WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
FWIW, it's commonplace on TGNS for every single player in a given game to be using a playername that hasn't changed in months or years. I strongly recommend that experience. We have a LOT of fun.
FWIW, it's commonplace on TGNS for every single player in a given game to be using a playername that hasn't changed in months or years. I strongly recommend that experience. We have a LOT of fun.
Yeah i was there the other night and people were there with smurfs, your non-name changing policy is stupid(wait what, i never had an issue with changing names) and doesn't let people who want to have fun changing there name have fun, besides anyone who knows how to use hive/steam profile can easily see who it is.
If anything you're just making your task as an owner/admin easier to quickly notice who it is, then again controlling players isn't on any decent admins to do list so it's fine. "hands off policy" is the best approach imo
Games aren't ruined by 2+ high div players stacking a single team.
Yes they are. In most servers one high skill player is enough to "stack" a team. The only place you can get away with it is wooza or other 40+ slot servers. Anything less that and one good player can easily clean up multiple opponents and have an extreme impact on the game.
Why should I be forced all of the time to play against my friends? If I even play pub it is above all else to have fun. But the atrocious skill balancing system forces me into teams I don't want.
Ever had to play and lose alien 5 maps in a row be a use hive likes to shit shuffle you? Guess what I don't enjoy having an incapable team that is only "balanced" because my high elo makes shuffle think it's fair. While the other teams avg elo per player is substantially higher that's why smurfs happen.
Fix the ass awful balance so I don't need to be relied on for my team to achieve something. I haven't played pubs in a long time because honestly admins hate on high skill players and shuffle doesn't take into account anything other than an utterly useless elo value.
I have no fun when im being forced into losing teams because the admin doesn't want to lose. I have no fun when admins abuse their power to sv_slay me because I'm better than pubbers.
So yes I used to smurf on pubs to avoid the bullshit that people either expect or admins force out of me and I will happily do it again in the future.
Dude, what on earth you talking about? You quoted something that a) I didnt say, and b) is contrary to the point of every post I've made in this thread.
And then you disagree with the words you have misattributed to me,
Yes they are. In most servers one high skill player is enough to "stack" a team. The only place you can get away with it is wooza or other 40+ slot servers. Anything less that and one good player can easily clean up multiple opponents and have an extreme impact on the game.
BUT THEN the rest of your post is you trying to make excuses as to why it's OK for you to do the exact thing you just argued was detrimental to games.
Why should I be forced all of the time to play against my friends? If I even play pub it is above all else to have fun. But the atrocious skill balancing system forces me into teams I don't want.
... I'm honestly not sure if you're trying to troll me or not. It's just so intellectually dishonest of you to misquote me and then excuse yourself from the very thing you're decrying.
Ever had to play and lose alien 5 maps in a row be a use hive likes to shit shuffle you?
Yes! This happens to everyone, I can assure you.
Tell you what else has happened a lot? Having either a totally boring stomp against me, or a totally boring stomp in my favour (all skulks suiciding into skilled players on my team on the other side of the map, yaawwwn), due to 2, 3, whatever, competitive players joining a server and refusing to split up so the remaining 90% of the players can enjoy a match that feels fair.
Thing is, you're saying you dont like losing when it feels unfair to you.
Tell you what I personally dont like? Any game that feels unfair to anyone. Whether I'm on the winning team and its a snorefest or the losing team and it's a snorefest.
Honestly sounds like you're the one taking it too seriously.
As a side note, there ARE competitive or highly skilled players that join pub servers, on their main accounts, with their super high ELO, and simply respect the hive shuffle. And as far as I have seen, people are super fucking A-OK with that. That is not a problem.
You complain about shitty team mates, but thinking back I dont believe I've ever personally seen you attempt to communicate in a public server.
Ever heard of a guy called Wob? He comes and joins pub servers and whatever team he gets shuffled to, he'll communicate and help the players he's with, talking to them like they're human beings. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. That's the game mate. But you know what, it's players like that that give the comp scene and NS2 as a whole a good name. He might be better than 99% of the players on the server but at least he's humble and there's not one person I can think of that would say he's a douche.
Maybe if you would take your head out of your arse and help your teammates in pubs you'd lose only 3 or 4 times in a row as aliens.
It's just a damn shame there are a few people that just want to 'troll and have fun' at the expense of everyone else for some ultimately worthless and toxic sense of superiority, rather than really do all they can to make this game enjoyable for their fellow players.
Dude, what on earth you talking about? You quoted something that a) I didnt say, and b) is contrary to the point of every post I've made in this thread.
What i'm interested in is coming to some kind of resolution, wherein-
You get to have fun and enhance your bro-bonds with other players
You are not forced to create smurf accounts to deceive the skill balancing neccesary for pub games to not feel like a stomp.
Games aren't ruined by 2+ high div players stacking a single team.
You're clearly better at smurfing pubs than reading comprehension (I emboldened the first half of the sentence so maybe you'll be able to read it this time K?)
Actually maybe that's not clear enough so lets use the magical power of words to put the two parts together:
Cannon_FodderAUSBrisbane, AUJoin Date: 2013-06-23Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
@2cough and they fail to communicate the kick. Like crappy teams fail to vote concede even though the other team has all res nodes on the map. Have taken out your 1 and only res node, and have surrounded your base on all sides.
When people ask if I'm a smurf, I say "nice to meet you too." Seems like general response to a unrecognized gud player is either cheating or smurfing. I still see high play hour admins asking if anyone knows "so and so." It usually turns out to be a really good player on their real account. I did encountered a smurf posse about six monthes ago.
It would be interesting would it not, if "bad/stomper/good/incognito" smurfs have the balls to come up in here and explain their shenanigans Mostly because I'm kinda curious myself what motivates them... Mostly
It happenned, and look at the mess!
But I really want to get this back on track and draw some useful conclusions from this thread.
By the sounds of it, really what it comes down to is; Some high ELO players do not enjoy games where they are matched with, on-average, lower ELO players than the opposing teams because their personal ELO skews the average so damn much. with the caveat that the enjoyment of other players on the server is not a concern for them.
@Cr4zyb4st4rd would you say this is this a fair representation of your motivations?
I'm honestly past the point of caring about making judgements of your character based on this so even if it's selfish, whatever. I'm looking for solutions, not looking to shame people for exploiting a flawed system.
SO with that said, what would you propose could be changed about the system that would remedy this?
I suspect solutions fall under changes to skill balancing that @moultano has already addressed, such as taking into account the standard deviation from the mean average of team ELO values when balancing.
I've seen servers running some kind of mod that does indeed display the SD on the scoreboard but it didn't seem to be working at the time.
Is this kind of stuff really so hard to implement in shuffle or FET?
Now that we're on weekly updates, it'd be the ideal time to see if we can start making changes to this as it has been a problem for years now, and all the tutorials in the world aren't going to change that.
@Cr4zyb4st4rd There are still enough servers for higher skilled players like "NS2-Russia 40+ hours" server or Woozas 20+ hour server. I thing thirsty onos has also a high skill rank. In this servers you can play with your friends because the other teams will have comp. Players too.
And i think you are a smart guy. If you are new in a server and check the team balance you can read if it is possible to play with your friends or not.
for example: if the alien team is suffering and has two players less than marines and the hive skill is very low: congrats. grab your friend and join aliens.
But if you see the server is well balanced: split up!
YOU have the power to balance the game. And with great power comes great responsibility
You aren't going to get people to agree to do the right thing. Partly because nobody can agree on what the right thing is, and partly because people can't be selfless 100% of the time).
We have to solve their problems instead so that the path of least resistance ends up being the right thing. Quite a few good issues with the current system have already been brought up in this thread!
In the meantime what I currently try to do on servers when I notice i'm way above the server average (and often fail to do) is:
- I will stick as skulk/gorge/commander if i'm on aliens.
- I will stick to the phasegates or defending the naturals if i'm on marines.
And whats really odd, is it doesn't cause me to lose that much because of one thing that holds true really well on pub.
Biting res as a skulk through an entire game none stop is really OP and wins games. However it doesn't demoralise the losing team like crushing them in PvP does.
Defending res and bases as a marine (while the lesser skilled players are on the frontline) is really OP and wins games. It also doesn't give the aliens that demoralising devastating feeling like constant rushing to their naturals does.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The argument "I as a high skill comp player want to have fun with my friends" is understandable to a certain point but doing this by smurfing against low to mid skill is kinda egoistic.
Its hard enough to play against one >3000 skillpoint player after a shuffle.
But 2 with new rookie ascounts breaks the whole balance wich end in easy wins.
I always thought that comp players searching for atleast a little bit competition.
And its interisting that this behaviour comes from players who yelling nonstop that UWE or CDT is killing NS2.
Stomping low level players to have "some fun" is killing NS2.
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
I see in this thread many people full of hypocrisy and close-minded. Both sides have valid arguments, I don't get why people can't figure them out. It's not that difficult.
I just want to point out that whenever you buy a game you do it to have fun, if you succeed to provide some fun to others, that's nice but you do not purchase a game initially to provide entertainment to other players. No need to argue since Cr4zy pretty much summed up the whole point. Meatmachine and some others also summarized how it is bad for other players who are affected.
There's no many solutions to fix this in fact, you'd need proper public servers beside competitive matches and gathers, as the former HBZ server used to provide for instance. And no, last time I played, there wasn't any server for high skilled players only. You now have rookie only, "normal" veterans, but nothing regarding high skilled players. That's a problem, and I seriously don't see why some people ignore this situation on purpose.
I'm not saying smurfing is good, and for your information, this isn't limited to high skilled players. But I am not going to derail this thread since this thread is now about high skilled players who do it to keep having fun on public servers.
Locklear's 2 possible answers pretty much resolves this thread.
As for @Cr4zyb4st4rd 's scenario of not being able to team up with your other high level player on the same team : I have no sympathy for you.
Split up / command /gorge and do your best not to imbalance a round.. knowing you have the potential to easily dictate the outcome of a round means you have a responsibility to ensure the rest of the lower level players in the server still have an enjoyable experience. If this is too much to ask of a vet, (and as someone who does it allll the time I do not believe it is) then you probably should not be playing there.
If people want to command, they command.
Gorge is useless when your whole team has a single digit IQ combined.
tl;dr if you're good at this game, you should be forced to not have fun and put the needs of others in first.
Locklear's 2 possible answers pretty much resolves this thread.
As for @Cr4zyb4st4rd 's scenario of not being able to team up with your other high level player on the same team : I have no sympathy for you.
Split up / command /gorge and do your best not to imbalance a round.. knowing you have the potential to easily dictate the outcome of a round means you have a responsibility to ensure the rest of the lower level players in the server still have an enjoyable experience. If this is too much to ask of a vet, (and as someone who does it allll the time I do not believe it is) then you probably should not be playing there.
I haven't even posted in this thread, lmao.
Also rofl @lhooq , I know something you don't want other people to know.
You aren't going to get people to agree to do the right thing. Partly because nobody can agree on what the right thing is, and partly because people can't be selfless 100% of the time).
We have to solve their problems instead so that the path of least resistance ends up being the right thing. Quite a few good issues with the current system have already been brought up in this thread!
In the meantime what I currently try to do on servers when I notice i'm way above the server average (and often fail to do) is:
- I will stick as skulk/gorge/commander if i'm on aliens.
- I will stick to the phasegates or defending the naturals if i'm on marines.
And whats really odd, is it doesn't cause me to lose that much because of one thing that holds true really well on pub.
Biting res as a skulk through an entire game none stop is really OP and wins games. However it doesn't demoralise the losing team like crushing them in PvP does.
Defending res and bases as a marine (while the lesser skilled players are on the frontline) is really OP and wins games. It also doesn't give the aliens that demoralising devastating feeling like constant rushing to their naturals does.
I do that too. But in the mean time you can add/admit it's kind of boring to be the pillar of the team. At some point it becomes like a daily routine... washing the dishes. Plus it doesn't teach/encourage the rookies to take care of things either. This does not really help them to understand the game in the end.
You aren't going to get people to agree to do the right thing. Partly because nobody can agree on what the right thing is, and partly because people can't be selfless 100% of the time).
We have to solve their problems instead so that the path of least resistance ends up being the right thing. Quite a few good issues with the current system have already been brought up in this thread!
In the meantime what I currently try to do on servers when I notice i'm way above the server average (and often fail to do) is:
- I will stick as skulk/gorge/commander if i'm on aliens.
- I will stick to the phasegates or defending the naturals if i'm on marines.
And whats really odd, is it doesn't cause me to lose that much because of one thing that holds true really well on pub.
Biting res as a skulk through an entire game none stop is really OP and wins games. However it doesn't demoralise the losing team like crushing them in PvP does.
Defending res and bases as a marine (while the lesser skilled players are on the frontline) is really OP and wins games. It also doesn't give the aliens that demoralising devastating feeling like constant rushing to their naturals does.
I do that too. But in the mean time you can add/admit it's kind of boring to be the pillar of the team. At some point it becomes like a daily routine... washing the dishes. Plus it doesn't teach/encourage the rookies to take care of things either. This does not really help them to understand the game in the end.
You're right it is kind of boring to have to do that. On the other hand though we've both been here over a decade now so it can't be that bad
tl;dr if you're good at this game, you should be forced to not have fun and put the needs of others in first.
If want to contribute to growing our player base, then basically, yes you have a duty to ensure an enjoyable experience for others? Whether you choose to do so is on you, and will reflect on you as such.
If you don't find other challenging and non impactful ways of playing to be "fun", then you should seek another server that better suits your needs.
blaming the players for ruining the game is stupid -- it does not present a solution. it is obvious that many people will act in their own self interest when it comes to their win/loss ratio. why the devs have failed to provide a functional pub system after 4 years is the question OP should be asking.
Comments
Yeah i was there the other night and people were there with smurfs, your non-name changing policy is stupid(wait what, i never had an issue with changing names) and doesn't let people who want to have fun changing there name have fun, besides anyone who knows how to use hive/steam profile can easily see who it is.
If anything you're just making your task as an owner/admin easier to quickly notice who it is, then again controlling players isn't on any decent admins to do list so it's fine. "hands off policy" is the best approach imo
Dude, what on earth you talking about? You quoted something that a) I didnt say, and b) is contrary to the point of every post I've made in this thread.
And then you disagree with the words you have misattributed to me, BUT THEN the rest of your post is you trying to make excuses as to why it's OK for you to do the exact thing you just argued was detrimental to games. ... I'm honestly not sure if you're trying to troll me or not. It's just so intellectually dishonest of you to misquote me and then excuse yourself from the very thing you're decrying. Yes! This happens to everyone, I can assure you.
Tell you what else has happened a lot? Having either a totally boring stomp against me, or a totally boring stomp in my favour (all skulks suiciding into skilled players on my team on the other side of the map, yaawwwn), due to 2, 3, whatever, competitive players joining a server and refusing to split up so the remaining 90% of the players can enjoy a match that feels fair.
Thing is, you're saying you dont like losing when it feels unfair to you.
Tell you what I personally dont like? Any game that feels unfair to anyone. Whether I'm on the winning team and its a snorefest or the losing team and it's a snorefest.
Honestly sounds like you're the one taking it too seriously.
As a side note, there ARE competitive or highly skilled players that join pub servers, on their main accounts, with their super high ELO, and simply respect the hive shuffle. And as far as I have seen, people are super fucking A-OK with that. That is not a problem.
You complain about shitty team mates, but thinking back I dont believe I've ever personally seen you attempt to communicate in a public server.
Ever heard of a guy called Wob? He comes and joins pub servers and whatever team he gets shuffled to, he'll communicate and help the players he's with, talking to them like they're human beings. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. That's the game mate. But you know what, it's players like that that give the comp scene and NS2 as a whole a good name. He might be better than 99% of the players on the server but at least he's humble and there's not one person I can think of that would say he's a douche.
Maybe if you would take your head out of your arse and help your teammates in pubs you'd lose only 3 or 4 times in a row as aliens.
It's just a damn shame there are a few people that just want to 'troll and have fun' at the expense of everyone else for some ultimately worthless and toxic sense of superiority, rather than really do all they can to make this game enjoyable for their fellow players.
I'm gonna go smurf some pubs now.
You're clearly better at smurfing pubs than reading comprehension (I emboldened the first half of the sentence so maybe you'll be able to read it this time K?)
Actually maybe that's not clear enough so lets use the magical power of words to put the two parts together: Here you go mate, hope thats simple enough for you
So you going to address any of the points I've raised or just misquote me and act like that in some way solves anything?
But I really want to get this back on track and draw some useful conclusions from this thread.
By the sounds of it, really what it comes down to is; Some high ELO players do not enjoy games where they are matched with, on-average, lower ELO players than the opposing teams because their personal ELO skews the average so damn much. with the caveat that the enjoyment of other players on the server is not a concern for them.
@Cr4zyb4st4rd would you say this is this a fair representation of your motivations?
I'm honestly past the point of caring about making judgements of your character based on this so even if it's selfish, whatever. I'm looking for solutions, not looking to shame people for exploiting a flawed system.
SO with that said, what would you propose could be changed about the system that would remedy this?
I suspect solutions fall under changes to skill balancing that @moultano has already addressed, such as taking into account the standard deviation from the mean average of team ELO values when balancing.
I've seen servers running some kind of mod that does indeed display the SD on the scoreboard but it didn't seem to be working at the time.
Is this kind of stuff really so hard to implement in shuffle or FET?
Now that we're on weekly updates, it'd be the ideal time to see if we can start making changes to this as it has been a problem for years now, and all the tutorials in the world aren't going to change that.
And i think you are a smart guy. If you are new in a server and check the team balance you can read if it is possible to play with your friends or not.
for example: if the alien team is suffering and has two players less than marines and the hive skill is very low: congrats. grab your friend and join aliens.
But if you see the server is well balanced: split up!
YOU have the power to balance the game. And with great power comes great responsibility
We have to solve their problems instead so that the path of least resistance ends up being the right thing. Quite a few good issues with the current system have already been brought up in this thread!
In the meantime what I currently try to do on servers when I notice i'm way above the server average (and often fail to do) is:
- I will stick as skulk/gorge/commander if i'm on aliens.
- I will stick to the phasegates or defending the naturals if i'm on marines.
And whats really odd, is it doesn't cause me to lose that much because of one thing that holds true really well on pub.
Biting res as a skulk through an entire game none stop is really OP and wins games. However it doesn't demoralise the losing team like crushing them in PvP does.
Defending res and bases as a marine (while the lesser skilled players are on the frontline) is really OP and wins games. It also doesn't give the aliens that demoralising devastating feeling like constant rushing to their naturals does.
Its hard enough to play against one >3000 skillpoint player after a shuffle.
But 2 with new rookie ascounts breaks the whole balance wich end in easy wins.
I always thought that comp players searching for atleast a little bit competition.
And its interisting that this behaviour comes from players who yelling nonstop that UWE or CDT is killing NS2.
Stomping low level players to have "some fun" is killing NS2.
I
I just want to point out that whenever you buy a game you do it to have fun, if you succeed to provide some fun to others, that's nice but you do not purchase a game initially to provide entertainment to other players. No need to argue since Cr4zy pretty much summed up the whole point. Meatmachine and some others also summarized how it is bad for other players who are affected.
There's no many solutions to fix this in fact, you'd need proper public servers beside competitive matches and gathers, as the former HBZ server used to provide for instance. And no, last time I played, there wasn't any server for high skilled players only. You now have rookie only, "normal" veterans, but nothing regarding high skilled players. That's a problem, and I seriously don't see why some people ignore this situation on purpose.
I'm not saying smurfing is good, and for your information, this isn't limited to high skilled players. But I am not going to derail this thread since this thread is now about high skilled players who do it to keep having fun on public servers.
If people want to command, they command.
Gorge is useless when your whole team has a single digit IQ combined.
tl;dr if you're good at this game, you should be forced to not have fun and put the needs of others in first.
can I get invited to Overwatch pls.
I haven't even posted in this thread, lmao.
Also rofl @lhooq , I know something you don't want other people to know.
I do that too. But in the mean time you can add/admit it's kind of boring to be the pillar of the team. At some point it becomes like a daily routine... washing the dishes. Plus it doesn't teach/encourage the rookies to take care of things either. This does not really help them to understand the game in the end.
You're right it is kind of boring to have to do that. On the other hand though we've both been here over a decade now so it can't be that bad
If you don't find other challenging and non impactful ways of playing to be "fun", then you should seek another server that better suits your needs.
Joshhy is your smurf account. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :P
blaming the players for ruining the game is stupid -- it does not present a solution. it is obvious that many people will act in their own self interest when it comes to their win/loss ratio. why the devs have failed to provide a functional pub system after 4 years is the question OP should be asking.
at least after 3+ years, they finally addressed the issue
Locklear and I are actually the same person. The WC was actually some time paradox sht where I was in 2 places at the same time.
One on the mouse, one on the keyboard?