Game size general
sotanaht
Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
<div class="IPBDescription">General discussion on various server/game sizes from 6v6 to 12v12</div>Wanted to open up a general discussion about the pros and cons about the various popular game sizes at all levels of play. I have heard many times that this game is balanced for 6v6, and yet 10v10 seems to be by far the most popular mode for casual level play.
I play pubs and personally find 10v10 to be somewhat ideal. That's 10 actual players actually playing on both teams, which seems more likely to happen in a 12v12 server due to players coming always and going and afking or just generally being totally useless. with 9 active players on a team (discounting the comm), you an split into 3 groups of 3 or two groups of 4 and 5 or two 3s with a few people harrassing outside the main action. It allows for a great deal of strategy and map control without relying on every individual player to be good, while not simply flooding the map with players like in some absurd 30v30 situation where there's just no where to go.
In a smaller game like 6v6 it is impossible to defend. You pretty much need to have the entire team in one place save one guy and the commander in order to accomplish anything (fewer than 4 marines together=bad, no way to take an onos or even a fade or lerk at lower tech) This game size seems wildly in favor of the aliens due to the massive amount of undefended territory the marines are going to have, while the marines have to stick together in a single mass to survive even small attacks. Additionally the marine team is going to struggle to build bases at any reasonable rate given their entire team has to be moving in one direction instead of two or three.
I play pubs and personally find 10v10 to be somewhat ideal. That's 10 actual players actually playing on both teams, which seems more likely to happen in a 12v12 server due to players coming always and going and afking or just generally being totally useless. with 9 active players on a team (discounting the comm), you an split into 3 groups of 3 or two groups of 4 and 5 or two 3s with a few people harrassing outside the main action. It allows for a great deal of strategy and map control without relying on every individual player to be good, while not simply flooding the map with players like in some absurd 30v30 situation where there's just no where to go.
In a smaller game like 6v6 it is impossible to defend. You pretty much need to have the entire team in one place save one guy and the commander in order to accomplish anything (fewer than 4 marines together=bad, no way to take an onos or even a fade or lerk at lower tech) This game size seems wildly in favor of the aliens due to the massive amount of undefended territory the marines are going to have, while the marines have to stick together in a single mass to survive even small attacks. Additionally the marine team is going to struggle to build bases at any reasonable rate given their entire team has to be moving in one direction instead of two or three.
Comments
You are right in that with so few players on such large maps, it makes it very difficult for any sort of defense. In 6v6, the longer the game drags on, the less likely the marines have to win. You have to try and get a quick victory to win as marines.
for pubs its just a subjective choice.
in before 24/32 players bull######s.
6v6 is indeed mostly the amount for competive play not just because it is much easier to setup in terms of getting that amount of players to play in clan matches, any higher and some smaller clans will have trouble mustering up the manpower. But it is also more awesome where a player has a much bigger influence and can potentially stand out from the crowd during a round, instead of being absorbed into a team.
So yeah, the game is balanced around 6v6 and arguably up to 9v9. The thing is, the more players the more spammy the game gets and usually the aliens suffer with their egg spawn queue due to their increased deaths, harvester maturation and the current general map sizes... Also the marine's construction capabilities goes up as well with each extra marine out in the field, where the alien expansion stays quite static even with a potential extra Gorge out there. Not to mention their cyst chains become more vulnerable, as well as the marine power nodes, so that part might balance out to some extent. I think that about sums it up in favour of smaller player amounts...
6v6 is indeed mostly the amount for competive play not just because it is much easier to setup in terms of getting that amount of player to play in clan matches. But it is also more awesome where a player has a much bigger influence and can potentially stand out from the crowd during a round, instead of being absorbed into a team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From my personal experience playing 9v9 in top clans in another game, even in a 9v9 setting, the good players will still stand out really well. The size of NS2's maps are perfect for 9v9.
Also, one problem with 6v6 is that it is really 5v5 out on the battlefield. The action overall is much less intense with so few players spread on such large maps.
I argue that with 5v5 players on the battlefield, it makes cyst chains and power nodes more vulnerable, not less. Less people to defend.
Unfortunately, I'd say ns2 is even less favorable to higher playercounts than ns1 actually. For reasons such 'fixing' the p.res system and limiting p.res to lifeforms and weapons. The strained alien resource pool was kept in check by the commander reliance by the marines.
9v9 is tolerable.
Anything above that is called call of duty.
Hate hoping on a 16 player server as more often than not after five minutes people have left and its 3 v 4 on the field.
The few times that I've been on a 24 man server, anywhere I look there are marines and the noobiest skulks you ever did see...
So comp NS2 isn't a team game? I wonder if playing 8v8 would help that :) then again, you'd just get a 'team' of the 8 best individuals forming instead of the 6 best.
6v6 is indeed mostly the amount for competive play not just because it is much easier to setup in terms of getting that amount of players to play in clan matches, any higher and some smaller clans will have trouble mustering up the manpower. But it is also more awesome where a player has a much bigger influence and can potentially stand out from the crowd during a round, instead of being absorbed into a team.
So yeah, the game is balanced around 6v6 and arguably up to 9v9. The thing is, the more players the more spammy the game gets and usually the aliens suffer with their egg spawn queue due to their increased deaths, harvester maturation and the current general map sizes... Also the marine's construction capabilities goes up as well with each extra marine out in the field, where the alien expansion stays quite static even with a potential extra Gorge out there. Not to mention their cyst chains become more vulnerable, as well as the marine power nodes, so that part might balance out to some extent. I think that about sums it up in favour of smaller player amounts...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Frankly the game isn't all that balanced at the moment, from what I've heard the win ratio is largely in favor of aliens at all skill levels. If having larger teams skews things a bit towards marines, that's probably a GOOD thing and shows that in spite of any intentions, the balance is actually better at a higher playercount.
The egg lock is a real problem though. Hive egg spawns should scale to player count, more players = faster spawn, it's only logical.
12vs12 just seems like way too much, and I usually only play on these servers when I'm looking to just have some all-around fun. I mean, I like to have fun on 8vs8, but I would probably take an 8vs8 server a little more seriously than a 12vs12.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I play pubs and personally find 10v10 to be somewhat ideal. That's 10 actual players actually playing on both teams, which seems more likely to happen in a 12v12 server due to players coming always and going and afking or just generally being totally useless. with 9 active players on a team (discounting the comm), you an split into 3 groups of 3 or two groups of 4 and 5 or two 3s with a few people harrassing outside the main action. <b><i> It allows for a great deal of strategy and map control without relying on every individual player to be good</i></b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I highlighted your last sentence since it is a very significant one.
This is what makes these larger games more fun. There is more forgiveness in larger games, since each person's individual contribution isn't as significant as it is in smaller games. Have a few newbies on your team? No worries in a 12v12 game since there are enough people to pick up the slack. Frankly these larger games are way more fun if enough people know how to play.
10v10 seems to be the sweet spot, although 8v8 are OK if you have people who know how to play. Too many newbies on 8v8 for either side and it will get ugly very fast.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a smaller game like 6v6 it is impossible to defend.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yeah I've played some 6v6 in NS2 and I wasn't happy with it at all. It felt like whack-a-mole more than anything else.
The 'problem' is that the game is designed as such so that the aliens win by 'default' unless the marines prevent it. Marines spend all their time trying to keep a handful of extractors up while skulks go from one to the next. Meanwhile skulks have nothing much else to do since there isn't much activity because of the lower player count. Since the aliens have the khamm grabbing the bulk of the map and sucking it dry of resources, the aliens don't have to do to kill that many extractors before the marines have lost. Usually 5 minutes is sufficient. From that point on it's just bide their time as the resources pour in and then they can take a couple Onos into marine base and clean house. Aliens can just roam as a group of three and two and you can pretty much own the marines unless they are running in one big group. If they are they lose anyway since they won't be able to cover enough of the map. It's quite boring to be honest - on both sides.
Since the alien khamm does the building for the aliens, the marines are at a big disadvantage since their small team has to both build and try and defend what they build, all with 5 guys. Even if you have one marine who is so good that people think he has an aimbot, the other two teams of two marines each are still no match for roaming gank squads of 3 skulks that can roll in and take on any group of two marines. (especially since armor one likely isn't up yet) Even if they don't do that, they can just roam around and take out extractors almost as fast as the marines can build them.
Marines could probably manage in a 6v6 if they had electrified res nodes, but even then the power nodes would likely go down just as fast. So you would still be running around responding to power node attacks, which means you are not out there building. If you are not out there building then your res flow is gimped, and if your res flow is gimped you'll be swimming in Onos no later than 12 minutes in. So yeah, that's why 6v6 is a poor choice for NS2, and it's why you'll rarely see any full servers with it.
Its the sweet spot.
You find on good 6v6 games in pubs that plenty of buildings end up getting destroyed (yes, it's harder to defend!) - but the good games are those where teams retaliate for these attacks: to force the opposing team onto the defensive or to accept loss of that area of the map. This can lead to really tense games, balanced on a knife edge, where you really can't call the game for the first 20-30minutes. That for me is the best game (when people are communicating, of course!).
The main problem with 6v6 is how quickly a server can empty: one player down makes a BIG difference, and once you're on the slippery slope, it's very difficult to recover as more people disconnect or F4. This can empty pub servers annoyingly quickly. :(
In Europe, there are both 12p and 16p servers (not sure about larger player count official servers?) - but my main gripe is that only a few of those offer all maps, many are set to one or two maps only, which is really boring!!
Roo
Roo
Next was the cyst war. with not enough players to advance and defend,it was a constant war with my cyst chain. I HATE THAT... really, I can't stand putting the same cyst down 20 times till someone can work their way over and defend it.
9v9 is usually ok too.
12v12 is any thing from fairly bad to a steaming turd. I tried to play as an alien on 24 player summit once. If the aliens start to get egg locked, that's the end. You will spend more of your time waiting to respawn rather than playing. I have no idea who can find that fun, expect for perhaps noob marines that normally get a K:D of 3:20 in normal games.
As posted in the other thread, more than 8v8 should be classed as a modded server, so new players don't think that the ensuing mess of that many players is what NS2 is all about.
Do you remember all of the complaining about Edakulous? Just imagine having a 6 player team with all edak-level shooters on it. Or honestly even better than edak.
A good marine team can win every single engagement with 4 players until you get lerks and fades out. The reason why marines don't do this is because in a 6v6, this leaves 1 person on the other side of the map who gets wrecked. As a result, 3-2 or 2-1-2 (with the 1 backcapping/reinforcing as necessary) is the most common setup in 6v6.
A 4 man marine squad could probably win a 4v7 engagement, and probably with minimal casualties with nanoshield.
If you increase it to 8v8 as the scrim standard, fades will still die in three hits. Lerks will still die in two hits. Sure you'll have one more lerk/one more fade, but that's nothing compared to having one more shotgun in a push, while still maintaining a good sense of map control.