Best Of

I actually think these complaints/discussions about the 327 changes showed some really interesting insights into the mentality of some of our players, and highlight how badly we need(ed) a meta shakeup.

MoFo1 wrote: »

I must be missing something, I've never seen or heard of quick play sending players to empty servers to seed. (As nordic is clearly implying)

From everything I've seen and been told by admins it takes 5 players in a server before quick play starts sending people there.

Quickplay sends me to empty servers about 90% of the time

Aeglos wrote: »

This is incredibly optimistic to the point of being dishonest. The reality would be barely another full server and an even greater amount of people queuing the full servers or deciding to do something else. Seeding is difficult. Nothing will change until this is solved. This is very evident from the success of the spectator slots. People would rather sit in a full server and get a chance in half an hour than seed an empty one and wait three hours for nothing. They should be able to start a new server with the amount of people queuing but should is not would and they amount of people likely to chance it on a could falls after every failure.

I don't like large servers any more than you do, but I think that this will kill servers after long games more frequently.

moultano wrote: »

I'm a bit worried about the 10v10 change. I think a likely outcome is that we'll have the same number of active games, but with fewer players in them, and so a lower active player count overall.

It is optimistic, but I don't think it is unreasonable. Let me walk you through my thoughts.

1) The majority of servers are seeded by rookies being sent there because of the quick play feature. Veterans then slowly filter in after rookies have seeded the server. It is INCREDIBLY difficult to seed a server already, 12v12, or anything without quick play. To be absolutely clear, quickplay is absolutely crucial in seeding servers right now.

2) In my experience as an 8v8 fanatic, trying to seed 8v8 servers, asking people to come play with me on an 8v8 server. Most people I talk to, even those who prefer 8v8, would rather play on a full server than play in an 8v8 game. 12v12 servers have created a tragedy of the comments phenomena where people mostly play on 12v12 servers. Rookies seed where quickplay sends them, veterans only want to play on full servers, and the only servers full are 12v12. They key detail here is that the vast majority of players only want to play on full servers.

I will use a hypothetical example group of 192 players of mixed skill. These 192 players would fill 8 servers right now with 12v12 being common. Switching to 10v10 would fill a hypothetical 9.6 servers, but we would be lucky to really get that many. So in affect we are likely to still fill 8 servers with more people queuing for a server. Switching to 8v8 servers would evenly put those 192 players across a hypothetical 12 servers. We would be lucky to get all 12 servers full, but we would fill more than 8 servers in this group.

I believe quickplay will be more likely to spread rookies out across more than 8 servers. Veterans will then slowly filter into those different servers as they do now but resulting in more active servers. 8v8 servers are genuinely harder to keep seeded than 12v12 servers, so people will move around between different servers more frequently. I believe people will move around more frequently because of skill disparity in server, slowly emergently creating more skill differentiation between servers.

The following is based on old stats, but I believe current NS2 to be similar in demographics today but maybe smaller numbers. NS2 has a very small playerbase. If you pay attention to the NS2 steamcharts you will know that NS2 has about 200 average daily players, and about 450 peak players in any given month. Based on the old data I have, it was not uncommon to have 25,000 unique players in a 45 day period. Based on those same old stats, ~5000 to ~6000 of those unique players are not rookies. Those ~5000 players are our veterans. The vast majority of players are rookies. If even half of them stuck around NS2 wouldn't have the concurrent playerbase problem anymore.

Do you know what makes them leave? Most rookies stick around until they are kicked out of rookie only servers. Then they leave. They are deterred by the sheer skill difference. If NS2 could somehow group players of similar skill into separate servers, it could improve gameplay quality and dramatically improve player retention.

Imagine the same circumstances NS2 has in basketball (or any sport). Imagine there are 192 basketball players. That is enough for 8 courts, each with large 12 versus 12 games of basketball. 12 players are professional NBA players. 72 players are high school varsity players. 108 players young children. How NS2 currently works is that each of the 8 courts is going to have a random set of players. Any given court might have 2 NBA players, 8 high school varsity players, and 14 young children. How the hell are you supposed to balance games with players like these? NS2 uses the hive skill system to try and make the teams even. NS2 would make two teams of 1 NBA players, 4 high school varsity players, and 7 young children. Sure, teams are "balanced" but the game won't play well, and nobody is really going to enjoy themselves as much as they could.

This is exactly what NS2 is like. Hive can not make games with 2 NBA players, 8 high school varsity players, and 14 young children work out much better than it already does. That is not the purpose of hive. Hive is not meant to group similar skilled players into different servers. It only tries to make the best teams out of the players it is given. Hive does pretty well at it's purpose, that is making even skilled teams. Hive does not make near skilled teams.

Imagine if instead the players were put into servers with near skill players. That would be servers with:
12 high skill players and 12 high skill veterans, split evenly among the teams.
24 veterans.
24 veterans.
12 veterans and 12 low skill veterans, split evenly among the teams.
24 rookies.
24 rookies.
24 rookies.
24 rookies.

UWE once had some plans to do some sort of player grouping system but I don't know the details more than the trello says.
https://trello.com/c/Zk5778Qu/28-match-seeding-system
https://trello.com/c/s7ONC9b7/21-matchmaking-system

8v8 could create more skill differentiation between getting us closer to more near skilled games. We are never going to have such an ideal split of players for near skilled games. I am not that optimistic. 8v8 servers could allow for greater skill differentiation to occur because of people leaving servers for other servers more often across a greater number of active servers than we have now. Lowering playercounts improves both server and client performance. Lower player counts creates a more consistent balance experience.

No, 8v8 is not going to fix every problem. It is not the magic pill we need. 8v8 will improve a number of things that synergize together to create a far greater experience overall.

Unearthed is bloody amazing.

Two images that were cut from the changelog to keep the size down, but I feel need visual examples to be understood fully :

* Infestation should no longer “streak” and appears more crisp than before.



* Map Decals no longer streak

Aeglos wrote: »

Hitbox changes template.

Increased size : More consistent hit registration!
Decreased size : More accurately reflects the model!

Rinse and repeat.

The only hitbox related entry i found in the changelog:

Improved Lerk and Gorge hitboxes so there are less gaps. The proportion or size of the hitboxes remain unchanged

Got to play this map on another server at 10v10..

It's an incredibly beautiful looking map that appears to be very well balanced. I'm hoping it will be played as much as the tram/summit/veil trinity lol

Huge props to whomever made it!