Why spoon-feeding game mechanics won't increase player count
.trixX.
Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
The recent approach to updates seems to have taken a path that concentrates on ease of play to attract more players. While this may sound logical, but the reality is that the game started losing it's distinct character which is far more important to players.
Take XCOM2 for example. I know i know, it's a completely different genre and also a single, but read me out.
I've recently started playing it, and was quite overwhelmed by the game mechanics. There is little to no info about either the strategic world overview, or the tactical missions. I've started a game and ended up running out of time. I missed some crucial upgrades and contact making at the beginning, which built up over time. This forced me to start a new campaign, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it, BECAUSE I LEARNED.
If xcom approached it by detailing every single nuisance about the game, it wouldn't be as rewarding.
And xcom is a huge success, not a blockbuster mind you, but close as any TBS got.
So I plead to the devs, please don't change the character of the game by HP bars and alike. Or at least make it optional, only force it on rookie servers, whatever.
At the moment, I only see darkness and demise as the future for NS
Alienating the comp guys plays a huge role in that... They are like the backbone to every multi game.
Take XCOM2 for example. I know i know, it's a completely different genre and also a single, but read me out.
I've recently started playing it, and was quite overwhelmed by the game mechanics. There is little to no info about either the strategic world overview, or the tactical missions. I've started a game and ended up running out of time. I missed some crucial upgrades and contact making at the beginning, which built up over time. This forced me to start a new campaign, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it, BECAUSE I LEARNED.
If xcom approached it by detailing every single nuisance about the game, it wouldn't be as rewarding.
And xcom is a huge success, not a blockbuster mind you, but close as any TBS got.
So I plead to the devs, please don't change the character of the game by HP bars and alike. Or at least make it optional, only force it on rookie servers, whatever.
At the moment, I only see darkness and demise as the future for NS
Alienating the comp guys plays a huge role in that... They are like the backbone to every multi game.
Comments
I played a couple of rounds on Docking in the beta at Rezzed Expo... 2012? ...and these are some of the things that I remember to this day:
- The fantastic art style of the map, where each room (especially Generator, Bar and Departures) really had it's own character
- First encroaching in to Khaara territory and getting an overwhelming sense of dread - I knew I didn't belong
- Feeling like an all-powerful killing machine when I evolved in to Onos
- First walking through a Phase Gate and being completely disoriented in this previously unseen, but still really cool-looking, room
- An overwhelming sense of glee as I successfully ambushed a Marine as a cloaked Skulk.
This drew me to the game, got me to pre-order, and kept me playing on-and-off for many years. Despite it's balance problems, I enjoyed playing because of how the game made me feel. Whether you won or lost, I enjoyed myself.Unfortunately, almost everything I previously liked about the game is now gone:
- Endless balance changes have turned interesting map rooms in to bland, generic boxes. The interesting "loop" outside Docking's bar is now a corridor. Everything north of Courtyard is a mis-mash of blue corridors and rooms that all look the same - even Generator feels more lifeless. The route to East Wing with it's wide, destroyed "runway" is now another bland blue corridor. Landing Pad is a completely useless room - surprised that's not just a corridor now too. And the most depressing thing is, the endless, incessant talk and desire to turn this game in to a competitive shooter with perfect map balance and equally-skilled teams has made me care about the balance too, so now I can't even enjoy pretty maps like Biodome and Derelict because "such-and-such room is overpowered". I never thought a slightly-too-powerful ARCing spot would ever matter to me, but with the way people now play the game - it does.
- There is no tiptoeing about when you reach infestation, scared you'll be found out, trying to sneak a phase gate down or grab a crafty kill. Mineshaft's Cave is no longer this jaw-dropping spectacle. You turn infestation down to it's lowest setting so people don't have an advantage over you, and then just sprint in without a care in the world to go and egg-lock a team or take out a Gorge Tunnel. There really is no need for infestation in the game any more - the atmosphere has long gone.
- Onos no longer feels powerful. This (previously) 75 resource cost lifeform that you saved all game for so that you could use it to turn the tide of the battle and scare the crap out of the Marine side is now just a weak pinata, ripe for a face full of bullets that you need to play cautiously with, barely making a dent in the enemy. The second-most costly lifeform is more of a game changer than the Onos because the skill ceiling is SO much higher with Fade.
It's hard to pinpoint why these changes were made. As much as I wish this game never kicked-off competitively, so that an enjoyable game experience was still more important than a balanced game experience (and I will argue 'til I'm blue in the face that they aren't the same thing), I also wonder if the popularity of larger player-count servers (18+) is just as to blame - how can you realistically expect to do anything but "grind the phase gate" when there's a chance a dozen Marine's will pop out of it if you don't? Or maybe it's just spending time with the game for so long - the awe and wonder has simply... worn off.Games have turned stale, clinical and formulaic, with no room to experiment with different technology paths and no room for error on any team. I feel sorry for new players experiencing the game for the first time, now. They're never going to get those feelings I did. They're going to join a server, and instead of finding their footing and learning the ropes as they explore everything the game has to offer, they're instead going to experience the following:
- Endless server shuffling and people complaining about balance
- Players shouting at them via microphone to "go here" or "do that" when all they want to do is experience the game
- Kill, accuracy, skill and damage scoreboards popping up, forcing the focus on statistics instead of ENJOYMENT
- Dying over and over in another-room-that-looks-the-same-as-the-last because the teams are stacked and people are caring way too hard about their hive skill level
I've seen my girlfriend learn the game (she's been playing about 6 months, knocked up about 50 hours), and if it wasn't for me teaching her the ropes and helping her get past that initial skill jump, I'm almost certain she would have packed up the game almost instantly. None of that sense of wonder was there, and she checks her hive skill after every game.New players must feel like I do in CounterStrike. Hopelessly useless, in a bland-looking corridor shooter against people far better than me, with no hope of ever enjoying the game because all it's about is the balance, strategy, positioning, lane-blocking, economy, etc. that I've come in too far too late. Yes, a lot of people might enjoy that kind of thing, but for the rest of them who want a little more atmosphere in their games, they're just going to look elsewhere. In my opinion Natural Selection 2 went in the wrong direction, and has ultimately suffered for it.
In many ways I totally agree with you, watching old videos, like the NS2 trailer, map release trailers, lifeform release trailers, early games on pretty much any map pre-gorgeous patch, watching them made me nostalgic... it literally made me want to play NS2, and then I loaded up NS2 and my reaction was "meh, its just not the same".
Not only is the game worse off graphically (this isn't just the "I've played for over 2k hours so i'm used to it" syndrome, look it up, the graphics are actually worse) the atmosphere is all but gone, as you said, the maps are bland, more "balanced" but just plain bland.
I have played competitively for a long time so I thought it may just be my settings etc, so I upped my graphics from minimal "I want FPS damnit!" to "screw FPS, make it pretty" aaaaaand... nope, still lacking atmosphere, and everything feels bland. Don't get me wrong, it looked "better" but its just not the same.
I remember the wallhop mechanic for skulks being introduced, gorge tunnels being introduced, fades having shadowstep removed in favour of blink, lerks bite rate being massively increase, infestation that parasited marines (that didn't last long LOL!) Onos charge being INSANE, Leap causing damage on impact etc... A lot of things have been changed in the name of "balance" and has resulted in a game that is predictable and just by looking at the clock at the top of your screen you can judge what is about to happen.
I genuinely pray that NS3 is secretly in the works, NS2 is still my most played game at the moment, but its just not what it once was and something needs to replace it and soon.
Sounds like NS2 is the wrong game for you.
Tbh, what you guys mentioned (interesting vs balanced game) is a bloody hard thing to achieve.
Take a look at kodiak for eg. I simply love the map, but it never gets played because of "balance issues"...
Sounds like you just got past the charm of novelty. Most of the things you describe are simply the things you start paying attention to after you learn the game more intricately; a lot of them have not even changed, only your perception of them has. Complaints about balance, the focus on stats and tactical communication has been with the game from the very beginning, you just didn't care about them yourself because you were too busy awing at the graphics and being scared of aliens. The maps were at their blandest early to the game's life, but you remember them as these sparkling wonderlands because they were new. The game is just as atmospheric as when you began playing, you just don't care as much. That's why multiplayer games do not and should not concentrate on atmosphere; it wears off and is more suitable to single-player games that you play through once and don't have to worry about performing.
Sure, there are probably a lot of players like you who prefer atmosphere over the gameplay itself and would voice similar complaints (however misguided), but these are not the people the game is for. If the game had a 100% focus on atmosphere, these people would laud it as the next greatest thing and then stop playing after 50 hours. Because atmosphere does not carry a game once you've seen it all several times over, good gameplay does.
For what little data I do have from between b279 to b297, it appears casual players outnumber skilled players many times over. That would be actively playing players. The average hive skill being so low at about 1250 seems to support that.
This was done because many of those who were past the novelty stage wanted something that made it easier to detect and track aliens.
Personally, I felt like this was a horrible idea as it came with balance implications but nobody minded simply because the winrate that aliens enjoyed at the time, all while removing the atmosphere.
Low lights did not exist at this time, but they did follow in the same vein, while also cutting down on the number of lights for performance.
Even though I am way beyond the novelty stage, I still run with rich infestation, shadows, AA, high particles, high textures etc. (No AO because I dont dig on mouse input delay, and sadly no bloom because it has artifacts)
So some of us DO enjoy atmosphere/setting even when we are playing the game to win instead of playing the game to enjoy the visuals.
To backup my claim (and memory) here's some random comparison screenshots I made real quick - not the best examples but they demonstrate my point.
Note that I could not get atmospherics to match, but other than that its the same settings in the same rooms..
Notice the subtleties? Notice shadows missing? Differences in room color? Less Lights?
And then something I wish would've been toned down instead of removed:
How shortly after release?
The second data source is hive, which is a quality data source. Hive lacks context though. I can tell you that the average hive skill is 1250, but not much more. That is even 1250 average hive skill for active players.
The fact that the average hive skill is that low, 1250, seems to support that most players playing NS2 are casual. This does not mean that competitive players aren't important, but that they are a minority. Competitive players also play significantly more than the average player, so they are in the servers more often. Does it even out? I don't know.
The ENSL and competitive scene ending is visible in the data. In b279 competitive games, as in actual competitive game, competitive games were 5% of all games. By b297 it was under 1%. By now, I bet there is even less.
Fade pants and Gorge belly bouncing!
In CS:GO they've simply removed any darker areas in maps to eliminate the visibililty advantage that existed in 1.6. Obviously they don't rely that much on the dark scifi aesthetic, so it seemed a bit of an unnecessary fight in the first place. Meanwhile they seem to have nailed a pretty good consistency on smoke visibility with various settings for example.
Have the playetesters been playing around with NS2 and darkness on various settings and systems?
This entire ordeal reminds me of NS1.04 vs NS3.2, where the maps were also much more atmospheric and had character, while also devouring the GoldSrc alive
Like gorge tunnels for example... Being able to place them anywhere was fun, and added an element of strategy (hiding them) as well as a sense of urgency (and teamwork) for marines to find/kill them...
Unfortunately because there were a couple of overpowered spots (above chasm in refinery for example) they were restricted to only the most obvious and out in the open places.. Hiding a tunnel has become a thing of the past...
Another more recent example is atmospheric territories.. That was a great addition that was rejected because it supposedly ruined balance...
I'm of the mindset that we could use more fun abilities and weapons to mix things up.. Stuff like devour (from combat not ns1) lerk lift, rail gun rifles, flamethrowers and welders for exos, allow exos to pick each weapon/arm independently...
Allow tunnels to be placed anywhere again and just fix the op spots (preferably by making them accessible to marines) let marines build some stuff like mini sentries or barricades that could be used to block corridors instead of armories...
If something is found to be overpowered or unbalanced then tweak it or give the other team a counter... Don't just remove them or nerf them into uselessness...
If every game is a long back and forth struggle with everyone having fun, then who cares if marines/aliens win more.. Balance won't matter as much..
To such things, I usually say : Get better hardware.
The game was promoted from day 1 as having dynamic lighting in a MP game, with moody screenshots and development pics suggesting a rich atmosphere.
If you know you're going into a game with some darkness, and you know you're going to be impeded by it, either crank that gamma/brightness up or go buy a real monitor.
A game shouldn't be designed on assuming you aren't going to meet a minimum hardware requirement, like a properly lit monitor. (We don't restrict design for controllers' sake because a customer doesn't have a good mouse, right?)
In the case of NS2, the darkness serves more than just aesthetics/atmosphere given the viable and encouraged tactic of ambushing as a skulk.
Atmo mod went a step further and gave marines a useful flashlight finally with lots of adjustments, to ensure that the majority of the screen would be lit at even further distances and with no blinding bloom.
Meaning I had even less sympathy for those with dark monitors during that testing.
Games have been a major motivator for newer and better hardware since the beginning of PC gaming. Holding back design to accommodate those that cannot meet such a low requirement means everyone else loses too. Especially if those users are a minority of the playerbase. (HELLO 32 BIT OPERATING SYSTEMS)
It's a very tricky combination and in all honesty I don't know Spark or modern systems well enough to understand what kind of things work consistently across the board and which ones less so due to different setups and all that.
Yes, let us make the game into a heap of unbalanced shit so that pubbers can cry even more when they are frustrated about being destroyed by not actual skill anymore which you can essentially counter by you know, being better, but by arbitrary "FUN" abilities you can do jack shit about.
Imagine all the fun and joy you will have when that sea of oni(roughly 10) comes crashing down and devours your entire team. Every round. Every time the onos-pop happens. GG. Can't do anything about it. Now you have to finish off the strongest lifeform in the game that has a "IWIN"-button that regs all its armor before it eats you.
Or wait, let us place tunnels in inaccessible places. Pubbers already have issues with standardtunnels where they lemmingpack like a bunch of flies drawn to a light and get roflstomped by a skulk + 1 hydra while the aliens aggressively cyst and take map control, ending the game within 2 minutes but the marines refuse to concede and stand around in their base for 40 minutes at the mercy of an unskilled alienteam that couldnt even coordinate a pizzapickup.
Not to mention the very few people you already hate because they are smarter than you about their gameplay that will abuse the hell out of anything unbalanced you give them. I give it a week before you come bashing around the corner crying about those evil nasty "h4xx0rz". Because "that" spot, despite falling under the category of inaccessible places is "just too good and has to be removed" until you have some sort of 50/50 bastardized version of it.
Afaik flamethrowers were tested on exos and they were so OP that the mod got removed. But I guess we can add hero abilities? Teleporting bullets, no need to leave your base! Skulks will get the counter to automatically shadowsneakheadshot marines when they spawn.
Balance might not be what you want in the sense of a rebellious 16 year old that doesn't realize they should go to school and get proper sleep, but it is what you need.
That's a bit harsh and overreactive.... although yeah, balance takes away from fun, but without balance there is no fun at all.
The current issue with NS is not the balancing, but the fixation on dumbing down the game to appeal for a wider range of players.
That takes away from both the atmosphere and fun factor imo...
Onos pop a problem? Make onos cost more or give marines a weapon to combat onos. (hmg should fill this role but it doesn't)
Attacking the onos from inside ala combat removes the "staring at a texture instadeath" problem, and they could even make bone shield not work while digesting.
Tunnels in inaccessible places.. Block off those few places and/or make them accessible to marines. (instead of blocking off like 65% of all maps)
Also only DUAL flamer exos were op.. Don't allow dual flamers.. Easy
Oh and 10 onos? Only on the garbage large servers with their horrible gameplay could this ever be a problem...
Your response is the perfect example of what's wrong with this community... Oh it's something fun that could bring in more players? Nope far more important to have the holy grail of 50/50 balance even if only 10 people are left playing...
1) Congrats, you have a FL with more hp. No utility. Completely useless.
2) Sure. TTO 18 is huge.
3) And you are what is wrong with the other side, people that need to be spoonfed kills and overpowered abilities to be able to win vs nonupgraded skulks. 3/3 JP SG and you still die? "PLS GIEF HEAVY ARMORZZ JPS SKULKS OP". There are alternative views beyond pandering to your crying for ez-kills agenda and disguising it as "fun". There are still people that enjoy besting other teams based on actual skill, even if we are dwindling in numbers.
Every few patches the Onos cost gets lowered. It's now TWENTY personal resources lower than when I started playing.
If you don't want a 10-Oni pop, raise it's cost back up to 75 again. If ten people can manage to save for that much longer without any other lifeforms, then Marines deserve to lose when the Oni finally come out.
Throwing more and more advanced stuff at people shouldn't have ever happened. Onos, or an Exo, or even a frigging GL, should have been scarce, rare (and awesome) things that a team would sometimes managed to reach, but not always.
Now every single round that isn't a complete 2min stomp/rush is a 100% tech game. How is THAT fun? Where is the surprise?
You know how we have the nsl low lights option? We should have the opposite for power users who want a little more atmosphere in their games at the cost of performance.
I'll just leave this here... Yep... http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/122043/ns2-is-obsessed-with-obscuring-vision/p1
Completely missed opportunity for the best feature in gaming.
NS2 has become more and more bland in terms of looks. And I detest it, personally.
As a side note, the comp scene was always a big part to scream of the evil of visual obstruction and clutter. I see skill in working with darkened rooms, sudden sounds etc... the "how to handle it" situation. Comp never did.. One of the big downsides of the comp scene I am myself a part of.
While I can see the point of having a more 'even' playing field across computers, it still removes atmosphere as a whole. (Sadly occlusion is to bugged to use.)
Folk who know me know I even run with shadows.. I just like atmosphere.
I doubt ns2 wil change at this point, but just my 2 cents.
I think this was before the blockily compressed specular maps as well.