Natural Selection 2 World Championship - Natural Selection 2

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  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    edited October 2013
    Res wrote: »
    NS2 will never grow by UWE constantly only supporting and throwing money at the esports side of things...
    However, they are starting to realize that NS2 is not going to grow, as referenced by their statement that they are not going to work on NS2 full time anymore,
    I like how you made two unrelated subjects connect magically.

    If i'm understanding the connection you're attempting to make:
    UWE "only" supports and throws money at esports and hasn't been continuing to develop the game this whole time.. and as a result they now can no longer work on NS2 fulltime.

    Tell me i got that wrong, and that's not actually what you are trying to say, please.. because otherwise 8-}


    Also.. @kurupt .. your fans are waiting..
  • eh?eh? Join Date: 2012-03-03 Member: 147997Members
    It's awfully telling that RedDog, Hugh, et al rally to "refute" someone with a tenuous grasp of the English language.

    I mean all that effort for what exactly.
  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Res wrote: »
    NS2 will never grow by UWE constantly only supporting and throwing money at the esports side of things...
    However, they are starting to realize that NS2 is not going to grow, as referenced by their statement that they are not going to work on NS2 full time anymore,
    I like how you made two unrelated subjects connect magically.

    If i'm understanding the connection you're attempting to make:
    UWE "only" supports and throws money at esports and hasn't been continuing to develop the game this whole time.. and as a result they now can no longer work on NS2 fulltime.

    Tell me i got that wrong, and that's not actually what you are trying to say, please.. because otherwise 8-}

    I never said UWE hasn't been developing the game this whole time. I'm saying most of the changes they have made to the game catered more towards veterans of the game without any thinking whatsoever about the changes that should be made in order to help retain newer players. They would rather support esports than try to retain players.

    Thus, this has resulted in less players and thereby less revenue for them.

    That is where the connection lies.

  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    @res
    Ah, i see.
    I guess your use of "only" made it sound a bit exclusive.

    I do disagree with your point, though. If they made any actual gameplay changes to benefit new/casual players i believe you'd just piss off all the hardcore/vets and end up with pages and pages of yelling and "why did you water down my game" etc.
    Eventually no hardcore crowd would remain, considering it seems universally agreed upon that casuals do not stick around like vets - which i guess fits the non serious and non committing playstyle of "casuals"? *Shrug*
  • BellicoseBellicose Join Date: 2013-04-11 Member: 184748Members
    edited October 2013
    eh? wrote: »
    It's awfully telling that RedDog, Hugh, et al rally to "refute" someone with a tenuous grasp of the English language.

    @eh? pssst, don't know if you caught it, but reddog only posted graphs in direct response to someone saying that ns2 has never achieved over 1,000 viewers.

    @Res Nice side step! Completely missing the mark yet again, though! We must agree to disagree, sir! :D
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Res wrote: »
    The graphs remind me of Obamacare.......

    "Look we got so many visitors to our website that it crashed!!!"

    "So how many people actually signed up?"

    "Oh.... a hundred or so."
    ?? ^#(^

    "But one thing the site hasn’t lacked is traffic: It saw 4.7 million unique visitors in its first 24 hours online. "
    -Washington Post
  • eh?eh? Join Date: 2012-03-03 Member: 147997Members
    I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I was referring to. Is this real life?
  • |DFA| Havoc|DFA| Havoc Join Date: 2009-08-07 Member: 68375Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    IronHorse wrote: »
    @res
    Ah, i see.
    I guess your use of "only" made it sound a bit exclusive.

    I do disagree with your point, though. If they made any actual gameplay changes to benefit new/casual players i believe you'd just piss off all the hardcore/vets and end up with pages and pages of yelling and "why did you water down my game" etc.
    Eventually no hardcore crowd would remain, considering it seems universally agreed upon that casuals do not stick around like vets - which i guess fits the non serious and non committing playstyle of "casuals"? *Shrug*


    I played thousands of hours of NS1, and I have over 1300 so far in NS2, but I still consider myself a 'casual' because I only play pub games and give 0 flips about competitive play. I know a lot of people that are the exact same way, the type who play the game every night but aren't interested in taking it to the next level. Unfortunately, most of those people don't read the forums and don't give their input on gameplay or balance, and simply stop playing when the experience becomes too frustrating. Most of the people I know in this category have quit for THAT reason, and not because they merely lack dedication.

    So I'm in largely the same camp as Res, and I think that a lot more time and attention should have been put into retaining new players right out of the gate. I don't think that trying to address the learning curve or improving the pub experience must necessarily come at the cost of making the game more shallow, but if it had then I think it would have been a fair trade to make at least initially, and then work on tightening up the competitive experience farther down the road, after a hopefully much larger 'casual' playerbase had been established.

    It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.

  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    @Havoc , thank you for that post, I was going to post something similar but didn't feel like it.

    Making changes to figure out how to retain new players doesn't necessarily mean those players will all be casual players.

    Just like Havoc, I have over 1100 hours in NS2 , I played quite a bit but never felt like going into comp play and only quit playing because of the changes UWE made.
    It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.

    This is well said.

  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    It's not that I want to be rid of the comp players or that they should suffer, just... priorities, you know? If you focus on the foundation first, the top of the pyramid can come later and rest on a stable platform, and then everybody wins.
    I get what you mean, but you know that almost every one of those players would never suggest that casual players be the foundation for anything due to variance of feedback, right?
    In fact, every argument i've read in these forums (and in balance discussions in general) has been not to use the casual /pub player base for any form of feedback.
    While i tend to see their point, I personally think there is still value in their feedback, even if its not as reliable.

    My point being, that your suggestion of how to design the game (from the bottom up) is exactly opposite to how nearly everyone suggests, and more importantly, i definitely do not think it would have been possible to preserve what makes Natural Selection amazing in regards to game concept.
    As i think in order to design for the masses, you need to have a low skill ceiling with frequent token rewards (even if placebo, like rank), and most importantly streamlined/incredibly simple mechanics... like... capture the flag, or king of the hill, or plant the bomb.

    NS2 just doesn't have any of that - and while i am also a lowly 1,000 hr pubber myself, i am very happy that is the case.
  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    edited October 2013
    IronHorse wrote: »
    In fact, every argument i've read in these forums (and in balance discussions in general) has been not to use the casual /pub player base for any form of feedback.

    I and many others have advocated for the pub player when it comes to certain balance decisions UWE made. However, we are not only talking about some balance changes , but other things as well that could be done to better retain players.
    IronHorse wrote: »
    My point being, that your suggestion of how to design the game (from the bottom up) is exactly opposite to how nearly everyone suggests,

    This is not true at all as I said above. Some of us have always advocated the other way. The reason I do is because I've seen it done the way UWE is doing it and it always results in the game never growing past it's original loyal playerbase that slowly diminishes.

    IronHorse wrote: »
    As i think in order to design for the masses, you need to have a low skill ceiling with frequent token rewards (even if placebo, like rank), and most importantly streamlined/incredibly simple mechanics... like... capture the flag, or king of the hill, or plant the bomb.

    That's a matter of opinion, obviously, and i'll have to disagree with you there. However, on one thing, I've said this before on here, a lower skill ceiling does not necessarily hurt competitive play.

    There's also a reason why most FPS games these days have gone with a reward/ranking/achievement system, it has been proven to help retain players, even if all it is is just fluff.

    For example, you could have weapons that track how many kills/assists you get and when you reach a certain amount on that gun, it ranks up with a different name such as "World Ender Shotgun", but doesn't actually affect stats or could get a badge that goes on the shoulder of the marine or both.
    [/quote]

  • KalopsiaKalopsia Join Date: 2003-05-15 Member: 16331Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Can someone perhaps explain what the deal is with the clogs?

    *Special CLOGS* for reward levels too! Everyone loves CLOGS, see below :)

    One Contributor will win a trip to the LIVE Final

    Clog = 1 Clog
    Extractor - 3 Clogs
    Crag = 7 Clogs
    Arms Lab = 12 Clogs
    Bio Mass = 20 Clogs
    Contaminate = 55 Clogs
    Prototype Lab = 120 Clogs
    Command Station = 250 Clogs


    Does this give us extra clogs to use in game? Or are these entries that go towards winning a trip to the final?

    An explanation would be nice.

    Thanks
  • |DFA| Havoc|DFA| Havoc Join Date: 2009-08-07 Member: 68375Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    @IronHorse

    I do agree that casual player feedback is typically unreliably at the very best. That definitely complicates things.

    Nevertheless, I disagree about the token rewards. Maybe I am just a statistical anomaly, but I just need the game to be fun and balanced, and I will play it 'casually' every night for years.
  • CCTEECCTEE Join Date: 2013-06-20 Member: 185634Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    The E-sport marketing strat is very nice:

    -It's fun for the people who already own the game (our commoeniti!1).
    -It's living advertisement for people who dont own the game, and directed at people who might enjoy NS2 (gamers who are involved enough to watch e-sports).

    What other marketingtool combines these two?
  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Res wrote: »
    The graphs remind me of Obamacare.......

    "Look we got so many visitors to our website that it crashed!!!"

    "So how many people actually signed up?"

    "Oh.... a hundred or so."

    @Res, I am really suprised to see you making a snarky, negative comment. I've grown fond of your well researched, positive contributions to forum debates.

    In this case, given that the 165,940 unique visitors coincided with thousands of copies sold, and one of NS2's biggest ever sales days, you appear to have really missed the mark to a ridiculous degree.

    Once you've thought of a witty come back that dismisses those viewers and sales, I'll still be here!
  • 0ni0ni Join Date: 2012-08-30 Member: 156991Members
    I see a lot of hate for Obama care on the internet but I just don't get it. I mean, as a Canadian who's too lazy and uninterested to research what's going on with the American healthcare system all I can assume is that Americans are happy being the only first world country without socialized health care. I'm undoubtedly missing something but from the outside that's what it looks like. If someone could give me the summed up unbiased version that'd be great. I see it mentioned all over the net but I don't care quite enough to do a lot of reading about it.
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    Force everyone to have an insurance for their car and no one bats an eye.
    Force everyone to have an insurance for their health and everybody loses their minds...

    Right?


    Disclaimer: I did not research the facts. Over here in Europe, no healthcare would be a no-go...
  • blackpiranhablackpiranha Germany Join Date: 2003-03-11 Member: 14375Members, Constellation
    edited October 2013
    CCTEE wrote: »
    The E-sport marketing strat is very nice:

    -It's fun for the people who already own the game (our commoeniti!1).
    -It's living advertisement for people who dont own the game, and directed at people who might enjoy NS2 (gamers who are involved enough to watch e-sports).

    What other marketingtool combines these two?

    Of course the World Cup is good advertising, no one doubts that.

    But you need a stable engine and after that, optimizations for competitive play - I think NS2 is still away from that, every game takes some time especially balancing and fixing around competitive play. Even Blizzard experimented around with damage numbers or new elements in Starcraft 2, which were possibly reverted or changed in the next patch but after all, they tried out things, analysed competitive matches and fixed the game accordingly, Sewleks balance mod is a good start, not sure if many people use that. After all it's the finetuning and lacking of polished visuals which make me feel the game is not ready for a "World Cup".

    NS2WC is like going to a race with a half finished race car, the engine works somehow but it is not tuned, tires are not pumped up and the paintjob hasn't been finished either.

    It's still early to make assumptions tho, with a ton of patches this may look very different in the next months. I hope for the best.
  • ZalamaelZalamael Join Date: 2013-08-18 Member: 186949Members
    Res wrote: »
    I'm saying most of the changes they have made to the game catered more towards veterans of the game without any thinking whatsoever about the changes that should be made in order to help retain newer players. They would rather support esports than try to retain players.

    Well, as a relatively new player myself (bought the game a couple of weeks before Reinforced landed) I have no idea what you are talking about here. I played the tutorial back then, and I have played the new one, and both were really helpful, albeit in different ways. I'm pretty certain those additions were of absolutely no use to veteran or competitive players.

    How exactly would you go about retaining players (as you seem to believe you have the answers)? Bear in mind, player retention is a HUGE problem for almost every game developer/publisher in today's market, and even bending over backwards for new players isn't enough to keep them playing any given game these days.








  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    edited October 2013
    0ni wrote: »
    If someone could give me the summed up unbiased version that'd be great. I see it mentioned all over the net but I don't care quite enough to do a lot of reading about it.

    While this is off-topic of the thread, i'll try to sum it up simply.

    Americans don't like being forced to have or get something, especially if it means it will hurt them financially.

    It is causing health premiums to sky rocket.

    It is causing many companies to reduce employees to part-time hours so they don't have to get healthcare for them.

    Many companies have already layed off employees attributing it to increased costs in healthcare in obamacare.

    It is essentially an expensive tax that many people can't afford.

    Majority of americans were initially for obamacare as many thought it would reduce costs or thought they would get free healthcare, but as the truth started coming out, most americans are against it now.
    How exactly would you go about retaining players (as you seem to believe you have the answers)?

    I've mentioned it before, but changes that either employ a "carrot on a stick" routine or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further. Whether that make the skill ceiling lower or not, so be it, but as I said before, a lower skill ceiling doesn't necessarily hurt comp play.

  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    edited October 2013
    Hugh wrote: »
    In this case, given that the 165,940 unique visitors coincided with thousands of copies sold, and one of NS2's biggest ever sales days, you appear to have really missed the mark to a ridiculous degree.

    Once you've thought of a witty come back that dismisses those viewers and sales, I'll still be here!

    @Hugh, I'd be more impressed if you could tell me how many of those players were retained and kept playing the game. If you can't retain players, you can't keep a healthy competitive scene. Eventually, the comp scene dwindles and dies, always with a few holdouts though, but certainly not enough to support a $30k donation tournament.



  • ZalamaelZalamael Join Date: 2013-08-18 Member: 186949Members
    Res wrote: »
    I've mentioned it before, but changes that either employ a "carrot on a stick" routine or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further. Whether that make the skill ceiling lower or not, so be it, but as I said before, a lower skill ceiling doesn't necessarily hurt comp play.

    And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own. The ones that play the game would still be playing anyway whether it was there or not, and anyone that was dumb enough to play a game they didn't enjoy because of a reward system would actually drag the game down. What NS2 needs is more skilled and intelligent players that use their mics and are capable of learning from their mistakes, not the other kind.

    Games with depth, that require a wide range of skills (as NS2 does) are always going to attract fewer players in today's market. It takes time to learn, skill and dedication to master, and every player needs a good sense of team work. That is actually asking a lot of today's PC gaming crowd (:() This type of game is far more enjoyable than shallow games like CoD, but at the same time require the players to play the game the way it is supposed to be played, or else it ruins it. That means either a small community but very enjoyable games, or a large community but with awful games (much like TF2 became after it went F2P).

    Also, why did you mention lowering the skill ceiling? Lowering the skill floor would be better for new players (in particular the Skulk which is the base Alien unit, and requires a lot of skill to play effectively) but lowering the skill ceiling (i.e. dumbing the game down) would make the game worse for new players, because more players would be in a position to dominate them.
  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    edited October 2013
    Zalamael wrote: »
    And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own.

    Actually, the "carrot on a stick" works quite well. Why do you think so many games do it now? Just one of the reasons game developers started turning to psychologists for help was for learning how to retain players and keep them playing. It is part of the psychology of gaming and it works.

    If it is done tactfully enough, it can be a great addition without hindering gameplay and would certainly keep players playing for longer.

    Also, I never said it should be the only thing that should be done.




  • JektJekt Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    Res wrote: »
    Zalamael wrote: »
    And you really believe the 'carrot on a stick' routine actually works? Drip feeding players rewards for playing doesn't work on its own.

    Actually, the "carrot on a stick" works quite well. Why do you think so many games do it now? Just one of the reasons game developers started turning to psychologists for help was for learning how to retain players and keep them playing. It is part of the psychology of gaming and it works.

    If it is done tactfully enough, it can be a great addition without hindering gameplay and would certainly keep players playing for longer.

    Also, I never said it should be the only thing that should be done.




    It's the only thing you even remotely gave any specification on though.

  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    edited October 2013
    Jekt wrote: »





    It's the only thing you even remotely gave any specification on though.

    I also said
    or making changes that make the game more user friendly by changing, removing or adding features and by increasing performance further.

    Which could result in a wide array of changes. I'm not the one that would need to figure out those specific changes. That would be UWE's job. Although I could certainly come up with some.
  • ZalamaelZalamael Join Date: 2013-08-18 Member: 186949Members
    It only works on players that are stupid/bad enough to believe that they have actually earned something. MMORPG players are some of the worst gamers I have ever played with, and pretty much every player I have ever met that approves of progression/reward systems is usually bad at gaming, and are extremely casual in mentality (as in, they only play for fun and have no competitive streak whatsoever).

    The good players (i.e. the kind that NS2 needs right now) care far more about increasing their own skill at games, they don't actually need rewards to be motivated to play. Becoming a better player is its own reward. So the better option for this game is to reach out to skilled, intelligent and motivated players, which means better performance, better balance and better matches. Either that or encourage the bad players to improve their skills, which means removing all crutches (which is what reward/progression systems are) and forcing them to improve, but it is highly unlikely that would work, because bad players are quitters by nature (which is why they stay bad).

    And despite your vague reply there are far more games with progression/reward systems that have failed than there are that have succeeded. And all of those games that became extremely popular did so because of the sheeple effect, not because they offered rewards.

    Pretty much every game that has achieved a large measure of success has done so because of a small core of loyal players that served as the foundation. If World of Warcraft had started out with today's typical MMORPG player (instant gratification mentality), it would have died after 6 months. But the hardcore players who stuck with it kept it alive, allowing it to grow and eventually become incredibly successful.


  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    I hated all the mmorpg games I tried, and I am highly driven to improve my own game, but I just can't agree with what you just said. This game needs more players of all types, not just the like-minded comp players!
  • ZalamaelZalamael Join Date: 2013-08-18 Member: 186949Members
    Roobubba wrote: »
    I hated all the mmorpg games I tried, and I am highly driven to improve my own game, but I just can't agree with what you just said. This game needs more players of all types, not just the like-minded comp players!

    Oh, I don't disagree with that, but I think first and foremost the game needs a solid core of good players that know how to play the game. The same goes with the community, it is far better to have motivated players that write mods, make videos, stream on twitch, write guides and run fansites early on, as it is all good publicity for the game.

    First impressions matter, and I was lucky in that my first few games were ones with lots of good teamwork, communication and leadership from the commander. If my first few matches had been disorganised clusterf**ks, I might well have stopped playing early on (as I hate games that play out that way). And the same goes with the community, there was no shortage of helpful advice, video tutorials as well as the built in training to help me get to grips with the game.

    But my main point was that I don't believe that reward/progression systems work, I have seen too many games try that approach (sometimes as a band aid for weak gameplay) and seen them all fail to believe that rewards are necessary to build a core player base. First and foremost, the game needs to be fun to play, so that means it needs to be fun for both comp players and noobs in equal measure. Currently that isn't the case, because the base Alien lifeform, the Skulk, has too high a skill (and hardware) requirement for the casual player.

    That could really do with being addressed soon, publicity for the World Championship isn't going to help if new players are put off after their first few games playing as Aliens because it requires a lot of time just to reach a basic level of effectiveness.



  • ResRes Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20245Members
    Zalamael wrote: »
    Pretty much every game that has achieved a large measure of success has done so because of a small core of loyal players that served as the foundation.

    That's one of the most false statements I've ever read. Simply not true at all. Every game that has achieved any level of success has had their largest demographic in the casual players. They didn't have a small core of players and then all these casual players started flocking to it as a result. Even WoW to this day has the majority as casual players. Believe it or not, even casual players will play a game for years.

    Whether you decide to believe it or not, a reward/progression system does help to retain a significant amount of players for a longer period, but obviously I agree that it isn't the only thing that should be done.

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