if the net effect is a dead server it matters fuck all if your massively outplaying the rest of the server deliberately or not. All this talk of "teaching" players is quite frankly pointless if the don't want to learn, which returns to the original point of players will leave eventually after getting reamed over and over.
In that case this game died over a year ago if we are left today with a community not intent on learning and improving to become better than the horribly low average skill that is found today.
This is exactly what is not happening. These people that go on rookie servers are NOT pros. They are NOT prem players. They are NOT div 1 players. Stop slandering an entire section of the community "competitive players" and focus on those players I posted a couple of pages back from the HIVE stats showing UWE rookie server stomping with 1500-1800 points per round. Those players are NOT competitive, they are STOMPERS.
Hive data is all but irreverent. Case in point my last game was def a stomp along with the help of another gorge. The round was 9 min long and I got score of like 400 after going like 18-1. Hive stats mean nothing.
I agree with your point though, its less the comp players stomping as it is regular pubbers. However, that is just because comp players are busy playing comp or quite simply dont have fun playing pub anymore.
With that said this whole thread is pointless. The soul problem this game has is in the core design allowing 1 player to dominate a whole game. The player base isn't large enough to support separating bad players from good players and I don't ever see this changing at this point. You can tell the good player to play support roles all day long but even the nicest guy will get bored and want to have fun eventually. Fun meaning simply playing the game how they want to and not forced into specific roles. Or servers can start skill banning which still happens frequently in US servers in which case will only make the player count smaller making things worse. Nothing is going to change unless elements are added to the game to allow players to nerf themselves or servers to nerf them forcefully.
What I mean by that are things like dmg output reduction, hp reduction, energy pool reduction. Things like that that will be unnoticeable to the less skilled player so their experience doesn't change at the same time allowing the skilled player to be as try hard as they want. That is the only practical solution to this problem that I see. A first step would be completely player controlled using a console command "sv_damage x" where x can be a value from .1 to 1.0 and indicates the % damage you want to do that round. Might be a good first step at maintaining player retention since vets and noobs will always be in the same server.
As a mediocre player, I don't mind playing against good players. I just hate it when they camp outside the base and deny the entire map for a team. Having a 22/1 kill ratio sucks, but when they're 22/1 and cutting the cyst chain right outside the base it pretty much ends the game. You can't expect to have a change at winning or even competing when it takes 4 skulks to kill one guy who just keeps spawning and returning to the same spot. I feel like they could easily play while still getting lots of kills and not make the game totally one sided.
Sniping upgrades, cutting the cyst chain, and being generally annoying is a great way to win the game, but when you have a crazy kill ratio don't you think it's a little much? Couldn't you defend RTs, cover your team as they build, or play the game in other ways that are still fun without totally ruining it for everyone else on the server?
All I'm saying is let the other team get a foothold as a handicap before decimating them. I think both parties would benefit.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@nachos
I'm not going to tell you that you are existing in a bubble, but you also cannot tell myself and others what what we have or have not personally experienced numerous times. Come on..
Also, really? Are you honestly trying to use hive stats as a reliable measure of something? I could give a list of reasons of how or why you shouldn't do that, like egg locking or the algorithm utilized etc, but I don't think I have to even do that.. I think I can safely say that it's (unfortunately) universally accepted as a measure of nothing really, in its current form.
What @current1y said is spot on in every way, and I've always loved his voluntary handicap idea - it's an eloquent solution Imo.
Hell, even I have inadvertently emptied a server before because I didn't want to hold back. There is just such a skill gap allowed for by design.
A first step would be completely player controlled using a console command "sv_damage x" where x can be a value from .1 to 1.0 and indicates the % damage you want to do that round. Might be a good first step at maintaining player retention since vets and noobs will always be in the same server.
I kind of like this idea.
A player could nerf themselves if they so desired. Make it a bit harder for themselves. That could be a huge step in the right direction. As you can see from the competitive player's posts in this thread, their desire (generally) is not to just take a dump on everyone. This could let them play with the same intensity without destroying everyone. They wouldn't be forced to just backcap or gorge all game. Currently actually suggested that you get a note on the scoreboard that tells everyone how much your damage is nerfed. Like if you're doing 75% damage it would have a small "75%" next to your name. Then it kind of gives the players some pride in the fact that they're nerfed and it's not secretive.
If we were to introduce something where a server could nerf someone, I'd hesitate on how much power to give them. Like perhaps they could nerf a player to do only 75% damage, but no lower than that. Otherwise you'll have people who get irritated and just nerf good players down to 10% damage. Then everyone is frustrated. I'm not sure I'm all for this though. I think it could be abusive.
This could also be nice for helping rookies. If we were to do Rookie ONLY servers, anyone that has over a certain number of hours gets their damage nerfed. We'd have to have alerts everywhere to let players know that they will be nerfed in a rookie only server, but still. It could do a lot.
I'm not even sure that this is possible to implement, to be honest. If it is though, it could be excellent.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2014
Make it voluntary only by the player, not based on the server or other players, where they enter a client side command with a variable that controls their damage output.
I. E. Typing "Handicap 25" in the console would apply -25% damage to all weapons to just that player.
Then the rest of the server would be notified with a chat message "IronHorse has applied a handicap to himself of 25% less damage."
I see no down sides to this.. New players' game and learning is not negatively impacted, yet the vet can play as hard as they want in any server.
Also, there is a very big downside to this is making a simple command like this optional you have to wonder how many people will actually do it. If you given them recognition for it I would say its more likely to happen but at the end players still need to want the challenge of it. Adding it to the scoreboard would allow the player to take pride in the decision. Rather then it being a secretive nerf no one knows about.
EDIT: ok we'll ghoul was a boss and got a mod working for the idea already..............O_o. Consol command is sv_handicap <0.1 to 1>
This is exactly what is not happening. These people that go on rookie servers are NOT pros. They are NOT prem players. They are NOT div 1 players. Stop slandering an entire section of the community "competitive players" and focus on those players I posted a couple of pages back from the HIVE stats showing UWE rookie server stomping with 1500-1800 points per round. Those players are NOT competitive, they are STOMPERS.
Hive data is all but irreverent. Case in point my last game was def a stomp along with the help of another gorge. The round was 9 min long and I got score of like 400 after going like 18-1. Hive stats mean nothing.
So those guys up there with those 1500 point rounds are definitely NOT stomping on those clearly defined UWE rookie servers?
It's Super Effective!Join Date: 2012-08-28Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2014
Intriguing, should this Handicap number be displayed on the scoreboard too? It might be interesting to see at what % people need to nerf themselves to become fair. Also it might keep the non handicap from getting all ego maniac Something like this? Man, if you were doing well with -90% handicap, then you are truely a god xD
Badges - Player Name - Kills - Assists - Deaths - Res - Ping - Handicap
- New Guy - 5 - 5 - 5 - 20 - 90 - 0%
[X] - Pro Dude - 7 - 10 - 3 - 9 - 78 - -75%
love that idea of self handicap, i would definitely use that! adds another level of difficulty to the game for comp and high skill pub players and still gives an enjoyable experience for the less skilled and new players. +1 for this idea!
we need a matchmaking like StarCraft 2 , pro vs same level pro , new player lv5 play with another lv5 player (HIVE rank) , badge player with same badge player
Latency of players will be put on a server that 100ms guy can versus <250ms players lag
This i learn from tick rate Valve server on CSGO Match making
we need a matchmaking like StarCraft 2 , pro vs same level pro , new player lv5 play with another lv5 player (HIVE rank) , badge player with same badge player
Latency of players will be put on a server that 100ms guy can versus <250ms players lag
This i learn from tick rate Valve server on CSGO Match making
Badges don't really mean anything. And we do have matchmaking! Good luck with it though lol
Having a cool badge like icon on the score board that changes color depending on the % handycapped would be sweet.... "OMG dude that guy went 12-3 with a 90% handy!!"
The LARGEST frustration with this game is that it is a year and a half old and the average player base skill level is still extremely low. Typically I would point to the fact that we have people with 2+ years experience playing with 5 hour rookies, but that is not even the root of the issue.
On the majority of pubs right now, if one team shows any amount of coordination and awareness, they will stomp. Matchmaking had the potential to fix this and players would be able to learn at a steady pace. Is anyone really learning anymore? The bar needs to be raised up so NS2 can actually shine and be played the way it's supposed to be played, instead of the shitshow of incompetence it is on pubs right now that drives the good players away.
I think most of us can agree that the majority of pub games are a "shitshow of incompetence" as you put it. But the solution is not education at this point. We've had 2 years to educate the public, it's clearly not working by your own admission. And as others have pointed out in this thread, pubbers don't always want to improve to a competetive level for a variety of legitimate reasons.
Instead of education, we need to separate the casuals and the competetive, and possibly offer a transitional ground. Perhaps the player base is too small for that, but if we don't improve the quality of games somehow, then NS2 will surely die a slow and painful death.
Matchmaking has been discussed to death over the years. And I'm inclined to agree that automatic matchmaking is not an option. We need a way for the players to separate themselves. A simple classification like (Low/Mid/High) Skill label on the servers might actually do wonders. Or perhaps some kind of voting system. And get rid of that awfully vague 'rookie' term.
I would agree with your thoughts, and I appreciate when someone tries to post solutions after a problem has been identified. Honestly, one could argue the server browser/"rookie friendly" tag/way you join games right now has done more to kill this game than performance ever did.
Instead of the NS2 Community Development Team working on some weird handicap mod that nerfs your damage, maybe they could do something like you suggested and expand on what UWE tried to start with skill ratings, etc. I think we can all agree the skill system is broken at the moment but it doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. And god forbid, once and for all get rid of the "rookie friendly" classification. I don't think I've seen one person here who thought that was a good idea.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The typical pub stomper would laugh about this self handicap. Im sure this would motivate them more to stomp.
"We pwnd you with half damage, lol, NOOBS"
Typically these guys running around in packs of 2 btw.
The kind of person that joins servers to stomp is the exact kind of person that would never use the handicap...
You need to look at the core problem, and also the things that make the problem much worse than in other games. You could easily achieve the same levels of server stomping in CS 1.6, but the overall impact was much less because of a larger playerbase. People leave and find a new server. Looking for ways to make players less effective is a really bad answer to the problem in the long run. You are again treating a symptom and not the cause. To truly fix the problem, you need to understand why people pubstomp, and I suspect many people here don't really understand the reasons.
Matchmaking can fix the problem, but not with the current playerbase, or a broken skill rating system.
People that are not purposely pub stomping can control their play if they wanted too... And honestly unless someone is playing on a server with players who just installed, I find it hard to believe someone who doesn't want to pubstomp is getting 30:1 KD ratios... its not like you accidently killed all those skulks with lucky shots...
Nobody's under any obligation to control their play, just as nobody should be under any obligation to handicap themselves. Having a voluntary handicap is nice, but I worry that people will get pressured to use it when they don't really want to.
People that are not purposely pub stomping can control their play if they wanted too... And honestly unless someone is playing on a server with players who just installed, I find it hard to believe someone who doesn't want to pubstomp is getting 30:1 KD ratios... its not like you accidently killed all those skulks with lucky shots...
Pub stomping (imo) is going round after round getting crazy high KD ratios. Its not something you can do in 1 round no matter what your KD is. Perhaps that is where we disagree.
Either way I would hope the number of people who wouldn't mind an actual challenge (I assume most people who have devoted enough time to the game to actually be good at it) outweigh the number of people who I guess keep playing the game only because they are good at it and like to stomp the shit out of everyone. If the former outweigh the latter then the handicap thing might work.
for at least a small proportion of those players in the top of the hive stats, the fact that hive stats exist and are public is likely a major factor in their behaviour pattern. It's a public list that, while meaning actually nothing at all, does have a rank and the word 'skill'. Some people can't help themselves from the competition that provides, and they have worked out the best way to get high 'skill' scores - by stomping rookies.
I have been opposed to that hive system being public (and not being a derivation of an Elo system) since it was started. Moultano's system can't come soon enough, and in the mean time taking hive offline would be a good step.
As dragon said though, these measures are all superficial fixes for the symptoms, not the core problem. I suspect that will be much harder to identify fully, let alone address.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
NS2stats is much more accurate than the UWE implemenation and its nice to have a system like this.
You can use it to have a rookie-only or no-rookie server wich is a great thing in my opinion.
Both kind of servers are a pretty good against the typical stomp btw.
But the current hive stats system is only a joke.
My advice:
Aslong we have no other way against stompers, play on these skill-forced servers.
Im sure every skill level can find a server for there needs.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
I think it's a good idea to address both player counts, skill ranking system, and voluntary handicaps..
I don't see a good reason to deny a tool or potential improvement, even if it only addresses a symptom.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The new Dev team should implement the performance/balance warning for >24 slot servers discussed in another thread.
I personally would disable this option (hack) completely but i think this is never happen.
Why?
Cause 80-90% of the players on these servers are new to the game.
How can they learn positioning if it doesnt matter?
How can they learn aim on an horrible rubberbanding server wich halfed fps?
Im sure these kind of servers are one reason why the pub playerskill is so low at the moment.
It's Super Effective!Join Date: 2012-08-28Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2014
This might also allow these high skill players to play with there friends which was a main point of this topic, assuming they handicap themselves. Or if playing solo, will it be stacking if his damage is nerfed? It will take time for people to find a good handicap number that suits them.
I'm sure some of you already handicap yourself in artificial ways like pistols only, gorge only, playing support roles or lifeforms you suck at. This allows you to play what you want, how you want, with who you want while keeping your "proness" intact.
And if you don't like or are skeptical about it, you don't have to use it. Being good at a game isn't a crime sure, but not playing nice... doesn't help the game grow.
The new Dev team should implement the performance/balance warning for >24 slot servers discussed in another thread.
I personally would disable this option (hack) completely but i think this is never happen.
Why?
Cause 80-90% of the players on these servers are new to the game.
How can they learn positioning if it doesnt matter?
How can they learn aim on an horrible rubberbanding server wich halfed fps?
Im sure these kind of servers are one reason why the pub playerskill is so low at the moment.
Agreed, something similar to an ESRB warning.
"Notice: The performance of this server is fluctuating which might result in an inconsistent and undesirable game experience."
"[Cancel] [Connect Anyway]"
"[X] Don't remind me later"
Comments
Hive data is all but irreverent. Case in point my last game was def a stomp along with the help of another gorge. The round was 9 min long and I got score of like 400 after going like 18-1. Hive stats mean nothing.
I agree with your point though, its less the comp players stomping as it is regular pubbers. However, that is just because comp players are busy playing comp or quite simply dont have fun playing pub anymore.
With that said this whole thread is pointless. The soul problem this game has is in the core design allowing 1 player to dominate a whole game. The player base isn't large enough to support separating bad players from good players and I don't ever see this changing at this point. You can tell the good player to play support roles all day long but even the nicest guy will get bored and want to have fun eventually. Fun meaning simply playing the game how they want to and not forced into specific roles. Or servers can start skill banning which still happens frequently in US servers in which case will only make the player count smaller making things worse. Nothing is going to change unless elements are added to the game to allow players to nerf themselves or servers to nerf them forcefully.
What I mean by that are things like dmg output reduction, hp reduction, energy pool reduction. Things like that that will be unnoticeable to the less skilled player so their experience doesn't change at the same time allowing the skilled player to be as try hard as they want. That is the only practical solution to this problem that I see. A first step would be completely player controlled using a console command "sv_damage x" where x can be a value from .1 to 1.0 and indicates the % damage you want to do that round. Might be a good first step at maintaining player retention since vets and noobs will always be in the same server.
Sniping upgrades, cutting the cyst chain, and being generally annoying is a great way to win the game, but when you have a crazy kill ratio don't you think it's a little much? Couldn't you defend RTs, cover your team as they build, or play the game in other ways that are still fun without totally ruining it for everyone else on the server?
All I'm saying is let the other team get a foothold as a handicap before decimating them. I think both parties would benefit.
I'm not going to tell you that you are existing in a bubble, but you also cannot tell myself and others what what we have or have not personally experienced numerous times. Come on..
Also, really? Are you honestly trying to use hive stats as a reliable measure of something? I could give a list of reasons of how or why you shouldn't do that, like egg locking or the algorithm utilized etc, but I don't think I have to even do that.. I think I can safely say that it's (unfortunately) universally accepted as a measure of nothing really, in its current form.
What @current1y said is spot on in every way, and I've always loved his voluntary handicap idea - it's an eloquent solution Imo.
Hell, even I have inadvertently emptied a server before because I didn't want to hold back. There is just such a skill gap allowed for by design.
I kind of like this idea.
A player could nerf themselves if they so desired. Make it a bit harder for themselves. That could be a huge step in the right direction. As you can see from the competitive player's posts in this thread, their desire (generally) is not to just take a dump on everyone. This could let them play with the same intensity without destroying everyone. They wouldn't be forced to just backcap or gorge all game. Currently actually suggested that you get a note on the scoreboard that tells everyone how much your damage is nerfed. Like if you're doing 75% damage it would have a small "75%" next to your name. Then it kind of gives the players some pride in the fact that they're nerfed and it's not secretive.
If we were to introduce something where a server could nerf someone, I'd hesitate on how much power to give them. Like perhaps they could nerf a player to do only 75% damage, but no lower than that. Otherwise you'll have people who get irritated and just nerf good players down to 10% damage. Then everyone is frustrated. I'm not sure I'm all for this though. I think it could be abusive.
This could also be nice for helping rookies. If we were to do Rookie ONLY servers, anyone that has over a certain number of hours gets their damage nerfed. We'd have to have alerts everywhere to let players know that they will be nerfed in a rookie only server, but still. It could do a lot.
I'm not even sure that this is possible to implement, to be honest. If it is though, it could be excellent.
What do you guys think?
I. E. Typing "Handicap 25" in the console would apply -25% damage to all weapons to just that player.
Then the rest of the server would be notified with a chat message "IronHorse has applied a handicap to himself of 25% less damage."
I see no down sides to this.. New players' game and learning is not negatively impacted, yet the vet can play as hard as they want in any server.
EDIT: ok we'll ghoul was a boss and got a mod working for the idea already..............O_o. Consol command is sv_handicap <0.1 to 1>
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=265386088
So those guys up there with those 1500 point rounds are definitely NOT stomping on those clearly defined UWE rookie servers?
Badges - Player Name - Kills - Assists - Deaths - Res - Ping - Handicap
- New Guy - 5 - 5 - 5 - 20 - 90 - 0%
[X] - Pro Dude - 7 - 10 - 3 - 9 - 78 - -75%
It will seperate the real stompers to the players who are just trying to have fun
Latency of players will be put on a server that 100ms guy can versus <250ms players lag
This i learn from tick rate Valve server on CSGO Match making
Badges don't really mean anything. And we do have matchmaking! Good luck with it though lol
I would agree with your thoughts, and I appreciate when someone tries to post solutions after a problem has been identified. Honestly, one could argue the server browser/"rookie friendly" tag/way you join games right now has done more to kill this game than performance ever did.
Instead of the NS2 Community Development Team working on some weird handicap mod that nerfs your damage, maybe they could do something like you suggested and expand on what UWE tried to start with skill ratings, etc. I think we can all agree the skill system is broken at the moment but it doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. And god forbid, once and for all get rid of the "rookie friendly" classification. I don't think I've seen one person here who thought that was a good idea.
"We pwnd you with half damage, lol, NOOBS"
Typically these guys running around in packs of 2 btw.
You need to look at the core problem, and also the things that make the problem much worse than in other games. You could easily achieve the same levels of server stomping in CS 1.6, but the overall impact was much less because of a larger playerbase. People leave and find a new server. Looking for ways to make players less effective is a really bad answer to the problem in the long run. You are again treating a symptom and not the cause. To truly fix the problem, you need to understand why people pubstomp, and I suspect many people here don't really understand the reasons.
Matchmaking can fix the problem, but not with the current playerbase, or a broken skill rating system.
Not every one with a pubstomping type score is purposely pub stomping though. I agree with the rest of the post though more or less.
Pub stomping (imo) is going round after round getting crazy high KD ratios. Its not something you can do in 1 round no matter what your KD is. Perhaps that is where we disagree.
Either way I would hope the number of people who wouldn't mind an actual challenge (I assume most people who have devoted enough time to the game to actually be good at it) outweigh the number of people who I guess keep playing the game only because they are good at it and like to stomp the shit out of everyone. If the former outweigh the latter then the handicap thing might work.
I have been opposed to that hive system being public (and not being a derivation of an Elo system) since it was started. Moultano's system can't come soon enough, and in the mean time taking hive offline would be a good step.
As dragon said though, these measures are all superficial fixes for the symptoms, not the core problem. I suspect that will be much harder to identify fully, let alone address.
You can use it to have a rookie-only or no-rookie server wich is a great thing in my opinion.
Both kind of servers are a pretty good against the typical stomp btw.
But the current hive stats system is only a joke.
My advice:
Aslong we have no other way against stompers, play on these skill-forced servers.
Im sure every skill level can find a server for there needs.
I don't see a good reason to deny a tool or potential improvement, even if it only addresses a symptom.
I personally would disable this option (hack) completely but i think this is never happen.
Why?
Cause 80-90% of the players on these servers are new to the game.
How can they learn positioning if it doesnt matter?
How can they learn aim on an horrible rubberbanding server wich halfed fps?
Im sure these kind of servers are one reason why the pub playerskill is so low at the moment.
I'm sure some of you already handicap yourself in artificial ways like pistols only, gorge only, playing support roles or lifeforms you suck at. This allows you to play what you want, how you want, with who you want while keeping your "proness" intact.
And if you don't like or are skeptical about it, you don't have to use it. Being good at a game isn't a crime sure, but not playing nice... doesn't help the game grow.
Agreed, something similar to an ESRB warning.
"Notice: The performance of this server is fluctuating which might result in an inconsistent and undesirable game experience."
"[Cancel] [Connect Anyway]"
"[X] Don't remind me later"