Walking The Line Between Co And Ns
Brackhar
Santa Monica Join Date: 2003-10-26 Member: 22004Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Onos
Santa Monica Join Date: 2003-10-26 Member: 22004Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Onos
<div class="IPBDescription">A symbiotic relationship?</div> Yar
Firstly, this thread is *NOT* supposed to turn into a CO bashing or NS bashing thread, nor a thread bemoaning the design descisions of the developers. If you want to reply in that vein, use the search function on ressurect on of Fangs' old threads. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
What I'm here to talk about is how to make the current iteration of CO and NS co-exist together and, hopefully, benefit one another. If you recall, one of the original purposes of CO was to provide a short, entertaining game (NS Lite if you will) that was viable with a small number of people on a server. The hope was that people would be more willing to stay on a server and play a small game of CO than a small game of NS, and thus it would help servers fill up faster and provide better NS games sooner.
However, since its release, we've started to see a rift form between the two gametypes. Now it's much more common to see a server that only plays NS and CO than one that mixes them. I myself run such a server. In theory this is fine, since there is a large sector of the community who fervently refuse to play one gametype or the other.
This poses a problem for NS only servers though. While CO has the advantage of being attractive at small player counts and thus being more capable of attracting people when there are three of four people playing, NS does not have such a benefit. Many people simply won't join an NS server unless there is a "critical mass" of players, a number that varies according to each individual. I've watched many a NS only server struggle with 5 people on it for hours on end, but then once that same server manages to capture 10 people it will fill up within 8 minutes times.
I've admined on servers in the past that run a CO/NS mix, and it's always worked out poorly. Some of the plugins that are popular with the CO community will rapidly drive away NS players, and when the server switches from combat to NS many combat players will leave, thus effectivly killing the server.
My question to you is, what do you think are the necessary conditions for CO and NS to coexist together on the same server? How do you best cater to both sides without alienating each instead?
-Brackhar
Firstly, this thread is *NOT* supposed to turn into a CO bashing or NS bashing thread, nor a thread bemoaning the design descisions of the developers. If you want to reply in that vein, use the search function on ressurect on of Fangs' old threads. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
What I'm here to talk about is how to make the current iteration of CO and NS co-exist together and, hopefully, benefit one another. If you recall, one of the original purposes of CO was to provide a short, entertaining game (NS Lite if you will) that was viable with a small number of people on a server. The hope was that people would be more willing to stay on a server and play a small game of CO than a small game of NS, and thus it would help servers fill up faster and provide better NS games sooner.
However, since its release, we've started to see a rift form between the two gametypes. Now it's much more common to see a server that only plays NS and CO than one that mixes them. I myself run such a server. In theory this is fine, since there is a large sector of the community who fervently refuse to play one gametype or the other.
This poses a problem for NS only servers though. While CO has the advantage of being attractive at small player counts and thus being more capable of attracting people when there are three of four people playing, NS does not have such a benefit. Many people simply won't join an NS server unless there is a "critical mass" of players, a number that varies according to each individual. I've watched many a NS only server struggle with 5 people on it for hours on end, but then once that same server manages to capture 10 people it will fill up within 8 minutes times.
I've admined on servers in the past that run a CO/NS mix, and it's always worked out poorly. Some of the plugins that are popular with the CO community will rapidly drive away NS players, and when the server switches from combat to NS many combat players will leave, thus effectivly killing the server.
My question to you is, what do you think are the necessary conditions for CO and NS to coexist together on the same server? How do you best cater to both sides without alienating each instead?
-Brackhar
Comments
* co round timer set to <= 15 min
Co is designed to play with low numbers, and a fill-in for NS. However, with the current patches and plugins, CO itself has turned into a massive 16 vs. 16 deathmatch. This version is NOT compatible with NS-type servers.
I have suggested an idea so that CO returned to it's somewhat 'original' state. Have it a placeholder for NS. The basic idea is this: once the server reaches a certain amount of people, it switches to ns immediately if it's in combat. No need to wait for combat to finish. It's similar to a successful votemap.
This would benefit mixed servers with NS/CO loaded. CO would become just a place to shoot around, play a little as the server fills up, then it goes to a full classic game. I see NS benefiting this, using Brackhar's observation that when a certain amount of people fill up when it hits a certain threshold. The only people that don't is CO-only players who are looking for deathmatch servers. Generally, those people shouldn't have a problem finding CO-only servers anyway.
I think this is one of the better ways to combine CO and NS again, instead of seeing them seperate games. You do lose all the 16 vs. 16 deathmatch games though, so this idea really only benefits classic.
* co round timer set to <= 15 min <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT
Plus, combat will have to be made more balanced for 4v4 and below games. 4 fades or onoses > any 4 player combo the marines can come up with.
As we saw with the NS only server setup, nearly no one plays. I think the need for CO is obvious as, despite what I wish, its a main part of the game. It will attract your common every day pubber, fill up the server, and hopefully allow some good classic games to get going. My only complaint is the caliber of player it brings. Now, I'm not saying that if you play CO you suck, but I am saying that the average person who comes to play CO isn't always experienced with classic. They also seem to be slightly less desirable in personality, as we saw today on the server with people spamming mics, not following the rules, etc. Again, this is of course not entirely COs fault, but it does seem to be a factor in it.
So I'd say the system you use currently on the server is the best bet. The server runs CO maps till a certain amount of players, then switches to NS. From what I've seen, usually only 2-3 people leave when it goes classic, which isn't bad. As I said, the skill/maturity wasn't as high as usual, but once more regulars show up and populate a server, it should get better.
Btw, <3 Brackhar.
Less than 10 players on server = combat.
More than 10 = NS.
Simple as that... no other way, in my opinion. (fiddle with numbers a bit, but yeah)
We are trying to use combat maps, placing RTs "on the fly", and we still have a lot of fixing to do...
Sequence War is FUN FUN FUN
Tech War is more like a tutorial for classic...
We are in beta phase, thats the reason we didn´t start a topic about it here. Soon we will ^^
There is a waypoints script to tell newplayers where to go and what to do, plus light/doors that can be trigged by RT events...
NS: Territory, what Combat should be like... istead of the insane and non-stop killing...
<u>Don´t play it if you don´t like BETAs, the map is ugly and bad balanced. We are just testing and trying to prove our concept works.</u>
also, #nsterritory@gamesurge, if you want to show some support... we need it... =/
Or just some extra game types <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
NS at it's best!
<3
Just bouncing ideas around.
NS at it's best!
<3 <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
+ its always co_faceoff
Co is designed to play with low numbers, and a fill-in for NS. However, with the current patches and plugins, CO itself has turned into a massive 16 vs. 16 deathmatch. This version is NOT compatible with NS-type servers.
I have suggested an idea so that CO returned to it's somewhat 'original' state. Have it a placeholder for NS. The basic idea is this: once the server reaches a certain amount of people, it switches to ns immediately if it's in combat. No need to wait for combat to finish. It's similar to a successful votemap.
This would benefit mixed servers with NS/CO loaded. CO would become just a place to shoot around, play a little as the server fills up, then it goes to a full classic game. I see NS benefiting this, using Brackhar's observation that when a certain amount of people fill up when it hits a certain threshold. The only people that don't is CO-only players who are looking for deathmatch servers. Generally, those people shouldn't have a problem finding CO-only servers anyway.
I think this is one of the better ways to combine CO and NS again, instead of seeing them seperate games. You do lose all the 16 vs. 16 deathmatch games though, so this idea really only benefits classic. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT. You took the words out of my mouth.
Identify the problem with small NS Classic games and you'll likely see what solution would be required. In small games, there aren't enough marines to build base, build nodes and pressure alien nodes to keep the aliens from attacking the marine base. The aliens gain resources extremely fast but usually don't have enough players for the assigned rules of saving for a hive, higher lifeforms, and upgrades. Aliens can also spit out an Onos or Fade rather quickly that can go destroy marine base because there's not enough marine firepower and upgrades to defeat the beast. One extra player on a team really unbalances very small games.
There's more to list, but I'll just cut to the chase. Having a "Light" mode (plugin, whatever) for small games might fit the bill.
First think of resource towers. Think If the marine team was give X amount of nodes close to base and the alien team was given Y amount of nodes close to the starting hive (or in the closest second hive). By X and Y, I don't mean all of the available res nodes on the map, but just a small handful - where X might be 2 and Y might be 1. Since aliens already get a faster resources and a free Y nodes, aliens would need a slow income rate and possibly a cutoff of 50 possible res before the second hive (or a specific time limit). This way, you don't get a 3 minute Onos bullying around. Since 1 alien didn't have to spend 25 res for Y nodes, there needs to be some balance for that. Marines now have the option of spending resources to defend the almost always empty marine start. X and Y might need to be adjusted depending on the size of the team. For example, Y might need to be 2 when there are only 2 aliens on the team or 1 otherwise. Conversly, X might need to be 3 with only 2 marines because there's only 1 guy to actually walk around with the other guy in the chair. This gives the marines the option to electrify a node or two and the aliens the incentive to attack the nodes before harrassing marine start.
Second, the aliens might need to always have the middle hive. Yes, the marines know right of the bat which hive the aliens get (most compentent commanders know this in the first 20 seconds of the game anyways), but this keeps the marine team from securing the middle hive early for an easy win.
Third, there's a possibility to account for the "extra player" problem. Imagine a game of 2 marines and 3 aliens. That means for combat, there's 1 marine against 3 aliens after gorges already drop there chambers. Marines could get an extra node for more static defense or upgrades to help the undermaned marines. Marines could also have a "part time" commander that get in to drop structures and then heads off to battle. They'll be no comm to drop medpacks/ammo or structures, so spending money on upgrades instead of static defense would be benificial. Conversely, think of the 3 marines vs 2 aliens. Extra res gives aliens the option to use static defenses and early upgrade chambers to support.
summed up:
- a small amount of "give me" nodes at start
- middle hive
- some means of account for very fast alien res and really quick fades/onos
-------------
Pros and Cons of this approach
Pros
- <i>should</i> be relatively _easy_ to implement [famous last words]
- should be implementable in AMXX
- works with all existing NS maps
- minimal amount of changes to NS Classic mechanics: 3 changes?
- requires very little new learning from existing NS Classic
- doesn't require a COMBAT playerbase crowd to fill the server [major improvement]
- should account for one team getting "the extra player" (think of 2 marines vs 3 aliens mentioned above)
Cons
- requires a hell of a lot of tweaking to get relatively balanced
- unballanced skill levels (eg. stacking) may be amplified even more
- algorithm for determining middle hive may need to be replaced with a static config file if problematic
- doesn't account for players in the readroom that join late (from being AFK, or stacking team, or what-have-you)
- still doesn't make 1-v-1 or 2-v-1 games viable and may only partially help 2v2 games
- doesn't account for players later joining / leaving the teams
1: ns_ game ends, some people leave
2: not enough people, co_ starts
3: more people join
4: game mode switches to ns_
5: people who joined for co_ are not interested in ns_ so they leave
6: goto #2
So often the server sort of gets stuck in a co_ holding pattern.
The only answer to a lot of these sort of problems seems to be: community community community. Build a community on a server that likes to play a certain way, and is large enough to be self-sustaining. But that's often rather hard.
Our server has a fairly large community, but its still difficult to maintain the CO/NS divide, especially because this cycle tends to drive away the NS players.
That's why I started this thread; I hoped someone had found an answer. :/
-Brackhar
As a rule they don't seem to co-exist on the same server very well, as most enn-essers either prefer playing one or the other, and few fully enjoy playing both.
However, being the enigma that I am, I enjoy playing both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
We are trying to use combat maps, placing RTs "on the fly", and we still have a lot of fixing to do...
Sequence War is FUN FUN FUN
Tech War is more like a tutorial for classic...
We are in beta phase, thats the reason we didn´t start a topic about it here. Soon we will ^^
There is a waypoints script to tell newplayers where to go and what to do, plus light/doors that can be trigged by RT events...
NS: Territory, what Combat should be like... istead of the insane and non-stop killing...
<u>Don´t play it if you don´t like BETAs, the map is ugly and bad balanced. We are just testing and trying to prove our concept works.</u>
also, #nsterritory@gamesurge, if you want to show some support... we need it... =/ <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lookin forward to it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->