Poll: Most games are decided in the first 5 minutes.
What matters is that the moment you feel that the outcome of the game has been set, then everything you do from that point is redundant.
You are implying a if lack of foresight that I cannot agree with. Everything you do is not redundant at that moment. That is the single decisive moment for YOUR gameplay. Not mine nor many of the other readers. That moment is the chance for you to have an impact on the match and whether or not your feelings are true. Become vocal, express your concerns, form a plan, offer to command, rally some moral, however, I do agree with Locklear concerning a difference in skill.
If you voted yes then you are naively assuming that no player leaves the match or changes teams. Nor that you ever make a significant positive impact on your team other than contributing to it's demise.
Who hasn't been in the 60+min pub match where both sides are holding half the map because there is not a single player on either team that ever started the match.
I think this poll would be better titled "Is your own gameplay decided in the first 5 minutes?"
Poll: Most games are decided in the first 5 minutes.
What matters is that the moment you feel that the outcome of the game has been set, then everything you do from that point is redundant.
You are implying a if lack of foresight that I cannot agree with. Everything you do is not redundant at that moment. That is the single decisive moment for YOUR gameplay. Not mine nor many of the other readers. That moment is the chance for you to have an impact on the match and whether or not your feelings are true. Become vocal, express your concerns, form a plan, offer to command, rally some moral, however, I do agree with Locklear concerning a difference in skill.
If you voted yes then you are naively assuming that no player leaves the match or changes teams. Nor that you ever make a significant positive impact on your team other than contributing to it's demise.
Who hasn't been in the 60+min pub match where both sides are holding half the map because there is not a single player on either team that ever started the match.
I think this poll would be better titled "Is your own gameplay decided in the first 5 minutes?"
I disagree, to those of us that actually recognise the game as being over (with <5% chance of that reversing), it stops being fun. There's just nothing fun about being locked down, with the clock ticking, until you lose.
khammed a game on veil that wentreally weird. started sub, cysted to nano, overlook and cargo, shift first, standard stuff. neglected to fully cyst up cargo, they got a phase up and actually fully set up in there. so lost cargo, skulk checked out pipe, oddly clear. ended up with the ugliest minimap I've ever seen. won that one, but it was pretty shaky a few times there, especially when nano kept getting hammered, but holding 6 rtsoff and on, to 3 on the other side usually means you win.
Frankly I think that the games that I can't call to 95% accuracy after the first 5 minutes are less frequent than the games that I actually call wrong after the first 5 minutes. An unexpected comeback is actually more common than an "even game" where no side is decidedly winning until late game, and as many would be quick to point out, comebacks are very rare.
I play this meta-game of "Guess who will win" too. And while I don't guess at the 5 minute mark most times, I can tell it between the 5 and 10 minute mark. I can count the occasions of "Wow didn't thought that this game would turn out that way." on one hand. They are really rare.
So overall I agree that many game are decided to soon and drag out afterwards. Also the reasons are named. skill-unbalance between the teams and the snowballing character of a RTS.
The first problem is harder to fix. Not only do you need to implement a stat-system to measure player-skill, (=very difficult) you also can't take the freedom of players away to play in one team with its friend. Maybe if you have a working stat-system, you could implement soft limits like "You can't join this team, the skill-quotient would be to different." Sad Fana would never ever be able to join any team again... XD
The second problem could be mitigated by some simple tweaks to the economy of both teams. To understand the problem look at the resource system. If you can win a battle over a resource node, you not only get a fix reward of resources. As soon as the RT is built, you increase your resource-advantage every 7 seconds. This means, the longer an advantage holds the bigger that advantage gets.
While this works in pure RTS games (because the units are fairly balanced and have no "skill-difference") in NS2 this leads to problems. The early battles about res nodes and tech points are mostly won / lost because of player skill (some maybe out of luck). In a pure RTS this would mean, you have already stronger units at the start. While your enemy has weaker ones. Now your enemy gets an additional advantage with resources. And this advantage also increases over time.
That is the core of the snowballing.
To counter this, there needs to be something that decelerates the resource income of a superior team. This way the difference in resources of the both teams doesn't increase so fast. Because they simply don't need it. They got already stronger units. Sure, the reward for early wins should not be erased. But right now, this reward is far to big. Leading not to the intended purpose of rewarding the players for a won battle, but devalue the game because you already know your enemy has no chance anymore.
So how to fix this in a specific example? Many RTS games use "upkeep" to decrease the resource income of the team with a big army. While we don't produce an army in NS2 (player-respawns are mostly free) we can bound an upkeep to the thing that determines a winning team in NS2: Map-Control. For example every cyst could cost 0.05 T-Res from every income-tick. An alien team with high map-control (maybe 40 cysts?) would now pay 2 T-Res every 7 seconds upkeep. This decreases the speed in which big map-control leads to a bigger and bigger resource advantage over time. Also the upkeep is small enough to justify the placement of new cysts to get additional resource towers.
Marines would need a similar system, maybe bound to buildings, PGs or power nodes... I don't know. But I think it is important to tackle the snowballing problem.
While this works in pure RTS games (because the units are fairly balanced and have no "skill-difference") in NS2 this leads to problems. The early battles about res nodes and tech points are mostly won / lost because of player skill (some maybe out of luck). In a pure RTS this would mean, you have already stronger units at the start. While your enemy has weaker ones. Now your enemy gets an additional advantage with resources. And this advantage also increases over time.
That is the core of the snowballing.
To counter this, there needs to be something that decelerates the resource income of a superior team.
if they are a superior team, the game is already over. why prolong it?
Honestly, the only times the games are decided in the first 5 minutes is when the skill level between the teams is largely different or there is a base rush involved.
While this works in pure RTS games (because the units are fairly balanced and have no "skill-difference") in NS2 this leads to problems. The early battles about res nodes and tech points are mostly won / lost because of player skill (some maybe out of luck). In a pure RTS this would mean, you have already stronger units at the start. While your enemy has weaker ones. Now your enemy gets an additional advantage with resources. And this advantage also increases over time.
That is the core of the snowballing.
To counter this, there needs to be something that decelerates the resource income of a superior team.
if they are a superior team, the game is already over. why prolong it?
If they are the superior team, it won't really prolong it. They will win anyway. But it can be useful in the cases where early mistakes snowball into an unbeatable advantage. Don't mix up the two cases. I think if we can lessen the impact of the second case, we have won a few games that turn into comebacks (and wouldn't have otherwise), instead of dismissing the idea because it can't fix all the problems.
Honestly, the only times the games are decided in the first 5 minutes is when the skill level between the teams is largely different or there is a base rush involved.
Look at it this way- Most SC2/various RTS games end with a surrender only a few minutes into the game. NS2 has the RTS aspect that causes this, but its a problem since the game is primarily FPS, and high-tech games are so damn fun!
I'm in favour of the 'upkeep cost' idea, though I recall a thread not too long ago suggesting diminishing returns for RTs that got lot of negative opinions (mostly based on the argument 'why should the better team be nerfed!?' though I think this standpoint is largely fallacious).
I STILL think this would be a good idea, not just for the snowballing aspect of the game but also with regards to making the RTS side of the game a leeeetle bit more intuitive, i.e. if any RTs after the first 3-4 give you diminishing returns, rookie teams might not be so eager to attempt to cap and maintain way too many res nodes at the start of the game, which I see way too often as the downfall of a less-experienced marine comm/team.
Start of game:
team loses all initial fights = less skilled players + behind on resources = quick frustrating loss.
team loses some early fights = good players + communication = comeback?
team loses some early fights = bad players + low morale or ragers = plodding unenjoyable loss
While this works in pure RTS games (because the units are fairly balanced and have no "skill-difference") in NS2 this leads to problems. The early battles about res nodes and tech points are mostly won / lost because of player skill (some maybe out of luck). In a pure RTS this would mean, you have already stronger units at the start. While your enemy has weaker ones. Now your enemy gets an additional advantage with resources. And this advantage also increases over time.
That is the core of the snowballing.
Actually battles in RTS games do require skill, its called micromanagement of your units. People winning early is the RTS equivalent of having better micro than your opponent, not having better tech.
The thing about most RTS games is that they have a similar system of snowballing when one player gains an advantage. The difference is that many competitive RTS games (like starcraft) have maps which allow players to take resources without having to compete over them. On top of that the games are designed such that both players can't split the map by 5 or even 10 minutes in by capturing all the res points, because greedy play like that is punished as soon as it is spotted. This means that losing ground/map control in a game like starcraft wont always punish you economically while simultaneously rewarding your opponent economically, because you aren't always fighting over resource locations or base locations. Which in turn means that comebacks are more common in these types of RTS.
Ns2 is the opposite. It is all about aggression over resource nodes, and losing a battle over one is, relatively speaking, like giving your opponent 2 res nodes (1 for what you lost, 1 for the new RT they get) In maps where there is a max of 9-11 res nodes, this gives the winning team a huge economic advantage. The only way to counter this is usually to attack in more than one location so that you trade harvesters.
I think snowballing is in the RTS nature of the game, as well as the skill of the players.
MOBA games, like LoL and DOTA, evolved from RTS games and they have similar problems with snowballing.
Let's make a scenario for the skill factor. Your playing SC2 and each person has 8 units and it is Zerg vs Zerg. Each unit represents a player, like NS2. If the player is good, they have the power equivalent to a Roach. If they are bad, they have power equivalent to a Zergling. Of course, those who have played SC2 will know that whichever side has more Roaches is probably going to win, simply because they are better. In NS2, a similar effect happens. Even though everyone is playing skulk, a person who is good enough can have the power of 2 or even 3 skulks. Huge disparities in skill like this lead to very quick games.
It makes sense as well. If your team has better skill, you get more resource points and bases. So now not only do you have a skill advantage, you have a number advantage too, since you get better units and upgrades. This creates the snowballing effect, since your advantage just keeps getting bigger until you overwhelm your opponent. Turn based strat games suffer similar snowballing effects, like Chess.
Then again, other games, not just NS2, also have games decided within the first few minutes. Even in Call of Duty, if one player on the team is just outright better than everyone, then that team will generally win. In any game if you are better than your opponent, you will generally win. In conclusion, it is safe to say that games are decided when they begin.
Comments
You are implying a if lack of foresight that I cannot agree with. Everything you do is not redundant at that moment. That is the single decisive moment for YOUR gameplay. Not mine nor many of the other readers. That moment is the chance for you to have an impact on the match and whether or not your feelings are true. Become vocal, express your concerns, form a plan, offer to command, rally some moral, however, I do agree with Locklear concerning a difference in skill.
If you voted yes then you are naively assuming that no player leaves the match or changes teams. Nor that you ever make a significant positive impact on your team other than contributing to it's demise.
Who hasn't been in the 60+min pub match where both sides are holding half the map because there is not a single player on either team that ever started the match.
I think this poll would be better titled "Is your own gameplay decided in the first 5 minutes?"
I disagree, to those of us that actually recognise the game as being over (with <5% chance of that reversing), it stops being fun. There's just nothing fun about being locked down, with the clock ticking, until you lose.
So overall I agree that many game are decided to soon and drag out afterwards. Also the reasons are named. skill-unbalance between the teams and the snowballing character of a RTS.
The first problem is harder to fix. Not only do you need to implement a stat-system to measure player-skill, (=very difficult) you also can't take the freedom of players away to play in one team with its friend. Maybe if you have a working stat-system, you could implement soft limits like "You can't join this team, the skill-quotient would be to different." Sad Fana would never ever be able to join any team again... XD
The second problem could be mitigated by some simple tweaks to the economy of both teams. To understand the problem look at the resource system. If you can win a battle over a resource node, you not only get a fix reward of resources. As soon as the RT is built, you increase your resource-advantage every 7 seconds. This means, the longer an advantage holds the bigger that advantage gets.
While this works in pure RTS games (because the units are fairly balanced and have no "skill-difference") in NS2 this leads to problems. The early battles about res nodes and tech points are mostly won / lost because of player skill (some maybe out of luck). In a pure RTS this would mean, you have already stronger units at the start. While your enemy has weaker ones. Now your enemy gets an additional advantage with resources. And this advantage also increases over time.
That is the core of the snowballing.
To counter this, there needs to be something that decelerates the resource income of a superior team. This way the difference in resources of the both teams doesn't increase so fast. Because they simply don't need it. They got already stronger units. Sure, the reward for early wins should not be erased. But right now, this reward is far to big. Leading not to the intended purpose of rewarding the players for a won battle, but devalue the game because you already know your enemy has no chance anymore.
So how to fix this in a specific example? Many RTS games use "upkeep" to decrease the resource income of the team with a big army. While we don't produce an army in NS2 (player-respawns are mostly free) we can bound an upkeep to the thing that determines a winning team in NS2: Map-Control. For example every cyst could cost 0.05 T-Res from every income-tick. An alien team with high map-control (maybe 40 cysts?) would now pay 2 T-Res every 7 seconds upkeep. This decreases the speed in which big map-control leads to a bigger and bigger resource advantage over time. Also the upkeep is small enough to justify the placement of new cysts to get additional resource towers.
Marines would need a similar system, maybe bound to buildings, PGs or power nodes... I don't know. But I think it is important to tackle the snowballing problem.
if they are a superior team, the game is already over. why prolong it?
Thread should have ended after this.
If they are the superior team, it won't really prolong it. They will win anyway. But it can be useful in the cases where early mistakes snowball into an unbeatable advantage. Don't mix up the two cases. I think if we can lessen the impact of the second case, we have won a few games that turn into comebacks (and wouldn't have otherwise), instead of dismissing the idea because it can't fix all the problems.
Agreed
I'm in favour of the 'upkeep cost' idea, though I recall a thread not too long ago suggesting diminishing returns for RTs that got lot of negative opinions (mostly based on the argument 'why should the better team be nerfed!?' though I think this standpoint is largely fallacious).
I STILL think this would be a good idea, not just for the snowballing aspect of the game but also with regards to making the RTS side of the game a leeeetle bit more intuitive, i.e. if any RTs after the first 3-4 give you diminishing returns, rookie teams might not be so eager to attempt to cap and maintain way too many res nodes at the start of the game, which I see way too often as the downfall of a less-experienced marine comm/team.
team loses all initial fights = less skilled players + behind on resources = quick frustrating loss.
team loses some early fights = good players + communication = comeback?
team loses some early fights = bad players + low morale or ragers = plodding unenjoyable loss
Actually battles in RTS games do require skill, its called micromanagement of your units. People winning early is the RTS equivalent of having better micro than your opponent, not having better tech.
The thing about most RTS games is that they have a similar system of snowballing when one player gains an advantage. The difference is that many competitive RTS games (like starcraft) have maps which allow players to take resources without having to compete over them. On top of that the games are designed such that both players can't split the map by 5 or even 10 minutes in by capturing all the res points, because greedy play like that is punished as soon as it is spotted. This means that losing ground/map control in a game like starcraft wont always punish you economically while simultaneously rewarding your opponent economically, because you aren't always fighting over resource locations or base locations. Which in turn means that comebacks are more common in these types of RTS.
Ns2 is the opposite. It is all about aggression over resource nodes, and losing a battle over one is, relatively speaking, like giving your opponent 2 res nodes (1 for what you lost, 1 for the new RT they get) In maps where there is a max of 9-11 res nodes, this gives the winning team a huge economic advantage. The only way to counter this is usually to attack in more than one location so that you trade harvesters.
MOBA games, like LoL and DOTA, evolved from RTS games and they have similar problems with snowballing.
Let's make a scenario for the skill factor. Your playing SC2 and each person has 8 units and it is Zerg vs Zerg. Each unit represents a player, like NS2. If the player is good, they have the power equivalent to a Roach. If they are bad, they have power equivalent to a Zergling. Of course, those who have played SC2 will know that whichever side has more Roaches is probably going to win, simply because they are better. In NS2, a similar effect happens. Even though everyone is playing skulk, a person who is good enough can have the power of 2 or even 3 skulks. Huge disparities in skill like this lead to very quick games.
It makes sense as well. If your team has better skill, you get more resource points and bases. So now not only do you have a skill advantage, you have a number advantage too, since you get better units and upgrades. This creates the snowballing effect, since your advantage just keeps getting bigger until you overwhelm your opponent. Turn based strat games suffer similar snowballing effects, like Chess.
Then again, other games, not just NS2, also have games decided within the first few minutes. Even in Call of Duty, if one player on the team is just outright better than everyone, then that team will generally win. In any game if you are better than your opponent, you will generally win. In conclusion, it is safe to say that games are decided when they begin.