I get the impression the dev team is reasoning like this: (i) new players find X to be frustrating, (ii) the more new players feel frustrated with the game, the more likely they are to leave, so (iii) by removing X, we will make the game less frustrating and so improve player retention.
This is often a fine inference to make, but not always. Part of what initially attracted me to ns2 was the high skill ceiling. I found some mechanic to be frustrating - my inability to shoot lerks, say - but could see some other player mastering those mechanics (mowing down lerks), and would think "I want to be that good". So I kept at it. In short, there's good and bad sources of frustration. Sometimes elements of the game are frustrating, but that frustration will lead to improvement and overall much greater satisfaction with the game. That was largely my experience.
In short, I'm worried about a trend of removing "good" sources of frustration from the game - frustration caused by lack of skill, which could eventually be overcome by practice and thought.
I also want to reiterate what others have been saying: it feels like aliens are getting stomped too easily in the early game. There are just not enough experienced skulks on most servers these days. *Maybe* they'll wise up and start ambushing, but I doubt it.
In short, I'm worried about a trend of removing "good" sources of frustration from the game - frustration caused by lack of skill, which could eventually be overcome by practice and thought.
The thing is, devs do not want that players need to learn first to be able to keep up with veterans. In their holy vision of NS2 the skill floor and ceiling are on the ground, so everyone got the exact same skill and nobody is frustrated.
I think what everyone needs to realize is that UWE had 10+ years to improve player retention, and failed. they then after leaving NS2 to the CDT, then coming back again to form a PDT, giving a 3 month deadline to improve player retention? like wtf? they couldnt do in 10 years what a group were given 3 months...
Changes are always good as they can refreash alot of things, make it interesting again, fun.
But all i have really seen is the bit by bit the things that made this game great, are being taken away, and replaced with something really dumbed down, good for new players? who knows? good for vets? doubt it.
All in all, everyone is frustrated, from putting in time and effot to become good at this game, to have it dumbed down so much, that even after that, new players still play really bad. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink, stop dumbing the game down, making one change that unbalance's the play by 70%-30% from 50%-50%, then making another change to counter that change?
No matter what change you make, no matter how good it is, players will still need to learn, learn the maps, learn how to pressure, learn how to block lanes, learn how to group up, learn when its better to just hold back rather than push forward, learn different life forms, learn how to command, learn when its better to just drop another command chair rather than jumpping out, i could go on and on and on, but i think you get the idea.
After having played with these changes a little, it feels like all they achieved was making the alien power curve more extreme. Skulks are even easier to kill early game now, but if aliens can drag it out, they still steam roll everything. (Onos boneshield anyone?)
Kudos dev team for having the guts to make obviously controversial changes. I'm looking forward to see how these flesh out and are tweaked in the coming weeks. We will only know if these changes are positive by testing them in the real world, especially when the new player wildcard is thrown in.
So basically the games turns into:marines early win/aliens draws the game out to get onos with boneshield. Maybe is the idea that "unbalance" stuff to is the goal. A true asymmetrical game, like in old mod day of defeat on some maps. When is 2nd beta ending? Or will this go on forever? Is evolution never stopping? Where is David Attenborough? So many questions! Only survival of the fittest will tell...
Great... New changes, but still only 200 - 350 people playing on avg.
It makes you wonder if all the recent development time spent on this game has been a waste. All the new development activity for this game started in December 2015, but if we look at the player retention from July 2015 to July 2016, the average concurrent playerbase only increased by 15 players... FIFTEEN!
Most of the new changes since December have sparked so much controversy and debate. The healthbars, the lighting changes, changing and adding abilities, the post-round feedback system, hidden servers, and now the hitbox changes. All this work by the developers and all the rage by the posters amounted to a difference of fifteen players.
What's been the point? Now if UWE is planning on making this game free-to-play in the future like Evolve, well, then it all makes sense.
So basically the games turns into:marines early win/aliens draws the game out to get onos with boneshield. Maybe is the idea that "unbalance" stuff to is the goal. A true asymmetrical game, like in old mod day of defeat on some maps. When is 2nd beta ending? Or will this go on forever? Is evolution never stopping? Where is David Attenborough? So many questions! Only survival of the fittest will tell...
Better make NS3 Early Access and start experimenting there with better engine and some form of minimum marketing, maybe with free2play in mind from the beginning but with thought out changes and long term devoloping instead of the shitty shortterm gameplay dumbing down we got now.
Great... New changes, but still only 200 - 350 people playing on avg.
It makes you wonder if all the recent development time spent on this game has been a waste. All the new development activity for this game started in December 2015, but if we look at the player retention from July 2015 to July 2016, the average concurrent playerbase only increased by 15 players... FIFTEEN!
Most of the new changes since December have sparked so much controversy and debate. The healthbars, the lighting changes, changing and adding abilities, the post-round feedback system, hidden servers, and now the hitbox changes. All this work by the developers and all the rage by the posters amounted to a difference of fifteen players.
What's been the point? Now if UWE is planning on making this game free-to-play in the future like Evolve, well, then it all makes sense.
I'm not saying anything about the quality of those changes, but I would like to note that of course player retention does not bring players back. Advertisment does. Retention keeps them here. I guess their plan is to bring the game into a good state, then start advertising it again. I hope.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited July 2016
To all those saying the skill ceiling has been lowered:
No... it hasn't. I don't even know how you came to that conclusion.. The skill floor has been lowered, however.
Lowering the skill floor does not mean the ceiling as been decreased. It means there's less of a canyon wide gap between the two.
(and technically, in this case, good players will get better accuracy too.. so one could argue the shift is proportional, slightly)
"But if it's easier to shoot things then surely that means the skill ceiling is lowered right?"
No. It means the skillfloor is lowered, it's easier to be "adequate" now, but the ceiling refers to how far you can express your individual skill.. and that remains unchanged or increased - your ability to land every bullet previously is not lessened.
Edit:
I'd also like to point out something many of you may be unaware of (and you can verify for yourself in the viewer) is that the old hitboxes didn't cover certain portions of the model sometimes.. that's how tiny they were.
But besides that, such small hitboxes just don't work well in fast FPS games.
Thanks for deleting my within guideline threads regarding UWE's direction with NS2. I will now apply for a consumer case against you breaking your own guidelines and take my post to various boards across steam.
This finally proved to me that you're incapable of taking critic from your own players and are lost in your own ego.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@Wob Agree - even though you meant "raised" - (my fault, I've edited my prior post)
It will more than likely require further adjustments for skulks, especially for the early game.. but.. tbh.. the early game was already an issue for aliens that needed addressing.
This looks like quite sociopath move, to change such important thing in game and not tell anything about it. Do you feel better now, when you know you did destroy many games in past two weeks? Can you answer why did you do that? If you won't, I will assume you just don't comprehend the reality.
On other side:
I'm all for making noob skulk stronger vs pro marine, or noob marine stronger vs pro skulk and this change could be in that way. But please make those changes wiser. E.g. when you make something that can buff one side, you have to compensate from second side.
I think what everyone needs to realize is that UWE had 10+ years to improve player retention, and failed. they then after leaving NS2 to the CDT, then coming back again to form a PDT, giving a 3 month deadline to improve player retention? like wtf? they couldnt do in 10 years what a group were given 3 months...
*snip* If you got nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all. Calling devs names is not conducive to a discussion, nor having your feedback taken seriously. -Ironhorse
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
I had 3 awesome rounds today where NS2 felt like the NS2 the way i know and love.
And i can tell you:
If people know what they are doing and they are communicating, the aliens doesnt feel that different then lets say 2 years ago.
Playercount is the same but people leave the game for whatever reason. (other games, real life,..)
So the vets got replaced by new players.
This changes the way NS2 is played in pub now.
Things that worked 1 year ago didnt work anymore cause people doesnt know what they are doing or they dont listen.
This leads to frustration. (me included)
But these rare 3 rounds today included all the stuff i missed in 90% of the rounds.
NS2 lives from gameknowledge and communication.
All that combined on one server is still great.
"But if it's easier to shoot things then surely that means the skill ceiling is lowered right?"
No. It means the skillfloor is lowered, it's easier to be "adequate" now, but the ceiling refers to how far you can express your individual skill.. and that remains unchanged or increased - your ability to land every bullet previously is not lessened.
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling. If pressing mouse1 automatically made every bullet connect always, would you still say that the skill ceiling is not lowered since "your ability to land every bullet is not lessened"?
But besides that, such small hitboxes just don't work well in fast FPS games.[/url]
They have worked amazingly well so far. NS2 has had by far the best hitboxes I've ever seen in a game. The few gripes people have had have been with hitreg, not hitboxes.
"But if it's easier to shoot things then surely that means the skill ceiling is lowered right?"
No. It means the skillfloor is lowered, it's easier to be "adequate" now, but the ceiling refers to how far you can express your individual skill.. and that remains unchanged or increased - your ability to land every bullet previously is not lessened.
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling. If pressing mouse1 automatically made every bullet connect always, would you still say that the skill ceiling is not lowered since "your ability to land every bullet is not lessened"?
Lowering the skill ceiling would mean that you would make it impossible to exceed 25% accuracy, e.g. with random spread. The skill ceiling for shooting is hitting with 100% accuracy.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I saw a few comments on the NSL page and I did not believe it.
Truly did not believe that the devs would be that disconnected with anyone above 1200 elo.
Sadly I was wrong.
The old hitboxes were fine, just fine. If you missed, you missed. It was that simple. I would even argue it was easier to see hitreg issue in frame per frame footage because it matched the model.
I would argue NS2 was way ahead of the competition in regards to hitboxes.
Then I read this.
Now I accept, even agree that testing without telling us may prevent us from poluting the results.. But damn, has not a single person been paying attention?
Most skulks in pubs can not dodge a bullet if their live depended on it, and it does. Sadly this has even become worse in the last few months. Just recently I was talking with other servers ops on steam that its not balance but players playing so utter poor, that their skulk is just so bad, that you can not balance for that.
I got the question 'why are aliens losing even more then, nothing changed?'.
I could not give a answer, I did not know. While skulk skill had been insane abhorrently bad for a good while, it wasn't 'just now'.
And now I do know.. and I am utter amazed.
You have a pub scene where most experienced players left.
You have a pub scene which attracted many many rookies who haven't a inkling how to play skulk, and most have not any willingness to learn any time soon.
And your solution is to increase the hitbox and make this situation WORSE? REALLY?
In the past when you had a team filled with rookies vs rookies at least it sort of worked.
Carry a bit and you could, perhaps, manage to get a reasonable round out of it.. not good, reasonable.
Ive not had a reasonable round in weeks. Pubs been a complete wreck.
For the first time ever, I am really really trying to make a calm post in responds to a uwe patch notes release.. and im not even sure I am pulling it off.
I shall ask now the question, what are we doing this for?
Sure player retention is great and all but that surely includes the mid and top tier of players, not just the bottom rookies?
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling.
No.. no it's not.
That's a common misconception regarding the two terms. You're describing the skill floor. You can STILL land 100% of your bullets if you are able to - that's the skill ceiling.
Bicsum already explained this further after your post so I'll leave it there.
They have worked amazingly well so far. NS2 has had by far the best hitboxes I've ever seen in a game..
No.. no they haven't.
And in fact their issues can lead to hitreg issues, as I've already stated, because they were so insufficient.
Here's a video demonstrating that exact scenario, where the shoulder, back and head area of the skulk model were not covered by the hitbox:
The problem of balance is often formulated in two forms: the logical problem of balance and the evidential problem of balance The logical form of the argument tries to show a logical impossibility in the coexistence of balance PDT, while the evidential form tries to show that given the balance in the game, it is improbable that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good PDT.
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling.
No.. no it's not.
That's a common misconception regarding the two terms. You're describing the skill floor. You can STILL land 100% of your bullets if you are able to - that's the skill ceiling.
Bicsum already explained this further after your post so I'll leave it there.
The skill ceiling is the point where you're playing perfect, hitting those 100% bullets like you said. Bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill ceiling is lowered, as reaching the skill ceiling no longer requires as much skill. This is the conclusion I came to after googling the term and looking at different places. There is no definitive answer but that's what most people seem to consider it as.
Skill floor is the minimum amount of skill you need to play the game effectively (barrier of entry). NS2 is a high skill floor and high skill ceiling game. What needs to be lowered is the skill floor, not the skill ceiling.
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling.
No.. no it's not.
That's a common misconception regarding the two terms. You're describing the skill floor. You can STILL land 100% of your bullets if you are able to - that's the skill ceiling.
Bicsum already explained this further after your post so I'll leave it there.
The skill ceiling is the point where you're playing perfect, hitting those 100% bullets like you said. Bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill ceiling is lowered, as reaching the skill ceiling no longer requires as much skill. This is the conclusion I came to after googling the term and looking at different places. There is no definitive answer but that's what most people seem to consider it as.
Skill floor is the minimum amount of skill you need to play the game effectively. NS2 is a high skill floor and high skill ceiling game. What needs to be lowered is the skill floor, not the skill ceiling.
No, it is: "bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill floor is lowered, because being effective at shooting no longer requires as much skill".
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling.
No.. no it's not.
That's a common misconception regarding the two terms. You're describing the skill floor. You can STILL land 100% of your bullets if you are able to - that's the skill ceiling.
Bicsum already explained this further after your post so I'll leave it there.
The skill ceiling is the point where you're playing perfect, hitting those 100% bullets like you said. Bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill ceiling is lowered, as reaching the skill ceiling no longer requires as much skill. This is the conclusion I came to after googling the term and looking at different places. There is no definitive answer but that's what most people seem to consider it as.
Skill floor is the minimum amount of skill you need to play the game effectively. NS2 is a high skill floor and high skill ceiling game. What needs to be lowered is the skill floor, not the skill ceiling.
No, it is: "bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill floor is lowered, because being effective in this game no longer requires as much skill".
Yes, that is correct. It does lower the skill floor. But it also lowers the skill ceiling.
Comments
This is often a fine inference to make, but not always. Part of what initially attracted me to ns2 was the high skill ceiling. I found some mechanic to be frustrating - my inability to shoot lerks, say - but could see some other player mastering those mechanics (mowing down lerks), and would think "I want to be that good". So I kept at it. In short, there's good and bad sources of frustration. Sometimes elements of the game are frustrating, but that frustration will lead to improvement and overall much greater satisfaction with the game. That was largely my experience.
In short, I'm worried about a trend of removing "good" sources of frustration from the game - frustration caused by lack of skill, which could eventually be overcome by practice and thought.
The thing is, devs do not want that players need to learn first to be able to keep up with veterans. In their holy vision of NS2 the skill floor and ceiling are on the ground, so everyone got the exact same skill and nobody is frustrated.
Changes are always good as they can refreash alot of things, make it interesting again, fun.
But all i have really seen is the bit by bit the things that made this game great, are being taken away, and replaced with something really dumbed down, good for new players? who knows? good for vets? doubt it.
All in all, everyone is frustrated, from putting in time and effot to become good at this game, to have it dumbed down so much, that even after that, new players still play really bad. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink, stop dumbing the game down, making one change that unbalance's the play by 70%-30% from 50%-50%, then making another change to counter that change?
No matter what change you make, no matter how good it is, players will still need to learn, learn the maps, learn how to pressure, learn how to block lanes, learn how to group up, learn when its better to just hold back rather than push forward, learn different life forms, learn how to command, learn when its better to just drop another command chair rather than jumpping out, i could go on and on and on, but i think you get the idea.
I feel like this isn't ideal.
It makes you wonder if all the recent development time spent on this game has been a waste. All the new development activity for this game started in December 2015, but if we look at the player retention from July 2015 to July 2016, the average concurrent playerbase only increased by 15 players... FIFTEEN!
Most of the new changes since December have sparked so much controversy and debate. The healthbars, the lighting changes, changing and adding abilities, the post-round feedback system, hidden servers, and now the hitbox changes. All this work by the developers and all the rage by the posters amounted to a difference of fifteen players.
What's been the point? Now if UWE is planning on making this game free-to-play in the future like Evolve, well, then it all makes sense.
Better make NS3 Early Access and start experimenting there with better engine and some form of minimum marketing, maybe with free2play in mind from the beginning but with thought out changes and long term devoloping instead of the shitty shortterm gameplay dumbing down we got now.
I'm not saying anything about the quality of those changes, but I would like to note that of course player retention does not bring players back. Advertisment does. Retention keeps them here. I guess their plan is to bring the game into a good state, then start advertising it again. I hope.
He wasn't.
No... it hasn't. I don't even know how you came to that conclusion..
The skill floor has been lowered, however.
Lowering the skill floor does not mean the ceiling as been decreased. It means there's less of a canyon wide gap between the two.
(and technically, in this case, good players will get better accuracy too.. so one could argue the shift is proportional, slightly)
"But if it's easier to shoot things then surely that means the skill ceiling is lowered right?"
No. It means the skillfloor is lowered, it's easier to be "adequate" now, but the ceiling refers to how far you can express your individual skill.. and that remains unchanged or increased - your ability to land every bullet previously is not lessened.
Edit:
I'd also like to point out something many of you may be unaware of (and you can verify for yourself in the viewer) is that the old hitboxes didn't cover certain portions of the model sometimes.. that's how tiny they were.
But besides that, such small hitboxes just don't work well in fast FPS games.
This finally proved to me that you're incapable of taking critic from your own players and are lost in your own ego.
Have a great life with this ****ed game.
It will more than likely require further adjustments for skulks, especially for the early game.. but.. tbh.. the early game was already an issue for aliens that needed addressing.
On other side:
I'm all for making noob skulk stronger vs pro marine, or noob marine stronger vs pro skulk and this change could be in that way. But please make those changes wiser. E.g. when you make something that can buff one side, you have to compensate from second side.
9 months.
And i can tell you:
If people know what they are doing and they are communicating, the aliens doesnt feel that different then lets say 2 years ago.
Playercount is the same but people leave the game for whatever reason. (other games, real life,..)
So the vets got replaced by new players.
This changes the way NS2 is played in pub now.
Things that worked 1 year ago didnt work anymore cause people doesnt know what they are doing or they dont listen.
This leads to frustration. (me included)
But these rare 3 rounds today included all the stuff i missed in 90% of the rounds.
NS2 lives from gameknowledge and communication.
All that combined on one server is still great.
You do not need as much skill as before to land perfect shots. That's the very definition of a lowered skill ceiling. If pressing mouse1 automatically made every bullet connect always, would you still say that the skill ceiling is not lowered since "your ability to land every bullet is not lessened"?
They have worked amazingly well so far. NS2 has had by far the best hitboxes I've ever seen in a game. The few gripes people have had have been with hitreg, not hitboxes.
Truly did not believe that the devs would be that disconnected with anyone above 1200 elo.
Sadly I was wrong.
The old hitboxes were fine, just fine. If you missed, you missed. It was that simple. I would even argue it was easier to see hitreg issue in frame per frame footage because it matched the model.
I would argue NS2 was way ahead of the competition in regards to hitboxes.
Then I read this.
Now I accept, even agree that testing without telling us may prevent us from poluting the results.. But damn, has not a single person been paying attention?
Most skulks in pubs can not dodge a bullet if their live depended on it, and it does. Sadly this has even become worse in the last few months. Just recently I was talking with other servers ops on steam that its not balance but players playing so utter poor, that their skulk is just so bad, that you can not balance for that.
I got the question 'why are aliens losing even more then, nothing changed?'.
I could not give a answer, I did not know. While skulk skill had been insane abhorrently bad for a good while, it wasn't 'just now'.
And now I do know.. and I am utter amazed.
You have a pub scene where most experienced players left.
You have a pub scene which attracted many many rookies who haven't a inkling how to play skulk, and most have not any willingness to learn any time soon.
And your solution is to increase the hitbox and make this situation WORSE? REALLY?
In the past when you had a team filled with rookies vs rookies at least it sort of worked.
Carry a bit and you could, perhaps, manage to get a reasonable round out of it.. not good, reasonable.
Ive not had a reasonable round in weeks. Pubs been a complete wreck.
For the first time ever, I am really really trying to make a calm post in responds to a uwe patch notes release.. and im not even sure I am pulling it off.
I shall ask now the question, what are we doing this for?
Sure player retention is great and all but that surely includes the mid and top tier of players, not just the bottom rookies?
This change is just.. no... just no.
That's a common misconception regarding the two terms. You're describing the skill floor. You can STILL land 100% of your bullets if you are able to - that's the skill ceiling.
Bicsum already explained this further after your post so I'll leave it there.
No.. no they haven't.
And in fact their issues can lead to hitreg issues, as I've already stated, because they were so insufficient.
Here's a video demonstrating that exact scenario, where the shoulder, back and head area of the skulk model were not covered by the hitbox:
And here's a pic of what I mean:
Skill floor is the minimum amount of skill you need to play the game effectively (barrier of entry). NS2 is a high skill floor and high skill ceiling game. What needs to be lowered is the skill floor, not the skill ceiling.
No, it is: "bigger hitboxes make it EASIER to hit 100% bullets, so the skill floor is lowered, because being effective at shooting no longer requires as much skill".
Yes, that is correct. It does lower the skill floor. But it also lowers the skill ceiling.