State of the Game Show Balance discussion
Wob
Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I think tomorrow's discussion with Andi about balance is going to be pivotal for the current players on whether they leave the game or stay.
No matter what features are implemented or not, players are going to leave. "One man's shoe may fit him perfectly, but may pinch another's heel"
Some are going to like the changes, some won't. This is not what I have come to discuss on the forum. What I have come to bring to attention is the fact that uncertainty will certainly kill the player count.
People WANT to know what's coming. People WANT to know when change is coming. People do not want to be hassled around with vague answers and mystery behind the changes. I understand that it's near impossible to put a definitive date on the release but please give a realistic time of delivery. We know things are in motion but please give us as much information as you can! There is no need to be mysterious. You are not trying to capture our interest, you're trying to keep hold of it!
No matter what features are implemented or not, players are going to leave. "One man's shoe may fit him perfectly, but may pinch another's heel"
Some are going to like the changes, some won't. This is not what I have come to discuss on the forum. What I have come to bring to attention is the fact that uncertainty will certainly kill the player count.
People WANT to know what's coming. People WANT to know when change is coming. People do not want to be hassled around with vague answers and mystery behind the changes. I understand that it's near impossible to put a definitive date on the release but please give a realistic time of delivery. We know things are in motion but please give us as much information as you can! There is no need to be mysterious. You are not trying to capture our interest, you're trying to keep hold of it!
Comments
I don't see any downside whatsoever to implementing drastic changes to game play. Doing nothing and patching problems with band aid fixes for a year hasn't worked out so well for the player base either.
You can see the changes yourself, there's no great mystery. There's usually at least one active BT server running with people in it.
Sewleks project shouldn't even be called the balance test imo. It's more about making the game play less limiting, frustrating and giving room for players to get better.
edit: I might of misunderstood your post. I too hope a date is given, but it won't be.
It has been said that not all features will be implemented so I think it's important players know what's happening. I don't think many people want to hear "There's a balance mod being tested, some features are interesting and we're considering some of them". I want to hear definitive stuff like "We want to keep our movement we made because that's how we want the game to be played" or "We really like what sewlek has done with the movement and we're going to use it!"
If this change is looming over the game, people aren't going to want to practice with the knowledge that the game could change and have their hours wasted. No practise, no pcws, no pcws and teams fold. Obviously not everyone is going to have this opinion, but when the player base is already so low, it's actually a large percentage. Quoth gaming, Onslaught, and moebius every day of the week because they're basically the only opponent.
I don't think driving off existing players is exactly UIWE's biggest problem right now. *bucket with holes analogy here*.
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*edit*
Here are some nice graphs to illustrate the point.
1 month duration (before and after) the big march free weekend spike. Notice no systematic increasing in player count.
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920&from=1362661200000&to=1365343200000
Steadily declining ever since march free weekend, untill it falls off the bottom of steam stats (any game with about < 800 players peak records a count of 0 on steam graphs because steam no longer announces player counts for those games).
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920&from=1364734800000&to=End+Time
Active players on any given night is now something like 200/600 at best, down from 900/2000 only just a month ago. I personally thought it would bottom out at something like 600/1500 back then, so now i wonder how much lower it can go from current populations.
And just before OP says that this is the normal player population cycle for an indie game with such a strange, new topic - let's not forget the longevity and brand integrity of ns1. Ns2 has only been out 6 months, and as a multiplayer game should really be expecting to see increasing population trends so close after release.
If people have concerns about 'bhop', i suggest spending an hour or so learning how to make bt skulk movement flow. Then go back to vanilla skulk and notice both how lacklustre the vanilla controls are, and how low the skill ceiling is.
It's not perfect, and i'm sure andi would love to hear your feedback on what he can do to improve skulk movement, but simply saying there's no need for it is like saying there's no need to have steering wheels in cars.
L2L2P
Some people want change or they'll leave because they're bored. If the changes are not announced, they'll leave because they don't believe the game is evolving out of the stale nature it has become.
Some people don't want change and will not adapt because they don't enjoy the jump into the new changes. If they get the chance to practice, at least they'll be able to know if they're going to enjoy and anticipate for the change.
Oh, wait, you also said this:
On the contrary, I think that's exactly what many people want to hear.
If that's really what you want to hear, then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. Changes are coming, they're trying to figure out what the best changes are to make, and you can actively participate in the process. What more could you possibly ask for? Would you rather that they not say anything at all until they've decided for sure what they will and won't change? How is that better?
If that's really what you want to hear, why not just close your ears until it's done? Then that's exactly what you'll hear.
I'm pretty sure its been talked about ad nauseam over at http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128755/sewleks-balance-mod/p1
Also @Elodea thanks for those killer graphs. I have the NS2 site auto-load every time I open up firefox and I weep at the player counts day in and day out. I know I am contributing by not playing, and I wish I had an answer to why I don't play. Off the top of my head it seems there is a myriad responses to that, and I am just one person. The lack of player retention of this game must be addressed, not for this particular game as I fear its too late for that, but for any game released by UWE in the future.
More on topic I feel the recent State of Development post is this elaborate sugar coated piece of garbage we get aimed at the masses. News flash, the masses aren't playing your game. Can we get some down to earth information that we can actually appreciate? (That was harsh I know.)
Look I love this game, I do. But for all the copies I've purchased for friends/family, if you can't get me to play, how am I suppose to get them to play? I think this question applies to the said masses.
I don't know who you are talking about when you say 'all ns2 comp players'. I think you literally made up that whole post.
Didn't you know? You aren't allowed to put anything on the internet that isn't true.
SOTG balance discussion is a great idea, their are alot of forum warriors spouting shit about the game or picking 1 change out of 100 that they don't like and writing off the entire mod. Lets face it, their is so many changes that no one can like every single change but you have to look at the mod as an overall.
The game is in need of a drastic kick in the arse, player numbers are dwindling and it needs a massive rework for people to even show interest in the game. I think of this as the redemption of NS2, similar to 1.04 -> 2.0.
Release balance mod + eclipse/whatever map they have in the works
Free weekend
Boom! That will extend the life of the game...
I said in "this" scene ie referring to the scene in which I play and more specifically the ones who have left. I think you literally did not read that whole post, which seems to be a running theme for you.
"People who used to play ns2 competitively and then stopped because they didn't really like the game have been telling me how much they enjoy the bt mod and that they will come back when it comes out. This pretty much is the opinion of all ns2 comp players that have left in this scene."
Sorry, I should have made myself clearer.
I meant the first group of people want to know when the game will be changed, not just a confirmation that it will. Games and changes have been known to take years to properly be implemented.
It's generally not a good idea to get a whole bunch of people together to influence the making of, essentially, a new game. You have no general idea behind it and the whole game becomes a mess of multiple ideas from multiple people with no real cohesion or synergy. Therefore, READ "It has been said that not all features will be implemented so I think it's important players know what's happening". Saying the second group of people can play the bt and have input is NOT the same as knowing what to practice. What's the point in playing vanilla when you MIGHT have to change complete movement mechanics. Whats the point in playing bt and learning movement mechanics if they MIGHT not get implemented?
The second group of people are still dissatisfied.
Again I think you misunderstood. Yes people want to hear that they're interested in looking into the balance mod, but they should say specifically what they are interested in. I didn't say they should announce what they have definitely made their minds up about. You can be interested in removing the armory requirement for all tech routes, for example without explicitly saying they are cemented in taking that route. Obviously making bull up is just not beneficial to anyone so if they don't have any idea, say they don't have any idea. Although that's bad because people will lose hope and quit.
Closing ears and waiting till it is done is exactly the problem.
UWE must respond which is what this opportunity is about. However, they must respond in a firm and positive manner which gives the players details to look forward to.
As for you and your team leaving I cannot account for every instance of insanity present in the world. Not sure I really care about the loss of player who think the game is dandy while player counts continue to plummet.
Mine too. And opponents we play every day said the same thing. We're hoping someone who is capable (because we're certainly not :P), will be able to store this current version as a mod and we'll be able to use it when we want for fun.
People can kick and scream that this will divide the community more and dwindle the playercount but simply put, a lot of (proportional to player size already) of teams don't like the upcoming changes and enjoy vanilla more. I'm not saying the majority, because I don't know stats and numbers, i'm just saying a lot and basically all our competitors at our level.
Read properly. I've bolded the parts that you should pay attention to, as well as the parts that you have somehow chosen not to read.
Why ns1 players? Because they have a better understanding of gameplay depth (current vs potential) in this particular title.
-sincerely ns1 player
NS2 is a different game. It has some features which are more enjoyable than ns1 and some which are less so. They're different games, they're going to have different features...
It seems to me that you have unreasonable expectations of UWE. You're demanding to know something that UWE does not know yet and cannot know yet. They know that they want to improve the game, but figuring out the best way to improve the game is a complicated and time-consuming task. UWE is working on it now with Sewlek's mod. You can see the work that they are doing as they do it. Once that work has progressed far enough, then UWE will start making more concrete plans as to what changes will be included in the mainline game and how long it will take to include them, and I'm sure that they will announce those plans when they are firm enough to be worth announcing.
You need to have some patience. Nobody could do what you are demanding, and if they tried, they would only make things worse. They would either miss the announced deadline or make compromises to the quality of their work in order to hit the announced deadline.
I agree with you, but that's not what's happening here. There is a single mind behind the changes that are being considered right now - Andi's. He's getting feedback from many people, and that feedback is as diverse as you might expect, but by no means is this a design-by-committee. Andi is making his own decisions and proceeding according to his own sense of what the game should be like.
Here, alas, I'm afraid I may be less than polite. I simply don't have any sympathy for the viewpoint that you or other competitive players need to know what you should start practicing. "What's the point in playing vanilla?" "What's the point in playing bt?" I would have thought the point in playing ANY version is that you find it fun. If the only reason to play a game is to practice it so that you can get good at it, well, then, there's not really any point in playing ANY game. You might as well spend your time practicing some other arbitrary and meaningless task to demonstrate your hand-eye coordination, like knucklebones. You can get good at that game and be confident that nobody will ever change the rules on you.
That's not to say that there's anything wrong with practicing at a game to become good at it. That's fine. That's great. That's wonderful. I'm delighted that there are people who enjoy the game so much that they want to devote that kind of time to it. Hooray for the competitive players. Long may your flags wave and glorious may your casted deeds be.
What I am saying is that UWE should not be rushed into making important decisions just so that the competitive players can know as soon as possible what they should start practicing. As I said earlier - if you truly are competitive, then you should be able to adapt to anything that's thrown at you. Nobody cares who's better at some specific arbitrary mechanical task like old-shadowstep vs new-shadowstep. What's interesting, what's impressive, what's worthy of the label "competitive NS2 player" is being able to excel at NS2, whatever NS2 happens to be. And what NS2 should be is the best game that it can possibly be, and if it takes more time for UWE to figure out how to make it the best it can be, well, then, that's time well spent.
I hope I've not misunderstood or misrepresented your viewpoint.
I think you're seeing a problem that is practically non existant. How many competitive players have stopped playing because there might be changes coming to the game at some point in the future? If anything, active comp players will probably do more and more of the bt mod testing as it gets closer to "release".
Anyway, I'm guessing UWE will give out specific and detailed change logs when they've actually decided on them. You can't do such a thing when you're still in full testing. It wouldn't make sense. What's the point in saying feature x and y will make the cut, when it might still get changed? So I don't know what you're asking for.
This patch really gave me hope that ns2 can become as fun as ns1.
I would say right now the comp scene is right on the edge of a huge player amount abandoning the game. Many took a break and many are just hanging around and waiting for the new patch. If this new patch won't satisfy the comp scene I'm pretty sure there is a huge chance that many good players will stop playing the game.