This is a topic which I've been pretty vocal about, and since it's a new year, I'd thought I'd bring it up again especially with the recent announcement of Subnautica and what I fear to be the diminished importance of continuing support for NS2 from the devs.
Fundamentally, apart from performance issues (that are overcome with time via performance fixes and players improving hardware), the number one problem that ails any chance of NS2 becoming more popular, with its own sustainable E-sports to keep the interest of vets is: Player Retention
A lot of us who follow the games popularity levels on steamcharts.com/app/4920 will be familiar with the phenomenon whereby following a sale the game experiences a surge of popularity only to die down to normal levels again within a few months, which is against the expectation that the game grow steadily in popularity over time. What appears to be happening then is that the majority of players who try out the game ditch it shortly after.
Now alot of things contribute to retention which I'm not going to go into here. For me though the biggest contributing factor has always been a consistently enjoyable gameplay experience. If your system is good enough to overcome the performance hurdles, the next thing that will keep you playing is a game that is fun, and for new players especially the game needs to make a good first impression.
At its best , a match of NS2 is an intense, action-packed, thrilling tug-of-war between two sides in which both skill and strategy are indispensable.
At its worst, and I fear this is what many rookies actually experience much of the time: it's a frustrating slog against hopeless odds as you are repeatedly killed(sometimes right after spawning) without you able to do anything to put a dent on the other team. Sometimes the outcome of the match can be foreseen in the first 60 seconds and all that is left is a slow miserable slog through F4s, repeated concede votes that fail, spawn-camping and a general sense of frustration. This is worse for rookies because of the relatively long spawn times and how unfun it feels to spend your res on a lifeform once during a game and then losing it in seconds because you never learnt how to play it properly and there are few opportunities to learn.
Right now the ratio of the latter compared to the former is unacceptably high, and UWE could be doing more.
The community has done its fair share through friendly helpful commanding and advice, how-to-play videos and guides, but I feel that the promised Big Unannounced System/Organised Play System/Sabot is long over-due. I hope that UWE at least releases some news concerning its ideas so it can bounce them off the community, because there is a lot of potential here to make the experience from game to game more welcoming, more balanced and more fun.
Fundamentally, apart from performance issues (that are overcome with time via performance fixes and players improving hardware), the number one problem that ails any chance of NS2 becoming more popular, with its own sustainable E-sports to keep the interest of vets is: Player Retention
A lot of us who follow the games popularity levels on steamcharts.com/app/4920 will be familiar with the phenomenon whereby following a sale the game experiences a surge of popularity only to die down to normal levels again within a few months, which is against the expectation that the game grow steadily in popularity over time. What appears to be happening then is that the majority of players who try out the game ditch it shortly after.
Now alot of things contribute to retention which I'm not going to go into here. For me though the biggest contributing factor has always been a consistently enjoyable gameplay experience. If your system is good enough to overcome the performance hurdles, the next thing that will keep you playing is a game that is fun, and for new players especially the game needs to make a good first impression.
At its best , a match of NS2 is an intense, action-packed, thrilling tug-of-war between two sides in which both skill and strategy are indispensable.
At its worst, and I fear this is what many rookies actually experience much of the time: it's a frustrating slog against hopeless odds as you are repeatedly killed(sometimes right after spawning) without you able to do anything to put a dent on the other team. Sometimes the outcome of the match can be foreseen in the first 60 seconds and all that is left is a slow miserable slog through F4s, repeated concede votes that fail, spawn-camping and a general sense of frustration. This is worse for rookies because of the relatively long spawn times and how unfun it feels to spend your res on a lifeform once during a game and then losing it in seconds because you never learnt how to play it properly and there are few opportunities to learn.
Right now the ratio of the latter compared to the former is unacceptably high, and UWE could be doing more.
The community has done its fair share through friendly helpful commanding and advice, how-to-play videos and guides, but I feel that the promised Big Unannounced System/Organised Play System/Sabot is long over-due. I hope that UWE at least releases some news concerning its ideas so it can bounce them off the community, because there is a lot of potential here to make the experience from game to game more welcoming, more balanced and more fun.