You're right. Tho more amusing, occasionally, is the fact that despite attaining a higher degree of skill at the game, players are still susceptible to being taught something by someone of less skill: you might be good at pushing buttons, but you're being an asshole, so, stop, or gtfo. Now, which button do you push?
ITT: Morale of pubbers get hurt when they realize there are people way better than then.
ITT: "Comp players" in a FPS game with 0 anti cheat, team + skill stack rookie servers to be relevant.
Could do this all day long.
I'm not sure what part of virsouls post pearlyk wants me to read after that admin had already posted he came back to his own server aliased watching nexzil members stack, stomp and deride other players for not being as good as them. Not sure if you're legally mentally deficient at this point or trolling.
I love playing against people better than I am, the 'duel' is much more meaningful, it actually makes me go try-hard on them, I don't understand why there aren't more players with the same mindset as mine.
Duel, lol.
This isn't a 1v1 game like Tennis. And it's not even a team game like Soccer or Volleyball or Basketball.
First of all, it's asymmetric to begin with, so whatever the concept of "fair" and "even" goes out the door right there. It's like one team playing soccer on one side of the field and the other team playing basketball on the other... And then in 90% of cases it's not an "even fight" to begin with, since you get personal upgrades based on the entire team's performance - not necessarily your own.
What "duel" are you talking about, lol? There's no way to "duel" in this game. Even 1v1 marine vs skulk isn't a "duel."
If you want to "duel" like you "duel" 1v1 in Quake or UT, you're playing the wrong game.
In reality, what happens most often when people (comp or whateverthecomp) decide to trællstæck a server is that people start realizing what's up, usually the better people start stacking with each other (happens on ALL servers) since it's much more fun to play with people who know what they're doing, communicate, and work together well - even if you don't necessarily win, and then it gets to the point where the game doesn't even start (destacked team builds 3 RTs or less and starts being pushed back even before 5:00).
The players who everyone's whining about in this thread kill servers because nobody wants to waste their time when the game never starts - round after round. I've seen it happen over and over again. That's really what it's about.
Unfortunately, this game, like all RTS, suffers from a snowball effect - which is fine. It's an inherent "feature" of RTS. It's more pronounced in some and less in others, but "comp" players just exacerbate it to unbearable (for most people) degrees. And when the server's green, you kind of expect everyone there to suck - so when even one non-fail player joins the already frail and exponentially-decreasing "balance" just gets demolished.
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
edited May 2013
***bit of background***
I joined NS2 back in march with the free weekend. I played on rookie servers and learned the ropes from people like @DC_Darkling giving me advice and just... well practicing. Prior to NS2 i played AvP2 for a couple of years on and off, and a little BF3 other than that FPS' never really hooked me in. I continued to play this game while being roflstomped because the community seemed great, everyone was friendly and helpful even though I was (and still am) pretty terrible at playing the game. No one seemed to mind me failing, their was very little noob calling etc... if anything people seemed more likely to encourage me than insult me, Something i found very new to the FPS community.
***off topic, but a little closer than the previous paragraph***
Then I joined in on forum discussions like this one only to learn that, there are quite a few people that are very hostile to each other... I rarely see this in game but on the forums everyone is better than everyone else and everyone is using their big-boy internet voice and believes his/her opinions are more valid than someone elses, where did the fun community go :S.
***observation***
It is very disheartening to see "discrimination" posts and accusations of "self indulgent bs" (just a few of the MANY examples out there)... the forums feel to me like the youtube comments section... I keep waiting for religion and genre arguments to pop up.
***on topic***
Maybe if people just stopped being self centred (both pro AND rookie) things would be far better. Here's a tip, Think before you say stupid/mean comments (noob calling/pro bashing etc), also if you can't find a nearly full server to play against equally skilled players start a new one and invite your steam friends to get a new server going... or can't you wait 10 minutes to play, is it so important for you to play this instant that you''ll happily join rookie servers even though you are not being challenged and will inevitably cause some form of upset?... and then complain you're not being challenged.
People need to stop bickering/arguing and actually work together to think up a fix. If someone offers an idea don't just shoot them down, don't be condescending. explain why you disagree in a friendly, adult fashion. give reasons why the idea won't work because "lol, that won't work idiot" isn't very helpful to anyone, but remember to be nice about it, sarcastic/bitter responses don't help. eventually an idea will come up that most (not all, you can't please everyone) people will agree to.
*******TL:DR*******
Stop being lazy and actually read the long posts, they are long because people have something to say that may actually be important.
Hopefully at least a few people will take something from my post and it will help.
I love playing against people better than I am, the 'duel' is much more meaningful, it actually makes me go try-hard on them, I don't understand why there aren't more players with the same mindset as mine.
That's because you reached a level where you can't get so much overplayed that your opponent is out of reach for you. I seriously doubt that you would stay and fight an opponent that kills you on sight and wins 30-0 in your duels.
Also, some people (like me) play alot of different games, because we can't always focus our attention on one. Luckily, I loved NS2 and I stayed to get better at it, but I can perfectly understand people that felt the investment in time was too big for the return in fun. When you have a job/family, you may not have the time to invest undreds of hours in a game to get a glimpse of chance to have fun. I'm sure you understand that.
Yes, I do, but follow me for a second, do you think it's fair to tell a comp player where he should play and most importantly, when?
Yes. How would you feel about Cristiano Ronaldo coming to your football match, getting on other side, scoring 35 goals and telling you that you're bad and should train more ? Except being glad to see a football star, you'd be seriously pissed that someone ruined your sunday match with your friends. And that's the exact same situation with comp players coming to rookie-friendly servers and crushing everyone on the server.
Life isn't always what's fair or not; for the matter, neither is it fair to forbid a comp player to go on a server because he is good, neither it is to allow him to ruin the game for everyone else. When having to decide between unfair and unfair, one should look at few parameters, such as number people of grieved, who's grieving and so on.
To make it simple, if one person grieves 15 others, even unvoluntarily, that person is the one that should go away. Not fair, but pragmatic.
That's what I'm trying to understand but have failed so far, this is the first game I've ever seen someone get punished for being too good, if it bothers people that much to have a comp player on rookie friendly servers then re-name the server to ROOKIE ONLY.
I'm not "pubstomping" because I want to be the PWNzoRHaxor420 MLG Pro, I just happen to be a normal person who likes this game, be it 6v6 or 12v12, Saying that I shouldn't play this game is insanity, specially after the money I spent.
EDIT: Damn double post, was supposed to edit my previous one, sorry.
Because that's the only modern game without match-making ? You can't marry "competitive game" and "no match-making". You still fail to see that there is no who's wrong / who's right. Only different sides with valid opinions. And as I said, there's one side about one guy, and another about 15 others.
If you want to blame someone, blame UWE for failing to create a match-making. Maybe with Sabot.
As shocking as it might seem to you, top tier players are not the vast majority of the NS2 gaming population. Paying for a server to cater to a small crowd is, almost certainly, going to sit empty at times, and be much harder to fill up. It's not worth the trouble. I weighed this option when I first set mine up, and went with the more wortwhile option: leave it open for new players and hopefully attract better ones as well, and keep an eye on extremely good ones and coerce them into playing nice while on it. It worked for me, and I imagine more server operators than not went this route as well.
You're not wrong and that's exactly my point, there aren't many (any?) pub severs out there for comp players for a good reason.
But I find the situation to be incredibly silly if it comes to you to tell me to be bad on purpose so I can play the game I enjoy (and much more likely to continue playing than a casual player).
ITT: Morale of pubbers get hurt when they realize there are people way better than then.
ITT: "Comp players" in a FPS game with 0 anti cheat, team + skill stack rookie servers to be relevant.
Could do this all day long.
I'm not sure what part of virsouls post pearlyk wants me to read after that admin had already posted he came back to his own server aliased watching nexzil members stack, stomp and deride other players for not being as good as them. Not sure if you're legally mentally deficient at this point or trolling.
Stacking is an entirely different problem, people like to play with their friends, there are also people who likes to play against them (like me) because they know they'll be playing against competent enemies. That doesn't have anything to do with the topic.
What do you mean by deride? There are assholes in every bracket, it's not a trait of being a comp player. Many times I've been insulted by pubs because I was giving them tips on how to fight me, and no, I wasn't being sarcastic in any of these situations, so I just gave up.
I love playing against people better than I am, the 'duel' is much more meaningful, it actually makes me go try-hard on them, I don't understand why there aren't more players with the same mindset as mine.
That's because you reached a level where you can't get so much overplayed that your opponent is out of reach for you. I seriously doubt that you would stay and fight an opponent that kills you on sight and wins 30-0 in your duels.
Also, some people (like me) play alot of different games, because we can't always focus our attention on one. Luckily, I loved NS2 and I stayed to get better at it, but I can perfectly understand people that felt the investment in time was too big for the return in fun. When you have a job/family, you may not have the time to invest undreds of hours in a game to get a glimpse of chance to have fun. I'm sure you understand that.
Yes, I do, but follow me for a second, do you think it's fair to tell a comp player where he should play and most importantly, when?
Yes. How would you feel about Cristiano Ronaldo coming to your football match, getting on other side, scoring 35 goals and telling you that you're bad and should train more ? Except being glad to see a football star, you'd be seriously pissed that someone ruined your sunday match with your friends. And that's the exact same situation with comp players coming to rookie-friendly servers and crushing everyone on the server.
Life isn't always what's fair or not; for the matter, neither is it fair to forbid a comp player to go on a server because he is good, neither it is to allow him to ruin the game for everyone else. When having to decide between unfair and unfair, one should look at few parameters, such as number people of grieved, who's grieving and so on.
To make it simple, if one person grieves 15 others, even unvoluntarily, that person is the one that should go away. Not fair, but pragmatic.
That's what I'm trying to understand but have failed so far, this is the first game I've ever seen someone get punished for being too good, if it bothers people that much to have a comp player on rookie friendly servers then re-name the server to ROOKIE ONLY.
I'm not "pubstomping" because I want to be the PWNzoRHaxor420 MLG Pro, I just happen to be a normal person who likes this game, be it 6v6 or 12v12, Saying that I shouldn't play this game is insanity, specially after the money I spent.
EDIT: Damn double post, was supposed to edit my previous one, sorry.
Because that's the only modern game without match-making ? You can't marry "competitive game" and "no match-making". You still fail to see that there is no who's wrong / who's right. Only different sides with valid opinions. And as I said, there's one side about one guy, and another about 15 others.
If you want to blame someone, blame UWE for failing to create a match-making. Maybe with Sabot.
We have too small of a player base for matchmaking to be useful, high level players would wait forever for a game, then the matchmaking (if it's any decent) would still match them with mid-low players.
Thinking a little about it, I don't agree with ruining the game for about 15 others, yes, perhaps I'm ruining the game for about 4, 5 or so, but aren't they also ruining the game for other decent players? It's a double edged sword.
[quote]We have too small of a player base for matchmaking to be useful, high level players would wait forever for a game, then the matchmaking (if it's any decent) would still match them with mid-low players.
Thinking a little about it, I don't agree with ruining the game for about 15 others, yes, perhaps I'm ruining the game for about 4, 5 or so, but aren't they also ruining the game for other decent players? It's a double edged sword.[/quote]
I disagree, a soft match-making is doable. Not a hard one. Some low bracket, mid bracket and high bracket, or bronze/silver/golden leagues, whatever.
This was a real issue in NS1 that was not addresses properly. There are several ways to address this but I think matchmaking and skill-based servers are the best. Just by allowing server admins to able to limit people by game hour time is an easy fix.
wiry said:<br />
ITT: Morale of pubbers get hurt when they realize there are people way better than then.<br />
<br />
<br />
That is a very succinct and eloquent demonstration of completely missing the point.<br />
Hint: low-skill players are utterly aware that there are people way better than them.
negative, it's called "AIMBOT WALLHACKING ESP ORGANNER NOSCOPE360MLGXXXXXX"
wiry said:<br />
ITT: Morale of pubbers get hurt when they realize there are people way better than then.<br />
<br />
<br />
That is a very succinct and eloquent demonstration of completely missing the point.<br />
Hint: low-skill players are utterly aware that there are people way better than them.
negative, it's called "AIMBOT WALLHACKING ESP ORGANNER NOSCOPE360MLGXXXXXX"
People that would make such accusations are doing so because they are playing with people out of their league. They cannot fathom anyone could possibly be that good so they assume its hacks. How do you not see this connection? They are too green to be exposed to high skilled players. They need time to acclimate to this game before they are exposed to the high end players. Its common sense and applies to every game. Problem is with NS2 the community is too small so it seems every server you join ends up having some highly skilled players after a while. Rookies need to be able to practice with other rookies, or low skilled players for hours and hours on end each time they play. That is how they will learn. That is how everyone learns fastest at a video game. Maybe some tiny population of people learn faster by playing with players 100x their skill level but for the rest of us, this is not so.
We really could use some "ultra-low" settings and whatever other changes to the engine (tweaks/simplifications) needs that will make a constant 60FPS happen for the usual gaming computers.
It would do quite a lot about situations where a single player unbalances the game.
Additionally to the FPS fixes, allow people to randomize (and lock) teams when things were too bad for 1-2 rounds, and I think it'll be balanced enough that most people have a lot of fun even when better players are present.
I like your thought process..."go ahead and command on a green server...but don't help rookies to learn about movement, aim, and overall field knowledge!"
There are some comp players who do the right thing, play the game in the spirit most pubbers play (fun first...victory 2nd)....sadly there are some ppl who dont seem to be willing to let their ego's take even a small hit (incase someone is streaming and their non 5-1 K:D ratio is seen).
I have first hand witnessed better players swapping mid round, sure they didn't change the result...but it does help new or even more casual players.
As a better player you have to take a big dose of humble pie and recognise that if you want this game to grow that pub stomping is a no-no.
If you want to get better as a comp player...then you might want to play more comp games.
Going 60-1 does not prove anything except you playing against ppl who are not offering you a challenge.
Its sad that sportsmanship seems to be something missing from portions of this community.
If new players are to be expected not to scream out "hax0r" every time they die to a comp player...they comp players need to recognise that pubstomping is equally something they HAVE to avoid doing.
The presence of better players does not have to mean they effect the game in a negative way...thats entirely up to them and whether they choose to be tards or not.
The comp scene wont be around long if we dont self police ourselves, it should not be down to server operators to ban players who are too good...common decency seems to be like common sense...both aren't all that common.
There are some comp players who do the right thing, play the game in the spirit most pubbers play (fun first...victory 2nd)....sadly there are some ppl who dont seem to be willing to let their ego's take even a small hit (incase someone is streaming and their non 5-1 K:D ratio is seen).
I have first hand witnessed better players swapping mid round, sure they didn't change the result...but it does help new or even more casual players.
As a better player you have to take a big dose of humble pie and recognise that if you want this game to grow that pub stomping is a no-no.
If you want to get better as a comp player...then you might want to play more comp games.
Going 60-1 does not prove anything except you playing against ppl who are not offering you a challenge.
Its sad that sportsmanship seems to be something missing from portions of this community.
If new players are to be expected not to scream out "hax0r" every time they die to a comp player...they comp players need to recognise that pubstomping is equally something they HAVE to avoid doing.
The presence of better players does not have to mean they effect the game in a negative way...thats entirely up to them and whether they choose to be tards or not.
The comp scene wont be around long if we dont self police ourselves, it should not be down to server operators to ban players who are too good...common decency seems to be like common sense...both aren't all that common.
It isn't always an option to play competitive matches, scrims don't happen every day. A lot of the time the only way for comp players to practice is to go on public servers, maybe with a teammate or two.
It isn't always an option to play competitive matches, scrims don't happen every day. A lot of the time the only way for comp players to practice is to go on public servers, maybe with a teammate or two.
And that's still no reason to be a try harding nerd on a rookie friendly server.
rant
Take a look at the Australian competitive scene, or complete lack of, if you want to see where letting clanners do whatever they want gets you. There's maybe 2 active clans in the scene now, down from 10-12 at the beginning of the season near 5 months ago, the only consistent interaction any clanned player in Australia had with public servers was joining them en masse with their team mates, sitting in mumble try harding and relegating all the pub players to building RTs and chasing the 1-2 skulks off res that got out of the 2-4 marine contain that happened at the hive by 2 mins.
Regularly see armouries outside of hives before 2 minutes with mines everywhere, regularly seeing entire alien teams with negative KD, multiple rounds in a row with no lerks, no upgrades, no chance, 240 onwards killed off skulk movement in such a huge way that it became near impossible to pick off 2-4 organised clan members rushing a hive. There hasn't been a new clan made in Australia for 5 months, certainly not because there's lack of 6 skilled players not in a clan, because it'd be fucking pointless.
If you look at the competitive scene it wasn't much better, in the first 2 months of both tournaments being run (ENSL and Cyber Gamer) the arguably 3 top teams had all played the 3 bottom teams, 1 of the bottom teams ducking out of one of the tourneys after a shitty admin ruling (ENSL), so the 3 bottom teams had already been 4-0'd or 2-0'd respectively before even getting to play each other.
There was only 1 match in 8-9 fucking weeks of AusNS that was even remotely interesting or fair in terms of skill match ups. Two months of stomping the weakest/need to improve the most teams courtesy of the better, more practiced teams. Surely this encouraged Australian pub players everywhere to take up arms and line up to get utterly stomped by players/teams with thousands of hours over them...strangely enough it didn't, although it didn't stop any clan from doing the above in my second paragraph for the next 2-3 months.
Of course I can now find a couple of them posting endless horseshit in the BT mod thread, "NS2 is dead" "Game is boring" "Clans disbanding because game is shit, old clans would come back with a slew of pandering NS1 themed changes". And they're all fucking wrong, the damage has been done, the typical answer 3-4 months ago was "Just join a server that isn't stacked get good I play with friends nothing stops you from making a clan and counter stacking umad lololol", now there's barely 1 server past 10-11pm.
Three months ago NS2 in Aus prime time (7pm - 11pm) would hover just above 2k concurrent players, consistently above DoD S since release, now it doesn't even get into the steam top 100.
Half the responses in this thread would lead me to believe comp players stacking servers had nothing to do with it, avin a fookan giggle m8s.
You should take a look at the brazilian scene. We have two relevant competitive teams: DTPN, which pretty much disappeared from NS2 since ENSL Season 2 ended, and CiB, which has been inactive lately due to most of our players being busy IRL. There's also a couple more that never played competitively at all, one of which likes to brag about being "the best" even though they never took part of actual competitions or even bothered playing the game because "the performance is bad and the game is riddled with bugs".
Our public servers are empty more often than not, and when they're not, the skill level is so low I can't join a match without breaking the balance, even if I go Gorge or Welder only. And this is not new -- the brazilian community has been dead like this for 3 months. You might find some of us playing in random NA servers, though.
The Gorgeous patch helped resurrect a few players and brought a bunch more into the game, but a week later they barely filled a single server. Maybe "the performance is bad" is a good argument there, but I'm pretty sure that's not the only reason. In the free weekend, some veteran players looking forward to an easy ego boost did an excellent job of repelling those rookies away from the game.
Due to CiB being inactive at the moment, the only options I have are mercing for other teams, playing gathers, or joining a pub game. As you can see, scrims and gathers don't happen all the time, and I don't feel like playing gathers anymore now that my team is doing well. That leaves me with public servers.
Comments
Could do this all day long.
I'm not sure what part of virsouls post pearlyk wants me to read after that admin had already posted he came back to his own server aliased watching nexzil members stack, stomp and deride other players for not being as good as them. Not sure if you're legally mentally deficient at this point or trolling.
This isn't a 1v1 game like Tennis. And it's not even a team game like Soccer or Volleyball or Basketball.
First of all, it's asymmetric to begin with, so whatever the concept of "fair" and "even" goes out the door right there. It's like one team playing soccer on one side of the field and the other team playing basketball on the other... And then in 90% of cases it's not an "even fight" to begin with, since you get personal upgrades based on the entire team's performance - not necessarily your own.
What "duel" are you talking about, lol? There's no way to "duel" in this game. Even 1v1 marine vs skulk isn't a "duel."
If you want to "duel" like you "duel" 1v1 in Quake or UT, you're playing the wrong game.
In reality, what happens most often when people (comp or whateverthecomp) decide to trællstæck a server is that people start realizing what's up, usually the better people start stacking with each other (happens on ALL servers) since it's much more fun to play with people who know what they're doing, communicate, and work together well - even if you don't necessarily win, and then it gets to the point where the game doesn't even start (destacked team builds 3 RTs or less and starts being pushed back even before 5:00).
The players who everyone's whining about in this thread kill servers because nobody wants to waste their time when the game never starts - round after round. I've seen it happen over and over again. That's really what it's about.
Unfortunately, this game, like all RTS, suffers from a snowball effect - which is fine. It's an inherent "feature" of RTS. It's more pronounced in some and less in others, but "comp" players just exacerbate it to unbearable (for most people) degrees. And when the server's green, you kind of expect everyone there to suck - so when even one non-fail player joins the already frail and exponentially-decreasing "balance" just gets demolished.
I joined NS2 back in march with the free weekend. I played on rookie servers and learned the ropes from people like @DC_Darkling giving me advice and just... well practicing. Prior to NS2 i played AvP2 for a couple of years on and off, and a little BF3 other than that FPS' never really hooked me in.
I continued to play this game while being roflstomped because the community seemed great, everyone was friendly and helpful even though I was (and still am) pretty terrible at playing the game. No one seemed to mind me failing, their was very little noob calling etc... if anything people seemed more likely to encourage me than insult me, Something i found very new to the FPS community.
***off topic, but a little closer than the previous paragraph***
Then I joined in on forum discussions like this one only to learn that, there are quite a few people that are very hostile to each other... I rarely see this in game but on the forums everyone is better than everyone else and everyone is using their big-boy internet voice and believes his/her opinions are more valid than someone elses, where did the fun community go :S.
***observation***
It is very disheartening to see "discrimination" posts and accusations of "self indulgent bs" (just a few of the MANY examples out there)... the forums feel to me like the youtube comments section... I keep waiting for religion and genre arguments to pop up.
***on topic***
Maybe if people just stopped being self centred (both pro AND rookie) things would be far better. Here's a tip, Think before you say stupid/mean comments (noob calling/pro bashing etc), also if you can't find a nearly full server to play against equally skilled players start a new one and invite your steam friends to get a new server going... or can't you wait 10 minutes to play, is it so important for you to play this instant that you''ll happily join rookie servers even though you are not being challenged and will inevitably cause some form of upset?... and then complain you're not being challenged.
People need to stop bickering/arguing and actually work together to think up a fix. If someone offers an idea don't just shoot them down, don't be condescending. explain why you disagree in a friendly, adult fashion. give reasons why the idea won't work because "lol, that won't work idiot" isn't very helpful to anyone, but remember to be nice about it, sarcastic/bitter responses don't help. eventually an idea will come up that most (not all, you can't please everyone) people will agree to.
*******TL:DR*******
Stop being lazy and actually read the long posts, they are long because people have something to say that may actually be important.
Hopefully at least a few people will take something from my post and it will help.
negative, it's called "AIMBOT WALLHACKING ESP ORGANNER NOSCOPE360MLGXXXXXX"
People that would make such accusations are doing so because they are playing with people out of their league. They cannot fathom anyone could possibly be that good so they assume its hacks. How do you not see this connection? They are too green to be exposed to high skilled players. They need time to acclimate to this game before they are exposed to the high end players. Its common sense and applies to every game. Problem is with NS2 the community is too small so it seems every server you join ends up having some highly skilled players after a while. Rookies need to be able to practice with other rookies, or low skilled players for hours and hours on end each time they play. That is how they will learn. That is how everyone learns fastest at a video game. Maybe some tiny population of people learn faster by playing with players 100x their skill level but for the rest of us, this is not so.
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920&from=1362117600000&to=1370149200000
With around 10-15 populated servers per region, most players probably do what I do. Sort by: population > Pick a near-full server > join
It would do quite a lot about situations where a single player unbalances the game.
Additionally to the FPS fixes, allow people to randomize (and lock) teams when things were too bad for 1-2 rounds, and I think it'll be balanced enough that most people have a lot of fun even when better players are present.
I have first hand witnessed better players swapping mid round, sure they didn't change the result...but it does help new or even more casual players.
As a better player you have to take a big dose of humble pie and recognise that if you want this game to grow that pub stomping is a no-no.
If you want to get better as a comp player...then you might want to play more comp games.
Going 60-1 does not prove anything except you playing against ppl who are not offering you a challenge.
Its sad that sportsmanship seems to be something missing from portions of this community.
If new players are to be expected not to scream out "hax0r" every time they die to a comp player...they comp players need to recognise that pubstomping is equally something they HAVE to avoid doing.
The presence of better players does not have to mean they effect the game in a negative way...thats entirely up to them and whether they choose to be tards or not.
The comp scene wont be around long if we dont self police ourselves, it should not be down to server operators to ban players who are too good...common decency seems to be like common sense...both aren't all that common.
It isn't always an option to play competitive matches, scrims don't happen every day. A lot of the time the only way for comp players to practice is to go on public servers, maybe with a teammate or two.
And that's still no reason to be a try harding nerd on a rookie friendly server.
rant
Take a look at the Australian competitive scene, or complete lack of, if you want to see where letting clanners do whatever they want gets you. There's maybe 2 active clans in the scene now, down from 10-12 at the beginning of the season near 5 months ago, the only consistent interaction any clanned player in Australia had with public servers was joining them en masse with their team mates, sitting in mumble try harding and relegating all the pub players to building RTs and chasing the 1-2 skulks off res that got out of the 2-4 marine contain that happened at the hive by 2 mins.
Regularly see armouries outside of hives before 2 minutes with mines everywhere, regularly seeing entire alien teams with negative KD, multiple rounds in a row with no lerks, no upgrades, no chance, 240 onwards killed off skulk movement in such a huge way that it became near impossible to pick off 2-4 organised clan members rushing a hive. There hasn't been a new clan made in Australia for 5 months, certainly not because there's lack of 6 skilled players not in a clan, because it'd be fucking pointless.
If you look at the competitive scene it wasn't much better, in the first 2 months of both tournaments being run (ENSL and Cyber Gamer) the arguably 3 top teams had all played the 3 bottom teams, 1 of the bottom teams ducking out of one of the tourneys after a shitty admin ruling (ENSL), so the 3 bottom teams had already been 4-0'd or 2-0'd respectively before even getting to play each other.
There was only 1 match in 8-9 fucking weeks of AusNS that was even remotely interesting or fair in terms of skill match ups. Two months of stomping the weakest/need to improve the most teams courtesy of the better, more practiced teams. Surely this encouraged Australian pub players everywhere to take up arms and line up to get utterly stomped by players/teams with thousands of hours over them...strangely enough it didn't, although it didn't stop any clan from doing the above in my second paragraph for the next 2-3 months.
Of course I can now find a couple of them posting endless horseshit in the BT mod thread, "NS2 is dead" "Game is boring" "Clans disbanding because game is shit, old clans would come back with a slew of pandering NS1 themed changes". And they're all fucking wrong, the damage has been done, the typical answer 3-4 months ago was "Just join a server that isn't stacked get good I play with friends nothing stops you from making a clan and counter stacking umad lololol", now there's barely 1 server past 10-11pm.
Three months ago NS2 in Aus prime time (7pm - 11pm) would hover just above 2k concurrent players, consistently above DoD S since release, now it doesn't even get into the steam top 100.
Half the responses in this thread would lead me to believe comp players stacking servers had nothing to do with it, avin a fookan giggle m8s.
tl;dr: Stop stacking to be relevant.
Our public servers are empty more often than not, and when they're not, the skill level is so low I can't join a match without breaking the balance, even if I go Gorge or Welder only. And this is not new -- the brazilian community has been dead like this for 3 months. You might find some of us playing in random NA servers, though.
The Gorgeous patch helped resurrect a few players and brought a bunch more into the game, but a week later they barely filled a single server. Maybe "the performance is bad" is a good argument there, but I'm pretty sure that's not the only reason. In the free weekend, some veteran players looking forward to an easy ego boost did an excellent job of repelling those rookies away from the game.
Due to CiB being inactive at the moment, the only options I have are mercing for other teams, playing gathers, or joining a pub game. As you can see, scrims and gathers don't happen all the time, and I don't feel like playing gathers anymore now that my team is doing well. That leaves me with public servers.
Or doing something else.