Played today and didn't notice any changes in spin-up time whatsoever.
As far as the game favoring aliens, I don't find that to be the case at all. In fact, since the 237 patch it feels like the marine teams I play against are about 2x better at landing hits. I think as FPS and player skill increases it'll become nearly impossible to 1v1 a guy who's a decent shot.
<!--quoteo(post=2062474:date=Jan 17 2013, 10:34 PM:name=NousWanderer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NousWanderer @ Jan 17 2013, 10:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062474"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I play lerk regularly, and it does seem as if I'm getting hit much more often (despite flying quite evasively) in the latest patch.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I play lerk, I get hit less, by decent shooters.
Before this patch, I didn't notice any hitreg issues. Now I'm actually having hitreg issues, on moving/circling targets, within 3 meters.
<!--quoteo(post=2062420:date=Jan 18 2013, 12:41 AM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Jan 18 2013, 12:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062420"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You say statistics dont lie? Then why is there the famous saying of "Bullsh1t, Lies & Statistics"?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Argh you said this in another topic. There is no such famous saying. The saying you're thinking of is "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." It's probably Mark Twain who came up with it (though he attributed the saying to Disraeli, but there's no evidence of Disraeli actually using this statement).
And my personal stats are bang on 50%. The server I played on last night had lots of teamwork, lots of communication and the marines were generally doing very very well. This statistic is just as meaningless as the OP's statistic. It's heavily biased first and foremost by <i>which servers I tend to play on</i>.
Let the dust settle before making these over the top statements. Yes, the balance may be off (in all likelihood it is), but 2 days after a patch which included hitreg tweaks for both sides is not the time.
Probably the best single thing an individual can do is to hunt around different server communities and find one in which the winrate is more even. I believe they really do exist, from my own experience.
No communication and no teamwork = marines lose (exaggeration but not by much...).
Hey Choke, maybe if you would stop playing marines, they would have a chance of winning more? ;) (scnr)
I agree, that it is easier to win as aliens, because marines need more discipline and tactics. But it is not that bad, as you made it out to be. My useless statistics say 50%.
<!--quoteo(post=2062468:date=Jan 18 2013, 08:20 AM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Jan 18 2013, 08:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062468"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes, its teh taking a step back and understanding what the data says thats the hard part, people want an easy face value answer and there often isn't one....sure there is an answer but its hidden and not sraight forward to see/find.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I doubt anybody has a problem with acknowledging that the win/loss rate doesn't reveal any particularly in depth information about the current state of the game. However what people do have quite a severe problem with is when somebody seems to think that thousands+ games yield the same or less information as 23 games.
Formula here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a>
Considering public servers, where most marine commanders will fill every room with sentries while the aliens get every RT on the map it is a miracle the alien winrate is not higher.
<!--quoteo(post=2062515:date=Jan 18 2013, 11:52 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Jan 18 2013, 11:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062515"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->19 out of 23 is pretty much significant.
The confidence interval is 67%-98%.
Formula here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is not an example of a Bernoulli trial process, therefore not applicable.
<!--quoteo(post=2062515:date=Jan 18 2013, 05:52 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Jan 18 2013, 05:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062515"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->19 out of 23 is pretty much significant.
The confidence interval is 67%-98%.
Formula here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Assumptions and controls aside, maybe.
In the real world, however, this is one person's experience which is heavily biased by many factors, not least of which is what sort of servers he plays on, whether there is teamplay from both the OP and the teammates and the opposition on those servers, and so on.
If those 23 results were from a cross-section of all servers with each game having completely unique players, there would be less bias.
I'm not saying the game is perfectly balanced, but I'm also not saying it's unbalanced. It's a) too early to tell so soon after a patch, b) stupid to try to draw conclusions from a single person's small dataset which by definition is heavily biased, and c) also clouded by emotion to some degree.
Find some new servers, get your microphone out and be positive and constructive with your teammates. See where it goes in the next few weeks when we have more data <i>from a much wider spread of games</i>.
Roo
PS If you take my dataset of 5 marine wins vs 5 aliens wins since the patch, you'd come up with a very different conclusion. Don't take small, biased datasets in isolation, look for a complete dataset covering the full range of server types/regions/sizes etc.
<!--quoteo(post=2062492:date=Jan 18 2013, 05:38 PM:name=Gliss)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Gliss @ Jan 18 2013, 05:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062492"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it's not just that, but anecdotal evidence is very close to useless in NS2 because it has many RTS elements but a large deciding factor of most games and engagements still comes down to individual skill. it doesn't seem very useful to use "I am shooting skulks better / I am getting hit as a skulk more often" as evidence of hit registry being fixed, for example.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Completely agree, that person could simply have stumbled onto a server with some good players. There is a reason why the call centre industry has moved to screen scrapping to capture what people are calling about. Evolving from scraps of paper and small samples, to LOB codes on wider samples, to complete capture of every request for every contact. Even then this data has to be assessed to ensure any unusual factors which might have influenced the data are noted (potentially ruling to data out). When there is potential financial impacts based on the accuracy of your data...you can waste hours looking for something based on scuttlebutt from someone who only has a glimpse at a fraction of the available data. Anyone who has worked in a callcentre would know...some days you get all the loons and other days you dont get any.
<!--quoteo(post=2062439:date=Jan 18 2013, 12:18 AM:name=Res)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Res @ Jan 18 2013, 12:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062439"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I figured it out.... internet explorer wasn't bringing anything up except for a small box and search field when I went to ns2stats.org... switched to firefox and it shows everything.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sigh. I have gone to ns2stats.org many times looking for a alien/marine ratio and couldn't see anything. What a garbage website that I have to install a different browser to use it. Yeah, I see pie charts with Firefox. If I would have seen this earlier I would not be keeping my own statistics. I totally agree, even though servers need to run the NS2Stats mod, it is a much larger sampling than my personal one. But I am going keep my own anyway just so I get a more personal feel with how much marines are getting wiped out.
Didnt notice any improvement in hitreg. Sure the spit actually hits now because it moves much faster and probably has bigger radius to check for the hit or something, but thats about it. If anything, shots from marine weapons seem to be doing no damage at all more concistently than before. Lots of blood flying everywhere, but damage numbers dont show up at all. Players still warping and animations still choppy as ever.
<!--quoteo(post=2062420:date=Jan 17 2013, 11:41 PM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Jan 17 2013, 11:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062420"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You say statistics dont lie? Then why is there the famous saying of "Bullsh1t, Lies & Statistics"? Statistics by them selves mean nothing, raw uncleansed data is totally unusable for anything other than taking up space.
Anyone who works with historical data and uses it to help predict future events knows this, there are hundreds of variables that made up those results such as; Map size Starting locations players on server Comm experience Player experience Player skill How long hte game went for. Tech paths chosen Rate at which upgrades obtained How aggressive did your team play Map control etc etc
You cant compare data sets unless all the variables match (or atleast 90+%) as each of these variables can contribute to the game being won/lost. You may well know how to play yourself...but if your team does not individual skill has almost no bearing on the result. If you could take data on face value I would not have my job...and neither would countless people around the world, weather reports would be more accurate than we see currently (after all they are looking at data). But alas it has to be contextualised and sometimes normalised as some data is an anomoly and not a real data set (ie troll comms recycling).
I know its frustrating being on a side that loses...some servers I have come across it seems one side always wins...thats more due to a skill inbalance and team stacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The phrase is from Mark Twain, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". You are missing the point of the phrase with this response. The phrase means that you cannot trust the statistics themselves, as in the numbers are made up, or the criteria used is not what you think it is, etc... When aliens are winning 75%, there is nothing to misinterpret as long as you count every win. Unless you are lying about the counts (which I am not), the statistics are clear. The argument you make here is "WHY DO MARINES LOSE SO MUCH". I am sick of people bringing this up. I DONT CARE WHY THEY LOSE SO MUCH. I also don't care how it is fixed, as long as it is fixed.
<!--quoteo(post=2062512:date=Jan 18 2013, 04:33 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 18 2013, 04:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062512"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hey Choke, maybe if you would stop playing marines, they would have a chance of winning more? ;) (scnr)
I agree, that it is easier to win as aliens, because marines need more discipline and tactics. But it is not that bad, as you made it out to be. My useless statistics say 50%.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do not always play marines and this post has NOTHING to do with me, how angry I am about my personal play or any other rant or slam on the game. I like the game and I am an average player. I am just sick of seeing marines lose. Its gotten to the point that as a marine I mentally shut down early I think because I am so conditioned to losing as soon as I see an Onos. Maybe I am guilty of that. But how about everybody else? Unless I am the commander and I am recycling the IP portals, I am not personally affecting the outcome very much.
<!--quoteo(post=2062521:date=Jan 18 2013, 05:08 AM:name=Mendasp)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mendasp @ Jan 18 2013, 05:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062521"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Considering public servers, where most marine commanders will fill every room with sentries while the aliens get every RT on the map it is a miracle the alien winrate is not higher.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can you or someone explain somethning to me? What is a public server exactly? Isn't any server in the browser a public one? Is there a tab I am missing in the game that says "Competitive Elite Only" with its own set of servers? How do I sign up?
<!--quoteo(post=2062430:date=Jan 18 2013, 12:01 AM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 18 2013, 12:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062430"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->NS2stats had the alien win rate at ~70% on the day the patch dropped, but that was a very small sample. The ~60% mark is where it has been for over a month. The last time the ratio dropped was when they patched the game to limit Onos egg drops to three hives. It was sitting around the 2/3rds mark prior to that. (according to the developers anyway)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not sure what you mean on small sample. Isn't the pie chart on this site a complete win/loss ratio since the site came up?
As of right now, it shows 59% alien wins. A ratio like that is actually not so bad. My anger toward the game diminishes as this gets closer to 50%. But let me tie in the question of "public" servers and "competive servers", which I still do not have a definition of. Are more "competitive servers" running the NS2Stats mod? If so, the sampling is not random enough to be accurate.
It genuinely is a L2P issue as far as I can see. (I actually want to know what the win/loss for competitive play only. Only thing I know is the Archea vs Nexil ENSL thing where Marines actually won the majority).
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=2062605:date=Jan 18 2013, 09:13 AM:name=Squishpoke)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squishpoke @ Jan 18 2013, 09:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062605"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It genuinely is a L2P issue as far as I can see. (I actually want to know what the win/loss for competitive play only. Only thing I know is the Archea vs Nexil ENSL thing where Marines actually won the majority).
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am going give it one more shot on explaining why L2P is not the problem. I agree marines are much harder to play. If the requirement for a marine team to win is exceptional skills and teamwork and the requirement for an alien team to win is far lower than that, that is the definition of a serious, gaming breaking balance issue. I have been playing almost since it came out. So have many people. You think everytime I am on a marine team its been rookies? WE LOSE. Not, I LOSE. I don't need to "L2P" and most of the people I play with don't either. We need the game fixed. You can make tweaks to the game to make this better and still have marines be marines and aliens be aliens. Never have I said or proposed ANY major design change to either side to solve this. And that is core to my frustrations with UWE on this topic. Take build 236, how many lines of code did it take to make cyst health from 100 to 50? One?
The Hitreg on skulks is moderately better, under the assumption you are playing on a decent server, with a non ridiculous player count, with a good ping. I don't have to aim a quarter inch behind skulks anymore which is great. It isn't quite right still, however. When I play, I rotate one round marine and one round alien. Of the 10 games I played yesterday, 5 as marine, 5 as alien, I won 2 games as marine, and all the games as alien. Anecdotal evidence? For sure. Statistically valid? Of course not...
However, it is representative of something. My experience is being echoed by more than people on the forums. The "uneducated masses" that don't even read the forums are talking on pub servers about how aliens were buffed even more, and marines are pointless. Sure it's by far and away a generalization, but the fact is, there's grains of truth in the mud they're spewing. Maybe today I'll win all my marine games and prove the opposite, however I do not count on it.
Oh, and another common theme I've noticed since 236 is mass gorging. Instead of the 1 or two maybe tops on a 8 person team, people are reguarly running 3 and denying area in a way that 30 res shouldn't be allowed to. Imagine if 30 res in sentries locked a room down from 4 skulks. Yeah, it's like that. Anyway the naysayers and fanboys will disagree of course, but I'm just stating what I've seen.
You're right about the L2P argument MrChoke. Learning to play better will not make the game magically balanced at low skill level. The game not scaling well with player skill is obviously not a property of the players, but a property of the game, so you can't fix it by fixing the players...
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
it IS a L2P issue.. (wows.. I actually said that for once now..)
let us asume you are a good player. Lets say 2 other players also are. leaves 3 to 5 players on a standard sized team who got no clue what they are doing. For marines this is a far bigger problem then kharaa.
And when does a player consider himself/herself good? Aim? game knowhow? Executing the knowhow? I myself have a good grasp about NS2 at the moment, but you will see me running around with LMG. Because I know I suck to much at shotgun to risk unless we basicly lost it already. (then its practise time) Will me being unable to use a shotgun hurt the team? Totally depends on what we are doing.
Same for fade. My fades die. I know how its done, I can tell every new player how to do it.. but to actually DO it usually means I die a very quick death. I guarantee you the team suffers if I choose to go fade instead of lets say a gorge.
You have given nothing to prove you and your team perform well, and you give us no info to show you self reflected if you can improve to prevent losses. I always tend to reflect what I did wrong. And I always find stuff, I even did after years of NS1.. its how you improve.
in most pub games I saw, most marines where idiots and failed because of that. Idiots on a kharaa team were less hurtful aslong as the comm, 1 attacker + 1 gorge did not suck. Turrets > fail moving alone > fail not shooting the right target & not hitting stuff > fail being scared to die and thus not rush > fail
list goes on. You may argue that marines need something to counter idiots a bit like the kharaa can, but this would just be to OP at higher levels of skill.. No.. definitely a L2P issue
Seems a bit more balanced in this patch, marines are still hit much harder by any mistakes. One thing I notice (that's not new to this patch) is the manner of winning. I've seen aliens win by small margins and large margins. Sometimes it's a really close to and fro and aliens manage to just pull it out, other times aliens complete stomp it. When I've seen marines win the whole game has been in their favour, I never see marines just make it after a balanced match, if they win they've done amazingly well all game. The side effect of this is that losing as marines is generally much more fun than losing as aliens, when aliens lose they get stomped, marines can have a slow push back where it still feels like your accomplishing something. And even the final stand, I know a lot complain it takes too long, but at least as a marine the last stand you still feel like you can do something (even if it's just delay the inevitable), an alien last stand is spawnqueue->spawn->instakill->repeat.
Maybe before we tip balance to 50:50 we should make sure an alien loss is as fun (you know the main reason most people play) as a marine loss.
If you believe this is a l2p issue then you are implying that as the average player gets better, this problem will sort its self out.
I am sorry, but I think thats complete bull######. There are signficant skill improvements for newbs to make on aliens, wall jumping, lerking, fading, gorging, which your average player has NO experience with from other games.
On marines all there is is aiming and teamwork, these skills are transferable from other games, even if COD does not encourage it as much, people typically have played SOME sort of game like ps2 or CS where teamwork is rewarded with greater success.
There are definitely some prioritizing issues, newbs never shoot rts when they should, but I think the increases in skulk skills to be made are just much larger then the l2p people are accounting for.
Also, if this was the case, we wouldn't be seeing alien sweeps in most competitive games where the teams are anywhere close to even.
It's not a l2p issue. It's an adaptation issue. Why? People adapt to bad balance, knowing the game and being able to aim, and making good in game choices cannot save you from the best 10 res the aliens can spend on a lifeform. Proportionately if the onos was as good as the 10 res gorge, a single onos would be able to devastate multiple exos.
Im becoming more convinced that the people spewing hyperbole and l2ps are the people that sit alone in their empty apartment looking at gorgeporn and coughing up pizza grease as they laugh and touch themselves holding mouse 2 and sitting behind hydras
<!--quoteo(post=2062605:date=Jan 18 2013, 06:13 AM:name=Squishpoke)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squishpoke @ Jan 18 2013, 06:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062605"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It genuinely is a L2P issue as far as I can see. (I actually want to know what the win/loss for competitive play only. Only thing I know is the Archea vs Nexil ENSL thing where Marines actually won the majority).
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS2Stats has a competitive filter (It's switched off by default though, so you have to unselect Public and switch it over to Competitive)
Aliens have a 68.55% win rate in competitive. Any match against Archea is kind of pointless, because they always win regardless of which side they're on.
Hitreg was substantially improved in thsi build. I see bullets hitting and registering now. Shooting moving targets is easier (because you actually shoot...) so yeah, things got easier for rines.
<!--quoteo(post=2062706:date=Jan 18 2013, 11:07 AM:name=DamDSx)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DamDSx @ Jan 18 2013, 11:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062706"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hitreg was substantially improved in thsi build. I see bullets hitting and registering now. Shooting moving targets is easier (because you actually shoot...) so yeah, things got easier for rines.
I also kick ass as gorge now, spit is awesome.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You better be, considering how easy they are now :)
<!--quoteo(post=2062605:date=Jan 18 2013, 09:13 AM:name=Squishpoke)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squishpoke @ Jan 18 2013, 09:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062605"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree on that, unless aliens are asleep, marines can't afford to lose rythm and stop preasuring aliens's positions for a single minute.
But I don't feel the game is so unbalanced.
The deal for marine is to keep initiative, never leave the aliens in peace. But marine can concentrate to break alien strongpoints one after one.
Quiet time is working for aliens, but on another end, they often need to separate and attack on two points in order to break a marine strongpoint.
A marine win is like a slow powerfull bulldozer sweaping one hive after another. An alien win is a simultaneous push on two tec points, or one big push on a tec point immediatly followed by another as the marines are disorganised and lost mobility.
So true on the bulldozer, a game a few days ago (before patch) 2 marines and I took down 3 hives, cave, sorting, then back to cave, ona single push. Aliens have a harder time to win, not only they are more complicated to play, but their strategy has to be unconventional and very creative.
<!--quoteo(post=2062399:date=Jan 17 2013, 10:40 PM:name=MrChoke)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MrChoke @ Jan 17 2013, 10:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Statistics simply do not lie and no excuse will make it so.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
As far as the game favoring aliens, I don't find that to be the case at all. In fact, since the 237 patch it feels like the marine teams I play against are about 2x better at landing hits. I think as FPS and player skill increases it'll become nearly impossible to 1v1 a guy who's a decent shot.
I play lerk, I get hit less, by decent shooters.
Before this patch, I didn't notice any hitreg issues. Now I'm actually having hitreg issues, on moving/circling targets, within 3 meters.
Argh you said this in another topic. There is no such famous saying. The saying you're thinking of is "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." It's probably Mark Twain who came up with it (though he attributed the saying to Disraeli, but there's no evidence of Disraeli actually using this statement).
And my personal stats are bang on 50%. The server I played on last night had lots of teamwork, lots of communication and the marines were generally doing very very well. This statistic is just as meaningless as the OP's statistic. It's heavily biased first and foremost by <i>which servers I tend to play on</i>.
Let the dust settle before making these over the top statements. Yes, the balance may be off (in all likelihood it is), but 2 days after a patch which included hitreg tweaks for both sides is not the time.
Probably the best single thing an individual can do is to hunt around different server communities and find one in which the winrate is more even. I believe they really do exist, from my own experience.
No communication and no teamwork = marines lose (exaggeration but not by much...).
I agree, that it is easier to win as aliens, because marines need more discipline and tactics. But it is not that bad, as you made it out to be. My useless statistics say 50%.
I doubt anybody has a problem with acknowledging that the win/loss rate doesn't reveal any particularly in depth information about the current state of the game. However what people do have quite a severe problem with is when somebody seems to think that thousands+ games yield the same or less information as 23 games.
The confidence interval is 67%-98%.
Formula here:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a>
The confidence interval is 67%-98%.
Formula here:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is not an example of a Bernoulli trial process, therefore not applicable.
The confidence interval is 67%-98%.
Formula here:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval#Normal_approximation_interval" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_prop...mation_interval</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Assumptions and controls aside, maybe.
In the real world, however, this is one person's experience which is heavily biased by many factors, not least of which is what sort of servers he plays on, whether there is teamplay from both the OP and the teammates and the opposition on those servers, and so on.
If those 23 results were from a cross-section of all servers with each game having completely unique players, there would be less bias.
I'm not saying the game is perfectly balanced, but I'm also not saying it's unbalanced. It's a) too early to tell so soon after a patch, b) stupid to try to draw conclusions from a single person's small dataset which by definition is heavily biased, and c) also clouded by emotion to some degree.
Find some new servers, get your microphone out and be positive and constructive with your teammates. See where it goes in the next few weeks when we have more data <i>from a much wider spread of games</i>.
Roo
PS If you take my dataset of 5 marine wins vs 5 aliens wins since the patch, you'd come up with a very different conclusion. Don't take small, biased datasets in isolation, look for a complete dataset covering the full range of server types/regions/sizes etc.
Completely agree, that person could simply have stumbled onto a server with some good players.
There is a reason why the call centre industry has moved to screen scrapping to capture what people are calling about.
Evolving from scraps of paper and small samples, to LOB codes on wider samples, to complete capture of every request for every contact.
Even then this data has to be assessed to ensure any unusual factors which might have influenced the data are noted (potentially ruling to data out).
When there is potential financial impacts based on the accuracy of your data...you can waste hours looking for something based on scuttlebutt from someone who only has a glimpse at a fraction of the available data.
Anyone who has worked in a callcentre would know...some days you get all the loons and other days you dont get any.
Sigh. I have gone to ns2stats.org many times looking for a alien/marine ratio and couldn't see anything. What a garbage website that I have to install a different browser to use it. Yeah, I see pie charts with Firefox. If I would have seen this earlier I would not be keeping my own statistics. I totally agree, even though servers need to run the NS2Stats mod, it is a much larger sampling than my personal one. But I am going keep my own anyway just so I get a more personal feel with how much marines are getting wiped out.
Statistics by them selves mean nothing, raw uncleansed data is totally unusable for anything other than taking up space.
Anyone who works with historical data and uses it to help predict future events knows this, there are hundreds of variables that made up those results such as;
Map size
Starting locations
players on server
Comm experience
Player experience
Player skill
How long hte game went for.
Tech paths chosen
Rate at which upgrades obtained
How aggressive did your team play
Map control
etc etc
You cant compare data sets unless all the variables match (or atleast 90+%) as each of these variables can contribute to the game being won/lost.
You may well know how to play yourself...but if your team does not individual skill has almost no bearing on the result.
If you could take data on face value I would not have my job...and neither would countless people around the world, weather reports would be more accurate than we see currently (after all they are looking at data). But alas it has to be contextualised and sometimes normalised as some data is an anomoly and not a real data set (ie troll comms recycling).
I know its frustrating being on a side that loses...some servers I have come across it seems one side always wins...thats more due to a skill inbalance and team stacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The phrase is from Mark Twain, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". You are missing the point of the phrase with this response. The phrase means that you cannot trust the statistics themselves, as in the numbers are made up, or the criteria used is not what you think it is, etc... When aliens are winning 75%, there is nothing to misinterpret as long as you count every win. Unless you are lying about the counts (which I am not), the statistics are clear. The argument you make here is "WHY DO MARINES LOSE SO MUCH". I am sick of people bringing this up. I DONT CARE WHY THEY LOSE SO MUCH. I also don't care how it is fixed, as long as it is fixed.
I agree, that it is easier to win as aliens, because marines need more discipline and tactics. But it is not that bad, as you made it out to be. My useless statistics say 50%.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do not always play marines and this post has NOTHING to do with me, how angry I am about my personal play or any other rant or slam on the game. I like the game and I am an average player. I am just sick of seeing marines lose. Its gotten to the point that as a marine I mentally shut down early I think because I am so conditioned to losing as soon as I see an Onos. Maybe I am guilty of that. But how about everybody else? Unless I am the commander and I am recycling the IP portals, I am not personally affecting the outcome very much.
Can you or someone explain somethning to me? What is a public server exactly? Isn't any server in the browser a public one? Is there a tab I am missing in the game that says "Competitive Elite Only" with its own set of servers? How do I sign up?
Not sure what you mean on small sample. Isn't the pie chart on this site a complete win/loss ratio since the site came up?
As of right now, it shows 59% alien wins. A ratio like that is actually not so bad. My anger toward the game diminishes as this gets closer to 50%. But let me tie in the question of "public" servers and "competive servers", which I still do not have a definition of. Are more "competitive servers" running the NS2Stats mod? If so, the sampling is not random enough to be accurate.
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am going give it one more shot on explaining why L2P is not the problem. I agree marines are much harder to play. If the requirement for a marine team to win is exceptional skills and teamwork and the requirement for an alien team to win is far lower than that, that is the definition of a serious, gaming breaking balance issue. I have been playing almost since it came out. So have many people. You think everytime I am on a marine team its been rookies? WE LOSE. Not, I LOSE. I don't need to "L2P" and most of the people I play with don't either. We need the game fixed. You can make tweaks to the game to make this better and still have marines be marines and aliens be aliens. Never have I said or proposed ANY major design change to either side to solve this. And that is core to my frustrations with UWE on this topic. Take build 236, how many lines of code did it take to make cyst health from 100 to 50? One?
However, it is representative of something. My experience is being echoed by more than people on the forums. The "uneducated masses" that don't even read the forums are talking on pub servers about how aliens were buffed even more, and marines are pointless. Sure it's by far and away a generalization, but the fact is, there's grains of truth in the mud they're spewing. Maybe today I'll win all my marine games and prove the opposite, however I do not count on it.
Oh, and another common theme I've noticed since 236 is mass gorging. Instead of the 1 or two maybe tops on a 8 person team, people are reguarly running 3 and denying area in a way that 30 res shouldn't be allowed to. Imagine if 30 res in sentries locked a room down from 4 skulks. Yeah, it's like that. Anyway the naysayers and fanboys will disagree of course, but I'm just stating what I've seen.
The game not scaling well with player skill is obviously not a property of the players, but a property of the game, so you can't fix it by fixing the players...
let us asume you are a good player. Lets say 2 other players also are. leaves 3 to 5 players on a standard sized team who got no clue what they are doing. For marines this is a far bigger problem then kharaa.
And when does a player consider himself/herself good? Aim? game knowhow? Executing the knowhow?
I myself have a good grasp about NS2 at the moment, but you will see me running around with LMG. Because I know I suck to much at shotgun to risk unless we basicly lost it already. (then its practise time)
Will me being unable to use a shotgun hurt the team? Totally depends on what we are doing.
Same for fade. My fades die. I know how its done, I can tell every new player how to do it.. but to actually DO it usually means I die a very quick death. I guarantee you the team suffers if I choose to go fade instead of lets say a gorge.
You have given nothing to prove you and your team perform well, and you give us no info to show you self reflected if you can improve to prevent losses.
I always tend to reflect what I did wrong. And I always find stuff, I even did after years of NS1.. its how you improve.
in most pub games I saw, most marines where idiots and failed because of that. Idiots on a kharaa team were less hurtful aslong as the comm, 1 attacker + 1 gorge did not suck.
Turrets > fail
moving alone > fail
not shooting the right target & not hitting stuff > fail
being scared to die and thus not rush > fail
list goes on. You may argue that marines need something to counter idiots a bit like the kharaa can, but this would just be to OP at higher levels of skill..
No.. definitely a L2P issue
One thing I notice (that's not new to this patch) is the manner of winning. I've seen aliens win by small margins and large margins. Sometimes it's a really close to and fro and aliens manage to just pull it out, other times aliens complete stomp it. When I've seen marines win the whole game has been in their favour, I never see marines just make it after a balanced match, if they win they've done amazingly well all game.
The side effect of this is that losing as marines is generally much more fun than losing as aliens, when aliens lose they get stomped, marines can have a slow push back where it still feels like your accomplishing something. And even the final stand, I know a lot complain it takes too long, but at least as a marine the last stand you still feel like you can do something (even if it's just delay the inevitable), an alien last stand is spawnqueue->spawn->instakill->repeat.
Maybe before we tip balance to 50:50 we should make sure an alien loss is as fun (you know the main reason most people play) as a marine loss.
I am sorry, but I think thats complete bull######. There are signficant skill improvements for newbs to make on aliens, wall jumping, lerking, fading, gorging, which your average player has NO experience with from other games.
On marines all there is is aiming and teamwork, these skills are transferable from other games, even if COD does not encourage it as much, people typically have played SOME sort of game like ps2 or CS where teamwork is rewarded with greater success.
There are definitely some prioritizing issues, newbs never shoot rts when they should, but I think the increases in skulk skills to be made are just much larger then the l2p people are accounting for.
Also, if this was the case, we wouldn't be seeing alien sweeps in most competitive games where the teams are anywhere close to even.
Im becoming more convinced that the people spewing hyperbole and l2ps are the people that sit alone in their empty apartment looking at gorgeporn and coughing up pizza grease as they laugh and touch themselves holding mouse 2 and sitting behind hydras
For every loss, I can easily understand <i>why</i> we lost: not enough RT harrassment, slow buildings, inappropriate upgrades, clueless marines that don't respond to threats ASAP. Mistakes are more harshly penalized for Marines.
The main thing here is that Marines are <i>much</i> harder to play both on player and commander level. Aliens usually just have to do their thing until a few people get 75 Pres. That's just how the asymmetrical design works, and basic human instinct tends to favor the less-organized alien team.
Am I suggesting that marines should be easier to play? No. I feel that the differences between marine and alien play is a key feature of NS2.
Making aliens harder to play/command may be a solution, but honestly I think that may end up problematic. We shouldn't be adding arbitrary difficulty just for the sake of balance. A "genuine" difficulty change for Aliens will require a lot of work and new content/features that complement the already existing Alien gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS2Stats has a competitive filter (It's switched off by default though, so you have to unselect Public and switch it over to Competitive)
Aliens have a 68.55% win rate in competitive. Any match against Archea is kind of pointless, because they always win regardless of which side they're on.
I also kick ass as gorge now, spit is awesome.
I also kick ass as gorge now, spit is awesome.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You better be, considering how easy they are now :)
I agree on that, unless aliens are asleep, marines can't afford to lose rythm and stop preasuring aliens's positions for a single minute.
But I don't feel the game is so unbalanced.
The deal for marine is to keep initiative, never leave the aliens in peace. But marine can concentrate to break alien strongpoints one after one.
Quiet time is working for aliens, but on another end, they often need to separate and attack on two points in order to break a marine strongpoint.
A marine win is like a slow powerfull bulldozer sweaping one hive after another.
An alien win is a simultaneous push on two tec points, or one big push on a tec point immediatly followed by another as the marines are disorganised and lost mobility.
Rines are cake to play
That's only true 84% of the time.