Rookies are getting kicked out too soon. Proof inside
SquishpokePOOPFACE
-21,248 posts (ignore below) Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165262Members, Reinforced - Shadow
-21,248 posts (ignore below) Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165262Members, Reinforced - Shadow
As you can see, the lowest skill level is a huge outlier in frequency, even after rookie status has been shed. I suggest that players in this outlier should be allowed to remain as a rookie until they manage to fit on a proper distribution curve, ie not being in the "worst possible NS2 player" skill bracket.
Thanks to @Nordic for the graphic, without it there would be no proof on how much this change is needed.
Comments
Rookies struggle when there are forced onto regular servers, and most quit shortly after. Many do want to stay on rookie only servers.
The point of rookie only servers was to provide a safe space for them to experience NS2 the first time without accidentally running into Hobbes lerk, or Wobs railgun, or literally anyone of at least moderate skill. It takes place on average about 25 hours, if I remember correctly, to lose their rookie status. That is probably about 40 steam hours of NS2. After 25 hours of gameplay these players know what NS2 is about. They know the absolute basics. At some point they have to learn how to play with the rest of us.
Rookie only servers already have roughly 50% of the total player population even though veterans play more and more often. What this thread is suggesting is that we allow rookies to stay on rookie only servers longer. I have also seen SquishpokePOOPFACE suggest that low skill players be allowed on rookie only servers. This would kill the game faster.
Seeding has become nearly impossible. The ones who seed servers are not veterans but the players who can no longer use rookie only servers. Quick play is pretty much only used by new players. Quick play is what seeds servers. Extending the time rookies stay on rookie only servers would make seeding worse. Take a look at the waiting simulation thread because what this thread is suggesting would only make that a whole lot worse.
@Nordic if they quit shortly after losing rookie status, then they aren't really seeding anything, right? They're gone. I'm not suggesting that we allow players at a lowest quartile be rebranded as a rookie, but instead the lowest possible skill, which from the graph appears to be at 0-25 hive skill. They just aren't ready, not at that level. Surely they'll be able to reach 100-120 skill at some point, right? That's where I would put the "bare minimum" for rookie-graduation.
I have a hunch, and the data may even back me up on this, that the majority of players that fall outside of our retention rate is precisely inside that outlier.
@Mephilles Quit talking about your monstrous hole. No one wants to hear about that.
I dont have a solution that would fix this issue though something ought to be done. Rookies going from easy matches to hardcore wreckage is a bit daunting and causes players to feel frustrated and quit. But what I do not understand is why they are so bad... I get they may pick up bad habits in rookie servers but have these players never played an FPS before? They can not hit anything, they can not hear anything, and they dont communicate! "most of the time".
Im against segregating the rookies because they do need to learn but I am also against the first game they play is against Der Eigine?, Phone or any of those good players. They already destroy normal players, the newbies stand no chance. We also dont have the player base to have - easy | intermediate | advanced - servers or else I would suggest that.
An interesting idea is something we talked about on the ns2 subreddit is allowing non-rookies to comm on rookie servers but only as commander. This would help get games started, decent instructions for the nubs, and fun for the existing players. May also help them learn a thing or 2.
These two facts are not mutually exclusive.
Regardless of if those players leave, the quick play players are the ones who seed our servers. Talk to a server operator. Red from TA has been trying to seed a server with a 1000 hive skill minimum for awhile. This removes it from quickplay consideration, and consequently makes it VERY HARD to seed. Again, I refer you to the waiting simulation thread. Veterans don't seed which has become a tragedy of the commons.
We CAN NOT use hive skill to determine rookie status. Hive skill is relativistic to how you play and who you play against.
I think it is more like you know if you like the water or not even though you may or may not k now about the monsters in the deep end. If you don't like the water, you get out regardless. If you like the water, you may decide to live with the monsters. If you like the water, but can't tolerate swimming with monsters then you leave also but at least you got to know the water.
God damn old people. Go tend to your lawn!
I was that guy who initially thought it was a mistake. If they truly *are* at 0 Hive skill and yet miraculously become able to graduate rookie servers, then how are they doing it? Playing exclusively offline, or on arcade servers?
Agreed. I'm remembering my days of seeding as well. Even wrote a script for it, and took a few hours to seed to a full game.
I see what you mean, but I'm still head-scratching the 0-skill players graduating from rookie status and still being 0... where they were supposedly already playing against other rookies. If it truly is a hive quirk and is not representative of their actual skill, then I'll retract everything I said. Otherwise, we may have a situation where the absolute-bottom is shoved into the deep end when they shouldn't be.
They are the 1%.
@SquishpokePOOPFACE I don't know why there are players at 0 hive skill. It is probably more along the lines that they only play on unranked servers like woozas, which won't update their skill value. Hive skill has nothing to do with rookie status. Even if a player loses every single game, they will graduate from rookie status after about 40 hours of gameplay or about 80 steam hours. Rookie status is based on level which is based on total score earned. Even the worst players will get to level 25 by about 40 hours of gameplay.
That shouldn't be to hard to implement for the devs... you see on your mainmenu maybe that you're allowed to play there somehow
Most simplistic solution
@GhoulofGSG9
The question is not how hard it is to implement. The question is whether this change would make sense.
And then seeding servers got even harder..
So rookie only is more about separating players by experience than by skill. Which brings us back to the real issue that most players do not enjoy playing against way higher skilled ns2 players (skill difference >1k) as the game design allows those players to just dominate the lower skilled players in quite a humiliating fashion.
To solve given issue I see the following two solutions:
Also about that graph: Keep in mind that in the past all player's skill values have been reset to 0. Hence if given players haven't played more than just a few round after the reset their values are still close to 0 and hence those players are most likely the outliers in the graph.
Edit: Additionally here's a more up to date graph of the skill distribution:
.. and there's the rub. Those already invested in the game have an interest to keep the game as inaccessible as it is. This game is full of people who have spent an obscene amount of hours in the game and are so anal about it they create pie charts about the player base. Which is fine but to keep people that spend so much on it interested, you have to make the game so layered that it inaccessible to most. It's a trade off and I don't know why people keep creating threads thinking that somehow they can have it both ways or that it's somehow a surprise that people have a hard time getting into the game.
In my opinion it's the lack of "decent" ingame tutorials which make the rookies improvement so slow that they think others are cheating just because they can move faster then others...
- You have to tell every single rookie that armor 1 is the most important upgrade... without it and without any skill, you're always screwed
Most ppl drop an armory instantly, instead of an armslab? Why is that, because in the tutorial you drop a fucking armory first. You even get a PG before dropping an armslab, wtf...
Once these rookies learned "oh I need armslab first", then they maybe drop an armslab as well, but they still buy an armory.. which still delays their ressflow even more, because you cannot afford to drop the 3rd RT (or 4th with your mainrt) because you dropped the armory... you're getting slower
- Dropping medpacks... it's nice to show how you drop medpacks, but it seems to the most important step "pressing spacebar" is explained so late and only once... that you can quickly forget it...
- And wtf is with dropping a PG right below a Vent where it can be biled... lol
- There is literally no official tutorial to explain how the movement works in the first place. The skulkchallenge is a step in the right direction, but it's an insanely short step since there is zero explanation whatsoever how the game is going on
That Point alone is an issue which leads to any player being constantly stomped because without some understanding how movement works, you're stuck at a wall which you cannot climb over... in other games where there are new or tricky mechanics you have tutorials which teach these stuff stepByStep... but not so in ns2... the people always think "they're cheating" before there comes maybe an "ahh" effect...
- the use of Axe... ofc you explained the axe... but the axe is for most rookies just a deathtrap... even the more skilled players, because once they use it, they're in a bad position to fight from and the weaponswitchingtime is so high, that you get at least 2 more hits than you would have while playing without an axe at all....
Funnily a lot of average players explained to me how "useful" it is, but they never notice themselves that they'll never survive long enough to empty all their ammo so the commander needs to drop stuff..
- ns2+... not having some decent ns2+ settings makes itworse for rookies... like somewhat transparent maps or something, that you can walk and look at the map at the same time...
There are so many smaller and bigger hurdles in my opinion which could've been smoothed out long ago... but that isn't going to happen with these slow steps... It's going to be solved as fast as the accidental beacons are gonna be resolved
I don't disagree, but I think it's a bit short sighted. Regular ns2 play simply requires a level of dedication, game knowledge and skill usually only required for competetive play in other games, and most people simple don't have the right mindset for that.
This could work though if it were a 3 tier system.
Tier 1 Beginner: HS 0 -1200
Tier 2 Intermediate: HS 1201 - 2000
Tier 3 Expert: 2k +
Or something like that. The more tiers the worse it gets so 3 is where it would be best. Or heck even 2 tiers might work. 1.) 0-1999, and 2.) 2k +.
I think most rookies are fine as marines, but the skill gap on aliens is MONSTROUS. I'm in a unique position, I stopped playing NS2 maybe 4 years ago before the whole rookie tag came into being. I started playing again about a month ago, and lo and behold, I was tagged a rookie even though I had over 500 hours of playtime from 2012 and 2013. So I got to play on the rookie-only servers for a while, and the skillset on the alien side is shocking. I started played NS1 in 2003, so I've known the alien creatures and their traits for a very very long time. On a rookie server, the vast majority of skulk players will just run along the floor directly at your feet, maybe jumping on occasion. The competent marines will shoot them readily, so they learn to hide around corners or above doorways, but then that becomes their only available strategy and they're not effective at skulking. They try Lerk and Fade but they have no idea how to do it effectively.
So now you put them in a non-rookie environment, and they get shuffled to the alien side even though they're only really comfortable as a marine. They do what worked for them on the rookie server, they wait on a ceiling and attempt to be stealthy. They get ripped to shreds by marines. They try to Lerk or Fade again, and get trounced *even harder* because marines will always have upgrades by the time they've accumulated enough p-res. I watched a sub-100 hiveskill player last night go walking around on the floor as a Lerk, trying to spike down the marines. I saw a fade standing still swiping at an extractor forever. This just repeats because no one is there to teach them how to be skilled at advanced life forms, or even skilled as a skulk. Some try Gorge, but they're confused as to what their role is and they get slaughtered.
So therein lies the problem. There are a couple training scenarios built into the game, but those marine bots are highly predictable and unrealistic, so they don't really teach effective strategies against real players like how to move, how to blink properly, how to locate vents and such. I would suggest a training mini game that teaches skills that would make them a more effective Lerk or Fade. For Lerks, this could be something like having a marine walking down a hallway. The player would have to swoop in, get a bite off, and then retreat into a vent overhead. Another would be to swoop in, get a bite off, and then avoid getting shot as they have to exit the room around a corner (no vent). Higher levels would start adding more marines. As they progress, the next challenge would be to kill the marine using only bite (to prevent teaching them that the Lerk is the alien version of a marine LMG). Then they could be coached on what upgrades to get. There's no reason to get Adrenaline as a Fade, and no rookie will understand that Celerity is most important (because they only play with other rookies who are similarly uneducated in the ways of the Kharaa).
There are plenty of YouTube videos covering advanced Alien lifeforms, but they're pretty old now and I don't think rookie players are looking for them. We need a training simulator that's like the current commander training sequences. Explain what the advanced life forms' roles are, what their special abilities are, and how to be effective at each of them. Even one on how to be an effective skulk. Maybe then they'll have a little more confidence playing as an alien, and have a desire to get better at them rather than giving up and hoping to play as a marine only.
Do you know about the Hive Challenge that was added to the game roughly a year ago ? It's pretty much what you described above: marine bots attack a hive, and you must defend wave after wave as a lone Lerk or Fade. The big downside is that there is no explanation about the lifeforms, and I don't think you can chose upgrades in this mode. But at least you can practice.
He immediately got yelled at, even though he was just trying to help, with the limited gameplay knowledge he had.
I guess my point is, that fellow players are a huge factor, maybe even bigger than the game itself.
For example, I had a real life friend try NS2. I encouraged him to try the tutorial but he insisted he would rather learn by trial and fire. He even went as far as to say that tutorials are for the dumb. The guy was a 4.0 student in college at the time. He tried the game and thought it was too hard with too many cheaters. He wouldn't here anything I had to say.
That mindset should not be a huge issue 100% of the time, though I will agree it is an issue. Take me for example: I love playing against tougher opponents to try and better myself. I ask how things are done and pay attention to strategies and what works best. I am by far not the best players but I have a really good game sense, decent accuracy, and understand how the game works. But for newbies coming into the game its really hard to take in even within a hundred or 2 hundred or more hours. So many maps, so much nuance and alien movements. Lol I mean different than traditional combat since the Alien side plays much more differently than most other FPS shooters.
The tutorial really should have been something mandatory and detailed. Like most games the first mission typically takes it slow and sets the game up by explaining the mechanics. NS2 couldnt quite do that since this game is strictly multiplayer. I wonder how things would have turned out if the game forced you to go through a tutorial by creating a local server for yourself to run through a tutorial. Then you could join rookie servers and gain actual experience. After that just progress to a higher server level like we talked about in another thread. Possible 2-3 server levels with Hive skilled requirements.
However I understand that this game is old and UWE has mostly moved on at this point. But I can always dream...
All units would be scripted and their actions would play out just to illustrate concepts. Narrated audio clips would play at the same time to explain what's happening (w/ subtitles). The map itself could have highlighted sections with a colored overlay to explain lanes / zones in simple terms. The intro tutorial would use an easy to understand map like tram, and then the advanced tutorial could focus on a more complicated map.
2. If we had the platform for it, the actual scripting of the tutorials could be outsourced to the community, with the best tutorials making the cut for inclusion in the game. It's too bad that NS2 doesn't have proper demo recording, because players could just play the scenarios out and record their actions for inclusion. The cleanest recordings would be selected. The community could generate timestamped plaintext for narration purposes. Hell, some of us are probably capable of doing the voiceover work, too.
This is really an argument for a robust tutorial system as opposed to prerecorded videos or one-off scripted intro tutorials like we have now. The game is too complex for the devs to do the lion's share of the actual tutorial scripting; I'd rather they spend time on developing a modular system that we can pipe data into, along with proper demo recording.
3. In addition, it would be great to have actual combat tutorials which illustrated typical exchanges/combat scenarios. Something like this but rendered in-game using the same spectator principle above. The tutorial viewer would be able to switch from first-person to free spectator to top-down. Both marine-perspective and alien-perspective examples would be included. Examples of scenarios would be like those in the video linked above as well as some of the better tips/illustrations drawn from resources like the ENSL tutorial page. It'd ramp up from the basics to advanced skills.
Yeah, I played those offline. That's what I was referring to in my original post. The bots are quite simple, and very predictable. So you can "cheat" your way to higher levels as either Lerk or Fade by taking advantage of their predictability. Human opponents don't act that way. Not to mention the main advantage that both Lerk and Fade play in the mid game is roaming lanes and sniping small clusters of isolated marines, not trying to defend a wide open hive.
Very true. I don't know how to combat that type of player interaction... it may be that the ones doing the yelling aren't aware in the heat of battle as to what hiveskill or playtime their teammates have. With skilled players on both sides, victory is only possible with lots of communication and teamwork, and so their natural instinct is to try and correct behavior that might not be the most efficient route to achieving victory. It can come off as quite harsh, particularly to a new player who isn't used to such high levels of coordination. I've got 600 hours in, and I still get yelled at almost every time I play for doing something that someone else would disagree with.
I'd say you can't change those types of players. If they don't want to do tutorials, they probably don't want to devote the time and effort into getting better, and so they won't. They'll probably leave after passing the rookie level. But if there's even a small percentage of players who would find use out of the tutorials, and they actually serve the intent by improving their skillset, then maybe it's worth it. If player retention is important enough.
I and many others would no doubt love to help with something like this. I remember early on there was a very buggy version of an ingame recorder but it always crashed when I tried using it. It was all done in console.