Unofficial V1.03 Beta Discussion Thread
WolfWings
NS_Nancy Resurrectionist Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 4416Members
NS_Nancy Resurrectionist Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 4416Members
This thread is being started in the hopes that it will be pinned and possibly moderated heavilly by the moderators for discussion of v1.03 Beta servers, with a new thread to replace it when v1.03 is released and v1.04 goes into Beta stage on public servers. I am doing this purely to condense the discussion to date to one place. No <i>Me Too's</i> on this thread please, reasonable discussion only.
Also, please recognize that if you're playing on a server that includes 'laser sights' on any weapons, or AdminMod, or similair features on top of v1.03, you're not seeing a pristine v1.03 server at that point, so please take the time to check if what you're seeing there is v1.03 or not, if you can.
Also, please recognize that if you're playing on a server that includes 'laser sights' on any weapons, or AdminMod, or similair features on top of v1.03, you're not seeing a pristine v1.03 server at that point, so please take the time to check if what you're seeing there is v1.03 or not, if you can.
Comments
Currently, from reports across the forums, if all of a side's spawns die (Hives for Aliens, Infantry Portals and CC for Marines) they are given approximately 10 seconds, then they are sumarilly killed en masse to end the round.
There is a bug apparently, in that hives in the progress of being built still count as 'dead' for this test. This is a bug, the feature obviously isn't working right when such an obvious (in retrospect) situation isn't handled correctly.
There is a team auto-balance system in place to stop the round if teams become, or start, massively unbalanced. This is a new report, which I haven't verified first-hand yet.
This may be a side-effect of the 'can't rejoin the same team' code that Flayra is implementing, or it may be a seperate effect, it is unknown at this time.
One possible solution I can think of, would be to limit the number of 'in play' troops to the opposite team.
An Example:<ul>If you have 8 marines and four aliens, the 'join team limit' of 6 marines could be alive, including the commander. The rest stay in their queue, but keep their places in the queue, until one of the in-play Marines dies.</ul>
if round auto-ending is being implemented because players do NOT want to sit in spectator mode while the last alien is being hunted, they won't want to sit in spec either just because the teams happen to be unbalanced.
unbalanced teams is never a problem, it is always the SYMPTOM of a problem. for example, if one race chronically has too few people willing to play them, that is a good indication that this race is too weak.
in NS teams fall apart when it is obvious this team will lose, but the endgame gets dragged on for too long. i don't consider this a problem or even a reason to switch to the losing team. finish them quickly and start a new round.
concerning round auto-end, 10 seconds is too short. a 3 minute timer (stopping as soon as a hive is growing) sounds about right.
furthermore, and this is a very subjective impression, could it be the carapace bug is fixed? it feels as if carapaced fades aren't as invincible as they used to be.
So you have 50-100 players ticked off that to continue playing they have to manually switch sides. On top of this you have several "Well I'm not swapping, YOU SWAP" "No YOU" arguments going on, we continue along the line and in seeral months time you have a VERY VERY bitter community who moan and b***h about people who won't swap, etc. In theory it sounds good I grant you that, but when you look at some of the long term side affects this system has a detrimental affect on the NS community as a whole (This reflects on other mods as well. Hard core Dod players HATE CS with a passion because of the lameness and cheating associated with it)
I proposed a solution in another thread and I quote myself thus:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If a team has less players, why not power their weapons/attacks up more to compensate? Obviously a difference of only 1 player wouldn't activate it, but when you down 2 or more players it starts kicking in.
Here's the best example I can think of, blown WAYYY out of proportion most likely
(I'm just making numbers up just to show you the scale. It'd take a while to find the correct correlation between lack of players and a percentage increase)
2 players down (10% increase in attack and defense power)
3 down (20%)
4 (35%)
5 (50%)
6 (60%)
etc
Like a max increase of 75% would be about right, but then to get to that percentage of power increase the teams have to be like 2 - 10. Better having 2 super human entities being swarmed by a mod of enemies rather than 2 normal guys getting overrun by idiots who won't swap.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So even if the teams were unbalanced it <i>KIIIIIIIIND of</i> evens itself out a little. There is no 100% perfect solution to the team balance issue and I doubt there ever will be. The players make the game, but the players are defined by the rules set by the game. If you give the players a better set of rule definitions isn't that much better than actually stopping them from playing? (IE Your dynamic auto-balance)
On the other issue of no hives = 10 secs you die inclusion as it has been suggested countless times the only way to satisfy everyone is to put larger limit on it before it activates. The general consensus is around 4-5 minutes, which is plenty of time to hunt down that camping idiot in the vent or build another hive/base.
lol you really need Flayra to comment on these don't ya <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
The reasoning behind my idea, is that the time it takes between deaths on either team... is best measured in seconds, not minutes.
As it is, one has a ten second wait or so regardless. This idea amounts to increasing that delay to balance the teams out dynamically, without any fancy timers or math to calculate or any other rubbish.
Also, ending a round is vastly different from slowing down one side on a round to balance the teams. One is being tested and perhaps done to prevent people purposefully dragging out the match for an extra half-hour when they have no resources, no spawns, and are the last guy.
It's not possible to 'drag out' someone respawning with this idea, unless EVERYONE on your team stays alive, every last one. If they do, all the more incentive to jump to the other team, further balancing things out, especially if they can work together that well as to never die, not even once.
you can find that those games which have uneven teams - typically are those which at one point of time, one of the teams can have an obvious overall advantage - for NS - maybe most resources are captured by one team.
this is just a characteristic of games like these - and of course the fact that many gamers out there feel its more fun winning...
but so far... i see no. wins depends on which team has more progamers..... =]
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're misunderstanding my idea entierly. Tell me when I lose you, okay? :-)
When you die, you're placed at the end of a queue to respawn.
If your respawning would make the teams unbalanced, based on player count alone, then you stay as the next 'reinforcement' until someone else on your side dies.
For example, say there's five aliens on a team. Currently, no more than seven Marines could 'join' that team if it had five aliens, correct?
Say there's ten somehow, due to drops on the alien side.
The game 'closes the gate' on the queue when seven marines, including the commander, are alive. Nobody has to switch sides, nobody has to wait more than a minute before they're back in, as SOMEONE is quite likely to die in that period.
As soon as someone dies, someone else that had been waiting patiently has a go at it, same order for folks coming in based on their deaths, just limiting the number of 'in play' TSA Marines to a 'balanced' amount.
And yes, this would mean the resource model would calculate with the number of 'allowed in' players, not the number of 'connected' players if this was used, since for all intents and purposes, the teams are the lower value.
Note, also, that only one side could ever have this effect occur, by the nature of the math, both sides couldn't be subject to this effect simultaneously.
But what if you have Joe 1337 and his team of godlike players with Heavy Armour, HMGs, Welders and the supreme commander of them all? It may be many many many many minutes before you respawn. It seems a good idea on first outlook I assure you, but think of it laterally.
Waiting people (Even for a few minutes, FPS players have no patience) = annoyed people = people starting to dislike NS = bad community
I just love grand generalisations, don't you =p
I'd assume it would be a very simple system to code in as well.
dagnabbit Flayra, stop hiding in your code, PT and dev forum and come grace us with your opinion! =p
Yes, it's a situation to worry about, but any system will have it's positives and it's negatives.
Positives for this idea:
Relatively simple to code.
Does proper balancing of playercount with a simple variable wait.
Negatives:
Possible to wait for an extended period of time if your team is doing well.
No math formula's to screw up, relatively foolproof against math errors.
If they have a problem with waiting that long, they can always switch teams.
1. If (<i>when?</i>) there will become a "round end vote" or something similar, In some cases I might like it, for example someone running as a skulk and hiding in vents for hours (Like I often do <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->) I dont think It'd be horrible if the round would just end.
<b>But</b> if theres a situation like one gorge saved from enemies, and hiding at hive location collecting resources to build a hive, for the new coming of aliens, then BEWM suddenly it ended while there was still a LOT hope for playing desperate attacking.
2. Team evening. So if there WILL become something that will <b>force</b> you to the other team, THAT would be a major mistake. Say you are in good situation as a marine, lots of resources, HA, HMG ready for an alienslaughter. Then suddenly BEWM) YOu see the world from someone's mouth; youre a skulk. Now that would scare(<i>ok maybe not actually scare but you know what I mean</i>) people off from servers and off from the game.
3. Is there anything to be done for those lose-quitters who just leave the game while they're losing? Oh and there MUST become a winning team joining limit so that there will NEVER come 5 vs 1 teams in the beginning. The only thing that would cause 5 vs 1 teams in the future would ONLY be those sore losers, also known as lose-quitters. (yuk) They should be <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
I rest my case <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well, i have a very easy solution to your problem. If you have to wait to long how about just changing teams to balance player counts out again? After all this is the general idea, isn't it?
You'd never really be forced to switch, you'd just have a longer spawn time until teams are even, so you get a choice. Sit in spec mode for an extra 20 (will change obviously) seconds every death, or even the teams.
Sure, i can understand as a commander or a gorge working hard to seup defences, and switching over would kind of suck, but i <i>have</i> switched over as a commander. The teams were 8 on 6, i told my team (who i'd been working with for the past 20 minutes) that if somebody didn't switch over, i would. Nobody switched, so left them without a commander and promply owned their selfish **obscenity**.
we're talking about an auto-balance feature that should/should not be in 1.03, duh <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
But were there any other changes made?
Does Blink work correctly now?
Are the seige cannons still buggy?
Is bile bomb and effective seige weapon now?
What's new?
Blink can still get one stuck quite easilly in any kind of grate or entity used for transparency or other effect in the level, though it seems a little more resistant. I haven't tested the 'blink to top of hive' yet.
Also, re: this current discussion, it's a valid point as it's discussing a less intrusive 'team balancing' system than one that was, by all accounts that I've seen now, abandoned quickly, and may have just been a glitch in fact.