Game Killing Problem
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">is there any solution?</div>Lets ignore, for a moment, the fact that aliens may or may not be horribly underpowered at the moment, with many players unwilling to join anything other than marines. I'm not aware of how this imbalance works at different skill levels, it may be far more apparent at the pub level than it is at the competitive level.
Lets rather just look at the two teams, and how they function at very low levels of skill (which is the most important level in this case). At low skill levels, aliens are plain harder to play. Even if all the changes that people are asking for went through, they would still be infinitely harder to play than marines. This was easily seen in the biscuit playthroughts. There was a pretty competent, above average gamer, who did quite well as marine, but didn't know his head from his tail as aliens. Of course, this will always be the case with a new mechanic, which few people are familiar with or have ever played, and obviously with experience comes improvement.
However, here is the problem. Because of the nature of NS1, and it being a mod and all, past the first week or so of release, the newcomers never outnumbered the experienced players. Maybe to begin with, there was a community of 100 or so people somewhere, and then that community slowly increased by 10 or so people a week. That was fine, because the majority of players were never newcomers. Sure, some games might have actually been won and lost based on how many new players were on a team, but one or two games isn't a problem.
With the release of NS2, this will not be the case. I am far less worried about veteran vs noob imbalances, and far more worried about noob on noob violence. Realistically, we can expect the marine victory percentage to skyrocket at release, simply because aliens is so much harder to understand and play. I genuinely foresee 90% of games going marines way around the 31st, not because of anything the marine team does, but because the aliens will just be clueless.
So why would you want to play a game in which one team always loses, and 50% of players in the game have to be on that team? Long story short, will NS2 survive through the teething stages?
Lets rather just look at the two teams, and how they function at very low levels of skill (which is the most important level in this case). At low skill levels, aliens are plain harder to play. Even if all the changes that people are asking for went through, they would still be infinitely harder to play than marines. This was easily seen in the biscuit playthroughts. There was a pretty competent, above average gamer, who did quite well as marine, but didn't know his head from his tail as aliens. Of course, this will always be the case with a new mechanic, which few people are familiar with or have ever played, and obviously with experience comes improvement.
However, here is the problem. Because of the nature of NS1, and it being a mod and all, past the first week or so of release, the newcomers never outnumbered the experienced players. Maybe to begin with, there was a community of 100 or so people somewhere, and then that community slowly increased by 10 or so people a week. That was fine, because the majority of players were never newcomers. Sure, some games might have actually been won and lost based on how many new players were on a team, but one or two games isn't a problem.
With the release of NS2, this will not be the case. I am far less worried about veteran vs noob imbalances, and far more worried about noob on noob violence. Realistically, we can expect the marine victory percentage to skyrocket at release, simply because aliens is so much harder to understand and play. I genuinely foresee 90% of games going marines way around the 31st, not because of anything the marine team does, but because the aliens will just be clueless.
So why would you want to play a game in which one team always loses, and 50% of players in the game have to be on that team? Long story short, will NS2 survive through the teething stages?
Comments
Sort of. It made me think. I've only played about 4 games since even 221 was released, and I know that 1 or 2 games does not indicate the overall balance of a patch. So then I was thinking maybe the teams are just skewed, or maybe its only imbalanced at this level of play. But at release, 90% of play is going to be at a very low level, and In my opinion the balance at that level is even more skewed than at any other, and it has nothing to do with the current balance state, its just because aliens are too different for any new player to be adequately skilled with them.
NS1 didn't have the same problem really, the problem of skewed balance at low levels. This is because the aliens were essentially a rambo team. Your res, your lifeform, your structures, you do what you want with them. The freedom was very empowering to even new players who didn't quite know what they were doing. Marines on the other hand were heavily team oriented, to the point where you could essentially get nothing done alone. This was hindering, even to people who were good at the classic FPS approach (hindering in a good, thought out team play way).
In NS2, if there is even any need for coordinated team play, both teams need it now. The organisational difference between the two teams was removed, but the new and unfamiliar mechanics of the alien team remains. I don't know how the influx of new players, combined with this clear imbalance at low levels of skill, will affect the evolution of this game.
I think the best way to get around this on your servers would be to implement random only teams and I mean only for people that want that on their servers as it is just now alot of admins make it random only this will mean that people are forced to learn to play alien if they want to play on that server and in doing so making the community as a whole better for it , because people once they give aliens a go will c the gd in them (aslong as we don't keep getting beating into the ground :P )
I think the best way to get around this on your servers would be to implement random only teams and I mean only for people that want that on their servers as it is just now alot of admins make it random only this will mean that people are forced to learn to play alien if they want to play on that server and in doing so making the community as a whole better for it , because people once they give aliens a go will c the gd in them (aslong as we don't keep getting beating into the ground :P )<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It isn't about people learning to play a game. People don't want a commitment, if they did they would play WoW. Why would someone spend a week or two playing a game with an ensured outcome, and a 50% chance to be on the team that always loses? Maybe I'm underestimating the average gamer, but that doesn't sound like an attractive proposition, just to learn how to play some indie game properly.
I played ns1 and loved it. Then stopped for a few years and got into BF3 and HoN... Now I come to ns2 and I feel I can't aim for ###### sometimes. I still feel the game is challenging mainly due to aim, and my team trying to pull some decent strategy.
I still think ns2 is unique as are each side aliens and Marines. I belive decent balance to the game will take time, keeping in mind trying to balance this game while trying to keep both side as unique as possible is extremely hard! My mind explodes thinking of all the factors involved. At the end of the day after release more players will come.. More new players. Which will probably be used to test more and then used to balance more.
Atm for me it's all about AIM and teamwork.
Compare this to marines who at the start have a decent game and just get more powerful, you can harass the alien team much easier (harvester hp is a joke can cutting cyst chains is very easy and annoying). Additionally the commander can make you nearly invincible (shield+medpac spam) vs small numbers of aliens. Add to that shotgun/jetpack godmode and its very clear why people play marine.
I think maybe bringing back focus bite and maybe not allowing marines to pick up dropped guns [or when an alien dies its resources are distributed among team (raw material being brought back to hive?)] might make a bit of a difference.
I think the bite cone isnt too bad at the moment, maybe a touch wider or make the mouth graphic narrower to relect the bite cone more. (It looks like i could chomp anywhere with all those teeth)
Even if this game was perfectly balanced for standard play, if you got someone who had never even heard of the game to play it, would they be better at marines or aliens? In my opinion, it is clear that they would be better at marines, as it has more in common with the classic FPS approach most people are used to.
So what happens when 90% of all players are new and inherently better at playing one team over the other. How do you think that is going to work out? My prediction: badly.
For release, the tutorials that experienced players put up will be very important for newbies. Video tutorials that showcase proper movement, techniques to throw off aim, the importance of pre-parasiting, using geometry as temporary cover, achieving advanced game sense, and others should be more than adequate for upcoming aliens. There's just so much alien players can learn to step their game up, but these things take time to figure out on their own. Game basics can be learned in-game on rookie servers while tutorials can be the little push somebody needs to get better at tackling well-known/veteran servers.
First impressions are important, but NS2 does not need to cater to newbies by dumbing down the game. Games that challenge us and force us to become better are more fun than easy games that provide immediate satisfaction imo. Keep in mind that this is an FPS game between real players as well, so there is no difficulty setting we can switch at any time. It's natural for FPS games to be almost rage-inducing because of players that kill you time after time, so newbies will either put the game down for a while or try to become better. This happens in all FPS games.
The only thing UWE can do now is balance aliens so that they feel more fluid and put in incentives for players to, well, keep playing. TF2 solves this by implementing humor that induces a feel-good atmosphere, various official game modes, and item drops that range from cosmetics to different weapons and in-game currency to trade for them. Things like these increase the longevity of FPS games since at their core, they're just temporary, match-to-match games. While I play NS2 nearly every day, I wouldn't play all day long partly because there are no permanent rewards to speak of besides getting better. I don't know about weapon/ability mods since they could potentially spiral out of control if implemented wrong, but cosmetics are something players have suggested before. Perhaps NS2 could use a ranking system based on experience to relay the player's commitment to the game or to provide other fun rewards.
It would be kinda nice if all the veteran pre-orderers went alien at release. But it would be rude to tell someone what they should do, and it would probably never happen. Ad stated by karnaj, the thing UWE needs to focus on now is alien balance.
Now OUR job as people who have played to Beta is to help others learn. Please, I beg you not to yell at all the new comms and such. There is only one way you got good, only one way <i>THEY</i> will get good, and if you don't give them advice, you will be hurting yourself as they will remain newbies. Keep an eye out for green "rookies" and help them any way you can. It just might give the NS2 community a better name too.
<dramatic>God help us all.</dramatic>
<dramatic>God help us all.</dramatic><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, the main reason I picked up NS1 originally is because I saw the potential and rewards of learning the game. And it was way less intuitive than NS2 is.
For NS2? I dunno if it has quite the same charm yet. We might make it eventually, but right now the past few games I haven't really hit my stride of "glory Moses I really want to learn this game." And I'm an olde NS1 vet with vested interest to learn this game. Take from that what you will.
But boy was it fun...
I actually apprehend this release much more, because it will be frustrating for experienced players to play on pubs with people who can't follow orders (even more so than it already is sometimes) while new players will just keep dying until they just put the game down after their billionth death against the same player (again even more so than it already is sometimes)
In ns2 getting next to people is easy, but killing them is silly hard. In my experience there is almost invariably a prolonged period of frantic jump spam and phasing through the enemy model, and while skill is certainly involved it neither feels nor looks very skillfull.
Frankly the same goes for marines. Both sides imo possess a small fraction of the deadliness they had in ns1 and to me feel downright weak. Sure if everyone is weak the game might end up being balanced, but that wont make it fun. (All this coming from someone who played ns1 this morning and ns2 yesterday evening so dont take this as being pure nostalgia).
<!--quoteo(post=1990973:date=Oct 13 2012, 05:34 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 13 2012, 05:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1990973"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The problem I see is that, for the first time in Natural Selection's (1 or 2) history, the experienced players are about to become the minority, massively so. In the past it was a case of the veterans teaching the new players. However, during this upcoming release event, chances are there won't be an experienced player around. It is fully feasible, and most probably likely, that the vast majority of servers won't have a single beta player on them. Its just going to be the blind being led by nobody.
<dramatic>God help us all.</dramatic><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, because the moment NS1 was released hundreds of experienced NS1 players spontaneously crawled out of the woodwork.
Also speaking as someone who sucks at aim, aliens are helluva easier to play than marines once you've gotten over the novelty of it.
Aliens have different classes, and each class plays very differently. Unlike any FPS out there. The problem is not aliens, it is just the understanding of them.
In ns2 getting next to people is easy, but killing them is silly hard. In my experience there is almost invariably a prolonged period of frantic jump spam and phasing through the enemy model, and while skill is certainly involved it neither feels nor looks very skillfull.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This describes my feelings as well, this was a little less the case with the wide bite cone last patch tbh, I originally liked the narrower bite cone but now I feel too weak as a skulk (although I have seen some very good ones still). I played probably 10+ pub games today and marines won every single game but 1 where we essentially stacked aliens, even when we had an incompetent commander. The marines essentially just charged around in a group and killed all the skulks. I am of course aware that this is my personal experience but its not like its from 1-2 games.
The only way to counter this ability to play as a team on aliens, are an over powering number of marines. How that is most easily accomplished, is just change the server size to 24, and it becomes way to easy for groups of marines to counter any teamwork of skulks. Servers should be no bigger than 10v10, and I think that is even a stretch, maybe 9v9 should be the top.
Skulks don't need to be buffed, people just need to learn how to attack correctly. Work together, attack from all sides, NEVER ON THE GROUND and only bite when you are right on a marine. If you aren't excellent at attacking marines quite yet, go kill some RTs, you'll get practice, usually 1v1 as marines often come solo to save RTs, and if they don't you'll be helping your team by killing RTs. With no res, marines can't tech up, and then as a skulk you won't be fighting against a3 with SG marines. That'll go a long way towards balancing the game.
What I often see as a "balance issue" is simply people not knowing how to play the game correctly. Ask questions.
The only way to counter this ability to play as a team on aliens, are an over powering number of marines. How that is most easily accomplished, is just change the server size to 24, and it becomes way to easy for groups of marines to counter any teamwork of skulks. Servers should be no bigger than 10v10, and I think that is even a stretch, maybe 9v9 should be the top.
Skulks don't need to be buffed, people just need to learn how to attack correctly. Work together, attack from all sides, NEVER ON THE GROUND and only bite when you are right on a marine. If you aren't excellent at attacking marines quite yet, go kill some RTs, you'll get practice, usually 1v1 as marines often come solo to save RTs, and if they don't you'll be helping your team by killing RTs. With no res, marines can't tech up, and then as a skulk you won't be fighting against a3 with SG marines. That'll go a long way towards balancing the game.
What I often see as a "balance issue" is simply people not knowing how to play the game correctly. Ask questions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you shouldn't need to group up to kill 1 marine, if you get on top of him he should die, the problem is currently even if you land 100% of your bites if the guy is awake you die instantly anyways.
The only way to counter this ability to play as a team on aliens, are an over powering number of marines. How that is most easily accomplished, is just change the server size to 24, and it becomes way to easy for groups of marines to counter any teamwork of skulks. Servers should be no bigger than 10v10, and I think that is even a stretch, maybe 9v9 should be the top.
Skulks don't need to be buffed, people just need to learn how to attack correctly. Work together, attack from all sides, NEVER ON THE GROUND and only bite when you are right on a marine. If you aren't excellent at attacking marines quite yet, go kill some RTs, you'll get practice, usually 1v1 as marines often come solo to save RTs, and if they don't you'll be helping your team by killing RTs. With no res, marines can't tech up, and then as a skulk you won't be fighting against a3 with SG marines. That'll go a long way towards balancing the game.
What I often see as a "balance issue" is simply people not knowing how to play the game correctly. Ask questions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you really think about what you are saying, its that skulks should have excellent teamwork, excellent positioning and excellent bite aim and then they can handle marines easily. I was actually of the same opinion as you when the most recent patch was first released, but it used to be that a team of 2 good skulks could handle 3-4 marines. Now a team of 2 skulks is lucky to handle 2 marines, becuase its just that much harder to land bites and marines are more mobile then before.
*each player's experience may vary :P
what?!?!!? you mean to tell me that 2v2 the aliens don't win 100% of the time. That boggles my mind. Why on earth shouldn't the aliens win 100% of the time when its a 2v2. i mean... skulks have 30 less health and 20 less armor. Why... they should win in a 2v2 every time. In fact, since they attack up close as opposed to the range attack of marines, they should win at least 200% of the time!!!!!1!111!!!1oneoneoeneone.
/sarcasm off
Seriously though.
Skulks are meant to be soft, gorgies less so. Lerks decent and Fades beasts. Onos even more so.
In NS1 and NS2, skulks are not supposed to win 1v1 battles. If they supremely out position, they should win maybe 75% of the time, but skulks should always be working in packs. A skulk should be useless on their own, they are a tiny thing with low health, they should not be 1v1ing marines most of the time.
There is this preconceived notion that between equal skill teammates, that one should be able to kill the other more than half the time. First that is wrong, if we accept equal skills, 50% is the best we can hope for. Second, in NS, the skulk should lose when working by itself, it is an inferior life form. It is tough for people who are new to fps games to admit, but they are inherently imbalanced, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Aliens spawn in waves to easily make up for their dying faster, and their upgraded lifeforms are far more powerful than most marines. The 1v1 imbalance of marines>aliens is why aliens have hivesight, parasite, cloaking, silence, is so that skulks can work together to attack marines.
Skulks are not nerfed to oblivion, they are being forced to work with their team, which is what NS is all about.
/sarcasm off
Seriously though.
Skulks are meant to be soft, gorgies less so. Lerks decent and Fades beasts. Onos even more so.
In NS1 and NS2, skulks are not supposed to win 1v1 battles. If they supremely out position, they should win maybe 75% of the time, but skulks should always be working in packs. A skulk should be useless on their own, they are a tiny thing with low health, they should not be 1v1ing marines most of the time.
There is this preconceived notion that between equal skill teammates, that one should be able to kill the other more than half the time. First that is wrong, if we accept equal skills, 50% is the best we can hope for. Second, in NS, the skulk should lose when working by itself, it is an inferior life form. It is tough for people who are new to fps games to admit, but they are inherently imbalanced, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Aliens spawn in waves to easily make up for their dying faster, and their upgraded lifeforms are far more powerful than most marines. The 1v1 imbalance of marines>aliens is why aliens have hivesight, parasite, cloaking, silence, is so that skulks can work together to attack marines.
Skulks are not nerfed to oblivion, they are being forced to work with their team, which is what NS is all about.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whatever, you are a crusader unable or unwilling to read between the lines so that you can prove how great you are even though most people think there is a problem. I of course meant skulks that get the drop on marines can typically beat them in an even situation, but not as much anymore.
I agree that aliens if they get the true drop on marines should win most of the time, but by most I mean about 75% at the greatest.
If that gets decreased a little, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. But i think more testing is needed. In recent competitive games I haven't seen it that big of a problem.
Also speaking as someone who sucks at aim, aliens are helluva easier to play than marines once you've gotten over the novelty of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It was actually completely the other way around in NS1, at least in my experience. Look at it in terms of the pros and cons to new players.
Aliens
Pros: Still formidable even when operating alone, isolated gameplay and resource system, do your own thing.
Cons: Unfamiliar and awkward control system, difficult to get the hang of.
Marines:
Pros: Familiar control system, most players have already mastered the basics of it.
Cons: Teamwork a complete and utter necessity. Nothing can be accomplished alone. Tech tree difficult to learn and master. Any one person relies on every other person in order to get upgrades.
In NS1, these balanced out kind of nicely, but honestly, aliens were far easier to win with in the early days, simply because marines were so damn complicated. Sure, you could shoot just fine and kill a lot of skulks, but when the fades and onos came, and you still only had 2 res towers and level 1 guns, the game was over.
Also, regardless of whether any of that is true or not, we are living in a very different time for gaming. Back in the HL mod heyday, gamers were very different. It was still predominantly the dedicated "hardcore" gamers that were playing. I mean hell, if you were still playing half life you had stuck with it for a good 3 years already. That kind of devotion is unheard of today. If you cannot hold the attention of todays gamers, you will quickly lose them to other games.
Even to a newcomer the skulk is pretty straightforward once you get you can walk on all surfaces, even more so than in NS1 where you would get caught in every little pipe and doodad when wall walking.
However, Skulks will need a buff of some kind, it feels like I'm dying in 3 bullets these days.
Spawning at the hive currently being attacked rarely results in anything productive on my part. I usually spawn and die to a shotgun instantly or fruitlessly attempt to attack without any upgrades. Mostly death to shotgun however.
The auto egg teleport thing is frustrating as well. There's nothing that indicates if and where you'll teleport. You can try and guess you'll be teleported if the space is awkwardly shaped, but where? It's a mystery. <a href="http://i.imgur.com/CaEik.jpg" target="_blank">It will even teleport me into a floor. </a>
Gorge clog placement feels clunky. It's hard to place clogs on top of each other as the clog being placed sporadically rotates around the clog already placed, making structures that are mostly straight a several minute job frustratingly moving your mouse by the smallest amount hoping for the decent spot only for it to flip onto the other side.
HUD not updating instantly.
I hope a lot of these will be addressed before release, because these only exacerbate my frustration.