dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
I am an player and i dont care about fukin F2P.
You are not "the players"
I played Warface again totay after 1 year break of this crap.
Even the worst NS2 players are prem div compared to these braindead players there.
They dont understand this super simple game and you think NS2, one of the most complex shooters is not to hard for them?
I am an player and i dont care about **** F2P.
You are not "the players"
I played Warface again totay after 1 year break of this crap.
Even the worst NS2 players are prem div compared to these braindead players there.
They dont understand this super simple game and you think NS2, one of the most complex shooters is not to hard for them?
You should really stop professing what others actually think.
What about a detailed blog post explaining, what an x64 upgrade would actually take to accomplish, as well as a lot of cool concepts of various new skins, that people collectively could donate to unlock for future release.
That way people would be able to support the new system right now, and score some skins they'd like based on personal donations. We'd also be able to move forward at a faster pace with the transition, so UWE and co. can get cooking up all the features, less worried, that they view necessary before launching ns2 as a f2p title for steam, the most popular gaming platform today, for all kinds of games.
Even the worst NS2 players are prem div compared to these braindead players there.
They dont understand this super simple game and you think NS2, one of the most complex shooters is not to hard for them?
You don't have to disprise other game communities, I don't see how this make this one greater, it surely does make it look poorer.
A bunch of you (pros and cons) just want to push your opinion down the throat of the rest of the world.
You're just uselessly venting at each other not making any more point.
Warframe is complex intergalactic game not even i understand sure its shoot them up or stab them or some kind of magical sh*t but look its FREE2PLAY:
nobody pushing anything simply suggesting how to make ns2 have more then 200 players simultaneously and live on rather then end up in a ditch with 0 ppl
- improving balance further
- more optimizations for quicker loading and smoother performance/fps
- hive 2.0 accurately predicting skill and allowing shuffle to actually produce balanced games
- an option for which team you prefer shuffle to place you on. (joining a team now rarely keeps you on that team in my experience)
- another free weekend along with some sort of advertising (sort of like a re-launch "come see the new improved ns2")
- a mindlessly easy to use dedicated comp mode with all the features they require.
^^ all of the above would do more to bring in and keep new players (and bring back former players) than changing the game to a cancerous f2p model...
A small playerbase dedicated to playing the game is infinitely better than a huge playerbase casually herp derping around for lulz...
Have not worked so far. Many of the founding Players I've talked to have already left ns2, because it's going nowhere compared to newer games and engines, many plan to do it soon, including alot of my friends. Free weekends have always been a disaster, low retention and horrible mismatched games.
f2p is better than what we have now ONLY IN THE CASE IF it works well, if first all the infrastructures are solidly built (a lot of paid skins > 64bit, matchmaking, cheat report, smurf report, non abusable by design hive 2.0 for balanced games, streamlining the gameplay a bit further etc...)
If you go f2p say today with any of these core elements missing it's just gonna fail miserably and kill any hope left this time for good
And going F2P would be like a permanent free weekend... Pure hell.
Also while free weekends have been tried before, they've never been tried with quick loading, optimized performance for lower end machines, a dedicated comp mode, or a working hive skill system to balance teams...
Seems to me like the biggest things that drive people away are
- long loading times
- lackluster performance
- unbalanced teams (skill wise)
- being repeatedly forced by shuffle onto the team they don't want to play
free weekend was disaster because people cannot learn entire game in 2 days or maybe they see it sunday and download it on the evening and play for 3 hours you think they learn ALL NS2 THINGS? some still dont know you can hotkey the obs after hundreds of hours
Free2Play give people the ability to learn game over time just like any "LEGIT" ns2 player did, i did not even get the pres/tres until way later because i only focused on killing marines as skulk or running around building things. PERMANENT FREE WEEKEND means everyone is on the same level +100 veterans that play ns2 for years, however smurfing will be nonissue at 1%-10% assuming 1000-10000 people start playing ns2. The community already try to learn new players what things mean plus if veterans cannot join rookie servers or have like 3 pro-servers for a month or two it only means players will understand the game since they can open it 3 days in a row 5 days 50 days 500 days and play instead of having disastrous games for 2 days and never buy it. sure it will be UPHILL in the beginning for everyone but people tried first person shooters, people have tried rts games not everyone play pokemon go then come on ns2 and sit clueless its straight forward just alot to take in over a day, given months the playerbase will grown instead of decrease
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
I don't see why you're trying to compare ns2 to warframe, warframe is a pseudo mmo with a time sink for player progression and their income is based off charging for convenience.
And going F2P would be like a permanent free weekend... Pure hell.
Also while free weekends have been tried before, they've never been tried with quick loading, optimized performance for lower end machines, a dedicated comp mode, or a working hive skill system to balance teams...
Seems to me like the biggest things that drive people away are
- long loading times
- lackluster performance
- unbalanced teams (skill wise)
- being repeatedly forced by shuffle onto the team they don't want to play
You forgot empty servers on the majority of the browser. There's also a big difference between f2p and a free weekend fyi.
I am going to say this now. We all know hive 2.0 is being worked on. Do not get your expectations so high thinking that it will make every game balanced. Hive 2.0 will be better, a lot better, but by no means will it be perfect.
Hive as is does work. I have written too many long posts showing this that I really do not feel like saying it again.
Hive as is may work, but every single one of us knows it has problems.
As of right now there are only 3 mostly confirmed features for hive 2.0.
1) Adagrad. Adagrad will significantly speed up how fast hive gets accurate. A smurf for example could be given a 3k hive skill in just a handful of games. I have linked it many times, but if you still have not read about adagrad check it out here.
2) Separate skill ratings for marines and aliens.
3) No more rookies with different starting values of either 1000 or 0.
More may be planned, but it is not confirmed. Just don't give yourself unreasonable expectations. Hive 2.0 will be better but do not expect perfection. Unbalanced games will still exist.
this might not be as relevant but its google search trends for ns2 evolve and warframe
Oh....my....god... Who would have ever thought something that is free would attract more people than something you have to pay for?
Mind = Blown!!
But seriously, were those little graphs supposed to show something relevant? I mean we all know that free games have more players, but the issue here is the quality of players, not the quantity.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
Its just amazing that sir "look at my cool graphics" continue with his BS and totally ignore the fact that NS2 is far away from an F2P state.
He is still thinking, put some skins in and thats it.
Who needs:
- A Serverinfrastructure
- A Matchmaking (name me one F2P without that)
- A real progression system (name me one F2P without that)
There is a reason why people buying skins and stuff in other games. Its part of the progession there.
A rank that unlocks new stuff to buy motivates people to invest money, so they can say:
"Looks at me, im rank 70 now you noobs"
Like other mentioned here, if UWE maybe going this step you have only one try.
Lets say NS2 goes F2P, this will take MONTH for preparation.
i did not say more players equals better game, you said it DONT and i agree, but its soon 0 players with a cost on the game or like 10000+ players with free game...
the quality wont go up since 99% will be new to the game or maybe tried it before but over time like any other game people learn.
i did not even know those other games existed yes many put no pricetag on shitty games because some is not even worth 10 cents since they are in broken state,i took examples of games i played @depara
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2016
@RadimaX
So you never played these games cause you dont know them but you know they are shitty.
But a indie game released 4 years ago is a huge difference for sure.
Btw, here is a trailer of one of these shitty games:
But who needs awards from multiple well-known online sites if you want to be succesfull when some skins are the only thing you need.
Btw. i think NS2 had a similar start like Hawken. Very positive reviews, indie game of the year, ...
Did it help? A bit. But not realy to have a huge playerbase.
I am going to say this now. We all know hive 2.0 is being worked on. Do not get your expectations so high thinking that it will make every game balanced. Hive 2.0 will be better, a lot better, but by no means will it be perfect.
Hive as is does work. I have written too many long posts showing this that I really do not feel like saying it again.
Hive as is may work, but every single one of us knows it has problems.
As of right now there are only 3 confirmed features for hive 2.0.
1) Adagrad. Adagrad will significantly speed up how fast hive gets accurate. A smurf for example could be given a 3k hive skill in just a handful of games. I have linked it many times, but if you still have not read about adagrad check it out here.
2) Separate skill ratings for marines and aliens.
3) No more rookies with different starting values of either 1000 or 0.
More may be planned, but it is not confirmed. Just don't give yourself unreasonable expectations. Hive 2.0 will be better but do not expect perfection. Unbalanced games will still exist.
That sounds great but what do you intend to do about stacking?
More than half of the games I play are stacked at one point.
Just don't allow ANYONE to EVER change team after a shuffle also remember their team even if they try to leave and rejoin a server to reset it.
Also, when a player joins the server with an ongoing game, DONT LET HIM/HER JOIN THE TEAM HE WANTS, force people to join the team that will balance elo.
You have to understand that if teams are stacked hive is essentially not learning anything.
This should be the n.1 issue to solve.
N.2 issue is SMURF, we need a way to report them then if a person gets enough reports, they get a smurf badge so everyone know they have to kick him-
N.3 issue is BAD COMMANDERS, there has to be a required skill rating of at least 1500 to be able to enter the command chair / hive, or even better, have a dedicated COMMANDER RATING, make a matchmaking (play now) sub category for commanders, similar to how EVOLVE has a matchmaking for monsters, separated from the matchmaking for hunters, that way you ensure to have 2 commanders of equal skill this would be the best.
The goal being to make sure we get less retarded games where 1 team should be winning but the commander doesnt research jetpack and screw everyone over, once again hive doesnt "learn".
speaking of commanders, their skill rating should NOT be counter in the team's or you'll cause unbalance on the field.
Just to clarify, if you let stacking happen, hive essentially restarts gathering data from scratch , except it's not exactly from scratch, it's people who abuse the system vs people who don't ,
that's why people say like "hive is broken by design" etc, because it encourages and allow behaviors from players that do not make the system learn.
More than half of the games I play are stacked at one point.
Just don't allow ANYONE to EVER change team after a shuffle also remember their team even if they try to leave and rejoin a server to reset it.
Also, when a player joins the server with an ongoing game, DONT LET HIM/HER JOIN THE TEAM HE WANTS, force people to join the team that will balance elo.
You have to understand that if teams are stacked hive is essentially not learning anything.
This should be the n.1 issue to solve.
N.2 issue is SMURF, we need a way to report them then if a person gets enough reports, they get a smurf badge so everyone know they have to kick him-
N.3 issue is BAD COMMANDERS, there has to be a required skill rating of at least 1500 to be able to enter the command chair / hive, or even better, have a dedicated COMMANDER RATING, make a matchmaking (play now) sub category for commanders, similar to how EVOLVE has a matchmaking for monsters, separated from the matchmaking for hunters, that way you ensure to have 2 commanders of equal skill this would be the best.
The goal being to make sure we get less retarded games where 1 team should be winning but the commander doesnt research jetpack and screw everyone over, once again hive doesnt "learn".
speaking of commanders, their skill rating should NOT be counter in the team's or you'll cause unbalance on the field.
I have not yet heard a single good idea to solve any of those 3 issues you just mentioned.
Stacking won't be going away soon. To expect hive to fix this would be to have unreasonable expectations. Do you think having hive skill be based on KDR would help? It would actually make it worse. The same would happen for Score/minute. If you don't believe me, then ask your favorite server operator to enable KDR or Score based shuffling in shine. You don't need to use hive skill to shuffle. Shine has other options built in. They don't work all that well.
You might want to ask your favorite server operator to enable the shine feature that forces hive skill balance. That is also a thing. Some servers already use it with success. Others simply don't want to use it.
You have at least correctly identified a problem in this post. Stacking is a problem that unbalances games. I don't see a good solution.
Saddly, the game is not capable of handling smurfs like you describe. We can't give them smurf badges. I honestly think the best way to solve smurfs, is to make it so that they rise in skill faster. As I described, Adagrad will do this.
You can't have a minimum hive skill for commanding. What happens when nobody on the server has that hive skill? What if only 3 people hive that hive skill and refuse to command? Then you don't get games, and the server dies. Having commander specific hive skill is tricky. You can't really use it. You can not balance a team with commander skills in mind because you don't know if they will stay commander.
Having matchmaking is a whole other problem, but I do agree, having a commander option like evolve would be nice.
Even still, you probably won't accept what I am saying. You will continue to have unreasonable expectations from any skill system.
nice you found a shitty free 2 play from 4 years ago? how is that relevant now? give me an examples of 9 years old game nobody, not even yourself play, because yeah...reasons to prove its "bad". i give this very 2 examples of 2 working free2play games simply because i play them myself this year and month and this week.
You are completely wrong there are ways to solve these 3 issue, and good ideas to find, suggest you re read my post with an open mind.
This is not hive 2.0 until the major flaws of 1.0 are adressed.
Also, I never even talked about KDR.
To reiterate my point that you ignored how make stacking impossible:
A. Make shuffle mandatory at the start of a game
B. Make switching team impossible for everyone all along the game
C. Make it so new people joining an ongoing game are forced toward the team that their own skill rating will cause less imbalance.
About smurf,
Why can't we report smurf?? Make it possible devs that is VITAL to retention of both old and new players.
It's simple, once a player has received X smurf report make him/her unable to join ranked server and put a smurf badge next to his name.
That's the minimum that needs to be done.
About commanders
You can't have a minimum hive skill for commanding. What happens when nobody on the server has that hive skill? What if only 3 people hive that hive skill and refuse to command? Then you don't get games, and the server dies.
Yes you can set a fluctuating minimum skill that is a bit below the current average skill of people on said server. THat way it is restrictive but not too much.
Because again, if the commander is too bad it becomes a bottleneck, and the outcome of a game is determined by his/her incompetence, so it's a priority to have decent commanders.
It's good that we have a separated alien/marine skill rating for hive 2.0, but you shouldnt overlook the need of a commander one.
A. Make shuffle mandatory at the start of a game
B. Make switching team impossible for everyone all along the game
C. Make it so new people joining an ongoing game are forced toward the team that their own skill rating will cause less imbalance.
You can already do all this. The beauty of community servers. Most still don't do this because guess what, they don't want it. If you don't like it join a different server or start your own.
About smurf,
Why can't we report smurf?? Make it possible devs that is VITAL to retention of both old and new players.
It's simple, once a player has received X smurf report make him/her unable to join ranked server and put a smurf badge next to his name.
That's the minimum that needs to be done.
This community (and really almost every other multiplayer community) is way too stupid for something like this. The amount of baseless cheating and smurfing accusations I see every time I play is hilarious. You killed my fade and I've never seen your name before??? "starts votekick for smurfing and cheating". Judging whether to kick/ban someone is up to the server admins as it should be since most regular players are incapable of making rational decisions. If someone is better than you he is either a smurf or a cheat, it can never be anything wrong with your own play.
You can already do all this. The beauty of community servers. Most still don't do this because guess what, they don't want it. If you don't like it join a different server or start your own.
I'm not sure you grasp the core issue.
We NEED those A B C rules everywhere ON ALL RANKED SERVER otherwise skill rating means absolutely dogpoop and balanced games are never gonna happen at least never consistently.
This community (and really almost every other multiplayer community) is way too stupid for something like this. The amount of baseless cheating and smurfing accusations I see every time I play is hilarious. You killed my fade and I've never seen your name before??? "starts votekick for smurfing and cheating". Judging whether to kick someone is up to the server admins as it should be since most regular players are incapable of making rational decisions.
Fair point even thouhg Im convinced we are a far more mature community than CSGO and cie.
But anyway there is actually a fix that I can think of to this:
Simply put a cleansing factor that allows to lose smurf report over time, by not getting new ones, for example if for X days you have receive no smurf report, you lose 1 reports.
That X number can be tweaked until it equals the average rate of false smurf hackusation so that they basically cancel out.
So if a game is not succesfull, its automatic shitty.
How many players do we have in NS2 currently?
currently NS2 have 110 playing 14 min ago you can look for yourself instead of asking here steamcharts.com/app/4920
^^ if thats your way to say this game is shitty (its not) its best game i ever played so dont put words in my mouth however people might not know how good ns2 is compared to others inferior free2play games
If a game is absolutely free but nobody even want to play it then yes its a shitty game, but we dont know that about ns2, then if its balance issues or performance or lack of content thats another question.
NS2 have still players but very low count since instead of paying 20 bucks like before or 5 bucks now they can get a better optimized free alternative.
We all know its a good game this is why it would not have ZERO players if it went free quite the opposite people could chose from whatever they play now or ns2. i doubt anyone goes hey look ns2 got 110 people lets buy that game, then some skin dlc, investing my time & money when there is like 3-4 full servers Maybe 1 fits your ping, the rest afks and spectators oh and bots but they dont count.
Comments
You are not "the players"
I played Warface again totay after 1 year break of this crap.
Even the worst NS2 players are prem div compared to these braindead players there.
They dont understand this super simple game and you think NS2, one of the most complex shooters is not to hard for them?
You should really stop professing what others actually think.
That way people would be able to support the new system right now, and score some skins they'd like based on personal donations. We'd also be able to move forward at a faster pace with the transition, so UWE and co. can get cooking up all the features, less worried, that they view necessary before launching ns2 as a f2p title for steam, the most popular gaming platform today, for all kinds of games.
You don't have to disprise other game communities, I don't see how this make this one greater, it surely does make it look poorer.
A bunch of you (pros and cons) just want to push your opinion down the throat of the rest of the world.
You're just uselessly venting at each other not making any more point.
Shame !
nobody pushing anything simply suggesting how to make ns2 have more then 200 players simultaneously and live on rather then end up in a ditch with 0 ppl
- more optimizations for quicker loading and smoother performance/fps
- hive 2.0 accurately predicting skill and allowing shuffle to actually produce balanced games
- an option for which team you prefer shuffle to place you on. (joining a team now rarely keeps you on that team in my experience)
- another free weekend along with some sort of advertising (sort of like a re-launch "come see the new improved ns2")
- a mindlessly easy to use dedicated comp mode with all the features they require.
^^ all of the above would do more to bring in and keep new players (and bring back former players) than changing the game to a cancerous f2p model...
A small playerbase dedicated to playing the game is infinitely better than a huge playerbase casually herp derping around for lulz...
Have not worked so far. Many of the founding Players I've talked to have already left ns2, because it's going nowhere compared to newer games and engines, many plan to do it soon, including alot of my friends. Free weekends have always been a disaster, low retention and horrible mismatched games.
All people would like is more players in ns2.
If you go f2p say today with any of these core elements missing it's just gonna fail miserably and kill any hope left this time for good
And going F2P would be like a permanent free weekend... Pure hell.
Also while free weekends have been tried before, they've never been tried with quick loading, optimized performance for lower end machines, a dedicated comp mode, or a working hive skill system to balance teams...
Seems to me like the biggest things that drive people away are
- long loading times
- lackluster performance
- unbalanced teams (skill wise)
- being repeatedly forced by shuffle onto the team they don't want to play
Free2Play give people the ability to learn game over time just like any "LEGIT" ns2 player did, i did not even get the pres/tres until way later because i only focused on killing marines as skulk or running around building things. PERMANENT FREE WEEKEND means everyone is on the same level +100 veterans that play ns2 for years, however smurfing will be nonissue at 1%-10% assuming 1000-10000 people start playing ns2. The community already try to learn new players what things mean plus if veterans cannot join rookie servers or have like 3 pro-servers for a month or two it only means players will understand the game since they can open it 3 days in a row 5 days 50 days 500 days and play instead of having disastrous games for 2 days and never buy it. sure it will be UPHILL in the beginning for everyone but people tried first person shooters, people have tried rts games not everyone play pokemon go then come on ns2 and sit clueless its straight forward just alot to take in over a day, given months the playerbase will grown instead of decrease
I like their customization options though.
You forgot empty servers on the majority of the browser. There's also a big difference between f2p and a free weekend fyi.
Hive as is does work. I have written too many long posts showing this that I really do not feel like saying it again.
Hive as is may work, but every single one of us knows it has problems.
As of right now there are only 3 mostly confirmed features for hive 2.0.
1) Adagrad. Adagrad will significantly speed up how fast hive gets accurate. A smurf for example could be given a 3k hive skill in just a handful of games. I have linked it many times, but if you still have not read about adagrad check it out here.
2) Separate skill ratings for marines and aliens.
3) No more rookies with different starting values of either 1000 or 0.
More may be planned, but it is not confirmed. Just don't give yourself unreasonable expectations. Hive 2.0 will be better but do not expect perfection. Unbalanced games will still exist.
Oh....my....god... Who would have ever thought something that is free would attract more people than something you have to pay for?
Mind = Blown!!
But seriously, were those little graphs supposed to show something relevant? I mean we all know that free games have more players, but the issue here is the quality of players, not the quantity.
More players does not equal a better game.
He is still thinking, put some skins in and thats it.
Who needs:
- A Serverinfrastructure
- A Matchmaking (name me one F2P without that)
- A real progression system (name me one F2P without that)
There is a reason why people buying skins and stuff in other games. Its part of the progession there.
A rank that unlocks new stuff to buy motivates people to invest money, so they can say:
"Looks at me, im rank 70 now you noobs"
Like other mentioned here, if UWE maybe going this step you have only one try.
Lets say NS2 goes F2P, this will take MONTH for preparation.
Ah and @Radidax, its a clever move to show only succesfull F2P games.
Where are the cool graphs of games which failed with this model.
Reading your posts is like: "Hey, F2P is the holy grail for every game to be successfull"
Well, its not.
Here some examples:
http://steamcharts.com/app/310380
http://steamcharts.com/app/209870
http://steamcharts.com/app/271290 (Hawken was kinda hyped at release)
But hey, these games failed for a reason. NS2 is great. Everyone knows this.
We only need skins, nothing more for an bright future.
Pfft as if, we all know Hive 1.04 was the best Hive ever!
yes that free would attract more people than something you have to pay for
i did not say more players equals better game, you said it DONT and i agree, but its soon 0 players with a cost on the game or like 10000+ players with free game...
the quality wont go up since 99% will be new to the game or maybe tried it before but over time like any other game people learn.
i did not even know those other games existed yes many put no pricetag on shitty games because some is not even worth 10 cents since they are in broken state,i took examples of games i played @depara
So you never played these games cause you dont know them but you know they are shitty.
But a indie game released 4 years ago is a huge difference for sure.
Btw, here is a trailer of one of these shitty games:
Just check this:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/271290
Very positive reviews, aweseome Graphics and multiple Awards at launch.
Did it help? No.
But who needs awards from multiple well-known online sites if you want to be succesfull when some skins are the only thing you need.
Btw. i think NS2 had a similar start like Hawken. Very positive reviews, indie game of the year, ...
Did it help? A bit. But not realy to have a huge playerbase.
Did i mention skins? Yes. Awesome.
That sounds great but what do you intend to do about stacking?
More than half of the games I play are stacked at one point.
Just don't allow ANYONE to EVER change team after a shuffle also remember their team even if they try to leave and rejoin a server to reset it.
Also, when a player joins the server with an ongoing game, DONT LET HIM/HER JOIN THE TEAM HE WANTS, force people to join the team that will balance elo.
You have to understand that if teams are stacked hive is essentially not learning anything.
This should be the n.1 issue to solve.
N.2 issue is SMURF, we need a way to report them then if a person gets enough reports, they get a smurf badge so everyone know they have to kick him-
N.3 issue is BAD COMMANDERS, there has to be a required skill rating of at least 1500 to be able to enter the command chair / hive, or even better, have a dedicated COMMANDER RATING, make a matchmaking (play now) sub category for commanders, similar to how EVOLVE has a matchmaking for monsters, separated from the matchmaking for hunters, that way you ensure to have 2 commanders of equal skill this would be the best.
The goal being to make sure we get less retarded games where 1 team should be winning but the commander doesnt research jetpack and screw everyone over, once again hive doesnt "learn".
speaking of commanders, their skill rating should NOT be counter in the team's or you'll cause unbalance on the field.
Just to clarify, if you let stacking happen, hive essentially restarts gathering data from scratch , except it's not exactly from scratch, it's people who abuse the system vs people who don't ,
that's why people say like "hive is broken by design" etc, because it encourages and allow behaviors from players that do not make the system learn.
I have not yet heard a single good idea to solve any of those 3 issues you just mentioned.
Stacking won't be going away soon. To expect hive to fix this would be to have unreasonable expectations. Do you think having hive skill be based on KDR would help? It would actually make it worse. The same would happen for Score/minute. If you don't believe me, then ask your favorite server operator to enable KDR or Score based shuffling in shine. You don't need to use hive skill to shuffle. Shine has other options built in. They don't work all that well.
You might want to ask your favorite server operator to enable the shine feature that forces hive skill balance. That is also a thing. Some servers already use it with success. Others simply don't want to use it.
You have at least correctly identified a problem in this post. Stacking is a problem that unbalances games. I don't see a good solution.
Saddly, the game is not capable of handling smurfs like you describe. We can't give them smurf badges. I honestly think the best way to solve smurfs, is to make it so that they rise in skill faster. As I described, Adagrad will do this.
You can't have a minimum hive skill for commanding. What happens when nobody on the server has that hive skill? What if only 3 people hive that hive skill and refuse to command? Then you don't get games, and the server dies. Having commander specific hive skill is tricky. You can't really use it. You can not balance a team with commander skills in mind because you don't know if they will stay commander.
Having matchmaking is a whole other problem, but I do agree, having a commander option like evolve would be nice.
Even still, you probably won't accept what I am saying. You will continue to have unreasonable expectations from any skill system.
So if a game is not succesfull, its automatic shitty.
Makes sense.
How many players do we have in NS2 currently?
This is not hive 2.0 until the major flaws of 1.0 are adressed.
Also, I never even talked about KDR.
To reiterate my point that you ignored how make stacking impossible:
A. Make shuffle mandatory at the start of a game
B. Make switching team impossible for everyone all along the game
C. Make it so new people joining an ongoing game are forced toward the team that their own skill rating will cause less imbalance.
About smurf,
Why can't we report smurf?? Make it possible devs that is VITAL to retention of both old and new players.
It's simple, once a player has received X smurf report make him/her unable to join ranked server and put a smurf badge next to his name.
That's the minimum that needs to be done.
About commanders Yes you can set a fluctuating minimum skill that is a bit below the current average skill of people on said server. THat way it is restrictive but not too much.
Because again, if the commander is too bad it becomes a bottleneck, and the outcome of a game is determined by his/her incompetence, so it's a priority to have decent commanders.
It's good that we have a separated alien/marine skill rating for hive 2.0, but you shouldnt overlook the need of a commander one.
This community (and really almost every other multiplayer community) is way too stupid for something like this. The amount of baseless cheating and smurfing accusations I see every time I play is hilarious. You killed my fade and I've never seen your name before??? "starts votekick for smurfing and cheating". Judging whether to kick/ban someone is up to the server admins as it should be since most regular players are incapable of making rational decisions. If someone is better than you he is either a smurf or a cheat, it can never be anything wrong with your own play.
I'm not sure you grasp the core issue.
We NEED those A B C rules everywhere ON ALL RANKED SERVER otherwise skill rating means absolutely dogpoop and balanced games are never gonna happen at least never consistently.
Fair point even thouhg Im convinced we are a far more mature community than CSGO and cie.
But anyway there is actually a fix that I can think of to this:
Simply put a cleansing factor that allows to lose smurf report over time, by not getting new ones, for example if for X days you have receive no smurf report, you lose 1 reports.
That X number can be tweaked until it equals the average rate of false smurf hackusation so that they basically cancel out.
currently NS2 have 110 playing 14 min ago you can look for yourself instead of asking here steamcharts.com/app/4920
^^ if thats your way to say this game is shitty (its not) its best game i ever played so dont put words in my mouth however people might not know how good ns2 is compared to others inferior free2play games
If a game is absolutely free but nobody even want to play it then yes its a shitty game, but we dont know that about ns2, then if its balance issues or performance or lack of content thats another question.
NS2 have still players but very low count since instead of paying 20 bucks like before or 5 bucks now they can get a better optimized free alternative.
We all know its a good game this is why it would not have ZERO players if it went free quite the opposite people could chose from whatever they play now or ns2. i doubt anyone goes hey look ns2 got 110 people lets buy that game, then some skin dlc, investing my time & money when there is like 3-4 full servers Maybe 1 fits your ping, the rest afks and spectators oh and bots but they dont count.