Never any casual gamers

its not that there arnt any skilled players its just that skilled players are pretty much the only people who have stuck around though all of the problems with sins MP (Minidumps, desyncs, balance). There are still many casual people online its just that "skilled players" are on more often. if you host a game you will get people whether it is a "Skilled" game or not.

Unfortunatly sins MP is dying with little help from the devs to fix major issues people just get enraged and dont play MP anymore or they get scared because it seems like there is so few skilled people on.

Almost all skilled people will play with you even though you are slightly less skilled just dont try to join a game labled 'Skilled" because the hosts feel because they call it skilled they can kick anyone who they think isnt skilled.

Admittedly for an experienced player, it's no fun to be matched with an inexperienced player.  If he's your ally, you feel disadvantaged, if he's your enemy it's no challenge.  A second factor is simply a form of natural selection.  When players lose a match, they tend to learn from it, becoming more experienced and better players.  Eventually, anyone who plays with skilled players will become a skilled player, which is why I tend to consider it experience rather than skill (skill is more subtle, but experience can be massive). 

Personally I find no-rush games to be woefully boring.  Someone gets a stronger economy, builds a stronger fleet, and then proceeds to cream the other side in a single decisive battle after a boring hour-long build up.  Rushes are fun because the fighting starts right away, and there's a lot more strategy than just build up a huge fleet and crush the opponent once you agree it's time to fight.

Thanks guys for the replies. I think i'll take on what you both said and try to get faster at building up my fleets and things like that. Although i do like the fighting to begin quite quickly, i would prefer it if i didnt have a vasari starbase in my homeworld within the first two minutes into the game. lol.

Really? Usually when I play, there are games up where just about anybody can get in. Are you playing during the US/North American prime time? Like, 6 PM to 1 AM Eastern Time? As for rushing, well... trying to get the first attack in has always been good strategy, although not without its risks. But you can't expect everybody to just sit back building up whil they wait for you.

what are you talking abaut, sins is populated by drooling noobs these days ...

I don't really consider myself a "skilled" player yet; I'm pretty middle of the road.  As people have already stated, experience goes a long way.  The problem I see with this is that a new player will have a huge handicap when he/she first goes online. For starters, everybody will view them either as a complete noob or a smurf, which really is a lose/lose situation for the new player because many players won't want to play a game with them in either case.  Second, once they do get into a game, some more experienced players will just rage quit once they find out their ally is a new/inexperienced player, which robs the new player of the much needed experience because they are simply overwhelmed and aren't even given a chance to learn anything.  I have no problem taking a loss because of an inexperienced ally.  I realize they need to get some experience under their belt, so even if I'm on the losing side, I try to help them out and give them what advice I can, which admittedly isn't vast by any means.  I figure helping new players get better will only result in better matches in the future, so it's ultimately for the best.

casual gameplay doesn't exist in games employing PvP mechanics

werd

it does exist...I love screwing around in a 5v5 games..building dunov's only,rushing from eco spot in 2 directions and such things :o] - win/lose ratio is 2:1 ^^ .

topic poster problem ,is that he fell several times on a special kind of people - who are unnoticed until you speak to them.that kind of people is called MORONS.

The solution to the MORONS problem is getting as much  NON MORON friends as you can and trying to get into games with them: see an adequate person? - add him to the friend list, person who is playing st00pid but is still nice? - friend list........

oh and 'sKILLED' are fags,all of them

another thing - BIA blow.

Not really morons, more like elitist pricks. They are the reason most people never play online.

As a new player (ie few months) I can say that this game "seems" to have good things going for it, however a few big down sides too.

ICO issues are always a pain, but can be dealt with.

Smurfing however is a pain. So many games of late have been wrecked due to 3 ppl pretending to be noob, so that as soon as game starts, they ally up in FFA, or simply rush rush rush in big games. I dont mind people who are better than I, thats all good, great for experience and learning however the better players pretending not be in order to play against weaker players is simply boring.

The sad thing about it is that I have spoken to several even newer players than me, who dont want to play anymore simply because the skill gap is too great and the majority of smufs seem to want to only win, not play. Even worse, the people who introduced me to the game, no longer play it due to the reasons above. People even going so far as to pull their cables to not lose "STATS" is even sadder.

There are exceptions to this rule, however IMHO there is a group of skilled people who dont play for fun, only to bully.

Big Andy, have you considered playing it online in Regular Sins instead of Entrenchment?  I think you're more likely to find newer players in Regular Sins.  Also, you could start your own games can give them titles like "New Players' or "Newbies only please".  I think (hope) most skilled players would respect that.

I think one solution might be to create a separate area for people who have only been on ICO for less than one month and then another one for people who have been on for between one and two months.  Of course, they could access the main ICO area, but the skilled players couldn't access the areas for newer players.

I think it's oK to have newer players in the games as long as they are balanced amongst the teams.  Also, as a new player you have to change your expectations for having fun.  Instead of demanding that you win in order to have fun, your criteria needs to be "Did I play as well as I could" and "Was I a big pain in the ass"?  So, you want to take pleasure in becoming a tougher and more resiliant player over time.  The focus in online multiplayer needs to be to help your team even if you personally are getting beaten.  I try to maintain that mindset as well since even good players playing against other good players can expect to lose about 40-50% of the time, especially in pug matches (where your win and loss rates should be 45-55%).

I dont mind losing, it's just losing within the first 10 minutes that annoys me. I prefer fun games where i actually have a chance of fighting back at least. Heck, i even once done a BSG where i took a few colony ships and what was left of my fleet and went to the other side of the map to build up again whilethe enemy was still destroying what was left of my empire. That was fun.

I might start playing original sins again although i do prefer entrenchment with the new abilities and things like that.

Personally I don't mind losing becuase of noobs. Its fun anyway to teach them stuff.

Hate losing becuase of smurfs though. And its nearly impossible to tell the two apart (until the match has started...)

What are smurfs? (NOT the little blue ones lol)

I like FFA......

Smurfs are skilled players playing on a noob account. Sometimes this is for a legitamte resason (trying out a new strategy without wanting to look stupid...) but more often than not its to give themselves an unfair advantage e.g. in a PUG match, where captains pick the teams, smurfs are advantaged as the captains will underestimate their skill and so whoever gets the smurf will get a better skilled player than what they and the other captain thought they were getting.

Ohhhh.... I think i've played with a few of these before, so annoying!

I know how it is losing quick. In one of my first ten games, I got lined up against this guy playing vas. I went for an eco/colony start, and before I knew it, I had like 4 illums and he had a fleet + an orky on my HW. Nothing quite says "owned" like getting your HW Starbased.

Surviving rushes is really a matter of knowing when it's coming. Scouts help for this, but the big tell is position. If you're only a few jumps from his HW, he's probably rushing. Especially if he's a vas.If he's rushing, you need to counter.

And yeah, keep looking around for games. You'll find some eventually, I did. I've even seen one set up deliberately as a no - boot game. Maybe some vets should start hosting newbies welcome games sometime in the eve. Do 5v5s, 2 vets and 3 newbies on each team. That way, the vets could help the newbies learn.

this is the whole thing that gets me, especially in shooters. people who tell you to learn how to play better- but they themselves should be playing in a more challenging server/ game. hard to learn when you get blasted right on the spawn point.

vets should take newbs on vs. unfair AI comp stomps

All noobies should watch replays! Seriously fastest way to learn, you see exactly what a decent start looks like from looking at vets and see exactly what you are doing wrong too. If you put it up to 8x speed its not boring or anything.

Honestly, if I'm going to play against an AI, I'll just play singleplayer.  That way I don't have to wait to find a game and I can use galaxyforge maps.

lol, but it's still only an unfair AI.  One level 6 Marza can toast its fleet repeatedly.

Ugh, now THAT is the worst.  Quitters in general are bad, but that just ruins an otherwise great game.