NarfwakJoin Date: 2002-11-02Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
Pertaining to the topic at hand I did finally run into a group of people smurfing and team stacking on a rookie server this weekend and in general trying to troll rookie players. I'm happy to say that I managed to play well enough to make them all ragequit (a rare feat for me!) but it was a pretty depressing spectacle regardless. At least I know where you're coming from on the topic now. Without delving back into the topic of trying to find a systematic way to address the issue I'd suggest that anyone who sees this kind of thing happen try to embody the spirit you'd like to see in the community and provide a counterexample of what it means to be a good NS2 player. Believe me, it feels really, really good when you get to educate a bunch of greens well enough to curbstomp a bunch of smurfing bullies hard enough that they all give up.
Pertaining to the topic at hand I did finally run into a group of people smurfing and team stacking on a rookie server this weekend and in general trying to troll rookie players. I'm happy to say that I managed to play well enough to make them all ragequit (a rare feat for me!) but it was a pretty depressing spectacle regardless. At least I know where you're coming from on the topic now. Without delving back into the topic of trying to find a systematic way to address the issue I'd suggest that anyone who sees this kind of thing happen try to embody the spirit you'd like to see in the community and provide a counterexample of what it means to be a good NS2 player. Believe me, it feels really, really good when you get to educate a bunch of greens well enough to curbstomp a bunch of smurfing bullies hard enough that they all give up.
2 options
*If they had a clan tag this cannot be a real serious (as dangerous) clan.
*There is nothing challenging for a real clan in public "rookie" games. Exept (maybe) warming up before a match. You usually don't see them much as they are waiting for server address/time and such. Once they have it they leave. This looks like a ragequit but it isn't.
Well, from my experience, most of the time good players make stacked teams. One side: the normal or new players, the other side: the good players. Its just a stomp, where rookies wont learn anything. I mean, whatever direction you go and try to follow a strategie, you get killed. This is especially the case, when the good players are rines.
My friend and I have some trouble finding some funserver, where you can have exciting matches. Luckily we live in europe, so our possible servernumber is quite big.
With these words, I think this is, what the OP means. Proplayers shouldnt stack teams anyway, but especially not on a rookieserver =/.
Well from my perspective, after playing in the beta for many months and having a good bit of skill built up I played the first few days after release. During those first couple days I stomped every not beta player I came across so I quit playing for awhile. When I came back people were getting better and it became fun again. I don't particularly like having 0 challenge, at the same time though I absolutely hate being on a team where I have more kills than my entire team put together and still losing. This is generally why I try to join servers with people I know because at least I'll know one other good person is on my team. Honestly I enjoy games that are evenly matched much more, but it's hard to play games where it's stacked either way.
I will say though that I've seen a lot of comp or more experienced players go on opposite teams just to not kill the server or to have an actually good match. Nxzl for example was pretty good about that, and usually inversion as well.
Difficult, yes. But doable. Very, very doable, and I would even go so far as to say well worth doing.
I don't see what the point of that would be, at all. So a system that informs us that the game is imbalanced in terms of 'skill' ... They are going to create this all just to inform people that there is a skill differential, that they could have logically deduced from the outcome of the game.
The point is to learn that there is a skill differential before playing the game, rather than finding out after-the-fact from the game's outcome. If you know beforehand that the game is imbalanced, perhaps some of the high-skill players will change sides before it starts and thereby make the ensuing game a better one for everyone.
how accurate can these measurements be..? sometimes a game just goes lopsided, have you ever played dota? How's the ELO work out in that? I had more games that were better before ELO was introduced.)
These measurements can be very accurate, or at least accurate enough to be much better than nothing. I haven't played dota and certainly can't argue against your own experiences, but bear in mind that Elo is a statistical tool, not a guarantee. Elo-matched games are more likely to be even than randomly-matched games are. That doesn't mean that Elo-matched games are always perfect. Also, games can be lopsided when they play out due to any number of factors even if the teams are closely matched in skill, so a game that looks like a one-sided rout may have actually been an even match at the start of the game.
I often am on rookie friendly servers because honestly they aren't rookie only servers they are just supposed to be places where they aren't going to be bothered for sucking and stuff, it's hard enough finding a server with good ping that has the right amount of players and isn't full, let alone sitting around waiting for some special server you're supposed to find if you're not horrible. On these servers more often the issue is one team is just filled with people who have absolutely no clue, and so they get squashed.
My suggestion for soft matchmaking would make it clear before the game began that one team was filled with clueless people about to get squashed. Everyone would know the game was a forgone conclusion before anyone even got in the command chair. And so, maybe, just maybe, one or more of the not-clueless players would switch sides in an attempt to get a game worth playing.
My suggestion also wouldn't restrict expert players from joining novice servers, or vice versa, so you wouldn't have to worry about sitting around waiting for some special server. If there's only one server with a decent ping and an open slot, then go for it, more power to you. But for players who do have a choice between several servers, seeing the average skill level of the current players before they join would help them choose a server where they'll have the most fun. For some, that might be a low-skill server to have an easy game, and for others, that might be a high-skill server to have a decent challenge.
One solution to stacking that I have seen work well was when the server admin randomized the teams at the start of each round. More servers need this imo. Also a vote random option would also be great if no admin was on. The only downside is sometimes you end up playing alien/ marines 5 times in a row. I normally like to swap each round.
Comments
2 options
*If they had a clan tag this cannot be a real serious (as dangerous) clan.
*There is nothing challenging for a real clan in public "rookie" games. Exept (maybe) warming up before a match. You usually don't see them much as they are waiting for server address/time and such. Once they have it they leave. This looks like a ragequit but it isn't.
My friend and I have some trouble finding some funserver, where you can have exciting matches. Luckily we live in europe, so our possible servernumber is quite big.
With these words, I think this is, what the OP means. Proplayers shouldnt stack teams anyway, but especially not on a rookieserver =/.
I will say though that I've seen a lot of comp or more experienced players go on opposite teams just to not kill the server or to have an actually good match. Nxzl for example was pretty good about that, and usually inversion as well.
These measurements can be very accurate, or at least accurate enough to be much better than nothing. I haven't played dota and certainly can't argue against your own experiences, but bear in mind that Elo is a statistical tool, not a guarantee. Elo-matched games are more likely to be even than randomly-matched games are. That doesn't mean that Elo-matched games are always perfect. Also, games can be lopsided when they play out due to any number of factors even if the teams are closely matched in skill, so a game that looks like a one-sided rout may have actually been an even match at the start of the game.
My suggestion for soft matchmaking would make it clear before the game began that one team was filled with clueless people about to get squashed. Everyone would know the game was a forgone conclusion before anyone even got in the command chair. And so, maybe, just maybe, one or more of the not-clueless players would switch sides in an attempt to get a game worth playing.
My suggestion also wouldn't restrict expert players from joining novice servers, or vice versa, so you wouldn't have to worry about sitting around waiting for some special server. If there's only one server with a decent ping and an open slot, then go for it, more power to you. But for players who do have a choice between several servers, seeing the average skill level of the current players before they join would help them choose a server where they'll have the most fun. For some, that might be a low-skill server to have an easy game, and for others, that might be a high-skill server to have a decent challenge.