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Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 23 Dec 2012, 22:09
by Sefidel
Because of the overwhelming number of autohosts, users are dispersed into smaller and smaller groups. there are 60+ hosts for a player base of like 150-200. It would be nice if we had less groups because then people would be more likely to join team games and not segregate themselves.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 23 Dec 2012, 22:19
by Beherith
Filter empty battles in lobby.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 23 Dec 2012, 22:20
by AF
we've been over this before, it's not going to change unless you can persuade individual autohost owners to change their ways, which they have decided for the most part they wont

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 23 Dec 2012, 23:20
by Jools
Tell us which ones are unneeded. I feel that semprini is used enough to merit its existence.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 01:48
by Silentwings
use the filter if you don't want to see them!

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 01:58
by smoth
why are there so many though. I am not eve going to bother counting them but to pick on evo, it has 5 hosts..? I thought the autohosts created a spawned off host the moment people joined a host so there is always an open option? Am I wrong on that? Because evo's 5 is small potatoes compaired to the 2 big mods. EX BA has currently 10+ autohosts EMPTY.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 04:03
by Silentwings
BA mostly uses TERA, ACE, [x] & Princess - these are all regularly used (and sometimes, eg ACE, there are different hosts for the different kinds of BA games). Spads is basically a backup and those hosts are used less but they are used. Then there are the two dev hosts for testing BA/BAR. And that makes >10 :P

Looking on my lobby I see also a few private ones that are presumably used.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 24 Dec 2012, 04:20
by smoth
even still.. 10+..

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 28 Dec 2012, 06:45
by bobthedinosaur
are many of those unsupported and obsolete older games still being hosted or is this more of a BA hosting issue?

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 15:39
by AF
Even then, we identify say that there are 190 autohosts that are being used to host general BA games, not development, we still have an issue that cannot be resolved:
  • All autohosters will claim it gets used. Even if it's used once a day for a small battle before they move on to the next.
  • If there was only ever 1 game at any one time, but it rotated between autohosts, every autohoster would use that as justification for being kept
  • If we were to consolidate logically, this poses the question of which autohosts should be kept and which shouldn't. Why should A be kept and not B? Above points make this near impossible to answer
  • Auto-hosters have a huge incentive to keep them regardless of use because it's kudos to them when people play, it's a badge a popularity thing.
Effective fixes that are unlikely to ever be implemented:
  • A ban on clantags in autohost usernames
  • Enforced naming restrictions ( autohost_1, autohost_2, BA_autohost, BA_dev_autohost etc )
  • Lobbies not showing medium/high ranks
  • Server based management ( server keeps 1 autohost open for a use case, opens another once it's full/requested, autohosts announce themselves as autohosts when connecting, and fall back to idle silent mode so they can be repurposed for other use cases once idle for a given time )
  • Removal of battle moderator privs ( autohost owner can stop the battle and do things related to administration of an autohost, but things like kicking, spec team etc etc would be the jurisdiction of lobby moderation )
All of those would be vehemently attacked, visciously picked apart with faux logic, and denied as solutions by a wide range of people. But they would fundamentally change the way autohosts work and rid us of the current problems. Some may even boost an autohosters standing ( XYZs spare BA hosts came to our rescue when the ABC Annihilation autohost went down, everyone buy XYZ drinks! )

We have the technology, this is a social/political issue, not a technical one.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 16:43
by PicassoCT
If it were to be that a neuronal network could solve our political problems by finding a optimal sollution, would you call this a technical possibility we dont have yet, AF?

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 18:20
by klapmongool
Sort by number of players.

What problem?

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 19:39
by Jools
klapmongool wrote:Sort by number of players.

What problem?
What if less is more?

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 22:14
by klapmongool
Jools wrote:
klapmongool wrote:Sort by number of players.

What problem?
What if less is more?
What if.. Explaining 'how' would make this discussion a lot easier.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 02 Jan 2013, 22:38
by Jools
Less is more, in the meaning that autohosts with few players can be better than those with many players.

It's a phrase. I'm sure you've heard it before.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 03 Jan 2013, 00:27
by Forboding Angel
Those 5 evo hosts are hosted by me myself and I. They are spads and do not have the capability of autospawning new ones.

The evo springie hosts are really great, but there are certain things that spads does better, so evo has both, which is basically the best of both worlds imo.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 03 Jan 2013, 12:37
by klapmongool
Jools wrote:Less is more, in the meaning that autohosts with few players can be better than those with many players.

It's a phrase. I'm sure you've heard it before.
I have, and I consider it useless when used as above. Can you explain why you think it would be better to have less autohosts?

Then we can compare the pro's and cons.

I'm not saying the current situation is ideal but I do occasionally find myself in situations in which it is handy to have extra hosts available. Do keep in mind that there are differences between autohosts in settings, maps, owners/admins and hosting locations. There is no single 'best' configuration to replace all others.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 03 Jan 2013, 13:28
by gajop
Personally I think automatic matchmaking should be used instead of autohosts altogether, and the only time games should be manually created would be when people want to play custom type games not offered on any of the matchmaking lines.

Now I don't have a problem with there being too many autohosts (can just filter/sort by size), but I'd appreciate if they would stop advertising games in #main (#newbies as well?).

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 03 Jan 2013, 16:01
by Jazcash
gajop wrote:Personally I think automatic matchmaking should be used instead of autohosts altogether, and the only time games should be manually created would be when people want to play custom type games not offered on any of the matchmaking lines.
Would be difficult as different autohost owners have different rules and mod options on their autohosts. Unless every autohost can agree one one set of rules and mod options then I imagine they'd be conflict in trying to set this kind of thing up using their servers.

There are "matchmaking" type systems already anyway, but they're an alternative way of finding a game instead of the only way, which I think is better.

Re: Too Many AutoHosts!

Posted: 03 Jan 2013, 17:21
by Jools
What do you mean with matchmaking? Clump all douchebags together on one host and the rest on another? We xta-people usually all go to the same host.