Let's talk about the Elephant in the Room

schuschu Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154768Members, Reinforced - Shadow
So I've lurked these forums for years now. And over the years a trend always appears. Whether it be something is too overpowered. UWE is messing the game up. The PDT is messing the game up. Build 249 was the best build in the game. Bunny hopping needs to be removed. Etc, etc. You get the point. Right now there's 3 main issues that are being discussed. Health bars on enemies, aliens are too weak; marines stomping games, and bots.

Let's get into this and nail it out.

1. The game is too hard - Every game is hard at the very beginning. There is a learning curve to every single game you play. This game has less of a learning curve than League of Legends. The more time you put into the game, the better you get and the more you improve. This is a natural process. Is this why we can't hold players? I highly doubt it.

2. Hidden mechanics - This game is full of hidden mechanics. This is not a bad thing! Every game should have hidden movement mechanics. Something players learn over time is great! This keeps the game fresh for those who figure this stuff out. They see a skulk wall jumping really fast and think to themselves, "wow! how can I do that?!" Then they see it again and again until finally...they try spamming space bar on a wall. It works! Is this why we can't hold new players? I doubt it.

3. Health bars - I'm going to say this now, this does not help you aim better. This does not make the entire team aim better. You only see a players health bar if you land anything that deals damage on the enemy target. For instance, if there are 2 skulks rushing you, and you only land a bullet on 1 of the skulks, you only see the health of THAT skulk you land a bullet on. Let's try another example, if you're teammate shoots the skulks and you stand there staring at the skulks, you still won't see their health bars. Another point, the game does not have auto-aim, seeing a health bar does not increase your accuracy.

If health bars are breaking this game, then why haven't damage numbers broken the game? This was introduced back in the beta. If people knew how much health enemies have, damage numbers also should give marines a huge advantage. Nobody seems to be arguing about this one. I don't understand. Health bars are in many competitive games. Overwatch, LoL, Dota. No reason for it not to be in this game.

4. Aliens are too weak - How so? Aliens gain res faster now than ever before. Aliens can have 3 RTs and get fades up at 6:30 minutes. Lerks cost 18 pres. Rupture parasites marines. Focus was introduced into the game, probably the strongest offensive ability in the entire game! Bone shield for onos is vastly overpowered; Onos gain net 900 HP over a few seconds from boneshield. Holy mother of god that's alot of health! And to top it all off, aliens come stock with a WALLHACK built into the game! How are aliens too weak?!

5. Marines are too strong - Once again, no they aren't. Over the past couple of builds, marines have been getting nerfed. Sprint is slower, mines have 30 hp (3 parasites to kill, 3 spikes with a lerk, 1 spit from a gorge), HMGs have a gigantic spread, only really useful against onos, plus they are the heaviest item in the game. With a jetpack, you still can't maneuver too well. Medpacks have been nerfed. Speaking of medpacks, marines also rely on a commander for health and ammo in and out of fights. As a marine, you are more prone to death than an alien due to their reliance on a commander for support.


I can go on. The point is, many of these statements I've seen on these forums are flat out stupid. I can give a counter statement that actually uses logic to nullify all of these points.

Maybe, just maybe...the problem with the game isn't the game, maybe its the players? Maybe people don't understand what they should be doing. Which is fine, they haven't learned yet. So the only thing I solidly agree with on these forums is a better tutorial. More about the map, less about you. The game is a RTS game through and through. The first person aspect of it is really just a side show. The FPS aspect isn't the main event is what i'm getting at.

Those players who are stomping pubs aren't out for kills most of the time. They are targeting harvesters, the aliens are just flocking to him/her one by one and he is standing in a great position to take on multiple skulks at a time. Those types of things can be avoided as a skulk and there are always other things to do. Biting extractors for example.

You won't win every game. You will always have players who don't quite get it. That's frustrating on a team based game. Just put up with it, move on. Stop nit-picking things in the game and blaming it for your loss. You lost because you didn't cover a lane correctly, didn't push a res node when you had the chance, didn't parasite those 3 marines who got a ninja phase gate up, didn't target the onos when he ran into the room, didn't beacon when you needed to, didn't bonewall during the engagement, didn't listen to the player who is making great calls...The list goes on.

Thanks for your time. Git Gud.
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Comments

  • TyrwingTyrwing Sweden Join Date: 2015-11-23 Member: 209435Members
    Probably couldn't have said it better.
  • dePARAdePARA Join Date: 2011-04-29 Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
    Your statement is absolutly correct @schu . And i could agree with all your point if we had enough half competent players in the game.
    Well, it looks looke like most are gone.

    Now we have players who dont communicate, dont listen and running around basicly brainless as skulks.
    Im against dumbing down NS2.
    But the sad truth is im afraid nothing else can help these players.
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    schu wrote: »
    Maybe, just maybe...the problem with the game isn't the game, maybe its the players?
    I was kind of with you until this.
    Expected a productive, insightful post. "Lets talk about the elephant in the room". And then your point is something newcomers have been whining about in this game since release? basically every game with a social element since release?
    Son I am disappoint.
  • schuschu Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154768Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    schu wrote: »
    Maybe, just maybe...the problem with the game isn't the game, maybe its the players?
    I was kind of with you until this.
    Expected a productive, insightful post. "Lets talk about the elephant in the room". And then your point is something newcomers have been whining about in this game since release? basically every game with a social element since release?
    Son I am disappoint.

    Maybe you didn't understand me when I wrote that. I was stating that all these issues that come up are people trying to find flaws with the game, when in fact its the player who made the post just doesn't know how to accept that and just assumes its the game that is broken, not them. Take all these posts about health bars and just read the people who post against it in the game.

    I'm not trying to come off as a dickhead or anything. I'm trying to get a solid discussion on what actually is wrong with this game besides player retention. Everyone has an opinion on what needs to be done and what shouldn't be done. Rarely do I see good ideas and more often than not I just see whining.

    Free 2 play? That to me is a great idea. If we can get a working, easy to use match making system in place. Then yes, I could see this game being very successful as F2P. League of legends, the most popular e-sport in the world, also has one of largest player base in the world - is also free to play. I'm not opposed to this game going f2p. Then I see people arguing about people would hack in the game, all the CoD players would flood the game and the game play would be shit. My question to you is.. if you're whining about the game now, what difference does it make when it goes F2P? Only difference would be a working match making system and thousands of players flooding into NS2. I'll take that any day over what we have right now.

    Playing on 3 - 4 servers with around 200 players on a consistent bases. This NEEDS to be addressed. This NEEDS to be fixed. Healthbars have NOTHING to do with this. Players who don't understand clearly what to do to win is what is causing players to leave, not wall jumping skulks, not bots filling up servers, not healthbars, and most definitely not people whining with no solution to fix the problem.
  • RevanCoranaRevanCorana Join Date: 2015-08-14 Member: 207125Members
    edited July 2016
    Agreed, many people are parroting each other which lead to a narrow focus on auxiliary issues like healthbars and tiny skulk lightning change before it, and tiny browser category change before it..
    meanwhile the REAL problems are basically ignored, if there are plans for NS2 to go F2P in the future, it is VITAL to find a way to deal with cheaters (saw one yesterday on woozas there are some), smurfs and most importantly a way to avoid unbalanced teams (stacking, broken shuffle), because NS2 like any pvp game relies ehavily on team balance to get quality gameplay.
  • dePARAdePARA Join Date: 2011-04-29 Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
    edited July 2016
    So that is this wall of text about? Another "we need F2P" discussion?
    Believe me @schu, you dont want F2P.

    NS2 is nearly unplayable for me already.
    Im not a div1 pro that won multiple Seasons, im only a ex comp pub player that want some good rounds after work. (i have no problems losing a round btw if both teams have a real chance to win)
    But what happened to the game drives me already away. Im not talking about this "UWE is killing the game" bullshit.
    Im talking about the players that playing this game at the moment.
    I remember one round with daveodeth, i think he had a long break from the game, and i will never forget his comment:
    "WTF is wrong with these aliens"
    Round was over after 3 min btw with the typical Rinestomp after an hive shuffe.

    The day NS2 goes F2P is the day i uninstall it and i will never play it again.
    You can slaughter the waves of groundskulks and walkerfades if you want or ending up 170-3 as fade.
    After that you can comment on all the "everything is op" and "cheater everywhere" threads
    Hurray, what a great game.
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    schu wrote: »
    schu wrote: »
    Maybe, just maybe...the problem with the game isn't the game, maybe its the players?
    I was kind of with you until this.
    Expected a productive, insightful post. "Lets talk about the elephant in the room". And then your point is something newcomers have been whining about in this game since release? basically every game with a social element since release?
    Son I am disappoint.

    Maybe you didn't understand me when I wrote that. I was stating that all these issues that come up are people trying to find flaws with the game, when in fact its the player who made the post just doesn't know how to accept that and just assumes its the game that is broken, not them.

    It's too bad that's the players who play the game and not the game that plays the players... WHAT!?

  • RammlerRammler Join Date: 2013-06-18 Member: 185607Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    If health bars are broken or not, aliens are op, rines are op,....... we will only see that in season10. i would not take pub play as a reference for balance. comp aliens vs comp marines should be a test you can rely on the result. when season 10 is happening and marines are winning 75% of the games there, we can talk about health bars, balance, etc. again.

    But with so many rookies at the moment in the pub games the games are unbalanced not because of the team balance but because of the experience.
  • MoFo1MoFo1 United States Join Date: 2014-07-25 Member: 197612Members
    I'm just wondering when did anyone say healthbars help you aim better???

    The complaints have always been about how they help you track your target.. Something the damage numbers did not do.

    Also who cares if other games that are nothing like NS2 have hp bars.. They're irrelevant.
  • alsteralster Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
    If it wasn't for healthbars there wouldn't be all these related complaint threads. Thanks PDT.
  • schuschu Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154768Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Tinki wrote: »
    Ok... where too start... i'll just give one situation because I think you were drunk when you posted this. It's just about health bars.

    I'm a lerk/onos, i engage 1 or 2 marines then leave the fight. 10 seconds later I engage a lonely marine with one skulk.
    1) Without healthbar : the marine cannot know my health pool (a gorge healed me ? I had the time to go back to the hive ?). He either focus me or the skulk but he takes a risk and has no way to know what is the best decision, he only uses his instinct, his experience (aka time between the last engagement, the number of second it took me to heal and the number of second it took me to go to this point of the map) and the data he got from his teammate.
    2) With healthbars : he shoots 1 bullet at me, he sees that i'm low and he focuses then kill me. OR, he sees that i'm not low enough and proceed to kill the skulk, my attempt to distract him failed becuse he had that information and i lost my time (and even took some risk) to help my teammate.

    Firstly,


    Scenario #1:

    An experienced marine will know your health based on how you move/dodge with a lerk/onos. Lets say you engage a marine. He does 190 dmg to you. If you come back in, within a few seconds do you honestly think he wiped his memory of attacking you and decides to go after the skulk instead? You must be brain dead. Also, if a teammate calls out how much damage he did to you, and if it was a significant amount, and you re-engage another marine, if that marine is some what coherent he should know to attack you. You don't need health bars to determine that.

    Scenario #2

    Health bars are activated. You decide to re-engage a marine who clearly did 150+ damage to you. You still don't need health bars to know you're low. Lets say no communication was even stated. A new marine engages you, you're hurt but you decide to engage anyways with a skulk to clear the marine. If you engage with your lerk without armor and without a proper way to get out/disengage you deserve to die. With or without health bars. Health bars do in a sense, exempt some communication between teammates on how low something is. I give you that. All you are doing is taking away the marine from stating how low something is. Basically, someone is lazy and didn't want to point out how much damage he did to something. Which is something lower div players did alot. Which is why they were never in a higher division. Who would have thunk?

    You shouldn't be engaging with your health that low anyways without a way to get out quick. Health bars have nothing to do with it. You think having health bars on in season 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 would have made players not call out damage numbers? You must be insane.

    Secondly,

    You are clearly attacking me in the last paragraph. I didn't want to say something about this but I must defend myself. If my attitude in the past has upset you to deter you from thinking logically about what i said in the opening post, then you are clearly stupid. You are saying my attitude in a competitive environment was "cringe worthy". And this "worst good calls per hours played ratio" doesn't even make sense. I assume you mean I make bad calls in organized play. I don't know where you get that from. Maybe from the gathers we've had together. Who knows...don't really care. But I can count at least 5 times where my calls some how helped win a tournament. If my calls are bad, yours must be atrocious.

    Lastly,

    This thread isn't meant to derail anything. It is a clear, thought out post about how people complain about game mechanics. Something I don't think I've ever done. Besides carapace giving 40 armor and increasing skulk health by 90%. That was clearly broken. And I have stated everything else in the OP about how bone shield is broken. I'm not completely oblivious to some game mechanics. The point was made. And I have not read a single post that has disproven it.

    I stated we need a better tutorial that fundamentally helps players understand the RTS aspect of the game. Not the FPS aspect. This is an RTS game through and through. More attention should be brought to the map, not the player. I also stated that going F2P isn't such a bad idea once you really think about it. Open your mind up a little bit. Don't determine something isn't worth while without actually examining what could be the next era of a game. Sure, bad situations always come with good situations. That's something people need to figure out how to minimize, not berate.

    Git Gud
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    alster wrote: »
    If it wasn't for healthbars there wouldn't be all these related complaint threads. Thanks PDT.

    newUWE*
  • schuschu Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154768Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    MoFo1 wrote: »
    I'm just wondering when did anyone say healthbars help you aim better???

    The complaints have always been about how they help you track your target.. Something the damage numbers did not do.

    Also who cares if other games that are nothing like NS2 have hp bars.. They're irrelevant.

    Please, explain to me the difference between tracking and aiming. I really want to hear your thought process.
  • MoFo1MoFo1 United States Join Date: 2014-07-25 Member: 197612Members
    schu wrote: »
    MoFo1 wrote: »
    I'm just wondering when did anyone say healthbars help you aim better???

    The complaints have always been about how they help you track your target.. Something the damage numbers did not do.

    Also who cares if other games that are nothing like NS2 have hp bars.. They're irrelevant.

    Please, explain to me the difference between tracking and aiming. I really want to hear your thought process.

    Because you have to aim yourself to follow the target, but the target becomes a stupidly obvious bar that basically says "shoot here" instead of a dark fast moving alien which is much harder to keep track of..

    Plus you can keep track of the alien you already damaged in a group, which can be a huge benefit. Especially early game against skulk packs.

  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    This thread attempts to put itself above all the other emotional discussions that we've had lately (i.e. over the course of the last three years...) and descends right back into it, in the original post, even.

    This will lead to the same ten arguments being produced over and over again, and nothing productive will be produced - especially since almost everyone tries to change everybody else's opinion, but is dedicated to this own. Guys... what's the point?

    You must be Nostradamus or something! Though I'm sure there are as-of-yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon that could've seen where this thread was going :P
  • dePARAdePARA Join Date: 2011-04-29 Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
    edited July 2016
    schu wrote: »
    You think you uninstalling is going to damage this game? Are you kidding me? How full of yourself are you? Or are you too entangled into these forums you can't fathom ever leaving. And if you don't get your way you start spouting off your own beliefs on how to keep this game afloat. Because if UWE has been listening to you these past 4 years, I'm glad they are done. Because nothing you have said or done has ever helped this game.

    If i uninstall cause F2P the damage is already done. And it looks like you dont understand the problematic behind F2P. But this can happen when you quote to one sentence out of context.
    And i never said aliens are op. Marines are not op also btw.
    And i never stated that i lose cause the game is inbalanced.
    Wtf is wrong with you?

    And if UWE had listen to me we had Skill based servers since ages wich is one the key elements for matchmaking.
    But hey, and hosting one of the best servers NS2 ever had for around 3,5 years is nothing for sure.
    Maybe it was at the pre "Schu-era", so you never had the luck to play there, dont know.

    How full of yourself are you?



  • tallhotblondetallhotblonde Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174770Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Guys just stop playing ns2. The devs have made it clear they dont care about anyone apart from new players.

    Lets enjoy other lesser games for a while and hope that the devs arent completely bat-sh!t crazy and we might be able to come back to a half decent game and mod the shit out of it to make it playable again.

    They must be working towards f2p because this http://steamcharts.com/app/4920#1m is not what improving player retention looks like
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    schu wrote: »
    Scenario #1:

    An experienced marine will know your health based on how you move/dodge with a lerk/onos. Lets say you engage a marine. He does 190 dmg to you. If you come back in, within a few seconds do you honestly think he wiped his memory of attacking you and decides to go after the skulk instead? You must be brain dead. Also, if a teammate calls out how much damage he did to you, and if it was a significant amount, and you re-engage another marine, if that marine is some what coherent he should know to attack you. You don't need health bars to determine that.

    Most of the players on NS2 don't give a damn about how their opponent moves/dodges. They might even do 190 damages to him, they wouldn't care, they'd only look at his healthbar. Without heathbars, they wouldn't know since most of the players aren't experienced Marines, so he might have done any damage number, he wouldn't pay attention to that. It's either dead or alive from their point of view.

    Healthbars bring two major things to me: you do not need to communicate with your mates, one bullet is enough to find out how much HPs the enemy has, so why would I spend time asking my mates? That's terrible since bad communication was always a problem in this game, and a proper round relies on that communication. It's not helping.

    And I'm afraid to say so but it increases your tracking. Once I was able to hit my enemy once, it becomes easy to track that Alien since those shiny colors are easier to track than the classic and dark Alien hues. Yes, you need to hit it at least once, but that's not that hard, is it? If your aim is awful, it won't make you an awesome Marine, but it'll help, a bit. Another downside, is that you may start to become worse at tracking Aliens before their healthbars appear. You know, you get used to it so hitting your enemy the very first time might become harder. You do not need stats about it, that's only logic.
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    schu wrote: »
    But like I said, I have no issues shooting a target in a giant rush of other targets. If i see a fade trying to frantically escape a room, I know he is hurt, even without shooting him. I don't need a red bar telling me his is hurt. Why else would he leave the room during a fight?

    But not everyone is you and not everyone plays like you...
  • .trixX..trixX. Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
    This thread attempts to put itself above all the other emotional discussions that we've had lately (i.e. over the course of the last three years...) and descends right back into it, in the original post, even.

    This will lead to the same ten arguments being produced over and over again, and nothing productive will be produced - especially since almost everyone tries to change everybody else's opinion, but is dedicated to this own. Guys... what's the point?

    Dude, we are not emotial. Several arguments has been put forth against it, while little for it. I don't understand why its so hard to comprehend.
    You keep repeating that we are subjective and emotional, and its only our opinion when people are writing ARGUMENTS against it. How do YOU justify HP bars?
  • WakeWake Join Date: 2003-03-05 Member: 14351Members, Constellation
    Guys... what's the point?

    Heh !
    dul334j8h5ay.gif
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    .trixX. wrote: »
    This thread attempts to put itself above all the other emotional discussions that we've had lately (i.e. over the course of the last three years...) and descends right back into it, in the original post, even.

    This will lead to the same ten arguments being produced over and over again, and nothing productive will be produced - especially since almost everyone tries to change everybody else's opinion, but is dedicated to this own. Guys... what's the point?

    Dude, we are not emotial. Several arguments has been put forth against it, while little for it. I don't understand why its so hard to comprehend.
    You keep repeating that we are subjective and emotional, and its only our opinion when people are writing ARGUMENTS against it. How do YOU justify HP bars?

    I'm not always talking specifically to you :)

    I recommend you take a look at these threads again:
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/143782/ns2free2play#latest
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/142208/what-should-be-done-about-the-health-bar#latest

    Also the title of this thread:
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/144029/people-are-too-stupid-to-play-ns2-make-an-official-alternative-game-mode-already#latest
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