It's a dual-punishment game, because it's an RTS and FPS, and to be good at both is rare and for most people takes a lot of time to develop. To win, you have to win both the FPS and RTS game. That's the nature of NS2, and unchangeable.
CS, Quake (Live/3/whatever), UT, Tribes, etc. are also punishing games, but if you're bad, you know (on pubs at least) you're bad because you're bad at FPS.
Starcraft and Supcom2 for example are also incredibly punishing games, but if you're bad, you know you're bad because you're bad at RTS.
In NS2, your FPS and your RTS game has to excel to win over the other team, and the RTS game additionally needs to be communicated by a commander to his team and followed (more or less). So this creates incredibly frustrating situations where even if your FPS or RTS game is good, if the other components aren't there + communication, you lose, and lose decisively at that. In most cases, you also lose very very slowly (marines camping in their IP room for 5+ minutes) because half the team doesn't surrender, etc. This is not the case in any other game that I can think of. Even in "Team Deathmatch" or "Team" games like CS, your team can be horrible but you individually can still score decent kills. In RTS, I guess it's more common, but if you fail at least you know you failed because of your own mistakes or lack of ability. Speaking of which, the other aspect of NS2 that is EXTREMELY frustrating to everyone (including me) is that you directly get punished through no fault of your own by mistakes made by others (on your team, since because of those mistakes the RTS game suffers and your tech lags behind the other team's).
So you have a really punishing game, which tests high-level FPS, not-so-high-level RTS, and pretty heavy teamwork skills, and which, if you lose, half of the time you know you're losing but the game hasn't "arbitrarily ended" for 10+ minutes, and you have a recipe for high frequency of rage. Not many people can ultimately take that, so they just leave after a while.
I'm surprised the game was actually so popular around release. I attribute it to the muddlement of the RTS elements and the lack of snowballing because of really low levels of play and inability to push advantages, something that as people learned, the game "sharpened" somewhat to what it was designed to be.
P.S. People are comparing it to TF2 which is extremely laughable. TF2 is a game where it's perfectly symmetrical, and there are no RTS elements, so you spawn with the same abilities, weapons, etc. since the beginning and fight 1:1 (against other classes, true, but it's 1:1). Thus, it's firstly easier to "balance", and secondly just comparing apples to oranges throughout. There is no "arms race" involved and the timer doesn't matter except as an arbitrary measurement of game length. In NS2, the timer is extremely important, and speed/reactivity/response means a LOT more.
Wow, I just reread some of those old posts of Savant.
(...)
Why do we actually waste time to discuss about a post of someone who would rather use /kill to suicide because he has no armor and is more likely to die in the field and by his own words can't make it out of base to achive something without dying?
Because arguments stand and fall on their own merits. You can dig up an old comment on every single one of us, and make us out to look like a fool. It shouldn't matter who wrote the post at all - what matters is the content of the post in question. The posts you dug up are utterly irrelevant to his points.
We can agree, I think, that he has a poor grasp on the game, which I will admit your examples do demonstrate. But I don't think it's appropriate to take somebodies voice, based on a previous comment that they've made.
Like how even a broken clock is right twice a day, a poor player can give accurate insight to the game as well. So we should discuss each post on its own merits.
It's also not surprising this simple fix issue was very recently removed from 275. Likely individual action with relentless hate against a particular community as their delusion.
Yet, the while the target of malice will suffer no consequences once more, the one actually getting hit is the australian community recently declared "about to go extinct".
Beat them up some more, they are not dead enough yet, individual of malice.
I'd like members of the community, especially those of the CDT, to read and respond to this review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/savant99/recommended/4920/
Note: I am not the author of this review; I feel as though this review sums up the viewpoints of many former players.
I was never a "veteran" player. I was never a "casual" player either.
I first played this game about 2 years ago. After getting spanked a few times, I watched every tutorial and playthrough I could find. I also read a few guides.
I played for hours and hours on end each day.
Definitely not an easy game, but I figured the bigger challenge would make it all the more satisfying - it did not.
Look I get it - the skilled players think it's an absolute tragedy to get killed by a bunch of casual players.
But now...what do you even have left? http://steamcharts.com/app/4920
Now you may be asking: Why did you even bother to create a forum account and post here?
Well I want to like this game. I want to play this game. However, it just isn't worth the frustration.
I doubt this post will seriously get anything accomplished and I don't mean to make everyone playing feel bad, but this game has potential that seems to be continuously dwindling.
Maybe you've had this sort of discussion amongst yourselves a bunch, but if not I'd like to encourage you to join in on this.
Edit: Upon request the thread title has been changed; I do not know if it was -unfairly- pinning the blame on the CDT, so I will err on the side of caution. Please still read the review mentioned in the beginning of this post and discuss it.
If you quote him the mystery is revealed! Santas real kids!
I'd like members of the community, especially those of the CDT, to read and respond to this review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/savant99/recommended/4920/
Note: I am not the author of this review; I feel as though this review sums up the viewpoints of many former players.
I was never a "veteran" player. I was never a "casual" player either.
I first played this game about 2 years ago. After getting spanked a few times, I watched every tutorial and playthrough I could find. I also read a few guides.
I played for hours and hours on end each day.
Definitely not an easy game, but I figured the bigger challenge would make it all the more satisfying - it did not.
Look I get it - the skilled players think it's an absolute tragedy to get killed by a bunch of casual players.
But now...what do you even have left? http://steamcharts.com/app/4920
Now you may be asking: Why did you even bother to create a forum account and post here?
Well I want to like this game. I want to play this game. However, it just isn't worth the frustration.
I doubt this post will seriously get anything accomplished and I don't mean to make everyone playing feel bad, but this game has potential that seems to be continuously dwindling.
Maybe you've had this sort of discussion amongst yourselves a bunch, but if not I'd like to encourage you to join in on this.
Edit: Upon request the thread title has been changed; I do not know if it was -unfairly- pinning the blame on the CDT, so I will err on the side of caution. Please still read the review mentioned in the beginning of this post and discuss it.
If you quote him the mystery is revealed! Santas real kids!
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2015
Whats the point of "balancing" a game for new players with no clue of the game?
If CDT would do this in NS2 this would end in following:
- build in aimbot for marines
- a bullet proof wall in front of ground skulks so they can run straight against rines on the floor
If you want to balance a game you ask the people who knows every aspect of the game.
I ran through the whole balancing process in NS2, many great ideas didnt work and in the end they had to go.
Its ok that NS2 is not another dumbed down casual game.
And if people dont want to watch some tutorial videos or dont want to train there aim against bots, well, its not the games fault.
The balancing is good.
I play CS:go sometimes recently and there players who are to dumb for simple deathmatch.
The chickens on the maps have more brain than these players.
You cant balance a game for these players. This would end in the 2 points i mentioned above.
If you want to balance a game you ask the people who knows every aspect of the game.
There are 2 ways to understand that statement.
1/ Game industry make gamers work
How do you find the people who knows every aspects when the game isn't finished yet (not balanced) ? Or worse when it's not out yet.
Balancing a game isn't supposed to rely on some godlike gamer that will just play enlisted in some pre-alpha-acces-program. It's supposed to be a little more practical than that. It has to be cut into bricks with a Work Breakdown System and then test specific sequences / situations. One argument would say that it helps find the big bugs anyways. Well i can answer to that. If proper methods and ways of doing things are applied... it is quite easy to spot it.
The whole thing of balancing a game with an early access program is just a way for big companies to save money on proper testing, while pleasing the dumbest. These loons will actually work but worse; they will contribute to make the game they're playing a crap in the end. But the company doesn't care. The goal is to maximize the sales during the visibility time. Hope you have subs for your tongue in YT, it's a great doc and they got plenty.
Usually, and for what i see so far; those methods only led to cheap crap games, influenced by and made for narrow minded people. Even if they can be good at the game. They stay what they are. Is UWE a big company? i don't think so. But it is using the same methods.
2/ The game is out but not finished (same as NS2 case)
How do you find the people who knows every aspects? I mean 100% sure. And "people who knows" what ? Field unit vs commanding ? or both ? A Lerk specialist ? etc. Also you have to find people who stayed (or whiling to stay) despite the fact it is unbalanced.
You have to know how to test the guy knows what he pretends to know.
You have to find a way to make it useful - You can be a strong fade but an idiot at the ways and means of strategy. So reports won't be considering "every aspects".
And yet you have to apply the same WBS to test things. Trying to make the best of the time available. So selecting people who can behave on a server... ...
You have to "average" what they say as humans are humans and without any doubts they will advocate for one thing or another. Far from a cold blooded analysis.
So... All things considered; I'm afraid if that kind of resume exists they were not in the PTs before the game was out.
Otherwise :
the game would have been balanced when it was out
we would have a potent Shade strategy now rendering the game far more enjoyable because of 3 possible strategy (and counter).
If you want to balance a game you ask the people who knows every aspect of the game.
There are 2 ways to understand that statement.
1/ Game industry make gamers work
How do you find the people who knows every aspects when the game isn't finished yet (not balanced) ? Or worse when it's not out yet.
Balancing a game isn't supposed to rely on some godlike gamer that will just play enlisted in some pre-alpha-acces-program. It's supposed to be a little more practical than that. It has to be cut into bricks with a Work Breakdown System and then test specific sequences / situations. One argument would say that it helps find the big bugs anyways. Well i can answer to that. If proper methods and ways of doing things are applied... it is quite easy to spot it.
The whole thing of balancing a game with an early access program is just a way for big companies to save money on proper testing, while pleasing the dumbest. These loons will actually work but worse; they will contribute to make the game they're playing a crap in the end. But the company doesn't care. The goal is to maximize the sales during the visibility time. Hope you have subs for your tongue in YT, it's a great doc and they got plenty.
Usually, and for what i see so far; those methods only led to cheap crap games, influenced by and made for narrow minded people. Even if they can be good at the game. They stay what they are. Is UWE a big company? i don't think so. But it is using the same methods.
2/ The game is out but not finished (same as NS2 case)
How do you find the people who knows every aspects? I mean 100% sure. And "people who knows" what ? Field unit vs commanding ? or both ? A Lerk specialist ? etc. Also you have to find people who stayed (or whiling to stay) despite the fact it is unbalanced.
You have to know how to test the guy knows what he pretends to know.
You have to find a way to make it useful - You can be a strong fade but an idiot at the ways and means of strategy. So reports won't be considering "every aspects".
And yet you have to apply the same WBS to test things. Trying to make the best of the time available. So selecting people who can behave on a server... ...
You have to "average" what they say as humans are humans and without any doubts they will advocate for one thing or another. Far from a cold blooded analysis.
So... All things considered; I'm afraid if that kind of resume exists they were not in the PTs before the game was out.
Otherwise :
the game would have been balanced when it was out
we would have a potent Shade strategy now rendering the game far more enjoyable because of 3 possible strategy (and counter).
I don't care to comment on anything else in there, but the best way to have 3 compelling possible strategies to start with would be removing shade for something else entirely. Cloaking and stealth is simply not fun in this game and wasn't fun in NS1 either, it's frustrating. It ruins everything marines and aliens know about the game, and it has nothing to do with not knowing how to use it properly or not.
How about an offensive chamber instead, choose between increased damage, lowered cooldowns, yada yada. Then we have defense, offense, agility. All which actually lend themselves to the game
Some of the reactions in this thread serve pretty much serve to confirm the review..
"If you want balance, you gotta ask the top tier players!"
"Making the game balanced and competitive will give it huge mass appeal, just like with Starcraft2!"
Over the years sentences like the above have been written myriad of times years on this forum. When the game wasn't even close to being feature complete there had only been one thing that mattered on these forums: Demanding perfect comp. balance at all stages of development!
I've spent countless hours on this forums arguing for the case of "fun over balance" for the sole sake of making the game accessible and fun first, so there's gonna be an actual playerbase to balance for. To no avail, because any ideas "outside the box" tend to get shouted down in fear it might break some mysterious "perfect and holy comp balance" which never existed anywhere.
NS2 should have fixed what NS1 didn't get right: The mass appeal and the steep leaning curve.
What we got instead: Something with even less mass appeal and an even steeper learning curve due to an total lack of "non comp." gaming modes so people could learn the game in an low-stress environment, like combat or siege.
But at least we now have got the most perfectly balanced game ever, right?
I don't care to comment on anything else in there, but the best way to have 3 compelling possible strategies to start with would be removing shade for something else entirely. Cloaking and stealth is simply not fun in this game and wasn't fun in NS1 either, it's frustrating. It ruins everything marines and aliens know about the game, and it has nothing to do with not knowing how to use it properly or not.
How about an offensive chamber instead, choose between increased damage, lowered cooldowns, yada yada. Then we have defense, offense, agility. All which actually lend themselves to the game
Maybe i wasn't clear enough. I don't care if it shade or not. It's 3 potential strategies that will force the marine to adapt and answer (counter) with a correponding action and a good load of team work. Right now the marine play a dumbed down single tactic. I'm not sure we can call that strategy anymore as there is no choice anymore. A "routine" maybe. This is mostly due to the fact that alien only have 2 choices left.
Some of the reactions in this thread serve pretty much serve to confirm the review..
"If you want balance, you gotta ask the top tier players!"
"Making the game balanced and competitive will give it huge mass appeal, just like with Starcraft2!"
Over the years sentences like the above have been written myriad of times years on this forum. When the game wasn't even close to being feature complete there had only been one thing that mattered on these forums: Demanding perfect comp. balance at all stages of development!
I've spent countless hours on this forums arguing for the case of "fun over balance" for the sole sake of making the game accessible and fun first, so there's gonna be an actual playerbase to balance for. To no avail, because any ideas "outside the box" tend to get shouted down in fear it might break some mysterious "perfect and holy comp balance" which never existed anywhere.
NS2 should have fixed what NS1 didn't get right: The mass appeal and the steep leaning curve.
What we got instead: Something with even less mass appeal and an even steeper learning curve due to an total lack of "non comp." gaming modes so people could learn the game in an low-stress environment, like combat or siege.
But at least we now have got the most perfectly balanced game ever, right?
I will agree with you that the "balance from the top down" is wrong, I've always thought so.
Especially, because in a competitive game, balance isn't actually a huge problem - provided that both teams get to play both sides. On de_nuke in cstrike, a 4/11 score is a good round for T - that doesn't exactly spell "balance", but it's a popular map regardless. And it works because both teams play both sides.
But don't pretend that every suggestion of features and gamemodes were discarded simply because of comp players demanding balance. The reasons are far more complex than that. It takes a considerable amount of time and resources to build a new game mode or a new piece of content.
I'm sure, if you give a concrete example of where you think balance was prioritized over fun, it would be easier to give you a concrete response as well.
Comp mod, the way I look at it at least, was far more an attempt at shaking up the game to be more fun, than it was to re-balance the game. The game was in fact fairly balanced at the time - it was just getting stale. Nobody in their right mind, would look at the NS2WC and say to themselves "You know, I think it would be more balanced if Marines had an HMG".
The idea was that the HMG would make the game more fun, by removing the "shotgun monopoly".
And we did have combat for a really long time - until they decided to make it stand-alone.
" in a competitive game, balance isn't actually a huge problem - provided that both teams get to play both sides"
Except that in CS you play both sides on a single map for 1 point. So you always have a winner. In NS2 playing a map means playing 2 rounds, so 2 points. So a lack of balance in a map or in the gameplay (favoring one side over the other) will end up in draws, which is boring. In that sense, and particular case, the balance of cs and NS2 cannot be compared. It's not relevant
I think it was more the terrible performance, intolerably slow loading times for anyone not on an ssd, the unbelievably slow pace of optimization and the complete inability to live up to the publicized hardware min requirements that did this game's playerbase in. I know thats why I no longer play, I have no inclination to wait literally 15 minutes to load a match which will be almost over when I get in.
Hell loading times for me have INCREASED since the CDT took over and are now at an intolerable point (for a while the game loaded very quickly and ran fine too! This was around that much publicized lua optimization patch). It comes down to me needing to buy a new computer to run this game, and as I can play most other new and relatively new games just fine its not worth it to do so just for NS2.
P.S. The point about welders is retarded, they in no way require 'high skill'. A total scrub could use a welder to great effect. Knowing to buy them is not high skill, its just a meme.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2015
If things need a rebalance in CS:Go for example, do you think the developers asking the casual pub player 1st? No, they going to discuss this change with the top tier players.
When it comes to balancing you can ask 100 people and get 100 different "solutions".
Thats why balancing is not a trivial process like "remove the shade and give us offensive chambers"
Every little change can have a huge impact on the whole game and need more rebalancing on the other end maybe after hrs and hrs of testing.
And after this change from above you would see threads like "they removed the shade, now the game isnt fun anymore. RIP. Me and my friends didnt play anymore".
Before the release there was an beta phase and i cant count the features that didnt made it into the release version.
Thats whats an beta is for btw: "balancing and engine finetuning". NS2 needed some rebalancing after the release cause one simple reason: UWE is a small company and they didnt had the time todo the full balancing during beta.
NS2 didnt lose the players cause it is "balanced from the top down", it has lost the players cause it is not "dumbed down".
As i said before, i met so many people who are to dumb for simple deathmatch and im sure my mother has a better aim than these players.
NS2 must be an overkill for this type of players but you cant balance any game for them.
And if you try todo this, something like this would be the result:
If you want pure fun then dont play multiplayer team shooter. In an singleplayer game you can set the diffuculty,noone cares if cant hit shit, you can turn cheats on if you want, etc.
And a small sidenote to the "terrible perfomance":
I would ALWAYS upgrade my computer if my favorite game didnt run the way i like it.
Im doing this since 20 years and this is normal for me. Thats how PC gaming works.
And if you dont like this, a console is the better choice maybe.
I think it was more the terrible performance, intolerably slow loading times for anyone not on an ssd, the unbelievably slow pace of optimization and the complete inability to live up to the publicized hardware min requirements that did this game's playerbase in. I know thats why I no longer play, I have no inclination to wait literally 15 minutes to load a match which will be almost over when I get in.
Hell loading times for me have INCREASED since the CDT took over and are now at an intolerable point (for a while the game loaded very quickly and ran fine too! This was around that much publicized lua optimization patch). It comes down to me needing to buy a new computer to run this game, and as I can play most other new and relatively new games just fine its not worth it to do so just for NS2.
P.S. The point about welders is retarded, they in no way require 'high skill'. A total scrub could use a welder to great effect. Knowing to buy them is not high skill, its just a meme.
I have a 4 year old laptop with a hard drive and the loading times are not that long.
To be honest, loading times even up to 1mn or 1:30 mns (after first time loads) take less time than games to actually start once you're into a server. So...
oh man, the armory repairing armor/self weld argument was pretty vitriolic. However, it's not too hard to say "remember to weld each other" or "weld me" in-game. 90% of the time it works.
As far as balance goes, it doesn't seem too bad. The only problem is that the hive skill system is trash.
I think the way things are now is fine. Aliens have a pretty big advantage in small games unless the marines have high level aimers, but in big games they don't. Therefore most pubs are 9v9-12v12 and this works fine, as well as decreasing the amount of impact a single player can carry.
" in a competitive game, balance isn't actually a huge problem - provided that both teams get to play both sides"
Except that in CS you play both sides on a single map for 1 point. So you always have a winner. In NS2 playing a map means playing 2 rounds, so 2 points. So a lack of balance in a map or in the gameplay (favoring one side over the other) will end up in draws, which is boring. In that sense, and particular case, the balance of cs and NS2 cannot be compared. It's not relevant
What is not relevant, is this distinction you make. But OK, let me give you another example then.
Chess has two sides, white and black. You don't need to know much about chess to know how massive the advantage of white is. Usually in top level chess, the goal for black is to get a tie, not to win.
This is not a problem in competitive chess, because usually they play in a round-robin tournament system - exactly like the nsl league does.
So you can look at it like this. A team who is really strong on veil, will try to win on veil (analogues to having the white pieces). If the team is weak on summit, they will try to tie on summit (analogous to having the black pieces).
So the tournament structure of the nsl is accounting for this exact problem.
Of course, I will grant if the balance is skewed so much in favor of one faction, that you have nothing but ties - THEN you have a problem.
First of all I've read the review before and have to say to some point I agree with it.
But balance changes are a really difficult topic for the CDT. Everyone of us basically has a different point of view on how ns2 should evolve balance wise.
[...]
And so it's kinda pointless to prototype things before-ahead because you can't really say if your suggestion will ever make the cut into the live build.
Last time i suggested things like re-balancing the techs to have a better skill/power outcome ratio as described e.g. by this youtube video
i could almost "hear" other members getting torches ready to burn me alive
...
I think something as described in the video - some mechanic/role that is easy to learn for new players, and has decent power to help out their team - could have helped player retention.
On aliens it is kind of okay with the gorge. Gorge is very easy to learn, you can evolve into it right at the start (not like Onos), you can make a difference (well placed tunnels, spitting vs. no-med comms, building shit).
But on marines, you are completely lost as a beginner. Even if you have super great skill in FPS games, chances are you suck at RTS and tactics and therefore get rekt. Of course you could play the (important) role of re-capper, but that is boring as hell.
Most marine rookies are completely useless for me as a comm (I dont even med them during fights, only if they survive)
I wonder if there is a way to give rookies more roles in NS2 (esp. marines), which make them more useful. Maybe some support role (medic with combat shield to block bites or something like that).
Comments
If you balance the game to account for an elevated average skill only, you have doomed it.
CS, Quake (Live/3/whatever), UT, Tribes, etc. are also punishing games, but if you're bad, you know (on pubs at least) you're bad because you're bad at FPS.
Starcraft and Supcom2 for example are also incredibly punishing games, but if you're bad, you know you're bad because you're bad at RTS.
In NS2, your FPS and your RTS game has to excel to win over the other team, and the RTS game additionally needs to be communicated by a commander to his team and followed (more or less). So this creates incredibly frustrating situations where even if your FPS or RTS game is good, if the other components aren't there + communication, you lose, and lose decisively at that. In most cases, you also lose very very slowly (marines camping in their IP room for 5+ minutes) because half the team doesn't surrender, etc. This is not the case in any other game that I can think of. Even in "Team Deathmatch" or "Team" games like CS, your team can be horrible but you individually can still score decent kills. In RTS, I guess it's more common, but if you fail at least you know you failed because of your own mistakes or lack of ability. Speaking of which, the other aspect of NS2 that is EXTREMELY frustrating to everyone (including me) is that you directly get punished through no fault of your own by mistakes made by others (on your team, since because of those mistakes the RTS game suffers and your tech lags behind the other team's).
So you have a really punishing game, which tests high-level FPS, not-so-high-level RTS, and pretty heavy teamwork skills, and which, if you lose, half of the time you know you're losing but the game hasn't "arbitrarily ended" for 10+ minutes, and you have a recipe for high frequency of rage. Not many people can ultimately take that, so they just leave after a while.
I'm surprised the game was actually so popular around release. I attribute it to the muddlement of the RTS elements and the lack of snowballing because of really low levels of play and inability to push advantages, something that as people learned, the game "sharpened" somewhat to what it was designed to be.
P.S. People are comparing it to TF2 which is extremely laughable. TF2 is a game where it's perfectly symmetrical, and there are no RTS elements, so you spawn with the same abilities, weapons, etc. since the beginning and fight 1:1 (against other classes, true, but it's 1:1). Thus, it's firstly easier to "balance", and secondly just comparing apples to oranges throughout. There is no "arms race" involved and the timer doesn't matter except as an arbitrary measurement of game length. In NS2, the timer is extremely important, and speed/reactivity/response means a LOT more.
It's changeable. You're lying with an angry face. Stop killing NS2.
Actually just the medic implementation was compared. You sure have practiced twisting peoples words.
The way the medic heals in TF2 is well thought out.
Because arguments stand and fall on their own merits. You can dig up an old comment on every single one of us, and make us out to look like a fool. It shouldn't matter who wrote the post at all - what matters is the content of the post in question. The posts you dug up are utterly irrelevant to his points.
We can agree, I think, that he has a poor grasp on the game, which I will admit your examples do demonstrate. But I don't think it's appropriate to take somebodies voice, based on a previous comment that they've made.
Like how even a broken clock is right twice a day, a poor player can give accurate insight to the game as well. So we should discuss each post on its own merits.
EDIT: Oh wait, he's below now?
Yet, the while the target of malice will suffer no consequences once more, the one actually getting hit is the australian community recently declared "about to go extinct".
Beat them up some more, they are not dead enough yet, individual of malice.
And when you click on him, his name is SantaClaws??
I first thought I did something wrong because it brought me to Anzestral ^^
Brings me to an user that doesn't exist personally.
That dude is a hardcore fan, he played NS even before Flayra thought about the game
He even played NS before the release of Pacman or Pong
Respect!
So the date info isn't there (probably all shiny 0's), so user doesn't exist?
let's figure out this mystery
If you quote him the mystery is revealed! Santas real kids!
If CDT would do this in NS2 this would end in following:
- build in aimbot for marines
- a bullet proof wall in front of ground skulks so they can run straight against rines on the floor
If you want to balance a game you ask the people who knows every aspect of the game.
I ran through the whole balancing process in NS2, many great ideas didnt work and in the end they had to go.
Its ok that NS2 is not another dumbed down casual game.
And if people dont want to watch some tutorial videos or dont want to train there aim against bots, well, its not the games fault.
The balancing is good.
I play CS:go sometimes recently and there players who are to dumb for simple deathmatch.
The chickens on the maps have more brain than these players.
You cant balance a game for these players. This would end in the 2 points i mentioned above.
There are 2 ways to understand that statement.
1/ Game industry make gamers work
How do you find the people who knows every aspects when the game isn't finished yet (not balanced) ? Or worse when it's not out yet.
Balancing a game isn't supposed to rely on some godlike gamer that will just play enlisted in some pre-alpha-acces-program. It's supposed to be a little more practical than that. It has to be cut into bricks with a Work Breakdown System and then test specific sequences / situations. One argument would say that it helps find the big bugs anyways. Well i can answer to that. If proper methods and ways of doing things are applied... it is quite easy to spot it.
The whole thing of balancing a game with an early access program is just a way for big companies to save money on proper testing, while pleasing the dumbest. These loons will actually work but worse; they will contribute to make the game they're playing a crap in the end. But the company doesn't care. The goal is to maximize the sales during the visibility time. Hope you have subs for your tongue in YT, it's a great doc and they got plenty.
Usually, and for what i see so far; those methods only led to cheap crap games, influenced by and made for narrow minded people. Even if they can be good at the game. They stay what they are. Is UWE a big company? i don't think so. But it is using the same methods.
2/ The game is out but not finished (same as NS2 case)
How do you find the people who knows every aspects? I mean 100% sure. And "people who knows" what ? Field unit vs commanding ? or both ? A Lerk specialist ? etc. Also you have to find people who stayed (or whiling to stay) despite the fact it is unbalanced.
So... All things considered; I'm afraid if that kind of resume exists they were not in the PTs before the game was out.
Otherwise :
I don't care to comment on anything else in there, but the best way to have 3 compelling possible strategies to start with would be removing shade for something else entirely. Cloaking and stealth is simply not fun in this game and wasn't fun in NS1 either, it's frustrating. It ruins everything marines and aliens know about the game, and it has nothing to do with not knowing how to use it properly or not.
How about an offensive chamber instead, choose between increased damage, lowered cooldowns, yada yada. Then we have defense, offense, agility. All which actually lend themselves to the game
"If you want balance, you gotta ask the top tier players!"
"Making the game balanced and competitive will give it huge mass appeal, just like with Starcraft2!"
Over the years sentences like the above have been written myriad of times years on this forum. When the game wasn't even close to being feature complete there had only been one thing that mattered on these forums: Demanding perfect comp. balance at all stages of development!
I've spent countless hours on this forums arguing for the case of "fun over balance" for the sole sake of making the game accessible and fun first, so there's gonna be an actual playerbase to balance for. To no avail, because any ideas "outside the box" tend to get shouted down in fear it might break some mysterious "perfect and holy comp balance" which never existed anywhere.
NS2 should have fixed what NS1 didn't get right: The mass appeal and the steep leaning curve.
What we got instead: Something with even less mass appeal and an even steeper learning curve due to an total lack of "non comp." gaming modes so people could learn the game in an low-stress environment, like combat or siege.
But at least we now have got the most perfectly balanced game ever, right?
Maybe i wasn't clear enough. I don't care if it shade or not. It's 3 potential strategies that will force the marine to adapt and answer (counter) with a correponding action and a good load of team work. Right now the marine play a dumbed down single tactic. I'm not sure we can call that strategy anymore as there is no choice anymore. A "routine" maybe. This is mostly due to the fact that alien only have 2 choices left.
I will agree with you that the "balance from the top down" is wrong, I've always thought so.
Especially, because in a competitive game, balance isn't actually a huge problem - provided that both teams get to play both sides. On de_nuke in cstrike, a 4/11 score is a good round for T - that doesn't exactly spell "balance", but it's a popular map regardless. And it works because both teams play both sides.
But don't pretend that every suggestion of features and gamemodes were discarded simply because of comp players demanding balance. The reasons are far more complex than that. It takes a considerable amount of time and resources to build a new game mode or a new piece of content.
I'm sure, if you give a concrete example of where you think balance was prioritized over fun, it would be easier to give you a concrete response as well.
Comp mod, the way I look at it at least, was far more an attempt at shaking up the game to be more fun, than it was to re-balance the game. The game was in fact fairly balanced at the time - it was just getting stale. Nobody in their right mind, would look at the NS2WC and say to themselves "You know, I think it would be more balanced if Marines had an HMG".
The idea was that the HMG would make the game more fun, by removing the "shotgun monopoly".
And we did have combat for a really long time - until they decided to make it stand-alone.
This happens if you try too hard. NS2 has become the serious business that some individuals can't get over.
Except that in CS you play both sides on a single map for 1 point. So you always have a winner. In NS2 playing a map means playing 2 rounds, so 2 points. So a lack of balance in a map or in the gameplay (favoring one side over the other) will end up in draws, which is boring. In that sense, and particular case, the balance of cs and NS2 cannot be compared. It's not relevant
Hell loading times for me have INCREASED since the CDT took over and are now at an intolerable point (for a while the game loaded very quickly and ran fine too! This was around that much publicized lua optimization patch). It comes down to me needing to buy a new computer to run this game, and as I can play most other new and relatively new games just fine its not worth it to do so just for NS2.
P.S. The point about welders is retarded, they in no way require 'high skill'. A total scrub could use a welder to great effect. Knowing to buy them is not high skill, its just a meme.
When it comes to balancing you can ask 100 people and get 100 different "solutions".
Thats why balancing is not a trivial process like "remove the shade and give us offensive chambers"
Every little change can have a huge impact on the whole game and need more rebalancing on the other end maybe after hrs and hrs of testing.
And after this change from above you would see threads like "they removed the shade, now the game isnt fun anymore. RIP. Me and my friends didnt play anymore".
Before the release there was an beta phase and i cant count the features that didnt made it into the release version.
Thats whats an beta is for btw: "balancing and engine finetuning". NS2 needed some rebalancing after the release cause one simple reason: UWE is a small company and they didnt had the time todo the full balancing during beta.
NS2 didnt lose the players cause it is "balanced from the top down", it has lost the players cause it is not "dumbed down".
As i said before, i met so many people who are to dumb for simple deathmatch and im sure my mother has a better aim than these players.
NS2 must be an overkill for this type of players but you cant balance any game for them.
And if you try todo this, something like this would be the result:
If you want pure fun then dont play multiplayer team shooter. In an singleplayer game you can set the diffuculty,noone cares if cant hit shit, you can turn cheats on if you want, etc.
And a small sidenote to the "terrible perfomance":
I would ALWAYS upgrade my computer if my favorite game didnt run the way i like it.
Im doing this since 20 years and this is normal for me. Thats how PC gaming works.
And if you dont like this, a console is the better choice maybe.
I have a 4 year old laptop with a hard drive and the loading times are not that long.
As far as balance goes, it doesn't seem too bad. The only problem is that the hive skill system is trash.
I think the way things are now is fine. Aliens have a pretty big advantage in small games unless the marines have high level aimers, but in big games they don't. Therefore most pubs are 9v9-12v12 and this works fine, as well as decreasing the amount of impact a single player can carry.
What is not relevant, is this distinction you make. But OK, let me give you another example then.
Chess has two sides, white and black. You don't need to know much about chess to know how massive the advantage of white is. Usually in top level chess, the goal for black is to get a tie, not to win.
This is not a problem in competitive chess, because usually they play in a round-robin tournament system - exactly like the nsl league does.
So you can look at it like this. A team who is really strong on veil, will try to win on veil (analogues to having the white pieces). If the team is weak on summit, they will try to tie on summit (analogous to having the black pieces).
So the tournament structure of the nsl is accounting for this exact problem.
Of course, I will grant if the balance is skewed so much in favor of one faction, that you have nothing but ties - THEN you have a problem.
I think something as described in the video - some mechanic/role that is easy to learn for new players, and has decent power to help out their team - could have helped player retention.
On aliens it is kind of okay with the gorge. Gorge is very easy to learn, you can evolve into it right at the start (not like Onos), you can make a difference (well placed tunnels, spitting vs. no-med comms, building shit).
But on marines, you are completely lost as a beginner. Even if you have super great skill in FPS games, chances are you suck at RTS and tactics and therefore get rekt. Of course you could play the (important) role of re-capper, but that is boring as hell.
Most marine rookies are completely useless for me as a comm (I dont even med them during fights, only if they survive)
I wonder if there is a way to give rookies more roles in NS2 (esp. marines), which make them more useful. Maybe some support role (medic with combat shield to block bites or something like that).