Improving the State of High-OS Lobbies & the Overall Game

[royal mirage]

Also for some reason it's always the rotato players crying the river about the strait

[distant elk]

nah, rocketbot micro takes like 5 apm

see, i too can make completely unfounded statements 😛

[storm condor]

Down to 1v1 rn

[strange beacon]

might as well play starcraft if you want to click more

[storm condor]

It's a high OS thread why are strait players here anyways btw

[distant elk]

yes, i'm sure you think that's a gotcha, but it's actually a little pathetic ^^

[thick cypress]

Look Sabutai I can respect this. Im not a ultra high OS player. (I blame my keyboard) But I feel I try to offer up impartial and objective posistions and ideas that I think represent everyone. Or anyone. I suggested a more inclusive approach tournaments and completely unrelated and coincedently Fight Night started the next week. The impact that will have on high os lobbies will be reverse in that Higher OS lobbies wont be defined by thier ceiling but will instead provide a much wider skill base to play at least mildly stimulating games. You cannot fix the top without fixing the bottom. You just cant. But if you feel my input isnt constructive because even with my 2500 hours I still suck and have no intricate knowledge of the game then ill accept that and bow out. No hard feelings

[storm condor]

U said it's very easy I said come 1v1 I'll how it's not

[royal mirage]

It's another splendid highlight of the high ts issue

[storm condor]

But all u can do is bla bla cannot even come 1v1 to support your claim

[strange beacon]

what does 1v1 have to do with balance?

[thick cypress]

everything

[royal mirage]

what you seem to not understand is that there're different skillsets for every high ts bubble, yes you're good at 1v1 nobody denies that so please stop being insecure

[storm condor]

He said something is easy I said it's not there needs to be a show to prove it

[thick cypress]

1v1 has EVERYTHING tpo do with balance. If it doesnt balance at the simplicest common denomenator ur fcuked

[storm condor]

Ok w/e ur not gonna accept 1v1 I go sleep

[distant elk]

yep, and i'd destroy you on a sea lane, just like you'd destroy me at 1v1

it really proves nothing ^^

[strange beacon]

1v1 is a different game environment. with 1 com instead of 8

missile truck and rockos pretty w/e in 1v1 cause the map is big

[thick cypress]

But happiness needs to play ARM navy lol. # fix the navy imbalance garbage

[royal mirage]

please don't fix arm navy it's been helping with my burnout

[strange beacon]

all the top navy player roughly agree. t1 arm navy can be good esp on open map but it's like 10x harder to play
which is fine ig

[thick cypress]

It sucks. Its literally the thing I hate most about bar. Its like the only thing I hate. Besides cloaked mexes. But its such a glarily obvious oversight that hasnt been addressed in even a most subtle way. Predermined faction choice is gross.

[strange beacon]

fix shruiken and abductor before fixing t1 sea balance xD

[distant elk]

arm loses on narrow lane for sure, without huge skill diff, but is pretty excellent on big maps in t1. struggles in t2 though

[strange beacon]

on narrow lane map arm is not good, but like bots also suck on narrow lane map so whats the prob
yeah t2 arm is dogshit

[thick cypress]

give a paralyser drone to arm. Give a crappy lazer gunship to core. Make the t2 core trans fire a missile or something

[distant elk]

technincally not true, rockos very strong everywhere

[strange beacon]

on narrow lane you can use the wolverine spam. and less room to go around hlt

[distant elk]

tempo advantage for rockos is real

if you can get set up you can stop them, but they win hard very early

[storm condor]

Flats, tar tar, Rosetta middle spawns, bismuth non edge spawn, darkside, star watcher, moonshine, 8 horses middle and top. There's like 5 other maps that I know where u can just go veh and win vs bots

People who spam rocketbots don't even know what the real purpose of making rocketbots is

[verbal ridge]

Ask yourself how is this discussion all significant to increase the popularity of the high os lobbies? Are sea balance or rotato vs straits really the issues that need to be discussed here? Take your politics somewhere else

[strange beacon]

lol damn. now thats abusing op sneaky pete to the max potential

[storm condor]

For a good 5 messages me and chrono had decent convo about porc

Ye utilizing dgun is one of the main ways to outplay

[strange beacon]

u prolly need a camera in front your base to have vision

well full invis com with the only counter being spam reveal is pretty strong

[distant elk]

all true yes, i was generalising somewhat, but those are also mostly not narrow lane maps, which is what the message i replied to was talking about

[storm condor]

Later on I used 3x cloaked snipers with holdfire to kill sheep's rattlesnakes and pitbulls. It's the best way to kill t2 porc

[strange beacon]

they can put t1 wall in front i think. they help against plasma weapons too

[storm condor]

It's mostly same issue as Whistler was in the past, in maps with low metal income, oppressive units like rocketbots n whistlers r very hard to deal with as stout Janus need time to hit mass.

[strange beacon]

why do you say critical mass? rocket bot can't fire over each other?

[storm condor]

Rocketbots don't operate well in balls

Tank balls are good against a thin spread of rocketbots and pawns bcz u can sweep

Also medium tank most metal efficient unit for HP so apart from dgun it can tank everything, u can take out dgun from the equation by combombing with an armada jammer

[dire tartan]

I do think we're straying into topics that are more "general issues" rather than "high-OS" issues. That's partly the nature of balance discussions, I suppose... there's a lot more interactions that apply in a range of skill levels, than there are that only high-OS players make use of.

So let's run a litmus test: is there an X and Y for the recent balance-related discussion that could fulfill "X is broken in high-OS lobbies specifically, and could be improved by Y"?

If not, then it may belong in a more general balance thread.

[storm condor]

If u watch some of stardoms Games, he makes stouts on t2 mexes, I copied it and clyret (zow) copied from me saying it was good

[strange beacon]

could make a general state of balance thread

and leave this for player interactions outside the physical game

[distant elk]

there kinda is one https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1246117579450482818

[storm condor]

-Shuriken nerf (formation-move-commabd makes it almost impossible to kill with ground aa)
-Abductor nerf(emp dmg to t3 is too high)
-Salamander nerf (for having amphib movedef i.e they can transverse on terrain where only bots can on certain maps like bismuth backline)
-Banisher buff (just bad metal efficiency and low window, too high investment)
-Core t2 veh lab lacks a spyunit that every other t2 lab has.
-Juggernaut never used bcz Titan is simply better at doing everything jugg does
-Grunts miss quite alot onto ticks

Also it's my personal opinion that other might or might not share but the whole rocketbot meta is one of the least lowskill metas to exist, unlike whistlers or T1 arty in the past you need to utilize pawns/grunts/rezbots/dgun to max potential to get good trades.

[strange beacon]

cor veh t2 also lacks good engineer build options. the printer has very basic ones

grunts, seekers, even flagship laser miss ticks

tiger is good on less player games. in an 8v8 its' not good into porc (too low dps per cost) and gives other players too long to react

[tawny linden]

I agree with every point here and would also add that tremor could use a cost reduction especially in the energy dept imo.

For Sala I personally think just remove it from amphib lab and leave it as is on t2 veh lab before doing movedef changes.

Maybe instead of core t2 veh having a spy/cloaked vision unit they could get some sort of slow mobile ICS to act as counter Intel? But that's a huge shake up as core t2 veh would likely become mandatory in many games and it even further bloats the lab.

[strange beacon]

sala is fine as a t2 only unit, could weaken the emp resist perhaps

[tawny linden]

I'd only do that if they could then shoot up somewhat in return or smth. But I also don't want to just slap aa on top as there's already too many units that do that on arm side.

[swift olive]

bots meta much better than whistlers 🥳

[tawny linden]

They're not insane op like shuri but I do think that rocket bots could use a reverting of the most recent buff since missile trucks got nerfed but that seems to be off the table for the moment.

[thick cypress]

Honestly I think you should revisit Cloaked mexes. They should have a pulse with a cool down instead of creating a liability for the owner.

Instead of it exploding and creating a negative vacuum for the owner of the mex to contest again. If the mex did not explode, it would add infinite value to actually building them and they would establish a sort of invisible net that would in many ways project area control like an exploiter.

Alternative routes and strategies have to come into play when you encounter exploiters. You need a new route, whats the opporunity cost behind what its protecting?

Eliminating a mex is essentially the first fundamnetal play you make in any match. Raid. Knock the mexes. Get some wind and bot or whatever, but having your own eco structure provide you with such a disadvantage by having to explode just to function is ludacris (LUDA!). Not to mention it needs to be looked after anyway in order to A) Protect the now vacant mex and B) Take advantage of the resulting emped units. Some of which...could even be your own.

Consider for a moment twilights don't explode. Having exploiters and twilight's interspersed around the field determines how the game is played because those become high risk areas of engagement and loss. Something HIGH OS players capitalise on thoroughly and quickly . Higher OS players will be able to use , demonstrate and capitalise on this mechanic which from the cores point of view already helps them define the battlefield.

If the twilights had a small pulse, perhaps 65% of its current detonation radius. Its enough to create a tension for your opponent to think twice about sneaking in "uncapped" areas. I feel in game that this counterforce will only enrichen the entire portfolio of active and passive area control.

You cant expect this to be refined in lower OS lobbies. I feel this is a simple and elegant way to bring a closer balance to both factions that still respects and acknowledges their individual identities

[tawny linden]

Can you edit into paragraphs? Wall of text hard to read

[thick cypress]

lol. I thought about it and then was like yeah fuckit... but i will with pleasure. I apologise

[tawny linden]

Np my eyes just hurt a bit

[tawny linden]

Okay I was able to read it much easier now ty. This seems like it should be it's own suggestion thread though I think.

High OS 8v8 lobbies in particular don't even use exploiters 99% of the time because they're rarely worth it in bigger team games where you individually don't need to hold much territory.

[thick cypress]

I've made a suggestion thread. Twice. But you want to add depth and richness to a game that will require skill a finesse to be refined and executed. This is the place. But I can only see adding more depth to a game thats already challenging as something that could give HIGH OS lobbies quality of life. You cant change the players. You gotta change the game.

[thick cypress]

You see chisato use them in 1v1 and thats where it matters. That's the litmus test. Is this thing useful? Does it provide me with an advantage. Chisato speaks of establishing about 9 mex nodes +- in order to be able to just expand solely with exploiters after that. Barcast and him speak about it watching replays on idis crack from the 1v1 tournament a few months back. ( Lower OS players see them used well and emulate it. Exploiters become understood and then become adopted and fundamental in the wider scope of the game)

Exploiters initial outlay is metal intensive and then its just lazer energy cost. If those were a reworked twilight for instance, the arm player would need a different economy angle, energy outlay, which would perhaps be offset by the cheaper advantage that Arm enjoys over core with their wind turbines.

Yet still... I challenge anyone to find me consistent use cases of cloaked mexes being used in high stake tournaments in the same frequency or successful application as the exploiter. And I honestly and firmly believe. That all that would change, If the twilight worked like a trap instead of a bomb.

[heady valve]

It's so much text

Just keep in mind, suggestion threads are good to discuss the idea. But without something that someone can work on and without someone to implement it, there's nothing to be done

At some point someone needs to compile the action point and discuss how feasible it is to implement it

How to improve the state of high os lobby and general game? Is it more lax or strict moderation? Is it balance change? Is it <contentious topic>? Well never know

[marble wren]

Priority queue is still outstanding currently, is it not?

[heady valve]

That's a good one

Thats possible to implement on teiserver maybe

[marble wren]

We brought it up along with the suggestion to improve the map pool in a flexible way

Idk if someone started working on it though.

[river briar]

i whipped up a proof of concept function but don't know anything about teiserver or chobby to make it actually work. also i think the idea of people jumping in queue is still a bit contentious

[marble wren]

I don't think it would be a good default behaviour at all, but a toggle for the one lobby that could make use of it would be great.

[tawdry jacinth]

There are two ingredients needed for the feature to be added

1. Needs to be feasible
2. Needs someone willing to work for free on it

Priority queue meets criteria 1 but I don't think it meets criteria 2.

The priority queue where someone higher OS than you can jump you is good for certain players and bad for others. Strongest teiserver dev that plays in OP lobby is high thirties. I don't see the motivation to create a feature that would cause your wait times to be longer. (But maybe I'm wrong and someone is working on it secretly).

[storm condor]

Could there be some sort of reward system like badge/cosmetic for being current top 1/3/5 leaderboard

Is it implementable?

[thick cypress]

Books are hard. 😂

I've said my part. I'm out.

[heady valve]

Can we make a new #suggestions thread for "priority queue"? I think at this point the suggestion has evolved into $targetratinglevel.

The "op lobby" would set the $targetratinglevel to whatever is effectively infinity, say, 100 or 1337.
Mid tier rotato lobby would use maybe $targetratinglevel 25 which would mean that users closest to 25 OS would get picked into players and those further away from the $targetratinglevel would have to wait in join-queue.
Because there would be no guarantee you actually get through the waiting queue, users would be incentivized to find lobbies with a $targetratinglevel as close to their OS as possible.
During peak hours there would be more lobbies and during quiet hours people would be willing to try to get a game further away from their OS.

But yeah all the fine details of this are off-topic for this suggestion thread. It's only relevant because op lobby would finally get the priority queue they've been asking for a long time.

[verbal ridge]

This is a brilliant idea by Zod

[marble wren]

Well apparently, according to jauggy, someone from the OP lobby should get on it...

Strongest teiserver dev that plays in OP lobby is high thirties. I don't see the motivation to create a feature that would cause your wait times to be longer.

[strange beacon]

have to make sure two things:
there's a limit how many times you can get bumped for high/low os

the priority queue is invisible (doesn't do anything) when the queue is very small

[marble wren]

Well presumably it's not enabled for all lobbies by default.

[tardy pike]

All we need is the $vip function to be automatically applied to players with highest Os in queue until they get it to the game. 😂

[river briar]

#1233481418500345928 message

^ the priority queue function i whipped up that qualitatively seemed to work alright. it basically just weighted queue position quadratically against the deviation from the target os

[tawdry jacinth]

OK yeah that's better than what I was imagining. This means you're not constantly getting skipped over since your queue position matters too.

But visually people might be confused at what's going on.

[thin tusk]

Sooo you've heard about ELO hell?

What happens to a rating system when you put in weights to match accessibility at different points?

Say one at 20 OS and one at 40 OS...

It creates a statistical barrier at the mid point between those two skill levels.

Now as you move up the ladder you're still penalised trying to get into the pro room cause you're too far away from the target OS

But as you're getting better you're also penalised in the non-pro room

[river briar]

i imagined that the pro room might have a target os of like, 100 or something- not actually a target, but effectively just weighting higher os players position in queue proportional to how high the "target" is

[unique stone]

The numbers shouldn't be standardized. Lobbies decide the number

[river briar]

Yea a boss enabled teiserver function like $priorityqueue <target os> or something is what i imagined

[thin tusk]

While that might feel like you've solved the problem, what it probably means in practice is that you'll just hit a couple of psychological/social points in the community and people will implement ELO hell without any central coordination

[unique stone]

I can't see that happening

You assuming all lobbies will have prio queue, all lobbies are always full and have 10 ppl in queue, etc

[thin tusk]

I think it's how large numbers and people work...

We'll choose round numbers or 5s cause we're all secretly OCD ;P

Since OS has a spread of effectively about 20 points to capture 90 - 99% of the population with a mean somewhere around 16 - 25 there's about 2 or 3 natural cut points people will choose in practice

Cause humans are irritatingly non random

Pro room will choose a high value cause that's also how humans think...

And the effect will be increased ELO hell at the statistical mid point between the two groups. No coordination, conversation or central planning necessary.

[river briar]

I think that assumes that queue residence time is significant on average, and imo it isn't

[strange beacon]

yeah this will only have an apprecaitable effect when there's a long line

[marble wren]

There's been a pretty small number of days this month where it's even been necessary tbh.

[heady valve]

I'm always confused when people talk of "priority queue" do they mean ordering the join-queue or also spectating players?

[tardy pike]

Highest Os skips the line to be first in line.

[marble wren]

Without looking at teiserver or elixir at all, I'm imagining a dynamic heap under the hood.

Probably not straight up sorted by OS, because if there target is 40 OS and there's a 29 next in queue, you should probably not bump them for a 30 that just showed up.

[river briar]

#1233481418500345928 message

again, my proof of concept function

Not saying that exactly has to be used but i think it illustrates the idea

[fallow pike]

as far as i understood how priority queue was wanted was that closest os to target os gets in first and second closes after that

[unique stone]

This is great, I just don't know how to display this, as it's not really a queue.

The queue spot is one part of the equation

[river briar]

Just keep the queue display the same, but take people out in the order dictated by the weighting function imo

but yeah idk, like i said just a proof of concept, i don't know anything about chobby or teiserver

[unique stone]

I'm not talking about implementation side, just visually for the players

I understand the formula and I agree that's roughly how it should work.

[marble wren]

What options are there? It's conceivable that others may want their lobby to prioritize players near 20 OS for lower skill games, lowering priority of much higher or much lower players.

Shuffling the queue idk if that's an option. Just pulling from the queue regardless of position sounds like it'd be counterintuitive.

[valid ruin]

Well technically it already says why you were added to the game in the lobby. Its just the reason is always you were the top of the queue. Plus, its already what happens when you "queue" for league or any mm game so I dont think its that unexpected, esp when you see priority queue in the lobby settings.

I think the elo hell would be minimised by the fact that you're not kicked out of a game once you do get into one. But yeah being in that 25-30 range is already pretty awkward. Carry slave noobs lobby or worst player in pro lobby.

[fallow pike]

wouldnt easiest implementation of it be sorting the queue by the set targetratinglevel and that way the one whos closest to the set rating gets in first and so on

[strange beacon]

just exact same, visually, but you insert the player into a different spot

and maybe make a message indicating that the player was os queued

[river briar]

yea but imagine if you have like an 8 person queue and a target os of 50, and there's someone with 30 os at the front, and someone with 31 os at the end, it would be dumb to pick the person at the end imo.

As i understand it, one of the take away messages of this thread was to incentivize high skill players to queue up and play to win at their skill level to get high skill, low variance games. picking purely the person closest to the target os and not accounting for queue position at all would make people not want to queue up imo

[tardy pike]

Wouldn’t be dumb. “Git gud”

[valid ruin]

The more extreme idea would be to take everyone in the queue and in game as a pool and create the best game possible out of it based on the algorithm selected (target os, max os first, party prio etc). Not sure how people feel about being booted but if we care only about the best possible op lobby thats how you'd do it (and it happens anyway in op rotato by someone just boss'ing and speccing players, so at least you'd have an algorithm to blame this way).

[pastel sand]

yep pretty much. kinda. it's not that Tiger's dps is that low, it just has a hard time delivering it without getting balls deep in med tanks and spam and stuff. It could hypothetically skirmish t1 well . . . if it didn't take forever to repair, if its turnspeed wasn't worse than a Bulls, and if its turret speed wasn't so bad that it struggles to track a stationary target while turning. Also, dunno if it's innate in plasma or extra inaccuracy added to Tiger, but if it could hit a tick more than half the time it would be nice.

Tiger turret will turn halfway around trying to hit a tick, then turn back to another incoming tick, that it turns halfway around chasing again, rinse/repeat. -_-

[strange beacon]

it's dps is low per cost 0.19 vs 0.21 for bull (which has larger splash)
Tiger does have good matchup against mauser/sheldon, it can easily shrug off the skirmisher fire, but it's dps per cost is a lot lower than salamander when it comes to raiding. just needs a little adjustment / it's backline units to get a buff

[swift olive]

people can get a lot more mad from getting culled manually than a target priority queue doing it
most time we cull there is at least a player that gets super mad about it
im not sure how the devs convinced themselves it's a better way to organize a lobby than having a bot do it

[tawdry jacinth]

That's a little unfair. When priority queue was first raised Teifion was in charge and he rejected it. Now the vision holders for teiserver are Marek and Perfi. Perfi has approved the priority queue somewhere above in this thread.

[valid ruin]

Teiflion was partially right really, it shouldnt be needed. For example in fighting games, "friendly" setups are generally limited so there are unspoken conventions for playing on them. Players will round robin or play winner plays on to make sure everyone gets a chance to play. I see this happen with many of the rotato players who will specc for a couple of games then play a couple of games, etc. (Though from hh stream he seems to be dodging disliked maps but the effect is the same).
Do high level players like jumping in and out of the consistent op lobby or would they rather just find a game when they want it?

[thick cypress]

I suppose cos a bot would keep the Lobbys isolated, where as a cull may happen in a lobby where against the wishes of others, a full all welcome lobby becomes an exclusive lobby that evicts its original members. It's understandable.

[steep quiver]

i only go spec if i'm tired/afk/dodging, i doubt any of them are making room for someone, for that you just boss and spec low os

[valid ruin]

So you'd be in the later camp then ( that you want to play when you want to play and you don't care who with as long as its even)? You just want to play when you want to play? I think the answer tells the difference between having a lobby that you sit out of every so often and automating a $split command when the lobby gets too big.

[steep quiver]

split wont be high os and will kill the lobby anyway

[valid ruin]

It would just make the second lobby target 25-30 in the few cases I've seen where that would work. But I'm more thinking of if BAR scaled,

[steep quiver]

25-30 wont cut it

[heady valve]

I would welcome this. I think it would help especially in 3v3-5v5. In my humble opinion, the biggest problem with small team lobbies is creating equally matched teams. If there was an automatic system in place that would boot players further apart from the target rating, the matching would be improved. One can always argue that it sucks for the people who get booted, but I would argue it's an opportunity to create a new lobby (or join an existing one). Especially with smaller team sizes, there's often demand for a second lobby, but this rarely works out because there's a lot of inertia involved in getting people to move. The automatic booting would not only improve the matching in the original lobby, but would also reduce the inertia involved in creating the second lobby.

I think the real losers would be the people who want to play in a group of friends with scattered OS.

[tawdry jacinth]

So what you're saying is something like $splitlobby but instead of a vote it just grabs the best 16 players from lobby and queue and splits them off?

[valid ruin]

I'm trying to pry out if we just want matchmaking or if there is anything about the op lobby that people like

But yeah, if op lobby sometimes has 20+ specs and 16+ queue then it makes sense just to split the lobby but no one does.

I like the lobby system it's refreshing, even if you have to deal with rage, normal matchmaking everyone else might as well be bots.

[sweet bluff]

If someone is speccing, it doesnt mean they are potential players. They may just want to spectate and not play at all. You should ignore list of specs altogether.

[unique stone]

I'm against such an idea, as you can play one game, then sit out another. Rinse repeat

[swift olive]

it doesn't make sense to split
the goal is to have the best lobby possible so it's full of good players and it's not a mixed lobby
if you split you get 2 mixed lobby

[tawdry jacinth]

As is now, splitlobby makes you vote if you want to split or not. It could be adjusted so the code decides the split i.e. splits into best and worst and takes into account players and queue.

[valid ruin]

Exactly, and then the lobby turns into a mini-matchmaking pool.

[heady valve]

Assuming I understand your idea correctly, I think that it's based on some assumptions that don't necessarily hold true. As others have already alluded to, just because someone is in join-queue doesn't mean they're ready to play right now. And in my experience even more importantly, even though people get through the join-queue in op lobby, a lot of people dodge either because of the teams or because of the map. In op lobby this stuff matters. Unlike op lobby, in mid tier rotato it matters less and people are willing to play more different maps and with more mixed teams. This kind of functionality would be a lot more useful in mid tier rotato lobbies if they continue to increase in popularity as they've been lately. But yeah, that's off-topic for this thread.

Oh yeah and I could see it be very useful in small team games as well </off-topic>

[still seal]

I really like this suggestion of target os lobby function instead of just high os priority. That let us use the function across all levels of gameplay.

I agree with Zod that biggest small team issue is balancing and this could help with that. Well balanced small team is probably the most fun you can have in bar

[royal mirage]

Tbh I've been wondering about one thing though, selecting highest rated players doesn't guarantee most balanced match in terms of os.
It'd be quite interesting to have a mode that would prioritize the best balance instead 🤔

[pastel sand]

It sounds like most of this could just be solved by a lobby boss. People will complain regardless, whether it's about a boss that culled them, or a systemic issue that isn't working to their liking.

I wonder, could there be an option to let a boss put someone at the front of the queue ?

[swift olive]

there is but only if you are a "privileged user"

[grizzled bison]

When it's automated by a bot there's little to no drama. When you do it manually people take personal offense.

[swift olive]

i get harassed every times i cull, it's no fun, if a robot is doing it, i would be chilling

[unique stone]

I wonder how many reports I got for culling today

[pastel sand]

Sure it's not fun, but dealing someone verbally harassing you is something we're supposed to learn in preschool.

High OS peeps take over a lobby, vote in the autocull, and then there will still be drama. Then peeps will come in Suggestions thread and make drama about the system culling them.

Personally it's annoying AF to try to create systems around drama and the possibility thereof. Drama is like an innate characteristic of humans--even in a perfect system they will invent something to dramatize.

[pastel sand]

I would laugh but this is probably too true and really kinda sad. :/

Anywho, back in the day, before all this fancy matchmaking technology, if high level players wanted more high level players to play with, they had to form clans and go recruit new players and train them into high level players. Too much segregation between newbs and pros keeps the newbs newbie.

One of the biggest buzz kills I've seen in other games is a general lack of willingness from high level players to tolerate playing with new players.

[grizzled bison]

It happens a lot, sadly. I once culled a 5 OS guy out of the lobby and he spent the next 2 games in spec chat drawing angry notes over my base

Imagine this, but in DMs every few days

[marble wren]

Chicken nugget is the most brutal one there, for sure.

[grizzled bison]

Chicken Nugget truly hurts the soul

[marble wren]

That's nuts. I wish the welcome messages for lobbies could be pushed as notifications rather than as a DM from Coordinator

New player probably half skims and just clicks OK anyway though

So idk how much that'd help.

[pastel sand]

just say "1v1 scared ?" until they leave you alone. xD

I'm the wrong person to ask for sympathy about this, lol. I'm not an offender, but I don't really find this stuff offense. May as well say poopoohead pizzaface.

for spammers that can't be simply ignored, there's a mute button. for extreme cases there's a report button.

Notice, any spectator could have erased it, but they didn't. ;/

[valid ruin]

This is the same argument as "online bully isnt real, close your eyes lol". Even if it comes off as funny because of the sheer rediculousness of it the behaviour is still unacceptable.

If you want to defend the culled people blame the lobby system for letting people arbitrarily set a min/max, resulting in takeovers and being unclear to a new/uninformed player that "op rotato free beer" means high lebel lobby.

[dire tartan]

... please tell me you reported that, when it happened?

[pastel sand]

Nah, it's more like the same argument as "learn how to defend yourself so bullies can't make you a victim. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

[glossy thorn]

1. Can we stop talking about "culling" like you're putting down animals? Shit's fucked. You are kicking people.

2. Pretending to be a normal lobby and then taking it over is fucked. At least have a boss from the start and make it clear that eventually people will start to get kicked. Maybe put "actively managed" or "curated players" or something into the title, but pretending to be a chill pickup game and then starting to throw out people is ... just so fucked.

[marble wren]

What alternative can you recommend? The players don't all sign on immediately; they gradually sign on until they're all in the same lobby. If they leave at that point, or split, the lobby you were in dies anyway, so it's just more efficient for everyone involved for them to boss someone to apply their preferred settings.

[tawny linden]

On point 2 many times it isn't intended as a " lets pretend that this isn't going to be op lobby to trick ppl into filling then change" rather it's more "well no great lobby so I'll join this half decent one or make one with a low min" then people see good players in it and go "well this is the best lobby around guess I'll join this one" and eventually it turn into "we have 10 25+ players here we should probably put min in and turn into OP lobby since it already pretty much is"

[glossy thorn]

How about you tell people that you'll be opening an OP lobby and move there? if the lobby dies, it dies, if it doesn't die, it doesn't.

[marble wren]

But they're all already in a lobby and playing at that point.

[glossy thorn]

It's just tasteless to take over a lobby when other people have just as much of a right to be there and keep playing

[tawny linden]

This does happen too sometimes but if 10/16 players in a non bossed lobby agree to make a lobby change like min rating then that's just democracy in our current lobby system. If there's a boss this can't happen, if there isn't a boss then it's majority rules anyway.

[glossy thorn]

If the high OS members really want an OP lobby so bad, surely moving over to it isn't too much to ask?

[marble wren]

Is it too much to ask the minority of players in the lobby to go find another one rather than the majority? You need over half (I think 3/4) to vote for a boss

[glossy thorn]

So now I have to take care that the usual lobby thieves don't get into my lobby so they can't take over eventually - sounds giga toxic.

[glossy thorn]

Imagine going to a pickup game of basketball and starting to "cull" players you don't think are good enough, even though they were there before, just because you brought more people than there were before

Logistics or no, can you see how that's going to be just ... distressing and an asshole move?

[marble wren]

Well, I don't begrudge the good players trying to play in good games when they have one lobby, versus several more available to low skill players.

[glossy thorn]

I don't begrudge that either.

I begrudge kicking people. Out of the lobby they have been in. And then calling it "cull" like they are sheep getting their heads beaten in.

[marble wren]

It's a shitty taste in your mouth, I agree, but we don't have a lot of support from devs to make a lobby that's for the high OS players

So this is what we got; democracy at its finest.

[glossy thorn]

Well, in a democracy the minority needs protection from the majority, otherwise you get mob rule

[tawny linden]

I can see how it can feel crappy yes but there are ways to prevent it too. Being boss or placing a max on the lobby will prevent this 100%. I've been kicked for being too high OS in all welcome lobbies when no high OS lobbies are available and I just say fair enough and go somewhere else. And I'm not even 40+

[marble wren]

That's called a boss

[glossy thorn]

You know, that's just as fucked - if it's all welcome it's all welcome

They can politely ask you to leave, but removing you despite qualifying for the lobby itself is fucked

[marble wren]

Most of the time IME they just set a min and don't spec anyone, so they get another game in.

Depends on the boss and how stacked the queue is tho

[glossy thorn]

Yeah, and I think setting a min and just letting the lobby "refine" over time is okay.

[marble wren]

But like, by the time a boss vote is passing, can you even call the lobby all welcome anymore?

[marble wren]

Well after the game, Chobby auto spectated them, so they just get one more in.

[glossy thorn]

I keep seeing people voting for the boss and then getting kicked

[marble wren]

That's just how Chobby works tho

My suggestion earlier was a welcome message that can be pushed as a notification to players that join to indicate it's a self managed OS priority queue, but people don't read messages in these situations anyway, so there really isn't much we can do. It just doesn't make sense to take 10 or 12 players and 7/8th of the spectators and go host a new lobby when everyone is already there.

[glossy thorn]

If it's your own lobby and the rules are clear, there's nothing problematic about it. Like ... when you start a game of basketball with a group of friends, and maybe some people can get along, but ultimately it's your game. Just don't hijack lobbies. It's such a bad look for the game and the community. As is using that ignoble word "cull".

[marble wren]

Welcome messages were tired in the past, but they're a DM from Coordinator, and didn't work well in practice.

[tawny linden]

Even then that message would only be put in once there was a boss and likely once it was renamed and turned into an op lobby. Unfortunately it doesn't do anything for when a lobby coalesces into a high OS lobby naturally and gets "taken over"

[marble wren]

I agree, but what can we concretely recommend that the devs provide in terms of support to combat this? In Chobby, any player can wander into any lobby.

[hexed basin]

As opposed to getting a dig at people's political leanings, which is a great look and a generally all-inclusive move

[glossy thorn]

Maybe there should be a faster way to switch lobbies

[storm condor]

P sure high OS lobby is the only minority here

I see people 45os+ log in, look at the high OS lobby being dead at 7/16 and just log off

That's their gameplay for 1 day bcz no lobby since it's the only one playable lobby for anyone decent at the game

[glossy thorn]

Join the lobby and play 4v4?

Or communicate on Discord to setup a match for later and coach noobs until then? There are so damn many options that are not "kick people with utter contempt"

[tawny linden]

I personally do play small teams frequently because it's easier to get a higher min lobby rolling but even that is difficult many days and I have to wait 30/40 minutes even with a low min of like 18 and even then it might not fill even for 3v3.

And many people simply don't want to play small teams, they want 8v8s, competitive 8v8s specifically.

It's not kicking with contempt it's speccing out of "necessity" because having 2-6 ppl under half the OS of the rest of the lobby ends up not being fun for anyone involved.

I get that it's shit that this is how it works right now but with a democratic lobby system idk how to avoid it. Again if you want guaranteed no takeover just place a max rating or be boss/have a boss.

(and again I'm only in 30s OS I can only imagine how hard it is when you're 40+)

[storm condor]

Do sometimes

[glossy thorn]

And ideally, that lobby is going to grow then into the true OP lobby.

Enough words wasted - I hope we can find a solution that satisfies three constraints:

1. It doesn't involve removing people from a lobby they already played in

2. It is reasonably easy to implement

3. it gives high OS players a better way to find games to play against each other

Basically, find a non-toxic solution to everyone's grievances.

[sharp mason]

No?

It's actually wild to me people get so hurt by a lobby becoming OP. There's only ever 1 and N many noob lobbies. Take your pick! Is this where I cry about not having a lobby to play in because there are max ratings on all of them ?🙃 people get removed from lobbies they are too low to play in because it really sucks to play when you have a 35 OS spread.

[grizzled bison]

The real issue is that the original lobby dies regardless. I routinely have to start the NA evening high OS rotation lobby. I'll join the existing rotation lobby and it will slowly get more high OS players as they see stream/friend's list. Once we have 6-8 we can either take over the current lobby or start our own. Every single time I start a new lobby I take 75% of the original lobby population, and the previous lobby doesn't have the population.

[tawdry turret]

Just want to reiterate that whatever prio queue solution you come up with needs something to stop people most likely to be specced a reason to keep queuing and not just fucking off to the mid os rotato

[storm condor]

Low os players have 10+ lobbies in to play in where the skill spread is much nicer for them, we have barely 1

[grizzled bison]

That's the goal of target OS lobbies

[tawdry turret]

Target being 100 or whatever like people said does nothing for the issue I'm concerned about

Or maybe I'm dumb and don't get it idk

[glossy thorn]

That does not address the issue

[grizzled bison]

Oh you mean for the highest OS lobby? Yeah this doesn't address that

[gilded folio]

this thread is meant for improving high OS lobbies not noobs complaining about them existing

[glossy thorn]

Nobody is complaining about them existing 🙂

[gilded folio]

good

[grizzled bison]

Someone has a solution that factors in time to queue which helps

[tawdry turret]

Personally would never queue as a lowbob 30-35 player if I might get force specced after waiting and id imagine most people would agree which could prove problematic

[grizzled bison]

But I honestly haven't looked at the code deep enough to give an accurate assessment of it

#1233481418500345928 message

[tawdry turret]

Ye I'm too dumb for that just wanted to remind people of this issue cus it's not been mentioned yet in the latest round of prio queue discussion

[unique stone]

if prio queue target is limited to e.g. 60-70, low 30s should still get in with no problem, with the formula suggested

[tardy pike]

Just kickban the harassers

[glossy thorn]

Just don't kick people for doing nothing except having a too small number next to their name

[tardy pike]

You mean like the entire BAR moderation complex?

[gilded folio]

yeah that's not fair I don't think that's common though

[grizzled bison]

In rereading it, I think Amojini's suggestion is a great middle ground. It ensures that if you are on the cusp you will eventually get in.

[tardy pike]

^ we kickban those

[glossy thorn]

?

[grizzled bison]

I already answered this, but literally every time I start a new rotation lobby I kill the old one, the players in the previous lobby leave to join the one I make

[tawdry turret]

Does that prio queue force spec people? I was under the assumption the prio queue people were asking for would cull automatically not just help queue position

[tardy pike]

I think I would miss culling and kickbanning complainers. But I guess if system existed could still do it old school for nostalgia sake

[glossy thorn]

That's okay though

[grizzled bison]

?

It's the exact same result, the original lobby dies either way.

[glossy thorn]

If it lives it lives, if it dies it dies, you didn't do anything wrong by leaving

[fallow pike]

it shoud not cause it happens in queue that ppl get ahead of others

[grizzled bison]

I'm telling you now, that it dies 90+% of the time, because when I leave the majority of the lobby does too

[glossy thorn]

The difference is that people weren't treated as disposable trash to "cull"

[grizzled bison]

And people still get angry because I "killed" their lobby.

[tawdry turret]

Seems like a very safe start to a prio queue system then since it's alot less offensive if it doesn't cull

[grizzled bison]

I can understand the optics of it, but it's also the same end result.

[glossy thorn]

Optics matter

[marble wren]

Bumping low OS players would still be a thing when they go to turn on the settings for the priority queue, I presume, so there's not much that combats that.

[fallow pike]

as far as i understand what was wanted if lots of ppl are in queue to players. highest os players are wanted to be first ones to fill leaver (high os lobbys atleast)

[grizzled bison]

Amojini's solution takes time in queue into account

If they were in queue for a while, they'd be bumped higher in pick priority

[marble wren]

So, you'd not use a minrating in combination with the priority queue implementation that Amojini's proposing?

[tawdry turret]

Still should use a minrating

[grizzled bison]

Will still use

[tawdry turret]

What if a zero os waits 5hours for a game and now one match is just gonna suck xd

[tardy pike]

Cull GG EZ

[marble wren]

That's what I mean

[tawdry turret]

How would we go about adding amojini idea then

[fallow pike]

only concer with this would for me would be after player who has waited long gets in low os close to min rating he would just get specced cause there would be high os in gueue but hard to say yet

[marble wren]

I think step one is someone (probably @river briar ) prepping a document summarizing requirements and proposed solution / approach such that we can give to a contributor to follow and get cracking. Cause wading through this thread is a mess.

[tawdry turret]

Normally culls only happen when a large portion of lobby can be kicked like 4 at a time or no one can be asked to get a boss, very rarely see a single guy get specced just cus he's close to min in my experience

[tardy pike]

I am sorry (not sorry) that you’re offended by words. But perhaps before being offended by words you would please look up their definitions first. Just because one dictionary uses the slaughtering of animals as an example of the word usage does not mean that is the only appropriate usage of said word.

[river briar]

first thing I should do is remake my figures so they're not so shitty lmao

[tardy pike]

Sometimes I selectively cull. Like rat mckpackage is somehow not 20+ OS yet but I’ve seen him carry an entire lane and get a cow. So I just “forget to cull” sometimes. Its not fair and autocull would put an end to this, RIP rattymckpackage

[fallow pike]

ok it was my misunderstanding then cause i was thinking if lets say theres 8 in queue and half is low os mixed in with high os and some low os have waited long and some not 3 high os gets in one one low os cause he waited long one one high os is left in queue with 3 low os.

[tawdry turret]

By culls dankest I mean manually speccing people, with amojini idea once you are in the lobby only way to be kicked is the standard ways outside of that it's just the target os graph which was linked for players in queue

So if it's weighted right it shouldn't be too bad for players closer to the min hopefully

[storm condor]

culling is such a cute word

[grizzled bison]

Rat Mcpackage the legend

[fallow pike]

yes you are talking about culling and i was talking about how it fills up after it

[verbal ridge]

I must spectate in other words wait an hour to play a decent game. 90% of players can just join any open lobby and get a good experience.

All I am asking for is a specific host on which the currently best 16 players can play. This can be communicated when users join.

[heady valve]

There should be certain games set up that are persistent on the server, e.g. a 30+ OS game, games for noobs etc

[grizzled bison]

We previously had server managed lobbies, not sure what happened to them

[tawdry jacinth]

#1233481418500345928 message

priority queue - in some form, possibly not immediately available to all but limited to a couple of server-managed lobbies as a test. We can make them available to all once we're confident in it.

That is what Perfi wrote above. If priority queue is used in server managed lobbies then no hijacking of All Welcome lobbies. But good luck with testing because I imagine a server managed lobby would just be empty as people don't want to join an empty lobby.

[marble wren]

LDM and Volshok are both pretty good about rallying a squad for testing stuff; air rework, navy only lobby, the vehicle movedef tweak, etc etc

And in all cases, good players file in to help out and support both of them, and test whatever it is we're testing. I have utmost confidence they will be able to test it if someone makes it.

They've been asking for Priority queue for a while. I'd be shocked if it collected cobwebs, provided we're kept in the loop as to when it would be available for testing.

[timber dawn]

the static ones that are always set to the same settings? those ones stay at the bottom of the lobby list, empty, unused

[echo jungle]

Wow so many pages of discussion

I think there needs to be continued uncertainty bumps each season or some kinda decay for AFK top accounts

[thick cypress]

Pretty sure Urban Dictionary isn't the place to get definitions when trying to make a point 😂.

[steep quiver]

that's not urban dictionary?..

[thick cypress]

All welcome lobbies could perhaps get a no boss for X amount time parameter or vote option. Seems a bit excessive to protect against lobster pirates. But you know, the etiquette isn't there. I've had one of my own lobbies that was cruising golden for hours. It was a fun vibe. So it attracted everyone. Then it got a "time to cull for not a majority but merely 9 out of the 16 players. Not the entire lobby that had a long que and a whole bunch of spectators. Vote goes through. Everyone gets kicked. Lobby died 30 min later.

A majority vote only allows for the people in the match. Not the people who have been in the lobby or the que all day, populating it and making it an attractive, fun place to play.

Don't justify it yourselves that you are somehow deserving of taking that play experience away from other players just because you manage to hold a quick vote that doesn't represent everyone in the lobby.

Honestly, true etiquette would say... If we weren't here first and this was an inclusive lobby, and we want a more exclusive lobby. We should go and create our own. The mere fact that the all inclusive lobby now has a wide OS variety was probably because it looked like a fun place to play.

Honestly if you think you're entitled to take that away from the other players that were there first then... Well.... That's pretty grim.

[unique stone]

Currently, playing in All Welcome lobbies is taking a risk that it's either gonna turn into a noob-only or a pro-only room.

Yesterday I almost got kicked from an All Welcome lobby because I was 15 OS higher than anyone else. They didn't want to change settings, but they'd kick me because "people don't want to play against you".

What kind of "All Welcome" lobby is that? So yeah, there are two sides to each story, don't twist it only into "pros hijacking lobbies".

Again, I don't think such lobbies should exist, at least not with Ranked enabled. It's not a good experience for anyone, nor does this skill level discrepancy happen (or is even allowed) in any other game I play.

[steep quiver]

it was "your own lobby" but you weren't even boss? what? then you complain that the majority of people who were actually playing are entitled for making a vote?

[thick cypress]

😂. Okay Karolson. If you like to make this into semantics and have me draw up a play by play on how a lobby can be started by someone and then not end up as theirs I'd be happy to send you a power point.

I'm merely advocating a perspective. I can completely understand wanting to have an enjoyable play experience as a higher OS player. And establishing a lobby like that without a wider lower OS player base first is difficult. I'm neither here nor there on this issue. I only recognise the the fact that this is a difficult place for everyone. And I can also completely see myself also being for a "cull" in order to preserve my own play quality and experience.

This is a complicated and difficult issue to police or manage. I recognise all positions here. And I wasn't singling anyone out. X

[steep quiver]

quite an advocation while calling people "lobster pirates", "no etiquette" and "entitled"
i guess real etiquette is in other "all welcome" lobbies which can straight up call a kickban vote when someone high os joins, which i've seen multiple times

[regal charm]

Lobster pirates 🌶️ love it

[tardy pike]

Umm… it’s not urban dictionary.

[tardy pike]

The lobby is already established. We just have to cull manually, which causes drama. We are advocating for less drama. Have you not been paying attention to the discussion? This is mentioned many times already.

[tardy pike]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cull

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cull

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cull

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/cull

[thick cypress]

And yet the urban dictionary meaning is so much better 🤣

[tardy pike]

What’s the urban dictionary meaning?

[storm condor]

why are low os players here anyways

[tardy pike]

To derail the conversation

[storm condor]

if u dont like use of word "cull" go report to mods, stop derailing here

its so fucking stupid u guys discussing how 1 word should be used when thread is to improve high-OS gameplay by either improving lobby/balance/bug fixes etc

[marble wren]

On topic q for the sweats: what is the generally prevailing opinion how volatile season 1 OS has been? You guys play a lot, and probably have pretty low uncertainty compared to the rest of the pop.

[thick cypress]

Honestly I didnt mean to. I only mentioned urban dictionary as a tongue in cheek referral to you probably could've found a better definition. I didn't know what urban dictionary had to say on the matter. Then I looked. Then the more people brought it up the funnier it was. I don't give a shit about the word cull. Or how anyone uses it. Honestly. Why I'm here trying to help you solve your problems is a mystery to me too

[steep quiver]

well at least you did confess that it all was just some low effort trolling

[sweet bluff]

I personally like it, but some people play and dont try to win. Wcyd tho 😦
Being able to always learn new stuff and lose os that way and climb with new learned skills is very nice.

[verbal ridge]

It has helped certain players drop

[tawny linden]

I feel like 5 uncertainty was a really good number to be reset to. It provides good potential for movement while not being a ridiculous swing fest.

Certainly 1000% better than the season 0 total reset.

[storm condor]

Ye it is a tiny bit extreme on uncert but general idea was good

U can go from 45os to 37os bcz of 1 bad day and to 50os bcz of 1 good day

[marble wren]

Does it feel like it's been too swing-y for too long? There's probably a thread for it, I suppose, but I think it's relevant to the higher OS players' motivation to keep playing, so I think it's relevant to at least discuss what everyone's feelings are, and if we can determine what a good Season Length might be, or perhaps what (if anything) should be tweaked as far as Tau and where folks' uncertainty gets bumped to each Season.

[pastel sand]

id rather it be swingy that unmoving, lol.

[marble wren]

Sure, but since we're collecting suggestions to hand to the contributors that are working on implementing stuff that we're asking for, can we give them something more coherent than "swingy good, unmoving bad" perhaps?

[storm condor]

I would like to know how OS gain works when OS destribution in a game is 40+, because I think those games shud naturally make u gain/lose vry low OS

It feels a little too swingy maybe a tiny touch could make it better

And bcz it's too swingy, if u get a winstreak, you gain 6-7os and now u need to perform on that level or you lose all games the next day

[marble wren]

That could almost improve other mixed skill lobbies if there's anything that could be done there, but idk if the model was designed for / supports it. The OpenSkill maintainer is around here somewhere, but I can't recall their username rn.

[strange beacon]

plp say it's too swingy but it's 100x better than gaining 0.05 per win

if you change role or map your os will reflect it within 30 games

[sweet bluff]

I think lowering new season uncertainty to 4.0 and lowering min amount to 2.0 would be a good change.

[distant elk]

yah, i agree with that, it's nice to not be stagnant, but its way too swingy, I've seen people go from 36 to 45 in a couple of days, and thats a bit too much.

[waxen birch]

A lot of the swings people talk about are just the small team/large team visual bug.

[tawny linden]

4.0 sounds pretty reasonable. Honestly any number at or below 5 for the reset is fine for me as long as the minimum doesn't drop below 2.

[marble wren]

It took people almost the entirety of Season 0 to get below 1.0 uncertainty right? Probably hard to tell, since they patched how it displays like 3/4 to the end through.

That's with a Tau value of effectively 0

[still seal]

Agree with Sarge here. 5 might be a bit too swingy, but the important part is that there is a still fairly high minimum uncertainty. 2 seem to be a good number.

Imo this season has been too swingy. A lot of games have felt unbalanced in mid tier lobby and I can only assume it has been the same in the sweat lobby.

[tawny linden]

I still think having some variable that limits the magnitude of OS gain/loss for game with >25 or whatever number delta between highest and lowest would be good.

Larger swings aren't too bad if the games are close/fairly well balanced but feel terrible if you have a super low OS player but the system still balances so that it thinks your team is advantaged and you end up losing a metric ton of OS.

[tawdry turret]

whatever number gets you to around .33 average gain loss imo is good

feel like that number lets you climb/lose fast enough if you are trying something new out but doesnt make you feel punished for a winstreak by being at an elo so high you know a loss streak is incoming

Think if we are trying to fix os getting a thread to discuss how to handle rating decay would be smart

[sweet bluff]

Thats just not realistic, not enough population for high os lobby to exist 24/7.

[marble wren]

Admittedly this was my attempt at recentering the conversation on ways we can improve the state of the sweat lobby, and this feels pretty relevant to why a lot of them took time off.

[tawny linden]

I don't think it has to, I didn't mean zero OS movement just a multiplier like if delta is >25/35/40 (whatever number makes sense) any gains/losses have their magnitude reduced by 50% or something because the chances of balance actually being accurate is pretty low.

Idk might be dumb idea, just something I've thought about occasionally.

[marble wren]

It is frustrating playing mixed skill lobbies, so if they hurt a little less that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. It's somewhat relevant during the pre-hijack phase of the OP lobby.

[sweet bluff]

I am firmly in NO stance on that issues until we have 5x population.

[tawdry turret]

hard enough to get lobbies at some hours if ur above 30/35 range as is, no need to punish you for playing the only lobby available during off hours

[tawny linden]

True, I guess in my mind it was an attempt to reduce the punishment for playing a game with questionable balance to help prevent dodging instead of being a punishment since the modifier would apply to both gains and losses.

I see how it could be seen the other way though.

[tawdry turret]

Its a good idea but like kyouma said game simply isnt big enough currently

[storm condor]

Is it really "punishing" if OS change is reduced if the OS split in lobby is extremely high? It's just improving the quality of OS.

If ur 50os playing in a glitters lobby with 10os players, should u gain/lose OS equally as a 50os player playing with minrating 30.

[still seal]

I think a big issue is that gaining os is a punishment in itself. There is no upside being higher OS, only downsides. Specially when you have already hit your stretch target in the past and don’t get motivated by grinding new personal best anymore.

[storm condor]

ye gaining OS is just a burden that gives u worse teammates, u dont even get special badges for being 50os so whats the point even

alot of ppl just stop tryharding bcz theres no reward for high OS

maybe add a cool badge for 50os+

or for top 10 Leaderboard

[glossy thorn]

Wrong, you get to pick your spot in most lobbies and damn the low OS guys to some position they might not even have fun in 😛

[noble eagle]

Need to get rid of a number rank

[verbal ridge]

Yeah can we turn this thread back into motivating top players to play. Picking your spot is only a small boon and getting rid of number ranks is no help at all.

[still seal]

i think there needs to be more incentive to gain OS. It could be unlocking skins, access to min OS tournaments or something else. people get motivated by different things. But as it stands now higher OS means lot less access to lobbies and far more pressure to carry games. Carrying can be fun, but sometimes you want to try new stuff and not let 7 other teammates down because you play at half your balanceOS

[unique stone]

Leagues like Bronze, Silver, etc. could be better than just looking at an arbitrary number nobody can relate to, since this isnt Elo system

[tawdry turret]

how is it not an elo system

[heady valve]

The premise of an "elo system" is that you can't choose your matches. Since you can choose the lobbies, teams and maps you play, the meaning of the rank you have is diminished.

[tawdry turret]

👍

[unique stone]

Elo system is Elo system, this is Open Skill system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system vs https://openskill.me/en/stable/

[heady valve]

Better to put more unranked game rooms on the server. Counter Strike has Casual Games that players can join if they want to practice new techniques.

It would also be a good idea only to unlock ranked games once people have won ten unranked games, like in Counter strike, to mitigate the problem of noobs throwing games, which is bad for other players, and even worse for the noobs as they are likely to have a bad introduction to the game, and you never get a second chance to make a first impression!

[hexed basin]

I have no clue how Counter Strike works. When I tried quick matches on cs2's release, they would consistently match me with 50% bots and 50% players worse than those bots. I would consistently get #1 in those deathmatches, without fail. For dozens of matches.
That's not how matchmaking should work. Maybe the other 50% were bots too. But I wouldn't look there for matchmaking inspiration

[heady valve]

I'm guessing it wasn't working well, due to few players just after release. Works very well now. At least, much better than BAR...

[pastel sand]

So, what is the main problem here? Takes too long for high OS to find a decent game ?

[ashen crater]

Whatever the change is, if there are only 100 players at 30+ OS, how will you get more high OS lobbies? You run into hard numbers of not enough playerbase.

oh, kyouma already said the exact same thing, my bad

[pastel sand]

And to echo, it doesn't seem like an issue for administration to solve.

High OS players will just have to wait until there are more good players, or they can go and actively try to make more players good.

[strange beacon]

there isn't a huge grind culture / academy so like it takes a long time to get new 30+ players

not saying it needs to be like that. probably lack of content and ways to engage with the community while trying to get better

[hexed basin]

due to few players just after release
that's the opposite of how this works

[heady valve]

Is it possible to code for a shortcut to make a room, and for players to enter it?

Then high OS players or any other players could arrange to meet in the Discord Looking for Games channel, and join a game from there.

Over 25 OS would be more realistic for a strong players game, 95th percentile or so. If you want over 30 OS, need more players, with 100, you'd need half the top players in each timezone if you wanted an 8vs8 game.

[golden fractal]

Not sure if this is the correct topic.

Minimum Uncertainty in this season is absurdly high. Lobbies are not balanced - everyone is jumping like CN stocks (pump & dump).

And it's not some small number like 1 os, but 5-10 on a tree day basis. Even those that have countless games played.

-> OS extreme volatility -> people getting wrong OS -> Awful victory prediction -> Clown fiesta games

[tawdry jacinth]

From my simulations the actual uncertainty floor is much higher than what was announced. After 500 games your uncertainty will go from 5 to 3.5. But the announcement said that after 500 games your uncertainty should go to 2.5. So I think whoever did the original simulations did something wrong.

To get uncertainty floor of 2.5 then a tau of 2.1 should be used.

[heady valve]

How many games are people playing to get 5-10 difference, and with what win rate? Must be a lot of games, with a very high or low win rate?

One high OS player complained that his OS had decreased by 10 in a day, but the room was actually displaying his small game OS, as there were few people in the room when he joined it.

[golden fractal]

It's not that difficult to get 10 games per gaming session - even more when there are all-in 5 min mark games or com drops

you basically need 10 flat losses to get -5 os at the lowest uncertainty... that's not that difficult or?

[heady valve]

10 games is kinda sweaty commitment. But I guess fair enough since this is high os lobby discussion

[marble wren]

10 games could be like 5 hours

[thin tusk]

and prob 10 losses if actually random is 0.098% if I've done my math right

I mean it's certainly doable...

I've got a 16/2 loss/win in my immediate history that's taken my small team OS down to 24

[golden fractal]

old system was too stagnant and this one is just way too volatile... from one extreme to another extreme

[heady valve]

A 1/1024 chance.

If someone is losing 10 games in a row, Could be they are drunk today, playing at 4am, or both. The answer is to have a lot of unranked rooms for people to play on.

A lot of players (myself included) are probably much worse when they stray from familiar ATG/Isthmus territory, unranked rooms to learn new maps would also help.

Or maybe their OS was way too high before, due to farming OS by carefully choosing only to play in games when the other team had new players back in the early days? Again, this problem could be mitigated by having a lot of unranked rooms in the lobby, and making new players win ten unranked games before they can play ranked. This would also solve the "toxic community" problem that makes new players leave after they get flamed and kicked from half of their early games for what seems like trolling, but is actually just what new players will naturally do when first installing the game.

[waxen birch]

Only problem is no one wants to play unranked unless its tourny scrims, or testing changes or something. And if you do manage to get a relatively normal 8v8 unranked game, it won't be precisely "real" because no one is taking it seriously. It is like playing a poker game with no stakes, versus playing a poker game with money on the line. People play loose and crazy if there are no stakes, and if there are stakes they play tighter and more seriously.

[heady valve]

New players learning the game, players wanting to test new strategies or try out new maps, factions or experimental units could all benefit from playing unranked games, without losing ten times in a row and losing 5-10 OS.

Having all ranked games means players tend to stick to their favourite map and faction, and are less likely to want to try out new modes, air rework, balance packs etc as these will throw their game.

Also makes the player base generally resistant to change, making it hard to get anything through, e.g. people don't want rockos nerfed as they have learned to win using them, and don't want their favourite units to stop being super OP. Having unranked games would allow people to learn the new meta whenever there was an update, without worrying about their OS.

[waxen birch]

No argument from me, players could learn and try things in unranked. But the point is they don't actually want to play those games. And when you turn on unranked in a lobby, it dies shortly thereafter typically. Plus, when playing in a "testing" environment you get skewed results. Which I think a lot of players understand at a fundamental level.

[tawny linden]

I really enjoy unranked high minimum games I wish we could get more regular scrims even when tourneys aren't around the corner. It for sure does lead to more "out there" plays but I feel like it also gives a chance to challenge the meta without feeling like you're letting the whole team down if it bombs hard.

[strange beacon]

man too much skill diff, no one know how to be use / be effecient with navy (or sometimes other lanes) so sometimes its a game how much you can disrespect / seal club your low os opponent

[golden fractal]

A flat 10 losses refers to the net result you get over a larger number of games. For example, if you have 43 wins and 33 losses, this means you have a net of 10 wins. The term "flat" wins or losses is often used in boosting contexts.

I mean I cannot be alone that has noticed game quality has decreased significantly, no? Nearly all games are clown fiesta. OS distribution is all over the place.

[heady valve]

Yep. A bunch of good players Testing out ideas for risky new plays could make for an entertaining match!

[golden fractal]

one day Tsirya has 23os the three days after it jumps to 37 while spamming every day. Mbt gets to 47os into 37os in few days while spamming every day.

and it's not just them it's everyone.

[heady valve]

Are you sure that was Tsirya's actual OS, or a mistake of the lobby displaying his small team OS? I saw him in some games over the past weeks and I believe he went from 30, upwards slowly.

[golden fractal]

tsyria was last season 33os (so that would be around his small team)

he got very unlucky and dropped hard

[heady valve]

Or if you're talking about when the reset first happened, I guess that yes, resetting uncertainty to 5 for all players might be a lot, it should probably be a standard upward boost for everyone, rather than a fixed value.

[golden fractal]

same for bitpk - once 35-37os player defeating/ keeping tempo with 40os (pre season) now 25 or even lower.

[golden fractal]

no. I am just clarifying that in Tsirya case his small os would be higher anyway

Everyone os is all over the place

[tawdry turret]

I mean what you are describing sounds like the system working

Can't have os move without streaks doing this

[golden fractal]

if player I take as granted is playing 200games as 38-42os and then he gets 20game flat loses - should it really put him into 28-32os category

Basically one day you are master tier and then the other day you are platinum. And such jumps are everywhere at basically 3 day periods.

[tawdry turret]

only way to stop streaks changing so hard is to make os move less, so this issue can only be mitigated a bit by missing with uncertainty

[golden fractal]

Panda also 47 os and now like 37 even tho he is one of the best players

3.7 uncertainty is way too high.

after playing hundred and hundreds of games your skill should already be a bit established - not jumping like it's a new season all the time.

[heady valve]

If you look at the percentiles, that player is moving from 99th to 98th percentile. Might be a better way to display it than OS, then people won't worry so much.

[tawdry turret]

@golden fractal a few people in here already discussed this and the general opinion was this season OS is too volatile by a little bit buts its better than it was before, so dont expect a huge change is all im trying to get at. I do agree its too volatile aswell

[strange beacon]

so uncertainty of 3 going down to 1.5 maybe?

[golden fractal]

min uncertainty is 3.7 for this season so it seems

instead of 2.5

[waxen birch]

I would point out that Trash Panda has played 101 large team games since the 17th, won 40, lost 61. for a WR of 39.60%. If he's down that many games in such a short times it seems perfectly reasonable that he's down 10 OS. And if it was just a fluke streak of bad games, he'll bounce right back up.

[heady valve]

Yep, he has probably started playing after coming home from the pub or something. OS should certainly update in this case. Unranked games are better for post-pub play!

[noble eagle]

The ranking system is flawed in big team battle one player can win there lane kill two comms and help eco half a team and loose cuz other side of map is weak and no OS for the player that did awesome on his team may have done better than others on opposite team but since his team lost he will get penalized more for loosing that any of the actions u should be getting OS for not if u win on big teams atleast imo

[storm condor]

Ye it's pretty bizarre you can play out of ur mind and lose OS while some are completely afk and gain OS

[unique stone]

And how is that related to ranking?

[noble eagle]

Cuz u don’t get any OS aka rank

[unique stone]

Would you ban comebacks in football too?

[noble eagle]

Totally diff an if that’s ur response than mine is valid

[unique stone]

Some guy scoring 3 goals, then losing 3-4 cause noob team

Its the same thing

In high variance games, you get higher elo by being consistently good over 100 games

[noble eagle]

Not with professional athletes compared to people on here that have never picked up an rts game ever so no it’s not

[unique stone]

So whats the issue?

[noble eagle]

Ya have a good one dude

[unique stone]

Playing good, losing and not winning OS, or matching high OS vs low OS in the same game?

Those are two very different things.

[pastel sand]

At higher levels, it's not just about winning your lane, it's about winning your lane FASTER than your other lanes lose. Have to hard carry.

And, as a team game, there is an assumed risk that maybe your teammates will suck.

[glossy thorn]

Yeah. You play with a team. Your own performance matters only insofar as it leads to victory

[golden fractal]

os system based on performance would imo lead to abuse; however, there might be something viable.

[unique stone]

Strongly against performance based rating, since performance in a team game like this is impossible to measure.

[grizzled bison]

^

Hoelander won't have big "stats" but the man contributes

[strange beacon]

comes in with 3 os, gives all stuff to the 50 os slave
"you're welcome for the carry"

you know i wonder how high os you can get in randoms just by giving your whole base to the higest os player

you know bar needs people to do that

to prove the point

[heady valve]

It would be an interesting experiment

I dont think it would be actually that good

Maybe up to 15os or something

[grizzled bison]

I think at least in lower OS lobbies you'd get pretty far, because you'd take a ton of favorable exchanges, where the opposing player would only see one color and just think they got out macro'ed with the same number of mexes

Then you can snowball off that. Lower OS lobbies are awful at reacting, so they probably just blame the poor guy instead of helping

[strange beacon]

i mean on straights if the pilot player knows how to use the os they can carry for a 40+30os combined. Either by doing thug rush or, navy boost, or ultra fast tech
the problem is they will inflate too, so you will get very hard teams

[grizzled bison]

"gg newb front can't hold for 5 minutes"

[strange beacon]

literally whether it works or not depends on how easy it is to execute for the recepient, and how good they are at playing with boost

[grizzled bison]

Yeah, but if you exclusively target high OS players they should know

[strange beacon]

the rest is just how much is your combined os = how hard your teams
yeah, it's better in mid/higher os. free win in all welcome lobby with high skill dif

[sharp mason]

Ya this is how straits is when you share 4 winds....imagine if they have 4 more mexes too xd

[strange beacon]

u can probably front lab hounds and have first one out by 3:40

[noble eagle]

U can’t measure if one player kills another players comm first that’s wild

[grizzled bison]

Yeah, you'd start to rival Otago tech timings

[tawdry turret]

Issue is if you gave people elo for doing something people would start playing solely to achieve whatever it is that gives them the elo instead of winning, so in your example people would mass Janus in the hopes of sniping comm and gaining the performance based rating

[glossy thorn]

You're fairly good at playing victim

[strange beacon]

that's irony

would you not say it's more work to play 2 economies?

one person puts the effort, both plp get os

[glossy thorn]

Yeah, surely low OS players don't want to play the game, they just want to leech off your superior, but victimized existence

[strange beacon]

bro, i agree with you

most people ENJOY playing the game, that's why they build their own t2 or t3 lab instead of just being afk battery
even though unlimited sharing makes that suboptimal

[glossy thorn]

Fair enough

[grizzled bison]

He was responding to my hoelander comment, who did this with Xfactor

[heady valve]

Yeah it's too subjective.

Does the system count how many times players win the top damage award, top eco damage, and holy cow for doing everything? That would be a fun stat to show on a player info page, along with games played, awards of each type won, wins & losses, commander kills, average percentile of rank of damage dealt, kills, metal used, energy used 😄

E.g. top damage in a 10 player game is 100th percentile, 12th damage in a 16 player game = 25th percentile, keep track of those stats for each game and display the average. So, good air players will get a high average percentile of eco damage dealt, good ground players a high average percentile of damage dealt, techers a high average percentile of energy used.

[strange beacon]

scouting doesn't give you stats but it's huge

[noble eagle]

People always do that or something like it cuz it’s good metal fast and the earlier the better and spam exists on every level in this game so ok but why not a experience bonus or OS bonus for doing it I mean it’s ur comm v there comm how is that not the essence of the game u win a match with ur comm holding the front line whole game is harder than most other things to do in game it always gets whacked lol so why not some love for it? And if u think that the biggest downfall to that is a Juno exploit maybe that needs to be nerfed finally before u get some people playing this for months on end non stop and that’s all they use cuz it’s beyond op if u spam it once again everything on this game if u spam it is op… IMO

[tawdry turret]

My point was people would disregard winning to get the performance based metric/challenge or whatever since that gives elo which is terrible for health of the game

[marble wren]

Agreed. Ranked play and its corresponding rewards should incentivize playing to win. The least complicated, least exploitable way to do that is to only reward wins without the rest of the context that can be abused.

But that's been said that like, 50 times in this thread at this point.

[twilit spindle]

Honestly depending on the player, if you’re at 40os+ you should be able to generate at least the same value if not more than a 25-30os player with the added resources

[heady valve]

I guess the closest game stat proxy for scouting is Units Killed, which is often dominated by how many ticks you have spammed into enemy lines!

[sudden ibex]

Most bad people*

[iron kernel]

This glass lmao

[rustic cipher]

Havent played the game in 4 months-(Quit when I reached 40 OS) (but watched some recently) but Ill say this, why would you want to be stuck with a player who is sabotaging your team, even if unintentionally? I don't want the game to be decided by which 11 OS steals the reclaim and feeds it back to the enemy team. So yes. I'd rather the 11 OS not be playing in my game. OP Take every time. Push yourself to your limit, and if your limit is literally not playing the game, then this isn't the lobby for you. Go spectate, go pve, go noob lobby. Get. Out. or scale down. Give half your base to a better play so you ARE helping the team. If youre 4 OS and all you can do is micro 1 razorback then play the game that way.Go 5 OS start microing 2 razorbacks. 6OS 2 razors and some ticks flanking.

Beyond all reason: The better you get the worse your teammates are.

Isn't the point of climbing to experience a higher level of the game?

I know this: as someone who came from another strategy game when I was climbing I would go on 10+ game winstreaks, because the most influential player in the game isnt the best player. It's the worst.

Weakest link in the chain defines the team's strength more often than not. Someone leaks? Someone lets you get flanked? Someone misplaces their commander and blows up your entire frontline force? GG

IDK but every person I've tried to get to push the meta of the game forward is too scared of having actually high OS to try. Or been bullied relentlessly for playing optimally OR sub-optimally.

I enjoyed the game the most when I was 25-30 OS with a lobby full of 35s-45s. Its funny to think that those 45s mightve been enjoying the game the LEAST out of everyone present.

What kind of game model is going to sustain a player base with a player experience that dives for the dumpster as you reach elite levels? Who will want to stream this game, make tutorials?

I'd almost rather see pro players playing against a handicapped noob team than mixed teams.

[rustic cipher]

This is all funny because my own reply to myself would be go play 1v1s... Which I am tempted to do but they FEEL so weird and off. There is a fundamental misbalance in game flow between 8v8s and 1v1s. Probably something to do with map size map resource abundance and unit movespeed/ frontline surface areas.

Also I enjoy the gameplay elements that communism/teamwork create and brainstorming strategies with other players.

1v1 Bar is not the same game as 8v8. Perhaps commander balance? No one is dgunning juggs in 1v1s? idk.

Edit: of course the problem could be small playerbase. But even games as large as LOL have had elite vaccums in the NA server where the level of play being low causes issues. So they create side servers or set playtimes for an elite few. Basically just OP lobbies.

[strange beacon]

part of being a high os player is making reasonable accounts for weak teammates. or making probability plays "if this guy full dies in 2 minutes the game is unwinnable anyways so I'm going to conserve my eco and only make 3 grunts"

there is so much more optimization besides communism

build optimizations, simcity vs raids and bombing, understanding how many nanos, how many defences to stop X

how to team push, how to get your cons in the right position to build what you need

knowing timings and when to all in and when to greed

I'm all for exploring more in the game and advancing the meta, but the idea that rejecting communism due to the unfun gameplay patterns is rejecting progress is unfounded imo

[rustic cipher]

I'm definitely approving of all that- any way to improve to elite level is a good way to improve.

[strange beacon]

why does seaplane communism, geo communism, navy communism kill the lobby? cause plp don't like playing against it, the game is over before they can blink

people struggle to even play regular navy
now you put 2 subs in their base at 3 minutes

communism cannot be fought on even footing without communism planned from minute 0

[rustic cipher]

Has that been killing lobbies? I remember you winning 12 in a row or something way back when and you were somewhat poorly executing communism w/ me another high OS player so no "OP 3 OS battery" complaint relevance.- Offtopic tangent alert lol

[strange beacon]

remember that talk about glass/fruit killing lobbies?

well why don't you play geo when the opponent is doing that. or long beach sea

if all the players are a decent level and both sides are on board with communism then i think it can be fun

otherwise it's pretty trash gameplay

[rustic cipher]

So then the reason communism is relevant to this thread is this: it's a "high level" strategy for some reason. And using it in mid level lobbies/mixed lobbies is unfair / unfun. Make sense.

[strange beacon]

it's optimal

i wouldn't say it's any more "high-level" then an optimized one person build, or a tzar rush that requires eco player to make juno and team to make spam

it's just a tangent in response to what you said about "plp rejecting advancing the meta"

[rustic cipher]

I mean at a certain point every player hits their APM limit and sim city limit, and the only way to improve is to start coordinating/communicating> The problem being coordinating and communicating with low level players is* hellish in high level gameplay.

[strange beacon]

na builds, decision making, micro of t2 units is not optimized at all

but yeah a lot of things require team coordination esp on the front. If you have strong opponents there's only so much you can accomplish alone

out of all the lobsters I think only a small % are actively sweating and analyzing games / practicing to get better. in more competitive rts there's more % of plp doing that

i think because there's no fame and no rank award partially. and no community group of plp trying to sweat and improve

[rustic cipher]

Idk defensive things are almost instinctively coordinated, but offensive strategies are were the high level concepts are.

Holding the line is BAR 101, but breakthrough combined arms is high level.

[strange beacon]

well sometimes you are holding 1v2. then it's not so simple

or you have to support your ally while weighing that against crippling your build

but yeah I agree, attacking in team games is hard. in the rotato lobby, because lack of coms I see not many team pushes on maps with shared fronts

it's too hard to coordinate pushes, usually they prefer to win when 1 person streams t3 down top or bottom and plp follow with spam

they would rather porc with nanos and rattlesnake, and eco behind it because it's a strong playstyle and a lot easier than pushes

also people don't eat their obsolete units enough

[rustic cipher]

I guess you call it slavery I call it teamwork tomato tamato xP

Edit IMO the most toxic thing to the community right now is the reworks- We quite litterally are dividing up a small playerbase based on preferences and maps. Was always a HUGE turnoff for me that every lobby had it's own set of conventions and reworks turned on or off.

Juno rework=0 Hornet's balance patch. etc. Not that any of these things are bad in a vacuum but each one creates another division in gameplay, and the community's shared experience. Game is complex enough as is. Its good for a alpha* and developement but bad for maintaining a playerbase.

[pastel sand]

I don't mind the balance mods and reworks and stuff. Give more options on how to play the game.

People naturally form cliques in games regardless, unless you physically don't let them.

[tidal grotto]

we're alpha, game is not finished yet, nor stable. agreed there is a lot that should be in the game that isn't yet, and for now it's stuck in options for various reasons

[strange beacon]

i like the balance reworks too

because official changes are slow moving should let people experiment with playing how they want

[tidal grotto]

said experiments are also key to balance testing, it's worth noting

[still seal]

My only issue with all the reworks and mods are the lack of explanation of them in lobby. I also think all tweaked games should be unranked by default.

[gilded folio]

Bingo card of dev excuses:
We're alpha ✅
We're all just volunteers
That feature will be added before steam release
Pull requests welcome
Nobody knows how to code in elixir
The player base is too small
The player base is quite large
That's a GDT decision
That will be fixed in time for Season 2
New lobby will fix this

Also I joke, I appreciate the devs.

[golden fractal]

I sincerely hope the new season will have lower min uncertainty. The promised 2.5 - will imo be near perfect

[gilded folio]

I like the higher uncertainty

people who decide to troll get deranked fast and their troll behavior has an impact on less games.
last season you could troll 250 consecutive games and lose 3-4 OS

[golden fractal]

That was another type of an extreme, but currently I would say it's on the other extreme.

Or at least .35-5 gains/ loses per game seem like an extreme case scenario to me as well.

[golden fractal]

o.O MBT for an example playing 50-100 games at 45+ os into dropping to 35os or something in nearly no time

But it is what it is. I agree this season is most likely better than the last one with the extremely low uncertainty, but for me it became tiresome to basically see people "shuffling" their os so often.

For an example you play with someone 100 games at their 22-24os level and then in three day they pump to 37os, it feels weird.

Or there was person who was stuck at 0-5 os and out of nowhere pump into 30 in few days as well.

it is what it is

[tidal grotto]

there is a plan for a command to explain what a given thing is, which would help, but not solve
labels help somewhat too

[gilded folio]

isn't that better than playing 500+ troll games to get the same outcome?

[gilded folio]

which was absolutely a thing in season 0

[heady valve]

It's probably just because before, OS weighted players' first games much more than their recent ones due to their uncertainty having fallen consistently. So this player must have had a much too low OS as they were bad when they started, but when they got good, they had a low uncertainty so their OS didn't climb much.

Clearly, if you want to know how good a player is, you should place more weight on their recent performance than their ancient performance, but the OS system does the opposite.

It might be that most high OS players were already experienced at TA, BA or SC when they started playing, won a lot of OS against noobs then only ever played in high OS lobbies. In that situation, their OS would hover around the high level they had reached, without their ever being exposed to the general level of player skill having increased as players learned the game.

[thin hearth]

this is a good point
but as a low OS player, I must comment only on low OS things lol, not only does gaining OS when you are above 34 ish actively punish you
but losing games the game predicts you to lose punishes you greatly in OS

i read the image below as literally "lol get fucked"

[tawny linden]

Jusy FYI you may have missed that the primary reason Borg_King lost more OS was due to the extremely large uncertainty value of 7.25 If there are 2 players of equal OS/uncertainty one on each team then the player on the team which is "expected to lose (less total OS on team)" will lose less OS if it happens than if the player on the team which was "expected to win (more total OS on team)" lost.

[thin hearth]

that just reads "winning or losing isnt a good way of rating players"

if for your first 20 games, winning is irrelevant and losing is highly punishing

why do we start people with OSs that are statistically not what the average player with ever reach

15 OS is the 50th percentile, why do we start them much much further up the ladder, 25

[gilded folio]

This is a thread for improving high OS lobbies pls keep on topic

[heady valve]

15 match rating i.e. Mu - Sigma, not 15 Mu

[thin hearth]

15OS -2xmu

thats the leaderboards, in game and leaderboards are diff for some reason

[marble wren]

No, leaderboard is Skill minus 3x Uncertainty

You don't actually see your Skill rating via $whoami, just your match rating, which is Skill - Uncertainty

[thin hearth]

i cant add 💀

[marble wren]

Math is hard, it's okay

[heady valve]

Is that new? It used to mu-3sigma

[marble wren]

No, it's just incorrect, as they pointed out here #1233481418500345928 message

[rotund axle]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-cat-math-math-cat-numbers-cat-funny-gif-13385485103134761656

[hardy prairie]

Is there an export or way to download the stats for player active in the past month ?
interested in current OS and uncertainty values for the active players.

[grizzled bison]

You'd need so make a custom query for it. Otherwise the closest would be Bear's site: https://www.bar-stats.pro/globalstats

[sharp mason]

Short answer no, but hmu and I may be able to query what you want to know. Bears site might work though because it's within last month

[spice temple]

Bears website is awesome. I owe him some backend work, don’t tell him I’m active

[hardy prairie]

We talk a lot about OS17 for starting players and the impacted of having high OS
It seems to me that if you play and win a lot of games your OS will go up; staticsally that's what must happen.

But we don't have the stats for the active player base. Just starting values or reset values
So I would like to know average, mean, standard deviation for the active player base.

Giving us something like 5k players active in a 1 month with 3 or more games played.
maybe a lot more if only 1 game player.

And then see what that turns out to be; I'm guessing it won't necessarily match OS17 + uncertainty 5.

It would be nice then to "rank" players in terms of standard deviation.

[heady valve]

You can find some histograms here, average match rating (mu-sigma) is about 15.

https://www.bar-stats.pro/playerstats

[twilit spindle]

Note for median: none of the easily available stats data shows negative os but if I were to guess lowest would be somewhere between- 15 to -20 which would put median at like 20os

[heady valve]

The left-tail of the OS histogram is all binned under 0, this doesn't affect the median, but would increase the mean. Median looks like about 15 OS. #📜｜openskill message

[fallow axle]

Given my data, the median for large team is 15.08
*Note- if a player's true match rating is less than 0, it is encoded into the replay file as 0. So I don't know the actual OS minimum

Negative OS data would have to come directly from bar database

Average is 13.28 (when negatives are bumped to 0)

Std deviation is 7.81

If I filter out players who have only played once (by ignoring ratings of 16.67), the values are:
median: 13.71, avg: 12.64, stddev: 8.36

When filtered to uncertainty < 6 (this leaves 15,031 players)
median: 12.54, avg: 11.82, stddev: 10.01

Actually filtered to uncertainty < 6 (11,781 players)
median: 15.61, avg: 15.35, stddev: 8.37,

[heady valve]

Is this for recently-active players, or does it include players who haven't played recently? The percentiles are interesting, could we get 60..90;96..99?

[fallow axle]

All players, but that gave me an idea

[heady valve]

I'm guessing a lot of players signed up last year, but then quit. High OS players will have won a lot of their OS from quitters, so if you look at players who have played in the last couple of months, the average will be higher. Would also be interesting to see teh monthly active players time-series, if it's not top-secret!

[fallow axle]

• uncertainty < 6
• played a team game in July

[fallow axle]

active players graph will come in time. I generate the data for the global stats page once a day (and store it) so once I have some more data generated I will plot it

[heady valve]

Formatted.

From reading the CS rankings information, I'm guessing the rankings categories are based on binned percentile ELO. Given the uncertainty inherent in an 8vs8, I'd say as long as both teams have the same number of 99th percentile players, 95th percentile players, 25th %ile etc, that's a fairly-balanced game. Maybe the bins above would be too many, given the player base is much smaller than CS, but something along those lines.

[hardy prairie]

Thank you for calculating that and dumping out the percentiles.

played in july
16.17 avg
9.229 stddev

and you calculated the percentiles.
95% 27.51
96% 32.05
97% 33.05
98% 37.93
99% 42.87

So 1 sigma or 68% of players will be in
6.9 to 25 OS

[hardy prairie]

i expected stddev to be smaller. not sure why i had it in my mind that active players would be something like OS20 average with a stddev around 3.
I'm not sure you can put them in those bins.
statistically I'd exepect everyone within 1 sigma of the average should be about even but that clearly doesnt match OS prediction of 6.9 v 25. Shows how exceptional outside that range is I guess.

[heady valve]

Only if OS were normally distributed, which it isn't

[heady valve]

https://tenor.com/view/muppets-sam-the-eagle-shut-up-muppets-treasure-island-gif-25334737

Do you normally play in pro lobbies? Most games are all welcome, you usually get a motley crew. Also, are you thinking of match rating, mu-sigma, or are you thinking of mu? Mu is probably around 20 on average.

[fallow axle]

Just to reiterate

• my data is match rating
• match rating less than 0 is just a 0 in my database

[spice temple]

“I could have been in politics 'cause I've always been a big spender”

[hardy prairie]

I use the normal distribution in my head because I can usually recall the percentiles. But I thought OS was a logical distribution - which iirc when plotted looks pretty simiilar to the normal distribution most people aren't going to be too fussed by the difference until you dive into in depth.
So the algorithm for OpenSkill still uses the concept of a distirbution to model people against. The tails might be heavier or the peak slightly higher put pretty much all of normal, gauss, logical put 68% of players in 1 stddev.

[hardy prairie]

as @bear clarified that the data is match rating; so the stat is mu-signma.
yeah; that's not a distribution. mu would be; mu-sigma not so much

[heady valve]

Seems like about 68% within 1sd based on the percentiles above.

[stone karma]

I coul

[gilded folio]

sae

[iron kernel]

N

[compact sedge]

Posted this in "new boss mode downsides", posting here too for visibility.

I would like to highlight an ongoing downside of current boss mode block rules. I'm 24 OS and I enjoy playing in the medium-to-high OS lobbies. Unfortunately, I am now locked out of many of these games.

Two days ago, I took eco spot opposite another player rated higher than me, whom I won't mention by name. My team won the game. I did not message this player at all, either in game or after the game. We have never spoken. Also, I did no trash talking in game. I believe I said nothing at all in everyone-chat, actually.

This player blocked me. Which is fine, nobody is obligated to play with me. Unfortunately, this player also likes to make themselves boss in the glitters lobbies whenever they are online. If a boss blocks you, you cannot play in or view the lobby. So for almost all of Saturday and Sunday, I was completely locked out of my favorite games.

This is using the boss system to curate your own private list of allowed opponents. This is not the intended use of boss mode or player blocking. If a boss is running a lobby and they have a long block list, the other players in the lobby will have longer wait times. They will advertise the game, and wait for players to filter in, and have no way to know they are playing in a lobby with a limited player pool.

Permanently muting a player is sufficient for keeping someone annoying out of your chats. Block lists do not exist in any triple-A game, and they should not exist in BAR. Especially if we are preparing for a Steam release.

Edit: This problem is made worse by the fact that if a boss begins lobby as boss and then steps down, the block list remains in effect but no one has any visible indicator. This was how the rules worked as recently as 2024-08-11.

[tawdry jacinth]

Edit: This problem is made worse by the fact that if a boss begins lobby as boss and then steps down, the block list remains in effect but no one has any visible indicator. This was how the rules worked as recently as 2024-08-11.

That is not intended behaviour and is a bug (although I haven't seen it happen myself so can't confirm). If you have some friends that you can replicate this with, feel free to submit a bug report in #1047080297042280518

[compact sedge]

That's encouraging to hear. I will file a bug. Thanks for looking at this.

[fallen sorrel]

Interesting, first time I hear of this bug.

Please try to reproduce if possible. Is it possible that you were blocked by majority of other people in lobby?

[golden fractal]

"Two days ago, I took eco spot opposite another player rated higher than me, whom I won't mention by name. My team won the game. I did not message this player at all, either in game or after the game. We have never spoken. Also, I did no trash talking in game. I believe I said nothing at all in everyone-chat, actually."

• Simply not true, you got blocked after 5 games in a row of borderline trolling, HlM. None of which you played eco against me.

"I have had enough of random barkin + his performance is borderline troll most of the games - tl; dr not going front from support position ; feeding into braindead push; suiciding com in full enemy territory "for com trade" - while ally is miles away; barkin random shit like "u can carry now, I am done"; "I go hovers, have fun carrying"

Everyone knows that I do not block people in our lobbies - and ur basically a single entity in my blocklist - which I do not even plan to keep there for a long time.

The fact is that you were at the wrong time at the wrong place.

[tame basin]

So where are rewards for last season?

[golden fractal]

I mean it is pretty much well known that I have boss in nearly all min rating Glitter lobbies - people used to vote me whenever I joined the lobby - in the old system - now people who created lobby with a boss basically give the boss to me whenever I join the lobby.

• There is a reason for it, you know? I don't block people. I don't spectate or kickban people for bad performance like the others do.

However, you have simply crossed the line at a given moment. The line crossed is continuous griefing behavior in order to let your team lose - while announcing it proudly to your teammates and barking at me.

While I can tolerate banter and passive/ active toxicity, I take issue with you calling me names and fabricating lies to support your arguments. If you at least had the Hands DLC, I might not have cared.

You having 3x login restriction speaks volumes here.

[regal charm]

no idea what happened here but laudy is kind of my hero so i guess you're the ass here, bit

toxic victims best trolls in games

[compact sedge]

No, for two days (Sat and Sun) if I try to join a lobby where Laudy is boss (or used to be boss), I get this message: "Unable to join battle: You are blocked by the boss of this lobby"

[compact sedge]

You may have me confused with someone else. I am not HLM and I never go hovers. Please unblock, I'm a nice guy (on my good days) 🙂

[golden fractal]

Ah, then ur not blocked.

It's near impossible to get into my blocklist.

[compact sedge]

That's great news. I will submit bug next time I get the block msg. Sorry for the confusion. Cheers!

[hexed basin]

Does it still block you from a lobby if you're blocked by the majority of players but there's a boss?

[compact sedge]

I don't know. I only know that for many games on Saturday I tried to get into lobby where Laudy had boss crown, and I got this message: "Unable to join battle: You are blocked by the boss of this lobby"

Sounds like a possible boss mode bug.

[fallen sorrel]

yes

[hexed basin]

...would it display an incorrect message like in the example above?

[fallen sorrel]

it shouldn't
it will show a different message

[tawdry jacinth]

The most likely possibility is that the crown is wrong. Or there are multiple bosses. But yeah need more info to debug.

[compact sedge]

If the bug persists I will note times and take screenshots. Thanks again for keeping an eye out.

[fallen sorrel]

Do $s it will give you the most accurate info

[compact sedge]

Will do.

[tawdry jacinth]

How when they’re blocked?

[compact sedge]

Does $s work in global chat?

I tried it just now, it does not. But I'll collect as much as I can otherwise.

[tawdry jacinth]

If it happens again - Go to https://server4.beyondallreason.info/battle/lobbies
Go to show; it will tell you the boss of a lobby. It should ignore blocks.
Then post info in #1047080297042280518

[gilded folio]

Extremely likely that someone else was boss at the time as well and they had this person on their block list

Notwithstanding the likely confusion, boss blocking should be more frowned upon

At the moment it’s a very little to zero-downside proposition for the boss to block others - perhaps you should also be blocked from joining lobbies where someone you yourself have blocked is boss

[hexed basin]

Discord does this and I find it extremely irritating, and I barely ever block anyone

[golden fractal]

Not sure, not sure... the only reason why block feature should not be used is because of the small community aspect.

[gilded folio]

Sounds like it’s working quite well on discord if it’s contributing (even in a small way) to why you rarely block people

This type of issue should be ironed out to help the game scale and add players so the fact that it’s a tight small community with ambitions to grow bigger is even more reason why exclusion mechanics need to be thoughtfully implemented

[tawdry jacinth]

It is actually bi directional already. If you try and play in a lobby where you have avoided 50% or 6 players, you can't go from spec to player. So far nobody has triggered it. Maybe someone with a huge blocklist might trigger it for those huge event lobbies.

[gilded folio]

I once blocked the ape clan and triggered it

[fallen sorrel]

Hah, good point

Yea my focus is not at max rn, sorry

[hexed basin]

Why are you disincentivising players from using the block function, shouldn't you do the opposite

[fallen sorrel]

Thet is a feature already

[gilded folio]

Lexon too op

[tawdry jacinth]

It was what Teifion was hinting at here (he put it in place)
#1150901839676584136 message

[fallen sorrel]

Teifion is the op one

[tawdry jacinth]

I already have ideas in mind to deal with "block everybody" people so don't worry about that. As to how, that's a surprise
-- Teifion

Note that I did modify Teifion's code to ignore specs. Because op lobby has tons of specs and their block/avoids should be ignored.

[marble wren]

You can DM the host to get the status I think.

[fallen sorrel]

Yes, but only for spads status, not teiserver, for that you need to DM coordinator and it will only respond if you are in that lobby

They should match, but don't always.

teiserver web should give you who teiserver thinks is boss as jauggy mentioned

[pastel sand]

I don't block people, I make them block me. Ahehayahahhwhah

[floral crest]

What's the OS formula? Could be tweaked to lower OS gain each time you beat the same guy for example. Could also increase decay speed of rank.

Another possible idea is in unfair ranked matches (think me 1v1 raghna) he only gains rank if he steamrolls me. I'm like a hard barb on a good day

If I can hold my own for awhile some we both should my rank (which I can't) Longer it takes him to defeat me the more rank I get the less he gets as a multiplayer based on our skill rating differences

But I'd have to see the formula/model to have a fully informed answer. Mayne took too many econ classes haha

[royal wing]

That already occurs by matches played

The more matches you play in general the lower your sigma becomes . Which also means that you cannot gain as much from singular fights against the same person over and over

[floral crest]

Got it. Do you think resource efficiency, or faster win times should cause a greater rank gain?

Alternatively @royal wing what is your end dream goal for this to be fixed logic be damned. Sometimes working backwards helps.

[tawny linden]

Anything but wins/losses affecting OS gain is a pretty big no because ppl would just play aroung gaming whatever metric you're looking at.

[frank hatch]

There's a major principle in business that whatever metric you use to measure performance will quickly become useless as people learn to game the metric. OS is no different, so we only use victory. And even that metric requires active moderation to keep players from gaming it.

[steep quiver]

im pretty sure "unfair" matches already take the os difference into account

[floral crest]

tru theyll abuse it

[floral crest]

yeah funny enough i learned this in school yet didnt apply it to BAr, yall right

i guess the diffrent question is what is the major problem trying to be solved here? unfair matchups? people not getting enough rank points? im a bit confused what the end goal is here

[tardy pike]

High OS lobby doesn’t exist anymore 🙂

[hexed basin]

would you say the state of the overall game has improved?

[tardy pike]

Lmfao not a chance

Game state was better one year ago. More active players less people retired from moderation

Apolygon and Eural just gone now 🙂 and I know quite a few more

[opaque wedge]

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?players=APolygon looks pretty active to me.

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?players=[waa]Eural Being a strait player you will lose interest as some point.

[regal charm]

Unfortunately some high OS players are social noobs, have 0 social skills and well...they're bound to get banned at some point, maybe not making a returb

[marble wren]

Technically Eural was only playing strait because of the situation in the Rotato. I wouldn't call Eural a strait player.

[opaque wedge]

if you scroll back 4 months hes done 50% straits

[marble wren]

Yeah

The lobby has been shit for at least 4 months lol

[tawny linden]

You know what isn't shit? Min rating small team lobbies, it's much easier to get good games if you're willing to vary team size with a stricter min to achieve it VS playing in glitters or supreme or lowering min to 5 and then complaining how shit the lobbies are.

I get folks prefer 8v8 but I gotta keep spreading the smol team gospel.

[marble wren]

But trickle down OS is a thing, right?

[tardy pike]

He only came back recently

[tidal grotto]

small team games are best BAR experience tbh

[storm condor]

ye when the lobbies can wrap their head around picking a non 1v1 map in 4v4s/5v5s is actually fun

but thats asking too much it barely happens

[marble wren]

I presume it wouldn't be difficult to make a sane pool like we did for 8v8s

[tawny linden]

One reason I like small teams so much is the variety of maps that can be played. We play everything from small 1v1 maps to the 8v8 maps with team sizes 2v2 - 5v5 and it makes for a huge variety.

Many new folks who jump into small team get a bit put off when we play "8v8 maps" like flats as they expect it to be more hard and fast this map is for x players but it's closer to 1v1 where one game we'll play something small like divide/BarR and the next we'll play 3v3 flats or CCR then more traditional 4v4 canis or altored.

I like that it's not as rigid as 8v8 but I also get why it can seem a bit daunting to have 1/3 of flats and Forests to manage yourself.

[strange beacon]

small team easier to coordinate your resources
with 8v8 it's rng whether team makes units for push

and yeah more viable maps

[twilit spindle]

small team games are op, I just think it's a bit harder to naturally create a small team games high os lobby since you don't have a fast flow of players in and out + it feels worse being the only 40os in a 20os small team games lobby lol

[marble wren]

People also tend to rotate more slowly, and the queue moves more slowly as a result.

[gilded folio]

1-2 differentially lower skilled players has a much greater impact in a 5v5 than an 8v8

[storm condor]

Yeah curating a 5v5 lobby needs 10 people with 25os or above for playable experience

Maybe streamers could do it, but mostly streamers play 8v8s, except blodir who plays 1v1s

[hexed basin]

blodir does actually host small team sometimes

[tawny linden]

Yeah ideally we try to go min 20/25 in small teams which does actually happen most nights once we have 4/5 people on to kickstart the lobby. Anything under that and it's pretty crapshooty.

The best is when we get some clan scrims going. Balance might be worse according to balancer but having everyone on both sides on voice coms makes for very fun games.

[floral crest]

How about scheduled high OS games, possibly even with auto Force start by default at the designated time?

I.e. one high OS lobby known for games on the hour or half hour or whatever. High OS players would hopefully be attracted to the stability access. Auto start games means you can't just walk away bc you'll lose

I also think you could attract high skill players with premade auto run/scored B03s so they have a time and place they know to go for that and find another willing team/person bc ik BO3 can be popular at high OS (I think). It would feel like a scheduled mini tournament.

Also losing/winning a scheduled B03 could be a bigger OS hit/gain as it better shows who the better player is.

The "Friday Night 7PM 40+ 4v4 Bo3" gives people something to look forward too and join on time. There are only so many high OS players to try to always have great high OS games 24/7 but maybe like hourly or something IDK I'd need to do out the math.

Twitch personalities might be attracted too which is a nice unintentional benefit bc they are prime casting candidates.

Sincerely,
A low OS player who likes to watch high OS games haha

[waxen birch]

Sounds like a mix of LoL's clash, and a sort of weekly league format. It would be fun, but it would require work to set-up, maintain, and ultimately if all it can offer is some modified OS gains/losses the juice doesn't feel like its worth the squeeze.

[tidal grotto]

given the seeming lack of ability of high OS players to start their own games, some sort of 'best effort' automated system would be best solution. priority queue / target OS, and automatically scaling game size / map pool to number of present players

however sanity of actually doing that, to cater to a very small group of people (who could already do it manually), is questionable

as ever, it's trying to use technical measures to solve social problems. 'target OS' part of it though, would be a good game improvement overall and applicable to many places, it's something I'll try to look into later

[golden fractal]

yup it's questionable

matchmaking will solve majority of this anyway later on

[storm condor]

idk how u keep saying 40+ is below 1% of pop and also keep saying its lack in ability to make lobbies instead of it being a pop issue

[strange beacon]

plp should just make and sit in 5/16 lobby for 30 minutes and wait for it to fill. can't do much about pop but at least that way you still get a high os lobby

[tidal grotto]

both can be true

[alpine ermine]

people want to play games not sit in lobby sims

[sharp mason]

Ya lobbies just turn into high OS ones organically

[alpine ermine]

exactly, people just join their friends and wait in queue

[marble wren]

Part of the issue is voting for all the options has more friction, leading to the suggestion to reinstitute boss via votes. https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1279328508811808828

[royal mirage]

Moving the competitive scene to 1v1s would certainly alleviate the lobby pop issue

[storm condor]

Nah

1v1 is smaller playerbase

Watching 4v4-5v5s tourneys was way more enjoyable than any 1v1 tourney where everyone knows who will win and how

[hexed basin]

1v1 playerbase is so small its actually like 40 players total

[storm condor]

Ye same 20 people playing against each other on repeat

[marble wren]

I mean that's what happens in the silo'd lobbies too, just with fewer players.

[spice temple]

This seems like a problem that ultimately can get solved easier with matchmaking. Right now the culture is to camp lobbies. It’s hard not to. If you leave your lobby after the game, you have no guarantee that a lobby about to start has your desired settings. So you wait in a lobby that’s almost down and then they change maps or the lobby dies. That all sucks. But larger player base + match making means easier time queuing for just the next game on a particular map and it can be tailored to the exact right number of players for that map

[heady valve]

yeah +1 to larger player base since that's really the issue (there aren't enough high os players). Since that's the real issue, then addressing how to get more players seems to be all that's needed

[gilded folio]

step one to having more high os players is retaining the ones we already have

especially since people generally become high os by observing other high os palyers

[tawdry turret]

Ye player retention is how you get the game to grow and bar has horrendous player retention for higher os players

[heady valve]

i guess that's the debate spend time on high os players or new players then

[still seal]

Over the summer the evening EU sweat lobby has completely died. Mid tier has become the new OP because so many of the truly good players are on break/have quit.

I’m not a part of that group of players and can only speculate. To me it seemed like OP lobby started when Barry and LDM started their daily streams. Barry has vanished and LDM doesn’t play as much anymore.

I agree that the community need some sort gathering point for high os players. That being fixed time slots or when certain streamers log on idk. Could also be coordinated on discord, you guys have that OPlobby discord right?

[tawdry jacinth]

LDM break is temporary right?

[storm condor]

playing other games for now

[sweet bluff]

LDM doesnt seem to be enjoying bar as much lately. I dont think he is coming back to regular bar streams.

[regal charm]

Dont you all enjoy having an almost op lobby with a poop air player that builds SAM in their base after 2 fighters?

Lots of gamble games in mixed lobbies

[tawdry jacinth]

Damn that sucks. He was really good for the game.

[marble wren]

@floral python slander?

[golden fractal]

I would say same goes for @atomic quarry; watching his streams nearly 9 months in a row and the decline in enjoyment is evident.

There might be bumps but lately it's quite sad.

[opaque wedge]

Just ask Zow to stream, he did it once and he plays 24/7. But maybe he dont want to be stream sniped with his op strats 😄

[golden fractal]

Zow has quite op mouth

instant op streameur

[tawdry jacinth]

What does Zow do with his mouth?

[golden fractal]

https://tenor.com/view/furry-gif-4903957

[regal charm]

We should just ask said players whats up

[marble wren]

I mean, scroll through this thread.

[regal charm]

Scrolling

[marble wren]

Ikr

[swift olive]

There is still the issue with clans/friends blocking people out of public lobby.
It allows them to keep playing the way they want and losing is not how they want it, they get tired of dodging so then they just add to block list organized by using discord group chat ect...

I had little talk with Damgam over here : #1279328508811808828 message
He told me this system was put in place before moderation team was formed, so it was necessary at the time.
Right now it's also being used by toxic players to keep certain players they don't like out of the lobby. Which allow them to have easier games and climb in OS much easier.

[turbid shell]

Did they block you to stop losing, or did they block you because they don't want to be around you? Sounds like you're making an assumption.

COC encourages us to find people that like your play style, you might be trying to force yourself onto people that don't like your play style.

[storm condor]

It's ok guys don't need to improve the state of high OS lobbies when every change regarding boss and blocks is being done to have it be permanently dead

Just move on, accept that there will be no high quality games

Close this thread it's fucking useless

[strange beacon]

just vote on min rating and min chev?

[storm condor]

Nextmap votes take more time than in-game

That's literally the biggest problem trying to play in a lobby

It's just spam braindead !nextmap to land from one dogshit map to another

[tawdry jacinth]

I play in low os rotato lobbies and don't really have that issue. So it's a just an issue at the top because players are picky.

We've used this to make rotation automatic at end game:

!rotationEndGame random

You can set to the popular map list via

 !rotationtype map;popular16p

(Although I've never needed to use that one)
And will restrict to these maps: https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spads_config_bar/blob/main/etc/mapLists.conf#L1379

[thin tusk]

Yeah, no offense to the op room (well ok some), but half of the reason I don't play there very often is because it takes so long to get anything done and everyone's so precious about "shit maps" and the settings

Part of this is inevitable and happens in other sports too. If you chase ranking the top players start to get really picky about who they'll play and under what circumstances 🤷‍♂️ because those are things necessary to maintain relative rank

[swift olive]

i have spec chat logs of them saying it

[thin tusk]

But frankly, the op rooms have always been only slightly less boring as straits/glitters in their "good map picks" and game settings since as long as I can remember.

[swift olive]

yeah they really didn't like all the op people coming into their lobby all of a sudden, it's fine the devs allow it, at least it's clear now

[thin tusk]

I haven't seen icescream, Folsom dam, or altered divide (sp?) since before I can remember, hell even DSD would be refreshing and oh no is that a water map sorry we all apparently have rabies!

[thin tusk]

Again, we kinda bring this on ourselves. We target specific anointed "game types" and discrete OS as the determinant of rank instead of using it as a fuzzy statistical metric that can be used for rough balancing, and then when everyone specialises into map/teams, or into an archetype of a map type and game settings to maximise it and refuses to play anything else proclaiming them "shit" we're all shocked pickachu. Part of this is, again inevitable, the type of players to be recognised as "best" will generally borderline austically specialise into a game and map or handful of map archetypes and try to bring the community to play those, because specialising is how you generally get to be seen as "the best" and winning is both what psychologically "the best" enjoy and are socially recognised as doing, but there's the inevitable behaviour and there's leaning into or against it (and again, this is nothing special to BAR, other sports so this to varying degrees).

[storm condor]

Ice Scream is just a FPS check map, folsom is a water map and game has shit water mechanics nobody will disagree with that, atlered divide is a 4v4-5v5 map

Starwatcher, flats n forest, plains n passes, whitefire, koom valley, bismuth, moonshine, tar tar, rosetta etc are the good ones

its these shit maps im talking about and u know why theyre shit, they just are

[thin tusk]

You keep misspelling straits :p

[storm condor]

strait is just an absolute failure of map design where a navy player doesnt have to contest sea mexes and where lolcannon cannot reach afus stacks

[thin tusk]

But seriously, although I can come up with a few critiques of maps (mainly around traversability and whether build positions/terrain are intuitively obvious given their textures and view points), other than that, no, I don't recognise those maps as shit.

But then I don't even think the 8v8 or nvn map designations makes any lick of sense so I'm touched in the head

[storm condor]

the rock is a 3v4 + 4v3 map and by looking at the terrain u can tell how it will go

[thin tusk]

And symmetry is obviously an issue in map design, but even that could be interesting if we controlled/balanced right.

[storm condor]

lets look at this map, nothing wrong except 1x mex underwater at first glace. Then u play it and realize raghna is cooping an amphib lab and has salamanders at minute 4 and then every other game is same on both sides because its just free win gameplay

any land map with ponds = amphib coop which is just stupid and unfun gameplay so they wont get played if the players r aware

[thin tusk]

And Rosetta and bismuth don't play out the same?

[storm condor]

rosetta and bismuth have ponds?

[thin tusk]

On bismuth: oh, someone's pushing top or bottom lanes and someone's doing an air transition... Extraordinary!

[storm condor]

air transition is normal everyone does it on every map

[thin tusk]

Or Rosetta, someones trying to share to T3 and/or air transition... revolutionary!

[storm condor]

thats just normal gameplay

t2 units being available behind a t1.5 building isnt

there was a massive sala nerf bcz of it

[thin tusk]

As I mentioned, op room has a restrictive view of normal that approaches the likes of glitters/straits obsessions, but in their own way.

[storm condor]

we had comm trans turned off and it made it into tourney

its almost like we can tell what part of the game keeps fucking itself and what doesnt

[thin tusk]

But to be fair, everyone's observed the problems with air transporting commanders for at least the last three years and probably longer...

[storm condor]

stilleto nerf, abductor nerf in release cand, sala nerf, t1 arty nerf, whistlers etc etc etc were all custom tweaks in our lobbies before it happened

[thin tusk]

It's only in the last 6 months? or so that something happened in the op room culturally to turn that setting on universally.

[storm condor]

people realized it unfucked the game

[thin tusk]

I don't think anyone argues that op room doesn't help drive the culture of the game...

And I'm not downplaying the ability of skilled players, or their ability to observe and exploit these balance issues

[storm condor]

i mean ur saying people like X maps and they have obsession with them and it isnt wrong

[thin tusk]

(and subsequently make fixes)

[storm condor]

i like a wide variety of maps, i dislike certain maps bcz the games r just short/same meta stuff every game

[thin tusk]

I think some of this comes back to, yes, other maps have different playstyles or optimal strategies which requires deviating significantly from the "overall" meta or into a new specialised one...

[storm condor]

on bismuth/flatsnforest/rosetta etc theres too many strats to do like Air transitioning/eco-ing to have unit choices/ all ining 1 lane etc. But on Hades and SaltReef you play coop amphib or you lose theres nothing else u shud be doing or u might aswell be trying to lose the game on purpose bcz thats just how unidimensional those maps are

dsdr was played over n over and it eventually got boring and people stopped playing it bcz we had like 300+ games each on that

[thin tusk]

Whether they could then develop entirely new metas around that map in theory is an interesting question, but we'll probably not get there because player numbers aren't significant enough to find out, and rating systems will generally collapse down into either those most loved maps or a particular archetype.

[thin tusk]

I never thought I'd say I'm nostalgic for dsdr

But that's my problem, I'll deal with it 😅

[storm condor]

theres a clear issue on rosetta aswell, theres a 10.0 mex and everyone rushes an emp launcher to stun it and its basically -1 afus of metal income and -1 player from enemy team

literally saw this in tourney aswell

shows how exploitable the mex positioning is

[thin tusk]

Anyway, thanks for the chat, but work calls now and I will continue my scream into the void to play 8v8 on maps with less than 8 clumps of metal or starting positions, and 1v1 on larger team maps and/or asymmetrical challenges or removing eco/eco scaling options for some variation :p

[storm condor]

i like 1v1-4v4s on big maps its actually fun to play

[strange beacon]

yeah coop + relatively cheap lab like amphib or seaplane is op

by pooling resources you get more than double the amount of t1.5 units

sad thing is that it's relatively balanced for single player but the lab may get nerfed in place of nerfing coop

[twilit spindle]

While I do think part of this is a matter of principle, it’s also a natural consequence of getting “good” at the game (unless you don’t believe such a thing is real which is a different argument).

If you spent time learning the game and how to manage micro/macro/transitions/various strategies, ofc you’d prefer maps that dont offer a lot of variety or force you into just one way of playing. All maps are technically playable, you can have a game on avalanche or hooked every once in a while with 0 mexes, but generally playing around having 1 unit for the whole game isn’t what people are looking for when they come to play an RTS

[thin hearth]

Imo people play BAR because it actually responds to the player, low lag, nice units, well designed, very little clutter, better texturing, its just more simple and more responsive making the game alot less annoying and straining, i have yet to have any problems with the game its self apart from com bombing but thats a personal thing

making a map that is unresponsive makes the game feel pointlessly slow, low mexs, low wind, no water, mainly air spam, all makes the game slower and less responsive and i think thats why a lot of people play straits

there is enough downtime at the start to think a little, enough lead time till combat, without restricting timings and making the map feel unresponsive

[gilded folio]

game quality is so fucking ass right now, if something isn't urgently done to revive op lobby, high level BAR may never return

https://tenor.com/view/game-dead-the-finals-dead-game-gif-9930968763958631232

[pastel sand]

I agree with the comment that y'all are being incredibly dramatic about this, lol.

High level players not having the social finesse to organize a game isn't really a problem for administration to solve, imo. =_=

[gilded folio]

It's mostly that high level players feel like they are lacking tools to organize themselves

in a way which excludes low OS players when needed

[tawdry jacinth]

It’s also a problem specific to rotato players. Why is smile able to organise games and get lobbies started? Just observe what they do and copy them.

[gilded folio]

200+ Epic Maps

[vague temple]

rotato players have unfortunately not learned to op ban enough nonmeta playuers from their lobby or maintain a kickban list of people they view as disruptive. im not sire thats healthy for the game but maybe they should start doing this type of thing

[swift olive]

can't ban people when you need them to play the video game

[vague temple]

yeah but they have lobbies running

[exotic pawn]

Lol bro cause glitters lobby is way more popular ? Cause a lot of people prefer to play 1 map on repeat cause lack of skill or laziness

It’s easier to learn only 1 spot on a copy paste meta on repeat , ofc you get good based on repetition

[tardy pike]

Haha then the lobby would never get off the ground. Oh wait it already doesn’t.

[ember drum]

@swift olive You have only 237 games on ATG this year (most of high os ATG have 700+), so please slow down your ego on your level and just play chill and friendly with other, and all will be fine. "Our" high os lobby ATG (fill after 1h average) deserve players with a minimum of manner. it is really easy

[vague temple]

true, you cant do this when you try to run an open community lobby

[swift olive]

You may take a look at the dates when you look at that website lol and this game is 20 years old btw

nice edit

[hexed basin]

am I missing something or are you serious about "only" 237 games on atg

[turbid shell]

More than me, and I primarily play glitters lol.

[swift olive]

ive been playing glitters before all those new peoples that need to use ban on players in order to keep winning as much

some people take the OS abuse to another level

[regal charm]

I feel weird reading how raikoh trolls every game and loses their team but at the same time his OS somehow doesnt drop

So what is it? Is he bad at vidya or just people want certain meta way to play?

[pastel sand]

We have plenty of tools. Back in the day we did it with less tools. Made a room that says "no noobs" or "experts only", kicked noobs that joined anyway, invited friends, and called out people in the lobby to come play. Sometimes it took patience, which is just part of having a low player count. We made clans to recruit and train new experts to play with. Clans would offer incentives for improving via rank in the clan. Clan rivalries spurred further play. We made websites and chatrooms to socialize and organize games. We had no administration or developers to appeal to; we just had a small set of tools and made it work.

We have more tools today. More tools for organizing than any other time in history, prolly. (Except for matchmaking, which I'm fine with, because matchmaking is very anti-social; and we don't have the player count yet for practical matchmaking; and matchmaking algorithms will just be another thing for people to complain about)

[gilded folio]

well the goodnews is that we had an op lobby going for 1-2 games today and some of those people were notified by pinging the High Level Games discord role

I think your point is valid on tools available, its far more constructive than other things people have said

it still feels like we're lacking something though

[regal charm]

Kindness

[gilded folio]

rotato doesn't lack that, I think you're thinking of glitters

[regal charm]

Ye i did

[gilded folio]

xD

i'll admit its kindness just for the elite and not for noobs though

[dusty frigate]

look at what they need to imitate a fraction of our autism

[storm condor]

You have 760 games + on glitters, you are hard stuck on 30os. You sir are bad at the video game and the statistic is pretty clear. Me on the otherhand im 56% wr on 176 at 44os, hence im better at said map despite having less playtime on said map

just number of game doesnt mean u know what ur doing

theres plenty of 20os players with 2000 games im not gonna look up to them for gameplay

idk this is thread is getting side tracked so much

---

just bring boss back it will fix most the issues regarding lobbies

[regal charm]

I agree with boss back idea, i think groups need to have a tool to form their tailored games

Everyone can do it, noone is left behind. Just be proactive

[ember drum]

Who are you ?

[storm condor]

everyone knows who i am, the guy with 3+ perma bans

[marble wren]

Clicking names unlocks at 40 OS I guess.

[storm condor]

[ember drum]

You are weird to cherry pick + collage stat xD. I don't wanna problem so => you are blocked 🙂

[dusty frigate]

"you only have 136 games" is definitely a 🤓 moment

[thin tusk]

So just randomly...what's up with everyone in the OP room changing their names all the time 😛

Call me radical, but while people like me can just check the userid, for the actual community or building up the idea of either a community supporting or following high skilled players, watching or supporting such, this has always seemed pretty obviously problematic.

[storm condor]

we do it for fun

[thin tusk]

I think we've established I don't understand fun 😛 But seriously, from the point of view of wanting to build a community, and in an environment where we actually notionally try to enforce one account per person, i would suggest its a social anti-pattern.

Its going to stop people supporting high OS games, and it's going to make people enjoy watching high OS games less.

[twilit spindle]

Well er i think it’s pretty clear at this point high os players aren’t really here for community building xd

[storm condor]

yeah building community is going strong here, played only deadlock today n yesterday. Came back to play bar and they have a clan blocking everyone

same clan was blocking everyone with boss but the <@&549291872192036874> are afk

Good job, great community building

what now shud someone make a ticket for 100th time about blocks

or shud i magically spawn a new lobby to play in which doesnt or will not exist

[pastel sand]

the same room probably had enough in queue and spec to fill another lobby, so meh. sounds like whining to me.

"Teacher! The cool kids won't let me play with them! . . . No, I don't want to play with those other kids, they're dorks!"

[storm condor]

this is probably not even considered toxic by the mod team bcz its not against someone who is below 20os

w/e

have ur dead game how u want, ready for steam release

[storm condor]

most ppl didnt bother complaining abt these obvious problems and they just quit

[pastel sand]

=_=

imo it's not a bug, it's a feature. freedom of association.

imo it's also kinda lame, I don't like blocking, so I have a lot of empathy for your situation. basically all i can honestly tell u is, suck it up and find a workaround.

[prime elk]

I also dislike the blocking situation going on, but this isn't really within moderation hands at current. This is more of a design issue of which moderators can not change.

[storm condor]

is it going to be changed?

theres no matchmaking its a small community. these things devs themselves have said but blocking still exists

boss was removed bcz it caused drama but blocks r still staying

[prime elk]

I am not aware at current. I do agree the block system is unnecessary with kickban. Though longer kickban options would also be welcome in the absence of block imo.

[storm condor]

its exact same clan abusing block again n again idk how u cannot moderate that

[prime elk]

Because it requires me to prove intent and reasoning for the block.

[turbid shell]

It requires half the players to block from a lobby right?

Decent sized clan then.

[sour canopy]

Op rotato lobby dead forever rip

[tardy pike]

@primal lava just came in and unbossed me whenever i kickbanned the "wrong players". not sure why he doesn't do that more often or why other mods don't.

[hexed basin]

I think paradoxically spending effort to keep track of who's who has only made me feel more involved in the community

We don't really have gossip, so that's the alternative

[dusty frigate]

FREEHURRI was a fun meme until the griefer server ruined it

[thin tusk]

I think it's textbook survivorship bias: the only ones who can keep track of who is who are those that can invest significant time into the community.

[hexed basin]

I'm not a sociologist, but there's got to be something about easily searchable inside information facilitating a sense of community.
It's not atcually that hard to keep track of.

[glossy thorn]

it is definitely one of the worst communities I've ever seen

[still seal]

For what it’s worth I think Raikoh and Choice are doing good work in the mid tier lobby these days. A lot of people there don’t like the toxicity of the old OP lobby. I think a bit more time playing nice will make more of us want to play in higher tier lobby with you OPs.

While I sorta miss the boss votes I think a lot can be solved by lowering the required votes for minrating and minchev. It’s too difficult to bump these at the moment.

[dusty frigate]

It's one of the better ones I have been in

It's all relative

[minor sierra]

Is there a way for players to stay informed on who was barred from joining the lobby they are playing in?

knowing this is happening leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I wanna at least know when this and this player who fitted the minimum req was prevented from joining

[tawdry jacinth]

If you read the discord you will know the players who got blocked and who by.

[minor sierra]

if you knew about it as it happens you could influence a boss change or join a diffirent lobby

gives you an opportunity to get a refugee lobby going or something, i know its not much but anything to get people playing instead of arguing

[still seal]

How do i grab this role? I think it is important to have op lobby so i might join you guys for a couple of games

i figured it out. Channel and roles for anyone wondering

[fallen sorrel]

boss doesnt matter anymore

[glossy thorn]

Yeah, it has to be a sizeable amount of people in the lobby blocking you now.

[still seal]

I got an idea. What if the official twitch channel was live 24/7 and casted a featured prolobby. This lobby could alternate between predefined seasonal maps and always let the highest OS people in queue play, even specs people for benefit of people in an OS tier higher.

[hexed basin]

are you sure anyone's going to watch that

[storm condor]

Dota 2 has in-game client that broadcasts highest lvl games but u can just see that in bar by spectating in the lobby

Streamers r much more about the personality of the streamers

Professor bar, ArBaron, LDM all are fun to watch for different reason

There's a new streamer named darx I enjoy his stream but his camera is 90 degree rotated gg

[still seal]

I would watch it, but would prefer as choice mention a streamer playing instead. But we lack those so i would rather have barofficial stream it live than having no streams at all to watch on twitch. There is plenty periods during the day with no streamers live in the BAR-category, like now. Darx will be good, he tries to learn, have radiovoice. Fweeedy too will be good.

[tawdry jacinth]

Link to darx? I can't find him.

[still seal]

https://www.twitch.tv/darxbar

[storm condor]

Zow should stream he's S tier yapper but he's playing Minecraft

[still seal]

I would watch Zow. Wouldnt play him unless he gets back to 70 OS though

[swift olive]

lol i guess you carried too much with op titans you deserve the ban

keep on coping the game is doing fine

had your chance with winter promotion and you wasted it

[carmine vigil]

funny how last year i said that the straits/glitters/rotation players will fracture the community as a whole vry hard, which has happened. thank gosh noone did anything to prevent that tho.

[regal charm]

@carmine vigil how would u prevent it

Seems like this happens naturally in games

[carmine vigil]

true, but we've reached the point of no return.
and i dont have a solution to a problem that we cant fix anymore

[pastel sand]

https://tenor.com/view/kid-tantrum-mad-sad-meltdown-gif-25016974

[spice temple]

https://tenor.com/view/tried-nothing-flanders-out-of-gif-9662944

[sharp mason]

Prevent it? Who?

[regal charm]

[alpine ermine]

it was inevitable in lobby based game where map change is not mandatory.

[sweet bluff]

He prefers coaching me and therxxy in minecraft than playing BAR. Its joever

[vague temple]

have him teach village farm

[pastel sand]

You know how high os players like to jump into balance threads all like, "The reason you are having trouble using/countering (unit) is because you are dogshit at the game, and actually there's nothing wrong with (unit). Instead of trying to get the devs to change the unit around your inadequacy, you should try to learn how to properly use the tools afforded to you." . . .

That's pretty much how I feel about this thread. The problem is actually just that high os players are dogshit at socializing and organizing, and before crying to the devs to work around their deficiencies they should first try to git gud.

[vague temple]

Please do not derail threads with toxic baiting/trolling.

[pastel sand]

Is it untrue? Are they actually top tier socializers and organizers ?

[carmine vigil]

but the high os players organise the tournaments

[pastel sand]

That's a good start. Use or further develop those skills to organize games outside of tournaments.

[gilded folio]

https://tenor.com/view/lolol-lmao-gif-22173456

[carmine vigil]

am not sure why u attacker the high os players tho, seems like u have some personal issues or smth ameen i hope u get well soon

[gilded folio]

that made me lol

[still seal]

I made a min 20 lobby. lets try to get op lobby up again tonight.

[pastel sand]

Dogshit at trashtalk, too. ;P

I have nothing against high os players, just against people whining like spoiled brats.

And ofc, generalizations and just generalizations. People are individuals and there will be exceptions to generalizations.

[glossy thorn]

ping the according role in looking for group

[pastel sand]

People who are competent generally don't need to develop their social skills as much since they can get by without them, so it's not horribly strange that high os players (to whom it may concern) have poor social skills

[glossy thorn]

High Rank Games Notifications is the role

[still seal]

server is having issue so lobby broke 5 min after i wrote this. But ty. will use that later

[glossy thorn]

Right now the high OS lobby is running - with force speccing, the average OS could be higher, but apparently they didn't see the need for it 😛

[storm condor]

[glossy thorn]

A surprise, but a pleasant one

[storm condor]

shud just @ perfi and have him close this too

[vague temple]

no this thread has productive discussion going on thats why i asked people to not bait

[pastel sand]

http://web.archive.org/web/20061212033212/Freewebs.com/goc_home

Look, an old clan website from a game with an even smaller population than BAR. Clan survived for over a decade. Active recruiting and active training of members with improvement incentivized by rank and recognition. Brought many players into the competitive meta.

Why doesn't Arakis have any problems organizing games ?

Could it be because they have a clan and network of people to play with and start lobbies ?

[marble wren]

Could it be possible that it's necessary to ask you to stop derailing, again, and have it be heard?
-# I don't think it will be heard

[pastel sand]

So it's derailing to show how high level players have previously organized to solve their problems in finding high level games? Mmk

Totes derailing to show all the steps peeps could (but aren't) making to fix their problem, mmk.

[turbid shell]

I wish I had an easy way to scroll to the top on mobile.

Is the idea for this thread for options/features within the game to enable stable/consistent High-OS lobbies, or is the thread for the community to develop self-enforcing/stable high-OS lobbies?

-# what was the original question/intent, I forgot.

[hexed basin]

iirc the idea of the thread is to nerf whistlers half a year ago, I think we're past that

or nvm, it was people getting 0.01os per game on low uncertainty

also fixed

[glossy thorn]

I agree with Coura in that just getting your butt up and actually organising yourself is certainly part of the solution. In this second, there is an OP lobby going, founded by a boss, and the only reason they are not force speccing people to increase average OS is because they apparently don't want to

[marble wren]

people whining like spoiled brats

People who are competent generally don't need to develop their social skills

high os players are dogshit at socializing and organizing

suck it up and find a workaround

These steps are very OP.

On Topic: How is Priority Queue coming along?

[marble wren]

I see zero OP lobbies tbh

Except the 1v1 ones, which aren't part of this discussion.

[glossy thorn]

Title is OP lobby revival project - whether you consider it OP or not is up to you of course

[marble wren]

A 30 OS spread is not the type of lobby that this thread is on topic for.

[glossy thorn]

As I previously mentioned ...

and the only reason they are not force speccing people to increase average OS is because they apparently don't want to

One way or another priority queue would be neat

[marble wren]

There's no one in queue to raise it for. They'd lose like 5 players and gain 3.

Would literally kill the lobby, so they have to put up with bad gameplay instead.

This is exactly the situation that we want to fix.

[vague temple]

when people say op lobby they usually are talking about a very tight spread of high os players similar to a tourna format, hence OP lobby. when you have a high os spread the game quality often suffers as a result.

[glossy thorn]

In Queue are: 39, 33, 22, 25, 37, 36, 24, 38, 31, 18, 31 and 12 OS

[hexed basin]

they did have enough to at least boot the 13 os guy, but I didn't look too closely

[glossy thorn]

So your statement is objectively incorrect, Wombat

[hexed basin]

our 20 os spread team on fight night

[marble wren]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply a 25 OS spread was significantly better than a 30 OS spread; it's minimally better, approaching no functional difference.

[glossy thorn]

Then what we need is not technical gimmicks, but more players.

There is enough high OS in queue to reduce the spread to ~17, btw, as of this very moment

[turbid shell]

So that one's a player decision issue, and I don't feel it's something the devs should use time on.

If that lobby wanted to crank down on player skill, they currently have the tools to do it?

[frank hatch]

Is there a reason that target OS wouldn't work? Ultimately that's what players want, no? Lobbies that prune toward a chosen OS automatically?

[vague temple]

we were previously doing that manually with bosses

[marble wren]

I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't. I mean, we're even suggesting it be implemented such that mid tier lobbies and noob lobbies can use it too.

[frank hatch]

Exactly. OPlobby can just set the target to something absurd like 100 and get what they want.

[glossy thorn]

They do have all the tools, and I am as surprised as I am happy that they don't do it

[vague temple]

yeah i agree with coura on the point that rotato should act more like arrakis lobby but i dont think most rotato guys seem to like that/i think its bad for the game

[glossy thorn]

Now they raised the min to 20 without having to spec anyone. It's a little dream to watch 😛

[marble wren]

Banning and blocking people for off-meta gameplay choices is insane.

[vague temple]

like i said long term it is bad for the game but to have lobbies it is apparently what is necessary unfortunately.

i think most comp players instinctively revile that type of behavior though, regardless of game format.

[glossy thorn]

A strategy game in which you cannot test strategies is just defeating the point

[turbid shell]

Getting into the reasons forces us into mudslinging territory, one side claims it's one reason, other side claims another reason, and it generally derails the topic.

Should team games that have a meta, require the consent of your team before deviating from the meta?

I say yes.

Arrakis enforces the style of play that they desire, and they maintain a good number of players that either agree or tolerate that enforcement.

If player numbers that tolerated it drops, then they either have to be less strict, or go elsewhere.

[vague temple]

yeah i guess people have to do that to have nice lobbies to play in but it is unfortunate that thats the way imo

[frank hatch]

sounds repulsive to me

[marble wren]

Soooooooo how's the priority queue going fellas?

[vague temple]

delayed one more day

[pastel sand]

I get it, people would much rather complain to authority to fix their problems than be told their whining is obnoxious because they aren't taking even half the steps to help themselves. Easier to dismiss the person as "derailing" and go back to appealing to authority for more tools in an already loaded toolbox.

It's demonstrably possible for high level players to organize with existing tools. I don't really see any necessity for something like a priority queue.

Priority queue maybe useful for managing expectations if there is an indication of it prior to a person entering, but this can already be done by room naming. A boss can also fulfill all the other functions of prio queue manually.

[glossy thorn]

Another thing I noticed - it's easy to lose boss, and now there is no way to get it back, forever turning the lobby into a democratic one. While I am 100% against reintroducing boss votes, maybe boss shouldn't be immediately lost when someone leaves - either there could be a popup to warn them of the impending loss of bossness, or it could be passed on to a random person, or perhaps to highest OS person (could be a setting?)

[turbid shell]

Losing boss because of a game crash does feel bad/unintended consequence from the change.

Also, I accidentally removed boss from everyone once, because I thought I was just turning my boss off with !boss. It removed the other 2 bosses too.

[marble wren]

Complain to authority

This is a suggestions forum, wherein people suggest features and modifications to the game in effort to improve the experience when the game otherwise lacks the support to achieve the desired effect.

don't really see any necessity

We're advocating for changes based on experiences in a lobby that you don't play in, and we're doing so in such a way to improve the experience of the lobby that you do play in should you want to exercise what we're advocating being implemented. We are also advocating it be optional and disabled by default so as to not disrupt your already entrenched and regular experience. Sorry terribly for inconveniencing you with this suggestion.

A boss can also fulfill all the other functions

We're asking for support to not have to create a lobby from scratch and sit around for an hour waiting for it to fill. I'm glad that you have nothing better to do than sit and wait, but the regulars of the lobby in question have indicated that this isn't sufficient multiple times in this thread.

[glossy thorn]

Yeah, maybe removing boss should actually be !unboss

[exotic pawn]

We are a few and we are also important to the community , people have different manners and ways to do stuff -> yes.

But there is a lot of people willing to play on higher level and have fun and nowadays we are not getting it.

[storm condor]

Game isn't good for retaining people who get good at it except if you're coming for tourneys only.
OS has to work in a way to balance for a 50% wr, as you get better your team gets worse which would be fine if the floor was higher and you could captain but unfortunately it's not.
Moreover the community has bad behaviour where the higher OS, the higher the blames put on, eventually people start finding it frustrating.