Quitting

[Rapturous]

Hi,

Yeah, I know, these posts come out from time to time as people stomp their feet, etc. etc.

But this game will never grow in popularity at his rate. I just lost Rookie status after investing tens of hours into it--finally becoming good enough to compete with and lead Rookie teams. Now, there is no one at my skill level and I just get crushed in all of the double up arrow servers. I've invested hours trying to get better and compete, but it's like banging my head against the wall as I compete with people who've invested hundreds of hours into the game. There needs to be another way to have people who meet x criteria to leave Rookie servers, but still compete with one another. It's like a skill cliff. I imagine I'm not the only one who has quit out of this frustration--probably why I can't find servers at my skill level. Plus, theoretically, if I find a server at my skill level, a couple pros can enter the server and just crush the whole thing. It's not competitive and it's not fun. I love the design in this game, but I am going to play a first person shooter that caters to varying skill levels. Thank you for the great game, but good bye. Best of luck. I hope something changes at some point.

[Critical Low]

Don't compete, work as a team. You don't have to have high kills to be a valuable player on the team. Report info back to you commander, that info can be more important than getting a kill. Let stompings make you rethink your approach, that is how you improve in a game like this.

[T3ea Time]

Originally posted by Rapturous:

Hi,

Yeah, I know, these posts come out from time to time as people stomp their feet, etc. etc.

But this game will never grow in popularity at his rate. I just lost Rookie status after investing tens of hours into it--finally becoming good enough to compete with and lead Rookie teams. Now, there is no one at my skill level and I just get crushed in all of the double up arrow servers. I've invested hours trying to get better and compete, but it's like banging my head against the wall as I compete with people who've invested hundreds of hours into the game. There needs to be another way to have people who meet x criteria to leave Rookie servers, but still compete with one another. It's like a skill cliff. I imagine I'm not the only one who has quit out of this frustration--probably why I can't find servers at my skill level. Plus, theoretically, if I find a server at my skill level, a couple pros can enter the server and just crush the whole thing. It's not competitive and it's not fun. I love the design in this game, but I am going to play a first person shooter that caters to varying skill levels. Thank you for the great game, but good bye. Best of luck. I hope something changes at some point.

[Caljax]

SeaBeast brings up good points, pretty much what I would've said. Hope you change your mind and decide to stick around. NS2 is gradually getting better, it's just going to take some more time. Player base has increased a little bit since they've started updated NS2 again, but I don't imagine it ever reaching the thousands again. But it still has life and enough population.

[>|KoR|<Frisqy.ViruS (ZdrytchX)]

Gradually is quite slow tbh. They still have very significant easily noticible bugs that hasn't been fixed (e.g. spawn camera angle, getting stuck in people in the readyroom and spawning into an afk marine...)

Tbh rookie servers should be able to configure their own definition of "rookie" - I've already have about 80 hours by now but I still find occasional challenges in rookie servers (ignore the "you cannot join a team" message - that no longer applies and is based off 100 hours iirc) and the main thing I have left to improve before polishing my skills in the game is just my accuracy and dodging ability (especially skulk and fade)

[dePARA]

Originally posted by Rapturous:

Thank you for the great game, but good bye. Best of luck. I hope something changes at some point.

There has changed something and the result are the rookie only servers.
So new players can learn the basics in an stomp free environment.
After this rookie phase you will have a wide skill-mix on EVERY server.
It goes from total noob to god like pro.
So to say threre only "pros" playing is just nonsense.

I never understand what people expect when they start to play a game released over 3 years ago.
I would expect servers full of veterans and within the 1st 100-200hrs i would expect beeing the noob.
This is game independent btw.
So i would expect a hard time within these 100-200 hrs.

This was exactly what happened to me after i started with Battlefield 4 last december released 2 years ago.
During the time of maplearning i got owned countless times (i play only on 16 slot infantry only maps).
Now after over 100hrs im above average and everything is fine.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/soldier/dePARA/stats/351402823/pc/
And btw. BF4 didnt have ANY rookie only servers, i had to play against all the lvl140 "pros" right after my 1st start.

NS2 is more complex than BF4 for sure, but i know many players who got crushed during there 1st steps and playing in high level clans now.
So its all about mindset, expectations and the willing to learn new things.
In every game.

[.neo (っ◔◡◔)っ.]

Bye

[RenegadeFerret]

Voice your status as a player in those non-rookie servers. Usually the veterans are willing to help you improve your game, and reduce some of that learning curve frustration. You will probably have a lot of fun partnering up with a vet you meet on the server, shadow them and help complete tasks together. The players that talk to their teammates usually have a better experience and learn the fastest.

[Scanova the Carnotaurus]

Personally I think there should be a "casual" server where all the people that arent rookies but still noobs can have fun. I'm still currently a rookie but im scared of whatll happen when i lose it

[Yurii]

Originally posted by RenegadeFerret:

Voice your status as a player in those non-rookie servers. Usually the veterans are willing to help you improve your game, and reduce some of that learning curve frustration. You will probably have a lot of fun partnering up with a vet you meet on the server, shadow them and help complete tasks together. The players that talk to their teammates usually have a better experience and learn the fastest.

pls don't lie. all those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with NSL badges etc are just humiliating all the time, saying how bad you are. Right now they got clever and create new fresh accounts or even hide hive skills (i don't know how they do it) So, just don't lie.

also, these manual add of ranking servers is nonsense. I've tried to make server with hive stats on - and it didn't work. You need yo post on twitter to some guy etc.

about skill limit. I found mod Epsilon by Ghoul (i guess he is part of dev team) and that mod has hive skill restriction. But no body cares because pub stomping is the only fun they can have.

[RenegadeFerret]

It's not a lie, a majority of the vocal players are willing to help people learn. We understand that if we don't, we lose our playerbase and it takes longer to have more intense games. Like I said, if you talk to everyone and ask for help, they are usually willing to do so. However, if you don't communicate or listen to the team, we will become agitated after repeatedly telling you how to help when you don't. If you don't understand what people are telling you to do, ask for more information.

As a new player, put all your cards on the table. In the lobby, get on the mic and say "Hi I'm new, but I love the game". The veterans won't expect as much out of you, and they will also become more concious of learning opportunities.

[Thick as a Brick]

Play the siege mod, you can practice with life forms ect with way more res then in a normal game.

[Bacon]

RenegadeFerret is absolutely right, also newbies tend to not communicate at all, and if people then start to yell at you its your own fault. People are telling you what to do, its a team game, you better listen. This is not a normal FPS and teamwork is critical, just running and gunning for kills is gonna make you lose every single game you play.

So many noobs join a game and dont listen, and then they cry about the game not being fair, but they dont play like you should and therefor they lose. Most of the problems this game has is beacuse people dont fully understand how to play it, or are just plain retarded and play it like its a normal shooter where you go for the kills and the objectives (in this case killing rt's) is secondary.

You can have 0 kills in this game, and still be the MVP that builds and contributes more to the team, then the guy running around having 30+ kills. Kills are important, but building stuff and listening is wayyyyyy more important. If you die that much in this game, you play it wrong. You dont utilize your teammates, as marine for instance you move as a group, not by yourself. You cant outshoot a fade for instance as marine, but as a group you will kill it in a few seconds.

Aliens can move around fast, and you should NEVER EVER take on more then 3 marines at the same time, and even that is to much as a rookie, if you are really new just avoid groups of marines alltogether and try and sneak around and kill the rt's instead, im willing to bet you only go for the fights and never ever the rt's if you die that much.

Most of the deaths can be avoided by playing smart, but you will die in this game and at one point the game the enemies will be better then you, more armor, better weapons, higher lifeforms, and thats when you will die no matter what. But up until that point you can absolutely make a difference even if you are not the top scorer on your team, also playing on a server with more then 12-14 slots is gonna be a uneven game no matter what, beacuse the game isn't balanced for that many players.

[Rapturous]

Hello again, everyone,

I really appreciate the kind, thoughtful responses. What everyone says here makes sense, and I agree with most of it. My central concern was the combat aspect--a lot of this stuff I've done and found satisfaction in it, but, at the end of the day, combat happens, and I'd rather bear my claws in those situations than be a defenseless rabbit. To offer a little more insight into my situation and why I'm still frustrated with the game:

- I absolutely voice chat with my team. From joking around, to morale boosting (positivity, etc.), planning, and requests for orders--I do it all. And I've found about half the time on the ^^ servers that people are relatively informative and kind, but my brother and I still run into ragers who get frustrated by the team's performance. That's the reality of these games, but I don't want readers to get a skewed perspective of community--it's a mix. Healthier than most gaming communities, but a mix.
- I've put several tens of hours into the game and feel like I have a pretty good strategic sense of what to value in the game. During my later rookie matches, my brother and I were pretty much leading teams whether commander or assisting commander (we were instructing new people as many of you have here). This was satisfying, and I felt a sort of "pay it forward" motivation as people had helped me when I was brand new. Felt Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow." NS2 in its purest, most satisfying form. Now, I'm a freshman all over again, in a sense.
- Except my limitations are less-so strategy/utility, and more purely skill in combat. And that is something that comes with practice. I can "know" how to fight and where to position myself and that I never go off alone, etc., but sometimes when I need to wall jump and automatically pin down a marine after leaping off of a wall post-parasite, I'm simply out of my league.
- I am absolutely sure I haven't hit my personal skill cap, but the grind to even somewhat improve my KDA is daunting. The rare moments we could find an = server, we fared pretty well and that was satisfying--but that is rare after losing rookie status.
- Most of my gameplay devolved into sneaking past aliens/marines and taking out resource towers behind enemy lines. I was really good at that and earned a lot of points on the score screen doing that. Did I feel useful? Sure. Much better than me getting blasted in a second in combat, but that is fun for only so long. I want to be well-rounded and serve multiple purposes. I can--just not on the ^^ servers.

I understand everyone wanting to keep the community healthy and growing, because from an objective sense (as far as I can remove myself from the subjective, anyway), this is an excellent game with a high skill ceiling. But that's also its downfall in how it's implemented right now--the skill ceiling is so high that when confronted with these pros, it's truly dissatisfying. Which brings us back to my situation: right after losing rookie status after the investment, it's incredibly demoralizing. The potential investment makes it hard for me to keep playing NS2 when I can feel better rewarded with other deep games that have a much friendlier scaling in terms of challenge. No "inverted skill cliff."

Thanks again to everyone who's posted and tried to help. You give this game hope. I hope the devs are reading this.

[Imposter]

I know this off topic but there aren't many servers to go around either, I try to jump into higher skilled servers, but they are ALWAYS full and by the time I want to get in, which is almost never; I don't like to wait, or I just lose interest before I can even join; because of impatiently waiting for an open slot with a GOOD ping.

It just isn't a good thing, I like the game mechanics but overall my experience has been negative towards "reserved slots", with minimal people playing already, yet they all remain full with the small amount of players so there lies a small player base problem to begin with.

[inkandrage]

From looking at other blog posts, this does seem to be a common occurence.. Main reason being that when people lose their rookie status, they're too afraid to play on the big servers! Practice makes perfect. I'm still a rookie, but when I lose it, I still fully intend to go in guns blazing.. even if it means I get 5 kills and 40 deaths. Totally worth it - I love this game.