I mean his account was last time seen on my server in January 2015.
You think I would use my normal account anywhere near where ATF is involved? HA.
Just a heads up : alt accounts are easy to obtain and quite a few people have them.
Doesn't change what I said though, or my point.
Improve the performance, then we can talk about balance etc etc.
For those that say "performance isn't as important as the experience blah blah" limit your tickrate to 10 and get back to me with the results.
Its almost like....someone needs to create a ns2Large mod....that scales everything based on playercount...Damage values, respawn times, HP amount.
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.
but the server already has an almost 50 50 win loss ratio for aliens and marines, why would it need changing?
Gameplay doesn't scale.
At least the maps are getting there, but they still don't have enough lanes.
but the games are balanced and for those that play on the server they find it fun. Why change something that nobody wants changing to please people that dont even want to play on the server?
also the majority of people playing on woozas server are not having major tick rate issues just a handful
i struggle more playing on a server with 300 ping and 20 players than i do on a server with 100 ping and 42 players
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 **** 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
When I restrict to 50 hours of more It is pretty much just veterans. The players that started at 0 or 1000 are indistinguishable. So no, it is not that. Here is a google doc I wrote with a proposition to fix the 0 vs 1000 rookie problem. I don't think it has the effect you think it does.
If you take hive to be a reasonable representation of skill, and I think it is mostly reasonable, then most people can't reach the highest tiers of skill. When comp players average 2800 hive skill, and the public players are well below half that? Does that mean that there is a problem with skill scaling in ns2? I think it might, but I am not sure yet.
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.
What is there more to prove? You already have players who never visit these forums making forum accounts just to post in this thread and others that they actually PREFER the large servers vs the smaller ones, despite performance issues. You can say what you want, but the better quality games for them are on high player count servers, there's no denying that.
Honestly I don't get the hate for these servers, personally I wouldn't play on them since I prefer 6v6 play, but I'm not dumb to the point that I'd try to force my opinion of these servers on others who seem to enjoy them.
The logic is that those servers attract the new players and their first impression of the game is of those servers. Of course people who enjoy them come and post their support, because people who don't enjoy them have already left the game. Its not about the current players, its about the future rookies coming in.
I'm 100% sure that the amount of rookies that quit the game due to bad performance (or game play) on those servers is much, much less than those who quit the game due to its actual problems (crazy learning curve, uneven teams, etc.).
But hey, let's screw the large servers to see if that changes player retention. Here's a hint, it won't and all this effort being put into this LAZY solution is a waste of time, great plan, I foresee player retention increasing by 100% due to this change. Meanwhile the game's actual problems aren't being addressed.
Maybe, but the PDT (as represented by IH) obviously doesn't believe so and want rookies to judge the game as is intended. They could be mistaken, but thats their problem to solve, without the distraction of the large servers.
The logic is that those servers attract the new players and their first impression of the game is of those servers. Of course people who enjoy them come and post their support, because people who don't enjoy them have already left the game. Its not about the current players, its about the future rookies coming in.
but this whole chain of thought is based around no evidence that this is even the case. I suspect its make or break for the new dev team. They either find a way to increase revenue from this tired old game or the plug will be pulled and now they are pointing fingers and jumping to conclusions about why there arent many people playing. But the servers they are blaming are almost always full. Must be there fault..
The logic is that those servers attract the new players and their first impression of the game is of those servers. Of course people who enjoy them come and post their support, because people who don't enjoy them have already left the game. Its not about the current players, its about the future rookies coming in.
but this whole chain of thought is based around no evidence that this is even the case. I suspect its make or break for the new dev team. They either find a way to increase revenue from this tired old game or the plug will be pulled and now they are pointing fingers and jumping to conclusions about why there arent many people playing. But the servers they are blaming are almost always full. Must be there fault..
Go to the technical support forums. Look at the posts by the new players. Where do they play?
Also, the reasons the servers are highly populated are because they have a significantly higher margin of safety to prevent them from falling below a critical player count where people can't get a meaningful game going and empty the server, that they have more slots so it is easier for players to cycle in and of course that they appeal to a subset of players.
Seeding is a major issue for most other servers as most people will try to join a seeded server rather than a seeding or empty server. Pointing out that large servers are usually populated doesn't prove that large servers are popular.
I don't think that this change will have much effect on anything. The large servers are still going to go on and player retention is still going to be horrible. The only difference is that the PDT gets to make their pitch to the rookies on their terms.
@Alite
AFAIK it isn't about newer players quitting so much as it is what Aeglos just said "the PDT gets to make their pitch to the rookies on their terms."
UWE wants them to experience the game they made, and provide the customer with what they originally intended to buy.
@Alite
AFAIK it isn't about newer players quitting so much as it is what Aeglos just said "the PDT gets to make their pitch to the rookies on their terms."
UWE wants them to experience the game they made, and provide the customer with what they originally intended to buy.
That's completely ok, but why make a change that affects the whole community then, rather then just the rookies?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but this change is essentially telling a guy who has invested a lot of time and money (more than the average player that's for sure) into building a new type of game play and community to screw off because they consider him a nuisance. That just doesn't seem right to me.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
You raise a point @Alite
I don't know how difficult it is to distinguish between a returning player and a rookie (time since last played vs hive level) when it comes to filtering the server browser. If it were easy, that could be a great alternative.
I think calling it a nuisance is missing the point. Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
You raise a point @Alite
I don't know how difficult it is to distinguish between a returning player and a rookie (time since last played vs hive level) when it comes to filtering the server browser. If it were easy, that could be a great alternative.
I think calling it a nuisance is missing the point. Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
they can decide whatever they like, they could ban mods completely if they choose but that doesnt mean its a good idea. Often developers make terrible decisions i have played enough game to see devs kill off their own games and this is certainly something that raises a red flag in my mind.
i searched the first 2 pages of the technical support forum and didnt see any issues that were wooza server specific. Not saying they dont exist but could you please point them out?
Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
UWE call of course. But the actual audience level of NS2 requires compromission and understanding.
And also, don't doubt of the good faith and good will of people siding wooza presently. A lot of us don't know about what happened in the past, we just worry for the present.
Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
Why not just prevent the hack in a update and kill "NS2Large" directly. Instead they need to to it slowly, with tiny changes that don't cause too much of a fuss.
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 **** 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
When I restrict to 50 hours of more It is pretty much just veterans. The players that started at 0 or 1000 are indistinguishable. So no, it is not that. Here is a google doc I wrote with a proposition to fix the 0 vs 1000 rookie problem. I don't think it has the effect you think it does.
If you take hive to be a reasonable representation of skill, and I think it is mostly reasonable, then most people can't reach the highest tiers of skill. When comp players average 2800 hive skill, and the public players are well below half that? Does that mean that there is a problem with skill scaling in ns2? I think it might, but I am not sure yet.
i've got something like 333 hours hive time and 2k steam time. using myself as no particularly abnormal. 50 hours hive translates to about 300 steam. barely breaking the rookie barrier.. maybe. how exactly are you establishing whether people started at 1000 our 0?
i honestly wonder how a peg to marine accuracy would fare in determining hive skill. rifle on skulk.
i mean it feels like 3k players that can gib me good as a skulk can invariably gib me good if they can get a bead on me too.
i mean, can you think of any players that can do 23-28 rifle (depending on gorge presence) that are also missing bites? you see players with something like 40 percent bite accuracy as a skulk, and you wonder what the hell they're aiming at.
skulk acc and marine acc in the first 8 minutes of a game. before lerk spikes throw you off and shotties come out. and honestly speaking. skulk and lmg phase is at least 50% of your lifeform and weapon usage it seems.
regardless of anything else, you gotta play through that first 8 minutes of every game no matter the outcome right?
Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
Why not just prevent the hack in a update and kill "NS2Large" directly. Instead they need to to it slowly, with tiny changes that don't cause too much of a fuss.
You've said this before, but it's nonsense, really. Look at all the fuss that has been kicked up already!
They're not afraid of the fuss.. they actually just want you to have your own little community that enjoys itself, so long as it's not negatively impacting the experience they wish to provide to non veterans.
It's a concept / goal that's been repeated multiple times now.
And that's really the crux of the fuss right there... your community doesn't think it's a good idea, the developers and others like myself do.
Something tells me that your community will survive so long as it wants it to.
And that's really the crux of the fuss right there... your community doesn't think it's a good idea, the developers and others like myself do.
Something tells me that your community will survive so long as it wants it to.
A community lives with new people joining and regulars leaving. You taking away the possibility that new players may find this game mode.
Same for any other game mode.
Now will you do at least a spotlight about NS2Large? Haha..
Now will you do at least a spotlight about NS2Large? Haha..
I'm not in charge of that, but I bet if someone ran a NS2Large server that was able to maintain default server rates, then yea.. there's no reason why not?
Comments
but the server already has an almost 50 50 win loss ratio for aliens and marines, why would it need changing?
Gameplay doesn't scale.
At least the maps are getting there, but they still don't have enough lanes.
Just a heads up : alt accounts are easy to obtain and quite a few people have them.
Doesn't change what I said though, or my point.
Improve the performance, then we can talk about balance etc etc.
For those that say "performance isn't as important as the experience blah blah" limit your tickrate to 10 and get back to me with the results.
but the games are balanced and for those that play on the server they find it fun. Why change something that nobody wants changing to please people that dont even want to play on the server?
also the majority of people playing on woozas server are not having major tick rate issues just a handful
i struggle more playing on a server with 300 ping and 20 players than i do on a server with 100 ping and 42 players
When I restrict to 50 hours of more It is pretty much just veterans. The players that started at 0 or 1000 are indistinguishable. So no, it is not that. Here is a google doc I wrote with a proposition to fix the 0 vs 1000 rookie problem. I don't think it has the effect you think it does.
If you take hive to be a reasonable representation of skill, and I think it is mostly reasonable, then most people can't reach the highest tiers of skill. When comp players average 2800 hive skill, and the public players are well below half that? Does that mean that there is a problem with skill scaling in ns2? I think it might, but I am not sure yet.
What is there more to prove? You already have players who never visit these forums making forum accounts just to post in this thread and others that they actually PREFER the large servers vs the smaller ones, despite performance issues. You can say what you want, but the better quality games for them are on high player count servers, there's no denying that.
Honestly I don't get the hate for these servers, personally I wouldn't play on them since I prefer 6v6 play, but I'm not dumb to the point that I'd try to force my opinion of these servers on others who seem to enjoy them.
But hey, let's screw the large servers to see if that changes player retention. Here's a hint, it won't and all this effort being put into this LAZY solution is a waste of time, great plan, I foresee player retention increasing by 100% due to this change. Meanwhile the game's actual problems aren't being addressed.
but this whole chain of thought is based around no evidence that this is even the case. I suspect its make or break for the new dev team. They either find a way to increase revenue from this tired old game or the plug will be pulled and now they are pointing fingers and jumping to conclusions about why there arent many people playing. But the servers they are blaming are almost always full. Must be there fault..
Go to the technical support forums. Look at the posts by the new players. Where do they play?
Also, the reasons the servers are highly populated are because they have a significantly higher margin of safety to prevent them from falling below a critical player count where people can't get a meaningful game going and empty the server, that they have more slots so it is easier for players to cycle in and of course that they appeal to a subset of players.
Seeding is a major issue for most other servers as most people will try to join a seeded server rather than a seeding or empty server. Pointing out that large servers are usually populated doesn't prove that large servers are popular.
I don't think that this change will have much effect on anything. The large servers are still going to go on and player retention is still going to be horrible. The only difference is that the PDT gets to make their pitch to the rookies on their terms.
Well said.
@Alite
AFAIK it isn't about newer players quitting so much as it is what Aeglos just said "the PDT gets to make their pitch to the rookies on their terms."
UWE wants them to experience the game they made, and provide the customer with what they originally intended to buy.
That's completely ok, but why make a change that affects the whole community then, rather then just the rookies?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but this change is essentially telling a guy who has invested a lot of time and money (more than the average player that's for sure) into building a new type of game play and community to screw off because they consider him a nuisance. That just doesn't seem right to me.
I don't know how difficult it is to distinguish between a returning player and a rookie (time since last played vs hive level) when it comes to filtering the server browser. If it were easy, that could be a great alternative.
I think calling it a nuisance is missing the point. Why can't the developers be the deciders of how their product is presented?
they can decide whatever they like, they could ban mods completely if they choose but that doesnt mean its a good idea. Often developers make terrible decisions i have played enough game to see devs kill off their own games and this is certainly something that raises a red flag in my mind.
i searched the first 2 pages of the technical support forum and didnt see any issues that were wooza server specific. Not saying they dont exist but could you please point them out?
UWE call of course. But the actual audience level of NS2 requires compromission and understanding.
And also, don't doubt of the good faith and good will of people siding wooza presently. A lot of us don't know about what happened in the past, we just worry for the present.
Why not just prevent the hack in a update and kill "NS2Large" directly. Instead they need to to it slowly, with tiny changes that don't cause too much of a fuss.
i've got something like 333 hours hive time and 2k steam time. using myself as no particularly abnormal. 50 hours hive translates to about 300 steam. barely breaking the rookie barrier.. maybe. how exactly are you establishing whether people started at 1000 our 0?
i honestly wonder how a peg to marine accuracy would fare in determining hive skill. rifle on skulk.
i mean it feels like 3k players that can gib me good as a skulk can invariably gib me good if they can get a bead on me too.
i mean, can you think of any players that can do 23-28 rifle (depending on gorge presence) that are also missing bites? you see players with something like 40 percent bite accuracy as a skulk, and you wonder what the hell they're aiming at.
skulk acc and marine acc in the first 8 minutes of a game. before lerk spikes throw you off and shotties come out. and honestly speaking. skulk and lmg phase is at least 50% of your lifeform and weapon usage it seems.
You've said this before, but it's nonsense, really. Look at all the fuss that has been kicked up already!
They're not afraid of the fuss.. they actually just want you to have your own little community that enjoys itself, so long as it's not negatively impacting the experience they wish to provide to non veterans.
It's a concept / goal that's been repeated multiple times now.
And that's really the crux of the fuss right there... your community doesn't think it's a good idea, the developers and others like myself do.
Something tells me that your community will survive so long as it wants it to.
A community lives with new people joining and regulars leaving. You taking away the possibility that new players may find this game mode.
Same for any other game mode.
Now will you do at least a spotlight about NS2Large? Haha..