Is it possible to gain "skilled" status?

Some players (like Dirty Sanchez and Seleuceia) are skilled players that do attempt to encourage newbies to join up and are willing to train. Others sadly don't. And yes, this can cause issues in the community.

5v5 games are not the best to learn from....even if players wanted to help you, they probably are too busy with their own shit to notice what you are doing until it is too late...it is much easier to learn and improve in smaller games, like 1v1s and 2v2s, where players are farther apart....you might even get lucky and find someone skilled willing to help you some....

The biggest thing that frustrates skilled or veteran players is noobs who don't listen or aren't even familar with the basic concepts of the game, because time is precious and the more that has to be explained, the less time the other player has to get their stuff together....

Another thing you have to consider is that skilled/veteran players are not always "right", but because they execute things so much better they don't necessarily have to be...

Let give a theoretical example of what I'm saying...a very skilled player could claim that starting with the Corsev is the best choice for TEC, and you could watch in awe as they rape your early fleet with dem teams....of course, they also are raping your fleet because they probably expanded faster and got a bigger fleet, AKA execution...it may turn out though that had they started with the akkan, they would have colonized even faster and would have raped you just as well...the moral of the story is that it's not just the choices of skilled players that makes them good, it's also how they execute things...

My experience has been that newer players are actually accepted and allowed in most 5v5 games unless there are more experienced players waiting to get in. Teams are usually chosen with team captains, so as long as things sort of balance out with a new player or 2 on each team, it's fine. Personally, I'd say it's been about 50/50 with newer players listening and team communication being good and it working vs. it being frustrating bad noobitudes - not too bad as long as there aren't too many really new players in a game at once.

Excuse me for my english ,its 3rd language I learned.

You are skilled once you are able to survive skilled 5v5.

Getting not kicked out of 5v5 games is about being known by other players,there are 2 reasons to kick a player with low games record:

1.he might be unreliable - playing like a newb is ok,playing like a retard is not(rushing with 3 Kol's from an eco spot for example).

2.he might be a smurf (dont tell me its impossible on steam,because I've seen many times  how some unknown player with less then 10 games beat the shit out of a skilled guy)

So just play more games for record (win/lose ratio isnt important) and learn to play smart.

I usually try to give a chance to new guys when I host skilled games,but thats always a risk because 1 retarded person can ruin the game for a whole team.

good luck getting the skills and reputation.

Indeed.  Though i would not use the word smurf to describe it.

Well I might be thinking way too big or professionally here, but wouldn't it help to have some sort of standard "qualification" that lists users by some skill levels and makes them easily searchable? That would at least help with the issue, I think. Because if you don't know a player then, instead of referring to a K/D ratio which could be an inaccurate method for a few reasons, you could just search them up on this database to see if they're registered and/or qualified.

It could also help us avoid annoying kids who only jump from one popular game to the next and shout "OMG NOOB" after every death/kill, but obviously that's not as much of a problem in the Sins community, or the RTS community in general, or even the PC community.

Better for ones to just stop judging others and help ones when they see the need. But that would mean caring for your fellow man and some "skilled" ones don't seem to have that.

I'd prefer a randomized setting personally, kinda like the way the Halo multiplayer system works.  Choose the number of people you want to play with, the game sets you up with people who want a similar game, and picks a random map and teams.

Still allow people to team up and look for games together or set up private matches, but I think MP would thrive if done this way, since you never know who is there until you're in the game lobby.

-Twi

This would be a great option. Any kind of auto-search would be a good addition but the time was at Rebellion release when online numbers were high and there was more potential to retain and bring in more players. Now it definitely just doesn't have the online population to support this. If you are looking to play online and don't want to jump into the shark tank right away, there are usually enough people to play a 3v3 custom - just advertise it as new player/medium skill or something like that. I've seen games like that up before. Single star, at least fast settings, and with teams, not FFA will probably net you more interested players and would also train better if you want to play with more experienced players down the road.

Sins has never had a high player count nor even a medium player count.  300 people online at once is low for an online multiplayer game, at least one that's at all successful.  I read the "Gaming" forum on the popular Anandtech discussion forum, and Sins and Rebellion has an almost non-existent profile amongst general gamers, even around the time of Rebellion's release.  I don't know if the game just failed as a game that attracts and holds people's attention or if it failed as a result of poor and/or insufficient marketing.

I'd have to blame marketing for a god bit of it, or rather, their change from disc to digital without changeing their marketing.  With a disc, it's not as important because people still see the game when they go to the store.  That's what got me into vanilla.  So the majority of people who bought the expansions, which were only distributed online, seem like they'd be the people who already bought vanilla in the stores, and thus the following wouldn't have been much bigger.

There's also the fact that, whether there were other attempts made or not, I only ever saw anything about Rebellion here on these forums(Meaning targetting the existing community), Facebook, and a few youtube videos.  There may have been a few other things out there, but I never saw them.

Basically, I think going to digital only was the biggest mistake.  Think about it:  You walk into a store, and see Sins of a Solar Empire, Entrenchment, Diplomacy, and Rebellion on the shelf, and think to yourself "I've never heard of this before...and they made so many expansions, it must be at least moderately good...Oh, look, this Rebellion game here says it includes all the other games features in one...well, since I just have to buy this one game to get everything up to date....."  And bam, new potential online fan.

-Twi

Here's the thing...how many people actually walk into the store?

I don't know the answer to that question, but it would seem Starclad believes not very many...I wonder if they actually had some marketing research to shed some insight in that, be interesting to see the details...

Judging by the statements made by devs during the series of Steam debates, I think the devs felt the advertising on steam (and steam sales) and other digital download clients would be their marketing...I don't know if it was the best marketing strategy, but a lot of people bought sins because they saw it on steam...

Didn't take steam into account.  But to be fair, I didn't even have steam until I bought Rebellion.

-Twi

Going to Steam was a potentially good move - stores and physical copies are rapidly going obsolete - just the way movie rental and music stores have disappeared. Steam brings in a huge new audience. There's 3 million people online as I'm typing. Rebellion doesn't have enough of a MP side to it to retain them for long though and most people I know using Steam are into the MP side of games for the most part. Out of 34 friends on steam who bought Rebellion, only 13 still play it 3 months now after release. If this is at all representative, it's a good question to ask why? Sales are good, but retaining players for longer than 3 months is better.

It's possible but it takes a lot of money and a PayPal account to get the secrets from me.

I think I was accepted into skilled games within a week, even though I play a lot. 

My advice for newer players: 

1. Take your time to watch replays, contact the poster of the replay on the forums if you want to ask him more. 

2. Ask for advice BEFORE you totally fuck up. 

3. Keep to the general playstyle everybody uses in skilled games. Once you know the basics, start developing your own style. Even skilled players who rush for stripped to the core as Vasari and build only cap ships will get flamed on HARD by their team. 

4. Host your own games fall all players allowed untillyou have at least 15 games played.

It is impossible to gain skilled status. You have to earn it. work hard and play hard.

Steps:

Play Co-Op games with your friends vs Vicious ai(s),

play in skilled games when you can

play and beat the shit out of the unfair ai 1v1 repeatedly.

Play and beat the ai with all the 3 races.

play 1 v 1 games with your friends

This is all impossible in the short run without will power.. with power in your mind, the will to go on, the stregnth to read, research and understand each unit-each build order- each economic advantage then you are bound to suceed. UNtil then it is impossible and if you don't have the will power then you better as well quit now, quit while you can because this shit is not for people who think there bronze-only gold star players and apprentices.

One more thing: for good sakes have a good attitude in game and say thank you and offer to help others. Show that you care even when you are caught up with something else.

If you want to face AI, try to have 9 unfair computers allied against you on a multistar.  Its quite a fun match

This is most easily beaten by the vasari, as their moving almost unkillable starbases make short work of AI fleets.