Waiting simulator and general comment
Scatter
Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
Getting to the actual game part of NS2 has always been a slow process but over the years it has gotten much worse. This is my usual process of actually getting into a game of NS2:
At this point you might be lucky and have a game going but quite often it may be a stomp anyway despite the hive skill shuffles, which puts you back into the loop at point 3. Often I really just can't be bothered at all since all this is too time consuming. NS2 has always had a fair bit of time overhead as we all know but the new spectate system and the hive skill shuffle zealotry have added extra time. Before I could do something else while waiting to join, but now I must actively wait for a slot because of the need to not get AFK kicked and the need to F4 spam to get a player slot. Completely intolerable and prevents me from even bothering in the first place.
This brings me to the next thing I have a problem with; the hive skill system. Games are to my feeling no more balanced now than before the system was introduced but now we have to endure this 5 minute back and forth of shuffling, whining about the shuffle, etc. If it's not even and we lose, it's because the hive skill wasn't even. If we get stomped and the hive skill is even, well no one says anything. If you insist on keeping the system then reform it so it's:
This may reduce the constant reshuffling, whining about small differences and prevent people from starting a round with a bad attitude.
While I am at it I also have a problem with the bile bomb tunnel rush phase of the game that appears near 100% of the time when marines are clearly winning. Instead of finishing the game the marines are forced to PG/CC scan guard to anticipate the 3 or 4 bile bomb rushes they will very likely experience. What is the point of this? If marines are clearly winning (finishing the game isn't "overextending" for those who think this) you've either delayed the marines from finishing or you've given aliens a cheap and unsatisfying win, while also making it look like aliens are winning (as in properly) more than they really are thus masking the balance issue that Aliens are a joke. Balance by a statistician looking at a win rate excel graph does not a fun game make.
- Wait to get a free slot on the server
- Wait for a player slot in spectate while F4 spamming
- Wait for people to join
- Wait for someone to command
- Wait for 2 to 3 shuffles at 1 minute into each game
- Wait for AFK kick and resets
- Wait for reset because someone trolling, didn't get second IP, etc
At this point you might be lucky and have a game going but quite often it may be a stomp anyway despite the hive skill shuffles, which puts you back into the loop at point 3. Often I really just can't be bothered at all since all this is too time consuming. NS2 has always had a fair bit of time overhead as we all know but the new spectate system and the hive skill shuffle zealotry have added extra time. Before I could do something else while waiting to join, but now I must actively wait for a slot because of the need to not get AFK kicked and the need to F4 spam to get a player slot. Completely intolerable and prevents me from even bothering in the first place.
This brings me to the next thing I have a problem with; the hive skill system. Games are to my feeling no more balanced now than before the system was introduced but now we have to endure this 5 minute back and forth of shuffling, whining about the shuffle, etc. If it's not even and we lose, it's because the hive skill wasn't even. If we get stomped and the hive skill is even, well no one says anything. If you insist on keeping the system then reform it so it's:
- Invisible team hive skill (Is it mods turning this on? )
- Players get a rank (OW style gold/plat/etc based on their hive skill, but only the rank is visible and taken into account)
- Balance the ranks instead of actual hive skill average
This may reduce the constant reshuffling, whining about small differences and prevent people from starting a round with a bad attitude.
While I am at it I also have a problem with the bile bomb tunnel rush phase of the game that appears near 100% of the time when marines are clearly winning. Instead of finishing the game the marines are forced to PG/CC scan guard to anticipate the 3 or 4 bile bomb rushes they will very likely experience. What is the point of this? If marines are clearly winning (finishing the game isn't "overextending" for those who think this) you've either delayed the marines from finishing or you've given aliens a cheap and unsatisfying win, while also making it look like aliens are winning (as in properly) more than they really are thus masking the balance issue that Aliens are a joke. Balance by a statistician looking at a win rate excel graph does not a fun game make.
Comments
- The point is, that this game requires mapawareness and gamesense - which you don't clearly see that much on pub-servers. There are tons of tools to deny baserushes effectively like scans, obs, a fucking marine watching the map or lanes, smart-placement of mines, nanoshield, powersurge (repower pg etc.)
- About the "statics" I agree... I once made a topic about that issue.. it is good if aliens have like 60% winrate.. but the issue remains, that a lot of "aliens" have higher hiveskill due to baserushes than they are supposed to be - so aliens get stomped once again - till they maybe win against a better team with a baserush... which is as well a fault of the guys who let baserushes happen, but still..
I do agree that there are counters to the base rush that are available to marines, but think that the difficulty/coordination required from the aliens in pulling it off is way too low compared to what is required of marines to defend against it.
In the end, have you ever thrown a handgrenade right before the baserush starts...? It is single-handedly possible to weaken a baserush insanely... just by throwing a gasgrenade...
Or if there is one hive, Scan ONLY the hive to see if a tunnel is open... mapawarenesss that you notice that nothing is going on - every veteran knows what's going on.
And there's also the times when the team notices that its become too quiet and that no one has seen an alien for the past 10-20 seconds.
We have to wait so long for commanders because everything is always the commander's fault. With how incredibly hostile this community is towards commanders, it's no wonder why nobody wants to command. If people were less hostile and more understanding to commanders who are trying, maybe we wouldn't have to wait so long to get people in the chair/hive.
I myself refuse to command Alien anymore because I got sick of being blamed for the loss when Aliens can't defend the cyst chain/res nodes. And I used to command Marine a lot more, but I haven't in a very long while because no matter what choice I make, it's the wrong one. For instance say there's a couple skulks in base
Option 1) Stay in chair = I get raged at and called an idiot for not jumping out to save the base.
Option 2) Jump out = I get raged at and called an idiot for not staying in the chair to beacon.
Option 3) Beacon = I get raged at and called an idiot for using beacon instead of jumping out to save the base.
The issue with so many shuffles is because people
a) Think it works way way waaaaaaay better than it does
b) Think it fixes problems that it doesn't (like producing a commander)
If I had a nickel for every time I've seen shuffle "stack" the teams with the top 3-5 highest skilled players lumped on one side... Replacing the score with a rank would not stop that from happening.
It was almost better in the past when it was based on KDR, because at least then it was only used as a tool to counter stacking, whereas now it's used in literally every single game.
One thing that might help a little would be making shuffle automatic. Once the commanders get in, teams are shuffled and the game starts. The option for players to shuffle would be removed entirely. This would at least eliminate repeated shuffles and could potentially lead to games starting a tad bit quicker.
As for the reset votes.. It is common for a reset vote to pop up before the countdown timer for the game start has even finished! People reset for the most ridiculous reasons...
No comm for 2-5 seconds is not a valid reason to reset.
3+ Gorges is not a valid reason to reset.
Ejecting a rookie comm before they spent any res and replacing him within the first 10 seconds, is not a valid reason to reset.
Having a couple afk players for the first 5-10 seconds, is not a valid reason to reset.
Trying a rush and failing at it, is not a valid reason to reset.
It would help a lot if reset votes couldn't be started for the first 30 seconds or so of each round.
Spec slots are bad for the community. They reduce the number of active games and make it harder for everyone to play.
Before I could sit in another server AFK and possibly seed it while waiting AFK for a slot in another server. If by chance the server I was seeding gained enough people before I changed server then I may stay, but otherwise I could just wait out the queue while AFK and get a player slot. But simply being in a server with other players isn't the only factor in server preference.
I don't personally suffer from the issue I am describing so I am not arguing this from a position of helplessness or lack of knowledge on how to deal with it. The argument is that it is too easy to pull off, occurs too frequently as a standard go-to tactic, is completely unsatisfying to win with or lose against (punishes marines too much for a comparatively small lapse in awareness), and completely screws the win-rate statistics (which you agree with so we'll put that to rest). I say this as someone who knows how to exploit it to the fullest and how to fight it.
I disagree. I greatly disagree. Shit. What you are describing is the desired situation. If. If. If. Wishful thinking is what it is.
What is actually happening is that unless you are playing at a peak time, you have to spam your friends list and hope enough people are interested in joining. Otherwise, you will be stuck with seeding games that are a pain to play until enough people ragequit the other active servers. There is a critical mass that determines whether a server stays up and fills or empties out and dies. Spectator slots help maintain this critical mass. This is the reality.
It's not that alien tunnel rushes can't be satisfying, but they often aren't because the attempt cost is so low, and because only one tunnel rush needs to succeed to completely flip the game. A team with effective skulks/lerks can throw gorge tunnels at the wall in a late game scenario even if they've lacked map control for most of the game simply due to the amount of pres they've accumulated. Marines can combat this but the vigilance and expense required is disproportionate to the attempt cost for the aliens. This commonly results in a late game slog in pubs, when marines would otherwise be finishing the round. It also inflates the alien winrate precisely as Scatter has indicated.
-Marines are almost always on one base because there's a lack of incentives to build a second functioning base (replete with necessary structures) midgame when weighed against the value of upgrading tech/weapons/armor.
-Each marine base has so many points of fragility which provide aliens with accessible opportunities to deal significant setbacks (destroy ips, destroy obs, destroy power, destroy CC; any of these can be a game-changer in the right circumstances). By contrast, marines need to invest more in order to take down an alien hive.
-Rushes become easier to pull off as marines become more aggressive; marine aggression, particularly if phase gates are in play, is often punished in pubs due to a lack of backline control.
Typical solutions:
-Have a comm who builds observatories everywhere. There's a lot wrong with this that I won't get into here - for one, I'm not sure it's the kind of play we want to be aiming for - but it's commonplace on pubs.
-Have a comm who scans regularly (and knows where to scan), but then we run into the discrepancy where an alien team is more likely to have a player that can smart-gorge than a marine team is to have a comm who can smart-comm. Why? Because there's only one comm slot and gorges are cheap enough for multiple attempts.
-Depending on the skill levels on the server, it then comes down to the field marines and laning. If you have a hard carry on your team, they're already expected to do the lion's share of the work and/or teach/convince the others to lane properly. So this dynamic means you need your smart, usually higher ELO carries doing what I personally consider to be boring, whack-a-mole shit in your backlines while your underpowered marine assault continues to flop against the hive helplessly, trying to break in. If said marine is actively involved in pressuring a hive, then that just opens the window for the aliens a bit further.
-Communication. But whereas tunnel rush communication usually boils down to "okay, we have a tunnel up, EVERYONE GET TO THE HIVE RIGHT NOW!", the marine communication requirements to combat the aforementioned scenario are usually subtler and harder to impart to new players. Concepts like "the map is quiet right now" and "everyone watch lanes" and "commander, float res for a beacon and be ready" are just more challenging and amorphous for most people when compared to "everyone head back to the giant glowing space ovary and then hop into the space anus and wait to rush".
Bleu had an interesting idea:
I think this would change the dynamic for the better without completely ruining the magic of tunnel rushes. Another idea is to moderately increase the infestation radius around a tunnel to increase the likelihood of detection and/or to encourage the alien commander to shade the tunnel and thus increase the overall cost of a well-hidden tunnel rush attempt.
We doubled the tunnel build time on the siege server and it has fixed a lot of the tunnel rush frustration.
Except it will now take a lot more res to make tunnels through the game
now it looks like this
First digit is the original tunnel if it is not destroyed. Second digit is the next tunnel exit if the previous exit gets destroyed.
1x1 = 8 res total
1x2 = 12 res total
1x3 = 16 res total
The proposed system would go like this
1x1 = 10 res total
1x 2 = 20 res total
1x 3 = 30 res total
So that means tunnels become twice as expensive throughout the game. This leave no choice but for an alien to stay as a gorge because tunnels will eat up all of his pres.
Maybe for this to work each additional tunnel that is placed after the first one becomes increasingly more expensive?
Original tunnel free
Tunnel exit 1 = 6 Res
Tunnel exit 2 = 8 Res
Tunnel exit 3 = 10 res
Tunnel exit 4 = 12 res.
This would be almost the same as a static increased tunnel cost but forces the aliens to wisely place tunnels instead of tossing them around wildly.
Tier 1: narrow tunnel, onos cant get through
Tier 2: wide tunnel, onos can also get through
This was my original though too just that onos could not go in tunnels at all. It would be fair in the sense that exos cant go through phase gates. I dont know how the logistics of this would play out though.
That sounds like a nightmare for the already crowded gorge gui
I suppose it could be a commander purchased upgrade. 10 res gives larger tunnels automatically.
This is getting weird.
LOL! Shield your eyes timmy!
You had the right idea earlier:
I truly agree with ELO based purely on win/loss (granted that separating rine/alien might be better). But is there a rational reason people think ELO is broken? I mean a players ability to win should matter more then welding, accuracy, or whatever right?
I guess if your a master of the base rush gorge tunnel your team will always feel like your getting smashed until you get your tunnel in place.
1) If we win when I'm in last place on marine with 0-3 kills and 10-20 deaths... and my hive score goes up because we won... that's clearly broken
2) Some players have high skill scores because they are good at tunnel rushes, or at commanding... when said 3k+ player gets counter shuffled to balance out a player who is 3k+ due to insanely high kdr... the game isn't going to feel fun or balanced at all.
3) It leads to some people having scores way way below what they should be. (Like those who go to the losing team all the time to balance)
Seems like going by actual skill in kills, score, etc, would provide more accurate data to more accurately balance so teams have an equal number of players who can kill, players who play the objective, and rookie players with no clue....
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152122/match-seeding-feature
Hive shuffle is useless and/or worse than random shuffle on arcade servers. A lot of the more experienced players in that community have very low hive scores.