many small rooms > one large one

many small rooms > one large one

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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ThinkSome
Posts: 387
Joined: 14 Jun 2015, 13:36

many small rooms > one large one

Post by ThinkSome »

Hello

Since the official lobby seems to be at its lowest point wrt. player count, I think this is the perfect time to discuss globally applying the <=8 players rule. Together with this I'd also suggest limiting spectators, to a total of 12 people per room (bot accounts excluded). With a given amount of players, this should reduce the waiting time for a match and generally enable more quality matches to be played.

Additionally, I think that currently too much irrelevant chatting[1] happens in the battle rooms and it ought to be moved to actual chat channels.

What are the various max player counts that still enable playing quality matches for a given game? For s44, this is around 6-8 players (imo).
How many spectators do you think should be allowed?

Thoughts?


[1] by that I mean e.g. discussion of bugs that frequently happens in the s44 autohost and that would be best done in #s44, so that all can see it and weigh in.
Last edited by ThinkSome on 31 Aug 2019, 21:40, edited 1 time in total.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by FLOZi »

I'd suggest closing all permanently empty autohosts so users can actually find games in the battlelist. :P
hokomoko
Spring Developer
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Joined: 02 Jun 2014, 00:46

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by hokomoko »

No
raaar
Metal Factions Developer
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Joined: 20 Feb 2010, 12:17

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by raaar »

FLOZi wrote: 31 Aug 2019, 21:39 I'd suggest closing all permanently empty autohosts so users can actually find games in the battlelist. :P
Having a few autohosts for each game is a good idea and helps with visibility and handling situations where one or two rooms start their game and other people who just want to play 1v1 appear and don't know or can't host their own room (or just want to use the autohost's options to tweak start zones and such).

I'll use that quote to promote my SL battle list changes yet again, which would make finding which are the most populated rooms for each game trivial.

About the topic, I agree that "many small rooms > one large one", but don't think that forcing the restriction like that is going to do anything good at this point, and it may annoy people on edge cases. Most multiplayer games i've played do that, but I don't have a strong opinion on that one.
Flash
Posts: 36
Joined: 12 Dec 2010, 18:03

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by Flash »

If we learned one thing from the engine ban than its people dislike restrictions.
So thinking u could revive it with more restrictions is just...
If you want people on the official "chat" lobby stop the restrictions dont bring jn new ones!!

Join the resistance!
BA is rising again and you cant stop it!
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MasterBel
Posts: 271
Joined: 18 Mar 2018, 07:48

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by MasterBel »

Flash wrote: 01 Sep 2019, 17:55If we learned one thing from the engine ban than its people dislike restrictions.
So thinking u could revive it with more restrictions is just...
If you want people on the official "chat" lobby stop the restrictions dont bring jn new ones!!
… I'd say this is a really good point.
Flash wrote: 01 Sep 2019, 17:55 Join the resistance!
BA is rising again and you cant stop it!
But this could be taken as combative, and therefore offensive, and I'd have left it out. :)
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ThinkSome
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Joined: 14 Jun 2015, 13:36

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by ThinkSome »

Thank you all for extensive feedback.
Flash wrote: 01 Sep 2019, 17:55 If we learned one thing from the engine ban than its people dislike restrictions.
So thinking u could revive it with more restrictions is just...
If you want people on the official "chat" lobby stop the restrictions dont bring jn new ones!!

Join the resistance!
BA is rising again and you cant stop it!
Does anyone have any figures from the new BA lobby? Is it like I think it is, 1 large room to rule them all and continuation of business as usual?

There will always be restrictions in one form or another. Before this "ban" for example, the player count restriction was set at 16 players (due to how the lobby protocol works), but I did not hear many (or any) complaints about it!

Perhaps I am not trying to get anyone back? Perhaps I am trying to prepare the grounds for other games to grow the right way? Perhaps I am establishing what is necessary for a better lobby to be implemented?

If anyone knows of any research papers in this area, links would be much appreciated.
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MasterBel
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by MasterBel »

ThinkSome wrote: 05 Sep 2019, 23:54 There will always be restrictions in one form or another. Before this "ban" for example, the player count restriction was set at 16 players (due to how the lobby protocol works), but I did not hear many (or any) complaints about it!
Your idea of 16 player max may be misguided – I very clearly remember playing 24-player FFA games and 10 v 10 to 16 v 16 games as almost a regular occurrence for a few weeks not too far in the past. However, these kinds of games didn't stick around almost purely by virtue of the fact that DSD doesn't support them.

I'm currently reading a book – "Online Communities: Designing usability and supporting sociability" by Jennifer Preece. It's the most on-topic material I've found so far and based on it, I can't imagine how restricting number of players in a battle will help. Nor spectators. Lurkers are a vital part of any community – and communities should not punish members for being lurkers. However, communities should be open and encouraging for lurkers to engage, in a safe environment – which is the #1 thing that BA doesn't provide. Large games (6 v 6 +) provide safety in numbers for players who would otherwise be ostracised for their poor performance. It's also why DSD is so popular, I think – partially because people know how to play it, partially because it's a predictably stable game, even with unbalanced teams. If anyone (say, Adolf with his liche strat) worked out the formula for winning DSD, it would "break" DSD. Part of why Adolf stopped harrassing everyone with the liche – I think – is that he noticed the impact it had on DSD games. Likewise, how the gentleman's rule of "no lolcannon" evolved – simply because it "unbalanced" the game, aka, it had strong enough impact of the game that it made players feel vulnerable.

Of course, there are other things behind this, and I have a lot more to read. So for now, I'll just leave you to chew on these thoughts.
raaar
Metal Factions Developer
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by raaar »

Flash wrote: 01 Sep 2019, 17:55 (...)

Join the resistance!
BA is rising again and you cant stop it!
Omg yes! There's so many stuff wrong in the world! We totally need to join the resistance!

Join the rebels - the good guys - save our city, our country, the world!

The evil empire is headed by people who've been running the spring infrastructure and working on the engine for free for years but are sometimes hardheaded and comitted the TERRIBLE crime of restricting the favourite version of our game to 4v4 players max to push us into using a slightly modified newer version that runs on the newer engines. That's unforgivable!

Let's ignore any game conversion attempts. Let's call everyone to the new server, run by totally reasonable people, and then gloat on the official server about how empty it is!

For freedom! For Justice! Join the unstoppable rebellion!

Idiots...
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OPAdolfSatan
Posts: 35
Joined: 28 Nov 2016, 10:27

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by OPAdolfSatan »

ThinkSome wrote: 31 Aug 2019, 21:30 Hello

Since the official lobby seems to be at its lowest point wrt. player count, I think this is the perfect time to discuss globally applying the <=8 players rule. Together with this I'd also suggest limiting spectators, to a total of 12 people per room (bot accounts excluded). With a given amount of players, this should reduce the waiting time for a match and generally enable more quality matches to be played.

LMAO 12 specs per room? "official" server barely has 5 players . You should inform all the forum devs to login into spring and see how many bots are on standby and kick them all and you will see you are max out at 5-8 real players per day. New players will get confuse in why do you have more bots than players in the "official server" its actually bad marketing or maybe kicking bots will lead to security issues hmm idk. Has anyone made some new innovation thing here where you can play spring in the forum site like a secret room that i dont know about? It seems all the devs here are very active and fast to reply to things but never be found in the official server.
matyhaty
Posts: 13
Joined: 22 May 2014, 15:12

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by matyhaty »

This talk of this and that is fine.....

But at the end of the day this community of everyone needs to wake up.

New player - there will not be any, lobby (offical) dead.
so talkng about this or that is pointless - there are bigger issues
matyhaty
Posts: 13
Joined: 22 May 2014, 15:12

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by matyhaty »

This talk of this and that is fine.....

But at the end of the day this community of everyone needs to wake up.

New player - there will not be any, lobby (offical) dead.
so talkng about this or that is pointless - there are bigger issues
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MasterBel
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Joined: 18 Mar 2018, 07:48

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by MasterBel »

matyhaty wrote: 06 Sep 2019, 13:15 there are bigger issues
I'm curious what bigger issues you're addressing – but that may be best discussed in another thread.
OPAdolfSatan wrote: 06 Sep 2019, 11:53LMAO 12 specs per…
Hey Adolf, nice to see you in this discussion. Any suggestions on how we make this community bring in (and back) new (and old) players? And how to make the Spring community more attractive and a nicer place to be, in general?

I will note – Tournaments seem to help a lot with BA's community. However, it seems rather temporary, so it's likely not a long-term fix.

Does anyone remember why [Fx]Droid doesn't play BA? But that information will be less likely to help other games.
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very_bad_soldier
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by very_bad_soldier »

Sad to see suggestions like this are sill present in the head of some people.

When leaving all emotions out and assuming that no one is right or wrong then it seems that dev's interests and player's interests just differ too much in this community.
But after all I actually think it is a fair situation now. Everyone got what they wanted: players have a place where they can play the way they want to. Devs got rid of all the ignorant players that annoyed them so much. I really hope they will manage to build-up a new playerbase with players that will meet their expectations.
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MasterBel
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by MasterBel »

very_bad_soldier wrote: 06 Sep 2019, 16:15 … it seems that dev's interests and player's interests just differ too much in this community.
Let's remember that just because you're interested in something doesn't mean it's good for you.
Let's remember all the struggles players have with SpringLobby/TASClient, and how often they get cursed.
Let's remember how players are frustrated with not being able to find a game at certain times of the day. (Mando's suggesting to fix this with bots – I think it's a noble cause and interesting experiment, but I personally don't think it's ultimately a wise idea, for reasons he's acknowledged. We'll see how that plays out.)
Let's remember that on top of everything all, the current solution is a mess and is detrimental to both parties. BA community wants to upgrade to Spring 104 but is being held back by lack of Mac support. Most users of the lobby are plagued by issues - that, honestly, most veterans won't notice anymore, and work is going on to fix them (but that in part requires people to notice the issues they've got so good at ignoring).
very_bad_soldier wrote: 06 Sep 2019, 16:15 But after all I actually think it is a fair situation now.
It would have been fair had Solomon cut the baby in half.
very_bad_soldier wrote: 06 Sep 2019, 16:15Everyone got what they wanted
To be honest, most of the people involved in the split acted like kids, and you should know that what kids want is often not the best for them.

((By the same token, the split did have some positive impacts, mainly allowing a lot of people to cool their head a little. It's also nice having a smaller battlelist. But I think that's where the benefits stopped.))

We're trying to generate discussion here, and it's okay if we come up with bad suggestions, and if they stick along longer than some. Explain why it's not the best, explain why it's better, and we have something we can move onto, we can make progress, and we can stop frustrating you by going around in circles. Moreover, maybe you can show us all the way into not being part of the problem. (ThinkIRC is trying, so if you give him a chance, explain to him your point of view how the BA community works and why and what will be good for it – maybe he'll decide differently is needed for his community – but maybe he'll be able to acknowledge that BA just needs something different. :) )

Regards,
~MasterBel2
zweistein
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Joined: 21 Nov 2016, 18:56

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by zweistein »

It would have been fair had Solomon cut the baby in half.
wow, you are not that clever are you? One mother was a lier, and by just suggesting the cutting, Solomon was able to reveal the truth! In the end, the real mother got the full Baby, which was fair! wtf, cutting the Baby is fair... you crazy?
… it seems that dev's interests and player's interests just differ too much in this community.
perfectly said! While the left-wing official server can "raise" their new ideologic rainbow followers, the free-spreech server can continue, discuss logically and play. I like the situation. The only thing to discuss is whether we should enlighten new players on the official Server where they are actually playing… Maybe they dont even realize that it is a political statement server. Can't we somehow inform them about the non-ideologic server?

Actually i was waiting for some days on the empty official server, until someone had the grace to inform me that the players moved on.
Ares
Balanced Annihilation Developer
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Joined: 19 Mar 2011, 13:43

Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by Ares »

You said your game is best played with 8 players, so it makes sense for you to limit your game to 8. However, this doesn't apply to other games.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by FLOZi »

zweistein wrote: 08 Sep 2019, 15:54
It would have been fair had Solomon cut the baby in half.
wow, you are not that clever are you? One mother was a lier, and by just suggesting the cutting, Solomon was able to reveal the truth! In the end, the real mother got the full Baby, which was fair! wtf, cutting the Baby is fair... you crazy?
… it seems that dev's interests and player's interests just differ too much in this community.
perfectly said! While the left-wing official server can "raise" their new ideologic rainbow followers, the free-spreech server can continue, discuss logically and play. I like the situation. The only thing to discuss is whether we should enlighten new players on the official Server where they are actually playing… Maybe they dont even realize that it is a political statement server. Can't we somehow inform them about the non-ideologic server?

Actually i was waiting for some days on the empty official server, until someone had the grace to inform me that the players moved on.
Not sure what you're smoking but please seek medical assistance.
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by Forboding Angel »

@flozi
Anyone who prefers a place where people are treated with dignity and respect = Left Wing Cuckery

It's a very "Fuck you, I got mine" mindset.
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ThinkSome
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Re: many small rooms > one large one

Post by ThinkSome »

I had another idea in the opposite direction: what would happen if all the players were to be made spectators as soon as the game starts?
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