How to Help NS2 by Driving Up Accessibility for Some People
Waterfiend
Join Date: 2013-09-01 Member: 187543Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2013-09-01 Member: 187543Members, Reinforced - Shadow
NS2 is a great game, and in fact, I'd say my favourite from any genre. It lead out strong with game design and makes for excellent competitive play. Along with every game out there, they all have their flaws and NOTHING as good as it can be is perfect. NS2's flaws (in my view) are more to do with the fact that it isn't around 20 thousand players online, although the game is no where near dead, not in the slightest, it doesn't earn as much money for UNE to develop new games with such a quality label (UNE).
The game sold good when it first came out. This was comparable to Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a game of similar Metascore that came out around the same time, but then lead off to dip in sales. I have a few speculations on why this is:
1. Huge beginning learning curve. The original tutorials were hours in videos, I like a game with depth, but not every one does. Thankfully this was simplified with a quick, less strategy oriented tutorial with the reinforcement update. But still, some people were turned off from the game for this reason.
2. Optimization. This has greatly improved, the game requires a very good graphics card and processor to run. Some thousand dollar computers can't run it (although some would argue that these models are not worth their price, compared with cheaper and more effective computers.) 3.X GHz processor and such a graphics card is out of the capability of a lot of potential players. I want to referral my friends to the game, but it has turned out that some of them can't play it.
3. No Mac port. A lot of mac users make up the online gaming community. Although a lot of these users use certain techniques to run Windows games, some argue that it can be laggy and you might need certain knowledge that not every laid gamer would know.
All and all, the work that went into the game is amazing, and it is wonderfully balanced! It is a shame that some players gave up on trying to play due to the problems with accessibility.
I hope the feedback helps UNE and community developers have ideas for new upgrades, and especially so this can make the game better so more people can play it, and achieve the full enjoyment that from all the work that the developers and modder put into it.
The game sold good when it first came out. This was comparable to Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a game of similar Metascore that came out around the same time, but then lead off to dip in sales. I have a few speculations on why this is:
1. Huge beginning learning curve. The original tutorials were hours in videos, I like a game with depth, but not every one does. Thankfully this was simplified with a quick, less strategy oriented tutorial with the reinforcement update. But still, some people were turned off from the game for this reason.
2. Optimization. This has greatly improved, the game requires a very good graphics card and processor to run. Some thousand dollar computers can't run it (although some would argue that these models are not worth their price, compared with cheaper and more effective computers.) 3.X GHz processor and such a graphics card is out of the capability of a lot of potential players. I want to referral my friends to the game, but it has turned out that some of them can't play it.
3. No Mac port. A lot of mac users make up the online gaming community. Although a lot of these users use certain techniques to run Windows games, some argue that it can be laggy and you might need certain knowledge that not every laid gamer would know.
All and all, the work that went into the game is amazing, and it is wonderfully balanced! It is a shame that some players gave up on trying to play due to the problems with accessibility.
I hope the feedback helps UNE and community developers have ideas for new upgrades, and especially so this can make the game better so more people can play it, and achieve the full enjoyment that from all the work that the developers and modder put into it.
Comments
I believe that optimization and making a more "casual friendly" tutorial (which they did) would be great. Optimization is #1 in my view (but the list above is not in any order).
Please correct me if I am wrong, because I would especially like to see more performance.
For example, Skulk wall jump speed could be reduced, while its HP is increased. Advanced lifeforms could cost less PRes but have reduced effectiveness (less HP or speed). Welders become free to purchase, and so on.
For usability options, there is a lot of streamlining that could be done to help this. Unless you just want a couple teams of competitive players and random pub-stompers playing.. that is. Very simple things like auto-evolve for aliens on spawn for a set grouping of favorites, with a cancel button to just spawn immediately. It can be frustrating for new players to have to remember the evolve process each and every spawn. That's just one example though, there are many other things that could help.
The game is like a giant panda, I can't give up on this rare gem!
As noble an aim as that is, Ricez is right going by all the evidence. As obraxis has said I ask folks to join or play all the time, they've just moved on. Jam tomorrow doesn't work when they can actually get jam today as it were. I think time is much better spent working on the game itself rather than trying to proselytise NS2. Even worse is everyone begging to come play just reeks of desperation.
NS2 is in a terminal slide, and it will take something really special to halt and then reverse that. I really wish you all the best luck, but as I was saying to Scatter the other day, I have this terrible feeling that by the time we finish our mod, there will only be around 20 players left on the books...
Ironically, Combat will probably be the thing that kills of NS2 completely. Something which it DID NOT do to NS1..
I'd have assumed that the player retention would've gone down right about now just because of exams along with summer break, and it's going to stay down till September. So where's the rest of that data?
http://steamcharts.com/app/4920
Yea, see that basically confirms my suspicions. You were cherrypicking results. Notice May and April are slow months in 2013 as well. March 2013 is not slow but that's probably explained by a sale, otherwise february is slow as well.
So you see, after January (around mid-terms), ns2 is slow untill July/August where people are all finally home from vacations and are starting school untill January again.
24 months is obviously not enough data to draw any definitive conclusions, but I think it's reasonable to consider these factors and not immediately jump to the conclusion that the game is dying.
Oh, and obviously the numbers are going to decline in average after 2 years. Look at SC2 - they are having trouble as well after just 2 years, even though they basically had a monopoly on e-sports for a long time. 2 year old games are going to have a hard time competing with new titles no matter what you do.
Here is the whole chart:
Now let's compare shall we...
April 2013 - 918.4
May 2013 - 602.4
April 2014 - 507.5
May 2014 - 467.6
As I said, THE LOWEST PLAYERCOUNT NS2 HAS HAD SINCE RELEASE.
What do you refute about that? What Cherry-Picking have I done to come up with that answer?
Of course game playing goes down over the summer, as people go outside, did I say otherwise?
You say of course the numbers will have declined after 2 years. Well, are you saying they will magically increase after 3? Or do you agree the playerbase will continue to drop relative to previous year on year numbers - which corroborates exactly what I said in my first post..
If you want to get into a full discussion about statistics, patterns and statistical manipulation, we should probably continue it in PM's or over some medium where you aren't going to mis-interpret my words so easily..
1. Game has become increasingly hard for new players. Ex: lifeform difficulty. It takes huge amount of information and practice to be able to play. In its core NS2 IS FPS, base rules have been ignored and some unwise decisions were made. Fun for us who already learned to play the game but for lower skilled players opposite is true.
2. Game is balanced for 16 players. Since release, majority of population go to 24 and developers had ignored that trend throughout release history.
3. To be able to have fun game just consumes too much time. FPS games don't do that (noob tube argument). In my own case, not playing for few weeks results in having to play it a lot more than I would like to just to get a knack.
4. No major innovations. Its basically more of the same, with increased difficulty each time. There is a a load of ways game could be improved without obligating player to master each weapon/lifeform and make it more fun for commanders.
5. Lots of elitists, gnawing at plebs of the game. Wether one is with or against them it cant be determined witch one is worst. Speaking for myself, they try to eject me for not wanting to spend 20 res feeding their K/D each time they respawn, never follow orders and are first in line to moan the reasons why (win or loss) and first to leave when *it* hits the fan.
Also, one won't see that kindness often spewed on forums in practice: best players go in package, period. Now, this has been said a lot of times but I actually calculated. For me losing by default before the game begins happens in 3 out of 4 games (been very very gracious here) and only 1 out of 7 is a good game. Win or loss, is quite empty most of the times with less meaning than death in DBZ series.
6. Game tailored to pro players by pro players (fade changes, lerk changes, exo changes and so on). No attention to bread and butter, just to crème de la crème.
Hope some trends change and influence player count more positively. There is surely a lot more players waiting and it would be ugly if this creative mammal of a game got outsted in favor of corporate dinosaurs...
1. Challenges:
Create challenges for players in Single Player with restricted areas. Here one example for each side:
1. 1. Alien - Walljumping
You have 30 seconds to get to the waypoint. "READY. SET. GO!"
Make it impossible to do by walking on the ground. Then display a video, showing walljumping. Record the time = Highscore.
If he managed to do it, display "Nice work! They will never see you coming!"
[You can do that for Fade as well!]
[Doesn´t require bots]
1.2. Marine - Skulk biting RT
You spawn in Marine Base. Display message: "Look at your map by pressing C." "Oh no! Our Extractor in Skylights is under attack! Save it."
After the Extractor dies = "You failed! Try again?" -> exit scenario
If you saved the Extractor = "Congratulations! You are awesome!" -> exit scenario
If possible display the remaining health of the extractor or the time marine took to clear it.
[Does require a bot who bites RT and does not attack marine]
The important thing here is to create game related scenarios which prepare beginners for ingame situations while encouriging them to do better.
Problems: Has to be scripted and should have its own sub-menu.
Cut ALL the 26+ server slots slugfest server who achieve nothing appart of killing slowly the game.
All new players joining those miss the CORE beauty of this game by putting aside the strategic plays an coop between players, replacing it by a slugfest without any interest which bores everyone after 20H playing it.
To resume open browser -> only high pop serv -> rooks join get in the middle of the braindead slugfest -> plays some hours then quit. Because they never get the chance to understand the game and the reason you can play it for countless hour without getting bored, which is teamplay/tactics/incentive to play better -> have fun...
This game is not design to be played the way those servers display it. I am strongly convinced that if we only had server from 16 to 24 serv slots, everyone will improve at this game, understand it better and have so much more fun. And the playerbase would be so much larger too.
demonstrably false. aliens win 57% marines 43%. the game is not balanced for pros, this is why comp mod exists. get your shitty arguments into a line before you start blaming the competitive scene for your problems.
NS2 gets a thumbs up at the 10:45 mark.
A lot of people recommend NS2, it is a unique jewel in a crowded FPS market. I still also play TitanFall™, Battle-Field and DayZ but still spend a large amount of time on NS2, there is nothing like it.
Without a huge TV or advertising campaign what can you do?
Still took me an hour to get onto my regular server last night though... grrrr
b-(
What FPS games do you know of where you can play as a character on a team, and all 5 of those characters have completely unrelated, non-human movement?
NS2 is way too complicated for the average FPS player, and if you want to grow in this market, that is your audience.
I introduced a top European CS clan into this game. I started a NS2 team for this clan. All the members of the clan tried NS2, not one of them got on with the game. None of them got hooked, and none of them play the game anymore. These are top comp players in CS:S and CS:GO.
If these players feel the game is too complicated, what chance your average FPS player?
The clan's also complained about the more technical details of the engine, hit-reg, smoothness, performance etc. They are more critical than the average FPS player.
I love NS2, I love what UWE managed to create, but if you think this can be a popular successful game, in today's gaming climate, well, all I can say is you are dreaming...
Also, we all know how good TF2, CS:GO and Dota 2 did after traders went to them to trade items. Perhaps we could have a system of cosmetic items, similar to them. (Possible with the current cosmetics items being untradable; don't want any shadows losing their skins. lol) All we would need is a trading system, a small store for keys, like in CS:GO, inventory menu, a way of obtaining items and of coarse the items, them self. Items similar to StatTrak and Stranges would be nice.
Also, the competitive scene could use some more attention. Perhaps, a button on the game menu that could link to the NS2's game directory on Twitch. Maybe the competitive mod could become official, or a system like CS:GO comp (which we don't need much more features to get, as we're so close to it.)