Skill punishment

[ZWERG]

Don't put it down so quickly.

What every game needs is a way to attract new players and keep it attractive for a while.
The Beginner servers like DCC are a good idea but nobody can guarantee that good players
aren't using them as a target practice ground.

I think every game needs something like a beginners' mode and 2-3 servers using them.
And this mode may also include punishing players that are too skilled. This way newbie
players are still playing the game as it is played on other (non-beginner) servers, so
there IS a learning curve. You're just punished if you are too good and at one point
the game becomes so unattractive for the skilled players that he's leaving.
This can be done in a lot of ways, for example lowering weapon damage.

In general a beginners' mode should enable a newbie player to stay alive longer.
Nothing is more discouraging than being nexed over and over again. Vendor gave some
nice ideas here like every player starting with armor, reducing weapon damage, reducing
hitbox sizes and spawn protection (!!!). Spawn protection would be nice for CTF anyway,
lots of respawn spots that are asking for respawn camping on CTF maps. Some of these
changes like weapon damage and hitboxes might be counter-productive as newbies are not
learning to play the real Nexuiz but a modified version.

Another thing that I realized on servers is that newbies often stick to the "best weapon",
which is in most cases the weapon they are getting hit most often with, usually the Nex
and we all know that this one needs lots of pratice. So they are like: "I can't hit a
thing in Nexuiz and everybody keeps killing me with one shot. This game sucks."
People don't realize that the weapons are balanced quite well. Some don't know that
the secondary weapon function can be very useful, they don't even know there is one,
like "How can you hit at that distance with the Uzi? You must be cheating!" or "You were
shooting me and I didn't even see you. Cheater!" (Hagar and Mortar secondary weapon).
Let alone that there is a +zoom you can use for any weapon.
There could be a newbie mode like Minstagib where you can only have one weapon
each round, like one map played with Uzi only, the next one with Mortar and so on.
That way new players might pick up the subtleties of each weapon more quickly.
And a sniperwar map with just two sniper balconies in such a distance that you
can't hit without a zoom.

[Urmel]

There could be a newbie mode like Minstagib where you can only have one weapon each round, like one map played with Uzi only, the next one with Mortar and so on. That way new players might pick up the subtleties of each weapon more quickly.

oh, I played on an RBI server where the weapons changed that way. It was FANTASTIC !!!!!1111one

Please let us have more (and steady!) servers like that

[Qantourisc]

Let alone that there is a +zoom you can use for any weapon.

I didn't even knew that ! (but now I do , thanks)

[Psychcf]

Let alone that there is a +zoom you can use for any weapon.

I didn't even knew that ! (but now I do , thanks)

the default is mouse3, but it can be annoying if you aren't in a good spot.

[divVerent]

There could be a newbie mode like Minstagib where you can only have one weapon each round, like one map played with Uzi only, the next one with Mortar and so on. That way new players might pick up the subtleties of each weapon more quickly.

oh, I played on an RBI server where the weapons changed that way. It was FANTASTIC !!!!!1111one

Please let us have more (and steady!) servers like that

Oh, that "weapon training" mutator is NixNex ("No Items Nexuiz"), but yes, maybe I should run it again. When the server is empty, I will change the mode to NixNex DM. To play it yourself, set "g_nixnex 1".

[alexjustdoit]

NO WAY. I like the newbie server better.

[ihsan]

At first I thought punishment=bad but because health regenerates the survivor usually has the advantage over a newly respawned player. Long streaks are easier to get than in basic quake. Something as simple as making a player on a 3 kill streak glow yellow and on a 5 streak glow red will make ownage much rarer. It would deal with all those snipers in facing worlds.

[kozak6]

At first I thought punishment=bad but because health regenerates the survivor usually has the advantage over a newly respawned player. Long streaks are easier to get than in basic quake. Something as simple as making a player on a 3 kill streak glow yellow and on a 5 streak glow red will make ownage much rarer. It would deal with all those snipers in facing worlds.

I think EvilFrog had a mod that did this too, except you also got super speed with the glow.

[Xeno]

I didn't read all of the posts (just up until tZork's) but I'm completely against the idea... and this coming from someone who gets pwned on a regular basis.

We're not all equal in the eyes of FPS games.. we all have to suck it up and deal with it, not come up with ways to accept cheating, which is what such a system would be.

[old_codger]

I had a look at the beginners server today and it seems to me that the nex and, arguably, the rocket are too powerful in a midrange players hands. Maybe they should be removed for servers that call themselves 'beginners server'? I'm saying this because out of the 6 players on their I watched them and there is no way 3-4 of them were beginners.

Also, isn't it possible to reduce the speed of movement on the server such that player 'a' can't move more than, say, twice as quick as player 'b' regardles of how many hops and strafes he does.

In general, though, would it be possible to have, say, 3 or 4 standard configurations, i.e. beginner, midrange and advanced which people setting up servers can select from. They can always be altered, obviously, but they might provide a starting point.

It still won't make it THAT easy for the new players on DCC's server, for example, but it will be easier than it is at the moment.