I think that F4'ing should be discouraged. It "reminds you" that you're playing a game (i.e ruins immersion) when people are shouting "F4" and leaving. I also think that if you have 1 comm chair or hive, and manage to survive for ages, it feels like less of a "loss" because the other team had a hard time finishing you off. I had a game yesterday where I dropped (and got built) at least 6 hives and it went on for nearly an hour. Aliens were clearly losing the whole game, but I felt some sense of accomplishment being able to keep the team together and not losing for that long.
I hope if some sort of persistant stats or levels are put in the game, you only get those points if you finish a whole game. That should help :)
EDIT: All that being said, I want the map makers and UWE to make surviving when you are clearly losing to be as hard as possible. I want the players to try and survive long games, but the maps/game to work against it. I don't want games to go on for over an hour really...
one of the main reasons i like playing on ns2stat servers is that there is no feeling of efforts being in vain. if the enemy has poor combat morale, then you get your win at least.
imo most people give up too easily. before doing that you should at least try some risky all-out attacks on a hive or powernode. still, in some dragged out games not even that is possible: when you cannot even leave your base in either direction without dying in seconds, i also tend to prefer surrendering.
The problem with this for me is that the early game is so important, marines really need to drop rts like it is hot before aliens start using their mobility to dominate the map. Unfortunately join up can be quite slow or spread out during the first 5 minutes. This is something that really needs to be addressed.
I like the idea that once both commanders have entered their chairs, the game restarts with those players in chair after 10 seconds or so. I think that would work really nicely.
Comments
I hope if some sort of persistant stats or levels are put in the game, you only get those points if you finish a whole game. That should help :)
EDIT: All that being said, I want the map makers and UWE to make surviving when you are clearly losing to be as hard as possible. I want the players to try and survive long games, but the maps/game to work against it. I don't want games to go on for over an hour really...
imo most people give up too easily. before doing that you should at least try some risky all-out attacks on a hive or powernode. still, in some dragged out games not even that is possible: when you cannot even leave your base in either direction without dying in seconds, i also tend to prefer surrendering.
I like the idea that once both commanders have entered their chairs, the game restarts with those players in chair after 10 seconds or so. I think that would work really nicely.