Sometimes we play 2-3 rounds together in a row, sometimes we play 2-3 rounds against each other in a row. We play together for fun and we play against each other for balance (and fun). To paint us as 100% evil all the time and stackers and all this bull**** is childish.
I see, so would you say you're only 50% evil?.. 60%? How much evil are you contributing to this community exactly? /poking the bear
As long as you get that "We play together for fun" = typically an imbalanced round, and "we play against each other" = a more balanced game...
Then, personally I really don't have sympathy for one individual who can't find fun in their game anymore so they are alright with ruining the fun for 18 others and further hurting player retention.
(Not saying that's actually what you did personally.. i have no idea what occurred and don't really care to read it)
This game is far too sensitive to differences in skill to not place balanced teams as a priority above all else, even your personal needs for fun. And come on.. having more balanced teams IS more fun, right?
On the other hand: if a team of rookies joined marines leaving no spot other than aliens.. so be it, that was their mistake to learn. But you can always protest and offer to fix it at least. *shrug*
Like i said originally the thread is not for naming and shaming but rather for those that do pub stomp to please think about their actions on the community and for the rest of the high skill players to think about it also in order to grow the player base of the game.
Im not trying to piss anyone off with this thread or attack anyone, simply asking people to be mindful of this problem and to help with this. I just want to see the community grow and help each other.
there is nothing you can do when a group of greens join the server and all go on one team, short of force even and that probably wont help much (I personally think they should run off Hive).
games are VERY easily stacked on pubs, it only takes one player on the wrong team and it can all go to pot but SAYING THAT, it can often be counter balanced with a good commander and tactics providing the team listen (if they listen).
the odd stacked game here and there is inevitable, but constant stacking is a totally different thing and in my head i cant see how you can get any fun out of wiping the floor against a obviously lower skilled team the same as they just get pee'ed off and leave.
if worst comes to worst by saying "!admin *text* " on YO servers can get an admins attention if they are online but this is a situation that should be sorted out by the players more than admins.
Its a problem for both sides, i find most public games so disengaging that unless you are playing with a friend you just go 'leeroy jenkins' mode, ignore all orders and try to kill as many enemies as you can before dying and then rage quit.
Its a problem for both sides, i find most public games so disengaging that unless you are playing with a friend you just go 'leeroy jenkins' mode, ignore all orders and try to kill as many enemies as you can before dying and then rage quit.
If you find public servers that disengaging you are probably playing on the wrong servers/at the wrong time/both.
I just have to throw my 2 cents in here about the whole "l2p" and "you won't get better unless you play against better players" comments.
It is true that you can only improve by challenging yourself, however for many pubbers reaching the skill level of these "pro" players is NEVER going to happen no matter how many hours we dump into playing. Everyone will eventually hit their own personal skill ceiling, and these "pro" players are far above and beyond what an average pubber will EVER be able to achieve.
Thus these types of comments tend to come across as being extremely elitist.
Amen to this, it's not like I would have the time or the inclination now to put that kind of effort in. More important things need attention these days.
Please; it's not hard to apply some common rules of thumb for things like positioning which can greatly increase your ability in killing skulks.
Map reading could take time but you just have to anticipate and second guess the opponents by just looking at the map every now and then.
Reflexes and aim is incredibly difficult and time consuming to improve and that's fair enough, but if you're in the right place in the right room, you can win most engagements with as little as 18% accuracy.
It's not elitist to ask players to think about basic things and improve on them. Don't coddle yourselves in bubble wrap and pretend for reasons X, Y, Z that it's not your fault you can't improve and that it's the players who've already gone through the majority of the improvement phases who are at fault.
It's not elitist for me to ask players to not floor skulk, to not hold W in engagements, and for skulks to focus on res biting.
These are basic elements of the RTS/FPS hybrid game we play which helps teams win. If everyone improved these basic elements and didn't run in brain dead, you can neutralise most aim/reflex skills of players AND improve the quality of gameplay! You'd see more balanced games, and people would have more fun. But no, people are more concerned about looking at everyone else and not themselves. You could say that's exactly what I'm doing in these posts, and you'd be right. Except when 1 prem player joins a game and there isn't a 2nd prem player to balance him out, then you can't look at anyone else but yourself.
Elitist elements are knowing the bite-parasite-bite, super ambush spots on all maps, knowing jump boosts, expecting co-ordinated attacks from multiple directions, expecting state-of-the-art computers and monitors.
Sometimes we play 2-3 rounds together in a row, sometimes we play 2-3 rounds against each ckers and all this bull**** is childish.
I see, so would you say you're only 50% evil?.. 60%? How much evil are you contributing to this community exactly? /poking the bear
other in a row. We play together for fun and we play against each other for balance (and fun). To paint us as 100% evil all the time and sta
As long as you get that "We play together for fun" = typically an imbalanced round, and "we play against each other" = a more balanced game...
Then, personally I really don't have sympathy for one individual who can't find fun in their game anymore so they are alright with ruining the fun for 18 others and further hurting player retention.
(Not saying that's actually what you did personally.. i have no idea what occurred and don't really care to read it)
This game is far too sensitive to differences in skill to not place balanced teams as a priority above all else, even your personal needs for fun. And come on.. having more balanced teams IS more fun, right?
On the other hand: if a team of rookies joined marines leaving no spot other than aliens.. so be it, that was their mistake to learn. But you can always protest and offer to fix it at least. *shrug*
We are perceived as having the greatest influence in games. We then get the greatest abuse. We get abuse more often than not.
To be denied the right to play with each other for fun is a ridiculously oppressive standpoint. To also claim that all 18 other players have their fun ruined is one of these generalised retarded comments which adds to the competitive player bashing. Some people say they enjoy the challenge, some people say that they learn (when they ask for help that is).
Also when we play with each other, we like to do things like gorge or FT/GL which we couldn't do playing against each other because of the competence of team-mates.
You know what's funny. I did swap teams to play with the rookies. Shock horror, I know! It's almost as if you're only listening to one side of the story and only cherry picking from your memories of rounds where comp players played against rookies and sticking us in with this fictitious group of players you've created in a "competitive" image.
Learning something like positioning DOES take time. And it takes effort, self discipline, and experience to read a situation and maintain the position advantage. It may come second nature to the "pro" players purely because you have a massive experience lead on beginners.
The mass majority of the ns2 player base atm is casual players and they log for a few hours to have fun and then move on with their lives. To expect them to "get on your level" IS elitism.
I personally try to anti stack when I can, but I also like playing on the same team as my friends so I can relate. Also my skill level isn't high enough to counter a pro players.
BeigeAlertTexasJoin Date: 2013-08-08Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
edited May 2014
Maybe ns2 needs to get an optional handicap system. The server owner would set handicap based on skill, perhaps just for rookie friendly servers. Obviously handicaps can't truly equalize pro players and rookies -- there's no substitute for smart plays and good positioning-- but perhaps it can help make the playing field a little more even by providing damage buff/nerfs where needed.
I'll just sit back and watch the disagrees come rolling in now.
We are perceived as having the greatest influence in games. We then get the greatest abuse. We get abuse more often than not.
To be denied the right to play with each other for fun is a ridiculously oppressive standpoint. To also claim that all 18 other players have their fun ruined is one of these generalised retarded comments which adds to the competitive player bashing. Some people say they enjoy the challenge, some people say that they learn (when they ask for help that is).
I, personally, know no one who says that. And that generalisation is not as far fetched as you want us to believe.
You know what's funny. I did swap teams to play with the rookies. Shock horror, I know! It's almost as if you're only listening to one side of the story and only cherry picking from your memories of rounds where comp players played against rookies and sticking us in with this fictitious group of players you've created in a "competitive" image.
You know, we talk about the stacks here, because the other games are obviously fine, per definitionem, as we care about the stacks. If that's cherry picking for you, then the way you try to paint yourself as the victim here, ignoring parts of our statements, is just the same - cherry picking.
We are perceived as having the greatest influence in games. We then get the greatest abuse. We get abuse more often than not.
To be denied the right to play with each other for fun is a ridiculously oppressive standpoint. To also claim that all 18 other players have their fun ruined is one of these generalised retarded comments which adds to the competitive player bashing. Some people say they enjoy the challenge, some people say that they learn (when they ask for help that is).
I, personally, know no one who says that. And that generalisation is not as far fetched as you want us to believe.
I really don't have sympathy for one individual who can't find fun in their game anymore so they are alright with ruining the fun for 18 others
You know what's funny. I did swap teams to play with the rookies. Shock horror, I know! It's almost as if you're only listening to one side of the story and only cherry picking from your memories of rounds where comp players played against rookies and sticking us in with this fictitious group of players you've created in a "competitive" image.
You know, we talk about the stacks here, because the other games are obviously fine, per definitionem, as we care about the stacks. If that's cherry picking for you, then the way you try to paint yourself as the victim here, ignoring parts of our statements, is just the same - cherry picking.
I don't even like cherries.
That's the thing though. Every game is a stack, because every game has a winner. If I'm with my team-mate, it's called a stack regardless of if we win/lose. If I'm with my team-mate on opposite teams, one team is still stacked. If I'm not with a team-mate, it's stacked. Are there every any forum posts "beating the stack"? No, because this community is hellbent on complaining and blaming. There are a high portion of games where people complain before the game even starts that teams are stacked just by looking at badges/names/clan tags. The majority of the rest of the games have stack calls after the game is over looking at the scores of names/badges/clan tags.
That game with the 4 rookies and me was even called a stack after it was finished.
It's like the word racism which has lost it's meaning drastically and is thrown about by hypersensitive people as a defence mechanism to cope with their own flaws and issues because it's easier to name and blame instead of fixing the issues yourself.
We are perceived as having the greatest influence in games. We then get the greatest abuse. We get abuse more often than not.
To be denied the right to play with each other for fun is a ridiculously oppressive standpoint. To also claim that all 18 other players have their fun ruined is one of these generalised retarded comments which adds to the competitive player bashing. Some people say they enjoy the challenge, some people say that they learn (when they ask for help that is).
I, personally, know no one who says that. And that generalisation is not as far fetched as you want us to believe.
I really don't have sympathy for one individual who can't find fun in their game anymore so they are alright with ruining the fun for 18 others
You know what's funny. I did swap teams to play with the rookies. Shock horror, I know! It's almost as if you're only listening to one side of the story and only cherry picking from your memories of rounds where comp players played against rookies and sticking us in with this fictitious group of players you've created in a "competitive" image.
You know, we talk about the stacks here, because the other games are obviously fine, per definitionem, as we care about the stacks. If that's cherry picking for you, then the way you try to paint yourself as the victim here, ignoring parts of our statements, is just the same - cherry picking.
I don't even like cherries.
That's the thing though. Every game is a stack, because every game has a winner. If I'm with my team-mate, it's called a stack regardless of if we win/lose. If I'm with my team-mate on opposite teams, one team is still stacked. If I'm not with a team-mate, it's stacked. Are there every any forum posts "beating the stack"? No, because this community is hellbent on complaining and blaming. There are a high portion of games where people complain before the game even starts that teams are stacked just by looking at badges/names/clan tags. The majority of the rest of the games have stack calls after the game is over looking at the scores of names/badges/clan tags.
That game with the 4 rookies and me was even called a stack after it was finished.
It's like the word racism which has lost it's meaning drastically and is thrown about by hypersensitive people as a defence mechanism to cope with their own flaws and issues because it's easier to name and blame instead of fixing the issues yourself.
I think we really need to work on our definition of a stack, because yours seems to be pretty different than. I'd also like to know what you are trying to tell me with those quotes. The second does not even have anything to do with me.
Learning something like positioning DOES take time. And it takes effort, self discipline, and experience to read a situation and maintain the position advantage. It may come second nature to the "pro" players purely because you have a massive experience lead on beginners.
Are you kidding me O.o?
As soon as you are aware that positioning is a factor involved in RANGED units killing MELEE units, it doesn't take much time at all to realise how gun with bullets works against aliens with teeth. The only reason I can think something as simple and logical as this could be second nature to any player is simply intelligence. Why it takes more effort to stand in position A than B is confusing considering it's basic common sense to stand in a long line of sight if you have a gun, and to ambush on a corner if you only have teeth, is definitely bemusing to me. Perhaps I really am out of touch of what level of intelligence I should expect from people.
The mass majority of the ns2 player base atm is casual players and they log for a few hours to have fun and then move on with their lives. To expect them to "get on your level" IS elitism.
I personally try to anti stack when I can, but I also like playing on the same team as my friends so I can relate. Also my skill level isn't high enough to counter a pro players.
Every time you die you have 9 seconds as marines and 13 as aliens (I think) to reflect on how you died. A couple of hours at 30-40 deaths gives you 5 minutes a night. 5 minutes of improving a day could be massive in 1 week. If these players can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes a night trying to improve, why should I be disallowed to play with my friends, or flamed for playing with friends who are similar in that they want to learn to play better?
At least I do have some sympathy for their cause and do play against my friends for balance. It would just be nice if 90% of the games people just manned up, took it on the chin, and went through some sort of problem-solving process instead of going down the easy route of "stack, gg, game over, why bother playing, teams unfair"
The mass majority of the ns2 player base atm is casual players and they log for a few hours to have fun and then move on with their lives. To expect them to "get on your level" IS elitism.
I personally try to anti stack when I can, but I also like playing on the same team as my friends so I can relate. Also my skill level isn't high enough to counter a pro players.
Every time you die you have 9 seconds as marines and 13 as aliens (I think) to reflect on how you died. A couple of hours at 30-40 deaths gives you 5 minutes a night. 5 minutes of improving a day could be massive in 1 week. If these players can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes a night trying to improve, why should I be disallowed to play with my friends, or flamed for playing with friends who are similar in that they want to learn to play better?
At least I do have some sympathy for their cause and do play against my friends for balance. It would just be nice if 90% of the games people just manned up, took it on the chin, and went through some sort of problem-solving process instead of going down the easy route of "stack, gg, game over, why bother playing, teams unfair"
Dude you are stepping into troll logic territory here. Because everyone has 9/13 seconds time to think about how they died this time you have to right to stack?
You are on the verge of not being taken seriously by me anymore.
I think we really need to work on our definition of a stack, because yours seems to be pretty different than. I'd also like to know what you are trying to tell me with those quotes. The second does not even have anything to do with me.
No one is clear on the word stack anymore. Some people say it's friends or clan members joining the same team, some people say it's the winning team, some people say it's good players playing together, some people say it's bad players playing together, some people say it because they have nothing else to say. It's a useless word just thrown about these days to make people feel less bad about themselves.
I don't believe in the word stack because it is demeaning to perceived bad players and puts perceived good players up on a pedestal instead of playing the game.
As soon as you claim a stack you're admitting to assigning arbitrary numbers to players and playing some sort of mathematics game to determine the outcome before the game has even started. Everyone forgets that "good players" can have bad days, and "bad players" can have good days.
Everyone forgets to play seriously and properly because they believe they've already won/lost.
You devalue yourself, you disrespect the people on the opposite team of "the stack", and you set these players up as gods or some symbolism of some greater being who's either awe inspiringly good, frustratingly good, or a faggot.
Play the game and focus on what you have to do which is killing marines/skulks and RTs/harvesters. You lose, you learn, you improve, you have higher quality games. You win, you learn, you improve, you have higher quality games.
At the moment, it's just "oh we lost cause of stack, whatever, we'll NEVER get that good, or anywhere close that even if they have a bad game, we'd STILL lose!"
A game is not "stacked" just because there is a winner. To even suggest such a thing is asinine.
A game is "stacked" when it's so one sided that the losing team had virtually zero chance of winning... and it can be due to several "pro" players on a team, or just one.
I've seen some nice "pro" players who will try to keep it somewhat fair. They'll go Commander, or Gorge, or have fun using the pistol/axe/welder. One guy I've seen even switches teams multiple times mid-game in order to keep it balanced. Unfortunately it seems like most "pro" players make no effort at all to not ruin games. They hold nothing back and dominate the hell out of everyone in the server, then complain when others call it a "stacked" or unfair game.
I just wish we could boost the population somehow so these guys could go back to congregating on the "non rookie" servers.
Dude you are stepping into troll logic territory here. Because everyone has 9/13 seconds time to think about how they died this time you have to right to stack?
You are on the verge of not being taken seriously by me anymore.
Christ. I'm not saying that I'm going to play with my teammate 100% of the time because of this logic. I'm saying that I'm not the one at fault here. I play with my teammate for fun, and I play against him for fun. The fact that I get flamed and it has been suggested that I should be denied to play WITH my team-mate is ludicrous because people some people won't take the 9/13s to think. You're crying about this one night when we played 3-4 rounds (and lost a couple of times, but still got a fair few kills).
To be fair I didn't have to respond to this thread. I didn't have to take the time to defend myself. But no, I'm trying to get people to take responsibility for their own actions. Sometimes I want to play with my team-mate, sometimes I play against. I've presented a fair compromise, but it does seem more often than not, there are culprits who are consistently "ANTI-STACK" flamers and the abuse can be literally day after day.
A game is not "stacked" just because there is a winner. To even suggest such a thing is asinine.
A game is "stacked" when it's so one sided that the losing team had virtually zero chance of winning... and it can be due to several "pro" players on a team, or just one.
I've seen some nice "pro" players who will try to keep it somewhat fair. They'll go Commander, or Gorge, or have fun using the pistol/axe/welder. One guy I've seen even switches teams multiple times mid-game in order to keep it balanced. Unfortunately it seems like most "pro" players make no effort at all to not ruin games. They hold nothing back and dominate the hell out of everyone in the server, then complain when others call it a "stacked" or unfair game.
I just wish we could boost the population somehow so these guys could go back to congregating on the "non rookie" servers.
The number of games that are relatively even but end up in a snowball just before the end that are called stack is ridiculously high AND IT HAPPENS.
Implying that commanders/gorges are not useful if played at a "pro" level... asinine...
Switching teams multiple times leads to "winning team joiner" despite changing to the losing team to make it a turn around or even if auto-team balance kicks in. You simply do not understand how much abuse comp players get. I'm almost half tempted to start some sort of diary lmfao.
EDIT: No matter what I do or who I'm with, there's a stack call more likely than not
It's Super Effective!Join Date: 2012-08-28Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
If I may, not saying that matchmaking system is bad, but it does require a decent number of players.
If there are not enough players, people who are in a certain skill bracket, might not find players of equal skill to play against, and/ or not play with who they want.
If we wanted to make a matchmaking system that would allow players to play with their friends, then a "party" system would need to be built as well so that there can be "pre mades" made into group queues and "skill" values totaled as a whole. Again without another "premade" team queued up to the match making system at that exact moment, both of these groups might never play at all and simply sit in lobbies all day.
Again, not saying that it is bad, but I've seen plenty of games try this, and without the necessary players of varying degrees of "skill" it simply doesn't work. We could drop everything and devoted every resource into creating this robust match making system, and it wouldn't put a dent into the issue.
So technically the only real available data is using the "Vote Force Even Teams / Shine ELO Shuffle", but those are so unreliable and/or broken, and it certainty doesn't care about you playing with friends.
Matchmaking is very bad. I consider it little more than a cancer that should never have been introduced to gaming. The very idea of placing that much control in the hands of a computer algorithm is so flawed it's not even funny.
Even on consoles matchmaking is a major headache, and it does absolutely nothing to keep the teams "even"
The "Force Even Teams" vote can be a probable solution to Pub Stomps. The "Skill" equation just needs to be refined; Speaking of which what happened to the system proposed by @Moultano?
Force even teams doesn't help at all... If you only play competitive then your Elo skill is low due to playing against strong marines and aliens all the time.
And yes public games are disengaging no mater what server you go on, it's nothing compared to a organised 6v6 pcw or a ensl match. I only play on yo or hbz or the thirsty onos server ect and I struggle to stay for more than 45 mins
Dude you are stepping into troll logic territory here. Because everyone has 9/13 seconds time to think about how they died this time you have to right to stack?
You are on the verge of not being taken seriously by me anymore.
I think you are not even trying to understand what we are telling you. Actually I don't see any point to take you serious anymore...
A game is "stacked" when it's so one sided that the losing team had virtually zero chance of winning... and it can be due to several "pro" players on a team, or just one.
And that is exactly our point. Its pathetic how you guys underestimate your own skill level just becuase you see two premier division players on the same team.
I guess most of you guys have not understood that wob and me actually lost rounds we played together. One round for example (if talked about that earlier in this thread already) we had a rookie commander and a lot of new players on our team. And it happened exactly like it has been said before, 4-5 decent pubplayers could completeley "counterstack" us and we had no chance even getting out of our hive room. I think it's needless to say that even before this game people were whining about us stacking one team...
Force even teams doesn't help at all... If you only play competitive then your Elo skill is low due to playing against strong marines and aliens all the time.
Thats why I said "probable"
From what I could understand the system should even out even if you are "only playing against strong players". Perhaps it should take NSL div into consideration?
Obviously, its impossible to have a game calculate a person's relative skill exactly, but an improvement surely wouldn't be a bad thing? It might actually make "force even teams" worth something in regular Pubs.
Besides, I'm sure that after a round or two of a high skilled player vs low-med skilled players there'd be enough data to say that that player should be against all the "above average" players.
One guy I've seen even switches teams multiple times mid-game in order to keep it balanced.
I have been doing that a lot myself. There have been multiple games where I was the only prem player on a server, dominating the other team early on by denying one or both natural rts. In NS2 that of course often leads to ragequitting on the other team, so when I die I find myself in the spawnqueue for minutes what makes me swich teams. On the one hand I do it so I can play (even though I know I'll probably gonna lose) on the other hand it's a challange to try to turn the game around. Unfortunately some days ago winning such a game in the end lead to a lot of guys complaining about me winning-team-joining *sigh*
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited May 2014
Sales are not going to make a difference these days. The only hope is to try and get some of the people who already own the game back playing. This will only happen if the new community development team produces some great stuff and gets the publicity and support it needs.
As well as this, it is up tot he other modders to create new gameplay modes to bring in new players, and try and increase the number of people around the game again.
Either way, I feel these arguments and issues are becoming more critical because the NS2 community is shrinking again, and it is beginning to fall below the level where it can sustain a comp community as a separate entity. Thus you get the comp and public community being a lot closer.
Some of us like playing Shooters, but just don't have the cognitive capacity to deal with all the things at once that a game of NS2 demands of you. I am useless at multi-tasking, so will never be able to deal with everything, tracking, movement, attacking, covering positions, escape routes. So much has to be in your head at once so you can just go with it.. It's too much for me to deal with. I like to deal with 1 problem at a time
Just face it, everyone is different, some people will always be crap at games, and enjoy them anyway. "l2p" is an elitist answer, will always be seen as an elitist answer. If some of you comp players got your head around the head the fact that some people cannot "l2p" and get to a high standard, like only some people can be top racing drivers, and only some can be top athletes, then it would be a better experience for you, and for the people you are playing with.
Indeed there are a few old timers who play on the yo server and no amount of practice will give them that twitch aim you need. I've heard it before someone convinced that it just takes time to learn, some poor buggers no longer have that manual dexterity anymore.
Comments
As long as you get that "We play together for fun" = typically an imbalanced round, and "we play against each other" = a more balanced game...
Then, personally I really don't have sympathy for one individual who can't find fun in their game anymore so they are alright with ruining the fun for 18 others and further hurting player retention.
(Not saying that's actually what you did personally.. i have no idea what occurred and don't really care to read it)
This game is far too sensitive to differences in skill to not place balanced teams as a priority above all else, even your personal needs for fun. And come on.. having more balanced teams IS more fun, right?
On the other hand: if a team of rookies joined marines leaving no spot other than aliens.. so be it, that was their mistake to learn. But you can always protest and offer to fix it at least. *shrug*
Well said.
games are VERY easily stacked on pubs, it only takes one player on the wrong team and it can all go to pot but SAYING THAT, it can often be counter balanced with a good commander and tactics providing the team listen (if they listen).
the odd stacked game here and there is inevitable, but constant stacking is a totally different thing and in my head i cant see how you can get any fun out of wiping the floor against a obviously lower skilled team the same as they just get pee'ed off and leave.
if worst comes to worst by saying "!admin *text* " on YO servers can get an admins attention if they are online but this is a situation that should be sorted out by the players more than admins.
If you find public servers that disengaging you are probably playing on the wrong servers/at the wrong time/both.
Please; it's not hard to apply some common rules of thumb for things like positioning which can greatly increase your ability in killing skulks.
Map reading could take time but you just have to anticipate and second guess the opponents by just looking at the map every now and then.
Reflexes and aim is incredibly difficult and time consuming to improve and that's fair enough, but if you're in the right place in the right room, you can win most engagements with as little as 18% accuracy.
It's not elitist to ask players to think about basic things and improve on them. Don't coddle yourselves in bubble wrap and pretend for reasons X, Y, Z that it's not your fault you can't improve and that it's the players who've already gone through the majority of the improvement phases who are at fault.
It's not elitist for me to ask players to not floor skulk, to not hold W in engagements, and for skulks to focus on res biting.
These are basic elements of the RTS/FPS hybrid game we play which helps teams win. If everyone improved these basic elements and didn't run in brain dead, you can neutralise most aim/reflex skills of players AND improve the quality of gameplay! You'd see more balanced games, and people would have more fun. But no, people are more concerned about looking at everyone else and not themselves. You could say that's exactly what I'm doing in these posts, and you'd be right. Except when 1 prem player joins a game and there isn't a 2nd prem player to balance him out, then you can't look at anyone else but yourself.
Elitist elements are knowing the bite-parasite-bite, super ambush spots on all maps, knowing jump boosts, expecting co-ordinated attacks from multiple directions, expecting state-of-the-art computers and monitors.
How about a matchmaking system
We are perceived as having the greatest influence in games. We then get the greatest abuse. We get abuse more often than not.
To be denied the right to play with each other for fun is a ridiculously oppressive standpoint. To also claim that all 18 other players have their fun ruined is one of these generalised retarded comments which adds to the competitive player bashing. Some people say they enjoy the challenge, some people say that they learn (when they ask for help that is).
Also when we play with each other, we like to do things like gorge or FT/GL which we couldn't do playing against each other because of the competence of team-mates.
You know what's funny. I did swap teams to play with the rookies. Shock horror, I know! It's almost as if you're only listening to one side of the story and only cherry picking from your memories of rounds where comp players played against rookies and sticking us in with this fictitious group of players you've created in a "competitive" image.
Learning something like positioning DOES take time. And it takes effort, self discipline, and experience to read a situation and maintain the position advantage. It may come second nature to the "pro" players purely because you have a massive experience lead on beginners.
The mass majority of the ns2 player base atm is casual players and they log for a few hours to have fun and then move on with their lives. To expect them to "get on your level" IS elitism.
I personally try to anti stack when I can, but I also like playing on the same team as my friends so I can relate. Also my skill level isn't high enough to counter a pro players.
I'll just sit back and watch the disagrees come rolling in now.
I, personally, know no one who says that. And that generalisation is not as far fetched as you want us to believe.
You know, we talk about the stacks here, because the other games are obviously fine, per definitionem, as we care about the stacks. If that's cherry picking for you, then the way you try to paint yourself as the victim here, ignoring parts of our statements, is just the same - cherry picking.
I don't even like cherries.
That's the thing though. Every game is a stack, because every game has a winner. If I'm with my team-mate, it's called a stack regardless of if we win/lose. If I'm with my team-mate on opposite teams, one team is still stacked. If I'm not with a team-mate, it's stacked. Are there every any forum posts "beating the stack"? No, because this community is hellbent on complaining and blaming. There are a high portion of games where people complain before the game even starts that teams are stacked just by looking at badges/names/clan tags. The majority of the rest of the games have stack calls after the game is over looking at the scores of names/badges/clan tags.
That game with the 4 rookies and me was even called a stack after it was finished.
It's like the word racism which has lost it's meaning drastically and is thrown about by hypersensitive people as a defence mechanism to cope with their own flaws and issues because it's easier to name and blame instead of fixing the issues yourself.
I think we really need to work on our definition of a stack, because yours seems to be pretty different than. I'd also like to know what you are trying to tell me with those quotes. The second does not even have anything to do with me.
Are you kidding me O.o?
As soon as you are aware that positioning is a factor involved in RANGED units killing MELEE units, it doesn't take much time at all to realise how gun with bullets works against aliens with teeth. The only reason I can think something as simple and logical as this could be second nature to any player is simply intelligence. Why it takes more effort to stand in position A than B is confusing considering it's basic common sense to stand in a long line of sight if you have a gun, and to ambush on a corner if you only have teeth, is definitely bemusing to me. Perhaps I really am out of touch of what level of intelligence I should expect from people.
Every time you die you have 9 seconds as marines and 13 as aliens (I think) to reflect on how you died. A couple of hours at 30-40 deaths gives you 5 minutes a night. 5 minutes of improving a day could be massive in 1 week. If these players can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes a night trying to improve, why should I be disallowed to play with my friends, or flamed for playing with friends who are similar in that they want to learn to play better?
At least I do have some sympathy for their cause and do play against my friends for balance. It would just be nice if 90% of the games people just manned up, took it on the chin, and went through some sort of problem-solving process instead of going down the easy route of "stack, gg, game over, why bother playing, teams unfair"
Dude you are stepping into troll logic territory here. Because everyone has 9/13 seconds time to think about how they died this time you have to right to stack?
You are on the verge of not being taken seriously by me anymore.
No one is clear on the word stack anymore. Some people say it's friends or clan members joining the same team, some people say it's the winning team, some people say it's good players playing together, some people say it's bad players playing together, some people say it because they have nothing else to say. It's a useless word just thrown about these days to make people feel less bad about themselves.
I don't believe in the word stack because it is demeaning to perceived bad players and puts perceived good players up on a pedestal instead of playing the game.
As soon as you claim a stack you're admitting to assigning arbitrary numbers to players and playing some sort of mathematics game to determine the outcome before the game has even started. Everyone forgets that "good players" can have bad days, and "bad players" can have good days.
Everyone forgets to play seriously and properly because they believe they've already won/lost.
You devalue yourself, you disrespect the people on the opposite team of "the stack", and you set these players up as gods or some symbolism of some greater being who's either awe inspiringly good, frustratingly good, or a faggot.
Play the game and focus on what you have to do which is killing marines/skulks and RTs/harvesters. You lose, you learn, you improve, you have higher quality games. You win, you learn, you improve, you have higher quality games.
At the moment, it's just "oh we lost cause of stack, whatever, we'll NEVER get that good, or anywhere close that even if they have a bad game, we'd STILL lose!"
A game is "stacked" when it's so one sided that the losing team had virtually zero chance of winning... and it can be due to several "pro" players on a team, or just one.
I've seen some nice "pro" players who will try to keep it somewhat fair. They'll go Commander, or Gorge, or have fun using the pistol/axe/welder. One guy I've seen even switches teams multiple times mid-game in order to keep it balanced. Unfortunately it seems like most "pro" players make no effort at all to not ruin games. They hold nothing back and dominate the hell out of everyone in the server, then complain when others call it a "stacked" or unfair game.
I just wish we could boost the population somehow so these guys could go back to congregating on the "non rookie" servers.
Christ. I'm not saying that I'm going to play with my teammate 100% of the time because of this logic. I'm saying that I'm not the one at fault here. I play with my teammate for fun, and I play against him for fun. The fact that I get flamed and it has been suggested that I should be denied to play WITH my team-mate is ludicrous because people some people won't take the 9/13s to think. You're crying about this one night when we played 3-4 rounds (and lost a couple of times, but still got a fair few kills).
To be fair I didn't have to respond to this thread. I didn't have to take the time to defend myself. But no, I'm trying to get people to take responsibility for their own actions. Sometimes I want to play with my team-mate, sometimes I play against. I've presented a fair compromise, but it does seem more often than not, there are culprits who are consistently "ANTI-STACK" flamers and the abuse can be literally day after day.
Implying that commanders/gorges are not useful if played at a "pro" level... asinine...
Switching teams multiple times leads to "winning team joiner" despite changing to the losing team to make it a turn around or even if auto-team balance kicks in. You simply do not understand how much abuse comp players get. I'm almost half tempted to start some sort of diary lmfao.
EDIT: No matter what I do or who I'm with, there's a stack call more likely than not
If there are not enough players, people who are in a certain skill bracket, might not find players of equal skill to play against, and/ or not play with who they want.
If we wanted to make a matchmaking system that would allow players to play with their friends, then a "party" system would need to be built as well so that there can be "pre mades" made into group queues and "skill" values totaled as a whole. Again without another "premade" team queued up to the match making system at that exact moment, both of these groups might never play at all and simply sit in lobbies all day.
Again, not saying that it is bad, but I've seen plenty of games try this, and without the necessary players of varying degrees of "skill" it simply doesn't work. We could drop everything and devoted every resource into creating this robust match making system, and it wouldn't put a dent into the issue.
So technically the only real available data is using the "Vote Force Even Teams / Shine ELO Shuffle", but those are so unreliable and/or broken, and it certainty doesn't care about you playing with friends.
Can't have your cake and eat it.
Matchmaking is very bad. I consider it little more than a cancer that should never have been introduced to gaming. The very idea of placing that much control in the hands of a computer algorithm is so flawed it's not even funny.
Even on consoles matchmaking is a major headache, and it does absolutely nothing to keep the teams "even"
1,5 years after the release and NS2 is nearly unplayble for me.
And it looks like many of the veteran players thinking the same. That could be the reason why the high level servers going down one by one.
Maybe another cool sale could help here.
And yes public games are disengaging no mater what server you go on, it's nothing compared to a organised 6v6 pcw or a ensl match. I only play on yo or hbz or the thirsty onos server ect and I struggle to stay for more than 45 mins
It was on a humble bundle not long ago and that did nothing. Anyone who was interested has had a look.
I think you are not even trying to understand what we are telling you. Actually I don't see any point to take you serious anymore...
And that is exactly our point. Its pathetic how you guys underestimate your own skill level just becuase you see two premier division players on the same team.
I guess most of you guys have not understood that wob and me actually lost rounds we played together. One round for example (if talked about that earlier in this thread already) we had a rookie commander and a lot of new players on our team. And it happened exactly like it has been said before, 4-5 decent pubplayers could completeley "counterstack" us and we had no chance even getting out of our hive room. I think it's needless to say that even before this game people were whining about us stacking one team...
Thats why I said "probable"
From what I could understand the system should even out even if you are "only playing against strong players". Perhaps it should take NSL div into consideration?
Obviously, its impossible to have a game calculate a person's relative skill exactly, but an improvement surely wouldn't be a bad thing? It might actually make "force even teams" worth something in regular Pubs.
Besides, I'm sure that after a round or two of a high skilled player vs low-med skilled players there'd be enough data to say that that player should be against all the "above average" players.
Here's the link in case anyone doesn't know what skill rating system I'm talkin about:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/134109/proposal-for-abuse-proof-skill-system/p1
I have been doing that a lot myself. There have been multiple games where I was the only prem player on a server, dominating the other team early on by denying one or both natural rts. In NS2 that of course often leads to ragequitting on the other team, so when I die I find myself in the spawnqueue for minutes what makes me swich teams. On the one hand I do it so I can play (even though I know I'll probably gonna lose) on the other hand it's a challange to try to turn the game around. Unfortunately some days ago winning such a game in the end lead to a lot of guys complaining about me winning-team-joining *sigh*
As well as this, it is up tot he other modders to create new gameplay modes to bring in new players, and try and increase the number of people around the game again.
Either way, I feel these arguments and issues are becoming more critical because the NS2 community is shrinking again, and it is beginning to fall below the level where it can sustain a comp community as a separate entity. Thus you get the comp and public community being a lot closer.
Some of us like playing Shooters, but just don't have the cognitive capacity to deal with all the things at once that a game of NS2 demands of you. I am useless at multi-tasking, so will never be able to deal with everything, tracking, movement, attacking, covering positions, escape routes. So much has to be in your head at once so you can just go with it.. It's too much for me to deal with. I like to deal with 1 problem at a time
Just face it, everyone is different, some people will always be crap at games, and enjoy them anyway. "l2p" is an elitist answer, will always be seen as an elitist answer. If some of you comp players got your head around the head the fact that some people cannot "l2p" and get to a high standard, like only some people can be top racing drivers, and only some can be top athletes, then it would be a better experience for you, and for the people you are playing with.