Expert Sins Players are !@#$ Holes

Although i may not use the same kind of language   as yourself. lol. I think you have a point. There are so many times i have played online and asked for the teams to be set evenly, only to be told that if i don't like it i can leave. Fair enough i suppose but this has stopped me wanting to play online any more. Whats the point in starting a game you know you can't win anyway? At least if it was even teams then you could learn/have fun and be satisfied that you were beat by skill rather than a bunch of people, pretending to be level 0, all on the same side, destroying you in under 10.

I know i have to take the knocks to learn the game. I'm not saying i want an easy win online on all my matches, but at least give those of us a chance and make it fair. getting 3 super players against 3 noobs really shouldn't be fun for either side.

Most of the experienced Sins players are actually pretty decent folks once you get to know them .  With patience and perseverence you might even be able to become one soon.

If you're new, you might consider starting up games with titles like "Noobs Only Please", I think people would respect that.  Also, consider playing regular Sins and not Entrenchment since most of the good players have Entrenchment and won't bother loading vanilla Sins to look for vanilla Sins games.

Also, be sure to watch replays and examine what the better players did and try to understand why they were able to beat you.  (It's like reverse-engineering your game strategy by deconstructing what better players do.)

As a new player, I suggest trying to focus--not on having to win in order to be happy--but rather on taking pleasure in improving your game play over time and in learning how to improve.  Maybe you won't win--but can you do something to help your team in a team game?  Can you tie up the good player, occupy his attention and efforts, and be a big pain in the ass by playing a heavy defense?  Can you run your fleet away from his superior fleet, perhaps go around the back, and go hit his planets from behind while he's taking down yours?  (Doesn't that sound better than losing your fleet and capital ship to his superior fleet and micromanagement abilities for nothing?)   Focus on what you can do to help the team and try to take pleasure in that and in time you will become one of the good players.

There are many reasons why established players might want to play under new names.  One is to learn more about how to play a race they don't normally play.  Another is to keep from having to see a slew of "Friend has joined channel X" if you have a large friends list.  Another reason is that sometimes you might want to just play a casual game where you can experiment with new strategies or the economy.  Another reason is that sometimes you might not want to be bothered by other people (who could be anybody) who've added you to your friends list.  Also, what if you like playing games where you know there will be a high probability of a minidump (messing up the stats under your clan tag name for number of games played) or interminable lag.  You might also want a smurf name for FFA games where you have a low probability of winning from the start or where you get tired of playing 1v1 on the medium-large map once the other four players have been knocked out.

I suggest looking for 5v5 games on the huge random single star map and then requesting a "pug" (pickup game) match.  In a PUG match, two people (often skilled players who know the other people) become team captains, everyone else joins Team 10, and the two captains draft pick the other players in an A-BB-AA-BB-A pick order so that the first captain has the first and last picks of the other eight players.  This often results in balanced teams and better games.

The OP's gonna go supernova!

"Smurfing" is a problem you just have to learn to accept.  I am not a big fan of it either and don't have a smurf name myself.  I can understand why some do it.  Sometimes it can be hard to get a game if someone sees a clan tag or stats much less a group of clanmates wanting to play together.  I don't see it as a lack of courage because obviously for you posting negatively about it then you lost and they had no reason to be afraid.  If you in fact won your game, then why would you make a fuss about it on a forum since you beat someone that was skilled to begin with.

You are right that stats count for nothing in this game.  That can go different ways though.  If they count for nothing, then they have nothing to fear by losing and your rationale for them being afraid to lose is faulty.  If they are losing but without dignity then maybe they weren't expert at all.  After all, you don't group yourself as an expert yourself and if you beat them fair and square, how expert can they be.  Maybe they are just generally a jackass(there are plenty out there in game or out of game) and there skill or lackthereof is an independant factor.  PUGs mean little with smurfs because they represent an unknown variable and the team could be easily stacked without knowledge of the captains.  PUGs are fair when everyone's skill is known or can be estimated easily(ie. by stats). 

I agree that smurfing can be annoying.  I think you are overreacting a bit though.  If you had a clearly labeled "Noob only" game and a smurf came and wiped the floor with you just for the pleasure of noob bashing thats one thing.  If a smurf joined a non labeled open game and beat you though, there is not much to be said other than GG and move on with your life.  You are letting it get to you too much.  It doesn't deserve such anger.  Its just a game after all.

[_]-Greyfox

What's up with this calm and reasoned approach to posting?  You're on the internet, man.

(Good post)

Ive been playing this since the day it came out and ive never had that problem, well maybe a couple times but no one that would really unbalence the teams.

The problem i see is that these "experts" forget about everyone else you try to join their server with no record or new, automatic kick i mean come on. How supportive is it for your first time playing to get kicked off every game. If your going to kick them at least NICELY tell them that your looking for a more experienced group of players but if your new you could help them later sometime. I mean have some manners people regardless of real life or game.

And even if they ruined 1 game for you at some point. Forgive. People have lives they can't sit for 4 hours for a game. Now if they do this on a consistint basis without even letting their team know then they do deserve what they get but leaving once doesn't mean that they are satan.

But in then end its all a game so if your feelings are actually getting hurt by a game and people thousands of miles away on that game that means you should stop playing a bit and go outside and play some football

I agree with this.  There are very legitimate reasons for kicking newer players out of skilled games or games where they will mess up one of the teams, but I agree that the reason should be explained to them and to tell them that it's nothing personal.  Even when I'm not the host and someone gets kicked, I /w to them and tell them it's nothing personal, that it's for experienced players, and that they probably wouldn't enjoy being in that game anyway.  When I do that, they normally seem to understand.

So you set up a 2v2 with your friend as teammate, neither of you is that good, but at least you've worked together a few times before.  A new player joins, he has some super witty nick like 'Rubbishtron', there's another 0-0 player and they suggest 'balanced teams'. 

So you can't team with your friend and have to spend the next twenty minutes coaching some player who hasn't practised enough before going online, plus not everyone can take being coached and one of them is 'called away' after the first combat leaving an easy 2v1 victory for someone whose main talent is in not having a partner of their own, yet demanding to play team games...

So if you want to play team games, here's a suggestion: either bring a team, or play FFA.  Even two new players playing together can improve quickly- if they can handle losing, and watch their replays.  Players with some experience of online are almost always better behaved than new loners, and smurfs tend to want to fool each other more than unknown 0-0s.

There's really only a handful of "experts" who use smurfs regularly. I've noticed that a lot of Vanilla sins players will create a new account after buying entrenchment. That makes a lot of pretty tough smurfs. I've also found that if you ask, a lot of people will tell you if they're a smurf or not. A good smurf indication is the wins to games played ratio. Honestly though the guys who create new accounts to purposefully stack teams just to win are a-holes, but thats nothing new. A-holes are present in every community and have been for a long... long... time. I've played with you starkiller and have always had a good time, so no disrespect but, this is something I feel you're just going to have to accept. You just can't stop an a-hole from being an a-hole.

In the meantime, you win some you lose some. I still learn from playing against smurfs that womp me, and with thier increasing number, its more likely you'll get some smurf on smurf action especially if you PUG.  Best to just assume everyone is a smurf.

I really haven't seen all that much smurfing in pugs because the game hosts will just kick out players with 0-0 records and insist that they come back under their main name.

Eh a lot of my friends that play online say that they come across more "asshats" then friendly players, which is mostly why I've taken to just fighting the AI on unfair. I have no tolerance for idiots so as soon as an asshat start piping up with comments or spamming a unit I lose all interest in the game. If the game has ben good sure I'll stick but when it comes right down to it I hate idiots...

Are you really going to allow a small handful of asshats to spoil the game for you?  It's really not as bad as what you think.  There really aren't all that many jerks around.  As for people who spam out units--if they're going to make it easy for you to beat them, then spam out the counters to those units and smile.

you know, i really prefer playing with a nice, mixed fleet, and relying on versatility and general 'be prepared' attitude of a well varied fleet, and not have to spam certain units to counter someone who would rather exploit the inevitable loopholes in a videogame to win. like, its not fun for me to have to spam some (bloody expensive) carriers just because the other guy decided he'd go for a quick, boring early kill by spamming LRF's

whenever i think of online play, i have real trouble not thinking about 1) asshats who exploit game loopholes to win (i.e. spamming) and trash talk to make themselves feel big, and 2) this story i heard about a guy who got his ass handed to him because the other player read him perfectly and countered every move he made before he made it.

that isnt fun. i respect what you are trying to do. in all of your posts regarding SP or MP or the difficulty of AI you always talk about the pros of MP, trying to get more people to play. i respect that, but seriously, unless i am going to play with my friends who i know are going to play seriously, rather than following a set of instructions like a 4-move checkmate, i cant bring myself to waste my time playing with people who could be real tossers.

that isnt fun. i respect what you are trying to do. in all of your posts regarding SP or MP or the difficulty of AI you always talk about the pros of MP, trying to get more people to play. i respect that, but seriously, unless i am going to play with my friends who i know are going to play seriously, rather than following a set of instructions like a 4-move checkmate, i cant bring myself to waste my time playing with people who could be real tossers.

 

Pretty much this.  From what I've seen of supposedly 'good' Sins players and replays, online Sins is plagued with spam.  Mass LRM/Carriers, attack homeworld, someone wins.  Yawn.  If one unit spam satisfied me, I'd still be playing Warcraft 2.  When playing single player, I can play the game my way and screw around with strategies and units that would lose you the game against a 'good' Sins player.

To the OP, I don't get the point of smufing in this game either.  ICO is mostly a barren wasteland at this point, so I have no idea why anyone would bother trolling unskilled players and turn them off ICO.  However smurfing will always be around so long as games allow multiple accounts.  I've never really heard a good reason for it either.  You don't need a damn 'practice account'; play the AI if you want to screw around without hurting your stats.  And if you keep geeting booted from games because your stats are too good, then it sucks to be you; try playing people your own skill level/stop exploting for wins.  Or host the games yourself so you can't get booted.  But hiding your true skill level is flat out stupid, and defeats the point of having stats at all.

I've been playing the game in onlne multiplayer since April of 2008 and I can confirm that the online multiplayer game is very challenging.  As the game stands now, there really aren't many "inevitable loopholes" left to exploit, if any.

Rezonator, it sounds like you just don't have any interest in playing challenging Sins games--games against real opponents.  Scoutting out your opponent, determining the strength and composition of your opponent's fleet, anticipating your opponent's next moves, and making adjustments to your own fleet's composition and responding to your opponent's moves and taking advantage of his mistakes is just part of the game.  You aren't supposed to be able to build whatever units you want willy-nilly and win the game--if you make the wrong moves you're supposed to lose.  It is--a strategy game--after all.

I suspect that your concern about "asshats" is very much overblown.  First, someone who spams out units--someone who tries to win the game--is not an asshat.  Rather, he's just a competitive player who gives you a challenge (?) and forces you to use your knowledge of the game's strategy to counter him.  (It's a, umm, strategy game, right?  It's supposed to be kind of challenging, right?  It's a competitive war game and not Strawberry Shortcake and friends play Sim City with space ships, am I right about that?)

As for the few actual asshats who talk trash to people they don't already know in a non-joking fashion, let me say that the game is intended for people who are over the age of 12 and who should be able to laugh off that sort of thing.  In fact, it's even fun beating up on the asshats and shutting them up.  Think of it as an additional challenge.  (The actual asshats don't talk too much trash, rather they normally quietly disappear from the game's you're playing and force you to take down every enemy planet in order to get your hard-fought-for win.)

i do enjoy that, very much, and no, im not saying i want to be able to just build X and win, im saying i dont want to HAVE to build X to win because the other guy decided to go for the cheap, quick win, rather than playing to the extent of the game (i.e. capturing a certain number of planets, fortifying, constructing an economy, tech-ing up, building a bada boom fleet etc). it just smacks of poor AI difficulty levels where the devs have given the AI a massive resource, construction and damage boost just to make it more competitive. im playing how i imagine the devs imagined Sins would be played, and the other guy gives up all strategic thinking for a quick and decisive tactical win. yes, its a viable strategy, and in small maps, its probably the only really viable way to win, but, i have to say, im personally not interested in that. so shoot me.

first, excuse the use of the term asshat, it had been used very recently and i liked the ring of it, despite how ambiguous it is. now, im not saying someone who tries to win the game is a loser or a cheater or an asshole. it ties in to the fact that a tactical win achieved by ignoring all strategic planning and simply building one type of unit to take advantage of a weakness is not my idea of a fun time. if he used a combined fleet, LF, LRF, caps, maybe a few carriers and flaks for diversity, and simply out manouvered me early on because my fleet was in the wrong position and i made mistakes, fine... even if it was just an LF spam, i could probably get over that because its the only ship available early game. but when a player foregoes simply research upgrades like ice and volcanic upgrades, or trade networks or phase lane monitoring, just so he can spam 30 LRF that would be nearly uncounterable that early in the game, and kill the whole thing before it begins, bleh. thats competition, not fun. i mean, that early in the game you dont need more than 5 LF and LRF to beat most militia, so unless you forego usual expanding speed to build a adequate fleet to defend against such a rush.... challenge etc is great, but its exactly like an engineer rush in Command and Conquer, wow, the guy built some seriously low grade units, ran in, captured you shit and sold it, wow, arent you an idiot. thats not a challenge, thats stupid.

i agree that its fun to beat a guy who was trash talking 5 mins earlier, but why should i have to endure someone going, oh, haha, you idiot i drilled you with my fully hectic LRF spam, man, you're an idiot? im not saying it has anything to do with anything, it may be nearly unheard of in Sins. But i have no patience for it, nor should i be asked to. come to think of it, ive seen a number of posts from self proclaimed spammers whinging because their spam got drilled by someone elses spam, or by better tactics overall. thats another thing im not that interested in, spammers whining cause they got beat at their own game. i know it has nothing to do with me, but it really detracts from the experience for me. energy i could be putting into the game gets re-directed to dealing with immature dweebs. again, i dont know how many are out there exactly, but from what i hear about how ICO is deserted atm, how pros are smurfing to get games, and all the stuff on forums... i think its a safe bet that there are alot of... idn what to call them... less than mature players, lets say.

once again, i want to say i really respect how you try to put MP in a good light for other players. i did pick up on a few barbs directed at me in your post... which i didnt exactly appreciate, but still. good on you for trying so hard, and its not your fault, its just i really cant be bothered to spend time and energy on an exercise that could prove to be seriously unfun because of a just a few people

It sounds like you want to sim-city for a long time while you build up a maximum capacity fleet, rezonator.  You are right that online is not going to give you enough time to accomplish that generally.  It is rare thing that I even research half the fleet supply levels before the game has been decided.  You can get away with building up in a large multi-star online.  Not many play that online that I see though because it takes so long to finish.  Multiplayer may just not be for you.  You gotta do what you enjoy.  If it is real competition that you like, then multiplayer is the way to go.  If you like to take your time and stroll through the game then single player is obviously what you want generally.  There are jackasses everywhere but that is definitely avoided if you play single player.  If you can't learn to ignore the jackasses of the world, then you will miss out on a lot of good things.  To each their own.

[_]-Greyfox

I'm actually sympathetic to your concern about early-game rushing, Rezonator.  It sounds to me like you'd prefer to play on larger maps where you start near your allies and/or are just further away from the enemy to begin with.  As Greyfox suggested, you might consider the large random multistar, the huge random multistar, and Areolian Sector maps or the large and huge random single star maps with fewer players (say 4 or 6, respectively).

There is, however, another solution.  That solution is custom, Galaxy Forge-made maps which can be designed so that you start near your allies (and not between opponents) and don't start out real close to your opponents.  Unfortunately these are difficult to play online since the game does not support auto-download for custom maps, which means that people have to go out of their way to download and add them to the game.  (Why--I don't know--every other modern online multiplayer game I've ever seen does, just not this one.)

Rezonator I can definiitely relate to what to everything you mentioned in your post. You sound eerily similar to one of my friends. To my knowledge, however, he has not played Command and Conquer so that rules out that possibility.

I just started playing multiplayer myself and I was seriously put off by the illuminator spamfest I saw. The nice thing about sins though, as I discovered, is that despite how annoying it can be to "have to" create a certain unit to counter another, the way sins handles it you are encouraged to create a well balanced fleet.

First match I played (1v1), I didn't know how to scout well and the TEC kodiac rushed me. I was eventually able to win because I captured a 'roid on his flank and decimated his eco through culture. My economy was going strong, so even though he was hammering my fleet and I was only eating away at his, he couldn't replace his losses like I could.

Another game (this time 2v2),  I got beat back early and decisively on a map that severely hindered me, by an advent that rushed illums better than I did. I thought for sure I was going to get trounced, but he didn't press and gave me the opportunity to build up some carriers, replace my cap (this time halcyon), and get out some guardians. He, for some reason, never teched past carriers and just decided to spam them (alongwith lrms). I decimated his fleet despite being outnumbered in caps two to one (i killed his progen and narrowly missed killing his halcyon before it jumped). This bought enough time for my partner to finish mopping up the other guy and rush in to kick some derriere.

Of course, I only really won because my opponents didn't micro as good as I did, so take that as you will.