Competitive vs pub play
Know pain
Join Date: 2012-09-04 Member: 157674Members
Join Date: 2012-09-04 Member: 157674Members
The question has to be asked.
What kind of game does Unknown Worlds want to be played, competitive or public?
They can’t have both because these balancing issues just aren’t working. We are seeing alien win ratio higher in comp games so their being tweaked thus killing them in pub play.
What kind of game does Unknown Worlds want to be played, competitive or public?
They can’t have both because these balancing issues just aren’t working. We are seeing alien win ratio higher in comp games so their being tweaked thus killing them in pub play.
Comments
And aliens are still enjoying an advantage in both competitive and public play at the moment, it is simply more exacerbated in competitive play.
There might be a question of what player size they are balancing for (probably 8v8 given most offical servers are that, while comp is 6v6 mostly and the popular pub servers seem to be 10v10+) but comp players aren't special as the last ENSL match shows. Its a small game, there just isn't the player pool for the whole comp scene to be way ahead of the pubs, at best you'll get one or 2 top teams.
So far UWE has kept it healthy at 6v6 and above. I personally think 8v8 is the sweet spot: you still have a personal impact, but not as much as it would be if you were in 6v6.
6v6 - everyone needs to be competent, since every player counts
8v8/9v9 - personal skill still important, but death isn't a huge drawback
12v12 - "how many people can we steamroll into a room without leaving too many areas undefended"
As someone who is good at this game and rocks the server I play on with good K/D most times when my FPS is doing ok, I can win games as aliens a lot easier. Maybe its just because aliens are more independant, or maybe its because skulks are just too hard to hit, but either way, maybe marines need to be more independant or aliens less so, otherwise it will be: Pro's on alien team are greater than pro's on marine team. And if it's: pro's on marine team and none on alien team, then marines will win most likely, unless something goes horribly wrong or everyone is just screwing around.
Overall I have seen most rounds won by aliens and the games are usually super predictable.
Also, NS stats doesn't track my stats, at least not on the server I play on, and probably isn't tracking those wins/losses either so the results might be quite skewed.
If there was first person spectator, you would see they are "special" and you really underestimate what some of those players are capable of.
All-in | Colt for example made serious bank $$ in CS1.6 and StarCraft 1 and is a very "special" player. To put him down as barely "above" what you find in public games is really.. way far from the truth.
@strofix
I do agree the imbalances are magnified at the higher player counts. It's just that most public players are hardly aware of what they can abuse.
But besides all of that, ns2stats.org shows that of the number of servers it is running on.. (every competitive server almost) the win rate is 67%+ Alien win rate. On just public servers it's pretty similar depending on the build you choose.
it's difficult to balance for public play given the massive amount of variables in player skills and agendas, so the procedure of balancing probably lends itself to paying more attention to competitive 6 vs. 6 games because of the controlled environment.
for example, with this new shotgun spread: if I'm able to go into a public server and kill every single Fade effortlessly - that really gives no data whatsoever on how powerful it is, because the average public player simply doesn't use the Fade "correctly" or effectively. Fades could come out at the same time shotguns + w3 / a3 / jetpacks are out, or it could come out when there are no upgrades and only shotguns. these factors are almost entirely uncontrollable in the average public server which makes it a silly endeavor.
however, if I'm able to easily shotgun bLink's Fade in a competitive match, while observing the other controllable factors (such as: did he play "properly", the status of marine vs. alien tech, etc.), then it's possible to start thinking that there could be an issue of balance.
there really have been no issues in the game where balancing for competitive play has broken public play, so it's irrelevant anyway.
I feel like 8v8 is the absolute barest minimum for pub play. If even one slot is open or afk the game is knocked completely off balance. That's why I play 10v10s. 9v9 and 10v10 are acceptable if not ideal playercounts, but preventing the 7v8 or lower scenario is worth it.
As to the Op's question of "what do the dev's want?" well that really is a complicated thing to ask because there is, based on just player number and disregarding individual skill levels and organization, a ridiculous amount of variables between the two formats and all the formats in between, having a cramped room full of 6 marines is a lot different than having a cramped room full of 1 or 2 marines.
You are assuming that you cannot balance for both mediums at the same time, which I guess might have some merit but ultimately the idea is that you should at least try, catering to the 1% of competitive players in the game is not beneficial of course for purely economic reasons, but competitive games are usually the most exciting and on a player to time put in ratio playing the game usually more significant as well, "pro" players play on scales of ten 's of times (sometimes hundreds) more than any usual casual person picking up the game to play. They sink a large amount of their own personal resources and time into this format to improve themselves on a plane of competition. Using these games are usually much more useful to study for balance reasons because if there is anything to exploit in the game, these are the people who will find and will abuse it to no moral end.
For starters the additional covers for the vents in nano is straight up BS. Why would you change that but prevent marines from walking on walls. For players complaining that marines are still underpowered well guess what, this isn’t call of duty so stop going marines and then sucking at it.
The balancing really comes down to getting the skill floors and cielings in the right places. Things need to be easy enough to let pub play approach 50/50, something inside 60/40. But we also need tall ceilings for both teams so that neither team becomes too great and skews competitive balance.
They can balance it by increasing gorge cost to 15 res, something that hurts everyone but puts a higher emphasis on smarter gorge play as 10 res gorge is just too spammable at even 2-4 RTS. They could change the bile aoe radius, doesn't stop them hitting the "I WIN" power node but at least prevents 2-3 buildings getting wiped out if they bile elsewhere, they could also change the health/shield values of high value buildings to have more shield than health, since shield seems to take a lot less damage than health does getting biled.
Maybe instead of electrified res they allow a 500ish shield upgrade to be researched from the ARM factory or 2 CC comm chair upgrade, 15 res for the tech, 10 res per structure getting a shield boost, applied to power nodes/phase/proto whatever.
None of the above would shit on comp or pub play in a big way and would give marines a bit of leeway whether it is 6v6 or 12v12, it would force pub to get more co-ordinated or clued up in the middle of a base rush and not off set well timed comp play too much that it nullifies well executed strats.
And W2 shotgun 2 hitting fades is bullshit, I still do not know how high you have to be to not see it in any other way, I can get W2 and shotguns out by 7-9 mins in even the worst pub games, gl with a cara fade and possibly no blink by that time. Just give skulks blink and delete fades at this rate of balancing either side of play, I shouldn't have to be all in Colt level of fade to simply not be fucked on sight by 2 shotguns in any game ever.
Today I told my friend who is unfamiliar with NS that there are some who play NS "Competitively". He laughed, and rightfully so. This is not an e-sport. <4000 play this game per day. No ones going to be taking tournament-play elitists seriously any time soon.
Everyone knows you need to "be an e-sport" and have 1M$ tournaments to be played competitively. Srsly these "comtptietive pluyeyrs" dem idot hurr durr