Many people sort the server browser by playercount. Those servers will be in the top of the list.
This point is as strong as simple.
On large servers, RTS takes over FPS, this is very intersting and a natural way for a player to favor one over another:
FPS / personnal skills => Small server
RTS / coordinating masses => Large server
Just as a disclaimer, I play primarily on high population servers. So think of me as you wish.
I have read nearly all of this thread, and a lot of good points have come up, but... one thing has become obvious to me. People keep saying that Large populayion servers are not "true" "real" or "pure" NS2 yet give no evidence for this claim. Previous posts have stated that aparently 40% of the player base prefer high population servers, statistically speaking, that means that, at a maximum, another game mode is 50% (40*1.5=60) more popular, but with Seige, Last stand, comp, combat, 10v10 and other game modes its entirely possable that NS2Large is the most popular game mode in all of NS2.
If it is true that NS2Large is the most popular game mode, then mathematically, NS2Large is the True NS2 and the people who are going on about 6v6 ect are technically just the vocal minority.
Just as a disclaimer, I play primarily on high population servers. So think of me as you wish.
I have read nearly all of this thread, and a lot of good points have come up, but... one thing has become obvious to me. People keep saying that Large populayion servers are not "true" "real" or "pure" NS2 yet give no evidence for this claim. Previous posts have stated that aparently 40% of the player base prefer high population servers, statistically speaking, that means that, at a maximum, another game mode is 50% (40*1.5=60) more popular, but with Seige, Last stand, comp, combat, 10v10 and other game modes its entirely possable that NS2Large is the most popular game mode in all of NS2.
If it is true that NS2Large is the most popular game mode, then mathematically, NS2Large is the True NS2 and the people who are going on about 6v6 ect are technically just the vocal minority.
Think about that for a moment.
Please, look at the question and these numbers again:
Which PUBLIC SERVER SIZE do you like playing on?
14 Players | 47 | 22.6 %
16 Players | 93 | 44.7 %
18 Players | 86 | 41.3 %
20 Players | 64 | 30.8 %
24 Players | 51 | 24.5 %
More than 24 Players | 81 | 38.9 %
I am unsure / I don't know | 5 | 2.4 %
It was not about preference and it was not about slot count in general.
It was about which public server size those 208 people like playing on. You may like to play 6vs6, but also like to play on >24 slot server.
Most people like playing on a 16 slot server.
And I've said it already, it is not about what people like.
The game was designed for 12 - 24 slot servers. Balancewise and performancewise. It even failed at that, if you ask me.
So called "NS2Large" servers suggest that it is NS2 on a bigger scale, like the battlefield game modes conquest and conquest large, but this is not the case.
The conquest large modes in battlefield scale somewhat properly. Higher slot counts means bigger maps and more vehicles. Thats mostly all it needs
"NS2Large" on the otherhand only scales with a another starting IP, while it should scale with map size, life form HP, crag healing, med pack cost, tech cost, weapon damage, etc.
In real ns2 you get an edge over your enemy by harrassing your enemy economy, because that way you will have it easier to kill your enemies.
As a skulk you sneak past the marine front line in order to bite their resource towers in order to pull them back, so they can not constantly pressure your hive or your RTs.
As a marine you want to constantly check your map and stand in a position that makes it hard or impossible for skulk to get through your lines.
On >24 slot servers this doesn't work, because of the sheer amount of players, that are everywhere on the map. The marines are blocking everything automatically, and if you manage to get past them, you're already running into the marine respawn.
That is actually my point. It scares off potential new players who could easily be better players right from the start. They lose interest because they play with default client settings on a >24 slot server.
Feels like you posting from year 2013. Client performance has been increased a lot and over the time, new and better hardware came out. NS2Large is running fine with mid ranged computer that are a year old or two.
My computer is from 2001 (back then high end) and it runs fine on these servers... Just in the endgame when a base gets rushed and every alien and marine is in one room I have drops to 20fps... Otherwise just fine. And these servers don't frustrate new players because you get help there.
That is actually my point. It scares off potential new players who could easily be better players right from the start. They lose interest because they play with default client settings on a >24 slot server.
Feels like you posting from year 2013. Client performance has been increased a lot and over the time, new and better hardware came out. NS2Large is running fine with mid ranged computer that are a year old or two.
My computer is from 2001 (back then high end) and it runs fine on these servers... Just in the endgame when a base gets rushed and every alien and marine is in one room I have drops to 20fps... Otherwise just fine. And these servers don't frustrate new players because you get help there.
That is actually my point. It scares off potential new players who could easily be better players right from the start. They lose interest because they play with default client settings on a >24 slot server.
Feels like you posting from year 2013. Client performance has been increased a lot and over the time, new and better hardware came out. NS2Large is running fine with mid ranged computer that are a year old or two.
My computer is from 2001 (back then high end) and it runs fine on these servers... Just in the endgame when a base gets rushed and every alien and marine is in one room I have drops to 20fps... Otherwise just fine. And these servers don't frustrate new players because you get help there.
Any seasoned player should be able to notice the obvious difference in performance though, and not just clientside but server side. Every now and then and I check out these larger servers and when I do the difference is obvious to me.
On average, the server update rate is 1/3rd less (it never gets better than this, btw, as it's permanently limited) and occasionally it dips to 1/2 the default server rate.
This isn't anecdotal, you can see it yourself
The game is less responsive and more prone to issues at those rates (increased hitreg errors, increased deaths around corners, collision issues, delays)
So if your argument is that a seasoned player noticed these things and still decides to play... ok.. but then how can they make any claims as to the "quality" of their experience being better there?
The thing is the quality of play isn't only about performance and graphics, it's also gameplay. So YES, the performance on these large servers is much worse, however if someone prefers the way the game is played at this player count, then you can't deny that they get higher play quality from the larger servers then they do from the smaller ones.
I also understand the argument that bigger servers don't die as much because they have more players, and all the other typical arguments that try to justify that large servers aren't actually that popular, but at the end of the day the fact that so many people play on them really goes to show they they are appreciated by many people. These servers also need to be seeded from 0 players to full, and it happens everyday, that's gotta mean something.
Honestly, to each their own, don't know why some people can't just let the players choose what they want to play and be ok with it.
My computer is from 2001 (back then high end) and it runs fine on these servers... Just in the endgame when a base gets rushed and every alien and marine is in one room I have drops to 20fps... Otherwise just fine.
larger population servers put less strain on an individual and also help dilute an individuals impact on the game. in an 8 vs 8 a single veteran would badly impact the game compared to in a 15 vs 15. In my honest opinion its eaiser for a new player to adjust to the chaos of a 42 man server than it is to play against veterans on a 14 man server.
Giving new players options is surely better than only giving them one option. That is to play on the low pop servers and most likely against far better players.
whilst the rookie servers help with this issue it also hinders it due to the fact that few higher population servers would always be more successful at maintaining enough of a player count to keep people playing than lots of low population servers who will likely be mostly empty. In an 8 vs 8 if 4 people leave after a match it can kill the server, but in a 42 player server if 10 people left it wouldnt stop the server.
just because the engine sucks and struggle to handle more than 15 players doesnt change the fact that higher population servers in games help retain a player base far better than lots of small pop servers.
The thing is the quality of play isn't only about performance and graphics, it's also gameplay.
1) I never mentioned graphics?
2) Gameplay IS negatively impacted by performance!?
Try a shotgun meatshot on that celerity blinking fade with a tickrate of 15 and tell me how much you enjoy the experience of missing when you should've hit.
Explain to me how people feel these servers are "quality" when they are rubberbanding and you're dying around corners worse than before?
I never even touched on degraded FPS and the impacts of that on gameplay. The poor server performance alone disrupts the gameplay enough to be the only example needed.
don't know why some people can't just let the players choose what they want to play and be ok with it.
I am pretty sure that's exactly what happens: we let the players choose.
However, lots of people take issue with this purely because of the poor presentation and gameplay it provides.
You can go blue in the face talking about what things you do enjoy from the experience... but you're not convincing anyone who is seasoned across many servers that the experience overall is of higher quality. It is less.
The nuanced and subjective factors between normal and larger servers, like balance or spam gameplay or tactics etc, can't even be discussed or considered until the measurable performance issues and differences THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT GAMEPLAY are resolved first.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
@IronHorse You are missing the point to some degree though about these huge servers. Of course the performance/hitreg card is instantly pulled by the seasoned players and yes the engine is not performing as intended alongside the gameplay...
However not all players know they are rubberbanding and not landing shots due to bad hitreg on the ns2large servers. And, here's the thing... They also do not care one bit, even after being told about it... All they want is that safety among numbers and pure chaos of many teammates around you.
These are the kinds of players that have not idea about ELO or K/D/team effort, they just want to shoot a lot of things that move. In essence they just want to have fun... And the only way they can have fun in the lands of NS2 is in the relative safety of numbers. You can't expect these players to step into the role of a marine or alien with actual responsibilities to the team as is the case on lower populous servers. The interest just is not there for taking their game up a level.
Next is just a general annoyance I see, but still related to these kinds of players...
The choice for newbies who have never had any reason to check their server browser settings or even know about the filters has been influenced in a very odd way... Ya know the "NS2" vs "ALL" servers on default, they probably cannot find their servers... That is also an issue right now and it really makes me wonder how come there is ONCE AGAIN this trying to piss off a part of the community. I want to believe unintentionally, but as I said this is a "ONCE AGAIN" moment... Just makes me wonder, WHY do this... Don't hide modded servers, just slap a popup on there with an option for a mod logo or something...
The thing is the quality of play isn't only about performance and graphics, it's also gameplay.
1) I never mentioned graphics?
2) Gameplay IS negatively impacted by performance!?
Try a shotgun meatshot on that celerity blinking fade with a tickrate of 15 and tell me how much you enjoy the experience of missing when you should've hit.
Explain to me how people feel these servers are "quality" when they are rubberbanding and you're dying around corners worse than before?
I never even touched on degraded FPS and the impacts of that on gameplay. The poor server performance alone disrupts the gameplay enough to be the only example needed.
don't know why some people can't just let the players choose what they want to play and be ok with it.
I am pretty sure that's exactly what happens: we let the players choose.
However, lots of people take issue with this purely because of the poor presentation and gameplay it provides.
You can go blue in the face talking about what things you do enjoy from the experience... but you're not convincing anyone who is seasoned across many servers that the experience overall is of higher quality. It is less.
The nuanced and subjective factors between normal and larger servers, like balance or spam gameplay or tactics etc, can't even be discussed or considered until the measurable performance issues and differences THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT GAMEPLAY are resolved first.
My point is that even if the performance is worse on large servers, for some people the actual gameplay created by the high player counts outweighs this, which makes large servers provides better "quality" gameplay for those people. The simple fact that there are ns2 players out there who would rather play on a large player count server vs a normal one proves this, and no one can argue that. Hence, the whole premise that large servers are worst than smaller ones just because of performance is really just stupid, since DIFFERENT PLAYERS LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS (go figure).
My point is that even if the performance is worse on large servers, for some people the actual gameplay created by the high player counts outweighs this, which makes large servers provides better "quality" gameplay for those people
Prove it.
Run a 64 player server (beat the competition!) on your laptop.
Let's put your theory to a test.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited April 2016
Hehe well, people do tend to blame their inabilities on a lot of things rather than themselves: HAX, LAG, HITREG, FPS, STUTTER, MOUSE LAG etc... Even on servers/games that perform 100% perfectly fine
And to jump in to that "prove it" bit. They don't play to win, they play to shoot moving things. Heck nades and bilebombs are probably the preferred weapon cause they do AOE damage. Try one of them Wooza's and see how many explosion/min you can count
Worst blizzard in a decade. I guess sucks for them climate change people. Let's all pack up because pebp has a single data point.
First need to account for rookies, gotta account for comms, average skill in the period seems to hover between 1200 to 1500... Which isn't great considering a guy with 30 hours could be floating at 1k for absolutely no reason.
If you have a hive skill of 0 that means you can get balanced out by a guy at 2500 fairly easily.
The res graph tells the story. Many of the games Marines were stuck on one extractor.
And a lot seem to end under 10 minutes.
A really shitty comm and not enough people knowing how to eject might do that.
With hive the way it is now, 1000 hive score is essentially 0. Too many factors could contribute to a lopsided win streak to draw any reasonable conclusion.
Remember people. Confidence intervals of 95 percent basically means there's a one in 20 shot that our results are completely fucking random.
The median hive skill for players with at least 50 hours recorded is 1121. So when you say average skill hovers between 1200-1500 you are a bit high. 1500 is actually considerably high skill given the 75th percentile of skill is 1582.
If I consider all players, not just those with 50 hours or more, those values drop considerably. So if a server has skill between 1200-1500 then it is actually pretty high.
Continueing my self apointed role as devil's advocate, I have something I must mention from my own time playing this game.
I suck.
I cant aim worth poop, im good at following orders and whatever, but I just cant add a significant help to my team. When I started NS2 and I tried normal population servers my team would lose 100% of the time, it was depressing, and I dont use that word lightly. Nothing I could do would make me enjoy the game becouse every atempts to help was rewarded with 50 deaths and no kills.
Then I found high population servers, sudenly my total lack of skill as a rookie didnt matter. I still sucked, dont get me wrong, I was truly awful, but I could at least feel like I was helping becouse my team still had a chance of winning in spite of my eforts. Now many months later I consider my self to be a pretty compitent player, I wont say im a pro, but every once and a while my actions directly help my team win, and that is all I ever wanted. I enjoy playing this game becouse high population servers gave me the ability too. I was constantly surpunded by people who where better then me, but rather then being nothing more then free points, I could watch them play and learn how to be better my self.
I play NS2 regulary, I have even bought all the DLCs becouse I love the game enough to want to support the devs even more (Its worth noteing that I really hate the map Kodiak, yet still bought the kodiak skin pack).
I personally owe the host of Playground and Hampster wheel a debt of gratitude.
The median hive skill for players with at least 50 hours recorded is 1121. So when you say average skill hovers between 1200-1500 you are a bit high. 1500 is actually considerably high skill given the 75th percentile of skill is 1582.
If I consider all players, not just those with 50 hours or more, those values drop considerably. So if a server has skill between 1200-1500 then it is actually pretty high.
Yeah, I know average hive is stupid low. It's just that at that level it feels like winning and losing is basically a coin flip. I'd say skulks bite at 40 percent or lower and Marines shoot at under 18 at that level. And people still don't have skulk movement down.
Talking of balance is premature, it'd be like talking of balance in a fighting game and trying to draw information from a game between button mashers. The outcome is essentially random.
If average hive skill is "stupid low" and even high skill like 1500 is fairly low, doesn't that indicate something is wrong with how skill scales in ns2?
If average hive skill is "stupid low" and even high skill like 1500 is fairly low, doesn't that indicate something is wrong with how skill scales in ns2?
Actually what it tells me is that win/loss alone is a poor way to measure skill. Especially when you have all the other problems of hive (no seperate values for alien/marine skill, some rookies starting at 1000 while others are 0, etc)
woozaSwitzerlandJoin Date: 2013-11-21Member: 189496Members, Squad Five Blue
Who is reading the comments from @IronHorse ?
I mean his account was last time seen on my server in January 2015.
You should be happy anyways Ironhorse. Thanks to PlayNow and other crap that was implementend, servers that should be dead or have been dead are now populated.
Who is reading the comments from @IronHorse ?
I mean his account was last time seen on my server in January 2015.
You should be happy anyways Ironhorse. Thanks to PlayNow and other crap that was implementend, servers that should be dead or have been dead are now populated.
Its almost like....someone needs to create a ns2Large mod....that scales everything based on playercount...Damage values, respawn times, HP amount.
That is your personal opinion. We decided to stay vanilla and it works.
I wouldn't say it works per se wooza, two most common tactics on the server is either hand grenade / GL spam or pure onos rush (aside from the odd sneaky gorge tunnel) to effectively decide most games. Everything else is prerequisite to those two strategies.
If average hive skill is "stupid low" and even high skill like 1500 is fairly low, doesn't that indicate something is wrong with how skill scales in ns2?
yeah, i think the problem is that 0 vs 1000 thing for rookies.
i took my alt from 0 to 2200ish, and i think it took 250 hours steam time. and god was it a grind. but climbing from 0 to 1000 was pretty fucking hardcore to begin with... every win would only shift maybe 30 points?
for for rookies that start at 0, i imagine they'll be well below 1000 even when they stop being rookies. say at the 400 steam hours mark... meh maybe 600 steam hours mark.
i think hive should maybe converge faster, or should get a hard reset. then we can all climb together
Comments
On large servers, RTS takes over FPS, this is very intersting and a natural way for a player to favor one over another:
FPS / personnal skills => Small server
RTS / coordinating masses => Large server
Great observation. I did not play the matches so I cannot tell which maps were played.
I will try and see if wonton can tell.
I have read nearly all of this thread, and a lot of good points have come up, but... one thing has become obvious to me. People keep saying that Large populayion servers are not "true" "real" or "pure" NS2 yet give no evidence for this claim. Previous posts have stated that aparently 40% of the player base prefer high population servers, statistically speaking, that means that, at a maximum, another game mode is 50% (40*1.5=60) more popular, but with Seige, Last stand, comp, combat, 10v10 and other game modes its entirely possable that NS2Large is the most popular game mode in all of NS2.
If it is true that NS2Large is the most popular game mode, then mathematically, NS2Large is the True NS2 and the people who are going on about 6v6 ect are technically just the vocal minority.
Think about that for a moment.
Please, look at the question and these numbers again:
It was not about preference and it was not about slot count in general.
It was about which public server size those 208 people like playing on. You may like to play 6vs6, but also like to play on >24 slot server.
Most people like playing on a 16 slot server.
And I've said it already, it is not about what people like.
The game was designed for 12 - 24 slot servers. Balancewise and performancewise. It even failed at that, if you ask me.
So called "NS2Large" servers suggest that it is NS2 on a bigger scale, like the battlefield game modes conquest and conquest large, but this is not the case.
The conquest large modes in battlefield scale somewhat properly. Higher slot counts means bigger maps and more vehicles. Thats mostly all it needs
"NS2Large" on the otherhand only scales with a another starting IP, while it should scale with map size, life form HP, crag healing, med pack cost, tech cost, weapon damage, etc.
In real ns2 you get an edge over your enemy by harrassing your enemy economy, because that way you will have it easier to kill your enemies.
As a skulk you sneak past the marine front line in order to bite their resource towers in order to pull them back, so they can not constantly pressure your hive or your RTs.
As a marine you want to constantly check your map and stand in a position that makes it hard or impossible for skulk to get through your lines.
On >24 slot servers this doesn't work, because of the sheer amount of players, that are everywhere on the map. The marines are blocking everything automatically, and if you manage to get past them, you're already running into the marine respawn.
Its for different reasons, but with similar effect.
My computer is from 2001 (back then high end) and it runs fine on these servers... Just in the endgame when a base gets rushed and every alien and marine is in one room I have drops to 20fps... Otherwise just fine. And these servers don't frustrate new players because you get help there.
2001? You are a liar!
I invoke Moore's law and call bs
The thing is the quality of play isn't only about performance and graphics, it's also gameplay. So YES, the performance on these large servers is much worse, however if someone prefers the way the game is played at this player count, then you can't deny that they get higher play quality from the larger servers then they do from the smaller ones.
I also understand the argument that bigger servers don't die as much because they have more players, and all the other typical arguments that try to justify that large servers aren't actually that popular, but at the end of the day the fact that so many people play on them really goes to show they they are appreciated by many people. These servers also need to be seeded from 0 players to full, and it happens everyday, that's gotta mean something.
Honestly, to each their own, don't know why some people can't just let the players choose what they want to play and be ok with it.
There is no tech like good old tech !
Giving new players options is surely better than only giving them one option. That is to play on the low pop servers and most likely against far better players.
whilst the rookie servers help with this issue it also hinders it due to the fact that few higher population servers would always be more successful at maintaining enough of a player count to keep people playing than lots of low population servers who will likely be mostly empty. In an 8 vs 8 if 4 people leave after a match it can kill the server, but in a 42 player server if 10 people left it wouldnt stop the server.
just because the engine sucks and struggle to handle more than 15 players doesnt change the fact that higher population servers in games help retain a player base far better than lots of small pop servers.
2) Gameplay IS negatively impacted by performance!?
Try a shotgun meatshot on that celerity blinking fade with a tickrate of 15 and tell me how much you enjoy the experience of missing when you should've hit.
Explain to me how people feel these servers are "quality" when they are rubberbanding and you're dying around corners worse than before?
I never even touched on degraded FPS and the impacts of that on gameplay. The poor server performance alone disrupts the gameplay enough to be the only example needed.
I am pretty sure that's exactly what happens: we let the players choose.
However, lots of people take issue with this purely because of the poor presentation and gameplay it provides.
You can go blue in the face talking about what things you do enjoy from the experience... but you're not convincing anyone who is seasoned across many servers that the experience overall is of higher quality. It is less.
The nuanced and subjective factors between normal and larger servers, like balance or spam gameplay or tactics etc, can't even be discussed or considered until the measurable performance issues and differences THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT GAMEPLAY are resolved first.
However not all players know they are rubberbanding and not landing shots due to bad hitreg on the ns2large servers. And, here's the thing... They also do not care one bit, even after being told about it... All they want is that safety among numbers and pure chaos of many teammates around you.
These are the kinds of players that have not idea about ELO or K/D/team effort, they just want to shoot a lot of things that move. In essence they just want to have fun... And the only way they can have fun in the lands of NS2 is in the relative safety of numbers. You can't expect these players to step into the role of a marine or alien with actual responsibilities to the team as is the case on lower populous servers. The interest just is not there for taking their game up a level.
Next is just a general annoyance I see, but still related to these kinds of players...
The choice for newbies who have never had any reason to check their server browser settings or even know about the filters has been influenced in a very odd way... Ya know the "NS2" vs "ALL" servers on default, they probably cannot find their servers... That is also an issue right now and it really makes me wonder how come there is ONCE AGAIN this trying to piss off a part of the community. I want to believe unintentionally, but as I said this is a "ONCE AGAIN" moment... Just makes me wonder, WHY do this... Don't hide modded servers, just slap a popup on there with an option for a mod logo or something...
My point is that even if the performance is worse on large servers, for some people the actual gameplay created by the high player counts outweighs this, which makes large servers provides better "quality" gameplay for those people. The simple fact that there are ns2 players out there who would rather play on a large player count server vs a normal one proves this, and no one can argue that. Hence, the whole premise that large servers are worst than smaller ones just because of performance is really just stupid, since DIFFERENT PLAYERS LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS (go figure).
If they do notice, they blame the game instead of the server. (I've seen it personally)
I agree regarding being disappointed that mods are now hidden in the browser.
Prove it.
Run a 64 player server (beat the competition!) on your laptop.
Let's put your theory to a test.
And to jump in to that "prove it" bit. They don't play to win, they play to shoot moving things. Heck nades and bilebombs are probably the preferred weapon cause they do AOE damage. Try one of them Wooza's and see how many explosion/min you can count
First need to account for rookies, gotta account for comms, average skill in the period seems to hover between 1200 to 1500... Which isn't great considering a guy with 30 hours could be floating at 1k for absolutely no reason.
If you have a hive skill of 0 that means you can get balanced out by a guy at 2500 fairly easily.
The res graph tells the story. Many of the games Marines were stuck on one extractor.
And a lot seem to end under 10 minutes.
A really shitty comm and not enough people knowing how to eject might do that.
With hive the way it is now, 1000 hive score is essentially 0. Too many factors could contribute to a lopsided win streak to draw any reasonable conclusion.
Remember people. Confidence intervals of 95 percent basically means there's a one in 20 shot that our results are completely fucking random.
If I consider all players, not just those with 50 hours or more, those values drop considerably. So if a server has skill between 1200-1500 then it is actually pretty high.
I suck.
I cant aim worth poop, im good at following orders and whatever, but I just cant add a significant help to my team. When I started NS2 and I tried normal population servers my team would lose 100% of the time, it was depressing, and I dont use that word lightly. Nothing I could do would make me enjoy the game becouse every atempts to help was rewarded with 50 deaths and no kills.
Then I found high population servers, sudenly my total lack of skill as a rookie didnt matter. I still sucked, dont get me wrong, I was truly awful, but I could at least feel like I was helping becouse my team still had a chance of winning in spite of my eforts. Now many months later I consider my self to be a pretty compitent player, I wont say im a pro, but every once and a while my actions directly help my team win, and that is all I ever wanted. I enjoy playing this game becouse high population servers gave me the ability too. I was constantly surpunded by people who where better then me, but rather then being nothing more then free points, I could watch them play and learn how to be better my self.
I play NS2 regulary, I have even bought all the DLCs becouse I love the game enough to want to support the devs even more (Its worth noteing that I really hate the map Kodiak, yet still bought the kodiak skin pack).
I personally owe the host of Playground and Hampster wheel a debt of gratitude.
Yeah, I know average hive is stupid low. It's just that at that level it feels like winning and losing is basically a coin flip. I'd say skulks bite at 40 percent or lower and Marines shoot at under 18 at that level. And people still don't have skulk movement down.
Talking of balance is premature, it'd be like talking of balance in a fighting game and trying to draw information from a game between button mashers. The outcome is essentially random.
Akin to Diablo 3's difficulty settings adjusted based on party size!
Until then, the eternal debate of small player count servers vs larger count will never end.
Actually what it tells me is that win/loss alone is a poor way to measure skill. Especially when you have all the other problems of hive (no seperate values for alien/marine skill, some rookies starting at 1000 while others are 0, etc)
I mean his account was last time seen on my server in January 2015.
You should be happy anyways Ironhorse. Thanks to PlayNow and other crap that was implementend, servers that should be dead or have been dead are now populated.
That is your personal opinion. We decided to stay vanilla and it works.
True and I kind of feel like an asshole for derailing. I really just failed to understand what he was actually on about.
Sorry
I wouldn't say it works per se wooza, two most common tactics on the server is either hand grenade / GL spam or pure onos rush (aside from the odd sneaky gorge tunnel) to effectively decide most games. Everything else is prerequisite to those two strategies.
You're late, it's already happening.
Some might argue it has been happening for at least two and a half years Fall 2009
yeah, i think the problem is that 0 vs 1000 thing for rookies.
i took my alt from 0 to 2200ish, and i think it took 250 hours steam time. and god was it a grind. but climbing from 0 to 1000 was pretty fucking hardcore to begin with... every win would only shift maybe 30 points?
for for rookies that start at 0, i imagine they'll be well below 1000 even when they stop being rookies. say at the 400 steam hours mark... meh maybe 600 steam hours mark.
i think hive should maybe converge faster, or should get a hard reset. then we can all climb together