NSL Gather, need your help!
Pelargir
Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
For those who recently noticed that most of the NSL gathers are currently dead, less players than before, only one or two gathers per day if we're lucky, the NSL wants to keep this system alive, it contributes to grow the NS2 competitive community since the beginning of the (E)NSL. With the implementation of the new website & new features you found out, we decided to remove the NS1 Gathers, they were definitely forsaken so many months ago, and the idea was to bring more people to the NS2 Gathers.
That's why we need you, we'd like to receive many feedbacks to know what we could do to improve our Gathers, what do you want? How can we do to make them more active & more used? Your opinion is important for us, help us to make them better.
If, like Mega, you already gave your opinion somewhere, and think nobody in the staff heard you, please, write it here again, the purpose of this post is to gather various opinions.
We had the idea to change a tiny bit the current Gather system to make it closer to the US Reddit Pugs. What do you think about that? If you need more informations about this system, just ask us & we'll answer to you on this topic (for those who do not know the US Pugs).
Moadib is actually Gather Admin, but we would like to recruit one more active player to manage it, someone who usually plays Gathers, available if somebody gets any problem due to gather reasons/issues. Just contact me on Steam (same nickname) or PM on the website if you think you can do it.
Your help is crucial for us, feel free to say whatever you want here.
Original post: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1165
That's why we need you, we'd like to receive many feedbacks to know what we could do to improve our Gathers, what do you want? How can we do to make them more active & more used? Your opinion is important for us, help us to make them better.
If, like Mega, you already gave your opinion somewhere, and think nobody in the staff heard you, please, write it here again, the purpose of this post is to gather various opinions.
We had the idea to change a tiny bit the current Gather system to make it closer to the US Reddit Pugs. What do you think about that? If you need more informations about this system, just ask us & we'll answer to you on this topic (for those who do not know the US Pugs).
Moadib is actually Gather Admin, but we would like to recruit one more active player to manage it, someone who usually plays Gathers, available if somebody gets any problem due to gather reasons/issues. Just contact me on Steam (same nickname) or PM on the website if you think you can do it.
Your help is crucial for us, feel free to say whatever you want here.
Original post: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1165
Comments
Other than that, I think it is often the same problem as with normal game servers: Nobody wants to be the first to join and wait the whole day until a gather starts. Especially when they get banned if they are caught afk while waiting.
I think I may have a solution for that: Offer the option to sign up for a limited time. So one would stay signed up for, say 30 minutes, after that he/she is automatically removed from the gather (maybe give a sound notification so they can sign up again if they are still there)
At least for me this is the reason I often dont sign up early.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/nslgathers
If I want to play ns2 I dont want to spend hours in a gather queue.
The group may help, I will think about this. (for me personally)
Alot of players still dont know about the gathers/pugs that go on, and when they do join, they may somewhat be overwhelmed by the skill difference in some cases as only comp players tend to play gathers.
There for i would also suggest 2 different gathers, 1 for only comp players (higher Skilled), and another for players looking to play gathers for the 1st time (lower skilled) off course with the players playing it now it would be silly to force that now, but it maybe something for the future if the gathers would pick up again.
I know they're trying to improve the ranking thing, but I'm personally very sceptical about that. I'd much rather prefer what MaxAmus is describing - just implement a simple gather system where the players pick teams, no fancy automated matchmaking is necessary with this small of a playerpool.
I will be honest here. I dont queue gathers often, almost never. Due to the whole waiting thing.
Yet if I am online and you all only need one more player, feel more then free to drop me a line. If I can, I will come.
Is there really no way to make a bot that can send a friend message through steam?
Not sure what you meant about a bot sending message via Steam. Since our webmaster is away for a while, it's pretty hard to add features, make changes or whatever we'd like to see for the gathers.
That's the very reason I left the group as well. Getting spammed by event messages over and over again. I remember the good NS1 times when we had a gather bot in IRC where you could sign up, after enough people captains would get picked and then they'd choose their players. Similar system was (is?) still running for NS2, unfortunately for Finnish players only.
However, many ARE idling on steam, so that's why I'd really love a steam bot in the similar fashion of how an irc bot would work. - All it has to do is message the players when their gather started, it should be possible since our steam accounts are already linked to our ENSL accounts. You would of course have to add the bot on your friendslist.
I just don't have the expertise to even begin working out how to make something like that unfortunately
On the other side, some people playing the gather expect a high quality game compared to a div 1 final. That's not going to happen. People sometimes rage and scream because of the skill of some players.
And the last point: Uneven teams. Gathers take ages to start and then they result in an total stomp. So you waited 2 hours for a 10min stomp game - not a good deal. Not only the wait time for the people to join the gather is long. It takes up to half an hour for everyone to join TS or the game server.
So in conclusion: The gather system itself it not bad, it works quite good. I see the problem in the community and the current "status" the gathers have in peoples mind.
Some people are even more out of touch with reality and expect the same high quality in pub games. People like this must live a very unhappy life..
People like this make the whole thing just un-enjoyable, because instead of having fun and learn without pressure, you are constantly blamed and harrassed.
I think the rules should be hardened in this regard, and if some people agree that some person is spreading this toxic flair, and is not changing his mindset after you talk to him, bans should be given for that.
I guess it must be possible to change rules depending of what people want but if the rules are too rough, I'm not so sure the other players (or the active ones) keep playing gathers but I don't know, if you have more ideas, feel free.
About the skilled issue, I don't really think it's a real problem, I mean, you sign up on the NSL website, that is the competitive side of NS2, you can't really expect to play gather like in pub but it's enough to take a look on people signing up the gather to know that is not always strong players, it can be pub players or people who just love to play these gathers. Gather is one the way to improve your skill level, I know the time when some of players only played gathers & after this, created a new team & keep playing the season for a while. So yes, you have to know that gathers need, not necessary an excellent skill level, but at least, listen to the orders & speak using your microphone, your skill can be improved thanks to the gathers.
Sometimes, teams are unbalanced, but it's also the players who vote for their captains and then, choose his teammates. Most of the time, if teams were unbalanced & one stomped the other one, it's 'cause of the players who voted for the wrong captains. I can't blame that but it's often the reason.
The community is too small anyway but we always see the same people signing up for the gathers, and that's a shame in my opinion, that is also why I posted that message on UWE forums & not only on ensl.org. To receive opinions & ideas from public players, that is very very important if we want to bring more people on gathers, & of course, more people to join NSL & why not the NS2 competition.
I have played gathers before but usually sporadically as unless you're on at the right time, its always been a good half hour+ wait - during which I'll go play combat or something to bide time.
Then the gather fills and it's another 10+ minutes waiting for everyone to connect to the server, find mercs for those who have gone AWOL, connect to (another 3rd party program) the teamspeak server and join the right channel (I still dont understand why people dont just use in-game comms, the latency is totally negligable but thats the only reason I've been given).
All the above while alt-tabbing in/out of the game which inevitably crashes it or causes performance issues.
Even if it was just a crumby little window showing the NSL site in-game, that'd be a start. The implementation UWE attempted for organised games was crumby and uneccesary as there already exists a system within NSL. Coulda just ran with what we had but brought it out into the open rather than leave it hidden within the community.
Havent had a match yet, but if I available for gathers (but not signed yet) this would warn me.
Its no different then getting a popup from a chat or a friend notify in terms of it popping up.
Except that it throws you into windows while in game and gets you killed.
I agree with all of those points. However, we should at least be able to reduce the wait time by making the gather system more accessible. That alone, should alliviate some of the frustrations behind gathers- even if the quality of the games are not improved drastically right away.
Edit: I know people who refuse to gather, for the sole reason that they hate Teamspeak. I, for one, am not very fond of it either, and would prefer if I could delete it from my computer. The in-game voice chat in NS2 is excellent, unparallelled even compared to any other game - there's really no reason not to just use that.
The gather is definitely one of the way to be aware of the competitive NS2 side. Which one permits to create or join a "new?" team. I don't know any of them that are not using Mumble or Teamspeak. Seems legit because the quality is better, same about the latency + the push to talk or voice detection systems. And for me, the most interesting thing why we want people to join NSL TS is just friendliness. You can be here to play, only. But you also can be here to play, discuss on your channel, join other channels (gather or teams), whatever you want to get informations, or just to take a good time with other NS players.
I can understand some people don't like too much Teamspeak or Mumble (personally, I hate the last one), but this won't change anyway. It gives more advantages than drawbacks, new people who want to join a gather can clearly make efforts, to this point at least. We also relink to the official website to download TS, so it's pretty easy and as you said, it takes time before the game starts, you have time then to download it.
I dont mind the popups, I dont get thrown in windows. I play every game I possibly can in windowed fullscreen. /gasp input lag.
Been doing it for so long now I no longer notice the difference. (besides my reaction time itself is so utter crap it doesnt make a real difference haha)
What I was trying to say is, if you can eliminate the need to download 3rd party programs all together, then that obviously increases the accessibility for new people. You can use teamspeak and reap all the rewards from that outside of gathers all that you want regardless.
Yes it would take quite a bit of work to do, but am sure we can all see how much it would help the newer players, and players that dont read these forums find out about the system.