How many people play Nexiuz?

[Psychcf]

difficult algorithm to actually implement, plus there are way too many rational adaptions of it. It'd be tough to program effectively.

[old_codger]

On the other hand its a team game after all. Do people really expect they can go off to get the flag and be able to capture if noone is back and defends the flag?

There is nothing, NOTHING more irritating than getting the flag back and then having to spend about 5 minutes trying to stop the other side getting it.

Similar the complains here that 1/2 guys on mental space with machines can make a capture impossible. Well that good defending. Thats really the strangest thing: on unbalanced teams there is hardly any defense on one side.. but instead of getting their lazy ass into the base to help defend people are even more likey to attack or complain about the bad teams.. From my experiance those massively unbalanced games are because of lacking (or bad) defense and its hard for an experiance player to really help then. Sometimes this will work out.. fine but for sure not always. And call my stuborn i still think the main point to improve this is to teach people how to play, not curse at unbalanced teams or think about fancy autobalancing stuff that IMO will never work out good enough to make a difference.

That's been my experience too. If your team doesn't defend you're absolutely screwed and it doesn't matter HOW good you are... you can't be in 2, (or 3, 4 or 5), places at once.

And sorry to say this but players switching teams just to 'show off' how bad the team balance is or to 'stop players from the dominating' team ARE JUST AS CRAP and maybe worse then unbalanced teams and IMO destroy the fun even more. If i ever happen to be on a server were you do this prepare to be kicked! (if i can do that on the server that is )

Hmm... who can he be thinking of?

In honesty I think I've only done that once in the past 4/5 months and that was when I repeatedly, (and I do mean repeatedly), asked for a better team balance because we'd lost 2 guys in a row that looked like new players, (as evidenced by the fact that they shot me when I was on their team), and who left within about 5 minutes.

I think it's also worth pointing out that it doesn't happen that often with most of the good players because, frankly, they don't want to win 300-10 with clearly unbalanced sides. what's the point? If you're on a server and the scores at or near that level I think I know you well enough to say you'd probably switch, as would I.

[tZork]

The score dont always tell the whole story eigther. even in the map is won 300-100 teams can be very even, one team had soem breaks, lil more luck, better teamwork etc.

Again a key point here is defense. i noticed that many ppl that bitch abt team balance (and i dont mean ppl politely pointing out that teams are / they consider the teams unbalanced) dont even try to teamplay, often just go for the crazy ivan tactics and try to defeat the oposing team by drownign them in their own gibs. No matter how good or bad you aim, move and know the map your not gunna accomplish anything by manicaly trowing yerself at the enemy defense. well maybe give the defenders some nice long spress. (ok at some point, if theres enougth lemlings, the defense will be overrun, but at that point the attackers base is likely to be a easy target for a counter attack)

[charlesk]

Re: Consider an example. On Mentalspace, I'm on blue, and a red guy grabs the flag at the same time a blue guy grabs the red flag. Both are dancing around avoiding enemies. I get shot by a red guy and as I'm falling I take my laser and ping the enemy flagholder into the void. He dies so we can score. I get 1 point, and the guy on my team who scores gets 20 or something. Was his contribution to that score really 20 times mine?

Well, bluntly, who cares.

A lot of people, apparently. If nobody cares, why bother with individual scores at all?

Re: Create a skill coding system that people can put in their names, which servers would recognize at game start time and use accordingly. For example, you could put "{B}" at the start of your name for "beginner", "{I}" for "intermediate" or "{A}" for advanced. Or use a numeric system of some sort. Yes, it's voluntary, but I think most people would at least try to be reasonable.

I'm not sure what you mean. What does the server do with the information?

The server could use those tags to determine how to balance the teams. For example, if it starts a new game and sees two "{A}" players and four "{I}" players, it would put one "{A}" and two "{I}" on each team. Right now it just randomly allocates the players.

Basically the scoring system is saying "do this because it scores more points"
That's part of the reason why people don't bother defending, because Nexuiz is telling them that it is not important to defend.

Well, some do defend anyway, but the current system definitely discourages teamplay by putting too much emphasis on individual scores.

On the other hand its a team game after all.

That's what we are saying -- it should behave more like a team game than it does now, if possible.

Do people really expect they can go off to get the flag and be able to capture if noone is back and defends the flag?

Based on my experience, yes, I'd say a lot of people do expect that they can do this.

From my experiance those massively unbalanced games are because of lacking (or bad) defense and its hard for an experiance player to really help then.

In my experience, as someone who plays almost exclusively defence, that is not the case. Inexperienced players are more likely to play defence because it takes somewhat less skill. It is the experienced players who laser jump and frag anything that moves that cause the imbalances.

Well part of the problem is that we have very different opinions on the topic. I think too good of people.. i except them to play witfully, help others and act as a team just because its a team game. I know this is NOT the case but its how it should be.

But it isn't. So the decision has to be made if the game is better off tailored to an unattainable goal, or to the reality of what is.

And sorry to say this but players switching teams just to 'show off' how bad the team balance is or to 'stop players from the dominating' team ARE JUST AS CRAP and maybe worse then unbalanced teams and IMO destroy the fun even more. If i ever happen to be on a server were you do this prepare to be kicked! (if i can do that on the server that is Smile

Kick me if you want, but doing this is, IMO, the only available way of making clear to uncooperative people that they are ruining the game for others. Some will not listen to reason.

Again a key point here is defense. i noticed that many ppl that bitch abt team balance (and i dont mean ppl politely pointing out that teams are / they consider the teams unbalanced) dont even try to teamplay, often just go for the crazy ivan tactics and try to defeat the oposing team by drownign them in their own gibs. No matter how good or bad you aim, move and know the map your not gunna accomplish anything by manicaly trowing yerself at the enemy defense.

Again, I think this is more of a convenient stereotype than the truth.

I have been in COUNTLESS games where I was on the losing end of a 300-100 or so match, and it wasn't due to everyone attacking, it was due to a couple of people laser-jumping too fast for newbies to defend against, while the losing team didn't have any laser-jumpers of their own.

No matter what other issues people want to raise, the heart of the balance problem is very experienced players who misbalance games unless there are roughly an equal number of them on each team.

[Nil]

Create a skill coding system that people can put in their names, which servers would recognize at game start time and use accordingly. For example, you could put "{B}" at the start of your name for "beginner", "{I}" for "intermediate" or "{A}" for advanced. Or use a numeric system of some sort. Yes, it's voluntary, but I think most people would at least try to be reasonable.

The server could use those tags to determine how to balance the teams. For example, if it starts a new game and sees two "{A}" players and four "{I}" players, it would put one "{A}" and two "{I}" on each team. Right now it just randomly allocates the players.

I think this is quite a good idea and it would be great if such a thing could be implemented and tested in the field.
Names without a "skill indicator" should be treated as newbies of course.

[Psychcf]

yeah, but one problem: it can easily be abused. I think the server should keep track of who's a newb and who's a pro based on the matches, however that would promote personal scores. Man, there's no way of fixing this...

[Nil]

yeah, but one problem: it can easily be abused.

I'd think advanced players would be mature enough not to abuse it. And even intermediate players could be.

I think the server should keep track of who's a newb and who's a pro based on the matches, however that would promote personal scores. Man, there's no way of fixing this...

Automatic skill tracking is just too complicated. So let's try to let humans help out with this idea of self declaration.

[charlesk]

yeah, but one problem: it can easily be abused. I think the server should keep track of who's a newb and who's a pro based on the matches, however that would promote personal scores. Man, there's no way of fixing this...

Agreed, my idea can easily be abused.

But my feeling is that most would be honest. I believe the reason for game imbalance is not usually that players WANT it to be imbalanced, it's just apathy -- they don't really care. Even if they see the score run up 200 to 30, they aren't going to bother switching teams. But I believe most would prefer a balanced game if that is possible.

This would promote balance without any work on the part of the players, and it's entirely optional.

[Dokujisan]

I have been in COUNTLESS games where I was on the losing end of a 300-100 or so match, and it wasn't due to everyone attacking, it was due to a couple of people laser-jumping too fast for newbies to defend against, while the losing team didn't have any laser-jumpers of their own.

Excellent point.
I have thought many times that "Nexuiz CTF" should really be renamed "LaserJump CTF" because that is the primary skill that wins CTF matches. This is map dependent, as some maps are designed better for laser jumping than others (like facing worlds), but it applies to most matches.

I'm getting to be an "okay" laserjumper, but I still have a lot of practice to do with that skill. When I first started playing Nexuiz, I played Herforst almost exclusively, which used the grapple. Everyone can learn to use a grapple pretty easily, but laser jumping is a more difficult skill to pick up. I didn't start focusing on laser jumping until much later when Herforst was set to only cycle through two maps, and less people played on it. I also switched to laser jumping after joining the TSA clan because I knew the 3v3 ladder was based on standard CTF (no grapple).

I think rocket jumping from Q2 was cool, but it was cool mostly because it was balanced with taking off a large chunk of health when you used it. Laser jumping allows for people to jump all over the place without very much concern for losing health.

I don't really know the answer here. I know that the tutorial videos that are proposed could help a LOT of people more quickly pickup skills like laser jumping. For me, I still have difficulty with laser jumping horizontally forward. When I laserjump, I tend to go more upward than forward. I see people do that a lot, but I don't know how they do it. People that can pull that off have a HUGE advantage over me in CTF.

[Dokujisan]

yeah, but one problem: it can easily be abused. I think the server should keep track of who's a newb and who's a pro based on the matches, however that would promote personal scores. Man, there's no way of fixing this...

There is a way, IMO.

The current scoring system promotes attacking players.

My proposal is a system that rewards people for team effort.

In order to rack up your personal score, you have to have behavior that helps the team.

Currently, players can rack up their personal score by ignoring their team and just focusing 100% on offense. The personal scoring system does not reward players (enough) for supplemental actions to flag capping. The closest it comes to that is rewarding 5 points for returning the flag. We need more "additional points" like that.