The Ongoing Education Effort

PhoeBubbaPhoeBubba Join Date: 2012-09-23 Member: 160475Members, Reinforced - Shadow
in NS2 General Discussion
Thank you for the introduction of better tutorials and systems for newer players, however I do not think they are achieving their aim, you are providing the tools to learn, but not the incentive. I have commanded several games since the free weekend started and for all your efforts at giving people help no one seems to be learning. Ground players are not heeding overall strategy nor paying attention to the commander, instead electing to play the game as a death match. Games devolve into a skirmish line in the middle of the map with no resource towers held anywhere else. Attempts to build into a proper game by a commander are met with frustration as the few good players on each team are able to snipe off isolated positions when only opposed by drifters/macs. I know NS2 is very strongly dependant on the individual player skill of the top few footsoldiers on each team, but when the rest of the team are too focused on the skirmish in the middle the effect is even more pronounced and frustrating.
Would it be possible to add functionality to encourage team play? I don't have any fully formed ideas but some starting points I have been mulling over are allowing the commander to award field promotions to foot troopers who are helping the team which rewards them with a better share of the resource distribution. Or a commander button to play annoying music over the headset of any player who refuses to play with the team (yes, okay this one is a terrible idea and will be incredibly abused, but we need some way of ensuring the message gets through).
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Comments

  • PhoeBubbaPhoeBubba Join Date: 2012-09-23 Member: 160475Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Another round, another crushing disappointment. It opened quite well, the other side had a commander who was trying to teach the team as well, but whereas his marines seemed to go where he wanted and build bases as needed my skulks were all running around in Courtyard ambushing the lone marines who wandered in there by accident every now and again. I had no way beyond pleading with them over voice coms of getting them to move out to the resource nodes I needed defended. We finished the match never having more than the 2 res nodes closest to our starting hive and barely enough evolution to put up more than a token defence against the exos.
    I fear that these sort of weekends are also harmful to the advertising image they are meant to enhance. New players enter games and half of them will experience a slow stomping into the ground as the team which is slightly better at following orders crushes them under the weight of tech upgrades. They will not understand why because they are individually playing their best, but the enemy just keeps getting stronger and they cannot afford to buy upgrades. They will not appreciate the strategic metagame and will simply assume that Unknown Worlds have written a badly designed game that is unbalanced and return to playing something else.
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  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    edited August 2013
    With the tutorial, tip clips, sandboxmode, vs bots mode and commander tutorial, there's plenty of tools there for the new players to learn the game. But most players, especially free-weekenders will just hop into a game straight away, to see what the game has to offer. As a commander, you have to simply ask them to do something and tell them why it's important. Other than that, there isn't much more you can do, either they listen or they don't.
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  • _Necro__Necro_ Join Date: 2011-02-15 Member: 81895Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Do you use your mic to educate the people? I found that the greens listen much more than people that already think they know the game.
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  • PhoeBubbaPhoeBubba Join Date: 2012-09-23 Member: 160475Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I definitely agree that the tools available have been increased to a satisfactory level, I've just been finding that a lot of players are approaching the game with an attitude of "it has a gunsight, I can pew pew, lets go straight in."
    I suppose those are the players that will not stick around so in the long term only the ones who wish to learn will remain and improve the community. It is just very frustrating in the short term. Defeat snatched from the mouth of victory by lack of cohesion :D
    That said, I did just have a wonderful game where both sides agreed to nominate a green commander and myself and another experienced player advised. I think both coms got a lot out of that and the match ended without the usual wave of rage quitting vitriol one associates with pub play. Hopefully some of them will stick around for the future.
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