NSL Season 4 Semi Finals and Finals

Ren26Ren26 Join Date: 2013-06-30 Member: 185811Members
NSL Season 4 has been highly exciting, very refreshing and a huge success after the World Championship. What’s made this season great? What’s coming up next?


New Volunteer Staff - Behind the Scenes

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As you can see from the diagram above, in just 1 week, we had a huge number of different casters, combinations, and referees powering through each match week by week. We’re talking up to 22 matches, 88 rounds, every week for hobbyists like me to get through. That could easily be between 40 and 50 hours of NS2 content weekly for the past few months. Thanks to these guys as well as the audience who made all this so much more fun.

The Balance Mod - Refreshing the Game

Over the course of the season, the game evolved. Within 6v6 competitive matches, we were running the “balance mod”, which served a very simple purpose. To make the game fundamentally fun for players and teams by promoting a strong sense of balance, as well as improving weaker elements of strategy that were underpowered.

It began strong with an overhaul to the cost of Alien upgrades: chambers like Shells and Spurs were cheaper, Biomass was made more affordable, and Lifeform upgrades were reduced in cost too, for an overall cut of spending by about 30% in each case. This made Alien teams stronger at the mid and late game, by allowing them to more easily recover from losing an upgrade chamber, or to spend their resources on valuable improvements to lifeforms rather than static support buildings like Crags.

In the second iteration, personal resource costs for Alien lifeforms were reduced to make comebacks for the Alien team more possible, and allowing the Alien team to take risks more often, promoting more aggressive and exciting gameplay!

Next Steps - Whats coming up!

The weekly games have ended and the tiebreakers and playoffs have begun. Some of these have already been played and you can hunt through the ENSL website for more information and VODs available for those matches. Still remaining to be played are the Premier teams’ semi finals and finals matches, where we will see the top 4 teams battle for the first place of the season!

The Legendary Snails, an extremely confident and powerful team, highly aggressive, but at a cost to their defence;
Titus Gaming, the American strategists with excellent tracking accuracy and a highly intelligent and adaptive commander;
The Saunamen, wonderfully consistent with strong discipline and an extremely impressive Marine lineup
Team Imagine, reckless underdogs having demonstrated some phenomenal teamwork, great communication and strong performance when morale is high.

The deadline for the semi finals is June 22nd, so you can expect the first set of matches within the next two weeks. Its a best of 7 so the first team to get 4 rounds moves on to the finals.

Choose your map, choose your side and play for the number one spot!

Comments

  • RedDogRedDog Las Vegas Join Date: 2013-02-22 Member: 183267Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Awesome writeup, Ren!

    Keep it up, guys! You all are doing a fantastic job!
  • YaluzanYaluzan Join Date: 2013-07-30 Member: 186474Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester
    That document is Classified! GET IT OUT OF HERE!
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    >>Reddog posting habits slowly increasing.
    >>Red-baby cast confirmed for Finals match.
    >>GG no re
  • CCTEECCTEE Join Date: 2013-06-20 Member: 185634Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    @Ren26 made new 'logo' for you, while on my quest for ever greater paintnet skills.
    ren26.jpg

    havent figured out how to cut decently lol
    also letter-colours are still random-clicking-until-the-colours-change
  • current1ycurrent1y Join Date: 2003-12-08 Member: 24150Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    edited June 2014
    That chart is very confusing. I've looked at it a while and still trying to figure out what each sections are.
  • Ren26Ren26 Join Date: 2013-06-30 Member: 185811Members
    Each row on that chart is for a match that week. To the left you would see two team names, a time/date and match info link.
  • ZeframZefram Join Date: 2004-05-11 Member: 28611Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts, Retired Community Developer
    current1y wrote: »
    That chart is very confusing. I've looked at it a while and still trying to figure out what each sections are.
    The headers are at the top. It's part of the NSL Staff sign up google doc. Basically all those names are volunteers who have agreed to cast or referee matches. Here's a better look at what week 1 of the season looked like.

    EJQJsMT.jpg
  • LocklearLocklear [nexzil]kerrigan Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151403Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Zefram wrote: »
    this is the best time in NS2 history to be a competitive player.

    This. x99

    HMG coming soon. Dat excite.
  • RapGodRapGod Not entirely sure... Join Date: 2013-11-12 Member: 189322Members
    edited June 2014
    Locklear wrote: »
    Zefram wrote: »
    this is the best time in NS2 history to be a competitive player.

    This. x99

    HMG coming soon. Dat excite.

    Nvm lol
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    edited June 2014
    We really need to congratulate all the casters this season who made an incredible job since the starting of the season. Most of them decided to cast NS2 for the first time, I can mention some people (It's Super Effective!, @Feathermonster, etc) but I do not forget the others. Same thing for Referees like @Yaluzan who is doing this job since so many time + all the new volunteers who joined the staff for Season 4. But of course, it's also teams that participate to the events, making them possible & awesome. NS2 is a small community, and all this, permitting us to know everybody & keep this game more human is definitely the most important thing to remember.
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    Looking forward to the playoffs and any events Zefram has planned for the summer. :D
  • dePARAdePARA Join Date: 2011-04-29 Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
    Nice writeup Ren,

    BUT

    ENSL is more than only the 5 premium div teams
  • CuelCuel Join Date: 2013-01-22 Member: 181295Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited June 2014
    Pretty much every day when eating dinner I've watched some rounds. It has been a great season
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