massive influence on your ability to execute a strategy. That's how it's meant to be.
NS has a very small sized community, experienced clanners know all enjoyable, playabe servers on their continent and as such you can expect said servers to suffer from the supposed issue of one player carrying the team. The answer to this? Well it's not to whine on the forums about making the game easier, why not put some effort into improving yourself too and maybe you'll stop them next time. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I see some reasoning within your words, but again, you assume that I can't play as fade. I'm not going to bother proving my skill or lack of, because it has nothing to do with making the game easier. Just because a lawyer believes rape is wrong doesn't mean he'll work for a rapist.
+movement is fun. I can certainly use it. But for most others, I don't know this is enough. There is still a huge skill gap between the top players and the rest of the team. If players are good, I wouldn't care, but when they alone generate 90% of the res, well when they leave the server, the marine team will falter.
So I don't want a game that stands on the shoulders of pro players. I want the team to be more than a few players. That's the goal here. Maybe I'm taking the odd path or the wrong path, but I'm trying to get to this goal.
I mean skill balance is the problem. Too many good players on one team, call it stax and the game will end within the first 5 minutes and that results in f4s. Have somewhat balanced teams and one guy shows up and starts his 40-5 marine spree and you'll see how severely tilted the game will be. Scrims work because since clans are generally better than pubbers, you'll have closer games.
I'm looking for a way to help solve this issue. We could do handicaps to nerf pro players, but I'm sure people will be discouraged to play. We could buff the weaker players, but then a pro could just play dumb. We could remove RFK, but then res would come too slow in larger games.
So the conclusion I've found was that making the game easier would narrow this gap of performance, yet not give any group of players any unfavorable effects. We like seeing close games right? That's the way I see it.
<!--quoteo(post=1615912:date=Mar 20 2007, 08:54 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Mar 20 2007, 08:54 PM) [snapback]1615912[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> So the conclusion I've found was that making the game easier would narrow this gap of performance, yet not give any group of players any unfavorable effects. We like seeing close games right? That's the way I see it. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well there's another way... make it so you can have fun even when losing.
that's how it is in Combat...
Basically in NS mode on aliens you have one option when losing - spawn, run at marine, die. oh yeah, and you could build a gorge fort.. but you have to sit still and it doesn't usually result in even one kill so it's not that great.
On marines you can sit back and focus fire at the fades, try to sneak a phase, beacon, drop shotties and rush the onos... little things that do nothing in the end but might give you one rewarding kill and provide that tiny little reason to stay on the server. You also spawn with armor so it's not a complete slaughter fest from the get go.
There's a billion trillion ways to improve the fun factor of aliens without removing skill but persuading people that there's even a problem is even tougher than fixing it. If there's any reason people stop playing NS it's not because the competative potiential isn't there.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If there's any reason people stop playing NS it's not because the competative potiential isn't there.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->If there's any reason people play NS its because the competitive potential isn't there?
Pub came first. It always comes first. Then comp rises from them. It's the other way around.
I think what destroys games are games where a few players determine the game from the start. I've had a couple games today where an exceptional player stopped aliens from leaving their hive. This ultimately allowed marines to cap every node, lock both hives and turret farm the rest. We might have had good players, but not even the best could get through packs of marines. It would take forever to get res as well.
Right now there's a huge gap between these godlike players and casual players. If one player is good enough to lock the hive by himself, then it's not fun for everyone else. Aliens give up. Other marines don't feel as if they've contributed for the win.
Comments
You can't change the players, so you have to change the game. If you reduce the difficulty of playing the game, you get results that are similar. So no more 9-22 and 50-5 skill distances. No more one man leading the team situations.
You can whine about aliens or marines being too strong, but what everyone doesn't state is the skill of that person. In the same way you have different weight classes in wrestling, there has to be a divider to maintain equal games. I'm sure many of you would like a game where it's close rather than one you win easily or get blown off, spawn-camped or electrified hive.
So that's the changes I'm interested in seeing happening. If helping the community is too much for you, then believe what you want. NS won't be fixed with some hp buffs here; it takes broad, sweeping changes to get somewhere. That's how blink was re-invented. That's how focus was born.
Well, try the Captains games. They have them on some servers. Admins put on Tourney mode, pick teams one person at a time, use the ready command, use good amount of strategy and tac, etc. Basically a larger pub, where people arent all necessarily pro skill, but do listen. And they're pretty balanced from the team picking method.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's true, I've played captains games on tg with at least 8v8 and they actually work fairly well. Although there still is the problem with low player counts, and I haven't seen it extrapolated into a truly extreme situation (16 on 16 or more).
PS: If you're reading this thread to better the game rather than just for message boarding entertainment, please ignore Smood in favor of people like Stix or any of the other MANY constructive contributors. Thanks.
see sig. saturday nights. balanced. sorry bad typing. holding baby. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
he says hi. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
A 9v9 veteran NS game? So what, the aliens will cap one node and then get 8 fades at 12 minutes, and the marines will all just rambo around with each other muted?
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know it isn't exactly true, but I seriously laughed out loud at the image of this.
TOmekki, there isn't anything worthwhile left of competitive NS anyway. Looking at it this way, it doesn't really matter if the game sees major changes to defensive play and slightly longer rounds. If the changes draw a good amount of new players, then the competitive scene can get regenerated. However, the way NS is right now, players are just leaving.
I'm giving MY perspective on a question like this. If you can't handle it, then learn to tolerate opinions. Or rather, prepare for something you were asking for in the first place.
captain night pubs <b>!=</b> competitive scrims. over and out.
TOmekki, there isn't anything worthwhile left of competitive NS anyway. Looking at it this way, it doesn't really matter if the game sees major changes to defensive play and slightly longer rounds. If the changes draw a good amount of new players, then the competitive scene can get regenerated. However, the way NS is right now, players are just leaving.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As much as I hate to admit it, the man is has a point. There really isn't much point in focusing on competitive play anymore. Hell, even way back when, when we still had a decently active competitive community, we were still a joke by any real competitive game (CS, Q3, CoD, ET) standards. By logical reasoning (for the developers): If they want to at least halt the downward spiral of the NS playerbase, catering to pubbers may very well be the only viable approach.
Obviously this will turn NS into a terrible game for the few competitive players that still hang around, and I'm sure for some of the pubbers as well. Hell, it might not work, it might even reinforce the downward spiral of the NS playerbase. Still, it might be a risk worth taking?
If the choice was made to make NS more 32 player friendly and less geared towards competitive gameplay, I certainly wouldn't stick around for long. So why am I saying all this? Obviously because I plan quiting before said changes even have a chance to occur. :|
There are not enough ns servers?
I show 185 on steam server list, half of those are empty, another 30% or so have 1 player, or have bots in them. The rest are the servers that people always play on.
More classic/vanilla servers?
I host ns servers. At one point I had 5 I think. 2 combat with 50 lvl, 1 combat with 50 lvl and luild,, 1 siege/custom ns, 1 ns vanilla.
The most popular servers are the ones I still host. 50lvl combat with build. Custom ns/siege with 50lvl for combat maps.
Dying player count?
I've seen nothing but an increase in the traffic on my server since we started. (A day before Aero Died) In a couple months our buildmenu server had out ranked 187's combat server in traffic. Then we switched around ips for a couple months, and got lost in the server list for a bit. Now we have a packed combat server and a packed siege server everyday. It's not full all day, but for a few hours the siege is packed, and for twice that amount of time the combat server is packed.
I've got more regs on my servers than I can remember seeing on [Fat's] or all of the aero servers combined.
I guess my point is, NS is not dying for the servers that take the time to cater to their players. I don't make my servers ns classic because I prefer it, I make the servers provide the fun that my community wants.
And as far as lack of teamwork, or long rounds... come on.... I have to rage through at least 1 62 minute round on my combat server whenever I play for a good amount of the day.
It pained me to read everyone's negative outlook towards the current state of ns. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of 3.2 yet, it's still a great game, it will continue to be a great game, and the only thing the NS community is in need of is some faith and patience.
Check out my combat server some day, if you don't have fun, then it's an off day, or you're socially inept.. hahah.
<!--quoteo(post=1615578:date=Mar 19 2007, 10:08 AM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fanatic @ Mar 19 2007, 10:08 AM) [snapback]1615578[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->we might need to sacrifice competitive play in order to revive ns<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't agree. Many good games have both depth and an intuitive learning curve. NS turns new players off with its initial steps I think, but that's a longshot from being in a state of "let's give up and go home, we'll never get anywhere if we keep up the complex gameplay."
Depth is the reason I play NS.
try lerk diving; WTH ? why am I stalling ? bap bap bap, pistol death from a mile away since you can't dodge out of your stall.
for all the ns junkies, please uncap the lerk dive acceleration, and for gods sake fix charge. All onos are good for now is blocking doors. they can't even get the hell outta the way anymore w/o the normal charge effect.
bad job developers, or, good job if the end game is killing NS. it's understandable, this is a business more than anything, and in business, sometimes taking a loss is a good thing. Who payed you ?
Ase leads a terrific community of men women blacks whites dogs cats, everyone welcome. His servers are almost always full. Alot of fun and funny people, the chat get's a bit raunchy sometimes, but that's usually 1 drunk player who offers people $1,000 dollar to come kill him, it's a riot ! and top notch admins who arn't afraid of random all. Stop by sometime and show your skills. He even let's in the pros as long as they don't abuse stacking.
Meb has been banned multiple times, for trying to have familiar relations with my mother.
Most of the pros I let in.
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<!--quoteo(post=0:date=Nov 26 2006, 05:08 PM:name=Spr33)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spr33 @ Nov 26 2006, 05:08 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
First of all, we do not want pros in our server. That just makes the server pointless when a guy just goes 50 - 2 and just completely demolishes the other team. Stick to pro gaming.
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...
Dying player count?
I've seen nothing but an increase in the traffic on my server since we started. (A day before Aero Died) In a couple months our buildmenu server had out ranked 187's combat server in traffic. Then we switched around ips for a couple months, and got lost in the server list for a bit. Now we have a packed combat server and a packed siege server everyday. It's not full all day, but for a few hours the siege is packed, and for twice that amount of time the combat server is packed.
I've got more regs on my servers than I can remember seeing on [Fat's] or all of the aero servers combined.
I guess my point is, NS is not dying for the servers that take the time to cater to their players. I don't make my servers ns classic because I prefer it, I make the servers provide the fun that my community wants.
...
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It's not that NS isn't losing players, it's that the remaining players are flocking to servers that are populated. Yes, there is still a slight influx of players and those players may go to your server. Some may stay, but overall the trend is negative as seen <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=754403034785691264&showtopic=100878" target="_blank">here</a>.
It's hard to put in the play hours I used to. Doesn't mean I'm spending them on another game.... means I don't have as much time to play.
And Harrower, NS Classic isn't being ignored, if you actually go on servers that host classic maps. You'll see that many of the people who play know what to do on certain maps for strategies and what not. Why is Combat more popular? Because players don't have to deal with following orders so they can just play and start shooting aliens. Also in Classic, skulks have to deal with HMGs or marines have to deal with fades. Rather in Combat, each player recieves a different amount of experience to level up, get a point and upgrade. Combat is more individual than the counting on your team to win based Classic.
Okay, So I read this entire thread, and I can't understand where you people come up with your statements.
There are not enough ns servers?
I show 185 on steam server list, half of those are empty, another 30% or so have 1 player, or have bots in them. The rest are the servers that people always play on.
More classic/vanilla servers?
I host ns servers. At one point I had 5 I think. 2 combat with 50 lvl, 1 combat with 50 lvl and luild,, 1 siege/custom ns, 1 ns vanilla.
The most popular servers are the ones I still host. 50lvl combat with build. Custom ns/siege with 50lvl for combat maps.
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Ok, you'll have to forgive me; when I say server, I mean vanilla classic NS with <18 slots. I could go into why, but I don't feel like arguing it because I'm pretty sure no one reads it. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to elaborate why the above prerequisites have been chosen.
As of right now, there are 27 servers less than 100 ping under "Natural Selection" that are running an ns_ map.
Of that 27, 10 have 18 or less slots.
Of that 10, 9 are not playing seige.
Of those 9, 4 are not with bots.
Of those 4, 3 are version 3.2, the other is 1.04.
That leaves 3 "vanilla" classic NS servers right now.
Of those 3, yours is not listed.
NS has a very small sized community, experienced clanners know all enjoyable, playabe servers on their continent and as such you can expect said servers to suffer from the supposed issue of one player carrying the team. The answer to this? Well it's not to whine on the forums about making the game easier, why not put some effort into improving yourself too and maybe you'll stop them next time.
Who cares if a new era has arrived? CS is doing well, DoD is doing well. Even HL deathmatch, TFC Classic, and Garry's Mod are doing better than NS. This is wrong. NS should at least be more popular than TFC Classic. That is why it needs to be re-evaluated.
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CS, DoD and TFC are doing well because they got a huge playerbase at first. I'm not sure about the statistics, but I don't think they are getting much new players either.
I'm quite confidend that the re-evaluation isn't going to increase amount of players starting ns. Its more like saving whats left of the players. Personally I'd love to have the focus more and more on the next gen ns, not changing this one anymore.
Ok, you'll have to forgive me; when I say server, I mean vanilla classic NS with <18 slots. I could go into why, but I don't feel like arguing it because I'm pretty sure no one reads it. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to elaborate why the above prerequisites have been chosen.
As of right now, there are 27 servers less than 100 ping under "Natural Selection" that are running an ns_ map.
Of that 27, 10 have 18 or less slots.
Of that 10, 9 are not playing seige.
Of those 9, 4 are not with bots.
Of those 4, 3 are version 3.2, the other is 1.04.
That leaves 3 "vanilla" classic NS servers right now.
Of those 3, yours is not listed.
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Okay, so if you actually read my post, you'd see I told you what servers I used to host, and what servers survived. My NS classic server while up for 3 months, had no traffic to speak of, during those three months, the siege and 50lvl w/build server were packed daily, that's why they are still around, and my ns classic serve isn't. Now when I have a few regs playing with me, and we are tired of siege or combat, I'll change my siege server to a classic map, or do a classic night. Hell, I do lmg skulk rounds in my 50 lvl combat server to make things fun, a lvl 5 ua lmger vs a lvl 5 hunger thickened skulk is fun to watch, and fun to play. Also, Knife Challenge, more fun than I usually have in any server. I do it if I'm feeling fun, marine with most knife kills wins. I've gotten 26 on kestrel before and we still won.
When you start a listen server the option to change marine and alien damage percent is right there on the GUI, why can't there also be options to scale the resource percentages for each team.
Then take this idea one step further by checking the player count and adjusting it on the fly in game every time someone leaves or joins the server.
Like So:
1. Scale alien resource percentage down increasingly for each player below 12.
2. Keep resources at 100% for both teams when there is between 12 and 18 players.
3. Scales marine resource percentage down increasingly with each player over 18.
Also standardize the amount of res a player gets for a kill. The less random factors that go into the res system the easier it will be to balance.
Or if it would help, apply the same idea to res for kills.
Would this help or am I way off?
Then take this idea one step further by checking the player count and adjusting it on the fly in game every time someone leaves or joins the server.
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G4B2S just implemented a new resource mod that increases res flow, making nodes now more important than hives... and the game (15v15) is fun again.
Now the best team and strategy win, like in 3.1.
Smood, what you want to do to NS is turn it into starcraft. What you want isn't possible when the units that commanders have to work with are human, you can't balance for skill differences, good players are supposed to kill worse off players, it happens in all games, that's why they're defined as good. Different humans will have different skill levels, whilst yes you want to make the game easy to grasp for new people through tutorials, training maps, guides, videos, whatever, you need to maintain a skill curve for players who enjoy the challenge of bettering themselves. The game should be easy to learn, difficult to master and as long as there's an FPS aspect to the game, individual skill will have a massive influence on your ability to execute a strategy. That's how it's meant to be.
NS has a very small sized community, experienced clanners know all enjoyable, playabe servers on their continent and as such you can expect said servers to suffer from the supposed issue of one player carrying the team. The answer to this? Well it's not to whine on the forums about making the game easier, why not put some effort into improving yourself too and maybe you'll stop them next time.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I see some reasoning within your words, but again, you assume that I can't play as fade. I'm not going to bother proving my skill or lack of, because it has nothing to do with making the game easier. Just because a lawyer believes rape is wrong doesn't mean he'll work for a rapist.
+movement is fun. I can certainly use it. But for most others, I don't know this is enough. There is still a huge skill gap between the top players and the rest of the team. If players are good, I wouldn't care, but when they alone generate 90% of the res, well when they leave the server, the marine team will falter.
So I don't want a game that stands on the shoulders of pro players. I want the team to be more than a few players. That's the goal here. Maybe I'm taking the odd path or the wrong path, but I'm trying to get to this goal.
I mean skill balance is the problem. Too many good players on one team, call it stax and the game will end within the first 5 minutes and that results in f4s. Have somewhat balanced teams and one guy shows up and starts his 40-5 marine spree and you'll see how severely tilted the game will be. Scrims work because since clans are generally better than pubbers, you'll have closer games.
I'm looking for a way to help solve this issue. We could do handicaps to nerf pro players, but I'm sure people will be discouraged to play. We could buff the weaker players, but then a pro could just play dumb. We could remove RFK, but then res would come too slow in larger games.
So the conclusion I've found was that making the game easier would narrow this gap of performance, yet not give any group of players any unfavorable effects. We like seeing close games right? That's the way I see it.
So the conclusion I've found was that making the game easier would narrow this gap of performance, yet not give any group of players any unfavorable effects. We like seeing close games right? That's the way I see it.
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Well there's another way... make it so you can have fun even when losing.
that's how it is in Combat...
Basically in NS mode on aliens you have one option when losing - spawn, run at marine, die. oh yeah, and you could build a gorge fort.. but you have to sit still and it doesn't usually result in even one kill so it's not that great.
On marines you can sit back and focus fire at the fades, try to sneak a phase, beacon, drop shotties and rush the onos... little things that do nothing in the end but might give you one rewarding kill and provide that tiny little reason to stay on the server. You also spawn with armor so it's not a complete slaughter fest from the get go.
There's a billion trillion ways to improve the fun factor of aliens without removing skill but persuading people that there's even a problem is even tougher than fixing it. If there's any reason people stop playing NS it's not because the competative potiential isn't there.
Pub came first. It always comes first. Then comp rises from them. It's the other way around.
I think what destroys games are games where a few players determine the game from the start. I've had a couple games today where an exceptional player stopped aliens from leaving their hive. This ultimately allowed marines to cap every node, lock both hives and turret farm the rest. We might have had good players, but not even the best could get through packs of marines. It would take forever to get res as well.
Right now there's a huge gap between these godlike players and casual players. If one player is good enough to lock the hive by himself, then it's not fun for everyone else. Aliens give up. Other marines don't feel as if they've contributed for the win.