The problem of prohibitive skill differences, raised in the previous topic (and several others), has not been properly addressed. Reserved slots, while promoting a certain level of play in the long run, do not address intrusions of players that are overly skilled into casual servers in the short run. These intrusions could last only a few rounds or could occur over the span of days and weeks - it depends in large on the competitive scene of NS2.

Solutions have been proposed:
1. Devise a ranking system that prevents competitive players from playing in casual servers.
2. Allow administrators to deal with undesirable players (i.e. kick/warn/ban).
3. Allow the server population to deal with undesirable players (i.e. kick/warn/ban).

Technically, options 2 and 3 have already been in existence in some form or another in NS1. However, these will not stop intrusions - they will only serve to foster animosity between casuals and competitives. There is controversy about the use of option 1, although it would serve to prevent intrusions if developed properly. If there are any other options that prevent intrusions, please mention them.


I'm wrestling with a few questions about this whole topic. Assuming prohibitive skill differences will exist in NS2...

Is it ethical/necessary to shield casual players from intrusions by competitive players or even players that are just much more skilled than casuals? After all, this means that the competitive/highly skilled player is being punished for being good. Regardless, many server admins have discriminated against skilled players in many FPS games. However, in this case the question is whether the developer (UWE) should take a similar stance.

If it is ethical/necessary, what kinds of benefits would competitive/highly skilled players get over casuals as compensation for being discriminated against? After all, with server-side rank restrictions, these players would lose access to many/most servers.

4) allow administrators to classify the server as "Advanced", "Normal", "Basic", without restrictions on joining.

This is I believe the minimum way of increasing the enjoyment of everyone (not that the other ways wouldnt be helpfull too). If a new player joins an advanced server, he will probably be told quite quickly by his team that he should join the basic server.

If an experanced player joins an Basic server,
a) They can hardly call themselves "good" as they are knowingly playing on a new player server
b) Server admins will have a reason to kick good players as they were warned that the server was for new players

Will griefers exist... yes. But the vast majority of players just want to have fun, as an experanced player or a new player and will self associate based on how they feel thier own skill level is.

I agree with obsid, but, as I've said in other threads, I would add that a small, unobtrusive, off-to-the-side hud element should display (probably in a graph) the skill of every joining player, so that egregious stacks are made very obvious before they cause significant damage to the game environment.

You could of course turn the hud element off with something to the effect of cl_showskill 0.

So both of you agree that prohibitively good players should not be barred by UWE from entering casual or beginner level servers. Instead, there should be a soft system that shows which servers are meant for which type of player.

And as for griefers, it is up to the admins and players to take care of them?

Griefers can and will exist in any system we put in place. Assuming a perfect ranking system so that you know exactly who is better then who always (whichi is impossible as person a > person b > person c > person a many times), people will just create new accoutns/use multiple steam ids if they really want to. Or they will constantly suicide on some servers just so there score doesnt look too good so they get pushed into the higher brackets (also hurting thier team).

While having players be able to kick people themselves does help in some cases, the % needed to kick someone needs to be very high to prevent abuse, but at the same time groups of players will join at once, or players will join with bots so that the playerbase doesnt have enough people to kick.

No matter what way you cut it, without server admins it is impossible to prevent griefers (and even then I have been kicked from servers for killing the server admin too often, at least in that case I know which server not to go back to again).

Instead we should be focusing on giving players the tools so they can know that a stack is happening or the aproximate skilll level of a server so they can have the most fun, by switching teams, or joining a diffrent server.

my skill level is over 9000

I actually agree about not restricting players. However, a few points:

Griefers may go as far as creating new accounts with different steam IDs, but with a restriction system this will at least require them to pay UWE for each steam account that they go through. Likewise, suiciding and other ways of lowering skill would require effort and time. It would discourage many potential griefers. The same goes for players joining in groups or with bots. Yes - where there's a will, there's usually a way - but a lot of this could be discouraged.

Personally, I don't think griefing would be very prevalent even without a restrictive system and that developing a restrictive system would do more harm than good. And I agree about empowering players, which is the whole idea behind finding a cohesive matchmaking system. However, this is more of a "what if" discussion.

In an ideal world, players would categorically "fit" into a given server status that was "just right" for them, and when they showed promise they would move up the chain to the next micro-increment of server skill once it was unlocked, and conversely the lowest end of their servers would be locked so that they could ascend this grand chain of servers until they hit cal level, or just stayed intermediate if they were more casual.

In practice though, as we've discussed (many times now), it seems like soft rankings that would display a graph of player skill on mouse over the server info icon on the server browser, combined with a system of player awareness as well as reserve slots and an arbitrary server-defined "values" system (including server defined "expected" skill level) would be more practical, and might result in a similar outcome with far less effort from the dev team.

The problem with that is, if the percentage is made to be so high, you'll never actually kick anyone. Because players are A) too lazy to vote and/or B) completely indifferent - they just don't care enough. There's also the issue with how when someone initiates a votekick, it kind of breaks the flow of the game; players have to put up with this nuisance (however brief) before they can get back to actually playing the game.

Since we're talking about stacking: Can we have a vote-changeteam system in place, as well as a vote-kick system then? Of course the downside to that is the same problems I've illustrated above, just made even more prominent because votes may happen more often. edit: Oh and it might turn out to be rather useless since someone might just get annoyed that he got his team changed and leave. In that case, as an additional or alternative suggestion, have a vote-balanceteams system in place; that takes into account players' preferences (an additional menu item when a vote is initiated) to stay on the teams they're currently on.

Just to clarify, I don't think anyone has really been talking about preventing competitive players from playing with casual players. Once you're in a casual server, you're all ready hooked . The point is to prevent new players from being scared away.

As far as ethics, competitive players, in general, will not want to play with new players if they can avoid it. The only ones who will are essentially greifers who fall into the "bad player" category. They want to rack up lots of kills easily and feel good about themselves.

^ I wouldn't call those griefers. 'bad players' yes. But griefers are those who find enjoyment in ruining the game for others NOT ruining the game for others in the pursuit of finding enjoyment (bad players). There's a difference.
Still, this definition of 'bad player' seems different to Radix' 'bad player'. You could call it uhh.. an anti-social player, or something.

Going back to the original post, I find option 2 and 3 to be the fairest, with considerable bias towards 3.

Skill will vary widely with time of day, day of the week, month of the year. It is very difficult to pin down a uniform level that will stand the test of time.

A better system is one that dynamically updates as games are played. This takes into account any holiday fluctuations or sudden changes in overall skill.

Advanced, Normal, and Basic are terms that will not find a general consensus. You could have top tier players arguing that league play is advanced exclusively. Strong community servers will argue that they have "advanced" play because they have a good grasp of teamwork and tactics. All of this does not help Basic servers, where you are facing woefully green Comms who think that Basic will help them learn the ropes.

No, that sort of server label has problems. We've discussed similar labels in other threads, but with very key differences.


Options 2 and 3 keep any decisions local and based on the current players in the server. This means that if its a bunch of top tier players taking a break, then they can vote out anyone who is playing the fool. If its a bunch of greenhorns then they'll be able to vote off the fade who is tearing up their base solo.

Note that, in general, this should not be a penalty on skill, and should not be a method to vote off the opposing star player. Unfortunately, it does still rely on the morality of the players involved and so there will always be that risk. Ideally however, a player would only be "noticed" if they were playing exceptionally well.

At the end of the day, it is a system of majority rule with an admin veto. If the majority of people on the server want you out, then you're going out, regardless of how nice you're being. It isnt a perfect system, absolutely far from it, but its not one that can be removed with any ease.

Good topic. Personally I stopped playing NS after many years mostly do to this issue. A guy might not be using aim bots and wall hacks but if the guy is killing 2 fades and a lerk with a shotgun in 8 shots and 4 seconds, it doesn't make any difference if he was botting/hacking.

I also believe NS is a game that needs to address this issue more then any other because of the profound inequalities designed into it with the use of resources (an onos will pwn a marine with no gear, a heavy+hmg will pwn a skulk). these inequalities are sometimes vastly accentuated by player skills.

I think solution #1 in the OP has potential but there would have to be a sliding scale for it to work well. A simple system of 3 categories of players and a server setting that restricts one or 2 categories of players from joining could encourage players to want to straddle a catagory by abusing the scoring system (eg, a proficient player killing themselves on turrets repeatedly after they had a great last round so they can still play on the lowest skilled server...for it to work well, it could use a system where the server sets what specific groups of players could join, for example... only the bottom 85% of players could join, or where only the top 50% of ranked players could join, or where only the top 10% and bottom 10% are restricted

solutions 2 and 3 are vary smilier and i think are also ineffective in addressing the issue. both options i think promote a culture of hostility in response to the issue in that if a person is a vary effective player but on the team with the the ability to kick/warn/ban then often there is no action taken, meanwhile the other team feels the teams are stacked, that its unfair. on the other hand, when the admin on the losing team kicks the top player on the other team, it can still look like the admins (or people voting for action) are biased...basicly it is a small set of circumstances where a person being kicked/warned/baned will seem appropriate to everyone on the server, much less the person being kicked/warned/banned.

another solution would be to have handicaps for selected groups of players. for example, a server could pick the team for players in the top and bottom 10% of ranked players to keep the teams even. another example would be to give a -20% damage bonus to the top 5% of ranked players or slow their movement speed. You could even help out newbies with this system by giving them +damage or a shorter respawn time. A system like this would allow anyone to play anywhere regardless of skill, however it would also allow a server to moderate the effectiveness of individual players to promote an even matchup of uneven players.

Did I start a chain of topics or what.

Interesting view.


I have to agree.


Hmm, never thought of that.


Very good point.


I had proposed this (or similar) in another thread. (with the focus on new players given better ability for survival, and advanced players having their threat level lowered). How you are buffed/debuffed depends on your rank in regards to the server's rank. eg. noob playing on a moderate will get a health buff, expert playing on a moderate will get a damage debuff.
But because both these ideas change the consistency of the game, I'm not really all for them myself.

Overall though, good post.


Hm? What are you referring to?

His topic was the original, "make NS less elitist" thread which spawned all of these threads about matchmaking, rankings, and reserved slots.

Ah. Haha, okay. I thought it might have been, but I didn't bother to check.

Don't really like the idea of an institutionalised (i.e. first-party) system that buffs or debuffs me according to how well I play. I think I'd either find that hideously patronising or totally unfair.

Whatever system is chosen, it should never directly affect the mechanics of the game. When you start changing around how fast someone can move and how much damage they give/take it only serves to create confusion and ill feeling. You need to know how many shots it takes to kill a Skulk or a Fade or the game becomes totally broken, and no-one will want to play.

By all means have this as a server-side plugin that I can avoid, but don't make the game dynamic so I have to check a scoreboard before knowing whether to shoot or run.

i like the idea of a soft rating system that will give players something to reach for, but if this system is put in place score padding might become an issue. The dev team will have to make sure they design the game so individual skill is taken into account but also make it worth the players while to try to get their team to win. If someone can sit at a hive and spawn camp and get more "skill" than someone who takes down the hive, or on the other side an onos sitting in rine start killing the rines over and over. True when they go up to the higher skill levels this might fix itself, but will it go backwards? The system has to be something that won't effect the overall way that people play the game. Also if admins will be taking care of their own servers will this be stored in each server? or will a central server be setup that all NS2 servers will pull info from? there are many possibilities for abuse of a soft skill level meter if not put into practice correctly. Any thoughts, i really like the idea of a soft skill level but i know things like that can have unforeseen consequences to quote G-Man

I don't think its really possible or necessary to "shield" casual players from intrustions. I mean, casual players can be top tier players on their day off. I mean yes, admins may discriminate, but thats generally because the better players are being childish. Unfortunately, this leads to them all being tarred with the same brush.

Barring admins, the players of the current game are probably best placed to decide if someone is being ridiculous. A top tier fade might decide to pub it and practice his skulking or lerking in an easier environment. He might be hanging out with his friends, and not playing quite to the best of his ability.

The problem is that a GLOBAL rank/skill system will not take this into account. A local rank/skill system will. Further, a global system would effectively penalise the player for playing beneath his ability, whereas a local system would mean playing with friends on a lowbie server would not impact on their rank/skill rating on their top tier competitive server.

UWE really should not be openly endorsing skill kicking, nor even by implication.

I think most players can remember the start of the big division between clanners and pubs, and its really something that NS needs to move past. Certainly it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem in other games with far larger player bases.

Well then that's a matter of your definition, then.

The purpose was to shield/help (whatever you'd like to call it) new players, rather than casual players.

But then you twisted 'new player' to mean 'casual player' (or you're replacing 'new player' with 'casual player'). And then you're changing 'casual player' to include 'top tier players on their day off', which is perfectly correct - but has lost the original intention.

So, try not to get sidetracked. The point is mostly about newer players that don't want to get owned while they're learning the ropes, and possibly top tier players that only want to play with other top tier players in a non-competition/league game; and all the people in between, where in general 'good games' are had between people of relatively similar skill levels.

Actually, going by the OP, it specifically states "casual servers". That runs the whole gamut from top tiers on their day off, through average players, down to new players who don't even know that the trick is to centre the bad guy in the crosshair and left-click.

But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of hostility.

"The point is mostly about newer players that don't want to get owned while they're learning the ropes, and possibly top tier players that only want to play with other top tier players in a non-competition/league game; and all the people in between, where in general 'good games' are had between people of relatively similar skill levels."

Short version:

"The point is mostly about every player type"
(you listed all of them, oddly)
"where in general 'good games' are had between people of relatively similar skill levels"

Now, see here's the thing, the point of the thread is about, and what my posts have been in reference to:

"Is it ethical/necessary to shield casual players from intrusions" (I argue that it is not possible on a global level)
"If it is ethical/necessary, what kinds of benefits as compensation for being discriminated against?" (since my answer was no, it rendered this question rather redundant)

So, try not to get sidetracked.

Right. So good on you. You've just pointed out a flaw in the 'casual' naming convention; it does not address prohibitive skill differences.
I'm surprised I didn't see it myself. Well done.

Best naming converntion imo would be:

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Primarily, those names relate to experience, not ability or skill. Of course, it is inferred that an advanced player will probably be more capable than a Beginner player, but this is because of a mixture of skill and experience: the ability to map their superior experience onto their not-inconsiderable skill. Experience is a less divisive method of separating players, because all players will be able to reach the next tier at some point if they play enough.

I'd see it breaking down as the following:

Beginner - ideal for new players with little experience of NS or FPS games in general

Intermediate - ideal for medium-skilled FPS players who may be new to NS, and for experienced NS players who may still not be that great at FPS games

Advanced - ideal for very experienced NS players of medium to high FPS skill level

Now, any of those servers could be a casual server, and the advanced server could be a competitive server OR a casual server. My point being there is no need to go down the casual/competitive route because the competitive servers can self-regulate by passwording and putting the PWs on their websites/clan pages, so only the competitive community (the ones who want to play there) will seek out the PW.

I respectfully disagree with the naming system. Personally, I would not allow a self evaluation with regards to personal player skill. It would not be as much of a problem for the beginner server, but it would be an issue for those who are intermediate/advanced.

By labeling the server competitive/casual/open it would be a broader caption of what is going, without allowing people to feel self-conscious about their skill. There needs to be no labeling of skill level.

Also, what would distinguish beginner, from an intermediate, and an intermediate from an advanced player? How would one operationally define the skill level that would necessary to create a distinction between the classes.

Casual/Competitive is very easy to distinguish:

Casual play is more process oriented, more socially inclined. Players who play here are not looking for a serious game, and if a few mistakes are made its no big deal as long as everyone had fun.

Competitive play is more result oriented over process. Both teams are striving to get that end game victory. Play here is expected to be taken seriously, and is expected that players here would exhibit the amount of competence a competitive player would have.

Since there is virtually no stat system that would provide any meaningful value, one should leave it up to the player to decide which path they want to take at any given time he or she decides to join a server.

Allow me to be a smartass.

** further counter-arguments arising from a basic misunderstanding of the suggestion.

Hmm, I think I would agree with Crispy. The Easy/Medium/Expert naming convention I had thought of before does imply a skill (or more accurately, a difficulty) ranking, while this one doesn't.

Then the elaboration was poor, but the key idea is excellent.

Not unless there was a way for the game to rank people, which there is not, and probably will not be.

I dunno Harimau, you told me when I need to accept when I lose, can you do the same?

Sigh.

If you're going to behave like this, then lets follow it up.

Stacking is only partially connected to prohibitive skill difference. Why are you continuing to discuss it?
Griefing is only partially connected to prohibitive skill difference. Why are you continuing to discuss it?
Ranking is only partially connected to prohibive skill difference. Why are you continuing to discuss it?

Then you decide to take a pop at me for "twisting" the topic, when in fact I am completely on topic and addressing "prohibitive skill difference" with regards to how hard it is for a GLOBAL system to take into account LOCAL casual play, and why we should not be endorsing "skill kicking".

Taking the BETTER THAN SLICED BREAD Myth ranking system, a superb Alien player is equal to an average all round player. Observe as the Fade destroys all comers, but is technically on an equal rank to his opponents.



I'm not sure why you've quoted FW saying "Casual/Competitive", because the OP also said "Devise a ranking system that prevents competitive players from playing in casual servers", so FW's comment is entirely relevant. I'm also not entirely sure why you saw fit to quote myself quoting you. I'm just going to reiterate my abridged version of what I had quoted you on:

Harimau implies "The point is mostly about every player type playing, where in general 'good games' are had between people of relatively similar skill levels".

Forgive me, but it's not the most illuminating thing I've read. It's rather obvious. You follow up by quoting your own misguided reply (my comment was directed at your accusation of my "twisting" the topic) and end by parroting the thread title.

Bit of a nonsensical post?



Crispy - FW beat me to it, but I would agree that the problem is that one cannot judge their own level of skill other than by comparison with other players on their server.

A person could be "quite skilled" on Server A, but rubbish on Server B. Like temperature, it is a relative, not an absolute. Consider the following :

Player One utterly destroys Player Two. We can say that Player One is on average "better skilled" than Player Two (assuming the act is repeated enough times for luck to no longer be a factor).

Player One has a 50:50 W:L ratios against Player Two. We cannot say that either is better skilled than the other, nor can we say that they are both high skilled or both low skilled. Two players of the same skill will, on average, end up in a draw over time. That could be two high skilled players, two average players, or two low skilled players.


Now, consider this problem over a GLOBAL scale. It just becomes too hard to accurately rank and follow. Even the likes of Halo will track two separate statistics for the purpose of automatching.

Personally, I feel that the LOCAL scale is easier to implement. At the LOCAL scale, you have a smaller number of players and an easier to generate "average". This makes it easier in turn to estimate when a player is "too skilled". A GLOBAL system involves many hundreds of players and servers, in many millions of combinations, leading to chaos when ranking. LOCAL scales can neatly bypass this issue.


Again, tying this into the main topic, the key is to think LOCAL when assessing skill differences.

Now, when a person suggests "Beginner" "Intermediate" "Advanced", the problem is WHO assesses these ranks? GLOBALLY you might be a newb but on your LOCAL server you might be godlike. Does that mean your server is Beginner? Or does it mean that you are Advanced?

It's all relative, and very hard to ascertain with any degree of certainty at a global level.


That is why I feel a better system is to label the playstyle. I disagree with the terms being bandied around (Competitive vs Casual) because they're really not that dissimilar to the whole Ranked vs Unranked school of thought.

NS would appear to fall into, 3 or 4 groups.

- League players running specific teams under competition rules
- Top tier players capable of running pickup games
- Average player looking for a decent game
- NSPlayer looking to kill 5 mins by "pwning noobs"


The first group can run quite well on private servers in what would be a truly "Competitive" basis.

Second group overlaps with the third group in that they want a "proper" game of NS, but you're talking an order of magnitude in difference with regards to cooperation. Any 6 league-level players are going to be somewhat aware of certain strategies, tactics, and gambits, but that information may only be known by a comparative handful of "average players" (average taking to mean that they form the bulk of players, not a comment on skill).

The final group are just people nobbing about.

Our problem is keeping group two and three in happy co-existence. Easy enough at a local level, but globally very hard to do.


I am not confident that a three tier server nomenclature would adequately cover these playstyles, but I do agree that playstyle is what needs to be addressed GLOBALLY, rather than "skill".



Forgive the emphasis on GLOBAL and LOCAL, but it is becoming increasingly necessary.

In summary -

On a GLOBAL level, we can regulate servers by playstyle.
On a LOCAL level, we can regulate by comparative skill.

In my humble opinion, of course, and I do realise this differs from the point of view of others. It means that any player can choose their playstyle, but can be discouraged from putting a spanner in the works of the "average skill level" on those servers.

I don't get it. What did you say that has made me lose the argument?

What I've understood so far is that the casual/competitive naming scheme does not address prohibitive skill differences, and as such is out of the window.
And apparently, it is now required for servers to have a global ranking system in order to introduce a Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced naming scheme. Do you now support a ranking system? Can we restart that discussion? (Just so you don't accuse me of lacking reasoning or reading comprehension, and I know you were going to, yes I know you don't support a ranking system. It's sarcasm. I shouldn't really have to explain this.)

Just to sidetrack the thread even further (yes I did, Necrosis); I do support global stats-tracking, and allowing players to view others players' stats profiles (as well as pre-game 'icons' mentioned in the I&S forum). In that case players could still see whether other players actually 'fit' into the designated server rank name. Would that be enough for you, Firewater?

edit: yeah, I chose to ignore Necrosis. Sue me. His posts are very prickly (relax dude), repetitive (my eyes are getting carpal tunnel syndrome-true story) and don't make a lot of sense; or at the least, are too obscure so that any sense that may be present in the posts is hidden behind a veil of bull####. Necrosis, some friendly advice: Learn to (actually) be concise (and not just saying you're trying to be in the same long-winded post). (Yes, I realise this is rather contradictory, as this has hardly been concise; but I often feel that I have to explain the littlest things to you people, or you won't understand.)

(similar to what Necro said)

I summed up my thoughts on this before in the original spin-off thread. Divide players up into categories based on experience, not skill. Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced would not be defined by KpD, but instead by achievements that could be attained quickly via skill or progressively via just playing the game. This basically means that an 'Advanced' server would indicate (on average) perhaps over 40 hours' total play or something. By that time you'd expect players to know the ins and outs of the game and be competant enough to carry out a comm's strategy quickly and efficiently.

Mostly its actually knowledge that divides players, not skill. If a player knows not to try to solo a Fade with an LMG, if he knows that an Onos will just swallow his HA/HMG/Welder, if he knows that a lost Fade can sometimes spell a lost game, they are much more prepared to play alongside more skilled players and not drag them down as horrifically as if they were to commit the aforementioned crimes. Something as basic as knowing to stay with your teammates so they can pick up your weapon if you die and keep it alive is far more important to me than someone who can take on a Skulk 1 on 1. These are both basic examples, but the experience-based example is so much more valuable to your team's experience than the skill-based example.

Anyway I wrote about it in a lot more detail here, with reasons why K:D ranked matchmaking is flawed for global ranking, explaining how milestones would work, how to appease the competitive community (customisable server 'matchmaking profiles'), and an explanation of how those profiles might look.

Finally, unless a game is designed specifically for competition, you will never get a matchmaking system that is geared towards uniting players at the top end of the scale based on skill. For most games, this has always been and will always be the realm of organised servers and events. Reading the link above tells you my stance on this, give the admins more control of how to limit their playerbase. Then you can have a 'skilled' server for those who want it without infringing on how NS is played globally.

Regardless of the intention of the original idea of this topic, I agree the casual player group is distinct from new players and should be regarded as such. IMO "prohibitive skill differences" is only for new players since they're the only group to potentially scare away easily. As Hari said, casual servers will have a mix of skill levels and this should not change. IMO the convention should be:
NS2Player/Beginner
Casual/Open
Competitve

In short, the original topic may be about "preventing high skilled competitive players from joining casual servers", but I do not support that idea. I think that would aggravate players unnecessarily and for little gain.

Matchmaking at this level is fine because it encourages players of like skills to play together and provides a way for them to join the same server. This is not the same as preventing certain skilled players from joining a game.

Crispy - I would caution you that it appears increasingly clear, writing in detail will lead to your effort being disregarded by people who would rather complain loudly than rationally debate the issue.


Anyhow, for what it's worth, I would be cautious of equating "play time" to "experience". A player can muck around on servers and still log as much "play time" as someone playing in a more dedicated fashion. Additionally, deadlocked games can run for some time, artificially inflating your "play time".

You could arguably say that it should perhaps be some sort of "Hours Played / Games Played" ratio, but again this can be skewed by playing inferior or superior opponents (making either a very short game or a very long game, depending on what you're doing), since strictly speaking all "equal experience/skill" games should run for the average time of an NS game.

I do concur with your other suggestions, to varying degrees, but I would just be cautious of play time being experience.





By the way Har, my posts will be as long as they need to be. If this means a 2000 word post on game balance, then that is what will happen. If you can't cope, perhaps you should restrict yourself to ranting about those evil capitalist admins in the discussion forum.

This statement is incredibly ironic when you read the next part, which clearly indicates you haven't read the posts I linked (containing the details of the suggestion).
Simply logging time on a server won't get them the milestone achievements that I described in a post I really cba to link for the umpteenth time. You need a small amount of skill to progress, but it's not as prohibitive as TF2's more ludicrous achievements that pretty much only encourage farming. Really, 'time' is not how its quantified in the slightest, it's based on performing a number of different skills that are intrinsic to basic, intermediate and advanced NS play. These are designed so that they can be achieved by all with time (time spent actually playing NS), but most of them not by sitting in a server with a paper-weight sitting on your right mouse button.

To be quite honest Crispy, I was making reference to the comment in THIS thread, vis a vis:

"This basically means that an 'Advanced' server would indicate (on average) perhaps over 40 hours' total play or something."

I do concur with your other suggestions (and since I seemingly have to specific, I was referring to your other posts, the concept of milestones, the accuracy of K:D,etc) to varying degrees, but I would just be cautious of play time being experience.


I don't see how this ties into complaining without reading posts, I made an entirely valid statement based on the comment you made in this thread. Are you jumping to conclusions? I mean, if I hadn't read your suggestions, why would I say I concur with them?? *confused*

Yyeaah, well that's the thing mate. They're much longer than they need to be.

Ok, haven't read the whole topic, so sorry if I'm restating or whatever, but my opinion on the topic:

Go with number 2. Yes, it will be abused. No, it will not completely solve the issue. Yes, people will still whine. But I think it is the best option. I played for quite a while on a casual server in NS and we had our fair share of super players entering. Some of them were elitist jerks and stat######s, and they got kicked. Others simply pwned us, but weren't mean about it, and actually ended the game. They were not kicked. About 95% of the time I was happy with the way this system worked. And I don't know if either of the other ways would work that well.

And please, no option 1. I did enjoy playing with the great players of NS on a server that they could not get into if rank barred them from "lower level" servers.

Time spent playing NS does constitute experience according to this method of qualification. To be more specific, time spent performing beginner/intermediate/advanced tasks within an NS game means you are gaining more experience of important actions in NS, those actions intrinsic to beginner, intermediate and advanced level of play (competitive play I would place above this category as an option for server admins to support via a matchmaking profile).

I agree it doesn't constitute a significant increase in skill, and by no means does it signify a leap in FPS skill, but it does constitute experience of the game. My definition of an experienced player is 'they know the game', not 'they are good at the game' (the latter would be my definition of a skilled player). When you know the game intimately even if you don't have the greatest aim you can probably still help build, weld, heal, inflict damage, communicate, spend res wisely, parasite, bait, kill RTs and so on. If you're able to do all these things you're still an asset to the team in my book.

There will always be simple ways of preventing the milestones from being easy to exploit (which for some reason Valve have chosen to ignore?). All you need to do is make sure stat-tracking is only enabled with more than X number of players on the server, or per team. Sure, there will still be farming, but it will have to be a lot more organised and the end benefit only allows a player to play on a different server, which isn't a big deal. Even if some absolute noob farms up all of the milestone achievements and they join an advanced server, at that stage it is the role of the players or an admin to get them to leave if they clearly aren't up to scratch.

Griefers will always be in the game, the only first-party support you can give is to empower the player or admins with quick and effective methods of punishment. UWE have already said they are looking to use VAC in NS2 since it has proven itself so effective. The rest is up to the server ops.

Any solution this thread can agree on will still never be able to solve griefing or stacking, because there will always be methods of fooling any electronic system.

Crispy, chief, I agree with you. I was just making a reply to the literal interpretation of that comment.

The milestones are a very interesting idea, one small point is that it won't help very very very casual players, but at the same time I don't think any very very very casual players are going to be put out by it. I mean, if they're hardly playing, then they've nothing to worry about, no?

Anyhow, definitely very interesting at this stage.

I don't see a problem with skilled players being able to play with less skilled players..thats how you learn and get better. If you set the bar low, then thats what will be produced, mediocre leveled players. But when a veteran is among newer players, that person is ABLE (hopefully chooses to) teach the other players if asked, or give advice as the game progress from what he sees. Also the fact that players learn from another by observance, a lesser skilled player, watches a veteran, seeing what he does, then later able to do the same things, helping that player to become better.

Another thing I have learnt is, I've gotten better by playing against higher skilled level players then myself, because they challenge me to push and try that much harder to win or beat them, but taking all this away is a huge blow to the game, at least as far as I believe.

Most players don't learn or even want to learn - they just want to play a fun game. There's no need to impose your own standards onto other players.

It's all a question of degree, Sar. I mean, all of us here are in favour of fun play, but if people just nob around and not play cooperatively then they may as well just be teamkilling.

Probably better off playing CO, it seems to be aimed more at the very VERY casual players.

Hmm.. I fail to see how observance has anything to do with imposing. If anything its the opposite, they CHOOSE to, not forced. Thats like saying, don't ever be a journey men and LEARN from experience union workers, or tradesman because they should ONLY work within the same work field and not teach/show/and be and example for the newer employees.

And if you want to talk about imposing, FORCING veterans to play on a server only with other veterans is the very meaning of imposing, the lack of CHOICE.

As far as them wanting to learn, that is their choice to make and I hope it will be available for them.

But people don't play a game to learn; they join a trade, or go to school, to learn. People plays games to have fun.

You're misinterpreting the observation - it has to do with you, not the players. You're assuming that players watch veterans (or higher skilled players) and learn from them. You might do this, but most players don't do this - usually they are just apathetic to it all and just either play along or quit and go somewhere else when the going gets tough. There is actually very little learning going on in the majority of pub players. That's why it's not really correct to argue that highly skilled players should be allowed to mow through pubbers just because you think that pubbers want to learn from this. This is you imposing your beliefs and generalizing it to all players. Not only are you assuming that learning is a priority, but you're also assuming that people can actually learn from players who are prohibitively more skilled than they are. There is an optimal skill range where it is possible to learn if players want to - but if there is a massive skill gap and a slaughter ensues, there is very little to learn and a lot to get frustrated over.

Also, nobody is talking about forcing veterans to play on servers only with other veterans. Veterans aren't necessarily prohibitively skilled at the game. However, if players are too damn good for a server, they shouldn't be playing there and ruining the fun for others. If that involves putting them agaist one another in a subset of servers, then so be it. The whole premise of this thread is that a player should not be allowed to use his skill to ruin the fun of players in an entire server. The best way to learn is to make it fun.

Where do you draw the line on how good someone is?

Will a CAL-I NS2 player be banned from ALL servers?

Yes because that's obviously the best solution

Joking aside that's part of the reason why this should be a newbie only server feature and not an every server feature. Enough people come to these forums to whine about being "too good". I'd hate to see that become an epidemic.

I wholeheartedly agree. There should only be 2 types of servers.

A newbie server (siege maps in rotation, banning for skill etc..) and a non-newbie server. (the ideal of which would basically be a tactical gamer that didn't ban for team attacking a gorge that completely neglected ability2 until he realizes that he needs to heal himself, at which point you jump in front of his spray and get some health)

Skill banning? Ohhhhh nonononono.

If you want a TRAINING server, that's cool. That's something others are addressing and it looks like it could work better this time round.

Once you're out of the training server, I don't think there's any need for "skill banning". Ban disruptive players, but don't be tagging it as skill banning. Bear in mind that most people playing right now are going to have a big headstart when it comes to NS2.

Sure, we're all back to square one, but we all have a knowledge of the mechanics, the strategies, Fading, Lerking, bit of chair experience, and we're going to put the crunch on the true new players.

The solution is not to segregate, but to encourage people of varying skill levels to play together and not be bumhats. That transcends most forms of griefing, and leaves no doubt as to why people are kicked.

Otherwise, as I've tried to point out before, people will see skill banning as completely legitimate and normal, which can be taken to dangerous extremes.