Considering the large number of unpredictable factors influencing any given pub game, I certainly consider those to be relatively balanced numbers. You're trying to make the difference seem huge by citing 150~ extra wins, but percentages are what's important and they only indicate a small advantage to aliens. If it were a sample of 50,000 games, 150 extra wins to one side would have been extraordinarily balanced. If it were only 250 games, then that difference in wins would show that one team wins 80% of the time and would obviously indicate a problem. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why that sort of reasoning doesn't work in statistics. Even if we are to assume that this one server is an indication of the balance of all of them, these aren't the incriminating numbers you're trying to make them out to be.
If I'm not mistaken, you're trying to prove that unchained chambers overpowers aliens far too much to implement in the beta, right? If anything this only supports the opposite argument, that the unbalance caused by it is in fact relatively minor. I don't understand why you're trying to rub people's faces in it when we've been trying to tell you all along that the unchained chambers plugin doesn't <u>significantly</u> unbalance the game, and some simple tweaks could easily counteract it if it were implemented. A deviation of only 6% from 50/50 is not evidence of a large imbalance.
I applauded your efforts in taking an empirical approach to this topic. However, I have two suggestions:
1. Gather data from chained servers as well as unchained servers. It may turn out that aliens win more on average even without access to all chambers. Either way, you really need data from a control group to make any sort of accurate assessment.
2. Focus your data taking on 7v7 and 8v8 games. Of the 1200 recorded games only 66 of them are from a game size considered balanced by most people in the community. If you'll notice, (excluding the 14 player game stats) the win/win ratio moves closer to 1 as the number of people in a game increases. This trend appears to stop with 7v7 games, but this is likely due to the smaller number of games considered (small samples of data are often not an accurate representation of the actual population of data that they come from). With 13 player games the ratio has moved as close as 49/50 and I can't think of a reason that this trend should stop with the addition of a single player.
Although the author's zeal is a bit bizarre, at least it's given us <i>some</i> stats to chew on. It would be nice if others could provide server logs...
It's odd how the ratio remains approximately the same, despite the fact that the total number of games played varied.
Those are the most telling statistics. They show that when unchained NS is being played with the proper number of players, it's very even. The 14 player result is a little skewed because there are so fewer games.
Most of the additional alien wins are coming from the lower end of the scale, when there are less than 12 people in a game. It's no surprise that the aliens are winning there; the game is not designed for those numbers of people and the alien team gets a large advantage in res flow, whilst the marines suffer from an inability to hit and defend multiple locations thanks to fewer players.
Thankyou for providing these statistics; as others have pointed out, it validates what we have been saying for some time now: unchaining the chambers does more to balance NS than it does to unbalance it.
I admit, I got over the top when I got the statistics, and I apologize. Just some... excitement...
Anyway, if you guys can provide me with more Unchained servers, and if the admins of the NSArms Lab servers will just PLEASE respond, then I can have some valueable statistics.
NSA has had some admin problems lately, so dont expect any old school admins to show up and save the day.
Besides, yours is ONE server out of thousands, how can we tell the skill of your marines/aliens, how can we tell what happened throughout the game to see if someone skewed the stats at all (CC recycling, bad commander, gorges who drop ocs on rts)
I also would like to see stats from several other servers, my server stopped with the unchained plugin since it was so controversial.
But it doesn't change gameplay that much. It even makes aliens lose more often.
First, Is tactical gamer back up Wyzcrak? I have it on my favorites but it says it is down all the time lately.
Second, Pub stats are no where near viable. Think of the millions of ways marines can lose the game. Some of the most common losing situations are:
- Round starts, every marine heads to double, no one comms (i've seen it before)
- Newbie commander at first screws the marine game over (seen it every time i play NS)
- Onos in small games
- Small games in general are lost easily as marine
And lastly, why... OH WHY cant we suggest buffs for the alien team? Ideas can be added to ease the frustration of playing alien, and then balanced by buffing other certian areas in marine buildings/equipment. For instance Sensory is used more at first.... someone suggested that Scans take less energy and obs cost less. Personally I'd be up for a increased energy regrowth rate so marines can keep the pings coming, but not spam them. honestly if the marines want tons of scans in a area I'll tend to drop a obs for them if I'm comming.
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<!--QuoteBegin-Trevelyan+Jun 29 2004, 09:41 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Trevelyan @ Jun 29 2004, 09:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First, Is tactical gamer back up Wyzcrak? I have it on my favorites but it says it is down all the time lately.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's nice when your server goes down and 30+ people personally IM you within 24 hours wanting to know where it's gone. It tells you you're doing something right. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Yes, our server is down, as we're migrating data centers. Our community hosts servers for multiple games, and NS is in the queue to be stood up in the new data center. The IP of the server will be different when it comes online, so be sure to keep an eye on our NS forums at TacticalGamer.com.
I've modified my sig to reflect that the server is moving.
[/tangent]
fyre, all I can say is that the only way to judge skill and "skews" in the gameplay is to come play on the server and judge it for yourself. It may be self-serving for me to say this about my server, but the same applies for any server, really.
Recoup, many applauds for your admittance of zeal. Very big of you. Best of luck getting more logs from more servers.
NSArmslab.com DOES NOT run Unchained, and i do not plan to run it for as long as im the server tech. And We have never ran Unchained so i have no idea why you are thinking we are. Also did you really even ask us about these "stats?"
Besides the fact that these statistics are insufficient to prove anything, a win-percent difference of 15% or so is hardly a show-stopper. Not only that, this is a plugin that has only been around a short time, and it is highly unlikely that either side has had sufficient time to adapt enough that these statistics would remain constant if globally implemented.
Also factor in the fact that only so much can be changed to help balance the unchaining. Obviously if NS were to actually include the unchaining of chambers, the area of affect of some of the chambers would probably be changed and/or weakened, and things such as observatories would probably become slightly cheaper to build. That cannot be properly executed with an AMX script.
<!--QuoteBegin-Qwerty+Jun 30 2004, 01:41 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Qwerty @ Jun 30 2004, 01:41 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Knowing Flayra i doubt it would be included in ns anyway when theres a plugin that does that just fine, no point in wasting coding. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But it should be part of the real game, DMS sucks ****, I'm tired of it, both as a marine and an alien, it's nice to finally play with the sense upgrades in the early game for a change, y'know, when they're USEFUL.
Wow, that's really excellent balance!! Never saw something similar to this. Were all NS maps in mapcycle? I'm gonna start lobby for unchained chambers too!
this thread really isn't that debateable, the stats are from one server, where a variety of people play, noobs like myself, and talented people like wyz, and others.
Unchained is much more fun, and interesting, to me then regular ns, thats why I'm waiting for wyz and that whole server move <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->. It gives variety to the game, and those stats don't prove anything just yet. All they really prove is that unchained is still almost balanced, even without any tweaks.
OH NOES THE RESULTS SHOW THE KHARAA WITH A 5% HIGHER WINRATE LIEK OMG OMG OMG
You REALLY think an average 55/45 kharaa/marine win ratio is unbalanced for a game like this? I think it shows otherwise and hurts your case rather than helps it.
I'd also like to point out that the original point of unchained chambers was not to boost POWER of the kharaa like many people would assume. It was solely intended to offere variety in gameplay. Now it just so happens that the power aspect is arguable, but to date any boost that may be evident seems almost negligible.
Also, those of us who support unchained chambers are not so naive to think that tweaks to abilities and stats would not be needed down the line to adjust the state of game balance. Well ok some might be, but the majority of us would likely concede that there are likely flaws somewhere in there that would need fixing... but its hardly an impossibility to fix such things. To be honest, from all the testimonials I have read the game ends up more fun regardless of which team you play on... which is a huge plus in my opinion.
For the majority of us I would say it is more important for the game to be fun than for it to be perfectly balanced. The only place that balance is a critical issue is on the competitive scene... which is a stark minority of gameplay. Not that I wan't to get rid of the competitive scene nor do I think balance is unimportant by any means, but considering the playerbase it seems much less important to balance the game than to make it more fun in general.
<!--QuoteBegin-geekanarchy+Jun 29 2004, 05:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (geekanarchy @ Jun 29 2004, 05:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I think the near 50/50 percentage is pretty good. Expecially considering how a newb comm can basically screw you over in the first 2 minutes of the game. Comming is an art (and I make no claim to my skill at it) that is learned over time. Also, you haven't taken into account that as marines play longer, they will be able to have greater effectiveness combating the aliens' new diversity.
It seems, Recoup, that you taking a near balance in the statistics and trying to somehow say they are grossly lopsided. 150 more victories? Statistics are easily manipulated. A simple example:
Lets take male to female population from the 2000 US Census. Did you know there are over 5.3 million more females in the US than males? That's huge! More than the populations of North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, Deleware, and Montana COMBINED. In fact, there would still be half a million females after counting all those states. So is the US being overrun with women? No. Just because statistics show a small leaning to one side of a chart, doesn't mean that that there is an imbalance. Genetics state that we should have an exactly 50/50 population of males to females. But just because that isn't reality, doesn't change the fact that we still have 50/50 probability of each new child born to male or female. In fact over time, it may be that males will soon be in greater portion than females, or it's possible that females will gain an even greater lead in population.
Either way, statistics do not prove an argument. If statistics were significanly tilted towards one side, it would certainly help in making an argument, but stats alone do not. Especially considering the unregulated conditions under which these statistics were taken. Where is the control group? What about games that wern't played competatively/not playing to win? How many victories happened because of a failed relocate? How many were victories because of a rush? On the odd player games, who got the extra person? How do you take into account for players leaving early? There really are more variables here than can be taken into account.
While these are definately interesting to look at, I don't see how it can convince anyone one way or the other, particularly due to the closeness of the stats themselves. <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> HAAHAHAHAHAHA lol omg ok ok, first I don?t wanted to say anything to this topic, because i hate unchained chambers, but I have to say that this was the most stupid and poorest example. You really wanna to compare reality with a game? lol.... Ehm, look. You can?t control reality, you can?t say that half the population must be male and the other half must be female, that?s right. And that?s also good. But this situation, is different. We speak about a game hear, you know what?s the difference between reality and game? You cant control a game, you can balance it so both sides have their fun. You can?t balance live. We?re talking here about the "unbalance" in a game, because we can change it. can you change life? (I don?t want to be offensiv, but this example... )
@Topic Hmm... I think I also should write something about the topic. I think these stats are very interesting and shows, that unchained chambers are too powerful, but let?s be more realistic. These 150 games could also just be matches, where the rine team was just a noob team or the commander was just bad. It also could be an early alien rush and the noob-rine-team couldn?t counter it. But like I said, I think the idea of the unchained chambers is just c**p. You see, it isn?t how ns was meant to be played I think. The devs had their reasons for chaining the chambers (and I hope that were good reason). If they hadn?t you may be right.
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE 1,000,000,000 TH TIME!</span>
~Give me more unchained servers to get stats from
~NSArms lab is, and I say this because I know, the entryway for just about every player that joins NS. Every newbie I know has played on that server when they came. Unless you have a better idea, then I'm taking it from that server.
~D-M-S is NOT a set order. You can choose which to put first. It all depends on your skills as an alien, and how you utilize it. Quaunaut told me he chooses Movement first in his clan, so its apparent that tactics can also change.
~I've tried explaining that I will take this from more then one server, but everyone just seems to FRIGGIN IGNORE that sentence. Read all the posts instead of skimming them.
~We dont know the percent balance for regular NS yet, meaning that if the regular NS balance goes to show that its 50/50, then yes, you have screwed with natural balance. When I put up 20 stats, they said they would need 1000, I promised 200 and they thought that would suffice. Now I present 1,300 and that STILL isnt good enough. How many MORE do you need? An additional 1,300? 3,000? 5,000? 100,000? Jesus christ that is a big number: 1,300 games is about half the games I have probably played since JOINING NS in 2.0. That is plenty.
~Have you ever tried convincing your team mates about how dropping a sensory or movement first would be benificial, instead of just dropping it? I know some of you wil say "Well I have! They just got mad!" well how many times have you tried? In all the games you have played? Give it a rest, D-M-S is not a set pattern, its just the fact that it provides more of an advantage than anything else. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"Just the fact it provides more of an advantage than anything else"
There you go. You figured it out. Games designed to be competitive are only fun when you play them to win - it may be fun to be a scrub in a non-competitive game, but NS isn't designed to encourage that. Losing isn't fun, so you maximize your advantage.
And no, we haven't used MC in {RR} in about 1.5 weeks now - which is the clan Quanaut is a member of. Not like we're representative of a good competitive team (although, by god, we try <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ), but the reasoning behind going DC most rounds is sound. Its the most reliable chamber - MCs are heavily unreliable (more vulnerable chamber, needs to be accessible on foot, advantages weigh less on Fades). Unless you have a team of excellent Skulks MC isn't even attractive.
<!--QuoteBegin-Recoup+Jun 30 2004, 09:56 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Recoup @ Jun 30 2004, 09:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I leave for a day and everything goes to pots.
Alright, I am going to say,
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE 1,000,000,000 TH TIME!</span>
~Give me more unchained servers to get stats from
~NSArms lab is, and I say this because I know, the entryway for just about every player that joins NS. Every newbie I know has played on that server when they came. Unless you have a better idea, then I'm taking it from that server.
~D-M-S is NOT a set order. You can choose which to put first. It all depends on your skills as an alien, and how you utilize it. Quaunaut told me he chooses Movement first in his clan, so its apparent that tactics can also change.
~I've tried explaining that I will take this from more then one server, but everyone just seems to FRIGGIN IGNORE that sentence. Read all the posts instead of skimming them.
~We dont know the percent balance for regular NS yet, meaning that if the regular NS balance goes to show that its 50/50, then yes, you have screwed with natural balance. When I put up 20 stats, they said they would need 1000, I promised 200 and they thought that would suffice. Now I present 1,300 and that STILL isnt good enough. How many MORE do you need? An additional 1,300? 3,000? 5,000? 100,000? Jesus christ that is a big number: 1,300 games is about half the games I have probably played since JOINING NS in 2.0. That is plenty.
~Have you ever tried convincing your team mates about how dropping a sensory or movement first would be benificial, instead of just dropping it? I know some of you wil say "Well I have! They just got mad!" well how many times have you tried? In all the games you have played? Give it a rest, D-M-S is not a set pattern, its just the fact that it provides more of an advantage than anything else. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> NSArmslab Does not run Unchained Chambers, and it never has., Though i could probably make a plugin that records who wins in a log file, but eh.. Personally if i used it i would make it so you can only build 2 different chambers with one hive and you need 2 hives to build them all.
You'd better get some statistics from chained chamber servers for comparison's sake. There's not much of an argument if either the gameplay for chained or unchained chambers is merely <i>assumed</i> to be balanced.
are you worried marines will not be able to cope with early sensories? are you affraid aliens will become a little less static (your a fool if you dont think DMS is the universally excepted way to 'play properly'. Sens and Move can work on the odd occasion [ie. poor marines] but generally defence is the ONLY choice.)
I just cant see WHY your going out of your way to prove unchaining is a bad idea!
lets face it;
large pubs: marines advantage - aliens could use a boost/ little more fun! 6 v 6 clan : marines also walk these. small pubs are the only place aliens have the 'advantage'
so in terms of balance, or fairness, YES aliens could use a beef.
but its not just about balance or fairness, its about FUN. sensory can be great early on [just what you need to curb those early rambos], but currently its a death sentance for the aliens. gah, im repeating myself now...
Recoup what is your problem with unchained chambers, really? If it's just balance, then not only do those statistics show that the aliens only have a small advantage with unchained chambers, but this is just a plugin that doesn't make any attempt to counterbalance it. If it were patched into the game then any number of things could be done to compensate for it and it's not like it would take months of additional testing either. Even if you take statistics from dozens of servers and find a perfect 50/50 split, that still doesn't change the reasoning behind unchained chambers. It's not intended as a balance fix, it's intended to add a little more variety and strategy to the alien team and make them fun again. Nobody's denying that it will have an effect on balance, for better or for worse, but obviously the imbalance is small enough that it won't take much to fix it. Personally I'd rather NS be fun than perfectly balanced, but in the case of unchained chambers we won't have to sacrifice either.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> HAAHAHAHAHAHA lol omg ..... ...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Perhaps if you read more closely. The example was not about NS, but rather how stats are easily manipulated. I suppose I better repeat that... The census example didn't have anything to do with NS, and it was never intended to. If you want to read what I said about NS, then look at the parts above and below the example about how statistics can be skewed.
Statistics are great to have and may help you present your example, but relying solely on them to make your point doesn't prove anything. In fact, it isn't even an argument. That was the point of my post. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But this situation, is different. We speak about a game hear, you know what´s the difference between reality and game? You cant control a game, you can balance it so both sides have their fun. You can´t balance live. We´re talking here about the "unbalance" in a game, because we can change it. can you change life?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that you want to somehow get a perfect 50/50 win percentage in NS? If that's what you are trying to say, I can assure you that won't happen. Otherwise, your statements could use a little work on organization so they become more coherent.
As for unchained chambers, your opinion that "the idea of the unchained chambers is just c**p" seems to be in the minority. It isn't just an idea as there are unchained servers out there right now, and I notice a couple more unchained servers every time I long into NS. Of course if you want to play "how ns was meant to be played", I suggest you try version 1.04. <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Instead of looking at statistics, which really arent much good in a Multiplayer game where the skill-gap varies considerably player to player, round to round, we could keep our ranting to ourselves until we try it out.
For all those people who think I am going to use NSArms Lab for Unchained statistics, you are FRIGGIN IDIOTS!
I am going to use those stats to see what REGULAR NS is like, without these effects. Unchained the Chambers is good on a few servers, but wanting to incorporate the idea into NS so its on EVERY server, sucks. That is unfair, and the people who want it and people who dont want all have different opinions. So far, only NS boards have been tested on who wants it, and its a 5 to 1 deal here.
Comments
If I'm not mistaken, you're trying to prove that unchained chambers overpowers aliens far too much to implement in the beta, right? If anything this only supports the opposite argument, that the unbalance caused by it is in fact relatively minor. I don't understand why you're trying to rub people's faces in it when we've been trying to tell you all along that the unchained chambers plugin doesn't <u>significantly</u> unbalance the game, and some simple tweaks could easily counteract it if it were implemented. A deviation of only 6% from 50/50 is not evidence of a large imbalance.
1. Gather data from chained servers as well as unchained servers. It may turn out that aliens win more on average even without access to all chambers. Either way, you really need data from a control group to make any sort of accurate assessment.
2. Focus your data taking on 7v7 and 8v8 games. Of the 1200 recorded games only 66 of them are from a game size considered balanced by most people in the community. If you'll notice, (excluding the 14 player game stats) the win/win ratio moves closer to 1 as the number of people in a game increases. This trend appears to stop with 7v7 games, but this is likely due to the smaller number of games considered (small samples of data are often not an accurate representation of the actual population of data that they come from). With 13 player games the ratio has moved as close as 49/50 and I can't think of a reason that this trend should stop with the addition of a single player.
It's odd how the ratio remains approximately the same, despite the fact that the total number of games played varied.
91 Marine Victories (46%)
107 Alien Victories (54%)
Games ending with 13 players (152 total) :
74 Marine Victories (49%)
78 Alien Victories (51%)
Games ending with 14 players (66 total) :
28 Marine Victories (42%)
38 Alien Victories (58%)
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are the most telling statistics. They show that when unchained NS is being played with the proper number of players, it's very even. The 14 player result is a little skewed because there are so fewer games.
Most of the additional alien wins are coming from the lower end of the scale, when there are less than 12 people in a game. It's no surprise that the aliens are winning there; the game is not designed for those numbers of people and the alien team gets a large advantage in res flow, whilst the marines suffer from an inability to hit and defend multiple locations thanks to fewer players.
Thankyou for providing these statistics; as others have pointed out, it validates what we have been saying for some time now: unchaining the chambers does more to balance NS than it does to unbalance it.
Anyway, if you guys can provide me with more Unchained servers, and if the admins of the NSArms Lab servers will just PLEASE respond, then I can have some valueable statistics.
Besides, yours is ONE server out of thousands, how can we tell the skill of your marines/aliens, how can we tell what happened throughout the game to see if someone skewed the stats at all (CC recycling, bad commander, gorges who drop ocs on rts)
I also would like to see stats from several other servers, my server stopped with the unchained plugin since it was so controversial.
But it doesn't change gameplay that much. It even makes aliens lose more often.
Second, Pub stats are no where near viable. Think of the millions of ways marines can lose the game. Some of the most common losing situations are:
- Round starts, every marine heads to double, no one comms (i've seen it before)
- Newbie commander at first screws the marine game over (seen it every time i play NS)
- Onos in small games
- Small games in general are lost easily as marine
And lastly, why... OH WHY cant we suggest buffs for the alien team? Ideas can be added to ease the frustration of playing alien, and then balanced by buffing other certian areas in marine buildings/equipment. For instance Sensory is used more at first.... someone suggested that Scans take less energy and obs cost less. Personally I'd be up for a increased energy regrowth rate so marines can keep the pings coming, but not spam them. honestly if the marines want tons of scans in a area I'll tend to drop a obs for them if I'm comming.
It's nice when your server goes down and 30+ people personally IM you within 24 hours wanting to know where it's gone. It tells you you're doing something right. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Yes, our server is down, as we're migrating data centers. Our community hosts servers for multiple games, and NS is in the queue to be stood up in the new data center. The IP of the server will be different when it comes online, so be sure to keep an eye on our NS forums at TacticalGamer.com.
I've modified my sig to reflect that the server is moving.
[/tangent]
fyre, all I can say is that the only way to judge skill and "skews" in the gameplay is to come play on the server and judge it for yourself. It may be self-serving for me to say this about my server, but the same applies for any server, really.
Recoup, many applauds for your admittance of zeal. Very big of you. Best of luck getting more logs from more servers.
But it should be part of the real game, DMS sucks ****, I'm tired of it, both as a marine and an alien, it's nice to finally play with the sense upgrades in the early game for a change, y'know, when they're USEFUL.
I'm gonna start lobby for unchained chambers too!
Unchained is much more fun, and interesting, to me then regular ns, thats why I'm waiting for wyz and that whole server move <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->. It gives variety to the game, and those stats don't prove anything just yet. All they really prove is that unchained is still almost balanced, even without any tweaks.
You REALLY think an average 55/45 kharaa/marine win ratio is unbalanced for a game like this? I think it shows otherwise and hurts your case rather than helps it.
Also, those of us who support unchained chambers are not so naive to think that tweaks to abilities and stats would not be needed down the line to adjust the state of game balance. Well ok some might be, but the majority of us would likely concede that there are likely flaws somewhere in there that would need fixing... but its hardly an impossibility to fix such things. To be honest, from all the testimonials I have read the game ends up more fun regardless of which team you play on... which is a huge plus in my opinion.
For the majority of us I would say it is more important for the game to be fun than for it to be perfectly balanced. The only place that balance is a critical issue is on the competitive scene... which is a stark minority of gameplay. Not that I wan't to get rid of the competitive scene nor do I think balance is unimportant by any means, but considering the playerbase it seems much less important to balance the game than to make it more fun in general.
It seems, Recoup, that you taking a near balance in the statistics and trying to somehow say they are grossly lopsided. 150 more victories? Statistics are easily manipulated. A simple example:
Lets take male to female population from the 2000 US Census. Did you know there are over 5.3 million more females in the US than males? That's huge! More than the populations of North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, Deleware, and Montana COMBINED. In fact, there would still be half a million females after counting all those states. So is the US being overrun with women? No. Just because statistics show a small leaning to one side of a chart, doesn't mean that that there is an imbalance. Genetics state that we should have an exactly 50/50 population of males to females. But just because that isn't reality, doesn't change the fact that we still have 50/50 probability of each new child born to male or female. In fact over time, it may be that males will soon be in greater portion than females, or it's possible that females will gain an even greater lead in population.
Either way, statistics do not prove an argument. If statistics were significanly tilted towards one side, it would certainly help in making an argument, but stats alone do not. Especially considering the unregulated conditions under which these statistics were taken. Where is the control group? What about games that wern't played competatively/not playing to win? How many victories happened because of a failed relocate? How many were victories because of a rush? On the odd player games, who got the extra person? How do you take into account for players leaving early? There really are more variables here than can be taken into account.
While these are definately interesting to look at, I don't see how it can convince anyone one way or the other, particularly due to the closeness of the stats themselves.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
HAAHAHAHAHAHA
lol omg
ok ok, first I don?t wanted to say anything to this topic, because i hate unchained chambers, but I have to say that this was the most stupid and poorest example. You really wanna to compare reality with a game? lol....
Ehm, look. You can?t control reality, you can?t say that half the population must be male and the other half must be female, that?s right. And that?s also good.
But this situation, is different. We speak about a game hear, you know what?s the difference between reality and game?
You cant control a game, you can balance it so both sides have their fun.
You can?t balance live. We?re talking here about the "unbalance" in a game, because we can change it. can you change life?
(I don?t want to be offensiv, but this example... )
@Topic
Hmm... I think I also should write something about the topic. I think these stats are very interesting and shows, that unchained chambers are too powerful, but let?s be more realistic. These 150 games could also just be matches, where the rine team was just a noob team or the commander was just bad. It also could be an early alien rush and the noob-rine-team couldn?t counter it.
But like I said, I think the idea of the unchained chambers is just c**p.
You see, it isn?t how ns was meant to be played I think. The devs had their reasons for chaining the chambers (and I hope that were good reason).
If they hadn?t you may be right.
Alright, I am going to say,
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE 1,000,000,000 TH TIME!</span>
~Give me more unchained servers to get stats from
~NSArms lab is, and I say this because I know, the entryway for just about every player that joins NS. Every newbie I know has played on that server when they came. Unless you have a better idea, then I'm taking it from that server.
~D-M-S is NOT a set order. You can choose which to put first. It all depends on your skills as an alien, and how you utilize it. Quaunaut told me he chooses Movement first in his clan, so its apparent that tactics can also change.
~I've tried explaining that I will take this from more then one server, but everyone just seems to FRIGGIN IGNORE that sentence. Read all the posts instead of skimming them.
~We dont know the percent balance for regular NS yet, meaning that if the regular NS balance goes to show that its 50/50, then yes, you have screwed with natural balance. When I put up 20 stats, they said they would need 1000, I promised 200 and they thought that would suffice. Now I present 1,300 and that STILL isnt good enough. How many MORE do you need? An additional 1,300? 3,000? 5,000? 100,000? Jesus christ that is a big number: 1,300 games is about half the games I have probably played since JOINING NS in 2.0. That is plenty.
~Have you ever tried convincing your team mates about how dropping a sensory or movement first would be benificial, instead of just dropping it? I know some of you wil say "Well I have! They just got mad!" well how many times have you tried? In all the games you have played? Give it a rest, D-M-S is not a set pattern, its just the fact that it provides more of an advantage than anything else. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
There you go. You figured it out. Games designed to be competitive are only fun when you play them to win - it may be fun to be a scrub in a non-competitive game, but NS isn't designed to encourage that. Losing isn't fun, so you maximize your advantage.
And no, we haven't used MC in {RR} in about 1.5 weeks now - which is the clan Quanaut is a member of. Not like we're representative of a good competitive team (although, by god, we try <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ), but the reasoning behind going DC most rounds is sound. Its the most reliable chamber - MCs are heavily unreliable (more vulnerable chamber, needs to be accessible on foot, advantages weigh less on Fades). Unless you have a team of excellent Skulks MC isn't even attractive.
Alright, I am going to say,
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE 1,000,000,000 TH TIME!</span>
~Give me more unchained servers to get stats from
~NSArms lab is, and I say this because I know, the entryway for just about every player that joins NS. Every newbie I know has played on that server when they came. Unless you have a better idea, then I'm taking it from that server.
~D-M-S is NOT a set order. You can choose which to put first. It all depends on your skills as an alien, and how you utilize it. Quaunaut told me he chooses Movement first in his clan, so its apparent that tactics can also change.
~I've tried explaining that I will take this from more then one server, but everyone just seems to FRIGGIN IGNORE that sentence. Read all the posts instead of skimming them.
~We dont know the percent balance for regular NS yet, meaning that if the regular NS balance goes to show that its 50/50, then yes, you have screwed with natural balance. When I put up 20 stats, they said they would need 1000, I promised 200 and they thought that would suffice. Now I present 1,300 and that STILL isnt good enough. How many MORE do you need? An additional 1,300? 3,000? 5,000? 100,000? Jesus christ that is a big number: 1,300 games is about half the games I have probably played since JOINING NS in 2.0. That is plenty.
~Have you ever tried convincing your team mates about how dropping a sensory or movement first would be benificial, instead of just dropping it? I know some of you wil say "Well I have! They just got mad!" well how many times have you tried? In all the games you have played? Give it a rest, D-M-S is not a set pattern, its just the fact that it provides more of an advantage than anything else. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NSArmslab Does not run Unchained Chambers, and it never has., Though i could probably make a plugin that records who wins in a log file, but eh.. Personally if i used it i would make it so you can only build 2 different chambers with one hive and you need 2 hives to build them all.
are you worried marines will not be able to cope with early sensories?
are you affraid aliens will become a little less static (your a fool if you dont think DMS is the universally excepted way to 'play properly'. Sens and Move can work on the odd occasion [ie. poor marines] but generally defence is the ONLY choice.)
I just cant see WHY your going out of your way to prove unchaining is a bad idea!
lets face it;
large pubs: marines advantage - aliens could use a boost/ little more fun!
6 v 6 clan : marines also walk these.
small pubs are the only place aliens have the 'advantage'
so in terms of balance, or fairness, YES aliens could use a beef.
but its not just about balance or fairness, its about FUN.
sensory can be great early on [just what you need to curb those early rambos], but currently its a death sentance for the aliens.
gah, im repeating myself now...
lol omg
.....
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Perhaps if you read more closely. The example was not about NS, but rather how stats are easily manipulated. I suppose I better repeat that... The census example didn't have anything to do with NS, and it was never intended to. If you want to read what I said about NS, then look at the parts above and below the example about how statistics can be skewed.
Statistics are great to have and may help you present your example, but relying solely on them to make your point doesn't prove anything. In fact, it isn't even an argument. That was the point of my post.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But this situation, is different. We speak about a game hear, you know what´s the difference between reality and game?
You cant control a game, you can balance it so both sides have their fun.
You can´t balance live. We´re talking here about the "unbalance" in a game, because we can change it. can you change life?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that you want to somehow get a perfect 50/50 win percentage in NS? If that's what you are trying to say, I can assure you that won't happen. Otherwise, your statements could use a little work on organization so they become more coherent.
As for unchained chambers, your opinion that "the idea of the unchained chambers is just c**p" seems to be in the minority. It isn't just an idea as there are unchained servers out there right now, and I notice a couple more unchained servers every time I long into NS. Of course if you want to play "how ns was meant to be played", I suggest you try version 1.04.
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we could keep our ranting to ourselves until we try it out.
I am going to use those stats to see what REGULAR NS is like, without these effects. Unchained the Chambers is good on a few servers, but wanting to incorporate the idea into NS so its on EVERY server, sucks. That is unfair, and the people who want it and people who dont want all have different opinions. So far, only NS boards have been tested on who wants it, and its a 5 to 1 deal here.