The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

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Carpenter
Posts: 216
Joined: 10 Jul 2009, 16:07

The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Carpenter »

So, in case someone hasn't realised, we have now 3 DSDHosts. So we need to get them closed some way, I don't know how yet but maybe dear moderators and server side admins could help? :)

Basically the first DSDHost (TERADSDHost) was too much, but then they got the idea to make another one? Now Bobbelurmen is racing with them on "who gets more players, wins". So, now I'm not talking alone about this, I'm just representing many other players who are pissed about that, just think about it; A new player installs spring, lobby and other stuff. Then he looks for a game and only thing he really sees is dsd. After playing a little while, he realises how great it is to just sit in back and porc, I think people know the story.

I'm truely amazed if someone will disagree on this, and not just amazed, more like disappointed. Help me and the others! :D
keijj0
Posts: 57
Joined: 12 Jun 2010, 13:39

Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by keijj0 »

right on the money. dsd is killing spring so to speak.. it prevent players FROM LEARNING ANYTHING except dsd. its played so much and with too many players, only same linear linear shit every time. i wouldnt whine if it were played 5v5 max as the map description says.but noo 8v8 just plainly sucks. and when i hear comments like "in dsd that works" i want just to punch someone. so pls ban dsd so we can get more "skilled" players
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Pxtl
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Pxtl »

DSD is not killing Spring. Insufficient players is what's killing Spring. Players are always going to be stuck on whatever's the easiest game to start - DSD + BA happens to be it, so that's what they play. I've played a fair bit of DSD + BA simply because it's a Spring game that's actually likely to start soon, despite the fact that I've come to loathe BA.

They want a game that will start soon, one they know. That's DSD+BA. The only way to fight it is to get more players in here so there'll be something else that's going to start in the next 10 minutes.

DSD is a fine map. And you can filter out empty autohosts.
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JohannesH
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by JohannesH »

Arrange automatic matchmaking for 1v1, so that they just have to click a button and wait a moment.

Either you gotta ban the big games, or somehow support smaller ones - personally I don't mind either route
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Carpenter
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Carpenter »

Pxtl it just happens to be DSD that is killing spring. It would be killing it less if those DSDHosts weren't around, unfortunately they are, and they are the cancer. That's just something everybody knows, and yes, people select the game that's likely to start within 2-5 minutes but why in the hell do we need to power up that cancer by setting up DSDHosts? That's just the creation of retarded mind.
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Jazcash
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Jazcash »

I could write essays on this cycle of fail but my network keeps cutting out so I'll just throw in a cent now and maybe the other one another time.

16 Player games are killing DSD which is in turn, killing BA which already killed Spring.

Don't get me wrong, DSD is a great map and BA is a great mod. It's just, like every piece of content, they were designed for a certain purpose. BA was initially designed to suit 1v1 gameplay, however, it's evolved a bit since it first started out and now supports just about any number of players just fine.

IceXuick primarily created DSD with the intention of supporting 4-10 players, as noted in the map description. Not that you need that description to tell that the map is clearly for 5v5, maybe 6v6 gameplay. Therefore, if you stretch that limit, nastinesses occur. You end up with a situation which I call, the "meatshield" effect.

Here's my definition of the "Meatshield Effect": When a player feels safe as he has a player in front so decides to do his own thing instead of helping the player in front. This occurs when there is two or more layers of players. The player behind is using the player in front as a "meatshield".

Now, back to DSD. When there is more than 4 players on one team, the meatshield effect naturally occurs. Players behind feel the comfort to tech without having to defend himself. This leads to imbalanced, long, repetitive games.

We are now entering the Spring generation where players grow up on 8v8 BA DSD and learn to love it and become good at tech rushing ... but not much else.

That is why I don't like the concept of overcrowding maps which are designed for fewer players.

Now the reason why people play this crap, is because of the vicious download cycle which occurs on so many games. It's quite simply explained too. New players, want to get into a game and start playing as quickly as possible to see what the game is actually like before they start getting too into it. To do this, they usually only need a copy of the latest Balanced Annihilation and DeltaSiegeDry. This is enough to get them through hours and hours of gameplay without needing to download new maps to play. This adds one to the BADSDPlayerCount, and thus making the cycle all the more deadly. The larger the playerbase on a particular game or map, then the larger it rapidly grows.

We've almost reached the point of no return where ridding BA of DSD would be like taking away Poseidon's Triton. Fortunately, we still have time to delay the vicious cycle from continuing, if not stop it altogether. Notice the day or two where the [TERA] hosts were offline? Well, during that time, we had an influx of players downloading and playing new maps.

Regardless, all this is to no strength as devs, moderators and the like don't like interfering with people's personal autohosts and choice. This is completely understandable, yet somewhat sad, seeing the BA community shrivel up into this cycle whilst knowing something could be done about it and is painful for ye players of old.

However, even if something was done about DSD, it's likely that players would just adopt another map such as Tabula and the cycle would begin regenerating. Therefore, I believe a more complex solution is needed. What it is, I'm not yet sure.

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Tl;dr: BAN DSD! BAN I SAY BAN!
Kenku
Posts: 134
Joined: 26 Feb 2010, 06:19

Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Kenku »

The solution as I see Jaz from what you said is simple. Encorage more games with the "Nextmap" function, and try to at least thin the DSDBA map hosts. This way, new maps will come up each game, and people will learn from different setups(yes, I know, people will just exodus when the nextmap hit, or mapvote, but it is a start)
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JohannesH
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by JohannesH »

The big games are so big that those autohosts have someone in the pretty much at all times... So it's easy to join, at any time. Even if the battle is running you can go to the battleroom (is this a good design btw?) and wait.

Smaller games, even if people would like to play them, dont have that continuity, so people play, but then when some people have to go the autohost goes empty or humanhost leaves. Then it needs someone to be active and initiate to join an empty host, huge games never need this step.

And the thing is, if instead of an 8v8 game there was 4 2v2s or 8 1v1s, people could start games much faster than waiting for 8v8! But people, especially noobs are passive, so they don't seek to do that when that 8v8 sucks their potential co-players in to wait for that to start.

So, what ways would there be to make more gametypes accessible?


All this might not be really anyones responsibility, but it's worth thinking for everyone, moderators and lobbymakers and everyone to try make the matchmaking process as smooth as possible, it surely can make a huge difference to how big playerbase there is
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Carpenter
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Carpenter »

It has been discussed ages ago that by limiting spring to support only 12 players, it would make games less porcy. Or alternatively autohosts are limited to host up to 12 players only, but you could host bigger games by yourself as a human host.

Anyway there should be some kind of solution to reduce the size of games, as BA8V8DSD does not really help new players to get better with this game.
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SpliFF
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by SpliFF »

Spring is an engine. If BA+DSD is a popular combination I have no issue with that. Autohost owners have every right to decide what is played on their hardware. Nobody is forcing players to use them.

What's missing is more permanent and reliable autohosts and high-bandwidth map seeders for alternate games.

I've considered running one several times but what has stopped me so far is the complexity and time required to manage one effectively. At the time (nearly 12 months ago) the biggest factor was the lack of a truly headless dedicated spring (I wanted it to run on a server with no X libraries). I think that situation has improved somewhat.

The other factor is my servers are in Australia, that's great for aussie players but not so great for the majority of Spring players.
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BrainDamage
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by BrainDamage »

Carpenter wrote:It has been discussed ages ago that by limiting spring to support only 12 players, it would make games less porcy.
Spring limitation makes no sense, if anything, Spring should support as much as possible, what you want a is a mod-side or map-side limitation, which wouldn't need to be enforced by lobby/Spring, they'd only detect the limitation in place and show it to the user.
Carpenter wrote:Or alternatively autohosts are limited to host up to 12 players only, but you could host bigger games by yourself as a human host.
If you mean an hardcoded limitation, I doubt it'll ever happend in the lobby server or in the autohost code, as I said, your best chance is to get it in the map or the mod itself.
If you mean discussing with autohost owners, and convince them to change their settings, go ahead.
JohannesH wrote: All this might not be really anyones responsibility, but it's worth thinking for everyone, moderators and lobbymakers and everyone to try make the matchmaking process as smooth as possible, it surely can make a huge difference to how big playerbase there is
Sure, but there's always shortage on human resources to do stuff, in this case it would require a server to handle the matchmaking, one to handle the hosting, lobby clients uploading their preferences to the server, etc; it's much more complicated than it sounds.
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Sucky_Lord
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Sucky_Lord »

It seeems like every problem in spring could be solved by us having a larger playerbase.
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Carpenter
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Carpenter »

Sucky_Lord wrote:It seeems like every problem in spring could be solved by us having a larger playerbase.
Or having less DSDHosts.
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Sucky_Lord
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Joined: 22 Aug 2008, 16:29

Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Sucky_Lord »

Carpenter wrote:
Sucky_Lord wrote:It seeems like every problem in spring could be solved by us having a larger playerbase.
Or having less DSDHosts.
Which we can achieve by having a larger playerbase.

Oh and just as a side thought, chicken or egg?
PeanutsRevenge
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Joined: 01 Mar 2009, 20:05

Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by PeanutsRevenge »

A larger playerbase would certainly help, but one thing that's not been mentioned here is the appauling way newbs are treated on DSD+BA.
Heck, even really good players are treated badly if they don't 'follow the script'.

If this would at least ease up and people were more patient with newbs, perhaps they'd stick around longer to try different maps and mods, as it stands, I'm pretty sure at least 50% will play a couple of games, get yelled at or kicked (simply for being newb), leve the game and not bother to return!
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scifi
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by scifi »

Help me make a gamespot thread about spring and its mods
then youll get more players.

Ask a profetional to review the game and give tips, then you can have more people.
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SpliFF
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by SpliFF »

The last time a professional reviewed a Spring game (P.U.R.E) it was pretty much canned. I think there are several issues that remain unaddressed before new players will really flock to Spring games. That's an old topic though. It always comes down to the same thing, not enough developer time.
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scifi
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by scifi »

SpliFF wrote:The last time a professional reviewed a Spring game (P.U.R.E) it was pretty much canned. I think there are several issues that remain unaddressed before new players will really flock to Spring games. That's an old topic though. It always comes down to the same thing, not enough developer time.
well we are not talking about P.U.R.E., since there are very few multiplayer options e.t.c.. and i think smoth would agree with me, P.U.R.E. isnt spring.

i mean if you really want new players, more than the shit/average open source games that are out there, even the browser games, its a dam good way to start.

Problem is you think its not ready to actualy begin with this type of publicity, then people cant argue for the lack of people playing it :(
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SpliFF
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by SpliFF »

Actually the main complaints were essentially engine issues: pathing and a dated graphics system (we're talking relative to shiny new commercial offerings like DOW2 or Supcom2 here).

Of course you get what you pay for.

I think it's probably more helpful to push Spring into markets where those games can't or won't follow; specifically to the MacOSX/Linux platforms and as a free/shareware offering. At least then the Games/Engine can be reviewed with the proper perspective. The P.U.R.E reviewer was seeing a commercial game on steam, so expectations were naturally much higher.
Gouken
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Re: The Curious Case of DSDHosts.

Post by Gouken »

Maps like DSD should be controlled, e.g. have dsd running on only 1 host with a cap of 12 players and no one else is able to host it - For the greater good!

Also if there was less kerfuffle involved in getting new maps/mods then people would be more inclined to try them out - it's definitely better than it used to be but it still could be improved if things like Spring Downloader didn't fail so much. I'm glad SL now has a working downloader though.
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