Steam-group for low-skilled players (suggestion)
Resistor
Russia Join Date: 2014-08-01 Member: 197747Members
Russia Join Date: 2014-08-01 Member: 197747Members
I suggest to create a group for low skilled players where they can organize themselves. Because whining in steam forums will not help much.
There are some players who understand the core mechanics, but for some reason don't feel comfortable in direct combat. They are not rookies but at the same time feel themselves being stomped on "normal" servers. As I can see from steam forums there are quite a lot of these folks. I consider, that some type of organization will help them to find their own server which will comply with their demands.
Below there is a link to example of such group
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2LS
I'm not a low-skilled player myself, so I'm not interested in developing of such a community. But I consider that someone should do it and it will be useful for the whole NS2 community.
P.S. Maybe, there are already groups with same aims. There is one for rookies http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2Rookie But I'm not sure that it is what you guys need, because you are not rookies.
Link to the same message in steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/app/4920/discussions/0/385429254949679360/
There are some players who understand the core mechanics, but for some reason don't feel comfortable in direct combat. They are not rookies but at the same time feel themselves being stomped on "normal" servers. As I can see from steam forums there are quite a lot of these folks. I consider, that some type of organization will help them to find their own server which will comply with their demands.
Below there is a link to example of such group
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2LS
I'm not a low-skilled player myself, so I'm not interested in developing of such a community. But I consider that someone should do it and it will be useful for the whole NS2 community.
P.S. Maybe, there are already groups with same aims. There is one for rookies http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2Rookie But I'm not sure that it is what you guys need, because you are not rookies.
Link to the same message in steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/app/4920/discussions/0/385429254949679360/
Comments
For reference. These values are from players who have played sometime between January 1st and February 12th 2016 with 50 or more hours recorded in hive. I chose 50 hours because by that time their hive skill should have converged near the true value.
This thread was started by a player complaining it was unfair. http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/140551/why-the-bootcamp-update-has-killed-the-game-for-me-and-any-average-player/p1
In regards to restricting servers to certain skills, I give the following recommendations.
1. Low skill server, restricted to the bottom 50% of player skill for players with a hive skill of 1124 or below.
2. Middle skill server, restricted to the middle 50% of players skill for players with a hive skill between 835 and 1582
3. High skill server, restricted to the top 50% of player skill for players with 1124 hive skill or greater.
Servers would restrict servers to these skill brackets using the Shine Administration mod.
These servers will be much harder to seed than normal servers because 50% of the player base can not play there.
Teams should be balanced with both average skill and the standard deviation of skill in mind. The default configuration for shines shuffle function does just that. Oftentimes, shuffling teams does not create better games. There is never a guarantee that shuffling teams will make better games. Restricting servers by hive skill like this will make better games more likely to happen for the middle skill group, and to a lesser extent the lower skill group.
This is because the standard deviation of skill on the server would be lower. Standard deviation is a measure of the variation in a distribution or set of data. Basically it is a measure of how far apart the values are. In my experience I see the standard deviation of skill on a team range from 400 to 1000. Both are ridiculously high values for a standard deviation, but that is the nature of having a small player base.
Restricting hive skill as described above will lower the standard deviation on those servers. I ran an experiment with 100 servers with 18 players each. Each player was given a random skill value within the skill bracket described above. The low skill servers had an average skill of 551, and the average standard deviation of skill on the server was 326. The middle skill servers had an average skill of 1244, and the average standard deviation of skill was 201.
Standard deviations of 326 and 201 are much lower than what is typically seen on any given ns2 server. The games will not always be better, but the likelihood of good games would be better.
topic in steam: http://steamcommunity.com/app/4920/discussions/0/385429254951439172/
Edit: Are there any way to edit the first message? I feel so dumb...
If anyone is interested, and reading this, I did write a proposal to that problem. This is not in line with the threads topic though. If you would like to discuss it, message me here or on discord.
It is not a problem with the system. The system just can't work properly when it has two incomparable sets of players. If they play enough, they would become comparable. The bigger problem is that they do not play enough, and often quit in the first 10 hours of ns2.
It's not related to the starting MMR.
What I mean is that the "rookie status" with dedicated rookie servers creates that second set of players that is incomparable to the main one.
I would like to remind of something that has recently been brought to my attention:
Rookies "graduate" from rookie only servers with actual commander badges.
Imo, you should not be able to gain commander badges on rookie only servers. Getting a commander badge should also take longer. (20 hours of commanding, maybe.)
The rookie only servers, are even more relativistic because there is less random sampling of players. This is the problem you have stated. It is true that they are highly relative. They are still close enough to be comparable, and I can even argue that they are more comparable than the wooza and tactical gamer players I mentioned.
This is because the rookies are that low skill. First of all, the majority of rookies don't play more than 10 hours of ns2. Their skill values barely get past 0 hive skill. The ones that stick around pretty typically don't get past 200 hive skill. This is what the data shows. When the average hive skill across the board is 720, rookies being not much higher than 200 hive skill pretty much where I would expect them to realistically be.
Now what if I took that 200 hive skill and compared it to veteran players. These values are from players who have played sometime between January 1st and February 12th 2016 with 50 or more hours recorded in hive. I chose 50 hours because by that time their hive skill should have converged near the true value. 200 hive skill is well under the bottom 10% of skill compared to a veteran. Again this is where I would realistically expect a rookie to be, at the very bottom. This is at least true for the rookies that start at a hive skill of 0.
So when you say that rookie only servers are creating incomparable sets of players, it may be technically true but realistically it is not significant.
What is incomparable is the rookies who start at 1000 hive skill. They mess up shuffles in every server they play on. They don't play enough to even converge towards their true skill.
... just stop going down halls. or pick up a shit ton of speed with wall jumps and close fast with your buddies. go around.
during pre-game even without pre-game mode, do laps around the map. burn routes into muscle memory for the most part. it'll help you during the game.