Making NS 2 better for a broader audience
alster
Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
There are many players who try NS 2, but lose interest in the game. One big reason is they see little interest in the aliens vs marines vs structures combat. There is not enough of a feed back in res rewards for doing anything successful to continue enjoying the game for some players, so they quit. If NS 2 can keep more players playing with a better reward system then NS 2 can have a growing player base.
My suggestion: a scoring system!
Players score are only for one round and are not saved. It is not a persistent meta scoring system like elo, although it can be used to determine player levels. We already have hive match making system for that.
A hud display of player score is displayed.
Unlike res rewards it only goes up never down.
Unlike res rewards it is much more granular scoring.
Unlike res you don't get any score for just living/waiting/standing around.
Unlike res rewards it can be given for minor things that help the team. This is actually very important for casual players who have low skill or who do not want to constantly fight the enemy.
Players can see everyone's score at any time with TAB player list key.
After winning/losing game a player list screen with their info and scores is shown.
*Important: Player scores allow everyone to judge overall how well they did or are doing at any time.
For comp play they can see who is the strongest or weakest player. For pub play they can try to beat their previous scores.
*Important: Even commanders have scores to make more players want to command. Winning or losing a game is not enough a reward for many people to just be a commander.
Score Activity
----
+100 kill skulk/marine/hydra
+200 kill gorge
+300 kill lerk
+400 kill fade
+500 kill onos
+500 kill harvester
+200 kill power node
+30 kill hydra
+300 kill other structures (shade, crag, armory, etc..)
+100 kill welder bot/arc
+1000 win game bonus
Less obvious stuff!
+1 every second only, weld/build something/someone
+1 pickup ammo or med pack (com is wasting res on you, so use it)
+1 build gorge ball
+2 build babler egg
+5 build hydra
+2 kill babbler
+2 kill mine
+10 kill weapon with bile bomb
+10 buying a welder
+20 buying a weapon/mine/grenade, etc. (needs more detail)
+100 buying jetpack/exo
+20 buying extra weapon for exo
+10 for each upgrade evolved from egg (com spent res on upgrades, so use it)
+50 evolve to gorge
+100 evolve to lerk
+150 evolve to fade
+200 evolve to onos
Com stuff!
+1 drop med/ammo
+2 recycle (bad commanders don't recycle lost harvesters/structures)
+2 scan/ink/heal/shift/bone wall/beacon, etc. (needs more detail)
+20 drop cyst
+200 drop harvester
+500 drop cc/hive
+100 drop any other structure (needs more detail)
+50 research upgrade/bio mass, etc.
+10 drop weapon/grow more eggs
+20 deploy welding bots/arcs
I missed some other things and the scores are not accurate, but this is just a general idea.
The scores can be abused, but since the player score lasts for only for 1 game, it is not a big deal.
My suggestion: a scoring system!
Players score are only for one round and are not saved. It is not a persistent meta scoring system like elo, although it can be used to determine player levels. We already have hive match making system for that.
A hud display of player score is displayed.
Unlike res rewards it only goes up never down.
Unlike res rewards it is much more granular scoring.
Unlike res you don't get any score for just living/waiting/standing around.
Unlike res rewards it can be given for minor things that help the team. This is actually very important for casual players who have low skill or who do not want to constantly fight the enemy.
Players can see everyone's score at any time with TAB player list key.
After winning/losing game a player list screen with their info and scores is shown.
*Important: Player scores allow everyone to judge overall how well they did or are doing at any time.
For comp play they can see who is the strongest or weakest player. For pub play they can try to beat their previous scores.
*Important: Even commanders have scores to make more players want to command. Winning or losing a game is not enough a reward for many people to just be a commander.
Score Activity
----
+100 kill skulk/marine/hydra
+200 kill gorge
+300 kill lerk
+400 kill fade
+500 kill onos
+500 kill harvester
+200 kill power node
+30 kill hydra
+300 kill other structures (shade, crag, armory, etc..)
+100 kill welder bot/arc
+1000 win game bonus
Less obvious stuff!
+1 every second only, weld/build something/someone
+1 pickup ammo or med pack (com is wasting res on you, so use it)
+1 build gorge ball
+2 build babler egg
+5 build hydra
+2 kill babbler
+2 kill mine
+10 kill weapon with bile bomb
+10 buying a welder
+20 buying a weapon/mine/grenade, etc. (needs more detail)
+100 buying jetpack/exo
+20 buying extra weapon for exo
+10 for each upgrade evolved from egg (com spent res on upgrades, so use it)
+50 evolve to gorge
+100 evolve to lerk
+150 evolve to fade
+200 evolve to onos
Com stuff!
+1 drop med/ammo
+2 recycle (bad commanders don't recycle lost harvesters/structures)
+2 scan/ink/heal/shift/bone wall/beacon, etc. (needs more detail)
+20 drop cyst
+200 drop harvester
+500 drop cc/hive
+100 drop any other structure (needs more detail)
+50 research upgrade/bio mass, etc.
+10 drop weapon/grow more eggs
+20 deploy welding bots/arcs
I missed some other things and the scores are not accurate, but this is just a general idea.
The scores can be abused, but since the player score lasts for only for 1 game, it is not a big deal.
Comments
Maybe the points system could be looked at, as in the awards given, but to suggest adding a score system that already exists is a bit odd.
You see damage done or build progress numbers in realtime on the screen, but not any points you get from it.
The score you get should be instantly shown somewhere on the screen as soon as you get it. The total points you have should always be shown somewhere on the HUD.
I'm sure some people don't even know there is already a score system in place. How many points for killing? How many for welding? How many for evolving? If you get 0 points for evolving to Onos, then that's just so wrong. How many points do coms get and what do they get it for? How do people even know what their getting a point for or when they are getting a point? A score you only know about by pressing a key and looking at another screen is so bad on many levels. Please rethink this.
When a player killed a skulk and get points, a player doesn't know what it was for? A player finishes building an RT and it says 5 points, they don't know what it was for?
You don't get points for evolving because a player, who is going to die at the first impact without killing anything or assisting any kills, doesn't really help his team to win.
And no offensive but don't tell me you never noticed those +xy pop-ups at basically any action you do sucessfully in-game.
Also the score of each round is saved at the uwe hive and the total sum of them gets used to determ your hive level.
About in-game rewards based on scores:
Those are pretty hard to balance. We don't want to make a allready powerfull players even more powerfull by rewarding them with extra buffs.
Supporting troops is the job of the commanders so we don't need any extra game mechanic for that.
Overall don't get me wrong i support your idea of giving players a small reward for playing ns2 a lot to motivate them to keep playing. ( some folks seem to need those kind of things )
My idea would be to unlock new ingame-badges or even some skins once you reach a certain hive levels and promote this leveling system in a better way in the main menu.
The issue with those kind of stuff is that we need artist at the cdt to create them (and we have allready to less of them)
Like AliensSwarm on Steam , its a great small game with aliens stuff on movies + Huge Acchievement board
Its not gonna affect gameplay , like Teamfortress 2 "You can only acchieve this ONLY when join server with >8 players"
There's already a scoring system, and quite a visible one at that. In fact, the scoreboard is ordered by score rather than K/A/D to make it that much more blindingly obvious that killing isnt the only way to contribute to your team's success.
I'm pretty sure most players value score as a gauge of usefulness just as much as KDA; i know I do.
Like seriously, what is with all these threads of people suggesting we introduce features that already exist?
That said, the score system could do with looking at.
Specifically I'd like to see some scoring for comms set up in vanilla for meds/ammo collected , RTs dropped+built etc etc. Could even use the comm stats like med accuracy and just award points at the end of the round just based on that.
might be harder with pres because lifeforms can heal and shotguns can recycled
Also Quick play button need to be improve
The most Boring part about NS2 is Find Server
Minus this by add Match making like CSGO or L4D2 ,let new players join small base game 6v6 server
Tell me more on how we can improve "Quick Join" even more. Actually imho it's pretty good allready atm.
Matchmaking is sadly currently not really a possible option to do as we don't have the playerbase for such a feature.
i know you cannot translate the following stuff 1:1 to ns2 since the games are still different, but with a playerbase THAT huge and similar products like dota 1/2, HoN and several less known ones out there, they must be doing something quite right.
meaningful choices:
they released an article about this just 4 days ago euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/lol-design-values-depth-meaningful-choices and it's something that has been bugging me (and others) a bit about ns2: most games play out quite similar. i guess impoving EXOs and changing the alien upgrade style has helped here a bit, but imo there are still not too many viable commander strategies in use. might be partially the communities fault though.
free2play:
personally, i'm sceptical when it comes to making ns2 f2p, but that's a marketing thing UWE will have decide on their own anyway.
HoN used to cost money and was forced to go f2p, but that's a different situation since players had VERY similar games to chose from, which were already f2p. afaik there is nothing similar to ns2 out there.
newbie-help:
LoL actually has a LOT to offer when it comes to teaching new players. a tutorial, bot-games (that still give you rewards), quick overviews over all champions, videos explaining the abilities of all champions, tips for using (and playing against!) a champion, champion spotlights giving several example-of-uses for champions, explained damage stats when dying (as well as tips against the champions that killed you), recommended items for each champion (ingame) as well as possibilities to order all the items...
there were many attempts to make ns2 more accessible but i wonder if it's enough yet. well, this has already been discussed a lot on the forums.
matchmaking:
LoL has to deal with tons of smurf accounts (which ns2 can avoid as it costs money) yet it still feels more balanced somehow (unless players leave). well, force even teams helps a lot now and it will automatically continue to improve. but maybe it's time to put some effort into balancing the commanders of each team? LoL introduced a "team builder" as the new default game, which lets you pick your favorite lane position and role (bottom-lane tank etc.), which helps to avoid the scenario of too many people (or none) all going on the same lane and then insulting each other for not getting things right, eventually even ragequitting (which was hillarious yet sad to watch).
the ns2 community is much more mature than that (very rare that people fight over who is going to command or gorge), but having a long pre-game without anyone going commander can sometimes empty a server. no idea how to effectively deal with this. as done on some servers, automatically starting a game after a while with only 1 commander can act as a motivation for the other team to have their own not-as-motivated-commander hopping in, but if that doesn't happen, people starting without a commander will have quite a pointless and one-sided game (which might still be better than not playing at all, but some people might be frustrated by this).
as for overall balance, it could help to incorporate a seperate commanding-skill into force-even-teams (if it hasn't been done already).
i guess the biggest matchmaking issue with ns2 is the huge skill gap between veterans and rookies. maybe more can be done to encourage veterans to play more among themselves? there are gathers and such, but that's not built into the game itself (there was an attempt to do this, but it was barely used for some reason). well, the arrow-indicators and stack-punishment of the new skill system probably help, so maybe this issue will improve a bit on it's own.
hype:
i haven't been following LoL for a year, but they had tons of things going on before that: writing narrative for their champions, constantly creating new champions (which might have come at the price of some quality, but the wide range to chose from basically ensures that something fun can be found for every individual), weekly free2play champion rotations, totally pointless (but enjoyable) cinematics, community-submission spotlights, various events...
regarding ns2 we used to have a lot of hype and that has somewhat declined. i guess there is not much that can be done to 'fix' this because hype has to be justified: there is not much genuinely new content being created (like adding EXOs to the game), because the game is finished and being polished now. tournaments are nice, but maybe some sort or reoccuring event people can regularly look forward to could be introduced? like a scaled-down clogcast or a workshop-content-spotlight.
getting people hooked:
LoL, like many other games, exploits some cheap methods to get people hooked. most prominent is probably the leveling (with some meaningful benefits) but also the ability to unlock new champions with ingame currency (which you can try out before due to weekly champion rotations), a first-win-of-the-day-bonus encourages you to keep playing until you have a win (afterwards stopping to play, having a positive last impression). you also get a reward to getting a friend to start playing, but it's probably too late to do that for ns2.
ns2 has levels, but as pointed out before they are pretty much meaningless atm. they are not even displayed ingame or used for balance. several people i talked to didn't know that you can click it to see your hive stats. as ghoul mentioned, SOME kind of reward would be very helpful, e.g. to give people a "this-suffering-was-not-in-vain" feeling when losing a match. as for unlocking, this is tricky: it shouldn't be done by denying access to technology (which would be the equivalent of available items in LoL, compared to unlocking up to 120 champions which still have almost full potential on their own). unlockable commander mode might make sense here (maybe level X for rookie-friendly servers and level Y for non-rookie-friendly-servers) because it does not limit the potential of the player and also prevents those instant-eject scenarios.
I want to give my thoughts on some of the aspects:
IIRC, in LoL the teams block or ban certain champions for the other team before starting the round, correct? I think that plays a big part for why every LoL game is very different. Of course this only works if there are plenty viable strategy choices available, which seems to be the limiting factor in NS2. Can you imagine a round with shotguns blocked? Or Fades blocked? The Blocking mechanic seems a far stretch for NS2, because there are only few viable strats available. That is why I like the Competitive Mod, where the community tries out some new things (like Heavy Machine Guns and new Lifeform abilities).
I kind of agree. Well it is a social thing. As a comm, you are not encouraged to try out new things, because you will get flamed and abused for it by your team, and often times ejected. It is a simple reason: They think you are bad and will not give you a chance with the strat. Which is also kind of understandable (there are many more bad comms than good ones, so you are quickly sorted into that category (btw I am not saying that ejecting a bad comm is the right thing to do)).
Also it takes a thick skin and good communication skills (and good comm skills of course) to convince players to carry out your strategy plan. People prefer to play the way they know already. This social behaviour has the funny side effect that sometimes the worst strategies (eg. the good old Phasegate first build) are carried and defended by the players, just because they never learned something new, because it is carried and defended by the players, because they never learned something new, because it is carried and defended by the players.
I think teaching the new players is a big point. I dont really have to add much here (no ideas what else could be done). But I think the more essential points are about LoLs matchmaking.
I think the new skill system is definetely a step in the right direction. I think it can still be improved a lot (seperating alien and marine skill, splitting off comm skill ( I think a comm influences the outcome of a round more than a player, and I think a marine comm influences it more than an alien comm).
Apart from that, finding some kind of matchmaking mechanism is probably the lowest hanging fruit right now, as the potential benefits are huge (imo) and I think it could be far easier to implement than big tutorials and singleplayer-scenarios. Basically, there has to be created a place where more inexperienced players can be safe from veterans. Now there have been rookie-only servers before, and I know they were almost never used. Guess why? 1. The rookie status is way to short and way too binary (on off), meaning there is not enough "protection time" for them to learn in a friendly environment. 2. How on earth is a rookie supposed to know what a rookie server is, how to find it, why to join it? 3. Server mechanics - every server admin knows how hard it is to keep a normal server populated; so how is a rookie only server supposed to stay populated?
There needs to be a built-in mechanic to funnel new players into servers with new players only (unless they dont want to of course). I think the "Quick Join" option is the perfect way to do this.
Also we need to lose the binary rookie mode and introduce some more level steps (bronze, silver, gold, master, whatever, doesnt really matter). If the new skill system proves to be working, utilize it to assign skill-score ranges to the different levels. Then make level-only servers, and let Quick Join fill them accordingly.
Apart from that, I am thinking of a way how an ingame gather system could be implemented properly. In my opinion, the main reason why the previous attempt failed is, that you had to stay in the menu while you were waiting. It has to work asynchronous to your game-activity, eg. you can play on some pub-server while the gather is running.
I think a gather system could be the key to getting a proper matchmaking, because it is a small step from a gather system to a MM-System: Just increase the wait time a bit more (artificially), and select the teams out of a bigger group of sign-ups. The more the gather system would be used, the easier it would be to build MM on top of it.
I agree 100% for the last point about minimum level before you can command. IMO there are exactly zero scenarios where letting a player without much field-experience command would make sense, so why not block it? Win-Win for everyone.
Not sure what else should be unlocked by levels. I think the more meaningful data-point should be the skill-score. Like I mentioned above, a higher skill score should restrict you from playing [lower-level]-only server. Note that you can always play above your level, if you want to. Quick Join should not automatically connect you to a higher skill server though (if it does it should explicitly warn the player, so he can set his expectations (to get stomped)).
On top of that, some kind of vote would be good too, to grant someone comm rights (for cases when the majority of the team is ok with an inexperienced comm)
this also sounds like a good idea.
Im saying is its need to be like
1/Click on Match Making
2/ Put 5v5 players on a server that have under 250 ping
3/Click Ready as a player to vote start match
4/ if there is 8/10 player ready in that lobby >>> Game start and add bots , When 2 other player connect those Bots will be gain control by those 2 player
Resource of those 2 bots will be transfer to other player:D
5/If you quit match , you get penalty like >> Cant play for 15 mins .Quit match during game 3 times will ban you from match making for 3 days...vvv like Counter Strike GO
Ns2 competitive is 6v6. Marine bots are seriously OP and alien bots are just dumb. There was an option awhile back called organized play that was kind of a matchmaking, but I never saw anyone use it and I checked almost every time I played ns2. 250 ping is really high too.
As we can see here, being new is confusing and he even has misconceptions. When I was new, I felt similarly: It was the whole "i'm new, I'm not good enough" that was the real factor in the game. I had iron will and trained my way through it, but it was hard work and I almost quit. without a clan I would probably not have stayed.
My suggestions for solutions to rookie retention is as follows:
Being stricter on "rookie only" servers.
A rookie server must be a rookie server. However, player base is too low. Thus, i suggest that a Proven Skilled player is automatically handicapped on such a server. I am not sure by how much, but instakilling skulks, lerks and fades is a big ragequit moment. Their damage could be lower, their annoying dodge jump can be nerfed and medspam strangled for these high skilled carries. Any player who becomes a carry may get gradually nerfed. Most likely this will truly discourage these pubstompers from going on rookie servers, but let them if they are looking to recruit, be nice, or play with rooke friends. (like me).
Autobalance is a nice idea, but it splits friend groups apart. It is truly a deal breaker for many. However, there being some autobalance servers on is very good, but the rookies don't know their options.
An info field in the menu for this and other things would branch the gap between rookies and new players.
Clan activity:
Clans take the anonymity and what little hostility is there, out of ns2. Make clans more visible and allow them to enter info fields that can be browsed via the ns2 menu. A place for a website, some info, requirements, maybe freeform text depending on what the clans would need, so players can get a feeling of the activity we DO have, and what clans are available to join, or even an option to start their own right there! (using a steam group or even a forum post)
TAW does training sessions for it's members of all skills, i'm sure other clans do to, and it really creates lasting NS2 players when you have a strong bond to a clan. Maybe create a low bar branch of your existing clan for rookies to grow in, without strict times of attendance and such.
This can be added to the info menu in a community/clan tab.
NS2 is hard to learn:
Maps:
Real Rookie servers should stick to 3 maps at most. I dare suggest they play veil only. One server running just veil for the rookiest of the rookies (one week olds, free weekend and other days heavy with rookies), and regular rota on other servers would be good. Make sure to inform about these and promote them in the info menu i keep mentioning.
More tutorials and integrating of tutorials into menu.
I suggested to @mephilles that he make a training course map for TAW, maybe all of ns2 could benefit from it. I suggested a spiral formed map with a beginning and an end (loops), and a central area. So you can either run along the spiral and face more and more cover trying to shoot skulks as they come at you, (make several rooms each for each life form) or you could even stand in the centre area and shoot the skulks from the side, duck-hunt style. It would work in the reverse as a skulk too, and be ideal for learning to wall jump.
Waypoints:
The ingame waypoints seem to be used awkwardly and I never understood them. There is arrows pointing to power nodes that the commander wants me to ignore? IDK what's with this, but make the pointy things point to the actual thing that you want an individual player to do, the rookies DO follow glowing arrows, and maybe they can get some auto praise for completing what the arrows tell them, like a "good job" sound from the commander voice or whatever. A little praise goes a LONG way imo, even if its the game doing it.
other points:
I never noticed the points system (except from on the score board) and I'm 500 hours in, call me unobservant but there is a lot of necessary visual noise in ns2, and it's like a brick wall to the face of a rookie to be hit by it all so fast. I can only say more gradual and better tutorials, or encourage rookies to play other game types.
Add to the menu a checklist for tooltips read and tutorials made, and give a badge once a player has read, played, and watched them all.
Prevent rookies pub commanding until a player has passed a commander tutorial.
Rookie only servers are a good idea for the truly green people to get their first impressions of the game. But it would be a good idea to try guide new players to any of NS2's gaming communities where they might find it easier to learn the game and enjoy the depth of gameplay. At the moment though, all we have is a sticky post in the official forums that's easily overlooked. We need to advertise communities/clans a bit more ingame.