Handicaps to close skill-gap in Rookie-Friendly servers
sinkingmist
Join Date: 2012-11-22 Member: 172905Members
Join Date: 2012-11-22 Member: 172905Members
I'm not even very good (~200 hours played) but even I can run in as a no-upgrade skulk and take out 4-5 rookie marines.
And I have, in turn, been in cases where I and 3-4 other marines get destroyed by a SINGLE good fade.
Skill makes a big difference, which is great... except when you're a new player simply trying to learn what the hell you're supposed to do.
So, how about handicaps?
When you die, you gain a bonus to health+armor.
This obviously stacks the more you die, and you lose stacks when you get a kill.
It doesn't make sense to have such a system in any "serious match", but if it's a system only enabled on rookie-friendly servers...
And of course, anybody who doesn't want to play in a server with handicaps can just avoid the rookie-friendly servers.
The bonuses should be quite large.
Or, they could start off small, but should increase exponentially.
Because let's be realistic, a rookie with 500% normal health would still lose to most players who have been playing for even a few hundred hours.
And if the bonus becomes too large, it auto-corrects itself because the rookie will get a kill, and the bonus will drop.
Some kind of system would need to be in place to prevent abuse, e.g. intentionally avoiding player kills and only going for buildings.
Such handicaps will make the game more forgiving to new players, while also potentially making it more interesting for the more experienced players (who are playing on rookie-friendly servers), because they don't need to intentionally hold back on the rookies.
And I have, in turn, been in cases where I and 3-4 other marines get destroyed by a SINGLE good fade.
Skill makes a big difference, which is great... except when you're a new player simply trying to learn what the hell you're supposed to do.
So, how about handicaps?
When you die, you gain a bonus to health+armor.
This obviously stacks the more you die, and you lose stacks when you get a kill.
It doesn't make sense to have such a system in any "serious match", but if it's a system only enabled on rookie-friendly servers...
And of course, anybody who doesn't want to play in a server with handicaps can just avoid the rookie-friendly servers.
The bonuses should be quite large.
Or, they could start off small, but should increase exponentially.
Because let's be realistic, a rookie with 500% normal health would still lose to most players who have been playing for even a few hundred hours.
And if the bonus becomes too large, it auto-corrects itself because the rookie will get a kill, and the bonus will drop.
Some kind of system would need to be in place to prevent abuse, e.g. intentionally avoiding player kills and only going for buildings.
Such handicaps will make the game more forgiving to new players, while also potentially making it more interesting for the more experienced players (who are playing on rookie-friendly servers), because they don't need to intentionally hold back on the rookies.
Comments
I raised that in a separate thread. It was pointed out that it would be annoying to be on the receiving end of a nerf but less so for everyone else to be buffed. (Also half damage is a HUGE nerf, we're talking numbers like 95% here not 50%)
It might help to try and keep it simple. Only introduce 3 levels of handicap for example, with values like this:
The levels could be indicated by numbers or ranks (yay!) beside the players names on the scoreboard and ingame.
The problem with working handicaps on deaths is that sacrificing yourself for the greater good is a common part of NS2 play. The resource-biting skulk will usually have a terrible KDR, as will the Marine team that takes basic rifles and goes on daring Harvester pushes... but both are essential to winning the game.
I would rather see stuff changed around the pres system. The idea would be to give NEW players more time with the stuff they purchase. I don't think we should be rewarding shitty players with 250 hrs experience by giving them extra shotguns. New players are the harder ones to keep around and if they constantly die ever 5 seconds they won't be able to play with the cool shit very long.
More health/armor will keep rookie players alive longer, giving them more of a chance to actually do things rather than dying before they even realise what's going on.
A very real turn-off for new players is that the massive skill-gap means they have very little opportunity to even shoot (or bite) back before they are killed.
As to keeping things consistent, remember I'm only suggesting this for rookie-friendly servers.
I would suspect allowing people the time to get a basic grasp on things is more important than having them become really knowledgeable about game mechanics (or making it easier for better players to figure out the optimal way to kill these rookies).
They can move on to a "real" server for that.
My anecdote about killing 4-5 rookies solo isn't just to laugh at the rookies, it's to illustrate that the buffs/nerfs would have to be HUGE.
Remember, 5 rookies isn't just 5 times the health, it's 5 times the damage, and they're STILL LOSING.
A tiny boost may as well be no boost where this kind of skill-gap is concerned.
Probably a better way to do things than adjusting for every kill/death.
Though as above, numbers need to be way bigger (honestly, it'll take even a rookie a long time to go 0:10 k:d, if they haven't left the server in frustration by then).
True, so the adjustment probably needs to take into account some structural damage/kills.
But on the whole, promoting dying for the team to the rookies (by giving them a bonus when they die) doesn't seem like a bad thing?
Maybe by the time they decide to move on to a "real" server, it'll just become habit.
You don't want to handicap players ever, if you want to give them some type of instant 6v6 service where they can pick brackets
1) low skilled
2) mid skilled
3) high skilled
Then immediately be placed into a server with "ping limit here" that would be fine; you don't know who you're facing when you join a server, if you're the sole cause of a steamroll than your opponents simply aren't at your level, that's the problem
In-game handicap is not the solution
Except the player vs player fights are what decides the rookies experience. It's no good giving them a shotgun for free each spawn if some pro Skulk is going to para-2 bite kill them before they even turn around each time. Giving them more health allows them longer to think, longer to move, longer to aim. And it could be made very clear by giving them some kinda of shield effect (nothing that would show up hiding Skulks obviously), the higher their base health the more visible the effect.
This is why I don't like the idea of this being automatic. If someone is struggling let the server admins decided, that's not a hidden effect or open to abusing the algorithm.
Except we don't have a huge player population. Often there will be only one server with free slots that I can join, most of the time that's fine, sometimes I'll completely destroy everyone on that server, other times I'll get completely destroyed. I agree that matchmaking is the proper solution to this problem but it just isn't that viable. Handicap play could be a good in-between measure.
This is why I said to make it clear if a player has this buff applied. Do something like the nano-shield effect. The game is too fast for rookies, as a marine they get killed before they even turn around, as a Skulk they get blown apart peeking round a corner. The only way to meaningfully slow the game down is to give them more health.
If this was implemented, it would make a meaningful difference between rookie-friendly and not, so I would suspect:
1) Many servers would drop the rookie-friendly tag, so handicaps would be disabled.
2) More people would join non-rookie-friendly servers, because I'm sure there will be people who won't want to deal with handicaps, for reasons such as the one you state.
Learning to play the game then suddenly your clip size is less, damage output is changed, hp changed will COMPLETELY change how you play the game. Having a shotgun go from 25 pres to 15 pres (as a random example) would have far less impact on the newbie's newly learned skills.
Even as a simple change as that if it were on very few selected servers I would be hard pressed to vote for this kind of feature. I'm a strong favor of every one should be playing the same game the game should do a better job at not punishing newbies so hard.
EDIT: Actually as an alternative to lowering cost you could make pres build quicker for the green newbies would lower the impact even less since stuff doesn't magically change price one day. They would just be slightly more delayed at getting stuff.
Other handicaps, whatever they might be, would bug me solely because of the fact that good players were rookies once, but how are they good? They kept on playing, they got more skilled, meaning they are dedicated to the game. Now would it be nice to punish them for that?
Yeah that wouldn't totally piss off everyone at all.
I do agree with this sentiment, but given that some players can kill 4 Skulks in a row and others can hardly kill 1 I'm not sure how you fix this without changing the fights. Even if you make pres quicker that doesn't help the early game at all, they're still going to die a lot.
That's all well and good but given that the lack of matchmaking means rookies are getting thrown against div 1 teams, they don't have any fun and so don't stick around to get better. This elitist attitude that you have to be dedicated to NS2 to play it otherwise you may as well get out is one of the reasons NS2 struggles with player retention. If the games going to appeal to a wider audience it either needs proper matchmaking or rookies should have a chance of killing a much better player.
Also it's hardly being punished. If your good enough that it's deemed fair to buff your opponents it makes the game a challenge again allowing you to get even better. Unless you see pub stomping as some sort of reward for having practiced more you shouldn't have any problem with attempts to level the playing field in a public game.
You don't understand my post
Brackets - and servers in those brackets
Not matchmaking
You pick your own bracket (or get placed) and in those brackets are servers, you join and now you're in a server with people on/near your level, teams would have to be picked by players or some type of total W/L effect would have to place teams.
Works for a small group of people, be in a bracket, set a ping limit, automatically be thrown into a server with x amount of people, pick teams, ready up and you're good to go
Not optimal but it'll get the ball rolling, and make it much more enjoyable for people looking for the competitive environment instead of 24 slot non-stop respawn oh look 5 onos 10 exo derpfest
So green rookie servers, white normal servers and red pro servers? I don't object to that. Automatic team balance by tracked stats is also nice, I know some servers already do that. I'd support both of these being added, if it fixed everything then great! If it didn't, well then I'll probably revive this idea again