And this is why Xonotic is the best arena shooter ever

I thought I'd make a positive reaffirmation thread because I always feel slightly bad when I critizise something in FOS software.

It truly is my favorite arena shooter because it makes me feel like a pro gamer even if I finish on the bottom of the scoreboard, and then I just think: If I'm that good, how good are those guys!
Movements and aiming come so easily thanks to whatever magic you guys did with the physics and the lag protection. I never quite get the same feeling of accomplishment with the comparable games that are out there.
I like how it doesn't take itself too seriously and how the you can turn the game into whatever want it to be with a simple vcall. That maps like Augenkrebs, Eggandbacon, SuckerSocks and aimtrain are in a lot of rotations is just fantastic. Even if you have to callvote them off sometimes
It's good to see that xonotic keeps heading in this direction, and my only wish is for the servers to fill up again.

Keep up the good work!

....and this is why nexuiz is a harder and more competitive open source fps.

because its netcode is worse? ^^

No, there's a lot of reasons...such as the physics, weapon balance, lack of competition (well, more so for NA), etc. Maybe samual will correct this with a competitve balance....

because its netcode is worse? ^^

Hahaha!

Xonotic netcode is indeed a lot better

Nexuiz has no competition left at all.

And for balance and physics, why not make your own balance?

Let's not turn this into a balance thread

I think PCL just took OP words out of context quite a bit
For me, Xonotic default settings already offer enough competitiveness anyway. If you read what the OP says, you will see he says even though he finishes bottom and thinks he is good, he imagines how good player's are who are at the top of the scoreboard.

I just wanted to give my personal take on it. I like that it's kind of raw and ridiculous at times. If it were to be hardcore competative I don't think I would enjoy it as much.
I still play warsow and quake live every now and again, but they get dull after a while and aren't as much fun to play. I want dubstep tracks and fun maps. I might have left out one big thing and that's how awesome the community is. You can just walk into any server and ask 'how do you guys do that' and someone will always take the time to explain.

You can just walk into any server and ask 'how do you guys do that' and someone will always take the time to explain.

...and this is exactly what I like best about Xonotic.

Well, don't forget that nexuiz used to be the same way, with people who would be willing to help as long as you asked...

You say "used to" PCLizard, does that mean this is no longer the case? Then that would be a good reason to switch already :-)

I dunno how it is nowadays with Nexuiz, I only know there's at least ONE player less there that explains stuff to newbies, since I haven't played Nexuiz for more than a year but that may easily be compensated by other players of course, if the friendliness in the Nexuiz community persists. Though I know other people that take their time to tutor newbies and are a driving force for the friendly atmosphere of the community moved to Xonotic, too, like Mirio for example.

Honestly, I doubt the atmosphere within the Nexuiz community is the same as it was when I left, or, rather, moved to Xonotic together with a lot of people that I hold responsible for the great atmosphere within the community, but that's of course only blind assumptions to some extent.

What was my point again? Oh, I seem to have lost it, maybe it went to wackity whicktown while I wasn't looking.

As for the "scoreboard issue":

in an IDEAL game (not saying Xonotic is it), a new player should be able to get like 5 frags (against 30) to a pro player.

However: even a semi-pro, who would maybe get 20, should never win against the pro!

So the ideal goal (not saying it is actually possible) would be:

• No matter which two players play against each other - the better one wins (i.e. no "randomness" in competitive play)
  
• Everyone gets SOME points/frags (i.e. the game should be rewarding to for people to continue playing). Note: this is mostly about kills/frags, not about CTF captures or the like. I do not expect a newbie to be able to take the flag and capture it against an army of pros. But if he just gets a few kills done, the game suddenly is a LOT more rewarding to him.
  

I think Xonotic achieves this better than Nexuiz did - but is far from good regarding that goal. The game design of Xonotic is a bit worse in the first point, and a bit better in the second point; however, the improved netcode improves the first point again, while not affecting the second one.

As for the "scoreboard issue":

in an IDEAL game (not saying Xonotic is it), a new player should be able to get like 5 frags (against 30) to a pro player.

However: even a semi-pro, who would maybe get 20, should never win against the pro!

So the ideal goal (not saying it is actually possible) would be:

• No matter which two players play against each other - the better one wins (i.e. no "randomness" in competitive play)
  
• Everyone gets SOME points/frags (i.e. the game should be rewarding to for people to continue playing). Note: this is mostly about kills/frags, not about CTF captures or the like. I do not expect a newbie to be able to take the flag and capture it against an army of pros. But if he just gets a few kills done, the game suddenly is a LOT more rewarding to him.
  

I think Xonotic achieves this better than Nexuiz did - but is far from good regarding that goal. The game design of Xonotic is a bit worse in the first point, and a bit better in the second point; however, the improved netcode improves the first point again, while not affecting the second one.

I don't see how having "randomness" is really possible, unless (for example) keys in kh get assigned to poor players, or the map is badly balanced as far as spawnpoints go. And, like you said, netcode only got better in Xonotic. I think both Nexuiz and Xonotic duels have very low amounts of that.

As to the second goal, yes, there should be incentives to keep playing, (personally I think 5 to 30 is a bit strong on the newb side, just imho). One thing I noticed when learning Nexuiz, is that in FFA matches I could sneak in more kills than other gamemodes; mainly because even if you're the worst player on the server, you can always manage to steal a few kills, and if you stay out of the way, the others don't usually come after you.

That's what makes duels so cool, is it's a pure match of skills; nobody steals your kills (hey gamemode idea! damage based points, not kills), the only thing to mess it up is the map... and uneven pings, you'll always have this last one though.

I actually discussed this with PCL on IRC when he posted this, as I didn't want to "make a scene" on the forums and cause an argument

But well, my stance is simple... By default the game should be easy to pick up and just play, but there should also be a deep underside to the gameplay which players can learn about to get better. I don't think a new player should be able to do 5/30 in a duel with a "pro" player, though. Map control is a huge aspect of competitive play, especially for duels, and if a pro player can dominate a map... he SHOULD be able to. However again, this is for duels, with e.g. CTF you can't really dominate a map without the whole team working with you... In which case, a whole team of pro-players versus a whole team of noobs should have the same result: The pro players dominate the noobs. Consider this kind of aspect a "skill ceiling" of sorts, which reflects the amount of dominance a skilled player can take upon the gameplay for example.

The question of what to do with such a skill ceiling is... interesting. The above example of dominance in CTF can be bad for public non-competitive gameplay, however for private/clan/competitive matches it is a necessity for the enjoyment of the players. Hence why a competitive balance/physics set to separate the two is probably the best possible solution.

I think in summary: Basically, right now, the default balance/physics set is competitive enough in my opinion. It is certainly at least as competitive as Nexuiz (less so with the physics, but much more so with the weapons) with respect to "skill ceiling"; however, it has less of a learning curve to being able to stand on your own in a match. A competitive configuration set will both raise the skill ceiling, and also make the learning curve more difficult to accomplish, and that's what many players want I believe.

There is nothing wrong with the current configuration for competitiveness, and there is no need (in my eyes) to create a different set. I only really see PCL who doesn't really like it at the moment, ofcourse go ahead and create a set if you want too, but I won't be using it because there isn't the need.

It was easy to kill someone in nexuiz imo because of the ridiculous shotgun etc, then it is to kill someone in Xonotic, so I don't get what all the fuss is about here really.

I don't see why public and competitive games should have different physics/balance. Imagine you're new and you think you got some decent skill and want to try some pickups: New physics/balance = "Bleh" (maybe even: "WTF?! Everywhere another balance/physics?"). It's like if you disallow new people to join a small elitist group, because the default balance is 'too easy' for those, thus the competitive balance is too hard for newbies.

And I do _not_ think that the current balance/physics is so easy for people who are completly new to this game. (You would win every match if it's that easy, but you don't anyway. )
I mean... how many people play pickup games and how many are newbies?
You want to play serious games with the same 10 people over and over again? I don't.

Obviously a 'pro player' (I don't like this word actually ) beats a new guy easily, like in any other game. Even in public CTF 1 'pro' can dominate a hole map if he is playing vs. 'non-pros' (it was like this in the 'harder' game Nexuiz already).
If you ever tried to help a new guy you would notice that they don't know about a lot of things (i.e. remote rocket detonation) or about laser jumping.

A competitive balance makes those private games too much exclusively for the minority of the player base.

I personally don't want a game with tons of hard balances where I have to press super weird key combinations to get a decent skill.

I think in summary: Basically, right now, the default balance/physics set is competitive enough in my opinion. It is certainly at least as competitive as Nexuiz (less so with the physics, but much more so with the weapons) with respect to "skill ceiling"; however, it has less of a learning curve to being able to stand on your own in a match. A competitive configuration set will both raise the skill ceiling, and also make the learning curve more difficult to accomplish, and that's what many players want I believe.

As the two players above me said, the problem with this is what we had back at 0.1... is this server FruitieX's balance? Samual's balance? One of the other (tZork, Lee) ones?

I would like to keep it to one balance.

And, the only way Xonotic has a less "competitive" aspect than Nexuiz is its physics––which could be edited if need be.

It truly is my favorite arena shooter because it makes me feel like a pro gamer even if I finish on the bottom of the scoreboard, and then I just think: If I'm that good, how good are those guys!

And to quote the OP. This is exactly for me what UT was like when I first played it..very accessible and fun and made me feel great, even when I was a newbie too it, and exactly the above "If I'm that good, how good are those guys!".

Nothing to see here, move along

I'll have to look into this more, then -- Some players want separate configs with more skill requirement, others (as said above) don't.. Honestly the differences WOULD be minor in a way though, a normal player would not notice the difference unless they really paid attention. Especially an example of this is weapon respawn times -- right now it's 10 seconds, but in competitive balance this would definitely raise higher.

I dunno, quite conflicting here