I mean honestly, I'm a pretty decent player of average skill, but I don't have fun just destroying people repeatedly and knowing that they must be frustrated on their end. It's not fun, and makes me feel like an a hole, lol.
You must be a special case. I think most people who play multiplayer PC games find destroying people repeatedly and knowing they must be frustrated on their end a lot of fun and makes them feel like a-holes, which is even more fun. (moderation, lòl).
Everything about human psychology and this game promotes stæks.
I have faith in the upcoming matchmaking though. It's not going to eradicate the issue, but it should definitely make it a bit easier to get some balanced games going.
I had an idea regarding beginners being massacred (the suggestion thread about removing rookie friendly, which I don't agree with)...
There's actually a way to kill two birds with one stone: Simplify NS2 for the players that want simple since they are beginners. Experienced players don't want simplification and will shun it like the plauge.
My take on this is to reduce game speed to maybe 80-90 % of normal on rookie servers. It will make NS2 less chaotic and easier to grasp. Lots of RTS games have this setting, and I remember Unreal Tournament had it.
As for game balance and range weapons being better with slower game speed: Well, perhaps, somewhat, but many of the Alien lifeforms (Skulk, Lerk, Fade) are a kind of range weapon in and of themselves. It takes awareness and skill to play good as those lifeforms, and a major obstacle is the speed.
Skill-stacked games happen and they usually suck for everyone involved, unless someone is getting enjoyment out of trolling a server. I do not think that typical players who are accused of stacking are doing so maliciously or even intentionally.
I think it is a convergence of:
(1) Wanting to play with friends and tending to have friends of similar skill groups.
(2) Interest in playing a given team in a given situation -- i.e. poor commanders on the server -> marines are less fun due to weak build orders and no meds/ammo.
(3) Personal practice reasons -> marine play, in general. Pubbing marines can help hone your aim much more than pubbing aliens can help hone your teamwork and those are the respective qualities that are most important to each team.
I also think the complaints about stacked teams in NS2 are overdone. We're playing a very heavily team-based FPS-RTS with numerous situations where one weak cog can crash the entire machine. Then you have the snowball effect from the RTS side of things. This leads to situations where the slightly weaker team gets progressively weaker as the game goes on. Teams that are only mildly weaker, or perform just mildly worse, in the early game will find themselves at a significant disadvantage in the midgame. If the early game game is noticeable, then game is likely lost by the midgame when one side overwhelms the other with tech/map advantages.
There are two main answers to the perceived problem of skill-stacking:
(1) Random Team Balancing. It has been discussed a lot in this thread and is easily available via the shine administration mod for any server admin who wishes to use it. There are some problems with randoming teams, though. Friends often like to play with their friends -- not just competitive players -- and forcing them to split up may disincentive them from playing on your server. Another problem is if someone wants to command Aliens, but winds up being randomed to Marines. Generally, forcing someone to do something is less fun for the person than allowing them to choose to do things. And the force random mods are pure force.
(2) Matchmaking. Frequently touted as a sort of silver bullet to perceived skill imbalances, I don't think many supporters have actually played team-based matchmaking games before. Here's some of my experiences with matchmaking:
(2-a) Global Agenda. A smaller, indie game with many similarities to the NS2 community and game. GA was a highly team-based game with no RTS-based snowball mechanics. Much like NS2, the GA community was relatively small with a small minority of the small population as "competitive" players. GA used a matchmaking system for its 10v10 objective-based pubs. It used Microsoft's Truskill system to assign up to 5 stars and a hidden rating that was used to create "fair" teams. The system had two parameters: win/loss and a team-skill vs opposing-team-skill weighting system. Effectively a weighted win/loss ELO. Group queues were limited to 2 players.
Guess what was one of the primary complaints in GA? Steamrolls and long wait times for games.
(2-b) CS:GO. Unlike in GA and NS2, I was a mid-level casual during my illustrious 25 hour counter strike career. I typically queued up in their ranked matched with 2-4 of my friends. We were around the double AK rank and won about 50/50 of the games.
Guess what happened in about 50% of the games? 15-3 or 15-5 kind of steamrolls either for or against us.
TL;DR:
Why do steamrolls happen, even with matchmaking? Because team-based FPS games are extremely sensitive to collective differences in skill. NS2 has this sensitivity amplified by its RTS mechanics snowballing power in favor of the winning team. The feeling of skill-imbalance that leads to threads like this are primarily a symptom of the gametype. And as such, can only be truly addressed by making a different kind of game. I think that the proposed solutions are merely bandaids that cannot live up to people's expectations. That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued; just that people should accept that steamrolls happen even under the best plausible initial conditions (i.e. match-made-random).
had the same conversation with several old school ns1 players the other night, good to see this thread. I came up with a solution, this is strictly for pub and it's up to the server admins whether to implement this feature server side or not:
Put in a buff/debuff system similar to what we always had in co maps. If your KDR is too high, you deal less damage and receive more damage based on how high your KDR is, and vice versa for players with lower KDR.
Eg, if a guy has 38/6, he's obviously dominating, so the server side would adjust the debuff to 6:1 and he would deal 1/6 the damage and receive 6x as much. If he was doing the opposite 6/36, server side would adjust the buff so he deals 6x the damage and receives 1/6 as much. The ratio is entirely up to the server admin to adjust. Players with buff/debuff would have either a +6 or -6 icon next to his/her name to indicate skill level.
That is a horrible idea. Why should good players be punished for doing well, and why should bad players be rewarded for needing to be carried?
I was in a match earlier where some of the bad players were complaining about stacking. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that Marines were getting just as many kills as the Aliens. But in the match, the Marines were getting pushed back. The Aliens even had 4 hives by the end.
The reason? Because the Alien teamwork was far superior to ours. We missed countless opportunities to take out higher lifeforms (including several missed attempts to kill an Onos), we were slow to respond to attacks, and for much of the game, we were trying to attack in two different places, and failing miserably at both.
It seems 'stacking' is the new go-to excuse for bad players to absolve themselves of any blame for losing.
I was in a match earlier where some of the bad players were complaining about stacking. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that Marines were getting just as many kills as the Aliens. But in the match, the Marines were getting pushed back. The Aliens even had 4 hives by the end.
The reason? Because the Alien teamwork was far superior to ours. We missed countless opportunities to take out higher lifeforms (including several missed attempts to kill an Onos), we were slow to respond to attacks, and for much of the game, we were trying to attack in two different places, and failing miserably at both.
It seems 'stacking' is the new go-to excuse for bad players to absolve themselves of any blame for losing.
Or this is just a poor example of a stack... Stack is a real thing, giving constant poor examples doesn't make it any less real.
Here is an actual example of 4 consecutive stacked games from a couple hours ago... The top 2 ratios were the same 2 players who refused to separate. Between 4-7 of the rest of the players were following suite, but I only labeled the top 2.
Edit: Let me say that, I'm not saying these 2 players are completely to blame, but they led other players onto that team by not spliting up after the first 2 games. You would have to be pretty oblivious to not know what your doing, especially when you have players requesting for you to split up. Knowledgeable players don't want to play against a stacked team, so they join it naturally.
I was in a match earlier where some of the bad players were complaining about stacking. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that Marines were getting just as many kills as the Aliens. But in the match, the Marines were getting pushed back. The Aliens even had 4 hives by the end.
The reason? Because the Alien teamwork was far superior to ours. We missed countless opportunities to take out higher lifeforms (including several missed attempts to kill an Onos), we were slow to respond to attacks, and for much of the game, we were trying to attack in two different places, and failing miserably at both.
It seems 'stacking' is the new go-to excuse for bad players to absolve themselves of any blame for losing.
Or this is just a poor example of a stack... Stack is a real thing, giving constant poor examples doesn't make it any less real.
And bad players making excuses is also a real thing. Hiding behind excuses is the reason bad players never improve, and in a game with a high skill ceiling, that creates a large skill gap between the best and the worst players, which amplifies stacking.
The simplest solution is to keep these players separated, because bad players don't want to be repeatedly killed by good players, and good players don't want bad ones dragging the game down with their poor play.
Bad players are just as responsible for causing stacking, because no one wants to play a team based game with players that are rubbish at team work.
looks like a usual NS2 evening. the sad part is when teammates start arguing with each other because everything is going wrong and they rarely realize it's because the teams are so uneven.
And bad players making excuses is also a real thing. Hiding behind excuses is the reason bad players never improve
That's not the issue here. The issue is skilled players not separating... What you call bad players, I call inexperienced or new. People don't join a game and decide to do poorly.
Bad players are just as responsible for causing stacking, because no one wants to play a team based game with players that are rubbish at team work.
A players skill isn't at blame here, as you can't control how good or bad a player is, but what you can control is who is on what team. And good players are knowledgeable to know what is what. Blaming this on new players is ridiculous. The only hope this game has to succeed is a continued flow of new players.
Unless it was a rookie server, that's absolutely ridiculous.
It was a rookie server. Those 2 players were just the most noticable... There was between 4-7 of the same players on the same team each game. Had those top 2 players seperated we would have seen a much more even split. Players tend to follow the top 2 if they are on the same team. So no this is not ridiculous.
If you would like I would label each player on the teams for your convenience. It's not as simple as those 2 players I agree, but at the same time it is when you consider the fact that people will follow. There have been numerous posts confirming that "its just natural to want to be on the winning team". But if the teams are even then you wont gravitate towards one team or the other.
If they're playing on rookie servers when they're clearly not rookies, then you should be complaining about that. It is another issue entirely. Two people aren't a stack in 24p servers. IMO, you need a large portion of a team to cross the line from "playing with a friend or two" to "stacking teams to ruin games."
How is it at all the fault of the two players trying to play together if UNRELATED OTHERS follow them and create the stack?
This is why people scoff at claims of stacked teams.
If they're playing on rookie servers when they're clearly not rookies, then you should be complaining about that. It is another issue entirely. Two people aren't a stack in 24p servers. IMO, you need a large portion of a team to cross the line from "playing with a friend or two" to "stacking teams to ruin games."
I'll re-quote it since you missed what I said...
How is it at all the fault of the two players trying to play together if UNRELATED OTHERS follow them and create the stack?
I'll re-quote myself since you didn't bother to read what I typed.
Those 2 players were just the most noticable... There was between 4-7 of the same players on the same team each game.
Also as others have said sometimes there isn't other servers to get into. I agree though that pro players shouldn't jump in rookie servers. But again that's not what this is about.
NS2 just feels old-school. Mercenary-style no rules, if you suck, bummer bro, better leave. In today's gaming landscape, that doesn't fly anymore. \
Then go play those games. This game is for people who can handle it.
It's what makes it fun. Challenge is why I keep playing it. Shit I'm still playing quake live and cpma today. I'm not that great but I love the fact i can always improve.
Sure i don't mind skill based teams, but I don't want to play on a team where people don't use mics, where people in the first 30 seconds call gg beceuse they lost the first engagement, nor do I want to play with people who then spend 5 minutes bitching about team stack.
I have every right to enjoy the game as much as you do, and if me and my friends want to be on the same team we have that right. And if me and some people in a server are getting along together well, I have the right to try and be on the same team as them too.
And as for "pro" players join rookie servers, where i am sometimes those are the only servers available. My entire server browser has "rookie friendly" with one or two non rookie friendly with 3 or 4 players. Should I just not play the game? Is that whats being suggested?
This game is for people who can handle it... I don't want to play on a team where people don't use mics
This is the state of mind that creates problems for newer players. Instead of helping new players get better you avoid them.
I don't mind helping new players. But if players don't listen and don't respond I just say fuck it. It's not my job to tutor new people nor is it my responsibility.
Granted on new weekends I love playing commander and do everything I can, mostly because the comms are hilarious with all green players.
But if I'm just playing, no i don't care. It's not my job. Once again, as you carefully avoided, I have every right to enjoy the game as much as you do.
Really good players should definitely not play on rookie servers. People who are stomping rookie servers can't really be dealt with in any way short of admins policing their servers.
AceDauntless makes a good point, though. If he has no other option, then he should still be able to play. Again, it's up to an admin to decide how to balance that scenario.
Really good players should definitely not play on rookie servers. People who are stomping rookie servers can't really be dealt with in any way short of admins policing their servers.
Agreed... its a shame but I shit you not, it happens everyday. Admins cant be around to babysit their servers all the time.
Really good players should definitely not play on rookie servers. People who are stomping rookie servers can't really be dealt with in any way short of admins policing their servers.
Agreed... its a shame but I shit you not, it happens everyday. Admins cant be around to babysit their servers all the time.
You act like its binary. Skilled or unskilled. Having one dude who is doing great can't win a 12v12. He just can't. I've gone like 78 and 2 still lost. It's just the nature of the game.
And yeah I do join "rookie friendly" servers. Either its that or servers where I have 150+ ping with 3 people. I don't really know what you want me to do besides just play a different game.
Having one dude who is doing great can't win a 12v12.
I don't think anyone has said that once. I am saying that the more knowledgeable players gravitate away from being the opponent of multiple pro players, as its a waste of time. Leading to a stacked 1 sided game.
I do agree that server availability is a tough thing sometimes and there isn't much you can do about that.
And bad players making excuses is also a real thing. Hiding behind excuses is the reason bad players never improve
That's not the issue here. The issue is skilled players not separating... What you call bad players, I call inexperienced or new. People don't join a game and decide to do poorly.
Bad players are just as responsible for causing stacking, because no one wants to play a team based game with players that are rubbish at team work.
A players skill isn't at blame here, as you can't control how good or bad a player is, but what you can control is who is on what team. And good players are knowledgeable to know what is what. Blaming this on new players is ridiculous. The only hope this game has to succeed is a continued flow of new players.
Bad players are not necessarily new or inexperienced (and for that fact, just because someone is new to a game doesn't mean they are going to be bad either). They are players that don't use their brains. They don't work well in teams, they don't communicate and they don't learn from their mistakes.
At a rough estimate, 60% of the players I see are bad, and when one server has lots of bad players playing on it, almost every match is rubbish quality. So yeah, bad players are the major cause of bad matches. When well over half of the players on a server are good at the game and work well in teams, the games are always good quality, and this applies even when one team has most of the best players.
Even if the teams were actually balanced in terms of skill, the bad ones will still find some excuse, and many of them will still blame stacking when they die repeatedly to better players.
Bad players are not necessarily new or inexperienced (and for that fact, just because someone is new to a game doesn't mean they are going to be bad either). They are players that don't use their brains. They don't work well in teams, they don't communicate and they don't learn from their mistakes.
At a rough estimate, 60% of the players I see are bad, and when one server has lots of bad players playing on it, almost every match is rubbish quality. So yeah, bad players are the major cause of bad matches. When well over half of the players on a server are good at the game and work well in teams, the games are always good quality, and this applies even when one team has most of the best players.
Even if the teams were actually balanced in terms of skill, the bad ones will still find some excuse, and many of them will still blame stacking when they die repeatedly to better players.
welcome to NS2, you have alot to learn young padawan
Why do steamrolls happen, even with matchmaking? Because team-based FPS games are extremely sensitive to collective differences in skill. NS2 has this sensitivity amplified by its RTS mechanics snowballing power in favor of the winning team. The feeling of skill-imbalance that leads to threads like this are primarily a symptom of the gametype. And as such, can only be truly addressed by making a different kind of game. I think that the proposed solutions are merely bandaids that cannot live up to people's expectations. That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued; just that people should accept that steamrolls happen even under the best plausible initial conditions (i.e. match-made-random).
[-O< Thank god someone else sees that, too.
Also, everyone needs to work a little bit harder in this thread in regards to being civil to one another, including the OP.
Name-calling and laughing at each other just discredits all parties involved and makes this a thread not worth keeping open.
Rookie tag is too blurred these days. Seen rookie servers where practically everyone was skilled enough to be a good team-player. And then you got the kind which is a complete rookie fest. Had a server once that stated they kick players that are too good, as such I simply left as I deemed it a "true" rookie server.
Then you got a shit ton of servers who are rookie server by color but that's where any similarities to rookie end.
Beyond that there aren't really that many servers to pick from. Anything above 18 is a no go for me. And none rookie servers tend to be just as horrible one sided as rookie servers unless they force some ELO.
Beyond that, I do sometimes stack, in the simple sense that I join people who I know were decent last game. If you put all your effort into making your team win the round before, only to be met with no communication, shitty comm and all-round no team work. It can be very satisfying to simply join the other team the next round and eat em all to bits.
I know this is the wrong thing to do but the problem is that people seem to stick with the team they like the most. So if the marine team flat out sucked the game before, you'll find the EXACT same crappy players joining the marine team again. Having myself join such a team again in the futile hope the end result is going to be any different then the last time only results in frustration and annoyance in my own entertainment value.
If players give their all and try their best then I'll be the last person to complain. It's when you are met with players who refuse any communication and keep running about like its some single-player corridor train ride, that's when joining the "other" team becomes too tempting of an offer.
Why do steamrolls happen, even with matchmaking? Because team-based FPS games are extremely sensitive to collective differences in skill. NS2 has this sensitivity amplified by its RTS mechanics snowballing power in favor of the winning team. The feeling of skill-imbalance that leads to threads like this are primarily a symptom of the gametype. And as such, can only be truly addressed by making a different kind of game. I think that the proposed solutions are merely bandaids that cannot live up to people's expectations. That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued; just that people should accept that steamrolls happen even under the best plausible initial conditions (i.e. match-made-random).
[-O< Thank god someone else sees that, too.
To an extent this is something to think about. Snowball due to one team getting good strategy and decent commander is one thing. Not being able hold ground outside of base and even hold a single RT at the start of the game has nothing to do with this snowball effect.
I think a big part of the problem is that "pro" players know that is way easier to win as marine on public servers. Many of them don't stack with voice friends, they just stack marines because they know alien play sucks without teamplay and often leads to frustration.
Isn't it the other way around? You need more teamplay as marine then aliens do. It's only easy as marine if aliens are astrociously bad, like floor skulks.
No, it doesn't matter much if the skulk is good or bad, 1 shotgun blast kill you and you just have to fight in teams. And with the new weaker fade, it's no longer able to win the game "alone" like it used to be, because you just need the other life forms to achieve anything. Preferably with drifter support.
As marine you need a shotgun, some meds and maybe a jetpack later into the game and you are able to kill every life forms, harvesters, hives, uprades and rebuild your own buildings. It is all in your hands. You don't need to have good players to have basic team play. All you have to do is to kill life forms and res towers or at least hold your own rts until you outtech the aliens and siege their hive.
All in all you have way more control over the outcome of a match in a usual pub.
Neither is a marine capable of winning a game alone; sure, you can go back and forth and heal up and stuff, but you can do the same as alien, although admittingly not as effective as it used to be.
Otherwise you need team support. It doesn't matter if you have armor 3 or 0 if there are no teammates welding you and you run around at armor 0 constantly, it gets you killed with 2 hits (or 1 with onos) and your precious 20 res shotgun will be gone; repeat 2-3 times and you're out of res and stuck with LMG. As for meds & ammo, you have to rely on the commander for that obviously, that is team-work too.
Also you're pretty much dead if you need to reload and are alone, and if the alien opponent is smart.
Plus, you don't do very much damage if you run and gun alone, as it gives aliens much more time to react.
On alien on the otherhand, even as skulk, I can take on a PG, RT or even IP, as long they don't use teamwork against me. It only gets easier the "higher" your lifeform is; once the other team uses teamwork, the more consequently you need to use teamwork too.
But regardless, this is a team based game and once one team has teamwork (willingly or not - like people working together accidently cause they all run off in the same direction), you usually need teamwork on your team as well. I just think it's more annoying as marine then it is on alien, but in either team, unhelpful or uncooperative teammates are a bummer.
Instating buffs/debuffs based on KDR is just asking for people to abuse the **** out of the system by suiciding, and it's like punishing people for playing well. That's a horrible idea, especially because certain alien lifeforms will naturally have higher KDRs because of how they operate. Gonna be super fun as a fade getting one-shotted by pistols or something goofy like that while only being able to wave their claws around like feather dusters.
Gorges naturally have a "bad" KD, cause they don't get (many) kills. But oneshotting people with spit is probably amazing, not on the receiving end though =P
Or even better, die a lot as skulk, save up for onos in the meantime. And because of your poor KD, you'll oneshot buildings and marines as Onos. AWESOME!
But yeah, buffs/debufs based on KDR is just plain stupid.
If they're playing on rookie servers when they're clearly not rookies, then you should be complaining about that. It is another issue entirely. Two people aren't a stack in 24p servers. IMO, you need a large portion of a team to cross the line from "playing with a friend or two" to "stacking teams to ruin games."
How is it at all the fault of the two players trying to play together if UNRELATED OTHERS follow them and create the stack?
This is why people scoff at claims of stacked teams.
This game is for people who can handle it... I don't want to play on a team where people don't use mics
This is the state of mind that creates problems for newer players. Instead of helping new players get better you avoid them.
I don't mind helping new players. But if players don't listen and don't respond I just say fuck it. It's not my job to tutor new people nor is it my responsibility.
Granted on new weekends I love playing commander and do everything I can, mostly because the comms are hilarious with all green players.
But if I'm just playing, no i don't care. It's not my job. Once again, as you carefully avoided, I have every right to enjoy the game as much as you do.
That's about a summary. Many new players don't seem to want any input from "vets". I think there's been maybe 6-7 people tops I've explained the game to from hundereds, if not thousands of rookie/bad players over the cause of time since the beta.
If they're playing on rookie servers when they're clearly not rookies, then you should be complaining about that. It is another issue entirely. Two people aren't a stack in 24p servers. IMO, you need a large portion of a team to cross the line from "playing with a friend or two" to "stacking teams to ruin games."
How is it at all the fault of the two players trying to play together if UNRELATED OTHERS follow them and create the stack?
This is why people scoff at claims of stacked teams.
I think this is also a good point actually.
After requesting certain players to split off the same team after literally 4-7 rounds of the exact same beat down... thats something to scoff at.
Comments
hahaha also works. :P
You must be a special case. I think most people who play multiplayer PC games find destroying people repeatedly and knowing they must be frustrated on their end a lot of fun and makes them feel like a-holes, which is even more fun. (moderation, lòl).
Everything about human psychology and this game promotes stæks.
I don't. I don't see why you would either.
There's actually a way to kill two birds with one stone: Simplify NS2 for the players that want simple since they are beginners. Experienced players don't want simplification and will shun it like the plauge.
My take on this is to reduce game speed to maybe 80-90 % of normal on rookie servers. It will make NS2 less chaotic and easier to grasp. Lots of RTS games have this setting, and I remember Unreal Tournament had it.
As for game balance and range weapons being better with slower game speed: Well, perhaps, somewhat, but many of the Alien lifeforms (Skulk, Lerk, Fade) are a kind of range weapon in and of themselves. It takes awareness and skill to play good as those lifeforms, and a major obstacle is the speed.
I think it is a convergence of:
(1) Wanting to play with friends and tending to have friends of similar skill groups.
(2) Interest in playing a given team in a given situation -- i.e. poor commanders on the server -> marines are less fun due to weak build orders and no meds/ammo.
(3) Personal practice reasons -> marine play, in general. Pubbing marines can help hone your aim much more than pubbing aliens can help hone your teamwork and those are the respective qualities that are most important to each team.
I also think the complaints about stacked teams in NS2 are overdone. We're playing a very heavily team-based FPS-RTS with numerous situations where one weak cog can crash the entire machine. Then you have the snowball effect from the RTS side of things. This leads to situations where the slightly weaker team gets progressively weaker as the game goes on. Teams that are only mildly weaker, or perform just mildly worse, in the early game will find themselves at a significant disadvantage in the midgame. If the early game game is noticeable, then game is likely lost by the midgame when one side overwhelms the other with tech/map advantages.
There are two main answers to the perceived problem of skill-stacking:
(1) Random Team Balancing. It has been discussed a lot in this thread and is easily available via the shine administration mod for any server admin who wishes to use it. There are some problems with randoming teams, though. Friends often like to play with their friends -- not just competitive players -- and forcing them to split up may disincentive them from playing on your server. Another problem is if someone wants to command Aliens, but winds up being randomed to Marines. Generally, forcing someone to do something is less fun for the person than allowing them to choose to do things. And the force random mods are pure force.
(2) Matchmaking. Frequently touted as a sort of silver bullet to perceived skill imbalances, I don't think many supporters have actually played team-based matchmaking games before. Here's some of my experiences with matchmaking:
(2-a) Global Agenda. A smaller, indie game with many similarities to the NS2 community and game. GA was a highly team-based game with no RTS-based snowball mechanics. Much like NS2, the GA community was relatively small with a small minority of the small population as "competitive" players. GA used a matchmaking system for its 10v10 objective-based pubs. It used Microsoft's Truskill system to assign up to 5 stars and a hidden rating that was used to create "fair" teams. The system had two parameters: win/loss and a team-skill vs opposing-team-skill weighting system. Effectively a weighted win/loss ELO. Group queues were limited to 2 players.
Guess what was one of the primary complaints in GA? Steamrolls and long wait times for games.
(2-b) CS:GO. Unlike in GA and NS2, I was a mid-level casual during my illustrious 25 hour counter strike career. I typically queued up in their ranked matched with 2-4 of my friends. We were around the double AK rank and won about 50/50 of the games.
Guess what happened in about 50% of the games? 15-3 or 15-5 kind of steamrolls either for or against us.
TL;DR:
Why do steamrolls happen, even with matchmaking? Because team-based FPS games are extremely sensitive to collective differences in skill. NS2 has this sensitivity amplified by its RTS mechanics snowballing power in favor of the winning team. The feeling of skill-imbalance that leads to threads like this are primarily a symptom of the gametype. And as such, can only be truly addressed by making a different kind of game. I think that the proposed solutions are merely bandaids that cannot live up to people's expectations. That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued; just that people should accept that steamrolls happen even under the best plausible initial conditions (i.e. match-made-random).
That is a horrible idea. Why should good players be punished for doing well, and why should bad players be rewarded for needing to be carried?
The reason? Because the Alien teamwork was far superior to ours. We missed countless opportunities to take out higher lifeforms (including several missed attempts to kill an Onos), we were slow to respond to attacks, and for much of the game, we were trying to attack in two different places, and failing miserably at both.
It seems 'stacking' is the new go-to excuse for bad players to absolve themselves of any blame for losing.
Edit: Let me say that, I'm not saying these 2 players are completely to blame, but they led other players onto that team by not spliting up after the first 2 games. You would have to be pretty oblivious to not know what your doing, especially when you have players requesting for you to split up. Knowledgeable players don't want to play against a stacked team, so they join it naturally.
And bad players making excuses is also a real thing. Hiding behind excuses is the reason bad players never improve, and in a game with a high skill ceiling, that creates a large skill gap between the best and the worst players, which amplifies stacking.
The simplest solution is to keep these players separated, because bad players don't want to be repeatedly killed by good players, and good players don't want bad ones dragging the game down with their poor play.
Bad players are just as responsible for causing stacking, because no one wants to play a team based game with players that are rubbish at team work.
This post is exactly the example of why you meet such harsh rebuttals on the forums.
You're complaining about TWO players stacking on a presumably 24p server. Unless it was a rookie server, that's absolutely ridiculous.
If you would like I would label each player on the teams for your convenience. It's not as simple as those 2 players I agree, but at the same time it is when you consider the fact that people will follow. There have been numerous posts confirming that "its just natural to want to be on the winning team". But if the teams are even then you wont gravitate towards one team or the other.
How is it at all the fault of the two players trying to play together if UNRELATED OTHERS follow them and create the stack?
This is why people scoff at claims of stacked teams.
Also as others have said sometimes there isn't other servers to get into. I agree though that pro players shouldn't jump in rookie servers. But again that's not what this is about.
Then go play those games. This game is for people who can handle it.
It's what makes it fun. Challenge is why I keep playing it. Shit I'm still playing quake live and cpma today. I'm not that great but I love the fact i can always improve.
Sure i don't mind skill based teams, but I don't want to play on a team where people don't use mics, where people in the first 30 seconds call gg beceuse they lost the first engagement, nor do I want to play with people who then spend 5 minutes bitching about team stack.
I have every right to enjoy the game as much as you do, and if me and my friends want to be on the same team we have that right. And if me and some people in a server are getting along together well, I have the right to try and be on the same team as them too.
@Colt
That post was fantastic.
And as for "pro" players join rookie servers, where i am sometimes those are the only servers available. My entire server browser has "rookie friendly" with one or two non rookie friendly with 3 or 4 players. Should I just not play the game? Is that whats being suggested?
I don't mind helping new players. But if players don't listen and don't respond I just say fuck it. It's not my job to tutor new people nor is it my responsibility.
Granted on new weekends I love playing commander and do everything I can, mostly because the comms are hilarious with all green players.
But if I'm just playing, no i don't care. It's not my job. Once again, as you carefully avoided, I have every right to enjoy the game as much as you do.
AceDauntless makes a good point, though. If he has no other option, then he should still be able to play. Again, it's up to an admin to decide how to balance that scenario.
Agreed... its a shame but I shit you not, it happens everyday. Admins cant be around to babysit their servers all the time.
You act like its binary. Skilled or unskilled. Having one dude who is doing great can't win a 12v12. He just can't. I've gone like 78 and 2 still lost. It's just the nature of the game.
And yeah I do join "rookie friendly" servers. Either its that or servers where I have 150+ ping with 3 people. I don't really know what you want me to do besides just play a different game.
I do agree that server availability is a tough thing sometimes and there isn't much you can do about that.
Bad players are not necessarily new or inexperienced (and for that fact, just because someone is new to a game doesn't mean they are going to be bad either). They are players that don't use their brains. They don't work well in teams, they don't communicate and they don't learn from their mistakes.
At a rough estimate, 60% of the players I see are bad, and when one server has lots of bad players playing on it, almost every match is rubbish quality. So yeah, bad players are the major cause of bad matches. When well over half of the players on a server are good at the game and work well in teams, the games are always good quality, and this applies even when one team has most of the best players.
Even if the teams were actually balanced in terms of skill, the bad ones will still find some excuse, and many of them will still blame stacking when they die repeatedly to better players.
welcome to NS2, you have alot to learn young padawan
Also, everyone needs to work a little bit harder in this thread in regards to being civil to one another, including the OP.
Name-calling and laughing at each other just discredits all parties involved and makes this a thread not worth keeping open.
Then you got a shit ton of servers who are rookie server by color but that's where any similarities to rookie end.
Beyond that there aren't really that many servers to pick from. Anything above 18 is a no go for me. And none rookie servers tend to be just as horrible one sided as rookie servers unless they force some ELO.
Beyond that, I do sometimes stack, in the simple sense that I join people who I know were decent last game. If you put all your effort into making your team win the round before, only to be met with no communication, shitty comm and all-round no team work. It can be very satisfying to simply join the other team the next round and eat em all to bits.
I know this is the wrong thing to do but the problem is that people seem to stick with the team they like the most. So if the marine team flat out sucked the game before, you'll find the EXACT same crappy players joining the marine team again. Having myself join such a team again in the futile hope the end result is going to be any different then the last time only results in frustration and annoyance in my own entertainment value.
If players give their all and try their best then I'll be the last person to complain. It's when you are met with players who refuse any communication and keep running about like its some single-player corridor train ride, that's when joining the "other" team becomes too tempting of an offer.
Neither is a marine capable of winning a game alone; sure, you can go back and forth and heal up and stuff, but you can do the same as alien, although admittingly not as effective as it used to be.
Otherwise you need team support. It doesn't matter if you have armor 3 or 0 if there are no teammates welding you and you run around at armor 0 constantly, it gets you killed with 2 hits (or 1 with onos) and your precious 20 res shotgun will be gone; repeat 2-3 times and you're out of res and stuck with LMG. As for meds & ammo, you have to rely on the commander for that obviously, that is team-work too.
Also you're pretty much dead if you need to reload and are alone, and if the alien opponent is smart.
Plus, you don't do very much damage if you run and gun alone, as it gives aliens much more time to react.
On alien on the otherhand, even as skulk, I can take on a PG, RT or even IP, as long they don't use teamwork against me. It only gets easier the "higher" your lifeform is; once the other team uses teamwork, the more consequently you need to use teamwork too.
But regardless, this is a team based game and once one team has teamwork (willingly or not - like people working together accidently cause they all run off in the same direction), you usually need teamwork on your team as well. I just think it's more annoying as marine then it is on alien, but in either team, unhelpful or uncooperative teammates are a bummer.
Gorges naturally have a "bad" KD, cause they don't get (many) kills. But oneshotting people with spit is probably amazing, not on the receiving end though =P
Or even better, die a lot as skulk, save up for onos in the meantime. And because of your poor KD, you'll oneshot buildings and marines as Onos. AWESOME!
But yeah, buffs/debufs based on KDR is just plain stupid.
I think this is also a good point actually.
That's about a summary. Many new players don't seem to want any input from "vets". I think there's been maybe 6-7 people tops I've explained the game to from hundereds, if not thousands of rookie/bad players over the cause of time since the beta.
After requesting certain players to split off the same team after literally 4-7 rounds of the exact same beat down... thats something to scoff at.