knotty oasis
Hello folks,
@lost blade is undergoing an upgrade. All command channels will be locked until the upgrade is completed. This message will be updated with the upgrade progress.
<t:1669456475:f>: Update has fully rolled out and systems seem to be stable. Monitoring will continue
<t:1669470980:f>: The upgrade has completed successfully. All command channels are now opened.
astral marsh
We've added music bots! Check out the pinned messages of #music-commands to learn the commands you'll need for any music session. Guidelines apply to music choices and queue management so be sure to take a look at the pinned messages of #music-commands. These commands can also be run in #vip-commands for nitro boosters and DJs in relation to VIP VC.
Let us know about your experience with our selected bots and their performance/quality by upvoting/downvoting below. (👍 / 👎)
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
With the bot having to deal with more of community members and features, we decided to open up a channel for all those users interested in the intricate details of the changes that are pushed to @lost blade during update periods. This is also for the curious lot of you who want to know the exact details of what happens behind the scenes.
CAUTION: This channel can be very technical at times so, if it's not your cup of tea, steer clear soldier! (Also, this is the part where I can take the opportunity to be a little informal to keep things on par with the audience)
With all the details cleared, it's time for the fun part, the changelogs! Our very in-house ⭐ Starboard system has been in the pipelines for the longest time ever and after much hardwork, deliberation and long hours, we finally got around to finalizing the system. So, today's update shall mainly highlight the new system which was announced in #server-news.
- For anyone who wasn't aware, I happened to have been the sole dev working on the bot so, coding, testing, phasing and everything else would take a lot of time. This time around, I was joined by @astral marsh to build the system from the ground up.
- The tiered structure of the system was introduced as a way to show that certain posts are more popular than the others. This also means that getting your post up the channels is quite a challenge and an accomplishment.
- A lot of behind the scenes work had to be put in place to deal with due to how sticky discord reactions are and to be respectful of Discord's ratelimits. This is crucial for the bot since we want to you bring you, the community, with the best possible features while following all limits of the API.
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Now for some general updates,
- The db has grown by nearly 22% since the last update which translates to about ~7.8k new profiles on our active XP collection alone. While we are extremely humbled to see this growth, we are also working hard to maintain the heartbeat connections and keeping all the necessary indexes alive.
- As we add more systems, we put an extra load on the DB to handle the extra data flowing in. This can sometimes be very large (sometimes close to upwards of simultaneous 7.77/min active reads/writes across all collections). This might not sound like a big deal but, when this number is constantly hitting the DB, it does put some stress on it.
Our commitment to high quality, reliable systems has always been one of the top priorities so, doesn't mean we can't have fun while at it!
- The primary DB is still named "test" from the early development days of @lost blade's infancy.
- If you had a look at the code base, you would find some inside jokes and references which exist for one reason, because we can 😛
- The total line count of the code base is 12.7k so, it can be a little challenging to navigate the code.
- For the curious folk, the code base will always remain private for security reasons since we keep a lot of crucial and sensitive data to keep our systems alive and healthy.
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|| All these changes wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for your vital suggestions and feedback. There's a LOT of stuff that are nearing the final stages of being completed but, I can't reveal them just yet 😉 . It is also worth mentioning that the must requested "Vote Reminders" will be arriving with the new update along with a major code rewrite to keep the code clean and easy to debug. So, it might be a while before you get the next update log. In the recent times, a lot of people have been using digital platforms as a means of communication. Sometimes, this can prove challenging so, I have bestowed it upon me to work on a small side project for a brand new bot! Got any guesses as to what it does? Take your bets now! ||
That is going to be all the updates for this time so, until next time, cheers!
astral marsh
🏆 Championship LFG Channels Update
🔍 We've updated our list of Highlighted Stages under the #𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥-𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨 and #𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥-𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨 pinned messages. You can now mention you are recruiting for the upcoming Stage 2 (on July 1st) if you have qualified for it during one of the four qualifications weekends this month.
knotty oasis
#bot-commands shall be closed for a little while as I investigate some backend issues. I will update all of you with the status as and when i have more information with me.
EDIT (1150 hrs GMT):
The issue has been identified and is under close monitoring. This is more of an API error which caused the crucial parts of the bot to go down. I will be having a close look at the entire system so, it might be a while before #bot-commands is opened but, the bot is online and actively recording chat xp so, don't worry.
EDIT (1527hrs GMT):
I've been observing the instance for a while now and it appears to be stable. I will be opening #bot-commands now. I will also begin working on fix so that this doesn't repeat in the future.
All the inconvenience is regretted. Rest assured, I will put in my best to get the system back on track.
knotty oasis
Status Update:
The rewrite of the code is now only about 40% complete. This deploy won't show much improvement for the end user since a lot of changes that were done are mainly focused at reducing pressure on the internal subsystems and better memory organization and management. There's still a lot of stuff left to complete and hopefully, the next changes that arrive will show major improvement in the general performance that the end user can experience.
Update (15:55 UTC):
The rewrite of the code has been completed. There are still a couple of internal files which need to be rewritten but, that shall be carried out at a later date since there are some breaking changes planned in the road ahead.
lost bladeBOT
Hello <@&585733266338742272>,
Following the ongoing rewrite on the code, we thought it would be nice to welcome all the new boosters by offering a free media refresh. Inorder to claim your media refresh, click on the link button below and follow the steps mentioned on the webpage.
We have a lot more in store which will be coming out soon so, stay tuned!
knotty oasis
knotty oasis
Hello @here,
Ever since we announced our multiplier system based on server voting, we received a lot of requests to implement a reminder system to incorporate with the bot. This system was part of a major rewrite of the code base to improve readability and incorporate good programming practices.
The rewrite has almost been completed (except for some bits and pieces). So, I took this time to bundle the much awaited Reminder System! This system will remain a part of the bot hereon and will open us to lots of possibilities. One key feature of the system is that, you receive the reminders ONLY when you are actively participating in the chat channels. There were mainly 2 reasons for this,
Today's update is mainly focused on Vote Reminders. You will receive reminders only when:
You can access the reminders using the .reminder command (as of now, you only have a single type - vote. However, there's more to come in the future!).
NOTE: Reminders are switched off by default. You can choose to stop reminders at ANY point in time by using the format mentioned in the command response.
This cool feature was suggested by the community. Yes, you folks suggested such a feature and here it is! If you have any suggestions/feedback to improve the experience, feel free to drop it in #old-server-support and we'll get back to it!
Cheers! 
knotty oasis
Hello @here,
As I mentioned in a couple posts above, the giveaway system is scheduled to get a rewrite to make projecting the data of win rates, ticket counts, distributions, etc. much more easier. However, due to future updates in the library, I have had to put it off until the newest version is deployed.
However, this doesn't mean I can pull in the same data (around 99% accurate) using makeshift scripts and what not. This "data" that I want to present is mainly to clear the air around how the ticket system we introduced ACTUALLY increases the chances of a ranked user winning a giveaway.
WARNING: There's a lot of numbers and math ahead so, if you dislike math but still want to know how things have changed, refer to the graph provided below which simplifies the data into visually appealing bar graphs.
The numbers you see below were ported over around 9 hours before the giveaway ended so, expect a +/- of 150-200 participants from the actual data
Now, to get to those juicy numbers . The giveaway had a total of 22524 participants. Out of this, users with the Muted roles are purged which reduces the total users down to 22363. You can find the exact number of ranked users in the excel sheet linked below.
Here is the part that might get confusing. The chances of a ranked user winning gets buffed since they get multiple entries. This effectively means that there are more tickets in the pool than the number of participants. Using such a method, the chances of a ranked user winning went up by a drastic 16.21% from a mere 1.49%.
These numbers and probabilities are not something that the average user is expected to understand. However, for the curious lot of you, the data and formulas exist. So, if you do understand this data, you will come to a conclusion that the ticket system in place increases the chances of a ranked user winning the item.
Note: Like I mentioned above, this data is not simple to understand but, if you want to learn more about how this data was obtained, feel free to drop your queries in #old-general-discussion and I will help you understand the concepts to the best of my abilities. (I will upload the excel sheet soon)
knotty oasis
For the math nerds who want to see all the precise data
knotty oasis
Delayed vote confirmations and reminders
<t:1629103500:T>: There's an unknown inconsistency and delay in sending out the voting reminder and confirmations. I will launch an investigation into this issue. Until then, if you haven't voted recently, please do using the link: https://top.gg/servers/536932666600194070/vote
<t:1629121717:T>: The delay is slowly reducing. I will hold back from restarting all the nodes to let the system clear it's own queue slowly.
knotty oasis
Voting Webhook Downtime
<t:1631616995:R>: There was a connection timeout on the server which caused it to go offline for several hours after multiple failed attempts at reconnecting. The server is booting up again and should be up again in some time. This unfortunately brings the perfect 100% uptime down. I will monitor the server to maintain stability.
<t:1631888400:R>: Streak resets have been enabled so, don't forget to keep voting to preserve your streak!
P.S.: All voting streak resets will be put on hold for the next 48 hours.
astral marsh
⠀⠀⠀With the recent take-down requests that are rocking the popular music bots world—which I'm sure most of you are already aware of—the music bot that operated on our server for a long duration of 1 year and 8 months has been, unfortunately, forced to shutdown. Whilst we remain hopeful for a change that would still keep the wholesome listening parties safe from any further grievances, we will be keeping our #music-commands channel and other related voice channels private until such change occurs. These are defining moments for the memories we could obtain together as a community while using the Discord service. But rest assured that alternative options will emerge, either from Discord itself as a company, or bot developers from the community that insist on supporting this age-old tradition of listening to music from voice channels by using high-performance bots that emit music in a quality that would make audiophiles scream and not in a good way.
⠀⠀⠀These news are the direct result of YouTube taking action against bot developers that stream YouTube videos in an audio-only format, which appears to be a violation of its Terms of Service. However, these take-downs are also fuelled by the fact such bots offered paid features alongside the violations. It remains unclear how big of a role this fuel played in the decision-making process that lead to YouTube taking action.
⠀⠀⠀For those that will be asking to add other popular music bots as a temporary replacement: No, we don't see this option being sustainable as they are at a high risk of suffering the same fate. For those that will be expecting us to create our own custom-made music bot: We don't want to jump the gun on this, we want to stay alert and informed to better understand what all these changes mean for small bots that do not offer paid features, before spending a great amount of time and resources to create something different which doesn't use the YouTube platform.
astral marsh
Mirage Giveaways Update
⠀⠀⠀In our efforts to reward the active members of our community, and in response to the feedback we received about giveaways where the number of participants is abnormally high, we have come up with a system that guarantees that at least 25% of the winners seats (in giveaways) are reserved to the group of users that passed level 10 in terms of chat activity.
⠀⠀⠀To put this system into perspective, here's a little scenario: We launch a giveaway with 20 winners total. Now it doesn't matter if this giveaway has 12 thousand participants or even 1 million, the first 5 winning seats can only be filled with 5 users who meet the chat XP level 10 requirement. So in any given giveaway of 20 winners, you'll notice the same pattern. Users who reached level 10 or beyond have one of the following chat XP rank roles on their profiles: "Rising Star"; "Rookie"; "Veteran"; "Elite"; "Pro"; "Master"; "Grand Master"; "Legendary"; "★" (MVP).
⠀⠀⠀It is important to mention that this system is experimental. We want to take our time to monitor how it behaves and how balanced the results are. A good balance would be if the results are stable and at least 40% of the winners are from the active group of our community (level 10+). An inconclusive result would be if it steers away from stability and instead fluctuates between favouring one of the two groups (active group & new/lurking group) across multiple giveaways. A bad result would be if it always favours one side and neglects the other at every chance.
⠀⠀⠀The balance results will decide the future of this system. We will either:
A) Remove the system completely
B) Change the guarantee percentage to a different value (higher or lower than 25%)
C) Break it down granularly. Where (let's say) X% of the winners seats are reserved for level 50+, Y% are reserved for level 35+, Z% for level 25+ and so on and so forth.
⠀⠀⠀We know that many of you would think "Why don't you just go with option C now?". And we agree! Sort of...
⠀⠀⠀This 25% value is our first step into finalising a system that can very likely stay as one of the many core systems that work together to reward our members for their engagement and activity. This first step helps us better determine the best course to take and if this system can be balanced enough to stay. Option C is just another way of us teasing the fine tuning we'd like to apply once we have enough good results. It may take months for us to come to such conclusion as we want to approach this as carefully and as responsibly as possible (but it could also take less). Be patient!
⠀⠀⠀We've seen a lot of confusion around this new system and the ones that were already in place since September 30th of last year (especially the tickets system that awards more tickets per chat XP rank). What we have to say to such confusion or questions is that you should read our announcements and pinned messages thoroughly and more carefully everytime we come up with something new (a feature, a channel, a form/survey... anything). The pinned messages of the #community-events-🎁 channel explain all the giveaway systems currently in place. Have a look! We'll include a QnA section at the end of this announcement.
⠀⠀⠀We hope that this system will help calm the troubled minds that see the little chances they have at winning a giveaway plummet to oblivion as the giveaway gains an abnormal amount of participation. And of course, we hope you like the new addition!
QnA Section:
Q. Does this mean there's a 25% chance I'd win if I'm above level 10?
A. No. It means that there's a 100% chance that 25% of the winning seats are filled by some members that meet the level requirement. It won't necessarily be you. You would still be competing against everyone that meets the requirement and your individual odds would still be low.
Q. What can I do to increase my chances?
A. Simple. Be more active! The higher your chat XP rank is, the more tickets you unlock and the higher the chance of one of those tickets ending up as a winning ticket!
Q. What is this chat XP level/rank you are talking about and how can I gain it?
A. By having meaningful and healthy conversations on one of our server channels. As you actively chat, you will gain 15-25 XP every 60 seconds. This chat XP will help you reach higher levels, and thus higher ranks.
Q. Where can I check my current XP level/rank or how many tickets I own?
A. Use the.rankcommand on our #bot-commands channel.
Q. Can I spam to reach higher levels faster?
A. No. You are limited to one XP bump every minute, and spamming will only risk you losing the ability to gain XP at all (or getting kicked/banned). We generally combat spam and discourage it, and we will never award it. The systems are in place to award healthy and meaningful conversations only.
Q. I have read the pinned messages of the giveaway channel (and your announcement here) thoroughly and carefully. But, I still have more questions about these giveaways. Where can I ask them?
A. Feel free to ask any server related questions on our #old-server-support channel :)
knotty oasis
Hello folks,
There was recently a cloudflare issue with our voting website - top.gg, which caused the site to be unreachable to the vast majority. The connectivity issue should now be resolved and you can go ahead and vote at: https://top.gg/servers/536932666600194070/vote
I've also temporarily disabled streak resets for 48 hours to make sure that nobody is affected by this downtime. So, don't forget to get in your votes within this timespan to avoid resetting your voting streak.
The streak resets will be turned back on in: <t:1635166800:R>
Update: Streak resets have been turned back on, don't forget to keep voting!
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
There was a short downtime from <t:1637804700:R> up and till now due to a failed restart. I have booted the bot back up and it will be online in a while.
The inconvenience is regretted.
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
There will be a short maintenance period where @lost blade will be offline to run tests and push to the production environment. The maintenance period shouldn't be too long, I'll update this message when all services are restored.
The maintenance period has been completed. All the services are slowly being restored and chat monitoring is active.
Very exciting changes coming up in the next few days. Stay tuned!
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
@lost blade will be undergoing a major version update. Due to this, #bot-commands and #vip-commands will be locked for the entire duration of the upgrade.
All services hosted by Mirage will be down, this includes the XP rewards, vote webhooks, auto reactions and all our backend services. All vote streaks will be paused for the next 48 hours. There is no ETA for this upgrade yet.
Check back in a while to see the progress of the update.
Update: The update is rolling out perfectly fine. However, there are some issues on the host's end which has paused all further deploys. Therefore, the bot will take some more time to return to normal operation. However, I have enabled chat xp just in time so, all your xp rewards should be functioning correctly.
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
As I wait for the host to fix things on their end, I'll take the time to share the changelogs for the ongoing update. This update had more to deal with cleaning up the backend services than any frontend interfaces.
1. Following all the reports of your votes not going through the system, I have switched up systems in favour of higher reliability at the cost of some delay in the assignment of vote multipliers. I won't get into the technical details but, all you should know is, voting webhooks should be more reliable. This change is experimental so, if this proves to be erratic, necessary changes will be made.
2. Moving forward, we've decided to break up certain role permissions into their own roles.
3. Following the change mentioned above, the media pass role is now a global role given to both boosters and members. These changes are designed to help with better flexibility in handing out permissions to members.
4. We have introduced a new "Context Menu" for MVP users. You can access this menu by right clicking on a user profile (currently only available to desktop users). Using this menu, members can more easily and quickly change roles (which is a perk for MVP users).
5. We have overhauled the #822553598369202206 system to dynamically change thresholds for auto reaction channels like #codm-suggestions, #targeted-feedback. This change is aimed to give all the posts and messages the exposure they deserve without being left out.
6. Last but not the least, this update finally adds message components in the form of Buttons and Select Menus. You will see these elements on certain command responses so, do let us know of how you like this change.
Like always, feel free to express your feelings/concerns in #old-server-support and drop your suggestions while you're at it. We might just pick a couple ideas to implement in the next update because, we've already got ideas
knotty oasis
Hey folks,
<@537576103670317059> will be undergoing a major version update. Due...
Hey folks,
This message is in regards to the update deployed to @lost blade. Unfortunately, the host is still investigating issues with deploys on their end but, I have found a bandage solution in the meantime. The #bot-commands channel will reopen and full functionality will be restored. However, since the bot is still recovering from the host's issues, it might act erratic or display unintended behaviour. In such a case, please report the same in #old-server-support.
Hoping to resolve all the issues from here on out. So, feel free to drop suggestions if you have any.
knotty oasis
Hello folks! 👋
After hitting some technical snags with the host during the upgrade, I'm glad to report that we have a stable workaround to run our systems powering @lost blade. Since everything is stable and working, we would like to introduce you to the better part of the v13 upgrade - The Event System!
Back in August 2020, we hosted our version of a "tournament" based on the in-game running event (Kills Confirmed). In such an event, the player would submit screenshots of every game played and the users in the match. The player was assigned points based on the kills confirmed.
Following the success of the previous event, we've decided to introduce even more twists and turns . We're introducing the concept of "teams" to encourage users to socialize and formulate a strategy that helps teams gain positions on the leader board. Along with this, we're also introducing a new mechanic to the calculation of event scores. These settings are known as Ranking Scopes and we have three distinct types;
The total points for your profile will be the cumulative sum of all valid and approved submissions.
The total points for your profile will be the points assigned to the latest approved submission of all your entries.
The total points for your profile will be the cumulative sum of the top X number of submissions part of your profile. The value of X is event-based and varies from event to event.
With all these changes, we now have even more commands for the events accessible using .help and selecting the 'Events' option from the select menu.
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A brief overview of the working description is listed below (the respective commands are mentioned in parenthesis),
1. Players can either create their team (.create) or join an existing team (.join). Team creation is available 48 hours before the event begins. So, be sure to form your team at the earliest to make the best use of time during the event.
2. Once a team profile is set up, the team leader is assigned their inbox (.inbox) where all join requests for that team shall be stored. The team leader will be able to either accept (.accept) or deny (.deny) the join request.
3. The team leader can enable or disable join requests for their team by locking (.lock) their inbox at any time.
4. The team leader also has access to kick (.kick) members from their team. Similarly, a team member can leave (.leave) their present team during the event.
5. The team leader cannot leave the team without transferring (.transfer) their leadership to another team member.
6. The team leader can choose to disband (.disband) the entire team. A minimum of 2 votes is needed to dissolve the profile.
NOTE:
1. Some commands are enabled and disabled a couple of hours before the event begins and ends to ensure that all team members are playing fair and treating their members equally.
2. As mentioned in the previous changelogs, users are now required to have the event role(⚡), to participate in our special events.