Longer warm-up round
shadowcode
Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172277Members
Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172277Members
Currently, the warm-up round is too short. Especially on a 12p server it often already starts when there's only a few players. In my opinion there should be more conditions that cause a game to actually start:
<ul><li> After map change, at least 80% of the players have joined a team.
AND</li><li> Both commanders have taken seat for at least 20 seconds.</li></ul>
There should be a set timeout to prevent the game from not starting at all (due to team indecisiveness in choosing a commander, trolling, whatever) and the conditions should be ignored at that point (after which the game should just start, either with not enough players or no a commander).
While a valid tactic, an early rush on the enemy's base/hive 's success currently depends too much on load-times (or rather, 'join' times, ie how long it takes someone to join a team) rather than proper game mechanics.
<ul><li> After map change, at least 80% of the players have joined a team.
AND</li><li> Both commanders have taken seat for at least 20 seconds.</li></ul>
There should be a set timeout to prevent the game from not starting at all (due to team indecisiveness in choosing a commander, trolling, whatever) and the conditions should be ignored at that point (after which the game should just start, either with not enough players or no a commander).
While a valid tactic, an early rush on the enemy's base/hive 's success currently depends too much on load-times (or rather, 'join' times, ie how long it takes someone to join a team) rather than proper game mechanics.
Comments
There needs to be a way to Assist pub teams to get organised at start of round
Let me start by saying if you play only in organised / competitive games then this idea is not for you.
After spending most of the weekend playing on various pub servers where quite a few games were lost in the first minute due to one of the teams not having a commander and generally being disorganised I think that a slight reorganisation in the way the round starts is in order.
1. I think there should be a countdown timer in the ready room. Say 30 seconds (but customizable by the server admins) At the end of the 30s, everyone who has not already joined a team and that isn’t afk is auto assigned to a team at random. This is to stop the problem of 1 person on one team, 2 on the other, and the entire ready room jumping up and down at the team with 2 people’s gate! It’s always like some kind of standoff seeing who will be the first to give in and join the unpopular team.
2. After everyone is on a team there is an organisation period of say 20 seconds with a countdown timer. During which time a voice over says “choose your leader†or something and counts down to the start of the round. This time can be used to argue over who goes commander and a plan for who is going to run where at the start. This way on round start, the comm just gets straight in to it and the team knows that 2 are going there, 3 there etc. Hell, even if its decided that the entire team is going to rush, at least it will be the entire team and not a trickle of later joiners wondering what is going on.
I’m sure plenty would whinge about point 1, however I have seen plenty whinge about games being decided in the first minute due to the alien commander with two skulks taking over half the map while 2 marines sit at spawn waiting for more people to join the game in the hope that someone else will command. But no one does join because they are all in the alien team entrance still.
Another thing I would like to see implemented is kicking of the AFK people from the server. So many times I have wanted to join a server with friends on it and they tell me there are people who have been afk for over 10 minutes. I guess a reasonable default afk limit would be 1.5 mins? Probably best if server admins decided it for themselves.
Definitely a good idea. It seems that people have a strong preference for playing either marines or aliens, though, it would be nice if a system could take that into account. The current system of first-come first-serve leads to unnecessary queuing. They could try to allow a player to join any team and then redistribute unbalanced teams once the game starts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->19 days after launch, here is our third patch. This is the first patch in which we have made a major attempt to address balance. When NS2 launched, first 100,000 games displayed a remarkable win loss ratio: 49% Marine wins, 51% alien wins.
This balance began to swing towards the aliens after the first week, without us making any changes to the game. This is a fascinating phenomenon in game balance: As the community gets better at the game, you become better at exploiting wrinkles in the fabric of its design. The discrepancy continued to widen to an unacceptable 40% marine wins.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wonder if that includes games that suffer from the aforementioned problems.
A longer warmup time would be nice, but I would like to see EVERYBODY forced into random. Players that aren't on the team they want to play on can elect to swap slots with another player that wants to be on the opposite team. After 10 seconds of swapping teams are finalized and the game starts.
Not having everyone on both teams completely filled at the start of the round has a huge impact on the game.
Feel free to read (and comment on) it here:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=124406" target="_blank">Commander Selection Phase</a>
I wonder if that includes games that suffer from the aforementioned problems.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No doubt it would include some. I don't think this is a huge issue in terms of balance.
No commander / disorganized empty teams can hurt either side in my experience
Having said that, if one side is consistently more popular like aliens have been off late then it would affect the % of games outcomes.
<ul><li> After map change, at least 80% of the players have joined a team.
AND</li><li> Both commanders have taken seat for at least 20 seconds.</li></ul>
There should be a set timeout to prevent the game from not starting at all (due to team indecisiveness in choosing a commander, trolling, whatever) and the conditions should be ignored at that point (after which the game should just start, either with not enough players or no a commander).
While a valid tactic, an early rush on the enemy's base/hive 's success currently depends too much on load-times (or rather, 'join' times, ie how long it takes someone to join a team) rather than proper game mechanics.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2030632:date=Nov 21 2012, 12:47 AM:name=Malachi_NGC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Malachi_NGC @ Nov 21 2012, 12:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2030632"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think I have an even better idea: add a commander selection phase before the map starts. This, coupled with commander stats, would greatly ease finding commanders.
Feel free to read (and comment on) it here:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=124406" target="_blank">Commander Selection Phase</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Both should be implemented.
Starting with too few players while a lot are still loading the map have ruined many games, most of the time because someone gets in the command station even though he's not good at it and doesn't really want to be commander but he saw nobody willing to do it (among the bare 3 people who were in the team at that time).
AND</li><li> Both commanders have taken seat for at least 20 seconds.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree 100%. If either of those conditions is true, the game should start, but not so suddenly like it does now. You very rarely actually get into a game when it starts, and this is a much better solution.