Not that many hackers to be honest, you see one occasionally but they quickly get a perma ban.
I would say a big reason ns2 isn't super popular is because it relies heavily on a commander, and a lot of people get stressed out at the thought of being a commander. Since an individual round depends on both a good commander and good troops on the ground leading each other to follow the commander, you get this really fragile system in place that can collapse within a minute.
Too many hackers/aimbotters. No point in playing if cheaters are running around.
I find it dissapointing that a significant number of people had issues with hackers in servers but I also find it strange. Out of the 500+ hours of playing this game i've only had about 3 instances of actually seeing a hacker as far as i remember. I don't honestly think it is that bad and I think the community/devs are doing a good job with it.
The amount of trash-talk, harassment and accusations genuinely good players receive on public servers has led me to believe that most, if not all, of anecdotal allegations of cheating are based on pure frustration instead of evidence.
put simply, from my own experience, it's cause the game is so god damn hard. i've played for 160 hours, and i still suck, i'm lucky if i get more than 4 kills.
regardless, it can be a really fun game, and thats why i keep coming back ,i enjoy the teamwork that you don't find on most other games. but it always feels good when i all of a sudden get over 10 kills (rarely happens to me).
BUT a lot of the time it seems one team jsut easily dominates the other, usually because of what seems like a single or maybe a pair of players. at least, thats what i've seen on the austrailian servers anyway.
but 80% of the time the game is fun to play even if i do suck XD
the unforgiving nature of the game is a double-edged sword.
a lot of players enjoy the harsh difficulty, but obviously this alienates the majority of players who become frustrated at the uncontrollability.
the uncontrollability is a direct result of the majority of players lacking the awareness, confidence or ability to apply pressure and restrict the other team's freedom. defensive strategy with inadequate pressure is a sure-fire way to lose.
. Nobody starts playing L4D in versus mode. Nobody goes straight into the hardcore stuff, playing against other experienced players. You start out playing single player or co op, and the AI is relatively very good and convincing and that game mode stands out on its own as a gaming experience.
While I agree in principle, in practice this was not the case. It was a chief complaint about VS. Many, many people wanted VS locked until you had played all four campaigns in single player or coop. "Noobs in VS" was a constant complaint.
The chief differences between L4D and NS2 are the economy and the fact that the infected are intrinsically inferior in every way to the survivors. This is evidenced by the fact that you could "win" a round of L4D by almost never firing a shot; but running to the end of every map as survivors. I've always felt that L4D could learn a lot from NS, not the other way around.
. Nobody starts playing L4D in versus mode. Nobody goes straight into the hardcore stuff, playing against other experienced players. You start out playing single player or co op, and the AI is relatively very good and convincing and that game mode stands out on its own as a gaming experience.
While I agree in principle, in practice this was not the case. It was a chief complaint about VS. Many, many people wanted VS locked until you had played all four campaigns in single player or coop. "Noobs in VS" was a constant complaint.
The chief differences between L4D and NS2 are the economy and the fact that the infected are intrinsically inferior in every way to the survivors. This is evidenced by the fact that you could "win" a round of L4D by almost never firing a shot; but running to the end of every map as survivors. I've always felt that L4D could learn a lot from NS, not the other way around.
Ye running was kind of a problem, but that was more up to map design that game design. A lot of maps stopped that problem in its tracks.
Also, from my experience, the chief complaint was that players should have to finish the campaign at a certain difficulty level (some people even said expert, most said advanced would be enough). Sure, some players were bad, but I would be surprised if more than 1% of all players went straight into versus without at least some campaign play.
I also disagree with the infected being weaker in every way. Maybe at very high skill levels it became that way (is NS much different?), but for the most part competent teams could stop the survivors, which means they couldn't have been inferior.
Ive a few hundred hours and come across 1 definite cheater/hacker, he was shooting through map objects (not lag) and was aiming at skulks in other areas.
Why the game isn't more popular, I don't know its a very good game one of the best, and the satisfaction of a good game and win is one of the best in gaming ive had, but Ive said it on here before it can be and usually is just too damn confusing, frustrating, intense, linear, claustrophobic, frustrating etcetc, it sometimes feels like a job being told what to do and where to go, this is not a sandbox alike fun time you can just have a romp in, you are constantly under pressure.
I have a steamfriend who joined me on a server and despite me giving him advice and it being a rookie server just said this is too much and hasn't played again since, I have 2 others who don't play anymore they wern't terrible haven't explained why but they play other FPS and they aren't CODers, I still play but alot less than following release, personally I miss some of the stuff from NS1
like putting a command station in a vent and waiting for aliens to find it, things that made games varied and unpredictable.
Why the game isn't more popular, I don't know its a very good game one of the best, and the satisfaction of a good game and win is one of the best in gaming ive had,[...]
I think you might have touched on something here. Winning in this game is awesome, losing is horrible. Not sure how to change this; but the acres wide gap in fun between winning and losing could very well be a serious turn off to some people. I think this is a side effect of the RTS/economy portion of NS2. Losing isn't nearly as bad in a game like TF2.
I have a couple friends that I bought ns2 for that dont really find a desire to play.
One of them cites poor performance as an issue (he has a monster rig, but still gets shit fps late game) along with not really know what to do or where to go when he gets in game.This is a problem with games that have multiple objectives. TF2 is easy, because there will always be people to fight around the control point. BF3 has multiple control points that are really far apart. Its not uncommon for a new player to run around for something like 5 minutes trying to get to a control point, and then get immediately killed by someone camping somewhere they had no chance of seeing. NS2 is somewhere between these two examples.
I have another friend who likes the game, but is a bit of a casual gamer. He is decent at shooters, but only really plays with friends. I convinced him to play the other day, and after getting into an exo during a losing game, both me and him started getting harrassed for having shit aim. I didnt really mind (my excuse is shit fps), but i dont think he is going to want to keep playing after that.
My third friend wont play because no one else really plays. I dont really want to force him to start up the game, suffer through long load times and poor performance, just so he can get destroyed and harrassed on a public server.
I don't think it's necessary the core reason for NS2's player counts, but I do think the uncertainity of the game direction and future has made it hard to really commit to the game. The long development time and/or frustration made many of the big NS1/NS2 alpha and beta contributors to quit and I don't think their shoes have been filled all the way.
Obviously we've still got some people doing wonderful job at running all kinds of community efforts, but I feel things are still running pretty slow compared to how they were going in NS1.
Of course it's possible to build a community without that much of a community interaction too (CoD style impersonal servers and such), but I feel the community contribution was a highly beneficial thing for the longrevity of NS1 and could've been a bigger strenght for NS2, especially when they're competing against the bigger mainstream shooters.
For me it's because the devs seem to be focusing too much on makings sales by way of adding gimmicks (Gorgeous) rather than making any progress in improving the fundamentals of the game. The "balance mod" is just way out there and seems to be focused on drastic change rather than slow and steady improvements.
I mean how long have skulks been uselessly bricked now without any changes that actually improve things? Very few people will stick it out when such glaringly obvious issues are just ignored for months. They could maybe get away with it if there was some hook to keep people playing, but there just isn't. You can only see the same thing happen time after time before it makes you wonder what the point is of even playing any more.
Too many hackers/aimbotters. No point in playing if cheaters are running around.
I find it dissapointing that a significant number of people had issues with hackers in servers but I also find it strange. Out of the 500+ hours of playing this game i've only had about 3 instances of actually seeing a hacker as far as i remember. I don't honestly think it is that bad and I think the community/devs are doing a good job with it.
The amount of trash-talk, harassment and accusations genuinely good players receive on public servers has led me to believe that most, if not all, of anecdotal allegations of cheating are based on pure frustration instead of evidence.
yeah right. You should see that kesaesa dude just haxoring all day
Why the game isn't more popular, I don't know its a very good game one of the best, and the satisfaction of a good game and win is one of the best in gaming ive had,[...]
I think you might have touched on something here. Winning in this game is awesome, losing is horrible. Not sure how to change this; but the acres wide gap in fun between winning and losing could very well be a serious turn off to some people. I think this is a side effect of the RTS/economy portion of NS2. Losing isn't nearly as bad in a game like TF2.
Absolutely, once you're on the losing team its demoralising, server starts emptying, you die alot, too early to concede...very,very rarely have I been in games with a turnaround in that situation, and who wants to stick around for the inevitable.
I convinced him to play the other day, and after getting into an exo during a losing game, both me and him started getting harrassed for having shit aim. I didnt really mind (my excuse is shit fps), but i dont think he is going to want to keep playing after that.
Sums up the attitude of NS2 when I've played. Snobbery and lacking performance.
Wowa its early days yet!
As stated before its complex, niche game thats going to make the adoption rate quite slow, all you can really do is spread the word through recommendations.
Its important to understand the developers don't seem to be anywhere near done with the game or the franchise. As the game and (just as importantly) the engine develops we'll have a smoother more polished that will be easier for us to sell to our fellow gamers . And hopefully people who've got tired of whatever issues will come back as it improves. Things will get better on all fronts but its going to be a slow process.
There's at least three different official maps in the works, sewleks balance mod gives a good insight into some very cool ideas that are shaping the future balance changes, veil is a great test build currently out on workshop, combat mode is pure awesome and the list goes on. There's a lot of game changing stuff on the horizon.
All we can do is wait and see what impact these will have on the popularity of the game. I predict some serious growth before we see the game hit its peak yet!
Wowa its early days yet!
As stated before its complex, niche game thats going to make the adoption rate quite slow, all you can really do is spread the word through recommendations.
Its important to understand the developers don't seem to be anywhere near done with the game or the franchise. As the game and (just as importantly) the engine develops we'll have a smoother more polished that will be easier for us to sell to our fellow gamers . And hopefully people who've got tired of whatever issues will come back as it improves. Things will get better on all fronts but its going to be a slow process.
There's at least three different official maps in the works, sewleks balance mod gives a good insight into some very cool ideas that are shaping the future balance changes, veil is a great test build currently out on workshop, combat mode is pure awesome and the list goes on. There's a lot of game changing stuff on the horizon.
All we can do is wait and see what impact these will have on the popularity of the game. I predict some serious growth before we see the game hit its peak yet!
This industry generally doesn't give second chances, once people pass on your game chances are they're never coming back.
Maybe so, but that depends on what counts as a pass. People who've played it and moved on? I'd like to know the numbers from the free-weekend and the subsequent purchase rate. I really have no idea what the figures are but it would certainly be interesting to see how many people who actually gave it a decent chance went on to purchase the game. Steam has what 75 million regular users and growing!? There will be a lot of people out there who haven't even heard of the game let alone passed on it.
I think the two main problems holding the player counts down are existing players getting frustrated with the slow trickle of improvements/additions and new players being turned off by the high entry level. Both issues will become less prominent in time.
Moreover, there's some really interesting mods and custom maps in the works, while It's unlikely we'll something as successful as day-z or counter-strike, Spark is a very moddable platform don't rule out the impact that custom made content can have on a game. Also It'll be interesting to see what game unknownworlds do next. while I don't like to speculate on what that is I think building on the existing engine, art and franchise would be a smart move and could introduce new players to the game.
What exactly is preventing NS2 becoming as popular as it deserves is hard to say. but I think recent lull is probably just due to the lack of recent 'exciting' updates and the nice whether. I might sound a bit harsh here but the majority of gamers appear to be fickle sheep. They'll be back.
I think if you love the game and want to see it grow, be patient, keep playing and spread the word.
I think the two main problems holding the player counts down are existing players getting frustrated with the slow trickle of improvements/additions and new players being turned off by the high entry level. Both issues will become less prominent in time.
Game will be dead by then. It's hanging on by a thread to the Steam top 100 right now. Already been off the list a couple of times.
It does and much of the NS2 is dead/dying/unpopular talk is overblown. To get it on a more positive note, I'll chime in with what I think would help build up the playerbase more.
1. Performance (both client and server)
- 'Needs better performance' is a bit of a cliche on these forums, so I'll mostly talk about what level of performance I think is needed. Client: Recommended specs (C2D 3.0GHz, HD5770/GTX450 or better), all graphics options off, 1080p should get an average of 60fps and no less than 30fps Server: A Xeon 2.6GHz or better should be able to handle 24 players/30 tickrate without lag
2. Bots (comm and player)
- There is quite a bit of downtime in NS2 (e.g. waiting for each side to choose their comm, seeding a server, waiting for people to join from the rr, etc). One of the big appeals of stuff like combat is that people with limited time to game (e.g. 30-60min a day) can spend as much time as possible playing rather than waiting. Bots provide a nice way to get the game going quickly and effectively. L4D1/2 did this extremely well in which going from bot -> player -> bot was extremely smooth such that one player's decision to join/leave had a minimal impact on the experience of the other player's in the server.
3. Skill-based Matchmaking/Leagues
- NS2 has been falling more and more into the 'skill imbalance' trap. Its both frustrating for the lesser skilled players and boring for the greater skilled ones to basically having one to two players carrying a team. I've found that even on slow nights there are enough people to populate several high, moderate, and low skilled servers if players were able to tell and/or sort themselves according to skill. Instead, we get the current situation where we have 3-4 highly skilled players in 5 or 6 servers (bad), rather than 20-24 highly skilled players in 1 or 2 servers (good).
SC2's League system is the best example this done properly; everyone gets a secret Elo-rating and are sorted into similarly skilled leagues (e.g. Bronze to Masters). This approach can be adapted to NS2 in several different ways:
* Adding a column to the server browser to show which servers have the most players in your league
* Allowing servers to selectively prohibit/allow different leagues to play on them
* A L4D1/2 quick join lobby that tries to match players in the same league before depositing them in a server
4. In-game gather system
- The ENSL gather system is simple and intuitive way to organize NS2 matches, but is crippled by the fact that it exists separate from the game. I'll bring up the L4D1/2 as another good example because Valve did a very good job getting this right in their games. Its easily adapted to NS2 by having one player start a lobby, specifying the playercount, map, and/or server, and waiting for the people to join. Once full, two team captains are chosen, they pick their sides, choose comms, and all of the players are placed into the proper map/side/server. It should be as quick and seamless as possible to go from the lobby to playing NS2.
Too many hackers/aimbotters. No point in playing if cheaters are running around.
I find it dissapointing that a significant number of people had issues with hackers in servers but I also find it strange. Out of the 500+ hours of playing this game i've only had about 3 instances of actually seeing a hacker as far as i remember. I don't honestly think it is that bad and I think the community/devs are doing a good job with it.
The amount of trash-talk, harassment and accusations genuinely good players receive on public servers has led me to believe that most, if not all, of anecdotal allegations of cheating are based on pure frustration instead of evidence.
yeah right. You should see that kesaesa dude just haxoring all day
Personally i love NS2, i'm addicted to it, it's one of the best games ever made and how it was made is inspiring, as is the full release of map / mod tools and the goal of making the game OpenGL compliant.
It's all just awe inspiring and industry leading in my opinion.
I'm trying to get as many PC gamers i know to play this game but unfortunately the majority are COD fans and don't have the patience initially to learn how to play a complex game, they are far too use to the instant gratification of winning that most of today's FPS games give people.
With enough encouragement they can learn though.
But another huge problem that new people face is that the game loads extremely slowly if installed on the same drive as the OS which is the default install location for the game as it is the default location of Steam.
Once people move Steam and the game onto a separate drive away from Windows, server / map loading times drop significantly and people give the game more of a chance.
I'm not even on a SSD, just a standard run of the mill 5400rpm hard drive and my load times are now a reasonable 40 seconds for initial map load and 10 seconds for sequential loads.
When the game was on the same drive as Windows, initial load was a painstaking 2 minutes and sequential loads were a minute, far too long for most peoples tastes.
I've also been told that SLI also causes the game to load slowly but i cannot vouch for this personally, only the hard drive statement.
That's enough about game load times, now onto rookie mode.
I've already voiced my concerns on how the rookie process is currently treated, rookie mode should be made to be at least a good 10 hours long and rookie friendly servers should only allow rookies in so they can learn and have fun together without fear of getting completely decimated by the vets.
So there you have it, a step learning curve + the first experiences of the game being totally owned coupled with slow loading times is what turns a lot of people off the game in my opinion.
The last free weekend was a complete failure in my opinion, it went from 350 people playing the servers to 8k for a few days then dropped down to a few hundred again.
It was an awful time and whilst i am eagerly awaiting the next sale, i'm not looking forward to the next free weekend.
It does and much of the NS2 is dead/dying/unpopular talk is overblown. To get it on a more positive note, I'll chime in with what I think would help build up the playerbase more.
1. Performance (both client and server)
- 'Needs better performance' is a bit of a cliche on these forums, so I'll mostly talk about what level of performance I think is needed. Client: Recommended specs (C2D 3.0GHz, HD5770/GTX450 or better), all graphics options off, 1080p should get an average of 60fps and no less than 30fps Server: A Xeon 2.6GHz or better should be able to handle 24 players/30 tickrate without lag
2. Bots (comm and player)
- There is quite a bit of downtime in NS2 (e.g. waiting for each side to choose their comm, seeding a server, waiting for people to join from the rr, etc). One of the big appeals of stuff like combat is that people with limited time to game (e.g. 30-60min a day) can spend as much time as possible playing rather than waiting. Bots provide a nice way to get the game going quickly and effectively. L4D1/2 did this extremely well in which going from bot -> player -> bot was extremely smooth such that one player's decision to join/leave had a minimal impact on the experience of the other player's in the server.
3. Skill-based Matchmaking/Leagues
- NS2 has been falling more and more into the 'skill imbalance' trap. Its both frustrating for the lesser skilled players and boring for the greater skilled ones to basically having one to two players carrying a team. I've found that even on slow nights there are enough people to populate several high, moderate, and low skilled servers if players were able to tell and/or sort themselves according to skill. Instead, we get the current situation where we have 3-4 highly skilled players in 5 or 6 servers (bad), rather than 20-24 highly skilled players in 1 or 2 servers (good).
SC2's League system is the best example this done properly; everyone gets a secret Elo-rating and are sorted into similarly skilled leagues (e.g. Bronze to Masters). This approach can be adapted to NS2 in several different ways:
* Adding a column to the server browser to show which servers have the most players in your league
* Allowing servers to selectively prohibit/allow different leagues to play on them
* A L4D1/2 quick join lobby that tries to match players in the same league before depositing them in a server
4. In-game gather system
- The ENSL gather system is simple and intuitive way to organize NS2 matches, but is crippled by the fact that it exists separate from the game. I'll bring up the L4D1/2 as another good example because Valve did a very good job getting this right in their games. Its easily adapted to NS2 by having one player start a lobby, specifying the playercount, map, and/or server, and waiting for the people to join. Once full, two team captains are chosen, they pick their sides, choose comms, and all of the players are placed into the proper map/side/server. It should be as quick and seamless as possible to go from the lobby to playing NS2.
Performance - Not good enough. A DX9 game that quite frankly, is outperformed on lower hardware by more advanced engines.
Bots - A co-op mode would probably help the game, but with the state of the engine, doesn't seem possible.
Match making - Not a big enough community for it. The game is so complex you would need a huge community, like DOTA 2, to make a fair match making facility.
Gather system - Easiest way is match making, as that's a no go, ENSL is the best of a bad situation.
Being real, with the industry as it is today, NS2 will not last long as a standalone product. The DLC update appears to be a graphics update that has just further made performance a struggle, but something that should have been in the game to begin with. I think the limitations of the engine, in terms of performance have already hit a brick wall and by the end of 2015, we will be seeing NS2 in the state NS1 took 8 years to develop to: one server.
I enjoy NS2 but unfortunately my FPS drops to 30 and below consistently and quickly and the game sometimes pauses for a split second. It has really killed any desire to play. I played a bit when Gorgeous was released and while there were big improvements to stability and FPS it is still quite far off from what I expect in a FPS game.
As such I've been playing other games and left NS2 sitting in my Steam library in hopes performance picks up to an average of 60 fps at 1080 res with all graphic extra turned off from the start of a match to the very end.
Currently I am fighting the enemy plus the lack of FPS and my shots/bites go wide and it is very frustrating.
I'm glad I played the game to have fun, and not just to get kills/own other players. If that had been the case, I too probably would have stopped playing when I saw my FPS wasn't ideal.
Comments
Not really...compared to every other multiplayer game ever this game has next to none.
I would say a big reason ns2 isn't super popular is because it relies heavily on a commander, and a lot of people get stressed out at the thought of being a commander. Since an individual round depends on both a good commander and good troops on the ground leading each other to follow the commander, you get this really fragile system in place that can collapse within a minute.
The amount of trash-talk, harassment and accusations genuinely good players receive on public servers has led me to believe that most, if not all, of anecdotal allegations of cheating are based on pure frustration instead of evidence.
regardless, it can be a really fun game, and thats why i keep coming back ,i enjoy the teamwork that you don't find on most other games. but it always feels good when i all of a sudden get over 10 kills (rarely happens to me).
BUT a lot of the time it seems one team jsut easily dominates the other, usually because of what seems like a single or maybe a pair of players. at least, thats what i've seen on the austrailian servers anyway.
but 80% of the time the game is fun to play even if i do suck XD
a lot of players enjoy the harsh difficulty, but obviously this alienates the majority of players who become frustrated at the uncontrollability.
the uncontrollability is a direct result of the majority of players lacking the awareness, confidence or ability to apply pressure and restrict the other team's freedom. defensive strategy with inadequate pressure is a sure-fire way to lose.
it will always be a niche game.
While I agree in principle, in practice this was not the case. It was a chief complaint about VS. Many, many people wanted VS locked until you had played all four campaigns in single player or coop. "Noobs in VS" was a constant complaint.
The chief differences between L4D and NS2 are the economy and the fact that the infected are intrinsically inferior in every way to the survivors. This is evidenced by the fact that you could "win" a round of L4D by almost never firing a shot; but running to the end of every map as survivors. I've always felt that L4D could learn a lot from NS, not the other way around.
Ye running was kind of a problem, but that was more up to map design that game design. A lot of maps stopped that problem in its tracks.
Also, from my experience, the chief complaint was that players should have to finish the campaign at a certain difficulty level (some people even said expert, most said advanced would be enough). Sure, some players were bad, but I would be surprised if more than 1% of all players went straight into versus without at least some campaign play.
I also disagree with the infected being weaker in every way. Maybe at very high skill levels it became that way (is NS much different?), but for the most part competent teams could stop the survivors, which means they couldn't have been inferior.
Why the game isn't more popular, I don't know its a very good game one of the best, and the satisfaction of a good game and win is one of the best in gaming ive had, but Ive said it on here before it can be and usually is just too damn confusing, frustrating, intense, linear, claustrophobic, frustrating etcetc, it sometimes feels like a job being told what to do and where to go, this is not a sandbox alike fun time you can just have a romp in, you are constantly under pressure.
I have a steamfriend who joined me on a server and despite me giving him advice and it being a rookie server just said this is too much and hasn't played again since, I have 2 others who don't play anymore they wern't terrible haven't explained why but they play other FPS and they aren't CODers, I still play but alot less than following release, personally I miss some of the stuff from NS1
like putting a command station in a vent and waiting for aliens to find it, things that made games varied and unpredictable.
I think you might have touched on something here. Winning in this game is awesome, losing is horrible. Not sure how to change this; but the acres wide gap in fun between winning and losing could very well be a serious turn off to some people. I think this is a side effect of the RTS/economy portion of NS2. Losing isn't nearly as bad in a game like TF2.
I think masturbation proves you wrong.
One of them cites poor performance as an issue (he has a monster rig, but still gets shit fps late game) along with not really know what to do or where to go when he gets in game.This is a problem with games that have multiple objectives. TF2 is easy, because there will always be people to fight around the control point. BF3 has multiple control points that are really far apart. Its not uncommon for a new player to run around for something like 5 minutes trying to get to a control point, and then get immediately killed by someone camping somewhere they had no chance of seeing. NS2 is somewhere between these two examples.
I have another friend who likes the game, but is a bit of a casual gamer. He is decent at shooters, but only really plays with friends. I convinced him to play the other day, and after getting into an exo during a losing game, both me and him started getting harrassed for having shit aim. I didnt really mind (my excuse is shit fps), but i dont think he is going to want to keep playing after that.
My third friend wont play because no one else really plays. I dont really want to force him to start up the game, suffer through long load times and poor performance, just so he can get destroyed and harrassed on a public server.
Obviously we've still got some people doing wonderful job at running all kinds of community efforts, but I feel things are still running pretty slow compared to how they were going in NS1.
Of course it's possible to build a community without that much of a community interaction too (CoD style impersonal servers and such), but I feel the community contribution was a highly beneficial thing for the longrevity of NS1 and could've been a bigger strenght for NS2, especially when they're competing against the bigger mainstream shooters.
I mean how long have skulks been uselessly bricked now without any changes that actually improve things? Very few people will stick it out when such glaringly obvious issues are just ignored for months. They could maybe get away with it if there was some hook to keep people playing, but there just isn't. You can only see the same thing happen time after time before it makes you wonder what the point is of even playing any more.
Absolutely, once you're on the losing team its demoralising, server starts emptying, you die alot, too early to concede...very,very rarely have I been in games with a turnaround in that situation, and who wants to stick around for the inevitable.
Sums up the attitude of NS2 when I've played. Snobbery and lacking performance.
As stated before its complex, niche game thats going to make the adoption rate quite slow, all you can really do is spread the word through recommendations.
Its important to understand the developers don't seem to be anywhere near done with the game or the franchise. As the game and (just as importantly) the engine develops we'll have a smoother more polished that will be easier for us to sell to our fellow gamers . And hopefully people who've got tired of whatever issues will come back as it improves. Things will get better on all fronts but its going to be a slow process.
There's at least three different official maps in the works, sewleks balance mod gives a good insight into some very cool ideas that are shaping the future balance changes, veil is a great test build currently out on workshop, combat mode is pure awesome and the list goes on. There's a lot of game changing stuff on the horizon.
All we can do is wait and see what impact these will have on the popularity of the game. I predict some serious growth before we see the game hit its peak yet!
This industry generally doesn't give second chances, once people pass on your game chances are they're never coming back.
I think the two main problems holding the player counts down are existing players getting frustrated with the slow trickle of improvements/additions and new players being turned off by the high entry level. Both issues will become less prominent in time.
Moreover, there's some really interesting mods and custom maps in the works, while It's unlikely we'll something as successful as day-z or counter-strike, Spark is a very moddable platform don't rule out the impact that custom made content can have on a game. Also It'll be interesting to see what game unknownworlds do next. while I don't like to speculate on what that is I think building on the existing engine, art and franchise would be a smart move and could introduce new players to the game.
What exactly is preventing NS2 becoming as popular as it deserves is hard to say. but I think recent lull is probably just due to the lack of recent 'exciting' updates and the nice whether. I might sound a bit harsh here but the majority of gamers appear to be fickle sheep. They'll be back.
I think if you love the game and want to see it grow, be patient, keep playing and spread the word.
Game will be dead by then. It's hanging on by a thread to the Steam top 100 right now. Already been off the list a couple of times.
1. Performance (both client and server)
- 'Needs better performance' is a bit of a cliche on these forums, so I'll mostly talk about what level of performance I think is needed.
Client: Recommended specs (C2D 3.0GHz, HD5770/GTX450 or better), all graphics options off, 1080p should get an average of 60fps and no less than 30fps
Server: A Xeon 2.6GHz or better should be able to handle 24 players/30 tickrate without lag
2. Bots (comm and player)
- There is quite a bit of downtime in NS2 (e.g. waiting for each side to choose their comm, seeding a server, waiting for people to join from the rr, etc). One of the big appeals of stuff like combat is that people with limited time to game (e.g. 30-60min a day) can spend as much time as possible playing rather than waiting. Bots provide a nice way to get the game going quickly and effectively. L4D1/2 did this extremely well in which going from bot -> player -> bot was extremely smooth such that one player's decision to join/leave had a minimal impact on the experience of the other player's in the server.
3. Skill-based Matchmaking/Leagues
- NS2 has been falling more and more into the 'skill imbalance' trap. Its both frustrating for the lesser skilled players and boring for the greater skilled ones to basically having one to two players carrying a team. I've found that even on slow nights there are enough people to populate several high, moderate, and low skilled servers if players were able to tell and/or sort themselves according to skill. Instead, we get the current situation where we have 3-4 highly skilled players in 5 or 6 servers (bad), rather than 20-24 highly skilled players in 1 or 2 servers (good).
SC2's League system is the best example this done properly; everyone gets a secret Elo-rating and are sorted into similarly skilled leagues (e.g. Bronze to Masters). This approach can be adapted to NS2 in several different ways:
* Adding a column to the server browser to show which servers have the most players in your league
* Allowing servers to selectively prohibit/allow different leagues to play on them
* A L4D1/2 quick join lobby that tries to match players in the same league before depositing them in a server
4. In-game gather system
- The ENSL gather system is simple and intuitive way to organize NS2 matches, but is crippled by the fact that it exists separate from the game. I'll bring up the L4D1/2 as another good example because Valve did a very good job getting this right in their games. Its easily adapted to NS2 by having one player start a lobby, specifying the playercount, map, and/or server, and waiting for the people to join. Once full, two team captains are chosen, they pick their sides, choose comms, and all of the players are placed into the proper map/side/server. It should be as quick and seamless as possible to go from the lobby to playing NS2.
I know, that dude has to go.
It's all just awe inspiring and industry leading in my opinion.
I'm trying to get as many PC gamers i know to play this game but unfortunately the majority are COD fans and don't have the patience initially to learn how to play a complex game, they are far too use to the instant gratification of winning that most of today's FPS games give people.
With enough encouragement they can learn though.
But another huge problem that new people face is that the game loads extremely slowly if installed on the same drive as the OS which is the default install location for the game as it is the default location of Steam.
Once people move Steam and the game onto a separate drive away from Windows, server / map loading times drop significantly and people give the game more of a chance.
I'm not even on a SSD, just a standard run of the mill 5400rpm hard drive and my load times are now a reasonable 40 seconds for initial map load and 10 seconds for sequential loads.
When the game was on the same drive as Windows, initial load was a painstaking 2 minutes and sequential loads were a minute, far too long for most peoples tastes.
I've also been told that SLI also causes the game to load slowly but i cannot vouch for this personally, only the hard drive statement.
That's enough about game load times, now onto rookie mode.
I've already voiced my concerns on how the rookie process is currently treated, rookie mode should be made to be at least a good 10 hours long and rookie friendly servers should only allow rookies in so they can learn and have fun together without fear of getting completely decimated by the vets.
So there you have it, a step learning curve + the first experiences of the game being totally owned coupled with slow loading times is what turns a lot of people off the game in my opinion.
The last free weekend was a complete failure in my opinion, it went from 350 people playing the servers to 8k for a few days then dropped down to a few hundred again.
It was an awful time and whilst i am eagerly awaiting the next sale, i'm not looking forward to the next free weekend.
Performance - Not good enough. A DX9 game that quite frankly, is outperformed on lower hardware by more advanced engines.
Bots - A co-op mode would probably help the game, but with the state of the engine, doesn't seem possible.
Match making - Not a big enough community for it. The game is so complex you would need a huge community, like DOTA 2, to make a fair match making facility.
Gather system - Easiest way is match making, as that's a no go, ENSL is the best of a bad situation.
Being real, with the industry as it is today, NS2 will not last long as a standalone product. The DLC update appears to be a graphics update that has just further made performance a struggle, but something that should have been in the game to begin with. I think the limitations of the engine, in terms of performance have already hit a brick wall and by the end of 2015, we will be seeing NS2 in the state NS1 took 8 years to develop to: one server.
As such I've been playing other games and left NS2 sitting in my Steam library in hopes performance picks up to an average of 60 fps at 1080 res with all graphic extra turned off from the start of a match to the very end.
Currently I am fighting the enemy plus the lack of FPS and my shots/bites go wide and it is very frustrating.