Rambling about skill difference
DedGuy
Join Date: 2010-12-28 Member: 76002Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2010-12-28 Member: 76002Members, Reinforced - Shadow
I was a late joiner to NS2. I really only picked it up a couple of months ago - I played in the alpha, but got put off by shaky performance. 2 months ago I bothered to reinstall and since then, I've been hooked. I play on average 15-20 hours per week and have done since the day I picked it back up again. Unfortunately, I fly to Africa next week to do a stint of 3 months working somewhere remote, and I'm seriously concerned about the fact I really don't think that there's going to be a playerbase when I come back.
I'm only going to refer to pub-play here - I'm not massively interested in competitive player (barring the occasional stream) - but it seems to me that NS2 as a game and a community has become completely and utterly unappealing to new players. Every game needs new players - a decent stream, as there will always be a level of attrition amongst vets regardless of game quality, and right now NS2 simply does not have it.
Why? Because they suck. Because rookies, newbies, and pretty much anyone that's played less than fifty hours get stomped hard due to the skill level of those people who have played a large amount. The skill differential is astounding. Far, far too many pub games are decided by simply which team one or two players decide to join. There's little competition, and it's driving new players away.
Most of my gamer friends I've tried so hard to get involved - some lasted an hour, some lasted fifteen. Noone lasted much longer than that. Most quit because they sucked, and they were sick of sucking in every single game. These are players that I've seen completely and utterly dominate elsewhere, in other games - and they just couldn't cope. People like to win, and newbies just cannot do that - they seem like they don't have a chance before they even start. When they do win, they see it as being carried to victory.
As much as you can tell people to "keep trying, you'll improve!" or "everyone contributes to victory!" it is both disheartening and demoralising to continually get your head knawed off by lerks or pinpoint accuracy. The server I regularly play on has a decent crowd that in many respects tries to help out greens, or those that don't seem to know what they're doing for the most part. I like that. Except for commanders. That's the worst. Everybody hates rookie commanders. Every time a green jumps in? Vote, eject. Or scream until they quit. Why? Because they SUCK. Noone ever gives rookie commanders a chance as they know they'll lose. Equally a rookie commander will almost never win, so will be reluctant to keep trying (and get shouted at!)
And that sucks in itself, it really does. Especially when they RTS element is one of the main hooks that draws people in - when someone is interested in playing because of the commander role they'll quickly get that idea removed from their brain after their first attempt.
However....
Skill is skill. You cannot equalise things so that everyone is the same - skill is hard earned. Experienced players love to dominate - I love to dominate. If the game were designed so skill mattered little, then where's the joy in advancement or learning to play? You enjoy a kill because you outclassed your opponent somehow - if the mechanics don't allow you to do that, and a newbie has the same potential to kill you as a vet, then where's the fun?
I think this is a catch-22. No fun for newbies as too hard to learn, decrease skill differentials and there's little benefit in keeping playing as you don't improve as much.
There's only one solution I can see - SPLIT EVERYONE UP.
Please, please - introduce rookie only servers. Or a server cvar that lets you dictate an "hours played" value. If there were rookie servers (<10 hours), intermediate servers (10-50 hours, 50-100 hours, 100-150 hours) and vet servers (200 plus) I really do think you'd get a significantly higher retention rate on newbies. People would progress, get better, retain balance.
I know it's imperfect - there's plenty of players I know who suck at 150 hours or are pro at 10... but short of ranked and matchmaking how else can you spread players through servers based roughly on experience?
(please note, before you say it - I don't advocate having this and solely this. Just let people have the option of playing with their own experience level).
Or maybe it's too late, and the playerbase has shrunk too much to even allow something like this.
I want a game to keep playing.
</rant>
I'm only going to refer to pub-play here - I'm not massively interested in competitive player (barring the occasional stream) - but it seems to me that NS2 as a game and a community has become completely and utterly unappealing to new players. Every game needs new players - a decent stream, as there will always be a level of attrition amongst vets regardless of game quality, and right now NS2 simply does not have it.
Why? Because they suck. Because rookies, newbies, and pretty much anyone that's played less than fifty hours get stomped hard due to the skill level of those people who have played a large amount. The skill differential is astounding. Far, far too many pub games are decided by simply which team one or two players decide to join. There's little competition, and it's driving new players away.
Most of my gamer friends I've tried so hard to get involved - some lasted an hour, some lasted fifteen. Noone lasted much longer than that. Most quit because they sucked, and they were sick of sucking in every single game. These are players that I've seen completely and utterly dominate elsewhere, in other games - and they just couldn't cope. People like to win, and newbies just cannot do that - they seem like they don't have a chance before they even start. When they do win, they see it as being carried to victory.
As much as you can tell people to "keep trying, you'll improve!" or "everyone contributes to victory!" it is both disheartening and demoralising to continually get your head knawed off by lerks or pinpoint accuracy. The server I regularly play on has a decent crowd that in many respects tries to help out greens, or those that don't seem to know what they're doing for the most part. I like that. Except for commanders. That's the worst. Everybody hates rookie commanders. Every time a green jumps in? Vote, eject. Or scream until they quit. Why? Because they SUCK. Noone ever gives rookie commanders a chance as they know they'll lose. Equally a rookie commander will almost never win, so will be reluctant to keep trying (and get shouted at!)
And that sucks in itself, it really does. Especially when they RTS element is one of the main hooks that draws people in - when someone is interested in playing because of the commander role they'll quickly get that idea removed from their brain after their first attempt.
However....
Skill is skill. You cannot equalise things so that everyone is the same - skill is hard earned. Experienced players love to dominate - I love to dominate. If the game were designed so skill mattered little, then where's the joy in advancement or learning to play? You enjoy a kill because you outclassed your opponent somehow - if the mechanics don't allow you to do that, and a newbie has the same potential to kill you as a vet, then where's the fun?
I think this is a catch-22. No fun for newbies as too hard to learn, decrease skill differentials and there's little benefit in keeping playing as you don't improve as much.
There's only one solution I can see - SPLIT EVERYONE UP.
Please, please - introduce rookie only servers. Or a server cvar that lets you dictate an "hours played" value. If there were rookie servers (<10 hours), intermediate servers (10-50 hours, 50-100 hours, 100-150 hours) and vet servers (200 plus) I really do think you'd get a significantly higher retention rate on newbies. People would progress, get better, retain balance.
I know it's imperfect - there's plenty of players I know who suck at 150 hours or are pro at 10... but short of ranked and matchmaking how else can you spread players through servers based roughly on experience?
(please note, before you say it - I don't advocate having this and solely this. Just let people have the option of playing with their own experience level).
Or maybe it's too late, and the playerbase has shrunk too much to even allow something like this.
I want a game to keep playing.
</rant>
Comments
Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much though. The luajit stuff is showing some really promising performance boosts, the bt mod has some great ideas and is hopefully gonna make NS2 a better game overall, there is new content being developed (maps and whatnot), bots for training to help out the newbies etc... With all of that good stuff in the pipeline, I'd say the end of summer would be the perfect time anyway to "relaunch" the game with an advertised free weekend, and bring in some fresh meat that should stick around a bit longer.
For those with a brain, however: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/130486/rookie-only-servers/p1
I don't know if I advocate intermediate servers etc etc but in all honesty, what would be worse than the system we currently have?
Rookie only servers wont work. Noobs need to be spoon fed otherwise they will have to use their brain, we dont want that, god forbid they ever pick up bad habits ! Speaking of bad habits, thank goodness we have Bots, theres no way noobs will ever pick up bad habits now that they can do some intensive karate kid style training against bots
dont worry, Luajit will solve everything ! We dont need to make any more changes to the game because its perfect, after all, only perfect games can be chosen by PCGamer top 25 fps shooter list.
Had 3 Australian (ex) comp players in a server last night for 4-5 rounds, 2 aliased 1 tagged, always on the same team, regardless of the fact they lost the majority of the rounds the only thing I know they took away from that is "Need to get more comp players online next time and stomp some noobs" not "That was some GGs even tho I lost and had the chance to teach some new dudes something".
This particular game has always been horrible for it, back in NS 1 it was easily the largest complaint outside of electrify res and something that stopped people from permanently changing from DoD/CS.
In the interim I think if UWE fixed the in game team random so it actually fucking Ready Roomed everyone before randoming would go a little way to fixing it, but random teams is usually worse.
Dominating crappers is a waste of time, numbers out of arse I would assume 9/10 competitive players in highly competitive FPS (CS:GO) have no time for pub stomping yet it seems NS2 'pros' can't do anything but dedicate hour after hour of team stacking and pub stomping.
In other games there are other teams to scrim, enough teams that you can almost dedicate 80%+ of your time playing the game in a scrim/match. Not possible in NS2, you either play on a pub or don't play at all.
I can only assume you are talking about 3 srs guys playing on the BT server last night... We played 2-3 rounds and there was no organisation or stacking a team, we simply play on the team we want to play on.
First we must have a bigger casual player base...this is the only way you will end up with enough teams to scrim with.
Simply going into pubs and stomping (as often happens) does nothing to help the casual player want to hang around.
Things like handicapping yourself (pistol only, playing gorge or similar) can help minimise the impact better players have.
This is a catch 22 situation, there may not be enough clans to scrim now...but with the level of stomping a lot of new palyers are subjected to...there never will be.
This game is far from accessible to new players...thats an issue as the player base wont grow...which means comp scene wont grow..which means you wont have enough teams to scrim against reguarly....leaving you no option to to play on ever dwindling pub servers.
I am not saying you cant play with your mates...but I think there is often little regard for the experience of other players...and the need to build a bigger casual gaming community if we want this game to grow and not shrink.
I'm sure most comp players don't go into a server with the intention of stomping people, its just happens naturally because people > other people. It is a important lesson learned in life and you have either two options; accept it or try and be better yourself.
Nah BT isn't real NS2 m8, this was later on a vanilla server but you can already see how making a sweeping statement like above could apply to 10-15 different people at different times for different reasons but with the same result.
Nothing stops 12 comp players from playing on a pub server provided they made half an effort to split up and make rounds interesting and the tears would end, we both know that rarely happens if at all.
As I said you could always go pistol only, gorge only...swap between teams (so you dont stomp the same players thorugh out an entire map).
The issue with dwindling player numbers (and as such available servers) is a result of players not liking getting ground into the ground by players who are clearly above their level.
I have played many games against you over the months/years and sure a challenge can be fun at time...but sometime i feel like just having fun without pushing myself and seeing a server with 3-4 comp players stomping causes me to go find another server (even OS ones...would rather play with a 400 ping).
Granted you/we need more clans to scrim against..but that will only happen if we have a bigger casual gaming pool that can feed into the comp scene.
hate to say it, but winning is fun. a good game is also fun, but a good game where you win is usually even moreso. having fun while not really playing to win, can be construed as a minor form of trolling. Hell, i'll go gorge or build bitch if i think it'll even the teams out a bit, but at the end of the day, i want my team to win the game and will jump to a more active role if my team seems to be losing steam. gimping yourself is fine, semi-trolling your team is fine, as long as you still win in the end. hell, me jumping in the comm chair is usually semi-trolling for me. i'm much more useful on the ground... particularly as i'm pretty mediocre as a comm.
Simply because I stand a better chance of getting kills with the base lifeform...even more as the game progresses and weapons/armour upgrades are researched.
I have won many alien games that honestly were not fun to play....and the inverse is true as marines (had some great fun in losing games).
If winning was the be all and end all then UWE would not have said that both sides being fun to play was as important as both sides having 50-50 win rate.
I see this argument all the time, and it's so meaningless that it hurts. I like to win, winning is fun, and there, I've toppled your argument. People with a competitive nature enjoy playing to win. It's not necessarily the victory itself that's important, but people like us cannot enjoy a game unless we actually try to achieve the things we're meant to achieve. A handicap might work, but this game doesn't cater well to it. Playing with pistol only is boring, playing with gorge only is boring, playing to undo achievements you made on the other team is boring and there is no real "handicap" system with which you could have your health lowered by a percentage. Playing a role you don't enjoy as a handicap is too much asked, as we have a right to enjoyment too, something that you seem to miss.
And it's all good and well to once again use the bad player retention as proof for bashing item X (so we've been through performance, player skill, skulk movement, shotguns...?), but it's getting rather dull. How is it possible that any game ever can have a healthy player base, since there will always be players dominating other players? There are other games out there that don't implement matchmaking, have huge skill caps, but can still sustain players.
Don't take this as me approving pubstomping, however. It's selfish and annoying, and something ought to be done to split the skill levels up. But as long as things are as they are, blame the system, not the players. The competitive scene isn't healthy enough to be playing other teams all the time. Hell, most of the time you won't even find another team whole day. And at other times you just feel like not playing so seriously, maybe listening to some music and playing through your speakers while playing. That's when us competitive players go to pub servers, kill some time while enjoying not having to take everything so seriously. Blame the system, not the players, as it's extremely hypocritical to deny us our enjoyment.
So I really agree with the OP.. it was a problem in NS1 and we had some ideas on how to fix it but never went down that road. I think think online stats, ranks and matchmaking is something that valve should add to the steam SDK to allow developers to provide similar kinds of experiences that are standard on consoles now, because I think it is outside the reach of what an indie studio can achive, even one as excellent as UWE.
And just remember kids... everyone plays for fun.. we just disagree on what is fun sometimes!
Let me put it this way
Low quality servers + trashcan team mates vs pros together in voIP
I didn't even put effort into the match, not because I don't think I can beat them but because the game requires teamwork, and those two players working alone can outdo an entire team of trashcans (literally the people on my team aren't even worth of being on an open team) and that's why matching services based off of ELO fail. Ranking up should solely be based on wins, I have no issue facing cs pros because of my skill level but facing them partied while I get solo groups on my team.. not right (and also a solo Q should be a solo Q)
Now for anyone quitting ns2 because of being stomped, they are simply "spoonfed players" or "ragers" they want a nice launch up and shoot people easily call of duty games, and hey that's available for them; I showed my friend this game and he was gone within a few hours because he just cannot handle being shitted on
Now of course this game is available to players of all skill levels and should be that way, but there should always be a large difference between the best and a newcomer (something a lot of modern games fail at doing) it's up to the server admins to keep rookie servers filled with rookies; a newcomer vs a newcomer should be a fine experience. The hardcore vs a newcomer can be a turn off for some I know that; for me I love it. I want to be destroyed as many times as possible because through that I learn, I learn how I died, what the player did, some meta involved and etc.. and just keep on improving that way. Same for all my games which is why I can say I'm a competent player
anyway it's early and i'm rambling idk what I even just wrote
So whilst you dont condone pubstomping...how would you propose players who are clearly leagues ahead of others on the server dont pub stomp if they dont set some sort of handicap for themselves (it often leads to being a better player in the long run).
The reason the comp scene is not healthy..is that the casual scene is not big enough...you cant have a healthy comp scene if there is no real casual player base for potential new comp players to come from (its not a 1 for 1 ratio).
All I am trying to do is point out, as other have that we need to look after the grass roots...otherwise we wont have either a comp or a casual playing scene worth a note.
There are a few top players that will play with handicaps...heck have witnessed some even swap teams to join the losing team (was appreciated by those of us on the losing side...sure we still lost but seeing a player recognise they were a cut above and on the winning side actually change to the losing side is what helps foster a good community).
Just a shame that perhaps the actions of only a handful of players who put themselves ahead of the game can have such a negative impact on the game community.
By all mean...go to a pub server and take things less seriously...but be considerate of the others on the servers and how your 50-1 K:D ratio is impacting the enjoyment of newer/less skilled players.
You dont get better playing against ppl of a lower calibre...you get better by being challenged...leave your serious game face for comp games...and perhaps run around with a pistol instead of taking a JP and SG...or stick to gorge, go lerk and only use spikes, change teams half way through a round (or after say 5 min)...there are a range of ways to minimise your impact.
Sadly it seems ppl want to play on a certain team with certain ppl...and dont really care how this impacts others.
1) While playing a role you want whichever way you want on public servers is selfish from a competent (not necessarily competitive) player, it's just as selfish to assume that the community should cater to the lowest common denominator and have new players have an easy time on the expense of better players. This is why I said "blame the system, not the players". I do not have any ideas how to make this better, since the community is already too small for any matchmaking system to work properly, and there is no way of giving a good player a handicap without also forcing him to play differently, perhaps in a way that they don't find enjoyable. A better system is needed, this is 100% true, but I personally don't have any ideas.
2) This might not be as big a problem as you, along with others, make it out to be. I don't know, it might be. But I've played a lot of games without matchmaking that had massive skill gaps and frustration caused by it, but they still sustained good player counts. I have it much easier believing that most players stop playing because of performance and a steep learning curve than because of skill gaps. I do not know, but neither do you.
You complain of 3 players stacking a team yet they lost most of the rounds they played on? I"m sorry but grow a pair please. Your post reeks of the "I don't want to be challenged so you good people play some where else".
Sorry but a low playerbase "comp" players can't just go instantly find a game with people of their skill level. Most of the time I log onto mumble. See out of my team only 2-3 others are online so I open ns2, sort by lowest ping and join the first server that has a slot...I suspect that is what most people do good or bad. While I agree team stacking (AND WINNING) is bad, especially those 6-8 min rounds you can't expect players not to play just because the skill in the server is low.
Personally I would like to see a random option that accounts for ELO from NS2 stats or some where. While the player base is small that would help when people want to use the "sv_stackall" function and instead it hopefully split up the skill better.
Or remove kills/deaths and ratio won't be important. I could care less about my individual stats on tab, the only thing I hit tab for to see if people are dead/spawning or the match length. The only thing that matters is the win, and that's what I come to do
There is no simply solution for what they/we should do...but clear examples of what we/they shouldn't do.
By avoiding the later we will help build a bigger player base...by simply shrugging our shoulders and taking the "too hard" no easy answer we will just keep heading down the path we are.
The performance issues do play a part...as does the learning curve and the fact marine game play is more fun than aliens (as more frags = more fun).
Having vets join rookie servers and then not changing how they play has been flagged as an issue which some experienced players choose to ignore (whilst others...handicap how they play).
Not everyone can handicap themselves...but you sure as heck can swap teams and play against a superior tech'd enemy (which is a similar challenge to playing equal or better skilled players).
There is a lot we could be doing to try to get the game population back up to something that will facilitate other options such as matchmaking.
Learning curve issues go hand in hand with reward...frags are the reward in fps type games...as marine you can more easily get kills than as alien.
The removal of glancing bites is not going to help new players (who mostly hold mouse one and hope in hell they land some blows) but instead increase their frustration in getting kills.
I found it frustrating when the bite cone originally got nerfed...and whilst I felt glancing blows still didn't totally fix the issue...it helped get a couple of extra kills per game as some bites that would otherwise have been misses did some damage.
Its hard enough to adapt to learning to shoot fast moving aliens, then to learn to take on ranged enemy with only melee attacks makes aliens daunting enough for most ppl...to then throw in the need for almost perfect aim to land a hit is often just that one step too far.
I certainly stopped playing shortly after the bite cone nerf...and waited for the glancing blows before I returned (stuck it out a week or so...and just got annoyed), at the time I was not the only person voicing discontent with the change so I know it was not simply me that felt it an issue.
I really like NS and NS2....but if we simply choose to do nothing NS2 will end up like NS1...and only played by a select few and the active players numbers will dwindle.
Given the time invested by UWE and the community I think this would be a sad thing to happen considering its not even been out for 12 months yet but I know the aus community seems the same size if not smaller now as it was during the beta (and performance blew more chunks back then).
You would not make it into astronomy because you have too little "scope".
The whole point is to allow the server to be changed overnight. Own a server? You can change what "type" it is overnight. Shouldn't it be THAT simple?
in fact every resource-based game has matchmaking... except NS2
it helps the ones with few players so that people can make fair teams when the skill levels aren't equal
it helps the ones with a lot of players so that people can split up and play against their own levels
you guys are just clueless about what matchmaking actually is for... it doesn't have to be like <your favorite piece of trash modern game>
we had organized play back in the 90s with a simple lobby system... and it was fine
But I guess it's too simple. You gotta have some mad algorithms and match history that ends up being just as flawed.
EDIT: Oh yeah, keeping pres when switching teams really needs to come back. Nobody is gonna switch if they lose 70 res.