So your suggestion is to keep tech even after the CC is destroyed yet you want to tie a few things to a third CC? What would that even do?
It would keep a team competitive. Remember the goal of the game is not to eliminate the other team's upgrades, it's to destroy their tech points. The ability to destroy their tech points is dependant on YOUR team's strength, not the opponent's strength.
Having upgrades remain available means a team stays competitive. When teams are strong there are more intense battles and a greater chance for tech points to fall. This would make for a better game.
As i said in another post aliens have a harsh endgame. Lose the nonrefundable lifeforms and lose the game (generally). So by your logic all lifeforms should be free since it is fun. Just put a lifeform cap and let everyone fight it out.
No, an Onos and a Dual-mini EXO are both items bought with PERSONAL resources. As such, when the player dies he loses that purchased upgrade.
The aspect I am referring to are the TEAM upgrades. That's a whole other aspect.
This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms. The alien comm could give you every upgrade, 1000 whips, and 6 hives. Without lifeforms the marines will steam roll them.
Disagree. You're thinking to linearly. Aliens don't need any upgraded lifeforms to win the game. It is very easy for a mob of skulks to launch a timely rush of marine spawn and cause massive devastation. While the marine EXOs lumber around the map the skulks can clear out a tech point with ease. **I'VE DONE IT** It takes skill and coordination. Something you seem to think that all players lack.
Ya, because TF2 has asymmetrical sides... oh wait, They dont.
Yeah, perhaps if you want to play that card you shouldn't have used a reference to TF2 in your OWN post right before mine... Hmmmm?
I hate the powernode system, but it allows more miraculous come backs which you yourself want. It adds that element of an alien team always able to take out a base fast with the right prep. The base unit with 0 upgrades can take out a marine base alone.
A minute ago you said late game skulks were useless. You can't have it both ways.
You complain that concedes arent satisfying, though given the chance to end it within 120 and decimating the team you call in a total turn off.
Yeah, because every person playing a game loves to stand around while the other team - THAT IS INVULNERABLE - kills them off for lols. Yeah, why don't we just start the game like that. Have the game randomly pick a side, and the other team can steamroll them with no chance to defend themselves. Sounds like great fun.
No need to "spike the ball"... you mean end it fast and not draw it out for 15 more minutes so people can start over, learn from their mistakes hopefully, and have a better game?
Learn from their mistakes? They only thing they learn is that when things get tough they press X and click vote concede. Instead of learning how to actually stage a comeback, people are learning to become quitters. You call that a better game?
You are too thick to talk to. You miss all my relevant points and choose to argue the opinionated ones. Good day to you sir. You are a waste of my time.
All RTS games have this and this is where you are spinning your wheels here. NS2 is not a pure FPS, get over it, and if you dont like concedeing i recommend getting more skilled yourself to offset the less skilled players on your team.
...
And in those RTS games with concede the game ends there. No "HAW HAW ME GONNA TRASH YOUR BASE NOW" crap. Concede needs to work the same way in this game, if a teams concede it's because they're done playing, end the game.
As for the rest, well your concentrating way too much on the concede and not enough on why teams concede. The game ought to be fun for both sides down the final blow. As it is today we are a long long way off that goal (especially for the alien side). Unless we reach that goal we will continue to see games finished by concede rather than by killing the last hive/command chair.
I know i type a lot and there is a lot of unneeded drama but this is my main point in response to your post.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Indeed, I feel the lack of team scaling for aliens is the reason for a lot of this games problems. I know the teams are meant to be asymmetric but that aliens have a much greater need for tech points and PRes than marines seems like bad design. Lifeforms should be like weapon and proto upgrades (i.e. sidegrades not upgrades), their damage/surviveabilty scaling should be done through team upgrades (like marines).
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
Except losing as marines can be fun, a lot of people like playing out a last stand as marines every few games. Making it less painful will just mean people won't be so pissed off and rage at losing (again, especially for aliens. I've seen alien losses nearly empty the server!). They've still lost, they're still going to try and get better.
@Emoo I see what you are going for and applaud the effort. I just dont want to see the game made easier for the sake of people rage quitting. I do agree it is more fun to lose as marines then aliens. In the end i think it is because the vanilla unit for marines scales better than the vanilla unit on aliens, because when you are getting stomped the vanilla unit is what you are left with. Maybe if we fix skulk play it would be better? Better movement or leap hive 1?
In the end i think it is because the vanilla unit for marines scales better than the vanilla unit on aliens, because when you are getting stomped the vanilla unit is what you are left with. Maybe if we fix skulk play it would be better? Better movement or leap hive 1?
What about allowing you to choose upgrades while dead, this way you spawn with carapace, adrenaline, etc. Worth a shot? It might help with being egg locked a bit...
All RTS games have this and this is where you are spinning your wheels here. NS2 is not a pure FPS, get over it, and if you dont like concedeing i recommend getting more skilled yourself to offset the less skilled players on your team.
...
And in those RTS games with concede the game ends there. No "HAW HAW ME GONNA TRASH YOUR BASE NOW" crap. Concede needs to work the same way in this game, if a teams concede it's because they're done playing, end the game.
As for the rest, well your concentrating way too much on the concede and not enough on why teams concede. The game ought to be fun for both sides down the final blow. As it is today we are a long long way off that goal (especially for the alien side). Unless we reach that goal we will continue to see games finished by concede rather than by killing the last hive/command chair.
I know i type a lot and there is a lot of unneeded drama but this is my main point in response to your post.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
While this is accurate, you can't debate skulk/marine scaling comparisions. Skulk is not meant to scale with marines. What you do get is a free lifeform with all upgrades. With marines you get a free lifeform with the current armor/weapon upgrade. Until there is a major patch that completely changes alien gameplay in every aspect we have to stop complaining that skulks don't scale with marines because they are not suppose to. If you are playing skulk only you are banking pres that should be spent at some point (whether you are saving for Onos or not).
In theory, yes, weapons can be continually recycled, but that doesnt really happen all the time. You don't always get back your shotgun if you drop it.
The only thing that you can compare skulk scaling to is an LMG marine. You can not use GL's, jetpacks, shotguns and the like because other lifeforms scale with those.
In the end i think it is because the vanilla unit for marines scales better than the vanilla unit on aliens, because when you are getting stomped the vanilla unit is what you are left with. Maybe if we fix skulk play it would be better? Better movement or leap hive 1?
What about allowing you to choose upgrades while dead, this way you spawn with carapace, adrenaline, etc. Worth a shot? It might help with being egg locked a bit...
Not sure if it will have a big enough impact but definetly something i have wanted for a long time. Might as well use that dead time for something :P
Kinda of a weird suggestion but i would love to be able to choose where i spawn. Basically select through a commander like mode where exactly i spawn near the hive and my egg would mature for 3-5 seconds allowing me to have a better chance to actually spawn.
@Emoo I see what you are going for and applaud the effort. I just dont want to see the game made easier for the sake of people rage quitting. I do agree it is more fun to lose as marines then aliens. In the end i think it is because the vanilla unit for marines scales better than the vanilla unit on aliens, because when you are getting stomped the vanilla unit is what you are left with. Maybe if we fix skulk play it would be better? Better movement or leap hive 1?
Making the game easier is indeed not a goal. Making the end game less painful and making both teams scale better is.
All RTS games have this and this is where you are spinning your wheels here. NS2 is not a pure FPS, get over it, and if you dont like concedeing i recommend getting more skilled yourself to offset the less skilled players on your team.
...
And in those RTS games with concede the game ends there. No "HAW HAW ME GONNA TRASH YOUR BASE NOW" crap. Concede needs to work the same way in this game, if a teams concede it's because they're done playing, end the game.
As for the rest, well your concentrating way too much on the concede and not enough on why teams concede. The game ought to be fun for both sides down the final blow. As it is today we are a long long way off that goal (especially for the alien side). Unless we reach that goal we will continue to see games finished by concede rather than by killing the last hive/command chair.
I know i type a lot and there is a lot of unneeded drama but this is my main point in response to your post.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
While this is accurate, you can't debate skulk/marine scaling comparisions. Skulk is not meant to scale with marines. What you do get is a free lifeform with all upgrades. With marines you get a free lifeform with the current armor/weapon upgrade. Until there is a major patch that completely changes alien gameplay in every aspect we have to stop complaining that skulks don't scale with marines because they are not suppose to. If you are playing skulk only you are banking pres that should be spent at some point (whether you are saving for Onos or not).
In theory, yes, weapons can be continually recycled, but that doesnt really happen all the time. You don't always get back your shotgun if you drop it.
The only thing that you can compare skulk scaling to is an LMG marine. You can not use GL's, jetpacks, shotguns and the like because other lifeforms scale with those.
And I'll say it again... I feel this lack of alien scaling is the reason for a lot of issues in the game. As soon as aliens scale in some way you can tweak the base stats of their lifeforms so they aren't so powerful early game but also so that their final stats are still viable late game.
@Emoo I see what you are going for and applaud the effort. I just dont want to see the game made easier for the sake of people rage quitting. I do agree it is more fun to lose as marines then aliens. In the end i think it is because the vanilla unit for marines scales better than the vanilla unit on aliens, because when you are getting stomped the vanilla unit is what you are left with. Maybe if we fix skulk play it would be better? Better movement or leap hive 1?
Making the game easier is indeed not a goal. Making the end game less painful and making both teams scale better is.
All RTS games have this and this is where you are spinning your wheels here. NS2 is not a pure FPS, get over it, and if you dont like concedeing i recommend getting more skilled yourself to offset the less skilled players on your team.
...
And in those RTS games with concede the game ends there. No "HAW HAW ME GONNA TRASH YOUR BASE NOW" crap. Concede needs to work the same way in this game, if a teams concede it's because they're done playing, end the game.
As for the rest, well your concentrating way too much on the concede and not enough on why teams concede. The game ought to be fun for both sides down the final blow. As it is today we are a long long way off that goal (especially for the alien side). Unless we reach that goal we will continue to see games finished by concede rather than by killing the last hive/command chair.
I know i type a lot and there is a lot of unneeded drama but this is my main point in response to your post.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
While this is accurate, you can't debate skulk/marine scaling comparisions. Skulk is not meant to scale with marines. What you do get is a free lifeform with all upgrades. With marines you get a free lifeform with the current armor/weapon upgrade. Until there is a major patch that completely changes alien gameplay in every aspect we have to stop complaining that skulks don't scale with marines because they are not suppose to. If you are playing skulk only you are banking pres that should be spent at some point (whether you are saving for Onos or not).
In theory, yes, weapons can be continually recycled, but that doesnt really happen all the time. You don't always get back your shotgun if you drop it.
The only thing that you can compare skulk scaling to is an LMG marine. You can not use GL's, jetpacks, shotguns and the like because other lifeforms scale with those.
And I'll say it again... I feel this lack of alien scaling is the reason for a lot of issues in the game. As soon as aliens scale in some way you can tweak the base stats of their lifeforms so they aren't so powerful early game but also so that their final stats are still viable late game.
I guess that's the problem when something is "asymetrically unbalanced". I do agree with you though.
@Emoo i think what i meant to say was trivialize victories by making the loss hurt less. Not so much making the game easier. My worry is if we make it easier to come back we make crucial battles less significant. Tech point battles should be game changers it what make the battles so important and you have to give it your all as a team.
@Emoo i think what i meant to say was trivialize victories by making the loss hurt less. Not so much making the game easier. My worry is if we make it easier to come back we make crucial battles less significant. Tech point battles should be game changers it what make the battles so important and you have to give it your all as a team.
Hmm. You want comebacks to be possible to some extent, slippery slopes aren't fun for the losing team. Saying that yes I do think tech points should be important, losing one shouldn't just be shrugged off.
So your suggestion is to keep tech even after the CC is destroyed yet you want to tie a few things to a third CC? What would that even do?
It would keep a team competitive. Remember the goal of the game is not to eliminate the other team's upgrades, it's to destroy their tech points. The ability to destroy their tech points is dependant on YOUR team's strength, not the opponent's strength.
Having upgrades remain available means a team stays competitive. When teams are strong there are more intense battles and a greater chance for tech points to fall. This would make for a better game.
lol... this so wrong
the ability to destroy anything is absolutely related to the ability of the other team to kill whatever is attacking it (aka defense)
isn't a hive easier to kill if aliens don't have bile / blink / leap / spores?
isn't a CC easier to kill if the marines don't have exos / jetpacks / nano?
the net result of what you are trying to accomplish by narrowing the power gap of the late-game will just result in longer games. If NS2 had completely disjoint offense and defense, maybe there would be a late-game solution that didn't just increase round length... but that pretend version of NS2 doesn't exist. Anything that involves empowering lifeforms / marines is useful both offensively and defensively.
Your whole argument is based on the premise that longer games = better games and that the NS2 "endgame" is something we should strive to achieve more often... which is an opinion that not everyone shares.
On the other hand, the premise that NS2 is best played when the teams are fair is an opinion that almost everyone shares. Ultimately, anything that prolongs the game will slow down the process of restarting the round with fairer teams.
The only way "staging a comeback" is meaningful is if it has a chance to succeed.
The only way it has a chance to succeed is if the losing team is the better team.
So the only situation where "increasing forgiveness" actually has a positive impact on the game is when the better team started losing. That is incredibly rare compared to the situations where the better team got the lead.
Instead of trying to fix a broken situation (better team in a losing position), see what changes you can suggest to avoid getting into that situation to begin with.
I'll save you some work and just tell you that it's based on probability.
Luck plays a much larger role in the early game than in the late game, so it is possible for a better team to get unlucky and end up in a losing situation.
The early game like giving one team an advantage by flipping a coin 10 times (it will rarely be close to 50-50)
By the late-game, the luck advantage is based on flipping a coin 1000 times (it will rarely be far from 50-50)
If you make the early game less "random" you will simply avoid the scenarios where reducing the tech-gap in the late game is actually a positive thing.
You believe that a game should finish when a few players think they can no longer win.
I believe that the game should finish when the majority of the losing team think they can no longer win. Two reasons: it's fair and it would happen anyway via f4 or disconnect, just that conceding is less detrimental to the server itself.
Never *once* have I been in a game - that one side conceded - where people were hyped about the game they just had. In my experience, people are usually grouchy after a concede, or they are complaining about team stacking, or just complaining about how it was a bad game in general.
I have. This is all anecdotal. I've enjoyed games we've won via concede, as have my teammates. And I think the latter part of your post is the reason for conceding, not what the concession caused; a bad game, stacked teams etc.
Has no one looked at the stats? Right now NS2 is down at the ~80th spot in the top 100, and steadily dropping. While some here care more for quitting games, player count continues to drop. NS2 now has fewer players playing than Farming Simulator 2013.
You can't use this argument to back your opinions up, since it could be absolutely anything causing people to stop playing NS2, including things working against your arguments. None of us have done any research here.
How many organized games (pug and league play combined) end in concedes? Is that percentage in any way reflective of the pub scene? My guess is "few" and "hardly".
The answer is "practically every single one apart from very few exceptions". Giving up is good sportsmanship in NS2, nobody likes prolonging, not the losing and not the winning team. Remember that 'gg' is the same as conceding.
Having upgrades remain available means a team stays competitive. When teams are strong there are more intense battles and a greater chance for tech points to fall. This would make for a better game.
This would be extremely detrimental to the RTS aspect of the game (something I could see you easily vouching for). Destroying buildings apart from res towers would hold far too little importance, and as such the game would boil down to which team can kill the other team's weapons/lifeforms more effectively and keep their pres-stores low. It would become combat with a few RTS-elements here and there instead of the hybrid we have now.
Five pages in and you guys are still debating as if concede was endangered of being removed.. why?
From the outset this thread was about coming up with ideas on simply how to make the game fun up until the very last second -and so far I've only seen three ideas, one of which was my own.
Maybe savant should have kept it shorter and more clear Idk, or maybe people just didn't get it. Either way this has been a world record of a off topic thread. Shame, it had promise.
But again.. anyone in here is doing this thread an injustice by bringing up concede, its really not the subject as the OP has gone blue in the face saying, already.
I agree completely (as I've stated in my previous posts), but when the blue-faced OP himself keeps bringing concede back to the table in every post, there's not much I can do. Except to ignore him, which I don't want to do because he has some genuinely good points.
You try and counter with prolonged games, but that's not the issue here since no one is advocating to remove concede. Your response is based on a flawed premise.
Yeah turtles may not be too fun, but last time I checked when there was no concede the player count was MANY times higher than it was now. Say what you will about it, but the numbers speak for themselves.
These were in the same post. Listen to yourself. You can't cop out by saying "nobody's advocating for the removal of concede" when a great deal of your posts are 100% anti-concede. Even if you don't say "I want concede to be removed", posts like these make it very strongly look like so. And that's why this thread keeps sliding into another concede-discussion over and over again. Besides, as stated a hundred times, conceding will happen whether the feature exists or not. Before the feature we had games ending in 10vs4 and with 6 people in the RR either AFK or yelling the other team to end the game. Is that better? At least the winning team gets the illusion of deserving their victory by killing the enemy's last base.
And no, the numbers don't "speak for themselves". Again, you can't use this argument to back your opinions up, anything between heaven and earth could be causing the players to stop playing NS2.
the ability to destroy anything is absolutely related to the ability of the other team to kill whatever is attacking it (aka defense)
isn't a hive easier to kill if aliens don't have bile / blink / leap / spores?
isn't a CC easier to kill if the marines don't have exos / jetpacks / nano?
From a strict perspective? No. The marines could have every single player in a dual-mini EXO and it will still take one skulk just as many bites to kill a command chair. While it may be riskier for that skulk, the *ABILITY* of that skulk is not impaired by the lack of leap. Even bile, which would be really the only weapon out of all of them that could be useful, is not mandatory. It's just as easy to win with bile as without it *IF* a team is skilled.
Furthermore, you seem to forget that advanced lifeforms/units cost RESOURCES. If your team controls all the map, then the other team won't be able to afford those units. However, they may have a few people left that can afford it, but who are unable to purchase it because they are missing a pre-requisite or the lifeform is just plain of little use with only one hive etc.
If your team owns the map, you're going to be in a far better position to win. All it would mean is that the other team wouldn't be sitting around like useless lumps.
Your whole argument is based on the premise that longer games = better games and that the NS2 "endgame" is something we should strive to achieve more often... which is an opinion that not everyone shares.
No, my argument is based on the premise that conceded games are not fun games, and I have yet to see anyone prove otherwise. Further upthread I posted links to a dozen threads where people complained about concede. Please, show me a thread where people talk about the 'fun' they have quitting games.
Quite often these conceded games never get far enough for Onos/EXO to reach the field. Why would anyone want to play a game where the strongest units never get played?
Never *once* have I been in a game - that one side conceded - where people were hyped about the game they just had. In my experience, people are usually grouchy after a concede, or they are complaining about team stacking, or just complaining about how it was a bad game in general.
I have. This is all anecdotal.
No, it's more than that. You're trying to convince me of something that doesn't exist in principle. IE that people who quit games are happy to be quitters. That flies in the face of not only logic but reality. (and human psychology)
But again.. anyone in here is doing this thread an injustice by bringing up concede, its really not the subject as the OP has gone blue in the face saying, already.
I agree completely (as I've stated in my previous posts), but when the blue-faced OP himself keeps bringing concede back to the table in every post, there's not much I can do.
I have to debate it since it is other people who bring it up. Just as you did right there. You totally busted your own argument by bringing it up, since that compels me to reply. As I just did.
These were in the same post. Listen to yourself. You can't cop out by saying "nobody's advocating for the removal of concede" when a great deal of your posts are 100% anti-concede.
Yes you are 100% correct, I am anti-concede, but I feel it is a necessary evil.
My position, which I will state for the umpteenth time, is that I want concede to be RARELY USED. That way it can exist in cases where there is a legitimate need, and yet it will not be used the other 95% of the time. I'd be quite happy with that.
Just because I don't like an aspect of the game, doesn't mean I think it should be removed. For example, I think welders are one of the worst things in the game from a 'weapon' perspective. Yet, based on the game design, they are necessary. They are a necessary evil.
And no, the numbers don't "speak for themselves". Again, you can't use this argument to back your opinions up, anything between heaven and earth could be causing the players to stop playing NS2.
You keep believing that.
People stop playing when a game is no longer fun. For FPS players, who make up the lion's share of NS2 players, quitting games is not fun. That's why you won't find a 'concede' option in FPS games. Now if you want to cling to the misguided belief that it's the gameplay itself that is responsible - and not how that gameplay ends - then you have effectively said the game is doomed. Changing the game to make concede usage less common is easy. Changing the game to create something new that is 'more fun' than what we have means changing underlying principles in the game. That's not gonna happen.
I have to debate it since it is other people who bring it up. Just as you did right there. You totally busted your own argument by bringing it up, since that compels me to reply. As I just did.
Indeed, I admit that we're both at fault here. I'm just too petty, as are you, to let it slide when someone states something that's screaming against my personal principles.
My position, which I will state for the umpteenth time, is that I want concede to be RARELY USED. That way it can exist in cases where there is a legitimate need, and yet it will not be used the other 95% of the time. I'd be quite happy with that.
Yes, I agree. But this is achieved through changing the mechanics so that reaching the end-game becomes more possible and fun, or that games can be ended more easily if the other team gains a major advantage, which I know has been the point of this thread and yours all along. But when you keep making claims like "the game was better before concede was implemented" and "people are not playing anymore because concede ruins games" you're shooting yourself in the leg. Because this has nothing to do with the game mechanics; the mechanics were similar enough before and after the implementation of concede that the problem why people aren't having fun lie in the mechanics, not in this feature. Which brings me to:
Now if you want to cling to the misguided belief that it's the gameplay itself that is responsible - and not how that gameplay ends - then you have effectively said the game is doomed. Changing the game to make concede usage less common is easy. Changing the game to create something new that is 'more fun' than what we have means changing underlying principles in the game. That's not gonna happen.
Pick your side.
'Misguided' because you don't believe in it? All the arguments you're making, you're making out of your own head, just as I am. You don't know why people are quitting, and neither do I. But I do know that games were ending prematurely just as much before the concede feature as they do after, they just did it in a different (more inconvenient) way.
People quitting NS2 because the game itself isn't fundamentally fun for them is entirely possible, in my opinion. It seems more likely to me that this is the case than people quitting because giving up a game they find frustrating has been made 'too easy'. I don't know though, since I haven't done any studies on the matter.
No, my argument is based on the premise that conceded games are not fun games, and I have yet to see anyone prove otherwise. Further upthread I posted links to a dozen threads where people complained about concede. Please, show me a thread where people talk about the 'fun' they have quitting games.
People stop playing when a game is no longer fun. For FPS players, who make up the lion's share of NS2 players, quitting games is not fun. That's why you won't find a 'concede' option in FPS games.
You seem to have this the wrong way around. It's not the quitting that leads a game being unfun, the game being unfun leads to quitting. What's the alternative to an unfun game? The question we should be looking answers for is "how to make the game more fun for both sides" instead of "should we make it easy for people to quit if they're not having fun". The second question is a no-brainer, in my opinion.
Quite often these conceded games never get far enough for Onos/EXO to reach the field. Why would anyone want to play a game where the strongest units never get played?
This seems to be a central problem you have with premature game ending, so I want to pay extra attention to it.
Firstly, to answer your question directly, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people like to play games where end-game tech makes no appearance. Why? Because it makes for different games. You get your victory with different means if you win with mid-game tech than you would with end-game tech. So in short it creates different strategies. You could concentrate on either defense, keeping map control, teching up to end-game tech and then pushing, or you could concentrate on offense, deny the opponent their tech and try to end the game with early to mid-game tech. Variety! And the fewer the games end-game tech appears in, the more exciting the games in which they DO appear are (not to mention the fact that if every single game is a 30-60 minute behemoth, we would most likely have even less players than we do at the moment).
Secondly, games that end in a concede usually end in a point where it's going to be a landslide for the other team (remember, that you have to take into account the morale and mindset of the losing team as well; they play a role just as map control/skill/tech and whatever else does). This means that yes, you would most probably see end-game tech, but only for the other team. The only people this serves are those who want to stomp weak and defenseless enemies with overpowered tech, and I, personally, don't want the game to serve those people. At all.
when you keep making claims like "the game was better before concede was implemented" and "people are not playing anymore because concede ruins games" you're shooting yourself in the leg. Because this has nothing to do with the game mechanics; the mechanics were similar enough before and after the implementation of concede that the problem why people aren't having fun lie in the mechanics
That's the thing though, I have never said that the game mechanics were responsible for how high the conceded game rate is. The reason there are loads of conceded games is not because of the game mechanics, it's because concede was implemented into the game.
As I said way up top, concede is the SYMPTOM of the problem, not the problem itself. Concede was a response to a game issue - but it didn't address the game issue at all. That's the problem. Concede - in of itself - was added to deal with games that dragged on and such. Yet concede doesn't 'solve' that problem at all.
The problem is that the solution to games that dragged on (IE concede) has inadvertently given people the opportunity to abuse this new game option in games where it would never have been considered. The 'ease of use' factor makes concede far too simple for people to 'wimp out' the moment something doesn't go their way.
Which is why I started the thread on forgiveness. By allowing players the ability to feel like the game isn't over, we can reduce concede usage without changing concede.
People stop playing when a game is no longer fun. For FPS players, who make up the lion's share of NS2 players, quitting games is not fun. That's why you won't find a 'concede' option in FPS games.
You seem to have this the wrong way around. It's not the quitting that leads a game being unfun, the game being unfun leads to quitting.
If you note the bolded bit, that's exactly what I said. My point was that quitting a game is not fun in the sense that if people quit the game then the game stopped being fun. Concede - in this case - makes a bad problem worse. Instead of a solution that actually addressed why the game stopped being fun, it goes and rubs salt in the wound via concede.
However, again this all comes back to forgiveness. If the game had more forgiveness then people wouldn't feel the need to use concede.
The problem here - and don't blame me for this since I'm not the one supporting it - is that some people seem to think that concede is an acceptable means to end every game. I disagree, which is why I started a thread on forgiveness, since I feel players shouldn't feel compelled to concede.
Do you see where I'm going here? Concede is the symptom of a bigger problem - IE forgiveness. Concede *usage* has become excessive, and imho that is detrimental to fun gameplay. When a team loses a tech point and you get a few whiners who say "It's all over - concede" then it totally sucks the life out of the game. Whether or not people actually concede becomes irrelevant at this point, since the damage is already done on a psychological level.
More forgiveness in the game, leading to less conceded games, is something I think NS2 really needs right now. Concede is not a normal and natural part of FPS gameplay. It should be the exception and not the rule.
That's the thing though, I have never said that the game mechanics were responsible for how high the conceded game rate is. The reason there are loads of conceded games is not because of the game mechanics, it's because concede was implemented into the game.
Concede was a response to a game issue - but it didn't address the game issue at all. That's the problem. Concede - in of itself - was added to deal with games that dragged on and such. Yet concede doesn't 'solve' that problem at all.
Yes it does. Games dragged on because the losing team kept on playing against unbeatable odds, whether they realised it or not. What did concede do (or rather, made more convenient, since it could be and was achieved by other means earlier)? Prevent those games from dragging on, but still giving the victory for the right team. Whether the equation 'the disappointment for the winning team of winning via concede' - 'the frustration for the losing team for the game not ending in spite of them being stomped on' is positive or negative is a matter of debate, but I can safely say that I, for one, don't mind winning via concede at all, but the worst games are the ones that drag on even though the outcome is already clear no matter if I'm on the winning or the losing team.
How can you say that concede doesn't solve the problem of prolonged games when that's exactly what it does?
Whether or not people abuse the feature too much now is a matter of another debate. Whenever I play on public servers I get the feeling that people concede way too late. If your feeling is the opposite, then I can't help but thinking that you just don't understand the way the game works well enough to see when the game is already lost. I cannot say this for certain, because the games you have played might easily have been a festival of whiny players conceding when the first turd hit the fan, but that's just the first thing springing to my mind from my own experiences, since I haven't experienced things like this. I can with pure conscience say, that I have never, ever been in a game where my team has conceded in a situation where we still had, within my judgment, any realistic chances of winning.
The problem is that the solution to games that dragged on (IE concede) has inadvertently given people the opportunity to abuse this new game option in games where it would never have been considered. The 'ease of use' factor makes concede far too simple for people to 'wimp out' the moment something doesn't go their way.
If this is the case, I understand the problem well. I haven't personally seen concede used too excessively, but if this really is the case, then it's an issue to be addressed. The problem I see here is that f4 is easier than concede in my opinion, and it has always existed. It's the perfect getaway from a frustrating situation; you don't have to continue playing or listening to your teammates, it's only one press of a button away, and it weakens your team's capabilities of making a comeback, so in effect you're ruining the game in progress and making it end faster. Conceding is a vote, and you can voice your opinion without ruining the game if other people don't agree with you. F4 is the 'wimp out' move, conceding is the gentleman's choice.
In short, I don't think what you're describing is a problem caused by concede.
My point was that quitting a game is not fun in the sense that if people quit the game then the game stopped being fun. Concede - in this case - makes a bad problem worse. Instead of a solution that actually addressed why the game stopped being fun, it goes and rubs salt in the wound via concede.
Instead of a solution that actually addressed why the game stopped being fun, concede goes and makes trying to have fun more convenient (not possible, but more convenient). I do agree it's not a solution, but that's exactly why this thread exists. There is absolutely no reason to drag concede into this.
Which is why I started the thread on forgiveness. By allowing players the ability to feel like the game isn't over, we can reduce concede usage without changing concede.
Do you see where I'm going here? Concede is the symptom of a bigger problem - IE forgiveness. Concede *usage* has become excessive, and imho that is detrimental to fun gameplay. When a team loses a tech point and you get a few whiners who say "It's all over - concede" then it totally sucks the life out of the game. Whether or not people actually concede becomes irrelevant at this point, since the damage is already done on a psychological level.
What I think is that your rhetoric is bringing the topic back to concede over and over again. You could have said "Situations with extremely slim chances of victory because of lack of forgiveness have become excessive", since this is what you're getting at, but instead you choose to plant the word 'concede' there. The fact that you don't like the feature itself instead of just the causes for its usage is too clear in your posts, which causes other people to respond like I'm doing now. And if people just said "It's all over" without telling people to concede, would that be enough to satisfy you? The same psychological damage, and it certainly happened before the feature itself.
Concede was a response to a game issue - but it didn't address the game issue at all. That's the problem. Concede - in of itself - was added to deal with games that dragged on and such. Yet concede doesn't 'solve' that problem at all.
Yes it does. Games dragged on because the losing team kept on playing against unbeatable odds, whether they realised it or not. What did concede do (or rather, made more convenient, since it could be and was achieved by other means earlier)? Prevent those games from dragging on, but still giving the victory for the right team.
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How can you say that concede doesn't solve the problem of prolonged games when that's exactly what it does?
Because it does no such thing. Concede has NO IMPACT on internal game mechanics. None. Concede doesn't make your skulk do more damage or reduce the spawn rate for marines. Let me put it in another way so that you might understand what I mean.
You cut yourself, and put on a bandage. Does that bandage 'fix' your cut? No. It just covers it up.
Concede only MASKS the problem, it doesn't actually address it at all. Instead of changing the mechanics so that it wouldn't be possible for prolonged turtles to occur, concede was added so people could quit the game.
Quitting the game was never the problem though.
I'm skipping the rest of your points since they address concede and I am trying desperately to get away from that.
There exists a problem in this game, whereby people would rather quit the game - through ANY means - rather than continue to play. Whether that problem is turtles, or playing a game when it seems like the outcome is a lost cause, the solution is not to make quitting the game easier.
I feel the problem is that the game lacks forgiveness. Teams lack the tools to stay competitive, and so the game will either drag on, or people will quit in frustration. NEITHER of those outcomes is desirable.
You cut yourself, and put on a bandage. Does that bandage 'fix' your cut? No. It just covers it up.
Apt analogy but you shoot yourself in the foot. If you dont "bandage" that cut it can become infected and kill you, just as an un-winnable game can kill your will to play another game causing the death of the server.
Concede brings a swift end to allow for a new fresh game.
The problem comes when you dont know why you lost or worse how you could have even had a chance to win. A lot of game mechanics are hidden to the foot soldier because it is your comm who handles all the behind the scenes action. The y miss half the game without knowing it. A good comm can win with a bad team some of the time. A good team can almost never win with a bad comm.
Better explanation of game mechanics is what we need. Commander is a hidden element to a lot of gamers because of its importance and the players fear of messing up a key role
You cut yourself, and put on a bandage. Does that bandage 'fix' your cut? No. It just covers it up.
Apt analogy but you shoot yourself in the foot. If you dont "bandage" that cut it can become infected and kill you, just as an un-winnable game can kill your will to play another game causing the death of the server.
Guess what? I just got out of a game, most of the people on the alien team quit the server. Why? Was it concede? No, the game never ended in concede. People just got frustrated and quit. They got frustrated because they started losing and there was no means for them to make a comeback. The game stopped being fun. That left 10 people, and 2 stayed in the ready room, so the game started as 4v4 and people just started quitting until the server was empty. I though concede was the magic answer? Why did this happen?
You're so focused on concede that you forget people are free to F4 or disconnect and concede won't do jack squat to prevent it. Concede solves NOTHING. Concede fixes NOTHING. Concede is a glorified means of hitting F4, the only difference is that you see "aliens/marines win" on your screen. That's it. It often takes more work to get people to concede than it does for people to just F4 or quit.
THAT, my dear friend is why concede is a total abject failure at addressing what it is supposed to be addressing.
The problem is the gameplay, not the way in which the games end.
Once people finally come to recognize this, then perhaps we can deal with the problem, and not the band-aid that was slapped on it.
You're contradicting yourself in too many cases and ignoring half of people's posts, only taking in tidbits, so continuing this conversation isn't really meaningful (if it was in the first place for its off-topicness).
Aaaaaanyway. How about a jumpstart for the thread, to bring it back on topic?
In terms of ability to win I think its ok. Possibly a little unforgiving to marines because of the power node mechanic. But in terms of ability to have fun while losing it's horribly unforgiving, especially for the alien side.
I didn't read everything, and I've said this many times already but I still think a problem in NS2 is the lack of all-in strategies. What do you do when you are far behind in starcraft ? You take an hidden expo (hidden strategy), you tech to dark templar (tech strategy) or you go all-in with your resources (sacrifice any long term chances to win) to build a big army right now and try to kill your opponent (resource strategy).
This often lead to a two step victory, first you need to trow a big punch to your opponent, and then you need to survive the desperate counter (counter-punch). There's some famous games in broodwar (e.g. JangBi vs ZerO) where the leading player lost the game to the counter-punch. Knowing when to pull back and defend is a subtle, hard to master skill.
In stracraft denying an expo for long is a guarantee all-in from your opponent, in NS1 it would force additional fades out, as no one could spend their res on hives and chambers. In NS2 with the two pool res system, denying expo is not really risky.
In the different counter-punch categories, very few seems viable. Aliens can drop hidden expo, rush the powernode, otherwise not much. Marines can try different tech rush (sg rush, gl rush, arc push, ...), or hidden pg, but I'm not sure they are really viable.
Some of this might be due to premature nerf, gl rush was efficient once, and was easily countered when scouted. The idea is to let people learn how to deal with cheesy strategies instead of nerfing them, so they remain valid as all-in's when behind.
You don't lose a game in ns2 due to 1 single setback you lose to it to multiple setbacks.
The question you should be asking is, HOW do i stop this?
Well, Marines will generally lose if they lose to many early engagements and aren't able to apply enough pressure to minimize alien expansion. NOW, How do you stop this? ok, What is your team weakness? if its poor map rotating then you probably want to get phase gates, if your map rotating is good and your players have a general idea about positioning, then go upgrades. That is just 1 solution to this.
Aliens, Most games i lose as alien in competitive matches is because we are forced to defend and then we get stuck in that frame mind, As aliens you also need to play aggressive. You need to fight marines on marine turf as much as possible. There isn't much more to it than that. You lose to many engagements early and marines are able to dictate your expansion then its game over.
A team that has a very weak early game shouldn't be able to come back, that's the cycle of life.
You don't stop it, that's the problem.
If, as you say, you don't lose due to a single setback, you also don't win due to a single success.
Essentially, your input as a player is minimally relevant to the game outcome. Because the combined weight of everyone else's matters more.
Now this really isn't much of a problem in most fps games, because most fps games, even team games, don't really revolve around a teamplay dynamic. You are a man with a gun and you shoot the other mans with guns and your ability to do this is not affected at all by your team's performance, really. You're playing a game of how well you can shoot your gun at the other mans, and also other people are there too I guess.
NS2 on the other hand, takes your gun off you if your team isn't good enough, and throws way tougher enemies at you to compound the problem, it can do this for easily ten to fifteen minutes, which can easily be 25-50% of a game. So you spend a pretty large chunk of any game either shooting fish in a barrel, or being a fish to be shot.
Comments
Having upgrades remain available means a team stays competitive. When teams are strong there are more intense battles and a greater chance for tech points to fall. This would make for a better game.
No, an Onos and a Dual-mini EXO are both items bought with PERSONAL resources. As such, when the player dies he loses that purchased upgrade.
The aspect I am referring to are the TEAM upgrades. That's a whole other aspect.
Disagree. You're thinking to linearly. Aliens don't need any upgraded lifeforms to win the game. It is very easy for a mob of skulks to launch a timely rush of marine spawn and cause massive devastation. While the marine EXOs lumber around the map the skulks can clear out a tech point with ease. **I'VE DONE IT** It takes skill and coordination. Something you seem to think that all players lack.
Yeah, perhaps if you want to play that card you shouldn't have used a reference to TF2 in your OWN post right before mine... Hmmmm?
A minute ago you said late game skulks were useless. You can't have it both ways.
Yeah, because every person playing a game loves to stand around while the other team - THAT IS INVULNERABLE - kills them off for lols. Yeah, why don't we just start the game like that. Have the game randomly pick a side, and the other team can steamroll them with no chance to defend themselves. Sounds like great fun.
Learn from their mistakes? They only thing they learn is that when things get tough they press X and click vote concede. Instead of learning how to actually stage a comeback, people are learning to become quitters. You call that a better game?
I don't.
It's time to bring the end-game back to NS2.
I know i type a lot and there is a lot of unneeded drama but this is my main point in response to your post.
"This is what i mean. Marine's tech is based heavily around TRes and upgrades/structures. Aliens tech is heavily based around PRes and lifeforms."
TRes accumulates much faster and is better used by the marine comm. Their tech path is a steady uphill battle no matter what the marines do with their PRes. Vanilla marines scale till the end, plus anything purchased with PRes under 50 res can be picked up and reused. Very forgiving.
Aliens need their lifeforms and once dead as we know the PRes is gone. Everything is balanced around them and alien gameplay assumes you will evolve. Because of this skulks can never be that strong. Their tech path is a plateau. They tech to a point, then level out, expand, level out, and players spike with strong lifeforms. Alien gameplay is more all or nothing which probably adds to the "wow this sucks to lose" as aliens.
Ultimately no one likes to lose. Losing isnt ever going to be fun for most people. Fun is as you know, very subjective. Concede is a good middle ground. Losing makes you grow as a player and should teach you a lesson. Making it less painful will only promote more bad play.
Indeed, I feel the lack of team scaling for aliens is the reason for a lot of this games problems. I know the teams are meant to be asymmetric but that aliens have a much greater need for tech points and PRes than marines seems like bad design. Lifeforms should be like weapon and proto upgrades (i.e. sidegrades not upgrades), their damage/surviveabilty scaling should be done through team upgrades (like marines).
Except losing as marines can be fun, a lot of people like playing out a last stand as marines every few games. Making it less painful will just mean people won't be so pissed off and rage at losing (again, especially for aliens. I've seen alien losses nearly empty the server!). They've still lost, they're still going to try and get better.
What about allowing you to choose upgrades while dead, this way you spawn with carapace, adrenaline, etc. Worth a shot? It might help with being egg locked a bit...
While this is accurate, you can't debate skulk/marine scaling comparisions. Skulk is not meant to scale with marines. What you do get is a free lifeform with all upgrades. With marines you get a free lifeform with the current armor/weapon upgrade. Until there is a major patch that completely changes alien gameplay in every aspect we have to stop complaining that skulks don't scale with marines because they are not suppose to. If you are playing skulk only you are banking pres that should be spent at some point (whether you are saving for Onos or not).
In theory, yes, weapons can be continually recycled, but that doesnt really happen all the time. You don't always get back your shotgun if you drop it.
The only thing that you can compare skulk scaling to is an LMG marine. You can not use GL's, jetpacks, shotguns and the like because other lifeforms scale with those.
Not sure if it will have a big enough impact but definetly something i have wanted for a long time. Might as well use that dead time for something :P
Kinda of a weird suggestion but i would love to be able to choose where i spawn. Basically select through a commander like mode where exactly i spawn near the hive and my egg would mature for 3-5 seconds allowing me to have a better chance to actually spawn.
Making the game easier is indeed not a goal. Making the end game less painful and making both teams scale better is.
And I'll say it again... I feel this lack of alien scaling is the reason for a lot of issues in the game. As soon as aliens scale in some way you can tweak the base stats of their lifeforms so they aren't so powerful early game but also so that their final stats are still viable late game.
I guess that's the problem when something is "asymetrically unbalanced". I do agree with you though.
Hmm. You want comebacks to be possible to some extent, slippery slopes aren't fun for the losing team. Saying that yes I do think tech points should be important, losing one shouldn't just be shrugged off.
lol... this so wrong
the ability to destroy anything is absolutely related to the ability of the other team to kill whatever is attacking it (aka defense)
isn't a hive easier to kill if aliens don't have bile / blink / leap / spores?
isn't a CC easier to kill if the marines don't have exos / jetpacks / nano?
the net result of what you are trying to accomplish by narrowing the power gap of the late-game will just result in longer games. If NS2 had completely disjoint offense and defense, maybe there would be a late-game solution that didn't just increase round length... but that pretend version of NS2 doesn't exist. Anything that involves empowering lifeforms / marines is useful both offensively and defensively.
Your whole argument is based on the premise that longer games = better games and that the NS2 "endgame" is something we should strive to achieve more often... which is an opinion that not everyone shares.
On the other hand, the premise that NS2 is best played when the teams are fair is an opinion that almost everyone shares. Ultimately, anything that prolongs the game will slow down the process of restarting the round with fairer teams.
The only way "staging a comeback" is meaningful is if it has a chance to succeed.
The only way it has a chance to succeed is if the losing team is the better team.
So the only situation where "increasing forgiveness" actually has a positive impact on the game is when the better team started losing. That is incredibly rare compared to the situations where the better team got the lead.
Instead of trying to fix a broken situation (better team in a losing position), see what changes you can suggest to avoid getting into that situation to begin with.
I'll save you some work and just tell you that it's based on probability.
Luck plays a much larger role in the early game than in the late game, so it is possible for a better team to get unlucky and end up in a losing situation.
The early game like giving one team an advantage by flipping a coin 10 times (it will rarely be close to 50-50)
By the late-game, the luck advantage is based on flipping a coin 1000 times (it will rarely be far from 50-50)
If you make the early game less "random" you will simply avoid the scenarios where reducing the tech-gap in the late game is actually a positive thing.
I believe that the game should finish when the majority of the losing team think they can no longer win. Two reasons: it's fair and it would happen anyway via f4 or disconnect, just that conceding is less detrimental to the server itself.
I have. This is all anecdotal. I've enjoyed games we've won via concede, as have my teammates. And I think the latter part of your post is the reason for conceding, not what the concession caused; a bad game, stacked teams etc.
You can't use this argument to back your opinions up, since it could be absolutely anything causing people to stop playing NS2, including things working against your arguments. None of us have done any research here.
The answer is "practically every single one apart from very few exceptions". Giving up is good sportsmanship in NS2, nobody likes prolonging, not the losing and not the winning team. Remember that 'gg' is the same as conceding.
This would be extremely detrimental to the RTS aspect of the game (something I could see you easily vouching for). Destroying buildings apart from res towers would hold far too little importance, and as such the game would boil down to which team can kill the other team's weapons/lifeforms more effectively and keep their pres-stores low. It would become combat with a few RTS-elements here and there instead of the hybrid we have now.
I agree completely (as I've stated in my previous posts), but when the blue-faced OP himself keeps bringing concede back to the table in every post, there's not much I can do. Except to ignore him, which I don't want to do because he has some genuinely good points.
These were in the same post. Listen to yourself. You can't cop out by saying "nobody's advocating for the removal of concede" when a great deal of your posts are 100% anti-concede. Even if you don't say "I want concede to be removed", posts like these make it very strongly look like so. And that's why this thread keeps sliding into another concede-discussion over and over again. Besides, as stated a hundred times, conceding will happen whether the feature exists or not. Before the feature we had games ending in 10vs4 and with 6 people in the RR either AFK or yelling the other team to end the game. Is that better? At least the winning team gets the illusion of deserving their victory by killing the enemy's last base.
And no, the numbers don't "speak for themselves". Again, you can't use this argument to back your opinions up, anything between heaven and earth could be causing the players to stop playing NS2.
Furthermore, you seem to forget that advanced lifeforms/units cost RESOURCES. If your team controls all the map, then the other team won't be able to afford those units. However, they may have a few people left that can afford it, but who are unable to purchase it because they are missing a pre-requisite or the lifeform is just plain of little use with only one hive etc.
If your team owns the map, you're going to be in a far better position to win. All it would mean is that the other team wouldn't be sitting around like useless lumps.
No, my argument is based on the premise that conceded games are not fun games, and I have yet to see anyone prove otherwise. Further upthread I posted links to a dozen threads where people complained about concede. Please, show me a thread where people talk about the 'fun' they have quitting games.
Quite often these conceded games never get far enough for Onos/EXO to reach the field. Why would anyone want to play a game where the strongest units never get played?
No, it's more than that. You're trying to convince me of something that doesn't exist in principle. IE that people who quit games are happy to be quitters. That flies in the face of not only logic but reality. (and human psychology)
I have to debate it since it is other people who bring it up. Just as you did right there. You totally busted your own argument by bringing it up, since that compels me to reply. As I just did.
Yes you are 100% correct, I am anti-concede, but I feel it is a necessary evil.
My position, which I will state for the umpteenth time, is that I want concede to be RARELY USED. That way it can exist in cases where there is a legitimate need, and yet it will not be used the other 95% of the time. I'd be quite happy with that.
Just because I don't like an aspect of the game, doesn't mean I think it should be removed. For example, I think welders are one of the worst things in the game from a 'weapon' perspective. Yet, based on the game design, they are necessary. They are a necessary evil.
You keep believing that.
People stop playing when a game is no longer fun. For FPS players, who make up the lion's share of NS2 players, quitting games is not fun. That's why you won't find a 'concede' option in FPS games. Now if you want to cling to the misguided belief that it's the gameplay itself that is responsible - and not how that gameplay ends - then you have effectively said the game is doomed. Changing the game to make concede usage less common is easy. Changing the game to create something new that is 'more fun' than what we have means changing underlying principles in the game. That's not gonna happen.
Pick your side.
Indeed, I admit that we're both at fault here. I'm just too petty, as are you, to let it slide when someone states something that's screaming against my personal principles.
Yes, I agree. But this is achieved through changing the mechanics so that reaching the end-game becomes more possible and fun, or that games can be ended more easily if the other team gains a major advantage, which I know has been the point of this thread and yours all along. But when you keep making claims like "the game was better before concede was implemented" and "people are not playing anymore because concede ruins games" you're shooting yourself in the leg. Because this has nothing to do with the game mechanics; the mechanics were similar enough before and after the implementation of concede that the problem why people aren't having fun lie in the mechanics, not in this feature. Which brings me to:
'Misguided' because you don't believe in it? All the arguments you're making, you're making out of your own head, just as I am. You don't know why people are quitting, and neither do I. But I do know that games were ending prematurely just as much before the concede feature as they do after, they just did it in a different (more inconvenient) way.
People quitting NS2 because the game itself isn't fundamentally fun for them is entirely possible, in my opinion. It seems more likely to me that this is the case than people quitting because giving up a game they find frustrating has been made 'too easy'. I don't know though, since I haven't done any studies on the matter.
You seem to have this the wrong way around. It's not the quitting that leads a game being unfun, the game being unfun leads to quitting. What's the alternative to an unfun game? The question we should be looking answers for is "how to make the game more fun for both sides" instead of "should we make it easy for people to quit if they're not having fun". The second question is a no-brainer, in my opinion.
This seems to be a central problem you have with premature game ending, so I want to pay extra attention to it.
Firstly, to answer your question directly, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people like to play games where end-game tech makes no appearance. Why? Because it makes for different games. You get your victory with different means if you win with mid-game tech than you would with end-game tech. So in short it creates different strategies. You could concentrate on either defense, keeping map control, teching up to end-game tech and then pushing, or you could concentrate on offense, deny the opponent their tech and try to end the game with early to mid-game tech. Variety! And the fewer the games end-game tech appears in, the more exciting the games in which they DO appear are (not to mention the fact that if every single game is a 30-60 minute behemoth, we would most likely have even less players than we do at the moment).
Secondly, games that end in a concede usually end in a point where it's going to be a landslide for the other team (remember, that you have to take into account the morale and mindset of the losing team as well; they play a role just as map control/skill/tech and whatever else does). This means that yes, you would most probably see end-game tech, but only for the other team. The only people this serves are those who want to stomp weak and defenseless enemies with overpowered tech, and I, personally, don't want the game to serve those people. At all.
As I said way up top, concede is the SYMPTOM of the problem, not the problem itself. Concede was a response to a game issue - but it didn't address the game issue at all. That's the problem. Concede - in of itself - was added to deal with games that dragged on and such. Yet concede doesn't 'solve' that problem at all.
The problem is that the solution to games that dragged on (IE concede) has inadvertently given people the opportunity to abuse this new game option in games where it would never have been considered. The 'ease of use' factor makes concede far too simple for people to 'wimp out' the moment something doesn't go their way.
Which is why I started the thread on forgiveness. By allowing players the ability to feel like the game isn't over, we can reduce concede usage without changing concede.
If you note the bolded bit, that's exactly what I said. My point was that quitting a game is not fun in the sense that if people quit the game then the game stopped being fun. Concede - in this case - makes a bad problem worse. Instead of a solution that actually addressed why the game stopped being fun, it goes and rubs salt in the wound via concede.
However, again this all comes back to forgiveness. If the game had more forgiveness then people wouldn't feel the need to use concede.
The problem here - and don't blame me for this since I'm not the one supporting it - is that some people seem to think that concede is an acceptable means to end every game. I disagree, which is why I started a thread on forgiveness, since I feel players shouldn't feel compelled to concede.
Do you see where I'm going here? Concede is the symptom of a bigger problem - IE forgiveness. Concede *usage* has become excessive, and imho that is detrimental to fun gameplay. When a team loses a tech point and you get a few whiners who say "It's all over - concede" then it totally sucks the life out of the game. Whether or not people actually concede becomes irrelevant at this point, since the damage is already done on a psychological level.
More forgiveness in the game, leading to less conceded games, is something I think NS2 really needs right now. Concede is not a normal and natural part of FPS gameplay. It should be the exception and not the rule.
Am I the only one seeing a great, big, persisting contradiction between these two claims?
Yes it does. Games dragged on because the losing team kept on playing against unbeatable odds, whether they realised it or not. What did concede do (or rather, made more convenient, since it could be and was achieved by other means earlier)? Prevent those games from dragging on, but still giving the victory for the right team. Whether the equation 'the disappointment for the winning team of winning via concede' - 'the frustration for the losing team for the game not ending in spite of them being stomped on' is positive or negative is a matter of debate, but I can safely say that I, for one, don't mind winning via concede at all, but the worst games are the ones that drag on even though the outcome is already clear no matter if I'm on the winning or the losing team.
How can you say that concede doesn't solve the problem of prolonged games when that's exactly what it does?
Whether or not people abuse the feature too much now is a matter of another debate. Whenever I play on public servers I get the feeling that people concede way too late. If your feeling is the opposite, then I can't help but thinking that you just don't understand the way the game works well enough to see when the game is already lost. I cannot say this for certain, because the games you have played might easily have been a festival of whiny players conceding when the first turd hit the fan, but that's just the first thing springing to my mind from my own experiences, since I haven't experienced things like this. I can with pure conscience say, that I have never, ever been in a game where my team has conceded in a situation where we still had, within my judgment, any realistic chances of winning.
If this is the case, I understand the problem well. I haven't personally seen concede used too excessively, but if this really is the case, then it's an issue to be addressed. The problem I see here is that f4 is easier than concede in my opinion, and it has always existed. It's the perfect getaway from a frustrating situation; you don't have to continue playing or listening to your teammates, it's only one press of a button away, and it weakens your team's capabilities of making a comeback, so in effect you're ruining the game in progress and making it end faster. Conceding is a vote, and you can voice your opinion without ruining the game if other people don't agree with you. F4 is the 'wimp out' move, conceding is the gentleman's choice.
In short, I don't think what you're describing is a problem caused by concede.
Instead of a solution that actually addressed why the game stopped being fun, concede goes and makes trying to have fun more convenient (not possible, but more convenient). I do agree it's not a solution, but that's exactly why this thread exists. There is absolutely no reason to drag concede into this.
This.
What I think is that your rhetoric is bringing the topic back to concede over and over again. You could have said "Situations with extremely slim chances of victory because of lack of forgiveness have become excessive", since this is what you're getting at, but instead you choose to plant the word 'concede' there. The fact that you don't like the feature itself instead of just the causes for its usage is too clear in your posts, which causes other people to respond like I'm doing now. And if people just said "It's all over" without telling people to concede, would that be enough to satisfy you? The same psychological damage, and it certainly happened before the feature itself.
You cut yourself, and put on a bandage. Does that bandage 'fix' your cut? No. It just covers it up.
Concede only MASKS the problem, it doesn't actually address it at all. Instead of changing the mechanics so that it wouldn't be possible for prolonged turtles to occur, concede was added so people could quit the game.
Quitting the game was never the problem though.
I'm skipping the rest of your points since they address concede and I am trying desperately to get away from that.
There exists a problem in this game, whereby people would rather quit the game - through ANY means - rather than continue to play. Whether that problem is turtles, or playing a game when it seems like the outcome is a lost cause, the solution is not to make quitting the game easier.
I feel the problem is that the game lacks forgiveness. Teams lack the tools to stay competitive, and so the game will either drag on, or people will quit in frustration. NEITHER of those outcomes is desirable.
That's why I created this thread.
Apt analogy but you shoot yourself in the foot. If you dont "bandage" that cut it can become infected and kill you, just as an un-winnable game can kill your will to play another game causing the death of the server.
Concede brings a swift end to allow for a new fresh game.
The problem comes when you dont know why you lost or worse how you could have even had a chance to win. A lot of game mechanics are hidden to the foot soldier because it is your comm who handles all the behind the scenes action. The y miss half the game without knowing it. A good comm can win with a bad team some of the time. A good team can almost never win with a bad comm.
Better explanation of game mechanics is what we need. Commander is a hidden element to a lot of gamers because of its importance and the players fear of messing up a key role
So to use the wound analogy, the best solution for a small cut is to kill the patient? Sorry, I disagree.
Guess what? I just got out of a game, most of the people on the alien team quit the server. Why? Was it concede? No, the game never ended in concede. People just got frustrated and quit. They got frustrated because they started losing and there was no means for them to make a comeback. The game stopped being fun. That left 10 people, and 2 stayed in the ready room, so the game started as 4v4 and people just started quitting until the server was empty. I though concede was the magic answer? Why did this happen?
You're so focused on concede that you forget people are free to F4 or disconnect and concede won't do jack squat to prevent it. Concede solves NOTHING. Concede fixes NOTHING. Concede is a glorified means of hitting F4, the only difference is that you see "aliens/marines win" on your screen. That's it. It often takes more work to get people to concede than it does for people to just F4 or quit.
THAT, my dear friend is why concede is a total abject failure at addressing what it is supposed to be addressing.
The problem is the gameplay, not the way in which the games end.
Once people finally come to recognize this, then perhaps we can deal with the problem, and not the band-aid that was slapped on it.
You're contradicting yourself in too many cases and ignoring half of people's posts, only taking in tidbits, so continuing this conversation isn't really meaningful (if it was in the first place for its off-topicness).
Aaaaaanyway. How about a jumpstart for the thread, to bring it back on topic?
I don't think the game is too unforgiving.
Ha.
:P
In terms of ability to win I think its ok. Possibly a little unforgiving to marines because of the power node mechanic. But in terms of ability to have fun while losing it's horribly unforgiving, especially for the alien side.
This often lead to a two step victory, first you need to trow a big punch to your opponent, and then you need to survive the desperate counter (counter-punch). There's some famous games in broodwar (e.g. JangBi vs ZerO) where the leading player lost the game to the counter-punch. Knowing when to pull back and defend is a subtle, hard to master skill.
In stracraft denying an expo for long is a guarantee all-in from your opponent, in NS1 it would force additional fades out, as no one could spend their res on hives and chambers. In NS2 with the two pool res system, denying expo is not really risky.
In the different counter-punch categories, very few seems viable. Aliens can drop hidden expo, rush the powernode, otherwise not much. Marines can try different tech rush (sg rush, gl rush, arc push, ...), or hidden pg, but I'm not sure they are really viable.
Some of this might be due to premature nerf, gl rush was efficient once, and was easily countered when scouted. The idea is to let people learn how to deal with cheesy strategies instead of nerfing them, so they remain valid as all-in's when behind.
You don't stop it, that's the problem.
If, as you say, you don't lose due to a single setback, you also don't win due to a single success.
Essentially, your input as a player is minimally relevant to the game outcome. Because the combined weight of everyone else's matters more.
Now this really isn't much of a problem in most fps games, because most fps games, even team games, don't really revolve around a teamplay dynamic. You are a man with a gun and you shoot the other mans with guns and your ability to do this is not affected at all by your team's performance, really. You're playing a game of how well you can shoot your gun at the other mans, and also other people are there too I guess.
NS2 on the other hand, takes your gun off you if your team isn't good enough, and throws way tougher enemies at you to compound the problem, it can do this for easily ten to fifteen minutes, which can easily be 25-50% of a game. So you spend a pretty large chunk of any game either shooting fish in a barrel, or being a fish to be shot.
Which is kinda dull.
edit:
Look at what you did.