Hello, before we address the most recent suggestions we would like remind you the context of what NSL Gathers are designed for.
The main goals of NSL Gather are :
- Provide a way to play with skilled players (in comparison to the average pub’s players)
- Promote a
competitive way of gaming established by NSL Mod(+CompMod) and NSL Rules.
- Form a bridge to facilitate players’ transition into the competitive league offered by the NSL.
- To help develop and facilitate the creation of new teams.
Currently NSL Gathers follow a simple procedure:
- An automated matchmaking system which lets players select the captains in order to pick teams according to their skill level to create a balanced game.
- Rules Codex which is designed to let the players be able to play in a good atmosphere with equal treatment towards everyone. It’s also designed to force the participants to play as a team and make them communicate with their teammates.
- Having all users on TeamSpeak during every gathers.
- Playing one full map with each team playing a side on Aliens and Marines.. (for about 30-60min~)
At the moment, we have experienced an unprecedented increase in the number of people playing Gathers.. This can be explained by several main factors :
- With the update of our Gather application, the number of Gathers doubled overnight and it stayed that way until December.
- Also in December UWE took back NS2 and sales were back up.
- Number of high skilled players came back.
- An influx of rookies drove existing skilled players towards Gathers.
- The improvements made to hit reg in recent patches.
- Hardening our Rules Codex to prevent toxic behavior.
That’s a summary (not the complete one) of the situation, so now, the question asked is: how can we logistically expand the scope of Gathers while keeping intact its fundamental purpose?
I’m going to split the remainder of this post into three separate topics:
1) The Continental Split
2) Expanding the Format
3) Our Future Plans
I) The Continental Split
Currently, considering our meager player base (realistically speaking) we won't be splitting Gathers by continent. Since Season 3, EU & US (& AU) players have competed in the same league and in the same Gather. We see that as a positive thing, as it ensures every player is used to and comfortable with playing on any server regardless of it’s location. It’s rare to have more than 150ms difference, because we tried to select from the best server for both continents.
From reading the forums it seems that some think we need to build a more robust infrastructure in case of a sudden growth in the player base. The infrastructure is already here. We have enough servers on both continents to handle just about every team's’ matches and Gathers in the same day. Please don’t misunderstand infrastructure and player base. We cannot see a split happening unless we reach the point of three concurrent Gathers running at the same time with enough players from both continents (12 EU + 12 NA + 12 Mix) on a regular basis (6-7 days a week). Basically our position is that there will always be EU players participating in NA Gathers and vice-versa as it is. On top of that AUS players will always be forced to play with ping imbalances. If we were to introduce a continental split it wouldn’t change the diversity already in place. The purpose of server voting is to provide the best possible location for everyone participating.
2) Expanding the Format
For a long time, The NSL has continuously searched for differents ways to attract NS2 players to the competitive scene. Some of the things we’ve done include:
- Advertising in public matches to join the ENSL.
- Worked with other NS2 websites and community to relay information (
NS2News).
- Used an official NSL Twitter for small announcements.
- Streamed & promoted most league’s matches with Casters giving live commentary.
- Advertised on UWE’s website and forums.
- Utilized our Gather System as an educational arena to let players improve and find a team more easily.
- We hosted several tournaments to bring in new players (Newcomers Tournament, Custom Maps Cup, Skulks With Shotguns, and soon to be a Nations Cup).
Let’s now examine what would potentially happen if we were to create a new 8v8 format for Gathering. I’d first like to point out that NSL Mod (and therefore CompMod) is designed for a 6v6 format. Although we recognize that there is a pub-friendly version that is used on the Captains No Rookies server, we have legitimate concerns about expanding. One obvious reasons is that it doesn’t fit in with the format of our league. Gathers are supposed to be a fun way to practice for the season when PCWs are not an option. Additionally, we believe that it will compound issues we already have in 6v6’s - players not showing up, in-game disputes and trolling. Most of the potentially new players are not familiar with how to Gather in the first place and the learning/growing pains that will come with them will be problematic if not burdensome to manage. Finally, the requirement of 16 players for a single Gather could lead to increased queue times across both formats. That being said, we know there is a desire for a more casual approach to Gathers, and it might be interesting to experiment and try out a 7v7 format in order cater to that player base. We believe it would still retain the competitive aspect of the NSL while being more friendly to newcomers and less serious players.
3) Our Future Plans
As many of us know, there is a wide range of behaviors and emotions that people in this community go through when playing Gathers. While our main goal is to fill Gathers, another large part of our job is to handle players’ behavior in order to sustain a friendly and welcoming environment for anyone interested in competitive NS2. To achieve that we needed to eliminate toxicity and detrimental behavior by being strict with the rules. We believe there has been some great progress in that endeavor. But alas, this momentum can only carry us so far. As things within the Gather system continue to evolve with more players each day, new challenges and difficulties will arise. One way we could alleviate this would be to expand our moderator/admin team. Personally I think this is not the best, or at least the only, approach. Our rules need to be the foundation for facilitating cooperation among this community, such that we can minimize violations without requiring admin intervention. We will continue to evaluate our rules and see if there are any ways to make them more concise and absent of any loopholes. One example that comes to mind is people abusing ELO. A simple fix to that is locking teams at 6 players.
So to wrap everything up, we will give the 7v7 casual format a shot and see what happens. If it brings in a bunch of new players, awesome! If not, not big deal. Ultimately, the more players coming to ENSL.org the better. Depending on what we observe, we may add other formats, such as “high skilled” Gathers. The problem with that, though, is determining what constitutes “high skill.” For now, at least, there is a private, invite-only Gather group managed by Golden to serve those players. There are a few other ideas we have in mind but they’re basically in their infancy and not worth getting into right now.
Again, as always, we appreciate your input and concerns regarding Gathers and will continue to adapt to the growing player base. When the technical aspects of the new changes are available we will notify you.
TL:DR There will be no continental split. We will test out a 7v7 casual format. In time we will potentially add other formats as well ("high skill").
