As a newbie myself, I would like to see how I get killed so easily every time, it could be the best tutorial
which means, is it possible replay a few seconds - in my enemies' FOV ? just like they did in COD
I 100% agree that a replay system would be the best tutorial. See how you get wrecked by an experienced play is valuable as fuckkkk
The only problem is see here is, that many kills often based on things that happen more than a few seconds ago.
Example:
You run around the map as marine and hear skulk footsteps in the next room.
So you start sneaking slowly to the next room and based on the sound you know the exact position of the skulk hanging over the doorway waiting for the ambush.
So you ran in, target that spot and kill the skulk.
Now we hear the classic question "How did you know?"
With an replay of the last seconds, you wont show the rookie the moment you hear or see the skulk before, wich lead to the kill.
But this might work in combination with a helping system for the new players.
Example:
You run around as skulk and the the game tells you in whatever way "Pssst, there marines nearby, be quite" but you give a shit on this advice and run to your "hide" point.
After that you get killed like in the example from above and see the kill from the killcam view.
Now it should be clear, i was to loud, the marines heard me and im dead.
And if you have people who still cant understand this, no tutorial in the world could help them.
In every "normal" shooter when people trying to ambush or surprise othes they are avoiding noise.
But as skulks it seems they dont care about these basics.
This is something i will never understand.
Cant count the situations where i sneak into the perfect ambush position preparing for the attack and one skulk running straight to my position and waits beside me. *facepalm*
Sometimes i really think that the todays casual players are somewhat of braindead.
I think this even more after playing multiple other games the last 6 month.
Even without a cool and very helpfull tutorial it must be clear that you lose all your stuff on the left side of the map when everyone die there and no spawner go there again.
But i saw exact that countless times. 3 restowers build left, all marines died in a rain of meds, all spawners go to the right.
*facepalm*
Todays players have problems with simple games like CS:Go and i dont want to imagine these players playing NS2.
And believe me, you dont want a NS2 dumbed down to attract these type of casuals.
Every multiplayer shooter where 2 teams face each other is somewhat competitive. The goal is to win a round.
So the "we need to make NS2 to be a fun shooter"-fraction to attract more players is totally wrong here.
Its a very skill based game, and please dont destroy this part.
If you want pure fun, play a good single player game or coop with some friends.
Multiplayer shooters are never pure fun.
Here we have an example how EVERY multiplayer shooter end in the long run:
I still think we should try K:D. This is not LOL. It is NS2. ELO is there so we can have balanced games. Otherwise it does not really mean anything. It is not like we level up our characters or unlock new skins through it.
The original version was based on this, and it nearly killed the game. At the end of the round, the winning team would spawn camp until the server died.
I still think we should try K:D. This is not LOL. It is NS2. ELO is there so we can have balanced games. Otherwise it does not really mean anything. It is not like we level up our characters or unlock new skins through it.
The original version was based on this, and it nearly killed the game. At the end of the round, the winning team would spawn camp until the server died.
Really? Cant remember these times.
Never saw that on my server wich used ns2stats elo shuffle.
And btw:
Current new players dont know where the hive skill points come from, they are thinking its a sklled based elo system.
@moultano Because the old system was statisticaly fataly wrong in its core. But I don't see a harm in tastefully improving accuracy and convergence speed based on some player behavior.
Current system is little harder to interpret, but still, I would like to know, if it's better than random in team balancing. Most people's trust in the system stems from the claim, that it is an Elo system (which is proven to work and intuitively understandable). It is only Elo-inspired system. It is not Elo. Elo works only for games that are 1 vs 1 (that is one player agains other or unchanging teams and certainly not for games where you can quit in the middle and people come and go).
For example one counter-example: Consider AFK player (and no kicking). In classic Elo (let's say blitz chess), he will lose all games and his skill will correctly get a dive to the zero region fast.
In NS2 and proper 12vs12 game he will still win some games and get some skillpoints. His (non)contribution to his team is only 1/12 on average. He still can have close to 1.0 W/L ratio. His convergence from some empiric average beginner score to 0 wil be looooooooooong. In the meantime he will propagate error to other players (He will unfairly shrink positive score of 11 players who plays with him and bloat the positive score of 12 players against him - 23 errors made for 1 small correction). Assume they are mixed by FET in new teams. Every time most players with the shrinked score end up in one team the system have bigger chance to correct itself, but quite unbalanced game happen. In every other configuration of players it creates more errors than corrections. I guess eventualy (after like 100 games) some balance happen. But remember people come and go and shatter the balance all the time. I do not know exactly HOW MUCH wrong the system is, so the system sort of works. That's why I wish to know if it's better at balancing teams than random and by how much.
On the other hand you can try: "player has virtualy no kills and no build time. Hmmm something is suspicious in here. Lets try giving them less SP or let em lose slightly more" and tricks like that (using some indicators of quality/bad gameplay to update the Bayesian belief). You would guess future chances of victory of a boxer based on how much he trained before and how often they found him drunk in the gutter, or am I wrong? I hope that's what people mean by incorporating KDR into the system (and not reversing to the old wrong purely KDR based system).
@Nordic I think personal W/L ratio should not be correlated with Skill. It is correlated with the amount of unbalanced games in his favor the player played. If Skill is strongly correlated with winrate (I assume it means wins/games), then it is an indicator, that either the system assigns too low SP value to them (or too high to less skilled players than them) or they prefer games stacked in their favor (don't know which is worse). Which is nice to know, since we are thinking about new players in this thread.
Sorry to perpetuate (inf+1)th Skill system thread.
@krOoze
I hear a lot of horses...., I hear the cavalry... oh god!!!!
The System of Holy hIve Tribunal is coming for you!!!
You spoke heresy, blasphemy and most unclean words and now they're coming !!! ...They're coming!!!
I don't know if and how many new players read this so discalaimer: Even so, be still nice boys and girls and vote F1 for FET, you hear! This is only a theoretical discussion. Any game is better than stacked game. Do not start games that seem heavily unbalanced by the hive numbers.
@krOoze
I hear a lot of horses...., I hear the cavalry... oh god!!!!
The System of Holy hIve Tribunal is coming for you!!!
You spoke heresy, blasphemy and most unclean words and now they're coming !!! ...They're coming!!!
I found that funny, really. I don't feel the need to respond. The point has been said in this thread in others enough times.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The problem with the current skill system is:
You can have the round of your life, slaughter one marine after another as fade and end 70-1 but still losing skill points only by the fact that you lose the round.
This doesnt make any sense.
Its not motivating and you can only progress by winning.
Killing better players is kind of rewarding and the current system give a shit about that.
The skill-score should reflect the combintion of accuarcy/KDR/score.
With luck you can raise your skill only by beeing the right team without doing any usefull stuff or killing many marines while way more skilled players may have no luck and losing skill points one round after another.
The problem with the current skill system is:
You can have the round of your life, slaughter one marine after another as fade and end 70-1 but still losing skill points only by the fact that you lose the round.
This doesnt make any sense.
Its not motivating and you can only progress by winning.
Killing better players is kind of rewarding and the current system give a shit about that.
And with the KDR system, you can make incredible tactics and be the person to lead the team in to Victory, and be penalized because you spent more time leading the team rather than fragging skulks.
That's just as demoralizing.
Now, your example also happens to be complete bullshit. If you have 70-1 you are unlikely to lose the game.
The problem is that you look at the score as a skill indicator, instead of a measure of how likely you are to win the game. Skill can not be summed up in one scala. I.e. aim and game-sense are two separate categories - summing them up with one number is what makes no sense.
I still think we should try K:D. This is not LOL. It is NS2. ELO is there so we can have balanced games. Otherwise it does not really mean anything. It is not like we level up our characters or unlock new skins through it.
Ns2 is not LoL but the principles of the algorithm are the same and so is the logic. The following picture shows some graphs that depict the correlation of that to skill. You can see that Killrate or K:D correlates to skill with a value of 0.591 while W:L has a correlation value of 0.611.
This shows that even though K:D is not directly measured it still has a very high correlation so skill. K:D does have a large effect on your skill rating, in I can estimate it accounts for 96% of it.
If you are interested here are more stats about the hive skill system.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2015
A elo system is not only based on kdr, it compares you with other players and you getting a higher score if you can kill higher skilled players.
Also it checks your accuracy and score.
Well, thats what skill is: A combination of high accuracy, high kdr and high score.
Skill can not be summed up in one scala. I.e. aim and game-sense are two separate categories - summing them up with one number is what makes no sense.
Your best aim is useless without the needed game-sense.
So a high kdr is the result of gamesense,mapawareness and high accuracy and/or positioning (wich is part of gamesense) and can be indeed one number in the end with the right formular.
If you have a good game-sense but no aim, you are a good player in the end, maybe a commander (Thats why ns2stats had extra commander points for example) but you will never be a top player cause an important part would missing, aim.
So your skill would be lower in the end compared to players who have all these abilitys.
And this makes sense.
Thats why CS:Go is so successfull btw beside all the skins.
It gives the players progression by analysing there skill and putting them in the right skill groups.
Im sure without this mechanism, CS:go would not have so many players.
NS2 has hive ranks, but there pretty useless. There only a small number in the start screen. Thats it.
You want to motivate players?
Give them progression.
And losing skill points despite an awesome personal round is not very motivating.
^ Games telling me what to do to be good and how good I am never motivated me. Prefer to decide myself what my progression is.
People should concentrate on how good they handled last encounter/game. Anything beyond that is history. Sure, having feedback is nice, but not this kind (not dum skillpoints). Death and defeat are often feedback enough. Newbies could use those killcams someone sugested. I would keep Skill Points for team balance only, but that's only my estetic preference. Also you have those separate score point, to tell you, if you are doing something commendable this round.
Win/Loss ratio is the only meaningful stat because this is a team game. This includes pubs.
With any machanic you can have skill 0 = skill 3k.
With perfect mechanic a new account can be purchased...
Quality players who enjoy the game for the game's sake and not for the creation, modding, or updating of the game is who we need to retain. Everything else is just a distraction. These players expect fair play and their perspective is everything.
Better Netcode or servers that only allow low pings could actually benefit perspective of these new players.
With our population pain, we need free weekends to timely showcase this game.
Ok that's it. I'm conjuring the ArchMage from the Statistical Guild Inquisition. He will cast a spell so strong; you will just shit your pants twice before suffering the effect of that spell.
Quick!! start to dance so the averaging spirit will be pleased and hopefully he will be merciful and spare your souls.
(Do you realize that you're paraphrasing what i said months ago?)
I still think we should try K:D. This is not LOL. It is NS2. ELO is there so we can have balanced games. Otherwise it does not really mean anything. It is not like we level up our characters or unlock new skins through it.
The original version was based on this, and it nearly killed the game. At the end of the round, the winning team would spawn camp until the server died.
Really? Cant remember these times.
Never saw that on my server wich used ns2stats elo shuffle.
And btw:
Current new players dont know where the hive skill points come from, they are thinking its a sklled based elo system.
Let's move this to another thread since this one is so full of good feelings and skill system debates will clutter it up. Both the ns2stats system and the hive system are based on elo.
I'm glad to hear that the short term emphasis is going to be on overall "quality of experience" changes during the next development cycle (as opposed to kneejerk tweaks to core game mechanics which will inevitably prove to be divisive within the existing community, regardless of how well-intentioned they are). The one thing I'd like to emphasize is the need to have a three month development strategy tailored to a particular, measurable goal. "Simplification" is an adequate term if we take it to mean "things that make the game decipherable to new audiences". But if the broader goal is to revitalize NS2 and draw a new population to it in hopes of triggering an explosion of interest, the developers need to do everything in their power to retain players when and if the game sees a temporary playercount surge (due to a free weekend or something similar).
Many of the problems described in this forum are actually symptoms of a bigger problem. The issue with NS2 isn't that top players can decimate the competition, but rather that they're often forced to. Why? The NS2 community is heavily compressed. By this I mean to say that there are a limited number of populated servers to choose from at a given time, and highly skilled players invariably wind up facing off with rookies - even if they do their utmost to balance teams - as a result. We can't expect all or even most upper-level players to stick to gathers, private servers, or captain's games.
If ping is an individual concern - and it usually is to top players - this exacerbates the problem. We have a situation where a relatively low population reinforces an incredibly challenging skill curve for newbies. Sure: players who stick through the trial by fire are more likely to become dedicated followers of the game, but this is a small percentage of the total number of players who have given the game a chance.
I mentioned this in another thread, and I acknowledge that the idea is controversial, but I think that UWE should consider making the game free to play at some point in the future. Alternately, they could offer it at a vastly reduced cost. I'll also reiterate that by "free to play" I do not mean "pay to win". If any kind of cosmetic marketplace is introduced in tandem with such a change, it should remain just that: cosmetic purchases only. If NS2 were to go F2P or to relaunch at a significant discount, it would be advisable to have some of the following measures in place prior to the update so as to ensure that newbies don't wind up rejecting the game:
Some unique cosmetic/vanity perks for existing paying customers.
A true matchmaking system which takes a) player team preference, b) skill level, c) win/loss ratio, d) available commanders, and e) server settings into account.
Tournament/competitive league integration.
All of the QoE improvements described in this thread (e.g., better menu systems, better scoreboards, better killspam, informative replays, some method of reinforcing and encouraging map awareness).
Achievements.
A robust tutorial system (ideally designed in such a way that players can watch narrated mock battles unfold using an interactive spectator view)
The challenge, as I see it, is that for a F2P model to work (along with the attendant changes outlined above), the active player count has to reach a certain critical mass. And yet in order for the player count to reach that level, new players need to stick around. The features above would help new players stick around, but they'd have the greatest impact alongside a large influx of new players; without a dramatic leap in activity, stuff like matchmaking is much more challenging to pull off. So while these ideas all relate to one another (and synergize), it's very much an all-in strategy in terms of development investment.
The reason I bring it up is that I worry about how far NS2 can go on the basis of minor QoE improvements alone. In the modern age, most players want to be dropped into a game where they have a reasonable chance of contributing in a positive way. Don't get me wrong: I am NOT advocating for dropping the skill ceiling in any sense. I'm only advocating for measures which improve the game experience for players who still have a long way to climb (which describes the vast majority of potential NS2 fans).
Working as expected IMHO, if a thread is called "Simplifying NS2", all hell will break loose with loads up loads of ideas all competing with each other
@moultano or don't make another one (plenty of em already - no results but the joy of discussion - anything that could possibly be said is already in them). I think we would agree on this and it's on topic:
It would simplify the game, if even teams were made more quickly between rounds (so the actual game would start sooner).
And with that we can change subject. Hopefuly F2P or matchmaking, which does too always turn into pleasant discussions. ;p Maybe too late to save 11 page thread...
@NousWanderer We don't need "most players", we just need a few more to reach that "critical mass". The QoE with some carefull marketing could do it (also some of the enhancements proposed are cheap/fast to make). Especially removing the classical and unnecessary newbie angering. Fix loading times: check. Fix newbie comms angering whole server: fixes proposed in this thread. Help newbies learn safely: some green-friendly things already implemended, more fixes sugested in this thread. That's like fixing 90 % newbie rage quit problems I ever read from them.
Don't take me wrong. My position is that I actually like matchmaking (unless it makes me wait 30 min for no reason whatsoever) and I like free things (I am worried what the hidden cost is).
That reminds me:
Sanbox improvements would be nice. Current one makes you feel like linux commandline haxor, when you need to try something out in it.
@NousWanderer We don't need "most players", we just need a few more to reach that "critical mass".
I don't disagree with your words in the context you've given; everything you said follows from accepting the quoted statement as true. But is it true? I guess this is what I'm getting at. UWE is a business at the end of the day. Our understanding is that they've assembled a team of people who, for the duration of a three-month experiment, will be paid for renewed/continued NS2 development. I can only presume that this is being done in hopes of making a return on that investment. I don't presume this because I think it's wrong to want a return on your investment; I simply presume it because, again, UWE is a business. So that leaves us with a question: what is the scope of this project's ambition?
In the context of this three-month development experiment, what's the goal? Is it to sell as many copies as is possible by advertising a new update in conjunction with a free weekend (and perhaps a follow-up sale)? If so, that's fine: we can't complain, and improvements are improvements. But if that is the goal in itself, it seems somewhat narrow. If it's to try such a thing and then continue on in that fashion with subsequent updates if the initial return suggests an upward trend, that's even better. But if this is all being motivated by a true belief that NS2 still has the chance to be an even bigger, more financially and creatively successful game, then the all-in strategy I outlined in my last post (or something like it) seems to be the only ticket in the long term. A F2P game of NS2's caliber on Steam - IF it had the necessary additions to retain new players - could be a success (as measured by both active players and revenue generated) of a completely different order of magnitude, in multiple new markets. The model is viable across multiple game genres, but making good money off of (reasonably priced) microtransactions / cosmetic marketplace exchanges requires a very large playerbase. It's higher-risk, higher-reward, and it requires a heavy investment in at least most of the features I described.
The disadvantage of continuing the current sales model after it reaches a saturation point is that the likelihood of sufficient growth ("sufficient" in the sense of "desirable") is diminished by NS2's market age, even if the iterative improvements are excellent, and even if they're timed in conjunction with solid marketing pushes. In other words, it means that a worthwhile return on the investment in development cost is less likely (although I fully admit that it's entirely plausible, especially with a small, dedicated team and minimal overhead costs). On the other hand, a F2P (or low-cost) model could potentially expose NS2 to an entirely new market, and that opens up many new options which might secure UWE's interest in (and development of) the game much further into the future.
Ok this might be out of topic from me*. First keep in mind that this game already sold pretty well steamspy.com/app/4920
The focus can be on attracting new players but pretty much everyone who wanted to play it already bought it for 1$. What you want before any F2P system is retention, to have a slow gain of players every month. I think this is what they want adress with this "simplifying NS2" thread. Although i don't know how they will suceed. They'll either need to make old players come back (and there is a lot them) or new players buy a 2012 game. And to do that you need something like Natural Selection 2.5 (new menu, matchmaking.... or wathever, no one has the perfect answer). They tried to push customization, player hub with hive, competitive scene with WCS, new mechanics (balance mod), new maps, new mods (last man standing among others). Simplification might be the right answer (too late?), atleast they are trying (and they already have a ton of things just with the first 8 pages)
Ok this might be out of topic. First keep in mind that this game already sold pretty well steamspy.com/app/4920
The focus can be on attracting new players but pretty much everyone who wanted to play it already bought it for 1$. What you want before any F2P system is retention, to have a slow gain of players every month. I think this is what they want adress with this "simplifying NS2" thread. Although i don't know how they will suceed. They'll either need to make old players come back (and there is a lot them) or new players buy a 2012 game. And to do that you need something like Natural Selection 2.5 (new menu, matchmaking.... or wathever, no one has the perfect answer). They tried to push customization, player hub with hive, competitive scene with WCS, new mechanics (balance mod), new maps, new mods (last man standing among others). Simplification might be the right answer (too late?), atleast they are trying (and they already have a ton of things just with the first 8 pages)
Oh, don't take me the wrong way! I definitely know that NS2 is a success. I'm simply speaking from the perspective of someone who absolutely loves the game, and who wants UWE to dedicate themselves to the franchise for a long time to come.
I agree: we need retention. But it's a bit of a balancing act with the limited development resources we have. I agree with what you're saying, and I'm glad they're trying this latest development push. My concern, however, is that we will be unable to get the retention we need without something as big as a systemic change to the process by which new players enter the community. In other words, I'm worried that without all of those "NS2.5"-sized things (e.g., matchmaking, etc.), the three-month experiment they're beginning now won't be sustainable in the long(er) term. Much love and respect to UWE for keeping the dream alive. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because I'm wondering how to maximize the efficacy of the limited resources being devoted to the game right now, and because I'm wondering what degree of short term growth/retention would be necessary for UWE to consider the experiment a success and move to introduce some of those even bigger, more resource-intensive changes.
In terms of being on topic, I just want to add that some of these "2.5"-sized changes would actually simplify the experience of the game for a majority (if not all) of new players, so I think they're relevant from that perspective. They're just huge coding projects, so it's easier to think of them in terms of "complexity of effort required" (input) as opposed to "simplicity and elegance of end result" (output).
@NousWanderer Still F2P seems like a bad fit to me. Is there really any successful precedent?
Dota and clones: you pay to access classes and to have more effective stuff sooner
Robocraft and clones / creative games: you pay to be able to build more interesting stuff sooner
FPS/Team shooters or plane/tank/spacecraft battles: you pay for better ammo, guns, ships, abilities and whatnot with higher DMG multiplier
Hearthstone and clones, collector games: you pay to own stuff, that will make you stronger and win more frequently and you pay per round
should I go on? Where do you want to fit your NS2.5 in there? Give me an example of similar successful F2P game.
I have to agree that Free to Play is sending off some bad vibes for me. I think that if we want to bring back some players AND new players without making the game to difficult to learn for rookies,bring back old features that got alot of positive feedback! I don't really know how to explain it well,um....I'm sure there's a butt-load of features that were removed/changed that alot of players miss,I however can't name any specific ones
Basically,I'm saying the Devs should maybe look at older builds and see what players liked most,and bring em back! (Improved of course!)
Like,ya know....I-I'm just saying....if they wanna make Blink cool again...ya know.....it'd be...p-pretty cool (I'm sorry,the fade's my favorite and blink isn't the same as before :c) Things like that however can wait since most of that suggestion is purely aesthetic. Things like aesthetics should let fixes/balances,ect. go first,THEN they can get added!
Sorry if this is off the current subject,i've been away for a while
Basically any F2P FPS with a cosmetic marketplace serves as an adequate example, although I am the first to admit that there are myriad differences between NS2 and most FPS games. TF2 is an obvious case study, although there are clear downsides to Valve's lack of of aesthetic quality control (to say the least). And I don't mean to suggest that there aren't major downsides to going F2P, by the way. There are many. I'd expect hacking would become a much more serious problem, for instance.
But that's because F2P games generally receive massive influxes of players regardless of whether or not there's a cosmetic marketplace at launch (or any form of monetization). But when there is a well-integrated cosmetics marketplace, some subset of the now vastly increased user population will take advantage of it and make the developer money (because differentiating ourselves in even trivial ways - nameplates, taunts, skins, badges, weapon models, custom titles - is something humans enjoy doing).
One question is how long NS2 sales can support UWE's active involvement under the current sales model. Another question is whether or not there's a hypothetical transition period in the future during which time it would make financial sense to begin planning for a major overhaul (see "NS2.5" in previous posts) so that the resulting game would be able to sustain the population going F2P would bring.
Another way to phrase my perspective and to once again relate it to the topic:
A number of the things that UWE would have to do in order to sustain a F2P population are things it should do anyway if the goal is to make the game more accessible to new audiences starting now. Some examples include a great tutorial system, matchmaking (incl. preferential filters and commander sorting), league integration, achievements, etc. These needn't be considered equal priority, but I think they represent the direction UWE should be aiming toward when enriching the game with the goal of retention.
Yet these are all mid to high-complexity projects, and so they may not seem like they offer the best cost-benefit ratio if the current development team is limited to the stated three-month experimental window for making productive changes while getting paid. My contention, if I have one (I'm mostly just considering possibilities in the open), is that these features might be the best things to prioritize, anyway, even on a small budget and with a lack of time. Getting them into the game will give NS2 the flexibility it needs for mass introduction to big audiences, leaving that option open to UWE. And the only reason I find that option attractive in particular is that it represents one possible future in which NS2 not only provides an adequate return, but actually thrives.
Anyway, to realign the conversation a bit: I'm definitely eager to see what happens in the next three months, and some of the ideas in this thread are spot on.
Comments
The only problem is see here is, that many kills often based on things that happen more than a few seconds ago.
Example:
You run around the map as marine and hear skulk footsteps in the next room.
So you start sneaking slowly to the next room and based on the sound you know the exact position of the skulk hanging over the doorway waiting for the ambush.
So you ran in, target that spot and kill the skulk.
Now we hear the classic question "How did you know?"
With an replay of the last seconds, you wont show the rookie the moment you hear or see the skulk before, wich lead to the kill.
But this might work in combination with a helping system for the new players.
Example:
You run around as skulk and the the game tells you in whatever way "Pssst, there marines nearby, be quite" but you give a shit on this advice and run to your "hide" point.
After that you get killed like in the example from above and see the kill from the killcam view.
Now it should be clear, i was to loud, the marines heard me and im dead.
And if you have people who still cant understand this, no tutorial in the world could help them.
In every "normal" shooter when people trying to ambush or surprise othes they are avoiding noise.
But as skulks it seems they dont care about these basics.
This is something i will never understand.
Cant count the situations where i sneak into the perfect ambush position preparing for the attack and one skulk running straight to my position and waits beside me. *facepalm*
Sometimes i really think that the todays casual players are somewhat of braindead.
I think this even more after playing multiple other games the last 6 month.
Even without a cool and very helpfull tutorial it must be clear that you lose all your stuff on the left side of the map when everyone die there and no spawner go there again.
But i saw exact that countless times. 3 restowers build left, all marines died in a rain of meds, all spawners go to the right.
*facepalm*
Todays players have problems with simple games like CS:Go and i dont want to imagine these players playing NS2.
And believe me, you dont want a NS2 dumbed down to attract these type of casuals.
Every multiplayer shooter where 2 teams face each other is somewhat competitive. The goal is to win a round.
So the "we need to make NS2 to be a fun shooter"-fraction to attract more players is totally wrong here.
Its a very skill based game, and please dont destroy this part.
If you want pure fun, play a good single player game or coop with some friends.
Multiplayer shooters are never pure fun.
Here we have an example how EVERY multiplayer shooter end in the long run:
The original version was based on this, and it nearly killed the game. At the end of the round, the winning team would spawn camp until the server died.
Really? Cant remember these times.
Never saw that on my server wich used ns2stats elo shuffle.
And btw:
Current new players dont know where the hive skill points come from, they are thinking its a sklled based elo system.
*removed youtube video -please do not embed youtube videos - and please keep on topic
Ahhhh there we got it... nailed it...
Current system is little harder to interpret, but still, I would like to know, if it's better than random in team balancing. Most people's trust in the system stems from the claim, that it is an Elo system (which is proven to work and intuitively understandable). It is only Elo-inspired system. It is not Elo. Elo works only for games that are 1 vs 1 (that is one player agains other or unchanging teams and certainly not for games where you can quit in the middle and people come and go).
For example one counter-example: Consider AFK player (and no kicking). In classic Elo (let's say blitz chess), he will lose all games and his skill will correctly get a dive to the zero region fast.
In NS2 and proper 12vs12 game he will still win some games and get some skillpoints. His (non)contribution to his team is only 1/12 on average. He still can have close to 1.0 W/L ratio. His convergence from some empiric average beginner score to 0 wil be looooooooooong. In the meantime he will propagate error to other players (He will unfairly shrink positive score of 11 players who plays with him and bloat the positive score of 12 players against him - 23 errors made for 1 small correction). Assume they are mixed by FET in new teams. Every time most players with the shrinked score end up in one team the system have bigger chance to correct itself, but quite unbalanced game happen. In every other configuration of players it creates more errors than corrections. I guess eventualy (after like 100 games) some balance happen. But remember people come and go and shatter the balance all the time. I do not know exactly HOW MUCH wrong the system is, so the system sort of works. That's why I wish to know if it's better at balancing teams than random and by how much.
On the other hand you can try: "player has virtualy no kills and no build time. Hmmm something is suspicious in here. Lets try giving them less SP or let em lose slightly more" and tricks like that (using some indicators of quality/bad gameplay to update the Bayesian belief). You would guess future chances of victory of a boxer based on how much he trained before and how often they found him drunk in the gutter, or am I wrong? I hope that's what people mean by incorporating KDR into the system (and not reversing to the old wrong purely KDR based system).
@Nordic I think personal W/L ratio should not be correlated with Skill. It is correlated with the amount of unbalanced games in his favor the player played. If Skill is strongly correlated with winrate (I assume it means wins/games), then it is an indicator, that either the system assigns too low SP value to them (or too high to less skilled players than them) or they prefer games stacked in their favor (don't know which is worse). Which is nice to know, since we are thinking about new players in this thread.
Sorry to perpetuate (inf+1)th Skill system thread.
I hear a lot of horses...., I hear the cavalry... oh god!!!!
The System of Holy hIve Tribunal is coming for you!!!
You spoke heresy, blasphemy and most unclean words and now they're coming !!! ...They're coming!!!
I don't know if and how many new players read this so discalaimer: Even so, be still nice boys and girls and vote F1 for FET, you hear! This is only a theoretical discussion. Any game is better than stacked game. Do not start games that seem heavily unbalanced by the hive numbers.
I found that funny, really. I don't feel the need to respond. The point has been said in this thread in others enough times.
You can have the round of your life, slaughter one marine after another as fade and end 70-1 but still losing skill points only by the fact that you lose the round.
This doesnt make any sense.
Its not motivating and you can only progress by winning.
Killing better players is kind of rewarding and the current system give a shit about that.
The skill-score should reflect the combintion of accuarcy/KDR/score.
With luck you can raise your skill only by beeing the right team without doing any usefull stuff or killing many marines while way more skilled players may have no luck and losing skill points one round after another.
That's just as demoralizing.
Now, your example also happens to be complete bullshit. If you have 70-1 you are unlikely to lose the game.
The problem is that you look at the score as a skill indicator, instead of a measure of how likely you are to win the game. Skill can not be summed up in one scala. I.e. aim and game-sense are two separate categories - summing them up with one number is what makes no sense.
Thanks for the link.
Also it checks your accuracy and score.
Well, thats what skill is: A combination of high accuracy, high kdr and high score.
Thats how every skill system out there work.
Your best aim is useless without the needed game-sense.
So a high kdr is the result of gamesense,mapawareness and high accuracy and/or positioning (wich is part of gamesense) and can be indeed one number in the end with the right formular.
If you have a good game-sense but no aim, you are a good player in the end, maybe a commander (Thats why ns2stats had extra commander points for example) but you will never be a top player cause an important part would missing, aim.
So your skill would be lower in the end compared to players who have all these abilitys.
And this makes sense.
Thats why CS:Go is so successfull btw beside all the skins.
It gives the players progression by analysing there skill and putting them in the right skill groups.
Im sure without this mechanism, CS:go would not have so many players.
NS2 has hive ranks, but there pretty useless. There only a small number in the start screen. Thats it.
You want to motivate players?
Give them progression.
And losing skill points despite an awesome personal round is not very motivating.
People should concentrate on how good they handled last encounter/game. Anything beyond that is history. Sure, having feedback is nice, but not this kind (not dum skillpoints). Death and defeat are often feedback enough. Newbies could use those killcams someone sugested. I would keep Skill Points for team balance only, but that's only my estetic preference. Also you have those separate score point, to tell you, if you are doing something commendable this round.
With any machanic you can have skill 0 = skill 3k.
With perfect mechanic a new account can be purchased...
Quality players who enjoy the game for the game's sake and not for the creation, modding, or updating of the game is who we need to retain. Everything else is just a distraction. These players expect fair play and their perspective is everything.
Better Netcode or servers that only allow low pings could actually benefit perspective of these new players.
With our population pain, we need free weekends to timely showcase this game.
...
Quick!! start to dance so the averaging spirit will be pleased and hopefully he will be merciful and spare your souls.
(Do you realize that you're paraphrasing what i said months ago?)
Let's move this to another thread since this one is so full of good feelings and skill system debates will clutter it up. Both the ns2stats system and the hive system are based on elo.
Many of the problems described in this forum are actually symptoms of a bigger problem. The issue with NS2 isn't that top players can decimate the competition, but rather that they're often forced to. Why? The NS2 community is heavily compressed. By this I mean to say that there are a limited number of populated servers to choose from at a given time, and highly skilled players invariably wind up facing off with rookies - even if they do their utmost to balance teams - as a result. We can't expect all or even most upper-level players to stick to gathers, private servers, or captain's games.
If ping is an individual concern - and it usually is to top players - this exacerbates the problem. We have a situation where a relatively low population reinforces an incredibly challenging skill curve for newbies. Sure: players who stick through the trial by fire are more likely to become dedicated followers of the game, but this is a small percentage of the total number of players who have given the game a chance.
I mentioned this in another thread, and I acknowledge that the idea is controversial, but I think that UWE should consider making the game free to play at some point in the future. Alternately, they could offer it at a vastly reduced cost. I'll also reiterate that by "free to play" I do not mean "pay to win". If any kind of cosmetic marketplace is introduced in tandem with such a change, it should remain just that: cosmetic purchases only. If NS2 were to go F2P or to relaunch at a significant discount, it would be advisable to have some of the following measures in place prior to the update so as to ensure that newbies don't wind up rejecting the game:
The challenge, as I see it, is that for a F2P model to work (along with the attendant changes outlined above), the active player count has to reach a certain critical mass. And yet in order for the player count to reach that level, new players need to stick around. The features above would help new players stick around, but they'd have the greatest impact alongside a large influx of new players; without a dramatic leap in activity, stuff like matchmaking is much more challenging to pull off. So while these ideas all relate to one another (and synergize), it's very much an all-in strategy in terms of development investment.
The reason I bring it up is that I worry about how far NS2 can go on the basis of minor QoE improvements alone. In the modern age, most players want to be dropped into a game where they have a reasonable chance of contributing in a positive way. Don't get me wrong: I am NOT advocating for dropping the skill ceiling in any sense. I'm only advocating for measures which improve the game experience for players who still have a long way to climb (which describes the vast majority of potential NS2 fans).
Working as expected IMHO, if a thread is called "Simplifying NS2", all hell will break loose with loads up loads of ideas all competing with each other
- It would simplify the game, if even teams were made more quickly between rounds (so the actual game would start sooner).
And with that we can change subject. Hopefuly F2P or matchmaking, which does too always turn into pleasant discussions. ;p Maybe too late to save 11 page thread...@NousWanderer We don't need "most players", we just need a few more to reach that "critical mass". The QoE with some carefull marketing could do it (also some of the enhancements proposed are cheap/fast to make). Especially removing the classical and unnecessary newbie angering. Fix loading times: check. Fix newbie comms angering whole server: fixes proposed in this thread. Help newbies learn safely: some green-friendly things already implemended, more fixes sugested in this thread. That's like fixing 90 % newbie rage quit problems I ever read from them.
Don't take me wrong. My position is that I actually like matchmaking (unless it makes me wait 30 min for no reason whatsoever) and I like free things (I am worried what the hidden cost is).
That reminds me:
In the context of this three-month development experiment, what's the goal? Is it to sell as many copies as is possible by advertising a new update in conjunction with a free weekend (and perhaps a follow-up sale)? If so, that's fine: we can't complain, and improvements are improvements. But if that is the goal in itself, it seems somewhat narrow. If it's to try such a thing and then continue on in that fashion with subsequent updates if the initial return suggests an upward trend, that's even better. But if this is all being motivated by a true belief that NS2 still has the chance to be an even bigger, more financially and creatively successful game, then the all-in strategy I outlined in my last post (or something like it) seems to be the only ticket in the long term. A F2P game of NS2's caliber on Steam - IF it had the necessary additions to retain new players - could be a success (as measured by both active players and revenue generated) of a completely different order of magnitude, in multiple new markets. The model is viable across multiple game genres, but making good money off of (reasonably priced) microtransactions / cosmetic marketplace exchanges requires a very large playerbase. It's higher-risk, higher-reward, and it requires a heavy investment in at least most of the features I described.
The disadvantage of continuing the current sales model after it reaches a saturation point is that the likelihood of sufficient growth ("sufficient" in the sense of "desirable") is diminished by NS2's market age, even if the iterative improvements are excellent, and even if they're timed in conjunction with solid marketing pushes. In other words, it means that a worthwhile return on the investment in development cost is less likely (although I fully admit that it's entirely plausible, especially with a small, dedicated team and minimal overhead costs). On the other hand, a F2P (or low-cost) model could potentially expose NS2 to an entirely new market, and that opens up many new options which might secure UWE's interest in (and development of) the game much further into the future.
Ok this might be out of topic from me*. First keep in mind that this game already sold pretty well
steamspy.com/app/4920
The focus can be on attracting new players but pretty much everyone who wanted to play it already bought it for 1$. What you want before any F2P system is retention, to have a slow gain of players every month. I think this is what they want adress with this "simplifying NS2" thread. Although i don't know how they will suceed. They'll either need to make old players come back (and there is a lot them) or new players buy a 2012 game. And to do that you need something like Natural Selection 2.5 (new menu, matchmaking.... or wathever, no one has the perfect answer). They tried to push customization, player hub with hive, competitive scene with WCS, new mechanics (balance mod), new maps, new mods (last man standing among others). Simplification might be the right answer (too late?), atleast they are trying (and they already have a ton of things just with the first 8 pages)
Edit "you shall refresh the page before posting"
I agree: we need retention. But it's a bit of a balancing act with the limited development resources we have. I agree with what you're saying, and I'm glad they're trying this latest development push. My concern, however, is that we will be unable to get the retention we need without something as big as a systemic change to the process by which new players enter the community. In other words, I'm worried that without all of those "NS2.5"-sized things (e.g., matchmaking, etc.), the three-month experiment they're beginning now won't be sustainable in the long(er) term. Much love and respect to UWE for keeping the dream alive. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because I'm wondering how to maximize the efficacy of the limited resources being devoted to the game right now, and because I'm wondering what degree of short term growth/retention would be necessary for UWE to consider the experiment a success and move to introduce some of those even bigger, more resource-intensive changes.
In terms of being on topic, I just want to add that some of these "2.5"-sized changes would actually simplify the experience of the game for a majority (if not all) of new players, so I think they're relevant from that perspective. They're just huge coding projects, so it's easier to think of them in terms of "complexity of effort required" (input) as opposed to "simplicity and elegance of end result" (output).
Dota and clones: you pay to access classes and to have more effective stuff sooner
Robocraft and clones / creative games: you pay to be able to build more interesting stuff sooner
FPS/Team shooters or plane/tank/spacecraft battles: you pay for better ammo, guns, ships, abilities and whatnot with higher DMG multiplier
Hearthstone and clones, collector games: you pay to own stuff, that will make you stronger and win more frequently and you pay per round
should I go on? Where do you want to fit your NS2.5 in there? Give me an example of similar successful F2P game.
Basically,I'm saying the Devs should maybe look at older builds and see what players liked most,and bring em back! (Improved of course!)
Like,ya know....I-I'm just saying....if they wanna make Blink cool again...ya know.....it'd be...p-pretty cool
Sorry if this is off the current subject,i've been away for a while
But that's because F2P games generally receive massive influxes of players regardless of whether or not there's a cosmetic marketplace at launch (or any form of monetization). But when there is a well-integrated cosmetics marketplace, some subset of the now vastly increased user population will take advantage of it and make the developer money (because differentiating ourselves in even trivial ways - nameplates, taunts, skins, badges, weapon models, custom titles - is something humans enjoy doing).
One question is how long NS2 sales can support UWE's active involvement under the current sales model. Another question is whether or not there's a hypothetical transition period in the future during which time it would make financial sense to begin planning for a major overhaul (see "NS2.5" in previous posts) so that the resulting game would be able to sustain the population going F2P would bring.
Another way to phrase my perspective and to once again relate it to the topic:
A number of the things that UWE would have to do in order to sustain a F2P population are things it should do anyway if the goal is to make the game more accessible to new audiences starting now. Some examples include a great tutorial system, matchmaking (incl. preferential filters and commander sorting), league integration, achievements, etc. These needn't be considered equal priority, but I think they represent the direction UWE should be aiming toward when enriching the game with the goal of retention.
Yet these are all mid to high-complexity projects, and so they may not seem like they offer the best cost-benefit ratio if the current development team is limited to the stated three-month experimental window for making productive changes while getting paid. My contention, if I have one (I'm mostly just considering possibilities in the open), is that these features might be the best things to prioritize, anyway, even on a small budget and with a lack of time. Getting them into the game will give NS2 the flexibility it needs for mass introduction to big audiences, leaving that option open to UWE. And the only reason I find that option attractive in particular is that it represents one possible future in which NS2 not only provides an adequate return, but actually thrives.
Anyway, to realign the conversation a bit: I'm definitely eager to see what happens in the next three months, and some of the ideas in this thread are spot on.