It's been awhile...
WhiteWeasel
Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
Since I've played NS2. A few months to be exact. I have not played because of balance issues.
Nah, just kidding. You thought it was another rant thread didn't you. Well, When I play game I go through cycles, where I play the crap out of only one or two games. Then stop entirely on those and move onto the next. You can blame Terraria, Kerbal Space Program and Guns of icarus Online for me not playing.
Anyways I stopped a little after gorgeus. And seen some of Reinforced. I'd like to know how much the game and it's community has changed in the time past. I could always look a patch notes, but that is just dev stuff. It won't tell me about the status of the game or it's players at a glance.
Has the games popularity grown at all, or is "player retention" still an issue? This is a really good and unique Idea, it would be sad to see it shrivel up. Also Hughs channel has shrunk quite a bit. From about 30-50K views to barely 5k, and that worries me some.
Also when I left, did the balance change at all? When I left I personally think marines were a bit tough, but that's probably me and not the game. likely that I had not fully adjusted to the recent changes. (At the time) I know about webs, and grenades, but did the teams get any new toys since reinforced?
Sorry to barrage you all with questions, I just wanted to check up on how one of my favorite multiplayer FPS's is doing. Merry Christmas and cheers!
Nah, just kidding. You thought it was another rant thread didn't you. Well, When I play game I go through cycles, where I play the crap out of only one or two games. Then stop entirely on those and move onto the next. You can blame Terraria, Kerbal Space Program and Guns of icarus Online for me not playing.
Anyways I stopped a little after gorgeus. And seen some of Reinforced. I'd like to know how much the game and it's community has changed in the time past. I could always look a patch notes, but that is just dev stuff. It won't tell me about the status of the game or it's players at a glance.
Has the games popularity grown at all, or is "player retention" still an issue? This is a really good and unique Idea, it would be sad to see it shrivel up. Also Hughs channel has shrunk quite a bit. From about 30-50K views to barely 5k, and that worries me some.
Also when I left, did the balance change at all? When I left I personally think marines were a bit tough, but that's probably me and not the game. likely that I had not fully adjusted to the recent changes. (At the time) I know about webs, and grenades, but did the teams get any new toys since reinforced?
Sorry to barrage you all with questions, I just wanted to check up on how one of my favorite multiplayer FPS's is doing. Merry Christmas and cheers!
Comments
Player retention remains an issue. There's about as many people playing now as there were then.
There's a fair amount of team stacking in pubs, but otherwise the community isn't so bad.
Might as well give the game another try. Play for a few hours and see what you think
I suppose no matter how low the skill floor is, if you are still playing against gods, your enjoyment may suffer.
Yet it was that high skill ceiling which kept the hardcore/vet crowd around and invested (me included) and contributed to making a better game...
Sometimes i wonder how much skill ceiling i'd be willing to give up for what number of player population.. as it drifts more and more to COD levels the more i feel i would just walk away from the game. But would you have to go that far? I'm not sure you would..
Does this mean skillful games are dead?
The apparent cessation of content development won't help things. Community mappers will have to step their game up to keep people interested.
The community development has been going strong for a while, but it doesn't change the fact that people just aren't that interested in other mods and maps. As SOON as someone sees greybox textures they immediately say it sucks and vote for a different map, never giving it any consideration ever again. It's just the way it is.
I don't think the skill ceiling is what NS2's problem is. Plenty of games have high skill ceilings that are still massively popular. In the shooter world, Counter Strike would be a prime example. I play CS at a decently high level and have played since 2006. CS I would honestly argue is one of the truest tests of raw input skill of any video game. But with CS, it's simple: kill the other team. One aspect of the game is really all you need to focus on. The rest is secondary and easy to do (buy guns, plant bomb).
The problem comes when there exist many skill ceilings in one game I think. NS2 you not only need to be good at the various guns, but also an entirely different race + the macro / team aspect.
Dota2 / LoL compared to SC2 is another example. Lol and Dota2 require tremendous skill at high levels, but the skill ceiling is quite focused. You need to be good with your character, and that involves some simple time and again routines. Meanwhile in SC2, you have to be good at tons of macro, micro of different units + scouting, playing in a reactionary way and so forth. SC2 has seen its player base and tournament viewership slowly fall. Meanwhile the similar in nature RTS MOBA games have taken off. They still require lots of skill at high levels of play, but there are fewer skill ceilings to take into consideration.
tldr; Multiple high grade skill ceiling degrade the player base.
And also performance. This game just doesn't run half as smoothly as say any Source engine game.
Your first sentence is a weird opener in that regard.
There is not a shortage of competitive players out there, and as long as this game will be actively worked on, it will not die. The only time it will come close to dying, is in like 10 years when we all have oculous rifts glued in our heads and the government puts us in the matrix. Now onto my point on how to attract players.
While a high skill ceiling certainly turns away the mass of casuals, like you said, it does keep players that are more competitive playing the game. I have also seen this game turn casuals into competitive players. This may sound unorthadox, but I think it possible to literally make players more competitive by giving them the desire to improve and invest in that direction.
Some other games with high skillcaps that have been moderately to highly popular:
-Starcraft 1 + 2
-Counterstrike
-Super Smash Bros
-Streetfighter/Mortalkombat
-I also feel I should mention some number of MMOs such as WOW or Guild Wars.
-Some sports games such as FIFA.
-Probably more but I can't think of any.
While it is arguable that some of these games are strictly easier to learn, and you can't quite get stomped as opposed to ns2, we must learn what makes these games popular in order to make ns2 popular, and head casuals in the right direction.
First off, you must implement an elo based ranking system with matchmaking, which is already being done. This gives players a reason to keep playing. Look at League of Legends for example. Its skill cap is arguably very high, but has a huge playerbase. Without ranked queues that game would be very dead.
Secondly, you must ease in the player more. Guns of Icarus has a nice system of this. Even though the game works very differently from ns2, it still uses servers which can work for ns2. Guns of Icarus has servers made for players that are levels 1-3 only. Anyone above that level cannot join. Guns of Icarus does not have a matchmaking system however, and if ns2 gets a matchmaking system, this can be applied to it as well. Simply, if your rank is above a certain point you may not queue/join with these people. This system prevents stomping of any kind, unless someone decides to smurf I suppose. My only concern is that there won't be enough new people. I recommend implementing this near a sale.
Thirdly, better access to tutorials on how to learn the game and improve. We currently have ways to learn, and a lot of tutorials, but most of the tutorials we have are either outdated, or extremely long videos. Don't get me wrong, I like how UWE actually made a tutorial, but in my opinion, unstressed, unobjective, uncordination interaction is the best way to learn. By this I mean, in a closed setting, with no time limit, with no stress and how to learn quickly and on the fly. I propose a closed tutorial on a map by yourself with bots and a certain Australian voice actor that commands you where to go. "Oi lad, so you decided to enlist? How about you go up to that armory and grab yourself a welder, eh?" (I think that's Canadian but it works). Also a commanding tutorial would be nice, but that would probably be harder. Perhaps you could model it after Chivalry: Medieval War? It's a singleplayer tutorial that explains all the classes well, took about 10 minutes, and i felt very confident going into online matches afterwards.
Just remember not to balance towards pubs and only toward competitive. I believe over time, and with the elo system, pub games will look like comp games, even with new players. Balancing towards comp will be a step in the right direction, simply because it encourages improvement towards competitive. This, or you can make 2 game modes, which I strongly disagree with. I also disagree with trying to find a balance between pub and comp, but it suffices both sides, I'll agree to it. I probably am only saying this because i'm a comp player. I would definitely like other's ideas about this. I just want to clarify i'm not saying it isn't balanced, it's actually more balanced currently than it has in a long time imo, I just want to clarify what should be done in the future.
That's all I have to say. I think this is the most i've written on these forums before.
That depends on so many factors. First, what's "skill"? Many pub FFA players used to think that skill in Quake 1v1 deathmatches comprised solely aim and reflexes, and completely missed out on the vital strategic elements of the game which to me was at least as big a component of skill as aim and reflex. If we accept strategy as a component of skill, then as long as DotA and Starcraft are alive, skill-based games aren't dead.
Games won't die off. But I don't like where the industry is heading myself, and it's not the insipid COD clones that I'm thinking of. It's them mobile games and the whole F2P/P2W phenomenon that we gotta watch out for. I watched a youtube video of someone dropping $200 within 8 seconds into Clash of Clans just to buy some gems for use in the game. That's how money is made these days. There's still strategy to be had in that game, but who cares about that when you can just buy skill with cash? If that's where the money is, then that's where the industry will go eventually. I didn't f***ing grow up with games as a hobby to get away from the crappy rat race just to see games BECOME another rat race dammit. If NS2 required me to pay $90 to jump into an exosuit.....
I can only laugh at the hypocritical skill comments.
Absolutely not, play Mount and Blade: Warband ! (and win the Arena).
As for skillful games dying, I don't necessarily think so, I think we're just at a low-point. A HUGE mass of players has entered gaming, and they're currently in the entry stage of "spray and pray and oh look a lens flare isn't it pretty", but eventually they will ask for more. ...............I hope. I was okay with Counter-Strike for years, until it finally dawned on me that it's so goddamn one-dimensional. Playing quake/cs/whatever for an hour or so? Sure. For hours? .........soooooo booooored now. Maybe they will be the same, eventually.
Stay positive. ~O):|
Edit: I realize my point came across convoluted. I don't believe skillful games like NS2 with variety are gonna drop dead, but games like Quake and CS(I have a hard time putting CS in this category, it does have rng after all, practically birthed the damn thing)? Yes, probably.
I think one of the reasons that rookie friendly servers (not talking about rookie only) are NOT rookie friendly, is that there are incredibly few populated NON rookie servers. Right now if I refresh, I see ONE server that isn't full or empty, has a ping below one hundred, and isn't green. Counting full servers I see 5. There's almost nowhere else for non-rookies to go. So, since people want to actually play the game, they join whatever server they can.
By trying to appeal to rookies and gain playercounts, server admins (as a whole) may be unintentionally making things worse for rookies. I think servers need to start switching back to white, so that the rookies can better congregate in the REAL green servers. The bundle is over, and the steam sale will be over in a week.
Though I do have to place at least some of the blame on our 'Veterans'. I've been sneaking around on servers under a secondary Steam account, and the sheer amount of anatomy-waggling from 'competitive' players (winning, or blaming their team endlessly for ANY loss) is outright repugnant.
I know it sounds "noobish" etc etc... But many people like fast phase action, and dislike to run around a huuuge map "taking orders" like it even matters anyway in a pub, were u have basicly have no teamplay or communication usually.....? Im used to play clan matches in ns1. But in my honest opinion the ammount of STUFF u guys added into classic, power supply etc, flametrowers??? I mean common... You added more stuff like the flametrower etc and ure not even mentioning the effect of the gun to players? So example if ure new u might think "oooh flames THAT MUST DO MASSIVE dmg vs a fade" and "the veterans" pull the hair out of the head cuz of the noobs that are doing this and u have drama,, And both parts are turned of from playing basicly... I just honestly dont see the point in makeing ns2 so damn complicated, when u saw how long it took u guys to actually balance ns1, and make people 100% understand it? I just dont get it.... Its probably pretty damn close to balanced now compared to earlier, but it still just way to much useless clutter that ruins game exp, and not too mention makeing people lagg etc like the flametrower. Preformance issues in general, but thats been whined about enough so i wont spend time on it...
Aliens can now rush the power supply and the entire base is out of order?? Sounds so retarded imo..... Cuz why then even bother rushing the observatory like in old ns1 if u can just stomp the power.. And kill 0 upgrade marines when they come back with their flashlights?
Retarded lerk spikes (that got removed from ns1 for a reason if i dont remember wrong)
You removed the hmg? Why?
Added movement buttons for the fade?? WHY? Its like trying to put support wheels on a f1 car, and say THATS why its going so good.. cuz of those.... They honestly most of the time dont make any diffrence for the average player, that dunno how to get 17-19 in speed....
I know for a fact it turned many of my friends off.. ns 1 was so diffrent, it looked super simple and was hard to master... Ns2 just looks super hard and hard to master(if u havent played something like ns1 or similar)...
THAT is the turnoff i think many people get..
The game itself take ages to learn, ages to actually find a skulk or whatever in classic if u are new.. and then most likely u will die, without even understanding why u died.
And if u dont have the time to go too nswiki to read about whips crags shifts shells tactics alien commander etcetc all this mumbojumbo... Then u will probably do like 90% of people that bought humble bundle did, ul quit... Cuz lets face it... Why spend time to READ about how a game works? It should be fuckin obvious after u play for 1 hour... From what my friend thats been a gamer for 15 years now told me first time trying ns2... Just imo confirms my theory... He said it looks way too complicated, and when he is asking for help people calling him a dick etc....lol good old community
Im not saying combat is the key here or whatever, im just saying what i used to say back in ns1.. That combat could help people understand more about the game WHILE haveing fun.... Understanding what upgrades do etc, testing out how it is to fade\lerk vs marines without really ruining the game for everyone else if u die fast..
Basicly not everyone is that commited to ns2 (like the old ns1 players) that they would spend such a huge ammount of time too read about tactics and read about what the diffrent things do and dont do... Not to mention do u honestly think a game that changes most of the movments etc every patch will get a big playerbase? Doing that is basicly wasteing peoples time... You become a super good fade, next patch u suck again... Its silly.... And im SURE many people quit because of reasons like this.... Cuz its not many games that make huuuuuge changes like this when "its a complete game" aka not in beta anymore....
Ingame tutorials? That is awsome that u did that, but it still dont change the fact that this game consists of waaaaaaay to many structures weapons combined that with a kinda unusuall gameplay fps\rts, then ul have a complete confusing mix. That would look way to time consuming for a average humble bundle player...??? or??
And atm there is 1 totaly broken combat server.. rest is crap and cant even run the mod... That is quite sad IMO..
If not combat, just another gamemode than classic. Or simply complete the matchmakeing system, so people could enojy 6v6 with people at their own skill lvl... But THAT would honestly be a long shot..... Cuz atm 99% of the hive info is false due to bug abuse or just lack of servers running the mod...
Il be honest i really love 6v6 ns2 but i can count on 1 hand how many times i bothered trying to merc for someone mainly due to lack of time\activity.... I really enojy it atleast... But im gonna be 100% honest and say that i still havent played what i would consider a good game in public yet.... 10 v 10 servers etc....Might been just my bad luck, but usually commander sells base due to lack of brains on marine team... Since alien is considered a teamplay team i yet really havent bothered to play it much in public...
Cuz the few times i did try it was just a total mess.... Mainly due to lack of understanding of the maps and structures and lifeforms i would say... And the fact that aliens have to rely on movment + teamplay... What do u do in public when 50-75% of ure team cant do eigther very well? Vs a team of stacked up aimbotting marines? It just sucks the fun out of the game...
To take a short example... in ns1, people couldent even master the fade very well, even tough it had potential to be a MONSTER...... and it only had 1 type of movment...
Now u have about 5 diffrent types of blink directions if u count shadowstep in all directions + blink... Is this not just completly pointless? And adding on the confusing part i was talking about...
Then u add inn vortex "superstab" at slot 3 whatever its called... I mean u get the picture.... Its WAY way to complicated, when it could be just as much fun with less clutter.... Anyone honestly use vortex or "superstab" that consider themselfs a awsome fade? Cuz i would like to see how it adds to the gameplay in any way... or if its in fact just useless clutter thats confusing ppl...
And another thing, what honestly is the point with rookie friendly servers? Cant people do like we used to? Learn as u go etc with others on diffrent skillcaps?
Cuz the only thing i see it doing atm, is takeing up shitloads of server space.. And hardly any rookies are there anyway.. So why dedicate a entire server, were people feel its justified to kick just cuz someone got high k\d ratio?
I mean u dont exactly gain anything but skill while playing ns2.. And the ammount of rookie servers there are, i feel is a way of punishing people that became to good.. Cuz it serves no other purpose atm than to make drama etc, cuz u left it mostly up to the players themselfs to point out who is too good and who is rookie friendly, since non rookies join all the time with no problem.. Aslong as they are to drunk to hit shit its fine?
Basicly if u have rookie servers, make sure 95% of the people on it are actually rookies then, maybe 1 or 2 players to teach or command on each team... Otherwise what is honestly the point? To create drama?
Thats just my2cent... Let the rant begin... lol...
I know most people wouldent agree on many of these points... I can only speak from my own point of view tbh and the people i know IRL, were i got my "noob" pov`s from..
Hope ure head is getting better cuz it would be fun to hear a actually reply, of some of the points beeing made.
Sad part is dude that they would most likely end up rejoining the same "rookie friendly" server.. Due to the extreme lack of normal servers.... And then they have to live on the mercy of the admin and the rest of the server, and like you said they would " Keep a close eye on that k\d ratio"... We dont want people to learn and become good, or wait we do? Im confused.
The idea of the servers themselfs were awsome, but the way it got putten into action and implemented was a huge and entire fail...
Funny thing i just watched how you whined at xnor for doing "personal attacks" at you... Maybe you should try and not become the same dick youreself?
I dident ask to watch my grammar, my sentence structure..
Its in english and im sure you can read what it says... So dont act like a dick, nor my English teacher.. I say whats on my mind, and if u dont understand it due to youre own lack of braincells or vision.. then basicly just dont comment. Cuz its nothing but rude and ignorant...
That being said, I'm just going ignore you just as I did with last douchebag because I can already see where this is going. When you make posts like your last two, you're basically asking people to confront you. I will not be baited. Sorry. However, if you decide to change your tone, POSSIBLY clean your sentences to make them a tad bit easier to read, and agree to have a CIVIL and MATURE debate, I will post my thoughts regarding your opinion. That is all.
You honestly dident think ure comments would be looked uppon as rude? How stupid are u?
Did u comment on the post? That was my only point... Dont make rude comments without even saying anything but that... Cuz its pointless... U can keep it to ureself, i know just aswell as u that my structure sucks.. But what point is it to reply 2-3 times about, "how much it sucks and making ure brain hurt"? Youre reading what u wrote ureself right? In context?
I sure hope so...
If u think im a douchbag for saying this to you then OK. Im fine with that, because i know im not the guy ure trying to draw a picture off... I called u out when ure making comments that has nothing to do with the case at hand, and u reply with yet another off topic reply? And saying how YOU will enter the discussion when it becomes more CIVIL and MATURE? When ure the only one commenting about useless shit so far? Seems kinda ironic in my book...
If you decide to enter the discussion in a mature manner and in a civil manner.. Aka not beein a rude prick.. Then i can ASSURE u that MY tone will change.. Why would i even be mad at u for no reason? I never seen u, played with u or anything...? 0 discussions before here or on old ns1 forum... So trust me my only additude problem towards u.. U are the creator of, with youre rude and pointless comments earlier...