Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
"You're not allowed to play the game you've paid for because you're good at it".
Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
"You're not allowed to play the game you've paid for because you're good at it".
That's a pretty uncharitable reading of sotanaht's point.
Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
"You're not allowed to play the game you've paid for because you're good at it".
That's a pretty uncharitable reading of sotanaht's point.
Charity starts at home. When the poster in question calls someone "Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum" because he is good, what kind of response would you expect?
When the poster in question calls someone "Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum" because he is good, what kind of response would you expect?
That's not what sotanaht said.
He didn't accuse the player in question of being scum because he is good, but because he was noob-stomping.
Semantics. Public servers are public. I didn't realize that there was a skill ceiling on public games. Good to know that once one becomes "good" they are not allowed to play on public servers. Please give be a list of Scarlett Letter Emblazoned servers where we sequester people we think are "too good" to play with everyone else.
That's a pretty uncharitable reading of sotanaht's point.
The server in question, yo-clan, is probably the public server with the highest average skill. If that's "pubstomping", where do you suggest I play, then?
To add some funny to this post: I tried playing on an american public server last week to prepare for our game against nexzil. I ended up getting banned for making "unrealistic turns" as Lerk. Never seen that one before...
Bring along a friend, have him join the other team. Bang, balance!
On a more serious note, there is no autoteambalance in this world that could account badass skill differences. My experience in that matter is a lot more laid back. I usually have a nice chat with said pg. Advantage: Those guys are talkative, and they'll lower their guard. And we have fun, despite me getting pwned. And I can be smug about every lucky kill I get in.
Few days ago I encountered a suspicious dude, who of course was on the marine side. He alone managed to kill 3 skulks that charged him all together and he alone blocked our path to expand for like 5 minutes. Many players from my team claimed that he cheated, because no matter how they attacked him, they always died without doing any damage. I managed to sneak behind him in one point and kill him. However, it was too late for our team cause the marines already expanded everywhere.
I've never seen such a blockade from just a single marine.
The map was Mineshaft and our hive was in Cave. The marine blocked the space between Crusher and Sorting. And Repair was heavily guarded, so we found ourselves trapped in our little Cave.
that's really not neccessarily cheating .... I've once seen a guys named arc|fana go something like 40:1 in a match where he basically blocked one exit of the aliens mainhive om his own while the rest of our team capped the rest of the map. He did not cheat but obviously was way out of the league of the other players on the server.
It also was the Yo clan server so it wasn't just a bunch of noob aliens he was playing against.
Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
There is nothing wrong with it, as long as the skilled player isn't spamming chat with insults. Getting beat badly happens. At the end of the match, you know the skilled player had a lot to do with that victory.
Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
"You're not allowed to play the game you've paid for because you're good at it".
You can do whatever you like.
Don't expect people to like it though.
That's a pretty uncharitable reading of sotanaht's point.
The server in question, yo-clan, is probably the public server with the highest average skill. If that's "pubstomping", where do you suggest I play, then?
And i always thought our servers are the public server with the highest average skill.
I didnt give a cent atm for aimbot warnings. Im really not the mega-aimer but was called a cheater from time to time too.
You can never be 100% sure, but i never saw an aimbot in the 2 years of playing.
When the poster in question calls someone "Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum" because he is good, what kind of response would you expect?
That's not what sotanaht said.
He didn't accuse the player in question of being scum because he is good, but because he was noob-stomping.
Semantics. Public servers are public. I didn't realize that there was a skill ceiling on public games. Good to know that once one becomes "good" they are not allowed to play on public servers. Please give be a list of Scarlett Letter Emblazoned servers where we sequester people we think are "too good" to play with everyone else.
This is why this game need a few "official servers" that does ranking and match making. You can argue all day about the freedom to play on whatever server you want, but at the end of the day it makes the game alot less fun when someone is going 40-2, and that is not good for the game.
It's not fun for anyone when one player comes into a server and dominates everything to the point that nothing anyone but that player does even matters anymore. It's not fun if it happens because they are cheating, and it's not fun if it's just because they are just that good. If a player knowingly and intentionally ruins the game, whether by cheating or by actual skill, then they are in a word, scum.
I understand the argument that says that people with that much legitimate skill deserve to play the game too. After all, there's nothing at all wrong with being good at the game, it's just what you do with that skill that can make you a bad person. But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either. Obviously they have somewhere they can hone their skills and people they can play against and get better by doing so, or else they would never have gotten that good in the first place, so it's clear to me that these people DO have somewhere to play, it just isn't pubs.
It's not fun for anyone when one player comes into a server and dominates everything to the point that nothing anyone but that player does even matters anymore. It's not fun if it happens because they are cheating, and it's not fun if it's just because they are just that good. If a player knowingly and intentionally ruins the game, whether by cheating or by actual skill, then they are in a word, scum.
I understand the argument that says that people with that much legitimate skill deserve to play the game too. After all, there's nothing at all wrong with being good at the game, it's just what you do with that skill that can make you a bad person. But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either. Obviously they have somewhere they can hone their skills and people they can play against and get better by doing so, or else they would never have gotten that good in the first place, so it's clear to me that these people DO have somewhere to play, it just isn't pubs.
It is a good thing people don't listen to you, other wise I would never be able to play with people better than me, and thus I would never have a chance to learn from them and get better myself.
It's not fun for anyone when one player comes into a server and dominates everything to the point that nothing anyone but that player does even matters anymore. It's not fun if it happens because they are cheating, and it's not fun if it's just because they are just that good. If a player knowingly and intentionally ruins the game, whether by cheating or by actual skill, then they are in a word, scum.
I understand the argument that says that people with that much legitimate skill deserve to play the game too. After all, there's nothing at all wrong with being good at the game, it's just what you do with that skill that can make you a bad person. But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either. Obviously they have somewhere they can hone their skills and people they can play against and get better by doing so, or else they would never have gotten that good in the first place, so it's clear to me that these people DO have somewhere to play, it just isn't pubs.
It is a good thing people don't listen to you, other wise I would never be able to play with people better than me, and thus I would never have a chance to learn from them and get better myself.
There is always 2 kind of gamers
1. Competitive wants to get better
2. Just want to join a game to have fun, could care less if they get better or w/e
We need to find a way that is fun for both.
This is why we need rank/match system. If you will be matched to people around your skill level. So if you want to get better you can learn from those that are slightly better than you and you can help those that are worse. You can move up the ladder and eventually learn from the best.
If you are super casual and dont care you stay at your bottom rank and just have fun
It's not fun for anyone when one player comes into a server and dominates everything to the point that nothing anyone but that player does even matters anymore. It's not fun if it happens because they are cheating, and it's not fun if it's just because they are just that good. If a player knowingly and intentionally ruins the game, whether by cheating or by actual skill, then they are in a word, scum.
I understand the argument that says that people with that much legitimate skill deserve to play the game too. After all, there's nothing at all wrong with being good at the game, it's just what you do with that skill that can make you a bad person. But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either. Obviously they have somewhere they can hone their skills and people they can play against and get better by doing so, or else they would never have gotten that good in the first place, so it's clear to me that these people DO have somewhere to play, it just isn't pubs.
It is a good thing people don't listen to you, other wise I would never be able to play with people better than me, and thus I would never have a chance to learn from them and get better myself.
There's a difference between someone being better than you, and someone who dominates the server to the point that nothing anyone else does matters. Keep in mind I'm only really referring to players so skilled that the only reason they aren't mistaken for aim botters is because they actually know basic strategy and can dodge as well. These people are literally more devastating to how the game plays out than an actual hacker. Playing against these people is not going to make you better, you aren't even going to get close enough to them to try to start work out how to deal with them,
There's a difference between someone being better than you, and someone who dominates the server to the point that nothing anyone else does matters. Keep in mind I'm only really referring to players so skilled that the only reason they aren't mistaken for aim botters is because they actually know basic strategy and can dodge as well. These people are literally more devastating to how the game plays out than an actual hacker. Playing against these people is not going to make you better, you aren't even going to get close enough to them to try to start work out how to deal with them,
At the risk of subjecting myself to the same backlash, I have to agree with this. Playing against people who are better than you can be a great way to learn and improve, but there is a point where the skill divide is so great that you simply cannot significantly gain from the experience. I think the popular analogy is that of an NFL pro athlete jumping into a little league game and going full bore against a group of small children who aren't really capable of appreciating the strategic nuances of being smeared across the field by a hulking man-beast five times their size. The typical response is just confusion, resentment, anger - a sense of utter and complete unfairness rather than a desire to crest the next ridge.
The progression needs to be gradual to be most effective. You play against people who are the next step or two ahead of you, but at least in sight, in the same realm, so you can understand and appreciate and absorb what separates you and what you need to do to improve. In almost every real world competitive venue, and especially those that are physical, you have these layers or tiers of skill where you compete and grow with people in the same general category, and it's considered untoward for someone of a higher tier to play against people who are significantly beneath them.
I'm sure there are exceptions to the generalization, some few people who really enjoy getting utterly and completely reamed out from start to finish every single time they play until they eventually claw and scrabble their way up the sheer cliff face to victory, but most people prefer a more manageable slope.
The thing that really gets me, the bit I don't understand, is why those pro players would even want to go pubstomp noobs who cannot provide them with any kind of significant challenge. Winning is great and all, monster KD ratios, sure whatever, but for me a victory is not really enjoyable unless I had to work for it. To me, it seems like dominating 'scrubs' would just be a masturbatory ego-stroke session, and so I don't have much sympathy for pro players getting indignant about their right to join rookie servers in order to violate the other players for cheap thrills.
Bringing an equally skilled friend along and then playing opposite teams is a better solution, but in almost every case where I've seen elites crashing a rookie server, they immediately stack the same team every time and are resistant to any suggestions about splitting up for the sake of a balanced game. A few matches like that are usually enough to empty the server in my experience, because it's just not fun for anyone else.
Do we not have any servers that intentionally cater to the higher skill tiers? I'd find that hard to believe, but I can see about converting one of our multiple rookie-friendly servers into some kind of haven for the pros to slug it out with each other if it's actually an issue. As it stands though, if someone so pro as to be indistinguishable from an aimbotter joins our rookie servers and continues to ruin match after match by making every other player on the server irrelevant, I'm going to ask them to leave. I don't like doing it, but the alternative is worse, and it seems to me they ought to know better.
The best reason for pub stomps is training consistency. Consistency you don't really get to practice very often against decent players because you so rarely get to fight 3 good skulks at the same time over and over and over, so 5-6 really bad ones is a decent substitute and you can do that endlessly with 24p servers and shifts spawning eggs.
You can kind of practice that in private in combat servers and that's ideal, but pubs are surprisingly good practice for that sort of thing if you just constantly throw yourself in retarded situations on purpose and see what happens.
The reality of the situation is there has been only one real attempt at a decent player server, and that's godar's veteran server. But beyond that there are no other servers with a population of decent players. So there are for all practical purposes no other servers for these players to play on besides just joining whatever server has an open slot or queueing for a shitty gather that will take 3 hours to fill and another 2 to start. Kicking a player for pubstomping seems as justified as kicking a new player for trying to command for the first time because the distribution of players across servers is pretty sporadic as far as decent players go so you can't fault the good player anymore than the new player for playing on any given server as they're all fair game to anyone. Rookie friendly is not rookie only, and the majority of the larger player count servers are rookie friendly. I would guess 70-80% are, and we're all free to play on large servers if we want to.
It would be intelligent for the people so opposed to these pubstomps to understand the reality of the situation so as not to sound like complete and total morons on such a regular basis. There for all practical purposes are no servers worth playing on for better competition as far as public matches go. And no one is obligated to stop playing or play in a formal setting (scrim, gather, etc) in order to placate new players and mediocre players from the occassional pubstomp.
But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either.
(1) Unlike what you may believe, there is a lot of good practice to be had on public servers, even for good players.
(2) Casual play can be an enjoyable distraction from the grueling seriousness of competitive play.
(3) This community is too small to support good players with an adequate number of competitive matches. For good players to play as much as they want to, they have to play on public servers.
Please keep calling me "scum" for playing a game I've paid hard money for and have just as much right playing as you do. It tells the readers of your posts everything they need to know about you as a person.
We're having a discussion about a solo good player playing on one of the highest skilled pubs for a little casual practice and warmup. If you want to discuss your fictional Dickbags McRaperson who team stacks with his buddies on rookie servers for a "masturbatory ego-stroke session", I suggest you go make your own thread for that.
Bottom line, hackers are bad. I don't think anyone would really disagree with that but the hackers themselves.
What makes a hacker bad? His effect on the game. He makes the game unfair for BOTH teams, the one hes on becuase they don't get to have any kind of fair fight or challenge, they get to win without earning it, and the losing team because they have no possible hope. Unfair=Unfun.
What if a player creates the same situation without actually hacking? He has the same effect as the hacker (by definition with this hypothetical), so if the effect of the hacker is what makes the hacker bad, so too is the pro player bad for the game.
In the situation I originally quoted, it didn't matter what the server was or whether the player in question was in fact cheating or simply that good. What mattered is he was making the game into an unfun environment for everyone else on both teams. When you do that intentionally, when you intentionally ruin games for other people, you are no better than a hacker.
This has gotten a little off-topic. Anyways, I have played this game for a little over a year, usually 1-3 hours daily depending on my schedule. I've played pubs mostly, with some gathers. I know the players who are REALLY good. Sometimes I can kill them, mostly not. I don't assume they're "hacking". A lot of times they stick with their team and do what marines are supposed to do.
Lately, though, I have been noticing new people in game. Names i've never seen, who come in and do rediculous scores. Sure that doesn't mean much. I'm not "great" by any means, but I've had my fair share of 35-1 games as marine and 40-0 as alien. Anyway, these players I will watch as comm or spectate. I'll see a skulk silent walking towards the guy who is alone, and the guy snaps aim in the direction of the skulk. Second he is visible, shot dead. Consistently.
Some people might say that these hack claims are newbs playing good players. I am saying yes there are good players but as of the last few weeks, I am coming across more and more players who are never making mistakes when they're alone, raping skulks in 4 on 1 engagements (not the skulks that run up to you straightline on the floor) with weapons0 armor0.
I've heard of some purple mod alien mod. Haven't gone into it much but it sounds gay. Might also make it easier for an aimbot to work by looking for shades of purple.
Also I notice most of the time I find a player like this not on the typical experienced servers. Lot of unmodded or rookie servers mostly.
Please keep calling me "scum" for playing a game I've paid hard money for and have just as much right playing as you do. It tells the readers of your posts everything they need to know about you as a person.
The best reason for pub stomps is training consistency. Consistency you don't really get to practice very often against decent players because you so rarely get to fight 3 good skulks at the same time over and over and over, so 5-6 really bad ones is a decent substitute and you can do that endlessly with 24p servers and shifts spawning eggs.
You can kind of practice that in private in combat servers and that's ideal, but pubs are surprisingly good practice for that sort of thing if you just constantly throw yourself in retarded situations on purpose and see what happens.
The reality of the situation is there has been only one real attempt at a decent player server, and that's godar's veteran server. But beyond that there are no other servers with a population of decent players. So there are for all practical purposes no other servers for these players to play on besides just joining whatever server has an open slot or queueing for a shitty gather that will take 3 hours to fill and another 2 to start. Kicking a player for pubstomping seems as justified as kicking a new player for trying to command for the first time because the distribution of players across servers is pretty sporadic as far as decent players go so you can't fault the good player anymore than the new player for playing on any given server as they're all fair game to anyone. Rookie friendly is not rookie only, and the majority of the larger player count servers are rookie friendly. I would guess 70-80% are, and we're all free to play on large servers if we want to.
It would be intelligent for the people so opposed to these pubstomps to understand the reality of the situation so as not to sound like complete and total morons on such a regular basis. There for all practical purposes are no servers worth playing on for better competition as far as public matches go. And no one is obligated to stop playing or play in a formal setting (scrim, gather, etc) in order to placate new players and mediocre players from the occassional pubstomp.
I understand rookie friendly is not the same as rookie only; I'm only semi-scrubby myself and there are plenty of other reasonably talented people that play on our servers on a regular basis. The problem is when a player or multiple players from the 'godlike' tier show up and decide to go prison rules on everyone else. As a server op, I am not obligated to sacrifice the rest of the server population to be some sort of poor man's whetstone for a bored pro who wants to hone his edge.
I'm not saying that guy shouldn't be allowed to play the game, what I AM saying is that it is not ideal to have those players at the very extreme ends of the spectrum lumped into the same match. It benefits everyone involved to instead be grouped with players in the same general skill region, or a few steps in either direction. If it will help, I will gladly convert one of our servers into a 'pro' haven intended for high level play, but I suspect, and I think other people have also speculated, that the playerbase may just be too small to have enough players in that skill tier to consistently populate a server outside of scheduled matches.
By the way, thanks for calling me a complete and total moron! It really lends a lot of validity to your argument and makes you sound super cool and smart by comparison. :P
We're having a discussion about a solo good player playing on one of the highest skilled pubs for a little casual practice and warmup. If you want to discuss your fictional Dickbags McRaperson who team stacks with his buddies on rookie servers for a "masturbatory ego-stroke session", I suggest you go make your own thread for that.
You are also having a discussion about the more general problem of highly skilled players wildly skewing the balance in games with pub noobs, as per your first post in the thread:
Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum as far as I'm concerned. People that good at the game shouldn't join pubs with average/beginner players. It just ruins the game for everybody on both sides, often worse than an actual hacker would because despite their aimbots they still tend to be bad players.
"You're not allowed to play the game you've paid for because you're good at it".
The OP example was defended by some people as possibly just being a player who was far more skilled than everyone else in the server, which led to further extrapolation on that point. If the thread was derailed from its original intent, it was before I got here. :P
I'm also not talking about fictional straw men, I am speaking from first hand experiences I have had on multiple occasions. Sorry.
I've played against various people from nxzl and all-in, and while they were certainly tough and kicked mine own buttocks repeatedly, the game didn't feel completely broken/pointless unless they all stacked on one team. The individual 'Dickbag McRaperson's I'm talking about were so ridiculously good that they made every other player on both teams irrelevant and had half the server speculating about aimbotting, etc.
When that (or the stacking) persists for several matches in a row it becomes a problem, and at that point either they leave or the rest of the server does. So in that sense, Sotanaht is correct in saying that the practical outcome of having someone who is hacking is essentially the same as having a ridiculously good player crashing a server where no one can touch him.
It's not fun for anyone when one player comes into a server and dominates everything to the point that nothing anyone but that player does even matters anymore. It's not fun if it happens because they are cheating, and it's not fun if it's just because they are just that good. If a player knowingly and intentionally ruins the game, whether by cheating or by actual skill, then they are in a word, scum.
So, if a "pro" does this unknowingly, is it okay?
For example- "pro" player joins the Marines.
Aliens view-
"pro" player is unstoppable, we can't take Repair or attack their base at all. PG's up in Repair.
"pro" player never misses with a shotgun!
"pro" player killed all three of us. I swear I bit him four times!
Marine view-
Good job "pro" player, we almost lost Repair. Dropping a PG.
"pro" player says, "skulks rushing base"..*bang* *bang* *bang*.."base is fine."
"pro" player says, "Fades up, lets get shotguns".
To the aliens, the "pro" player looks like a jerk, because their dominating at the moment. For the "pro" player, they could be just playing the game, trying to keep the aliens from gaining ground and winning. Positive K:D to them just means their not a liability to their team. Helping control the map means their doing their job and their team is having a lot of success.
There's a difference between someone being better than you, and someone who dominates the server to the point that nothing anyone else does matters. Keep in mind I'm only really referring to players so skilled that the only reason they aren't mistaken for aim botters is because they actually know basic strategy and can dodge as well. These people are literally more devastating to how the game plays out than an actual hacker. Playing against these people is not going to make you better, you aren't even going to get close enough to them to try to start work out how to deal with them,
At the risk of subjecting myself to the same backlash, I have to agree with this. Playing against people who are better than you can be a great way to learn and improve, but there is a point where the skill divide is so great that you simply cannot significantly gain from the experience. I think the popular analogy is that of an NFL pro athlete jumping into a little league game and going full bore against a group of small children who aren't really capable of appreciating the strategic nuances of being smeared across the field by a hulking man-beast five times their size. The typical response is just confusion, resentment, anger - a sense of utter and complete unfairness rather than a desire to crest the next ridge.
The progression needs to be gradual to be most effective. You play against people who are the next step or two ahead of you, but at least in sight, in the same realm, so you can understand and appreciate and absorb what separates you and what you need to do to improve. In almost every real world competitive venue, and especially those that are physical, you have these layers or tiers of skill where you compete and grow with people in the same general category, and it's considered untoward for someone of a higher tier to play against people who are significantly beneath them.
I somewhat agree. But, even in pro sports there are teams that flat outclass their opponents. Some leagues have specials rules in place just to avoid top player stacking, or Dream Teams.
I think these particular "pro"'s need to help out, by giving advice rather than just carrying their team; help make others better.
Opposing players who see the gap in skill need to accept it and move on. If the "pro" isn't being insulting, then it's not personal. Next game request random teams.
The thing that really gets me, the bit I don't understand, is why those pro players would even want to go pubstomp noobs who cannot provide them with any kind of significant challenge. Winning is great and all, monster KD ratios, sure whatever, but for me a victory is not really enjoyable unless I had to work for it. To me, it seems like dominating 'scrubs' would just be a masturbatory ego-stroke session, and so I don't have much sympathy for pro players getting indignant about their right to join rookie servers in order to violate the other players for cheap thrills.
Bringing an equally skilled friend along and then playing opposite teams is a better solution, but in almost every case where I've seen elites crashing a rookie server, they immediately stack the same team every time and are resistant to any suggestions about splitting up for the sake of a balanced game. A few matches like that are usually enough to empty the server in my experience, because it's just not fun for anyone else.
Do we not have any servers that intentionally cater to the higher skill tiers? I'd find that hard to believe, but I can see about converting one of our multiple rookie-friendly servers into some kind of haven for the pros to slug it out with each other if it's actually an issue. As it stands though, if someone so pro as to be indistinguishable from an aimbotter joins our rookie servers and continues to ruin match after match by making every other player on the server irrelevant, I'm going to ask them to leave. I don't like doing it, but the alternative is worse, and it seems to me they ought to know better.
If elites are crashing rookie servers to pub-stomp, they aren't elite in my opinion. They are there for a cheap thrill and laughs. People should leave the server, if that happens and no admin is around to fix it.
I think part of the problem is rookies play on any server. If you're good and want to play with others at your level, it's either clan, friends, or gather. If you go to a regular server (not rookie), rookies are still there and will not be kicked (or asked to go to a rookie server). If rookies stayed on rookie friendly servers (green player name or not), "pro"'s stuck to regular servers, and mid-levels bounced between the two, this would be less of an issue.
Comments
That's a pretty uncharitable reading of sotanaht's point.
Charity starts at home. When the poster in question calls someone "Only one step below cheaters on the hierarchy of scum" because he is good, what kind of response would you expect?
Semantics. Public servers are public. I didn't realize that there was a skill ceiling on public games. Good to know that once one becomes "good" they are not allowed to play on public servers. Please give be a list of Scarlett Letter Emblazoned servers where we sequester people we think are "too good" to play with everyone else.
WTB Fana aim pl0x.
Edit: Kouji, I think that would still the Destroy.
To add some funny to this post: I tried playing on an american public server last week to prepare for our game against nexzil. I ended up getting banned for making "unrealistic turns" as Lerk. Never seen that one before...
And Im a horrible player....
No epeen enlargement, just showing that streaks are possible,
On a more serious note, there is no autoteambalance in this world that could account badass skill differences. My experience in that matter is a lot more laid back. I usually have a nice chat with said pg. Advantage: Those guys are talkative, and they'll lower their guard. And we have fun, despite me getting pwned. And I can be smug about every lucky kill I get in.
There is nothing wrong with it, as long as the skilled player isn't spamming chat with insults. Getting beat badly happens. At the end of the match, you know the skilled player had a lot to do with that victory.
You can do whatever you like.
Don't expect people to like it though.
And i always thought our servers are the public server with the highest average skill.
I didnt give a cent atm for aimbot warnings. Im really not the mega-aimer but was called a cheater from time to time too.
You can never be 100% sure, but i never saw an aimbot in the 2 years of playing.
This is why this game need a few "official servers" that does ranking and match making. You can argue all day about the freedom to play on whatever server you want, but at the end of the day it makes the game alot less fun when someone is going 40-2, and that is not good for the game.
I understand the argument that says that people with that much legitimate skill deserve to play the game too. After all, there's nothing at all wrong with being good at the game, it's just what you do with that skill that can make you a bad person. But consider this: they get nothing out of playing a pub. They get no legitimate practice, no training, they do not improve in any way. Their competition simply isn't skilled enough to benefit them, and they are too skilled to allow the competition any legitimate practice either. Obviously they have somewhere they can hone their skills and people they can play against and get better by doing so, or else they would never have gotten that good in the first place, so it's clear to me that these people DO have somewhere to play, it just isn't pubs.
It is a good thing people don't listen to you, other wise I would never be able to play with people better than me, and thus I would never have a chance to learn from them and get better myself.
maybe i should just uninstall
There is always 2 kind of gamers
1. Competitive wants to get better
2. Just want to join a game to have fun, could care less if they get better or w/e
We need to find a way that is fun for both.
This is why we need rank/match system. If you will be matched to people around your skill level. So if you want to get better you can learn from those that are slightly better than you and you can help those that are worse. You can move up the ladder and eventually learn from the best.
If you are super casual and dont care you stay at your bottom rank and just have fun
There's a difference between someone being better than you, and someone who dominates the server to the point that nothing anyone else does matters. Keep in mind I'm only really referring to players so skilled that the only reason they aren't mistaken for aim botters is because they actually know basic strategy and can dodge as well. These people are literally more devastating to how the game plays out than an actual hacker. Playing against these people is not going to make you better, you aren't even going to get close enough to them to try to start work out how to deal with them,
At the risk of subjecting myself to the same backlash, I have to agree with this. Playing against people who are better than you can be a great way to learn and improve, but there is a point where the skill divide is so great that you simply cannot significantly gain from the experience. I think the popular analogy is that of an NFL pro athlete jumping into a little league game and going full bore against a group of small children who aren't really capable of appreciating the strategic nuances of being smeared across the field by a hulking man-beast five times their size. The typical response is just confusion, resentment, anger - a sense of utter and complete unfairness rather than a desire to crest the next ridge.
The progression needs to be gradual to be most effective. You play against people who are the next step or two ahead of you, but at least in sight, in the same realm, so you can understand and appreciate and absorb what separates you and what you need to do to improve. In almost every real world competitive venue, and especially those that are physical, you have these layers or tiers of skill where you compete and grow with people in the same general category, and it's considered untoward for someone of a higher tier to play against people who are significantly beneath them.
I'm sure there are exceptions to the generalization, some few people who really enjoy getting utterly and completely reamed out from start to finish every single time they play until they eventually claw and scrabble their way up the sheer cliff face to victory, but most people prefer a more manageable slope.
The thing that really gets me, the bit I don't understand, is why those pro players would even want to go pubstomp noobs who cannot provide them with any kind of significant challenge. Winning is great and all, monster KD ratios, sure whatever, but for me a victory is not really enjoyable unless I had to work for it. To me, it seems like dominating 'scrubs' would just be a masturbatory ego-stroke session, and so I don't have much sympathy for pro players getting indignant about their right to join rookie servers in order to violate the other players for cheap thrills.
Bringing an equally skilled friend along and then playing opposite teams is a better solution, but in almost every case where I've seen elites crashing a rookie server, they immediately stack the same team every time and are resistant to any suggestions about splitting up for the sake of a balanced game. A few matches like that are usually enough to empty the server in my experience, because it's just not fun for anyone else.
Do we not have any servers that intentionally cater to the higher skill tiers? I'd find that hard to believe, but I can see about converting one of our multiple rookie-friendly servers into some kind of haven for the pros to slug it out with each other if it's actually an issue. As it stands though, if someone so pro as to be indistinguishable from an aimbotter joins our rookie servers and continues to ruin match after match by making every other player on the server irrelevant, I'm going to ask them to leave. I don't like doing it, but the alternative is worse, and it seems to me they ought to know better.
You can kind of practice that in private in combat servers and that's ideal, but pubs are surprisingly good practice for that sort of thing if you just constantly throw yourself in retarded situations on purpose and see what happens.
The reality of the situation is there has been only one real attempt at a decent player server, and that's godar's veteran server. But beyond that there are no other servers with a population of decent players. So there are for all practical purposes no other servers for these players to play on besides just joining whatever server has an open slot or queueing for a shitty gather that will take 3 hours to fill and another 2 to start. Kicking a player for pubstomping seems as justified as kicking a new player for trying to command for the first time because the distribution of players across servers is pretty sporadic as far as decent players go so you can't fault the good player anymore than the new player for playing on any given server as they're all fair game to anyone. Rookie friendly is not rookie only, and the majority of the larger player count servers are rookie friendly. I would guess 70-80% are, and we're all free to play on large servers if we want to.
It would be intelligent for the people so opposed to these pubstomps to understand the reality of the situation so as not to sound like complete and total morons on such a regular basis. There for all practical purposes are no servers worth playing on for better competition as far as public matches go. And no one is obligated to stop playing or play in a formal setting (scrim, gather, etc) in order to placate new players and mediocre players from the occassional pubstomp.
(2) Casual play can be an enjoyable distraction from the grueling seriousness of competitive play.
(3) This community is too small to support good players with an adequate number of competitive matches. For good players to play as much as they want to, they have to play on public servers.
Please keep calling me "scum" for playing a game I've paid hard money for and have just as much right playing as you do. It tells the readers of your posts everything they need to know about you as a person.
We're having a discussion about a solo good player playing on one of the highest skilled pubs for a little casual practice and warmup. If you want to discuss your fictional Dickbags McRaperson who team stacks with his buddies on rookie servers for a "masturbatory ego-stroke session", I suggest you go make your own thread for that.
What makes a hacker bad? His effect on the game. He makes the game unfair for BOTH teams, the one hes on becuase they don't get to have any kind of fair fight or challenge, they get to win without earning it, and the losing team because they have no possible hope. Unfair=Unfun.
What if a player creates the same situation without actually hacking? He has the same effect as the hacker (by definition with this hypothetical), so if the effect of the hacker is what makes the hacker bad, so too is the pro player bad for the game.
In the situation I originally quoted, it didn't matter what the server was or whether the player in question was in fact cheating or simply that good. What mattered is he was making the game into an unfun environment for everyone else on both teams. When you do that intentionally, when you intentionally ruin games for other people, you are no better than a hacker.
Lately, though, I have been noticing new people in game. Names i've never seen, who come in and do rediculous scores. Sure that doesn't mean much. I'm not "great" by any means, but I've had my fair share of 35-1 games as marine and 40-0 as alien. Anyway, these players I will watch as comm or spectate. I'll see a skulk silent walking towards the guy who is alone, and the guy snaps aim in the direction of the skulk. Second he is visible, shot dead. Consistently.
Some people might say that these hack claims are newbs playing good players. I am saying yes there are good players but as of the last few weeks, I am coming across more and more players who are never making mistakes when they're alone, raping skulks in 4 on 1 engagements (not the skulks that run up to you straightline on the floor) with weapons0 armor0.
I've heard of some purple mod alien mod. Haven't gone into it much but it sounds gay. Might also make it easier for an aimbot to work by looking for shades of purple.
Also I notice most of the time I find a player like this not on the typical experienced servers. Lot of unmodded or rookie servers mostly.
Stop right there, criminal scum.
I understand rookie friendly is not the same as rookie only; I'm only semi-scrubby myself and there are plenty of other reasonably talented people that play on our servers on a regular basis. The problem is when a player or multiple players from the 'godlike' tier show up and decide to go prison rules on everyone else. As a server op, I am not obligated to sacrifice the rest of the server population to be some sort of poor man's whetstone for a bored pro who wants to hone his edge.
I'm not saying that guy shouldn't be allowed to play the game, what I AM saying is that it is not ideal to have those players at the very extreme ends of the spectrum lumped into the same match. It benefits everyone involved to instead be grouped with players in the same general skill region, or a few steps in either direction. If it will help, I will gladly convert one of our servers into a 'pro' haven intended for high level play, but I suspect, and I think other people have also speculated, that the playerbase may just be too small to have enough players in that skill tier to consistently populate a server outside of scheduled matches.
By the way, thanks for calling me a complete and total moron! It really lends a lot of validity to your argument and makes you sound super cool and smart by comparison. :P
You are also having a discussion about the more general problem of highly skilled players wildly skewing the balance in games with pub noobs, as per your first post in the thread:
The OP example was defended by some people as possibly just being a player who was far more skilled than everyone else in the server, which led to further extrapolation on that point. If the thread was derailed from its original intent, it was before I got here. :P
I'm also not talking about fictional straw men, I am speaking from first hand experiences I have had on multiple occasions. Sorry.
I've played against various people from nxzl and all-in, and while they were certainly tough and kicked mine own buttocks repeatedly, the game didn't feel completely broken/pointless unless they all stacked on one team. The individual 'Dickbag McRaperson's I'm talking about were so ridiculously good that they made every other player on both teams irrelevant and had half the server speculating about aimbotting, etc.
When that (or the stacking) persists for several matches in a row it becomes a problem, and at that point either they leave or the rest of the server does. So in that sense, Sotanaht is correct in saying that the practical outcome of having someone who is hacking is essentially the same as having a ridiculously good player crashing a server where no one can touch him.
So, if a "pro" does this unknowingly, is it okay?
For example- "pro" player joins the Marines.
Aliens view-
"pro" player is unstoppable, we can't take Repair or attack their base at all. PG's up in Repair.
"pro" player never misses with a shotgun!
"pro" player killed all three of us. I swear I bit him four times!
Marine view-
Good job "pro" player, we almost lost Repair. Dropping a PG.
"pro" player says, "skulks rushing base"..*bang* *bang* *bang*.."base is fine."
"pro" player says, "Fades up, lets get shotguns".
To the aliens, the "pro" player looks like a jerk, because their dominating at the moment. For the "pro" player, they could be just playing the game, trying to keep the aliens from gaining ground and winning. Positive K:D to them just means their not a liability to their team. Helping control the map means their doing their job and their team is having a lot of success.
Knowingly stacking is being a jerk.
I somewhat agree. But, even in pro sports there are teams that flat outclass their opponents. Some leagues have specials rules in place just to avoid top player stacking, or Dream Teams.
I think these particular "pro"'s need to help out, by giving advice rather than just carrying their team; help make others better.
Opposing players who see the gap in skill need to accept it and move on. If the "pro" isn't being insulting, then it's not personal. Next game request random teams.
If elites are crashing rookie servers to pub-stomp, they aren't elite in my opinion. They are there for a cheap thrill and laughs. People should leave the server, if that happens and no admin is around to fix it.
I think part of the problem is rookies play on any server. If you're good and want to play with others at your level, it's either clan, friends, or gather. If you go to a regular server (not rookie), rookies are still there and will not be kicked (or asked to go to a rookie server). If rookies stayed on rookie friendly servers (green player name or not), "pro"'s stuck to regular servers, and mid-levels bounced between the two, this would be less of an issue.