A bunch of novices getting blown away by a single pro player (or stacked team) on the opposing team is one of the key reasons new players aren't sticking with it. I have seen numerous players get frustrated by this, causing them to leave the game after only a few days of play. These novice players, if embraced, could be the future core of NS2 -- but that won't happen unless something is done about it.
An official 4-tier system of players, with servers optionally catering to certain levels or handicapping the higher tier(s) could help this issue. How these levels are determined is up for discussion, but I propose using number of rounds (with 8+ players) played, with a weight based on other player levels.
So, servers wishing to allow to anyone to play but wanting to help out novices could indicate "Novice with handicap", indicating novices would play at normal level, while higher level players would get handicapped based on their level. However, a server that wants nothing to do with handicapping could easily ignore it.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I think the Public vs Competitive distinction is a bit of a red herring as no modern day FPS can survive without a healthy dose of both. One of the biggest issues I find is what @Racer1 described in which new players are effectively discouraged from playing due to horrible skill imbalances. Its like pitting the Miami Heat against your local high school basketball team and wondering why they find the game either boring or frustrating.
Anyway, one of the main benefits of 24 man is that it stays viable even when people leave the game. You can't have the same people playing 24/7, eventually there is going to be some changeover. When that happens, when 2-6 people leave a 16 man server, it drops below the playable threshold and everyone leaves. I've seen that happen in the 24mans too, but it takes like 10 people leaving which only tends to happen after a particularly long game, ironic since it's the long games that people usually like best.
That's an important point. The fact that many people play on 24 player servers may not mean that people prefer 12 v 12. It may mean nothing more than that 24 player servers are robust to minor fluctuations in player count and people can't find 8v8 games.
I used to play NS2 in the alpha and beta phase. The reason I stopped playing is simply because the game is just frustrating the way it is designed. I guess I don't really like the asymmetry - I think it's really hard to pull off. Having an FPS game where the 1on1 battles are fundamentally unfair is just not fun for me. When I die I want to feel like the other player out played me, not that he had some weapon or class that was just more powerful that I had no way of avoiding. I also don't want to feel like I need to rely on my team mates to shoot a target at the same time as me or for the com to research the right stuff and to drop med packs just so I have any chance of surviving the next encounter.
Of course I rely on my team mates in other FPS games, but if they are playing badly and we are getting owned then I can just play defensive and still hold a position on my own even versus multiple enemies. If I die in these games then I feel like it was because I missed or I could have countered the enemy in some way. I often didn't feel that way while playing NS2.
I used to always use this as my mantra "If you punish the player for something they couldn't have avoided, you cause frustration." If the game is frustrating then players will quickly move on to something else.
I also felt there was a lot of jumping and spamming around rather than precision movement that I like from other FPS games.
There is nothing that can be done about this though. The game is simply not fun to play for me and short of some epic mod coming out and changing the gameplay entirely I can't see myself playing NS2 again.
I can see the player numbers rising a bit if they have some free weekends and maybe do some sales or humble bundle stuff. I don't know how long they will stick around for though.
I feel a reason for the way the game turned out as it did was partly because the devs don't seem to be hardcore into multiplayer FPS games. I always felt the best games came from people who were super passionate about that genre and then they created the game they always wanted to play. NS2 is just what happens when people just think of "cool" things to put into a game without thinking about what makes a specific game fun.
If I tried to make an RPG it would probably turn out pretty mediocre because I don't really play them much and don't have experience of what makes them fun vs what is frustrating from other games.
There also always seemed to be this idea of competitive vs public which doesn't really make much sense to me. The best games I have played are fun for both sets of players for the same reasons. Good design is fun for everyone.
I used to play NS2 in the alpha and beta phase. The reason I stopped playing is simply because the game is just frustrating the way it is designed. I guess I don't really like the asymmetry - I think it's really hard to pull off. Having an FPS game where the 1on1 battles are fundamentally unfair is just not fun for me. When I die I want to feel like the other player out played me, not that he had some weapon or class that was just more powerful that I had no way of avoiding. I also don't want to feel like I need to rely on my team mates to shoot a target at the same time as me or for the com to research the right stuff and to drop med packs just so I have any chance of surviving the next encounter.
Of course I rely on my team mates in other FPS games, but if they are playing badly and we are getting owned then I can just play defensive and still hold a position on my own even versus multiple enemies. If I die in these games then I feel like it was because I missed or I could have countered the enemy in some way. I often didn't feel that way while playing NS2.
I used to always use this as my mantra "If you punish the player for something they couldn't have avoided, you cause frustration." If the game is frustrating then players will quickly move on to something else.
I also felt there was a lot of jumping and spamming around rather than precision movement that I like from other FPS games.
There is nothing that can be done about this though. The game is simply not fun to play for me and short of some epic mod coming out and changing the gameplay entirely I can't see myself playing NS2 again.
I can see the player numbers rising a bit if they have some free weekends and maybe do some sales or humble bundle stuff. I don't know how long they will stick around for though.
I feel a reason for the way the game turned out as it did was partly because the devs don't seem to be hardcore into multiplayer FPS games. I always felt the best games came from people who were super passionate about that genre and then they created the game they always wanted to play. NS2 is just what happens when people just think of "cool" things to put into a game without thinking about what makes a specific game fun.
If I tried to make an RPG it would probably turn out pretty mediocre because I don't really play them much and don't have experience of what makes them fun vs what is frustrating from other games.
There also always seemed to be this idea of competitive vs public which doesn't really make much sense to me. The best games I have played are fun for both sets of players for the same reasons. Good design is fun for everyone.
I think your problem with the game (and one that many seem to share) is that Natural Selection 2 isn't a First Person Shooter. Natural Selection 2 is a Real Time Strategy game with a first person point of view. All of the objectives and gameplay mechanisms are focused on the strategy and not the shooting. The way to look at this game is to look at it as Starcraft, where the players are the Marines and Zerglings
and this is why you build for competetive and not for the go and gone pubbers.
Not sure if serious...
Please name a successful game atm e.g. SC2, DotA2 etc. that doesn't have competitive in mind with their design?
Counter Strike pre 1.6, DoD and DoDS.
A FPS that catered to only competitive during that same time period? Q3A, look where that took it.
I'm not saying it should only have competitive in mind, but that it should. Period. Without a competitive scene it's just another casual game.
And what's big right now is esports and twitch.tv and all that shit. So you sorta need both if you want your game to be big and successful. (fun is always most important though for all parties)
Valve knows this, ala DotA2 with a million things in mind to foster a healthy competitive scene ALONG with the casual scene. Tons of twitch.tv options.. tutorials, matchmaking, all the shit everyone wants at the moment and everything NS2 is missing.
TF2 doesn't strike me as being designed with competitive in mind. If the game were designed with competitive in mind I would imagine that more than 4/9 classes would be viable in 6v6.
The game is being held back by a lack of tracking features and reward system... these days people stay in games when they can rank up and check their W/L stats in the lobby, etc. Not in game rewards, the lack of a global leaderboard is pretty glaring in 2013.
An official 4-tier system of players, with servers optionally catering to certain levels or handicapping the higher tier(s) could help this issue. How these levels are determined is up for discussion, but I propose using number of rounds (with 8+ players) played, with a weight based on other player levels.
Match making only works for games with large player numbers. NS2 at the moment really splits into two groups; pro's/oldschool vets from ns1 and the rest. There might be a few in the middle ground, but most of the time you belong in 1 of those two groups.
I think the Public vs Competitive distinction is a bit of a red herring as no modern day FPS can survive without a healthy dose of both. One of the biggest issues I find is what @Racer1 described in which new players are effectively discouraged from playing due to horrible skill imbalances. Its like pitting the Miami Heat against your local high school basketball team and wondering why they find the game either boring or frustrating.
Couldn't agree with your first sentence more. I get tired of seeing that argument brought up time and time again. A game needs to reasonably cater to both sides of that to have any decent chance of success.
TF2 doesn't strike me as being designed with competitive in mind. If the game were designed with competitive in mind I would imagine that more than 4/9 classes would be viable in 6v6.
All classes are used in competitive, while some less than others; if you actually watched/competed at high level you'd already know this. Depending on the cap point, players actually change classes for example if you're at your last cap on granary, a scout can swap to sniper to try and pick off the medic or get some good picks to stop the final point from being capped and counter-cap back your 2nd point
I've also seen pushes bringing in a heavy, as a heavy with good aim and in the right position can take down multiple people because of his raw power/health (and the fact he can just spew nonstop ammo, however all your shots need to be on point)
Spies also do come out on occasion such as gravel pit and the such, and I've seen some strats/plays with the pyro; however once it's the two best teams facing each other you'd see pyro the least I'd say. I stopped playing a long time ago but that's what I recall. Engineer is something I'd never really see, but I've seen it.
TF2 has 9 classes, each with unique roles
Symmetric maps
5 cap points, starting with 2 on each side, forcing you to fight over the middle one (symmetric)
Arena style health/ammo pickups
I'd say that game is setup for competition; only issue is that the meta is focused around killing the enemy team medic, the medic is literally so important that losing it can cause your entire team to die
@ezekel
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
TF2 doesn't strike me as being designed with competitive in mind. If the game were designed with competitive in mind I would imagine that more than 4/9 classes would be viable in 6v6.
All classes are used in competitive, while some less than others; if you actually watched/competed at high level you'd already know this. Depending on the cap point, players actually change classes for example if you're at your last cap on granary, a scout can swap to sniper to try and pick off the medic or get some good picks to stop the final point from being capped and counter-cap back your 2nd point
I've also seen pushes bringing in a heavy, as a heavy with good aim and in the right position can take down multiple people because of his raw power/health (and the fact he can just spew nonstop ammo, however all your shots need to be on point)
Spies also do come out on occasion such as gravel pit and the such, and I've seen some strats/plays with the pyro; however once it's the two best teams facing each other you'd see pyro the least I'd say. I stopped playing a long time ago but that's what I recall. Engineer is something I'd never really see, but I've seen it.
TF2 has 9 classes, each with unique roles
Symmetric maps
5 cap points, starting with 2 on each side, forcing you to fight over the middle one (symmetric)
Arena style health/ammo pickups
I'd say that game is setup for competition; only issue is that the meta is focused around killing the enemy team medic, the medic is literally so important that losing it can cause your entire team to die
Reason all classes are used in TF2 comp games is due to most comp having rules around the numbers of each class type allowed.
There is nothing in regular (pub) TF2 that restricts the numbers of player classes (unless I have missed something) and pub games you can indeed have a team of heavies/spy's/medics/etc.
Crits, are another great example of how casual players took precedence to comp players (who, for the most part, hate crits).
TF2 clearly embraced to casual gamer over comp gamer....its pretty simple to see.
Heck even EA (my least favourite dev team) cater more to casual players than comp....after all you need a lot of casual gamers if you expect to maintain a healthy comp scene.
@ezekel
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
Crits are disabled serverside
Random spread is disabled server side, all shotgun shots are static
All damage numbers are stable, the only way to obtain crits is from a kritzkrieg (and axtinguisher, afaik if that's not banned)
I left tf2 before random stat padded user items were added, and do not attribute any part of those to my post
@ezekel
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
Crits are disabled serverside
Random spread is disabled server side, all shotgun shots are static
All damage numbers are stable, the only way to obtain crits is from a kritzkrieg (and axtinguisher, afaik if that's not banned)
I left tf2 before random stat padded user items were added, and do not attribute any part of those to my post
Fair enough, nothing about those classes I mentioned seems competitive to me though.
A bunch of novices getting blown away by a single pro player (or stacked team) on the opposing team is one of the key reasons new players aren't sticking with it. I have seen numerous players get frustrated by this, causing them to leave the game after only a few days of play. These novice players, if embraced, could be the future core of NS2 -- but that won't happen unless something is done about it.
An official 4-tier system of players, with servers optionally catering to certain levels or handicapping the higher tier(s) could help this issue. How these levels are determined is up for discussion, but I propose using number of rounds (with 8+ players) played, with a weight based on other player levels.
So, servers wishing to allow to anyone to play but wanting to help out novices could indicate "Novice with handicap", indicating novices would play at normal level, while higher level players would get handicapped based on their level. However, a server that wants nothing to do with handicapping could easily ignore it.
This often brings a lot of conflict on the forums but it's true. I've seen servers empty out after 1 or 2 guys have destroyed the other team. If your too good for a server you either need to tone down your play or leave. Having someone go 40:0 while the other team has greens is not fun for any of those on the losing team. While the community continues to condone team stacking, and massive skill imbalance it's going to be struggle to grow the player population.
If you find yourself completely owning a server, try and do the following:
1) Clearly state that your going to try and switch teams each round to balance out overall. At least players then know they only have to fight you once every two rounds.
2) Take command rather than playing on the field. If you are on the field give help and tips to BOTH teams. If a enemy skulk runs along the floor in a straight line at you, point out nicely it's a really bad idea. If the marine commander is building complete bases in each room, again point it out.
3) Play with a handicap. If your that good try playing with no sound, or only using your primary weapon.
4) At all times no trash talk!
5) If your still frustrating the players after all of the above, accept that you should leave.
In an ideal world we would have the player population to do ranked match making. Until then those with skill need to take some responsibility.
@ezekel
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
Crits are disabled serverside
Random spread is disabled server side, all shotgun shots are static
All damage numbers are stable, the only way to obtain crits is from a kritzkrieg (and axtinguisher, afaik if that's not banned)
I left tf2 before random stat padded user items were added, and do not attribute any part of those to my post
How does the fact that comp games turn off features that re common in pub play validate your claim that TF2 cares more about comp than casual gamers?
It just illustrates the difference between balance for casual v comp players (compl players dont like random anything...pub players do).
Comp play needs a class limit...casual play does not, it hampers casual play if you put in plass a class limit as expereinced players will grief newbs struggling to learn to go engi.
Comp play you have different considerations for balance....and not all maps are symetrical..."Push da cart" anyone?
Maps dont have to offer equal chances to both sides...CS, DoD, TF2 all illustrate this and on some maps one side has an advantage over another (DoD_Charlie anyone?).
I used to play NS2 in the alpha and beta phase. The reason I stopped playing is simply because the game is just frustrating the way it is designed. I guess I don't really like the asymmetry - I think it's really hard to pull off. Having an FPS game where the 1on1 battles are fundamentally unfair is just not fun for me. When I die I want to feel like the other player out played me, not that he had some weapon or class that was just more powerful that I had no way of avoiding. I also don't want to feel like I need to rely on my team mates to shoot a target at the same time as me or for the com to research the right stuff and to drop med packs just so I have any chance of surviving the next encounter.
Of course I rely on my team mates in other FPS games, but if they are playing badly and we are getting owned then I can just play defensive and still hold a position on my own even versus multiple enemies. If I die in these games then I feel like it was because I missed or I could have countered the enemy in some way. I often didn't feel that way while playing NS2.
I used to always use this as my mantra "If you punish the player for something they couldn't have avoided, you cause frustration." If the game is frustrating then players will quickly move on to something else.
I also felt there was a lot of jumping and spamming around rather than precision movement that I like from other FPS games.
I'm still looking forward to the Organized Play Systems discussed here: http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/organised-play-systems/
As for the BT changes, I'm secretly wishing for a return to a more asymmetrical and deeper NS2 gameplay, much like NS1.
The NS2 Khammander role never felt quite right, building should be a team effort, not a commander effort imho.
To add to this, some more literal height and depth in NS2 maps too,
@ezekel
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
Crits are disabled serverside
Random spread is disabled server side, all shotgun shots are static
All damage numbers are stable, the only way to obtain crits is from a kritzkrieg (and axtinguisher, afaik if that's not banned)
I left tf2 before random stat padded user items were added, and do not attribute any part of those to my post
The fact that competitive has to operate on it's own (probably non-valve) rules with bans and server side mods is proof enough that the game was not designed for competitive. Competitive players instead took the game and made it their own, completely the other way around.
I'm in the exact same situation as you really. I haven't actually played but maybe 2 rounds of NS2 in 3 months. I still log on the server and sit in spectate and watch games from an admin POV, and I keep my web admin up otherwise to keep an eye on the server. I'm getting more and more annoyed when I see it empty out overnight, but I also realize that's just what's happening with the population in general. My interest in actually playing the game has just deadened. Also like you, I'm obviously still interested in what happens with the game and have a strong desire to see it improve. It's such an odd situation for me.
I'm a casual player even moreso now than 6 months ago and relating alot to what you put and whats being put here, I used to play with a clan just as a regular pubber but they don't do pub games anymore, a number of the players that used to play are MIA now and they only have few servers left which are combat or such and either full or empty, story of NS2 atm really.
I see alot of dejavu with NS1 here in that the game keeps being altered changing how it plays so if you liked a certain iteration you're left a bit dumbfounded, the higher count servers are the only ones really ever populated, and all the while long term people don't play anymore or at the risk of sounding snobby not interested in playing with loads of fresh noobs, playing this game or any game should never feel like a job one reason i don't do clans/competitive.
I used to play NS2 in the alpha and beta phase. The reason I stopped playing is simply because the game is just frustrating the way it is designed. I guess I don't really like the asymmetry - I think it's really hard to pull off. Having an FPS game where the 1on1 battles are fundamentally unfair is just not fun for me. When I die I want to feel like the other player out played me, not that he had some weapon or class that was just more powerful that I had no way of avoiding. I also don't want to feel like I need to rely on my team mates to shoot a target at the same time as me or for the com to research the right stuff and to drop med packs just so I have any chance of surviving the next encounter.
Of course I rely on my team mates in other FPS games, but if they are playing badly and we are getting owned then I can just play defensive and still hold a position on my own even versus multiple enemies. If I die in these games then I feel like it was because I missed or I could have countered the enemy in some way. I often didn't feel that way while playing NS2.
I used to always use this as my mantra "If you punish the player for something they couldn't have avoided, you cause frustration." If the game is frustrating then players will quickly move on to something else.
I also felt there was a lot of jumping and spamming around rather than precision movement that I like from other FPS games.
There is nothing that can be done about this though. The game is simply not fun to play for me and short of some epic mod coming out and changing the gameplay entirely I can't see myself playing NS2 again.
I can see the player numbers rising a bit if they have some free weekends and maybe do some sales or humble bundle stuff. I don't know how long they will stick around for though.
I feel a reason for the way the game turned out as it did was partly because the devs don't seem to be hardcore into multiplayer FPS games. I always felt the best games came from people who were super passionate about that genre and then they created the game they always wanted to play. NS2 is just what happens when people just think of "cool" things to put into a game without thinking about what makes a specific game fun.
If I tried to make an RPG it would probably turn out pretty mediocre because I don't really play them much and don't have experience of what makes them fun vs what is frustrating from other games.
There also always seemed to be this idea of competitive vs public which doesn't really make much sense to me. The best games I have played are fun for both sets of players for the same reasons. Good design is fun for everyone.
I think your problem with the game (and one that many seem to share) is that Natural Selection 2 isn't a First Person Shooter. Natural Selection 2 is a Real Time Strategy game with a first person point of view. All of the objectives and gameplay mechanisms are focused on the strategy and not the shooting. The way to look at this game is to look at it as Starcraft, where the players are the Marines and Zerglings
Completely correct, though nuance isn't people's strong point, people see an FPS format and think standard FPS genre, but that's where they're wrong, it'd be better if they advertised it that way, saying guys we've got this RTS game, but you get to be guy on the ground, the FPS is the interface, the game design is an RTS.
A bunch of novices getting blown away by a single pro player (or stacked team) on the opposing team is one of the key reasons new players aren't sticking with it. I have seen numerous players get frustrated by this, causing them to leave the game after only a few days of play. These novice players, if embraced, could be the future core of NS2 -- but that won't happen unless something is done about it.
An official 4-tier system of players, with servers optionally catering to certain levels or handicapping the higher tier(s) could help this issue. How these levels are determined is up for discussion, but I propose using number of rounds (with 8+ players) played, with a weight based on other player levels.
So, servers wishing to allow to anyone to play but wanting to help out novices could indicate "Novice with handicap", indicating novices would play at normal level, while higher level players would get handicapped based on their level. However, a server that wants nothing to do with handicapping could easily ignore it.
This often brings a lot of conflict on the forums but it's true. I've seen servers empty out after 1 or 2 guys have destroyed the other team. If your too good for a server you either need to tone down your play or leave. Having someone go 40:0 while the other team has greens is not fun for any of those on the losing team. While the community continues to condone team stacking, and massive skill imbalance it's going to be struggle to grow the player population.
If you find yourself completely owning a server, try and do the following:
1) Clearly state that your going to try and switch teams each round to balance out overall. At least players then know they only have to fight you once every two rounds.
2) Take command rather than playing on the field. If you are on the field give help and tips to BOTH teams. If a enemy skulk runs along the floor in a straight line at you, point out nicely it's a really bad idea. If the marine commander is building complete bases in each room, again point it out.
3) Play with a handicap. If your that good try playing with no sound, or only using your primary weapon.
4) At all times no trash talk!
5) If your still frustrating the players after all of the above, accept that you should leave.
In an ideal world we would have the player population to do ranked match making. Until then those with skill need to take some responsibility.
THIS.So many times.
I´d like to smash their heads into a bloody pulp every time someone like that is in a server(and they are mostly in 16 man servers too)I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM.Sooooo much.
And I don´t know why people are ignoring the fact once they see their team get fucked in the ass.Clearly the only damn reason you are loosing is because of that 1 fucking guy.And people don´t do shit about it.And I´m usually left fighting the fuck alone.You can´t build rts or defend them if you are going to get killed.
Comments
An official 4-tier system of players, with servers optionally catering to certain levels or handicapping the higher tier(s) could help this issue. How these levels are determined is up for discussion, but I propose using number of rounds (with 8+ players) played, with a weight based on other player levels.
So, servers wishing to allow to anyone to play but wanting to help out novices could indicate "Novice with handicap", indicating novices would play at normal level, while higher level players would get handicapped based on their level. However, a server that wants nothing to do with handicapping could easily ignore it.
impossibru!!!
That's an important point. The fact that many people play on 24 player servers may not mean that people prefer 12 v 12. It may mean nothing more than that 24 player servers are robust to minor fluctuations in player count and people can't find 8v8 games.
Of course I rely on my team mates in other FPS games, but if they are playing badly and we are getting owned then I can just play defensive and still hold a position on my own even versus multiple enemies. If I die in these games then I feel like it was because I missed or I could have countered the enemy in some way. I often didn't feel that way while playing NS2.
I used to always use this as my mantra "If you punish the player for something they couldn't have avoided, you cause frustration." If the game is frustrating then players will quickly move on to something else.
I also felt there was a lot of jumping and spamming around rather than precision movement that I like from other FPS games.
There is nothing that can be done about this though. The game is simply not fun to play for me and short of some epic mod coming out and changing the gameplay entirely I can't see myself playing NS2 again.
I can see the player numbers rising a bit if they have some free weekends and maybe do some sales or humble bundle stuff. I don't know how long they will stick around for though.
I feel a reason for the way the game turned out as it did was partly because the devs don't seem to be hardcore into multiplayer FPS games. I always felt the best games came from people who were super passionate about that genre and then they created the game they always wanted to play. NS2 is just what happens when people just think of "cool" things to put into a game without thinking about what makes a specific game fun.
If I tried to make an RPG it would probably turn out pretty mediocre because I don't really play them much and don't have experience of what makes them fun vs what is frustrating from other games.
There also always seemed to be this idea of competitive vs public which doesn't really make much sense to me. The best games I have played are fun for both sets of players for the same reasons. Good design is fun for everyone.
I think your problem with the game (and one that many seem to share) is that Natural Selection 2 isn't a First Person Shooter. Natural Selection 2 is a Real Time Strategy game with a first person point of view. All of the objectives and gameplay mechanisms are focused on the strategy and not the shooting. The way to look at this game is to look at it as Starcraft, where the players are the Marines and Zerglings
Not really... in comp 6v6 TF2 half of the classes are non-efficient or detrimental at best.
TF2 is huge pub fun, and as such the more competitive players have made their own little sub-game within TF2 over time.
I'm not saying it should only have competitive in mind, but that it should. Period. Without a competitive scene it's just another casual game.
And what's big right now is esports and twitch.tv and all that shit. So you sorta need both if you want your game to be big and successful. (fun is always most important though for all parties)
Valve knows this, ala DotA2 with a million things in mind to foster a healthy competitive scene ALONG with the casual scene. Tons of twitch.tv options.. tutorials, matchmaking, all the shit everyone wants at the moment and everything NS2 is missing.
Can so relate
Match making only works for games with large player numbers. NS2 at the moment really splits into two groups; pro's/oldschool vets from ns1 and the rest. There might be a few in the middle ground, but most of the time you belong in 1 of those two groups.
Couldn't agree with your first sentence more. I get tired of seeing that argument brought up time and time again. A game needs to reasonably cater to both sides of that to have any decent chance of success.
All classes are used in competitive, while some less than others; if you actually watched/competed at high level you'd already know this. Depending on the cap point, players actually change classes for example if you're at your last cap on granary, a scout can swap to sniper to try and pick off the medic or get some good picks to stop the final point from being capped and counter-cap back your 2nd point
I've also seen pushes bringing in a heavy, as a heavy with good aim and in the right position can take down multiple people because of his raw power/health (and the fact he can just spew nonstop ammo, however all your shots need to be on point)
Spies also do come out on occasion such as gravel pit and the such, and I've seen some strats/plays with the pyro; however once it's the two best teams facing each other you'd see pyro the least I'd say. I stopped playing a long time ago but that's what I recall. Engineer is something I'd never really see, but I've seen it.
TF2 has 9 classes, each with unique roles
Symmetric maps
5 cap points, starting with 2 on each side, forcing you to fight over the middle one (symmetric)
Arena style health/ammo pickups
I'd say that game is setup for competition; only issue is that the meta is focused around killing the enemy team medic, the medic is literally so important that losing it can cause your entire team to die
I know that they all show up on occasion, but would you really say that it feels like the Heavy, Spy, Pyro, and Engie were designed with competitive in mind? They certainly don't feel like that to me.
e: Going off of what hakenspit said below, random crits, random spread, and varying damage numbers are all elements of TF2 that are clearly there for public/casual players over competitive players. And pretty much every non-vanilla weapon is clearly designed more for pubs than for comp although I suppose in that case you could argue that their approach changed over time.
Reason all classes are used in TF2 comp games is due to most comp having rules around the numbers of each class type allowed.
There is nothing in regular (pub) TF2 that restricts the numbers of player classes (unless I have missed something) and pub games you can indeed have a team of heavies/spy's/medics/etc.
Crits, are another great example of how casual players took precedence to comp players (who, for the most part, hate crits).
TF2 clearly embraced to casual gamer over comp gamer....its pretty simple to see.
Heck even EA (my least favourite dev team) cater more to casual players than comp....after all you need a lot of casual gamers if you expect to maintain a healthy comp scene.
Crits are disabled serverside
Random spread is disabled server side, all shotgun shots are static
All damage numbers are stable, the only way to obtain crits is from a kritzkrieg (and axtinguisher, afaik if that's not banned)
I left tf2 before random stat padded user items were added, and do not attribute any part of those to my post
I'd love to see how long you last and how hard you whine if you were put with 7 greens against a team of div1 players tbh.
Fair enough, nothing about those classes I mentioned seems competitive to me though.
This often brings a lot of conflict on the forums but it's true. I've seen servers empty out after 1 or 2 guys have destroyed the other team. If your too good for a server you either need to tone down your play or leave. Having someone go 40:0 while the other team has greens is not fun for any of those on the losing team. While the community continues to condone team stacking, and massive skill imbalance it's going to be struggle to grow the player population.
If you find yourself completely owning a server, try and do the following:
1) Clearly state that your going to try and switch teams each round to balance out overall. At least players then know they only have to fight you once every two rounds.
2) Take command rather than playing on the field. If you are on the field give help and tips to BOTH teams. If a enemy skulk runs along the floor in a straight line at you, point out nicely it's a really bad idea. If the marine commander is building complete bases in each room, again point it out.
3) Play with a handicap. If your that good try playing with no sound, or only using your primary weapon.
4) At all times no trash talk!
5) If your still frustrating the players after all of the above, accept that you should leave.
In an ideal world we would have the player population to do ranked match making. Until then those with skill need to take some responsibility.
How does the fact that comp games turn off features that re common in pub play validate your claim that TF2 cares more about comp than casual gamers?
It just illustrates the difference between balance for casual v comp players (compl players dont like random anything...pub players do).
Comp play needs a class limit...casual play does not, it hampers casual play if you put in plass a class limit as expereinced players will grief newbs struggling to learn to go engi.
Comp play you have different considerations for balance....and not all maps are symetrical..."Push da cart" anyone?
Maps dont have to offer equal chances to both sides...CS, DoD, TF2 all illustrate this and on some maps one side has an advantage over another (DoD_Charlie anyone?).
I think these are very good points.
As for the BT changes, I'm secretly wishing for a return to a more asymmetrical and deeper NS2 gameplay, much like NS1.
The NS2 Khammander role never felt quite right, building should be a team effort, not a commander effort imho.
To add to this, some more literal height and depth in NS2 maps too,
The fact that competitive has to operate on it's own (probably non-valve) rules with bans and server side mods is proof enough that the game was not designed for competitive. Competitive players instead took the game and made it their own, completely the other way around.
I'm a casual player even moreso now than 6 months ago and relating alot to what you put and whats being put here, I used to play with a clan just as a regular pubber but they don't do pub games anymore, a number of the players that used to play are MIA now and they only have few servers left which are combat or such and either full or empty, story of NS2 atm really.
I see alot of dejavu with NS1 here in that the game keeps being altered changing how it plays so if you liked a certain iteration you're left a bit dumbfounded, the higher count servers are the only ones really ever populated, and all the while long term people don't play anymore or at the risk of sounding snobby not interested in playing with loads of fresh noobs, playing this game or any game should never feel like a job one reason i don't do clans/competitive.
Completely correct, though nuance isn't people's strong point, people see an FPS format and think standard FPS genre, but that's where they're wrong, it'd be better if they advertised it that way, saying guys we've got this RTS game, but you get to be guy on the ground, the FPS is the interface, the game design is an RTS.
THIS.So many times.
I´d like to smash their heads into a bloody pulp every time someone like that is in a server(and they are mostly in 16 man servers too)I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM.Sooooo much.
And I don´t know why people are ignoring the fact once they see their team get fucked in the ass.Clearly the only damn reason you are loosing is because of that 1 fucking guy.And people don´t do shit about it.And I´m usually left fighting the fuck alone.You can´t build rts or defend them if you are going to get killed.