Opinion about Spring

[JohannesH]

imo only ba, ca and xta games can sometimes be called "competive"

I reject this opinion. S44 as nemo said has been designed for competitive gameplay, and for that matter, so has Evolution RTS. Yes, it took a long time to get there, and it took a lot of iterations to get it right, but it's there.

Designed for competitive play doesnt automatically lead to having competitive games played. And we're not there yet.

[Nemo]

Of course not, I was just getting at the fact that we're not all totally ignoring competitive play in favor of 6v6 games on resource rich maps.

What is frustrating is when you have one competitive player who plays your game frequently, but nobody for them to play seriously against <_< (see Godde).

[Wombat]

spring is life !

[Achilla]

On one hand you cry for the lack of fresh blood to keep the healthy community (real player/smurf ratio, reasonable player/troll ratio etc.), on the other hand when the newbie actually joins the pack he is greeted with insults and elitism. Well, the reality is that newbies have nobody to play with on their skill level, to actually have some fun and learn the basics before getting ass-raped really bad in the competitive pit.

Another thing is the player base, which is apparently too small to get any decent all-round-the-clock-and-not-prearranged games on the other mods, besides BA. Next thing is lack of map variety in most 'massive public' games (12-16 players), first join first serve, aka DSD. You are more likely to get everyone drop off from the server and join another one, than actually have them vote for a different map, especially with some naval warfare or less porcy action. This is a subjective judgement of course, and you are free to say that newbies actually play anything else from the DSD ... without getting raped every single time (usually they believe than if they join a big battle with many players per side, then one poor newb e.g. them won't screw the entire match ... now couple this up with other newbs, trolls, smurfs and you have a perfect flaming fest with penis-drawing and insults for the entire match).

What could be done to patch some of the holes, is rotative ladder system for each mod (which is good, because at some point pros are isolated from newbs, at least in peak playing hours ... plus, you just select few options and get connected to 'best avaible' match right away, rather than joining some random clan/semi-private/public games and getting insulted/raped on less anonymous basis). Players join and and are assigned on a random map (from the 'ladder maps' list), on the random spot in their team which is random as well. What they get to choose is faction (arm/core/other) and number of players (duel, 2v2 and so on). Because community is small, distinction between solo and team might be enough in practical terms. Next, the system should account for user's ranking AND win/lose ratio separately for duel/team matches, and try to evenly distribute the teams with that in mind. Finally, it should have WORKING anti-smurfing measures, as well as 'report' button for inflammatory behaviour (be gone the days with stalking devs/mods and sending them .txt logs ... just select the player name and log is send ... might be nice to be able to easily report 'stupid drawings' as well, or team killing/blatant suicide/other in team matches).

So, what we need ... easier SPRING installation, more varied matches (more mods played on casual basis besides BA, many more NICE maps accepted on the casual basis), healthier environment (anti-troll, anti-smurf, anti-elitist, easy report function, fair matchmaking for player team distribution). The main problem is smallish 'native' player base, which might not actually make inventing such a system worthwhile. There is also a problem with the mentality of some people here.

Tip of the day: Embrace the newbie, train the champion!

PS. No, I don't think current 'ladder' system is any good ... however it is a good start. Make it newbie-friendly first.

[PicassoCT]

Right, this calles for immediate discussion. Immediate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P2jJdrz9bY

[Beherith]

Goddamn it Picasso, you summed up every single point I had about this thread in a single sketch.

[JohannesH]

Easiest way, which pretty much anyone can do, to get more players is to play a lot yourself and not be a total asshole while doing it.

Helps too if it's not 8v8 games you're playing

[Forboding Angel]

Regarding ease of installing spring. No one but us game devs manages to give a shit, and most of us don't really have much control over anything. For example, starting spring directly... would be nice if we had a choice to make it display a message saying to use a lobby or summat and exit.

[PicassoCT]

You dont delete a game because you invested something into it, be it money (steam-games, you hamstered them, you can not delete it, after all the investments), training (skillz, not transferable to other games -thats why there is no hotkeystandard), feelingz (running over a whole army with the one mamothtank in a world ruling mood counts too that) or rank (works only after a comunity has reached a recognizable for the outside world size).

You can add people by increasing one of the above points. After that OP will change the topic and we will complain about the NOOB-Pestilence and how to get rid of them.

[Achilla]

Easiest way, which pretty much anyone can do, to get more players is to play a lot yourself and not be a total asshole while doing it.

Helps too if it's not 8v8 games you're playing

When I used to play, 2v2-4v4 were most entertaining ones, preferably with landmass mixed with water to allow for different use of hovers and ships. As for the noob pestilence, either that or fighting countless smurfs. Well, that's not really my choice.

[AF]

A lot of people have told me, they tried spring, but it looked nasty, so they never continued and got to the shiny ingame bit

[Achilla]

Right, this calles for immediate discussion. Immediate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P2jJdrz9bY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Vwdr7fujE

I find this one more fitting, except replace 'ETW' with 'BA+DSD'.

[PicassoCT]

What really would keep people attached to spring, is if you gained sort of rewards (lets get creative and call them archivementpointz) during the game, and drag that reward along into the next game, counting down into a energy/mass reward - or a sort of special unit, that gets important late in game. Now add a decaysystem, that gnaws on your boni every day, and there they are, playing spring once a week to save there char.

Also it would help if the robots would dance once in a while. This metall crowd lacks funk.

[Teutooni]

What really would keep people attached to spring, is if you gained sort of rewards

Customizable commander model ftw. Has there been any recent advances in that direction?

About elitism... I think newbies and veterans playing in the same game is bound to fail. Veterans are frustrated because games are often decided by who has less newbies (the skill gap between a good player and an average one is a lot smaller than an average player and a newbie) and newbies are frustrated because they don't last 5 minutes and get shouted at.

With such a small playerbase mixed games are unavoidable, but experienced players should at least respect AHs meant for newbies only. And generally make less drama about how they lost because of some noob or even experienced player failing.

[Gota]

FFS we dot even have a upper rank limit while we do have a lower one.

[Beherith]

FFS we dot even have a upper rank limit while we do have a lower one.

Wrong. There are servers with rank ceilings.

[Gota]

Interesting.Do they get played?I don't remember ever encountering one.
If these exist It would be cool to have the Lobbies visually show the room has an upper rank limit so new players are more exposed to this concept and learn of it.

[malric]

And what can you do about smurfs? Also, assuming they are all newbs who will help them? Most of newbs learn quickly enough if given some advice.

What we would need most is decent people that don't troll as soon the front newb can't hold off the front while the 'experimented' player is eco-ing.

[Hobo Joe]

And what can you do about smurfs? Also, assuming they are all newbs who will help them? Most of newbs learn quickly enough if given some advice.

What we would need most is decent people that don't troll as soon the front newb can't hold off the front while the 'experimented' player is eco-ing.

Yeah, the normal reaction to a noob player is "OMG you retard go spec before playing", rather than giving tips to help them out.

That's not exactly a welcoming feeling.

[Sucky_Lord]

Interesting.Do they get played?I don't remember ever encountering one.
If these exist It would be cool to have the Lobbies visually show the room has an upper rank limit so new players are more exposed to this concept and learn of it.

[fi]Autohost4 i believe. its played pretty often, but theres usually one smurf that screws the balance each game