Build 241 is now live on Steam! - Natural Selection 2
System
Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Build 241 is now live on Steam! - Natural Selection 2
In the battle that is the shipping of a big patch, we do our best to achieve total victory. The bane of our development lives is the ‘hotfix.’ Hotfixes are horrible. They suck up disproportionate amounts of development time, they are inefficient uses of development resources, and just generally suck.
Comments
Please god no.
If you manage to reach 11 speed walljumping on a straight clean wall (think Cargo force field) you're a god.
You call marines able to actually shoot a skulk every now and then a bug. I call it a critical fix. And now its back to BROKEN again. Marines were winning because in early game they could actually hold RT for more than 2 seconds.
Let me ask you, as much as you hate hot fixes, are we going to get one to balance the game again? What will bring the game back to 50.7% or better and when will we have see it?
The whine never stops.
I don't think rationalize means what you think it means.
In an ideal world, a solution to get back to win probabilities of 0.5 would be to empower marines without slowing down the skulk.
This whole situation is proof of a phenomenon I have tried to explain in balance threads in the past. That is, that NS2 is a very, very complex interdependent system and the tiniest changes can swing win probabilities significantly.
When Gorgeous was released, our social media, these forums, and even our email inboxes were filled with messages saying that it was unacceptable that we had made no changes to balance. The fact was that the changes were very, very subtle - And they were compounded by a bug in Skulk movement. There weren't very visible, so the assumption was made that no changes were made.
Then, lo and behold, the game did swing to 0.5. However, the method by which it got there was unacceptable to a very vocal and passionate group of NS2 players. The competitive community, forum balance theorists, and those with a penchant for NS1 bunny hopping were utterly livid that the Skulk had been slowed further.
Patching, updating, and balancing NS2 is a process that requires sensitivity to multiple stakeholders. Severely angering a particularly vocal and passionate group, such as those above, is not a good way to maintain the game. Yes, this means your average pubber (including me!) will suffer more in the jaws of skulks, and yes this means that marines will lose a few more games. But to send that stakeholder group into a tailspin is not good for the community or long term health of the game.
The process will go on, and more iterations will be made. This isn't beta anymore, the game is more 'gameplay stable' and there is scope to keep making the itty bitty adjustments that will bring win probabilities back towards 0.5, all while keeping all stakeholders from losing their minds, proclaiming UWE hopeless and declaring NS2 dead!
Learn to aim and you won't have that problem...
I've posted this in another thread, so I hope the mods don't mind me cross posting this but I think this is perfectly relevant as a reply for this. If it isn't, I apologise in advance.
'Fair' is an illusion between 239 and 240. Take a close look at that second bar on wins by round length. And before you say it, yes I have included modded servers, however it is far better to have a larger sample size where effects of mods become more irrelevant as it's likely they would provide benefits either way especially when we're looking at a base mechanic. Ignore anything after halfway mark (35mins) of the Wins by Round Length graph as the size of these is statistically meaningless.
239:
240:
The skulk movement this fix addresses was a bug. The fact that it lead to a more balanced game is irrelevant...I Can't think of any game where a bug would be left in because it didn't break balance.
I've loved build 240, and had a higher proportion of balanced matches, but if something is broken and doesn't fit in with the developers vision (in this case, the way skulks play) then i have no problem with them changing it. I don't think we'll drop back to a 60-40 split as a result of this fix due to the other changes (such as improved hit reg) so there'll still be good matches to be had and the developers can focus on improving balance whilst maintaining unit's play styles that were intended.
Basically, go and give the new build a chance before you moan about broken game balance
Please, everyone that looks at these graphs, remember that the sample size here is relatively small. That's not to say NS2Stats.org is not a valid source of information. It absolutely is. It is one of the best community initiatives in NS2, right up there with Summit and ENSL.org. But the sample size is limited and the sample a specific subset of servers with a propensity to host players with a particular playstyle. It provides amazing information into competitive play especially.
When I give out a number like I did in the news post (0.507) that is a parameter, not a statistic. There is a very important distinction. That's why you will see a difference between what I say was the win probability in 240 and what NS2Stats.org says it is. Neither is lying.
I know!
I'm taking a entirely soul-destroying course in statistics right now. I wish that in the future, parameters will be used all the time, instead of statistical things that hurt the brain.
I should be clear, I agree with the need to fix what was clearly an unintentional change to the skulk. Just because it balances the game, keeping a broken game mechanic doesn't do anyone any favours since sooner or later you're gonna have to fix it. However, perhaps what could have been done was to counterbalance the skulk change with another change to soften the blow. (not to mention you have proposed changes like this that might swing things even further)
Hey, once the stats come in, you'll look at it and see where you need to go. I'm not worried. I just hope that we don't end up back where we started with 60/40. It would be a shame, given how even things have been in the last couple days and how much work you guys have done.
Balance is important, but fixing major bugs is more important, as is preserving the fun of the core gameplay. Besides, as long as the bug is there the balance stats are tainted and the true state of the game's balance cannot be measured, which hinders further balance work.
Come on man, give 'em a chance! The best way to actually make proper balance changes is the way they are doing it.
Fix bugs that are messing with balance, let the build play awhile and then see which direction the build takes.
Saying: "Since you fixed the skulk bug you should blindly change something else to nerf aliens" would probably end up with the balance getting worse and then you have to change that back in the future, find out where you are at and then you can finally start moving forwards.
Like you said in the last paragraph, now they can let the stats come in and work on the knowledge gained from that.
To be fair Savant, you could say that by ANY group arguing any points in this forum. Only a very small percentage of the people who bought this game post on the forums.
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11 speed is easy there. I know some people that can read 18-20.
Your average marine learning to attack harvesters instead of wasting time at one gorge wall all map would be a pretty good start. The solution to the average marine being incredibly stupid is not to make the skulk movement system total ass. Sorry.