Concede option being abused when minor issues occur.
Mango
Join Date: 2012-10-11 Member: 162061Members
Join Date: 2012-10-11 Member: 162061Members
I notice after taken a break everyone loves to concede when something doesn't go has plan. It seems like everyone loves using the concede and quit right away. Not even giving the game a chance for a comeback. It is such a turn off to have everyone vote concede the first 5 minutes of a game. I also, notice some servers you may have 15 players on each side but it only takes 5 to concede a game. Been back and 95% of the games end in concede. It is outrages.
Comments
I could say that this is a social issue, that people give up to easy or don't know when to give up. Either way, I think the fact the game needs to be conceded so early and with such frequency is an indicator of something fundamentally flawed with the games design.
I am sorry Mango, but this just will not change anytime soon, if at all.
This will fix it
Edit* If we can make it so the winning does such errors the losing team can still comeback. As of right now, it seems that the winning team can still make errors and still win. So, the result is the losing team will always give up.
Frequent use of conceding is not the cause, its the symptom, of a fundamental design error.
Mostly thanks to an incredible degree of slippery slope mechanics + very few viable comebacks (esp for marines as the round goes on).
There are potential solutions, but they are often met with "that changes the game too much".
You can do small things like increase the viability and accessibility of Exos (I have been pushing for this for some time) and a few new comeback mechanics.. but anything that touches the economy or something fundamental - which is what is probably required - is considered to be too divergent from the NS2 people know.
*shrug* .. I've gone blue in the face over this enough time in the past years that at this point I feel like it's all been said already.
Those that stick around to learn the game and even become decent, are still faced with the realization at some point.. that very few rounds end up being enjoyable until the last second.
More importantly, the alternative to concede is not to play on but to F4 to ready room, which is many times worse. Concede is wonderful, all hail concede.
In which way will they be repurposed?
Concede, or f4, or worse disconnect is a consequence of a player, or a significative number of players, that do not will to play the round anymore.
At least, concede made it a overall team vote and partly prevent F4's or, worse, disconnect wich is a cause of server killing.
We've been thru this thousand of times since NS1. Can you prevent people from disconnect ? no. So what's the bloody point with concede ?
That and trying to have a democratic vote on the internet with a team that already has low social order is likely to encounter difficulties until its readily apparent the game is over and the entire team is dead in the spawn queue. Ironically, that's when the concede votes start to pass when its not even needed anymore...
Marines turtling in base -> no posiblilty of recovery -> No concede votes.
On a serious note, concede is a tool that is hardly ever used at the appropriate time. It's either used at a time where you have a very good chance of recovery or its not used at all. I usually revert to F4ing into spectate if the game gets to a point where it's unrecoverable and people won't concede. Most of the time, this works but some servers will ban you for it. In that case, ill go into a vent and sticky key 'w' so I don't get afk kicked while I go get a drink or something.
-concede is for pansies
However, as many have already pointed out, the alternative is far worse. If conceding is not an option, people will f4, and that kills servers.
The problem is not the concede mechanic, but rather the player mentality - which is probably born either out of ignorance or incompetence. If people don't know how to come back, or worse, they think they can't come back - then it's not surprising that they want to concede prematurely.
I don't think we can cure ignorance. But I do think there is a remedy for relative incompetence. You group players with similar competence, so nobody is relatively incompetent.
In other words; the solution is skill segregation.
There are *very* clear times when conceding is what makes sense not because there aren't ways to comeback, but because your team is not remotely capable of it and thus it is a complete waste of time and frustrating as hell.
That's the issue with the current comebacks in NS2 - they are primarily accessible to a highly skilled, communicative and organized team - Exactly what you don't have in your average pub game, for either team.
Conceding is not an issue and should always remain in the game - idk why people are harping on this strawman argument? It's a symptom people, not the cause. Neither is competence most of the time.
Very much agree. Most often the indicators of "Well this is over" aren't that we just lost our forward position, that we have no RTs, or even that we're losing engagements.
It's usually "No one is working together, but the enemy team is ripping us to shreds at their will." This lack of coordination is so apparently losing us this game, that there's probably no other possible outcome. Alternatively people are listening, but simply aren't capable of carrying out the orders (this usually does relate to engagements).
Veterans usually recognize this very quickly and often there's just one final straw that breaks our spirit. The moment of "It really doesn't matter what I do or try in this game, none of the likely outcomes include victory" hits and we want to move on.
Oh no we're losing let's concede so we can play another round
VS how it used to be in NS
Defend this base to the last man/alien standing, bunker up!
Only amplified by the spawn camping nature of NS2 last stance. In NS, pub play bunkering up was actually fun and kinda felt like "NS2 - Last Stand"... Heh make losing fun again o/
I never denied that there are situations where you want to concede. And I believe it should always stay in the game - in fact that was my case to begin with. This is a good point and I agree. I'd say to that, that I think failure to communicate and failure to organize, is under the umbrella of incompetence.
And I'm not sure what strawman you're referring to.
As for the cause, I suppose I took your use of "incompetence" to mean knowledge specifically, instead of ability. (your usage of "ignorance" supported this)
But even if we agree on that point, I felt like your post blames the player instead of the design which is not accounting for said statistical lack of ability/skill.
Also, grouping similarly skilled players won't address any of the skill ranges that are mid to lower, ranges that cannot access the potential comebacks.
But I do think that the large skill gaps of NS2 is the root of most evils, more so than the design at least. I don't think any change in design will ever change the skill gaps - only skill separation can in my view.
This is why I love the rookie only servers - I just want that idea to be expanded for more skill levels.
I'm not convinced that is true. I think it's reasonable to think that certain comeback opportunities are eliminated by the presence of skilled individuals. If so, then certainly removing that presence would help increase comeback opportunities.
Imagine aliens being behind. In spite of all odds and all we know about public games, aliens decide to group up 5 players to attack in to a position that happens to be protected by the best on the server. You risk situations where that guy may not kill everyone in the push but he chips enough damage that the push is cancelled. He's only able to do this, because he has a particular skill gap advantage. If the player had otherwise had a more similar skill as the rest of the server, then the group-up may have worked out just fine. If so - then skill segregation does account for mid to lower comeback potential.
The hey, if the other team doesn't press us where we're weak we might be able to muddle through... Oh NM, they just wiped out our forward position for free... Well there's that then.
People with high elos are not just decent players, they also have enough experience muddling through pubs where they have a feel of how pubs are likely to play out. I'd think often better than more skilled pug players.
Sure, it helps, but not nearly as much as making comebacks more accessible, imo.
Your example of what a single higher skilled individual can do is accurate and I've seen it many times, but the problem is that you can't change this scenario due to playercounts, and the team that is able to coordinate a 5 person push is already taking the correct steps to enact a comeback.. so it may not be the best example to use even though I can appreciate the point it makes.
If you take two equally skilled average pub teams, (which invariably include a few rookies) neither are going to be able to capitalize on the comebacks that are available to them when they need it, they play a very narrow portion of what is strategically and organizationally possible.
So to me the real issue is making comebacks more accessible - probably by means other than depending on the skills which that team failed at so far - without making them feel cheap to lose against.
The reasoning for this is that I believe that if we depend on comeback mechanics that rely on playing the meta game, the same meta that the team has been failing at thus far, that it still keeps said mechanics inaccessible and therefore will have minimal impact.
I didn't mean to give the impression that more comeback mechanics can't or won't help. I even advocated for them in some of your other posts. Player segregation and extra comeback mechanics are complementary, not mutually exclusive. So I don't feel the need of debating which will impact more than the other - implement both.