Why this game fails...
scaramoosh
Join Date: 2012-12-29 Member: 176621Members
Join Date: 2012-12-29 Member: 176621Members
Balance.
Simple as really, every match I ever have always goes one sided, to the point where I barely see the high end stuff. I find it really annoying finding myself wanting the rail gun mech or the basic leap for the Skulk and if you do ever get them in a game, you'll have them for 5 mins and then the match will be over. Half the time you can tell if a match is going to go badly, usually the commander drops out or you have to wait a year to even get a commander, you just instantly know then and you might as well quit out yourself. A lot of the time the teams wont be balanced, there will be this massive unbalance of where the skilled players are...
It is so hard to get a good equal game, I think over the years now I can only remember a handful of them. Most of the time I just don't bother playing because it is just so much effort to put up with all the crap games, just to maybe find one good one. For me it is why team based shooters often fail, the best ones make it so working together is just something that happens, you don't even think about it. Where you're basically playing for yourself, but yet somehow still helping out the team and friends. In Battlefield games it is done by simply dropping packs, you may do it for yourself, but other people can benefit too. In Counter Strike it is the simple act of being good, if you're that good then you can win a round by yourself and the money helps everyone on the team.
With NS2 however you're so reliant on having a good commander, if you don't (which 90% of the time you do not) then your whole team is screwed just on the back of one player. Then also you don't really have any mechanics that help out everyone, you have to actively communicate with each other and stick together, but you do not have any actions that you can do by yourself which help the team. This is fine in a private game or with a group of friends, but on public games, it just doesn't work at all. Every single game I ever have is just people always running off on their own and dying over and over. If you come up against a team which is working together, you lose, there is no individual mechanics or skill level which can help the team.
I know people are going to say "you fucking noob, go back to COD" or whatever. I like the core game, I like playing with other people, but the simple fact is that the game just makes it so hard to play. All my friends have given up on this game because they're bored of joining a game and it being so one sided all the time...
Guess what? The team you usually join is the losing team because they have people who are leaving mid game. It isn't fun always joining the losing team first and then having to play through it. It is fine joining a side which eventually loses, someone has to lose, but it isn't ever a close thing, it is always being stomped on.
Simple as really, every match I ever have always goes one sided, to the point where I barely see the high end stuff. I find it really annoying finding myself wanting the rail gun mech or the basic leap for the Skulk and if you do ever get them in a game, you'll have them for 5 mins and then the match will be over. Half the time you can tell if a match is going to go badly, usually the commander drops out or you have to wait a year to even get a commander, you just instantly know then and you might as well quit out yourself. A lot of the time the teams wont be balanced, there will be this massive unbalance of where the skilled players are...
It is so hard to get a good equal game, I think over the years now I can only remember a handful of them. Most of the time I just don't bother playing because it is just so much effort to put up with all the crap games, just to maybe find one good one. For me it is why team based shooters often fail, the best ones make it so working together is just something that happens, you don't even think about it. Where you're basically playing for yourself, but yet somehow still helping out the team and friends. In Battlefield games it is done by simply dropping packs, you may do it for yourself, but other people can benefit too. In Counter Strike it is the simple act of being good, if you're that good then you can win a round by yourself and the money helps everyone on the team.
With NS2 however you're so reliant on having a good commander, if you don't (which 90% of the time you do not) then your whole team is screwed just on the back of one player. Then also you don't really have any mechanics that help out everyone, you have to actively communicate with each other and stick together, but you do not have any actions that you can do by yourself which help the team. This is fine in a private game or with a group of friends, but on public games, it just doesn't work at all. Every single game I ever have is just people always running off on their own and dying over and over. If you come up against a team which is working together, you lose, there is no individual mechanics or skill level which can help the team.
I know people are going to say "you fucking noob, go back to COD" or whatever. I like the core game, I like playing with other people, but the simple fact is that the game just makes it so hard to play. All my friends have given up on this game because they're bored of joining a game and it being so one sided all the time...
Guess what? The team you usually join is the losing team because they have people who are leaving mid game. It isn't fun always joining the losing team first and then having to play through it. It is fine joining a side which eventually loses, someone has to lose, but it isn't ever a close thing, it is always being stomped on.
Comments
Sounds like you're frustrated from playing with noobs, but not being good enough to carry them?
In my experience my games range from 1-sided stomps to drawn-out, grueling 80+ minute matches. Maybe you're just playing on bad servers?
2) the rts element in the game does have a snowball effect: when one team gets ahead, it's easier for them to then get further ahead. In order to counter this, you need to play smart, and you need to think about this right from the start of the game. Attack the enemy's resource structures and defend your own. don't worry too much about tech points, and focus on getting upgrades early rather than phase gates to "defend" locations.
I understand the frustration of being on a losing team in a snowball game. However, I don't regard it as a huge problem, but players need to learn what this game is really about (resources).
People cry about stack way too much - as @meatmachine points out, often times one good player can carry an entire team.
And wtf are you talking about balance for? The fact that you have one-sided games has nothing to do with balance what so ever - If anything it's just a sign of the fact that this is a highly skill-based game and that the best teams mostly wins, which is the exact opposite from the nature of an imbalanced game.
If by stomp, you simply mean a game that doesn't lead in to prototype or 3rd hive tech - then I'm sorry to inform you, that the game was never designed for that. Those are primarily tech to end long stagnated games.
Also, don't undercut your post with this "I know people are going to..." tripe. It's like the reddit version of "I know I'm going to get downvoted for this".
I find it hard to believe that you've never experienced a match that wasn't onesided.
Commanders dropping out is a RARE occurance. As for the other part - exaggeration.
In pubs you don't necessarily need a good commander - only a competant one. I'll assume I'm just being pedantic pointing that out though. But, 90% of the time? Really?! This is nowhere close to the actual number. Hell, I would much sooner believe that 90% of the time you DO have a decent commander (although it might be different on US and European servers).
Exaggeration.
TIL all you have to do is work as a team and you'll win every time.
It is more rare that you will join a team in the middle of a game than at the start of a game. Firstly, even if you join the server during a game, subsequent matches will be from the start (which could go either way). Also, it is more likely that when you join a server it will be after a game has finished (at least, this is my experience). This is because people are more likely to leave at the end of a game rather than during it, so this is when slots open up on a server you are queuing into.
Also, if on average, a player is more likely to lose a game than he is to win it, this seems to defy the fundamental laws of statistics or probability or whatever (I dunno which, but it certainly defies common sense). If you lose a game, somebody else has to win. So it should even out, right? (however, one might argue that a losing team may have more players cycle through it, so it might not be so cut and dry)
Because losses are always stomps? Even games happen, albeit may be rare depending on your perspective. Denying their existance is unreasonable though.
"Every round seems unbalanced if you only remember the last 5 minutes."
... isn't it an odd situation that one single, good player can outweight an entire team in a game, which is supposed to be team-centered? That might not have anything to do with balance but it is after all odd when there's a game which presents itself as heavily team-based but in the long run it all comes down to the question, whether you or your opponent's have one or two superior players on their game because then it's not a team that wins the game but single individuals.
I do in fact have the feeling that this is very much the case in NS2 and doesn't really suit the way the game wants to be perceived at first glance, namely as a team-based game. In fact, the aspects of tactics and strategy are of less importance compared to the mere ability to shoot things. It's a shooter and of course this kind of skill has to be part of NS2, however, I too got the impression that NS" puts way to much emphasis on individual skill compared to NS1 to a degree, that even the normal mode often feels like some sort of team-deathmatch. I'm convinced that NS1 has a much better balance of the three aspects individual skill, tactics und strategy. Comebacks, secret hideouts and maneuvers were much more frequent in NS1, but are hardly ever seen in NS2. I suppose the straight forward map-design (big rooms instead of hallways and ventiducts), power node-system as well as alien commander has something to do with that. UW admitted that the map-design in NS2 followed a different philosophy than NS1 and I think the lack of hideouts, dark corners, etc. combined with an all-in-all more less dynamic gameplay (no secret phasegates or bases, gorgies are more limitied in their actions) results in the fact, that firefights in larger groups occur more often and are of more importance. Either you push or you get pushed back; that is also true for NS1, but NS1 gave you more options to act outside from taking part in firefights, for example sneaking behind the frontline to set up an phasegate. You don't see that ever happen in NS2. You usually go through the front door.
If one player can outweight an entire team, that might be OK in games like Quake or Unreal Tournament but not in a game which tries to sell itself as team-based RTS-Shooter. And I agree, that it frequently happens that entire matches are frequently dominated by merely 2 or 3 players out of 18. That's not only frustrating for new players, who expect a team-based game and find a heavily skill-based one, but also for those who can't count themselves to this minority of Pros.
What?
- Welding (to weld each other helps MUCH)
- Distractng (a so called "rambo" is pulling half of the alienteam to his position= they dont attack marines and structures)
- Using mic and map ("guy in ore, there is an lerk behind you, you can trap him"
- Lineblocking (One good shooting marine can block and hold a whole side of a map)
- Resbiting/harassing (its a bit boring but this need to be done and many pub player dont doing this on both sides)
Teamplay is not: running aound in large groups as possible, while everything goes down behind you.
Many of these "rambos" doing 500% more usefull stuff than 6 marines in one group shooting the others ass.
Small tip:
Everytime you spawn, open the map and think about where to go next and why.
"4 marines in topo? Hmm, i think thats enough, i go the other way"
at least someone gets to the point
At least post them a link to one of the threads already made (if not closed already), instead of giving the equivalent of 'why'd you post with complaints?'. Unless it's a troll, that is.
Just don't like it when people who aren't always on the forums but play the game get tossed aside because of past trolls.
Huh? Sneaky phase gates and gorge tunnels are quite frequent in NS2, actually.
Yes, you can't build a full base (CC/Hive) everywhere, but forward bases (both straight-forward and hidden) are perfectly viable, and seen in almost every match.
(Edit: typo)
I didn't read your post any further than this, because I'm too lazy and I think the main message is delivered in there already. I'm just quoting a friend now: when skill of a player is a numerical number, than teamwork multiplies their skill number, or with other words one snail is not the big problem, have 2 or more snails working as a team and you are screwed
But like others have said, it's an RTS game. It's going to snowball usually after 12 minutes or so in favor of whoever has a 3rd tech point. Almost every game I play gets to see onos, jetpacks, and full research upgrades. Many comms avoid researching exos because the typical exo pilot lasts about 3 seconds and really ought to be buying mines.
Half the threads in this forum are... but then again, I do like the entertainment.
Unfortunately, that's something that should have been in at launch. It'd be hard to add it in now.
You got the point right, balance, and plus poor engine performance made people leave game rather sooner than expected(though still 4~600 concurrent players). However, NS2 has been an indie game, low budget, and for that, again, this has been a great success. Please list any indie games which has been more successful than NS2 after 2010. I'd say, Chivalry, Insurgency(almost identical, i'd say. Only more concurrent players), Minecraft(?)... and i cannot list anymore. Chivalry, Minecraft have their own reason, very casual and easy to play. Insurgency is almost perfectly stable on every aspect and even the theme itself is modern infantry combat, the most popular one, and they handled it almost perfectly, no doubt that this game has been so successful. Otherwise,,, there are even many super high budget titles which has far far less population than NS2 has had.
So i repeat,, all u've said are completely right, but i can't agree that NS2 is a failure
To this I respond that teamwork is OP. Once you get to a certain level of play it usually is the team with more coordination winning in my pub experience. Not to say that a premier level player can still really unbalance a high level pub but the effect is diminished if there is no teamwork.
That is not even one cent per hour. I can hardly find any other hobby I had in my life that was as cheap as NS2, so for me it was a success.
But I have to admit, that after all this time (also because there seems to be no active high level competitive community at the moment) I am getting tired of the game.
Playing public is just too ridiculous most of the time and making me angry, because 75% of the players still have no clue how this game works.
The snowball effect in NS2 is massive, most game are dictated within the first 5 minutes.
Its not to say a good coordinated team cant swing it back, its just tough to do unless everyone's on the same page, which is not the case in most pubs.
NS2 is a hardcore game end of story.
Try captains games, gathers or scrims. the difference in game play is staggering compared to the run around blind folded mentality pub games have.
Unfortunately these pubs is what 90% of the player base experience and why so many people are still terrible more than a year after the games release.
Wish i could say that skill-stacks don't happen but alas, they don't happen all that often.
We aussies are a VERY small sub-community. and so it's almost always the same 50 or so people. plus random rookies.
I've just started playing it last month, but it looks like it's doing pretty well. For a game with little publicity (I hadn't even heard about it until some weeks ago), with a steep learning curve, and which is now about two years old, I think this game is doing fine. It always has at 200-300 players online at any time of the day.
Have you guys ever seen a game really fail?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_%28video_game%29
Miss you war zone alpha.