I'm trying to enjoy this game, I really am
Inficius
Join Date: 2012-12-04 Member: 174193Members
Join Date: 2012-12-04 Member: 174193Members
Before I begin, I want to say that I have had enjoyable moments in this game. I appreciate the work that went into this and those from the dedicated community are great. Unfortunately, after 40 hours of playing this game I am still finding matches frustrating and almost everything feels like a chore.
First off, the large amount of bad players make rounds extremely tedious. Now, I'm not a great player, but I feel like I have a decent concept of the flow of the game. Marines spawn, one stays behind to build, the others travel out in groups. Too often players fail to hold their weight. They either group up at spawn to help build (is it ever okay to have three people stay behind?), run off to the other side of the map individually and die, or sit on the IP afk. Playing as kharaa is easier but some players still contribute nothing.
The obvious thing to do is not play on rookie servers. This probably wouldn't solve the problem completely, but at least it may help. Well, unfortunately, it isn't really an option. Nearly all the servers are green, especially those with an 18 player max (I've read complaints that having 24 players breaks the balance). I don't really have a choice.
It's irritating, also, that many good players ignore the previous match and continue to join the same, stacked, team. Additional players don't join often and, essentially, once a server is unbalanced skill-wise it seems to stay that way, even across map changes. "Random" is a mod and isn't always available. It hardly ever gets enough votes anyways, based on my short experience.
Now, I could be fine with all this. Despite being a teambased game, I understand that players are new and that many of the kharaa and marine setups have high skill ceilings. That's great. That's what makes games interesting. Unfortunately, Natural Selection 2 has huge punishments for failures, especially when playing marine. Losing control of a critical room, because players aren't skilled enough to defend it, has huge consequences and can effectively change the path of the round. Moreover, spending my personal resources on equipment or lifeform upgrades usually proves to be useless. Unless I can depend on my team to support me, I'm going to die quite quickly. Again, this is punishing because now I cannot afford additional upgrades. That shotgun I just lost? Yeah, it would have been great against these fades but now I'm essentially harmless. My teammates are also dying and their points are draining. We're worse off than where we were ten minutes ago.
This regression of abilities creates a very frustrating cycle. My teammates and I are put at a disadvantage and none of us are skilled enough to pull ourselves out. The other team has no trouble racking up kills and resources while I'm basically just waiting to die.
Now, like I said, I have had some good moments in this game. When the commander assumes his role as a leader and my teammates work well together, the game is excellent. Even if we don't win, I had fun because we gave it a good try. But that does not describe the majority of games.
Practically forced to join a rookie server -> players are new, teams tend to be stacked -> the unskilled team is constantly punished and put at a disadvantage -> the game is frustrating and not fun.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the structure of the game allows for much improvement. My only suggestion is to add room for smaller victories so that the losing team can win some battles but still lose the war. For example, building stuff as a marine accomplishes goals and let's the player feel successful (which may be why new players find it so appealing). Killing babblers is another example, with the added bonus that it actually includes killing an enemy. These situations are rare, though. Almost everything in this game is "all or nothing". A damaged extractor performs no differently than a healthy extractor. A hurt enemy, especially a kharaa, can quickly heal and resume fighting in seconds. Again, I emphasize that being unable to achieve anything makes the game frustrating and boring.
Anyways, that's pretty much it. I know I put much of the blame on my teammates, but I don't want to overstate my skill level. I'm a fairly bad player in most situations. I almost always end up with a KDR lower than 1, but at least I try. I communicate often and try to understand the mechanics of the game, then use that knowledge when deciding whether to push or hold. Either way, though, it feels like I'm just running into a brick wall.
If you stuck around and read all this then thanks. It's definitely long, hah, and I appreciate any criticisms towards my logic or any tips to improve my gameplay experience. And if nobody reads this, then, well, at least it feels better to have it all written down.
First off, the large amount of bad players make rounds extremely tedious. Now, I'm not a great player, but I feel like I have a decent concept of the flow of the game. Marines spawn, one stays behind to build, the others travel out in groups. Too often players fail to hold their weight. They either group up at spawn to help build (is it ever okay to have three people stay behind?), run off to the other side of the map individually and die, or sit on the IP afk. Playing as kharaa is easier but some players still contribute nothing.
The obvious thing to do is not play on rookie servers. This probably wouldn't solve the problem completely, but at least it may help. Well, unfortunately, it isn't really an option. Nearly all the servers are green, especially those with an 18 player max (I've read complaints that having 24 players breaks the balance). I don't really have a choice.
It's irritating, also, that many good players ignore the previous match and continue to join the same, stacked, team. Additional players don't join often and, essentially, once a server is unbalanced skill-wise it seems to stay that way, even across map changes. "Random" is a mod and isn't always available. It hardly ever gets enough votes anyways, based on my short experience.
Now, I could be fine with all this. Despite being a teambased game, I understand that players are new and that many of the kharaa and marine setups have high skill ceilings. That's great. That's what makes games interesting. Unfortunately, Natural Selection 2 has huge punishments for failures, especially when playing marine. Losing control of a critical room, because players aren't skilled enough to defend it, has huge consequences and can effectively change the path of the round. Moreover, spending my personal resources on equipment or lifeform upgrades usually proves to be useless. Unless I can depend on my team to support me, I'm going to die quite quickly. Again, this is punishing because now I cannot afford additional upgrades. That shotgun I just lost? Yeah, it would have been great against these fades but now I'm essentially harmless. My teammates are also dying and their points are draining. We're worse off than where we were ten minutes ago.
This regression of abilities creates a very frustrating cycle. My teammates and I are put at a disadvantage and none of us are skilled enough to pull ourselves out. The other team has no trouble racking up kills and resources while I'm basically just waiting to die.
Now, like I said, I have had some good moments in this game. When the commander assumes his role as a leader and my teammates work well together, the game is excellent. Even if we don't win, I had fun because we gave it a good try. But that does not describe the majority of games.
Practically forced to join a rookie server -> players are new, teams tend to be stacked -> the unskilled team is constantly punished and put at a disadvantage -> the game is frustrating and not fun.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the structure of the game allows for much improvement. My only suggestion is to add room for smaller victories so that the losing team can win some battles but still lose the war. For example, building stuff as a marine accomplishes goals and let's the player feel successful (which may be why new players find it so appealing). Killing babblers is another example, with the added bonus that it actually includes killing an enemy. These situations are rare, though. Almost everything in this game is "all or nothing". A damaged extractor performs no differently than a healthy extractor. A hurt enemy, especially a kharaa, can quickly heal and resume fighting in seconds. Again, I emphasize that being unable to achieve anything makes the game frustrating and boring.
Anyways, that's pretty much it. I know I put much of the blame on my teammates, but I don't want to overstate my skill level. I'm a fairly bad player in most situations. I almost always end up with a KDR lower than 1, but at least I try. I communicate often and try to understand the mechanics of the game, then use that knowledge when deciding whether to push or hold. Either way, though, it feels like I'm just running into a brick wall.
If you stuck around and read all this then thanks. It's definitely long, hah, and I appreciate any criticisms towards my logic or any tips to improve my gameplay experience. And if nobody reads this, then, well, at least it feels better to have it all written down.
Comments
"You need to learn to play better"
Then you'll say, but the problem is the fact we can't play good enough and there's too many lower skilled players.
Then someone will say:
"Unknown Worlds, please make ns2 easier for noobs (/sarcasm)"
Then the thread will die. I can understand your point, you're trying to explain that there's a whirlpool of a downward cycle that once a team is caught in due to one or maybe two major set backs, they cannot escape and will eventually lose the game. You're trying to give reasons as to why this happens.
There's another thread titled Forgiveness which is going on about a similar concept, how once your team has been punched in the face the game is so unforgiving you're going to lose now. That would be okay if rounds went for 1 to 2 minutes, but considering they go for 20 to 40 minutes, this is unacceptable.
It's sort of like PlanetSide 2, how you and a heap of team mates can spend 30 minutes capturing a base, finally get it, and the enemy team swoops right back in and takes it in under a minute.
This thread is also likely to turn into a suggested fixes discussion too, I propose, that instead of discussing solutions, we instead continue to discuss the problem with no hint of any fixes. Any ideas to fix the problems can and should go in another thread.
Yeah, it's good to be positive, but sometimes it's "okay" to take a death if it means getting that extractor down, or PG down/up.
2. You complain about some people being much better than others eventhough that's the most natural thing in the world. But you don't even mention the exploit mods that people use to cheat/exploit?
3. Have a solo mentality towards pugs in this game, But embrace team play when it does happen.
Examples:
"I'm attacking Server Room now, will try to take out their Observatory."
"Hey, I'll cover you while you build the PG."
"RT in Overlook almost down!"
"Hey, I'm gonna go to Elevator 'cuz I just know they dropped a hive there by now. I can feel it in my balls."
Hell I sometimes even sit in this particular server when it's empty to get people to join, simply because joining any other server is a dice roll.
It is hard for many new players to learn quickly not only how to play alien effectively, but sometimes it's hard to pick up marine play as well. This is a very team based game and it can feel like you're caught in a bad nightmare when you're loosing because your team isn't performing like a team. I would recommend playing on more skilled servers. I understand that you are new, but you seem to be a good fit for the ENSL Gather or the Reddit PUG systems. I say this because you clearly are thinking about the mechanics of the game and show a desire to improve. Gathers are basically PUG's where people vote for a comm and try to make equally skilled teams. It's a lot harder than PUB's due to the higher skill levels but you typically won't run into bad teams and they typically have more team play involved. And as I said don't be afraid of being new. Everyone was new once and if you want to improve your game and play as a team don't be afraid to join a Gather.
If you're interested in the Gather system, check out their website, www.ensl.org. First you need to register with your in-game name, then just click on Gather on the front page and click join gather. It might take a few minutes to get enough people for a 6v6, but you can just pub while you wait. Once there is enough people music will play to alert you and the voting starts for captains. Once teams are picked make sure you join the teamspeak 3 server (details are found on the Gather page). If you have any question many in the gather will be happy to help you. Good luck and hope to see you in a gather some day.
If you're getting annoyed by the low skill level of your teammates, I'd suggest finding yourself a good server to play on (I've got about 3-4 EU favorites in which I know a lot of veteran players tend to play), trying out some PUGs/ensl gathers, or just joining up with a clan. If you really care about teamplay, doing one or more of those things should make you fall in love with NS2.
I won't join rookie servers.
I will only play on weekends (I assume that the most dedicated players will be on during that time).
I'll try combat mode, maybe I'll find it enjoyable.
I'll communicate more, especially over the mic, to liven up the teamwork and encourage experienced players to be more outspoken.
If I'm still unable to find balanced games then I'll try to join the Reddit servers or one of the other suggested groups.
70% of games will be bad because teams are unequal. You can't fix that yourself. That's just how it is.
Other than that, @Shishpoke's suggestion is very good. Communicate what you are doing, then you will be more successful AND other players learn from you (as well as the "social" aspect improving the game). In short, it's an excellent way of making the best of what you have.
During the week it's the diehards.
You'll actually find more balanced games during the week(in my experience), than on the weekends, but you'll probably have more fun on the weekends as there's more servers to choose from.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.
I found one server I frequent that's tagged rookie friendly, but the same group of veterans are always playing on it and the admin is great (also something to consider in case of trolls).
You start to pick up on the regulars and such this way. Regulars usually talk a lot more than just your average player. Teamwork feels even better when you know the people.
Some the funnest games I've played were on rookie populated servers. But that's when I was comm and my rookie army was actually listening to me. So I understand your frustration.
You get bad games, but its the good ones that remind you why you love this game.
The DFA server is flagged as friendly to rookie players, but our community is mostly intermediate level players and we do our best to keep matches balanced by randoming or trying to distribute 'known quantity' skilled players between the two teams evenly.
Find a place you like to play and help shape it into the ideal environment you want to be in.
Had my first match on their server just a little while ago. Some pretty nice dudes from that one experience. Totally had a really sweet marine comeback victory too!
Certainly a fav.