From Remmy's Thread - The Decline Of BA Players?

[Nixa]

I think there is a few fundamental problems with the decline of BA players 'skill (objective)':

1) The mod, it isn't changing to keep up with the current way BA games are played (large games, you can flame it but you can't deny it)

2) The so called BA pro's. Well, when I started in 2006 I was 1v1'ing by 4 bar rank and well, I used to enjoy playing Noize, Day and rANDY and yes I did actually occasionally win against rANDY (best spring player ever IMHO). As it stands now, most people that play 1v1's have horrible attitudes. So what your good, why does that make everyone below you shit. As a result I simply can't be arsed 1v1'n anymore. If you take out the trash I'm sure you'll find more people venturing into smaller games.

3) Define skill now, is being able to play 1v1 with massive clicks important or is being able to tech and help your allies import, or maybe the ability to adapt to the situation? It's objective, before there was such thing as teching the definition of skill was really adaption and speed, now it's not, so be it.

4) Autohosts - sure, they're a problem. A possible solution would be registering and approval by lobby moderators before being allowed to become active. This would clean up the lobby, make more maps and game sizes available and as a result the lobby more noob friendly (look like there's more players than just a whole lot of empty games).

[pintle]

Nixa for president!

[scifi]

Dunno if there's less good players playing actively nowadays, maybe, but nevertheless it shouldn't be any easier to be the best than before, back then nobody had as much BA experience as now.

I suppose you never played Daywalker or Andy. They were in a whole other league.

We probably know a whole lot more about BA DSD than we did before, but you just dont get the kind of regular, high level 1v1's that you used to.

(A note for the slow people: This topic was moved to the BA forum, thus the discussion of all the other mods in this topic).

Andy is in starcraft II, same as a bunch of other "pro people", most left, so i dont know what you guys are talking about, engine changes e.t.c.. there isnt enough playerbase to play spring competitive in any level, at least these days.

Even if cremsus releases his awesome mod, with great grafics and great gameplay (i hope), it wouldnt grab more people to spring, without proper publicity so admit it spring needs only new people, forget the ui the lobby e.t.c... just GET SOMETHING to publicitate it outsite.

Its not like you arent showing the engine and its mods when people come to the site, (the project is open and public for everyone to see)
a influx of new people gets 1v1s 2v2s going., and eventualy more pro people.

It doesnt take like 4 years to make a pro, most people that play nota these days are recent to spring, yet some of them are great players.

I stoped playing spring seriuously 2.5 years back, and i know most of you dont know who iam, and probably wont take my opinion seriously but trust me, a lot of people left since then and all the 1v1, coop scene has completely disapeared, either it be BA,CA or XTA e.t.c...

[Nixa]

Dunno if there's less good players playing actively nowadays, maybe, but nevertheless it shouldn't be any easier to be the best than before, back then nobody had as much BA experience as now.

I suppose you never played Daywalker or Andy. They were in a whole other league.

We probably know a whole lot more about BA DSD than we did before, but you just dont get the kind of regular, high level 1v1's that you used to.

(A note for the slow people: This topic was moved to the BA forum, thus the discussion of all the other mods in this topic).

Andy is in starcraft II, same as a bunch of other "pro people", most left, so i dont know what you guys are talking about, engine changes e.t.c.. there isnt enough playerbase to play spring competitive in any level, at least these days.

Even if cremsus releases his awesome mod, with great grafics and great gameplay (i hope), it wouldnt grab more people to spring, without proper publicity so admit it spring needs only new people, forget the ui the lobby e.t.c... just GET SOMETHING to publicitate it outsite.

Its not like you arent showing the engine and its mods when people come to the site, (the project is open and public for everyone to see)
a influx of new people gets 1v1s 2v2s going., and eventualy more pro people.

It doesnt take like 4 years to make a pro, most people that play nota these days are recent to spring, yet some of them are great players.

I stoped playing spring seriuously 2.5 years back, and i know most of you dont know who iam, and probably wont take my opinion seriously but trust me, a lot of people left since then and all the 1v1, coop scene has completely disapeared, either it be BA,CA or XTA e.t.c...

He's right, if you don't like the lack of competition then play a game that has more competition. The spring player base is made up of people that enjoy the engine, and the mods in any way or form - gameplay styles included. Plenty of other games out there get your 'my $#@% is bigger than yours' fix

[scifi]

i wouldnt exactly use those words, but bare in mind competition makes a game so awesome to play, and really levels up things, but since there isnt enough people to make competitive play, things adjust automaticly.

Imo spring and the way people play the mods arent the problem, they have great gameplay and a sort of diferent strategic options.

One example of this is the diference between starcraft 1v1 and spring 1v1, in spring there are a couple set of strategies that you folow, but they arent that specific early game, its a more flexible and enjoyable game to say the least.

Spring could be the holy grail of open source RTS e.t.c.. if people could come up with a decent package, i dont think this is that far away.

By decent package i mean, the regular spring executable, with only one lobby to choose from, that would automatacly be instaled (no check and uncheck), and at least 1 mod with a couple single player missions and some sort of skirmish mode, and then the regular multiplayer aspect of spring.

Now this pre-package could be available to download from variable sources like gamespot, ign e.t.c......

The easy acess and the publicity would do well.

Spring as an engine isnt that bad as i seen some people talk about, it isnt that mutch unstable, the fact that you can play 8v8 dsd and have the relatively XTA particle frenzy effects, gundam grafics e.t.c. (forgive me for not mentioning other projects), makes it a rather stable and flexible engine imo, more than engines like torque and unity3d that require you to code more than actualy make a game.

So only problem is the way mods relate its packages with the engine, the way stuff is released to the general public.

I also saw the way SD (spring downloader interfaced lobby comed up)
its a nice idea, but a bit far from an actual lobby, more of a downloader with some fast matching for casual random games, its a great idea but requires a lot more people, if a player clicks to play nota and only finds himself stuck for an hour waiting hell leave.

Anyways get more people, problem solved.^^

[JohannesH]

Andy is in starcraft II, same as a bunch of other "pro people", most left, so i dont know what you guys are talking about, engine changes e.t.c.. there isnt enough playerbase to play spring competitive in any level, at least these days.

He plays TA also

And playing competitively is more of a mindset imo, that you try to win and actually work for it too, it doesn't require an ultra-competitive scene to play like that. But of course having such attitude in 8v8 games makes no sense when you have relatively small control on how the game goes.

[Hobo Joe]

I agree with scifi, problem is, people have been saying the exact same thing for 2+ years.


Action not talk. Tell your friends, play small games, and if you have the knowledge and skill, develop and/or make the nice installer you talk about.


Everyone here knows the startup process is the biggest limiter on new players, besides the whole "OMG IP" stigma that such a large portion of this community has.

[HectorMeyer]

BA/Spring desperately needs ranks based on wins/losses in ladder games, integrated into the lobby account.

I expect the community would get very competitive after such a system would be introduced, and 1v1, 2v2 games would really take off. You really cannot expect competitive play to happen on a large scale by people socializing in some obscure chatrooms and forums to organize some random tournaments every now and then.

[Hobo Joe]

BA/Spring desperately needs ranks based on wins/losses in ladder games, integrated into the lobby account.

I expect the community would get very competitive after such a system would be introduced, and 1v1, 2v2 games would really take off. You really cannot expect competitive play to happen on a large scale by people socializing in some obscure chatrooms and forums to organize some random tournaments every now and then.

But then people would be afraid to play someone they know is better than them.


Maybe make it so that games larger than 5v5 don't affect rank.

[Licho]

BA/Spring desperately needs ranks based on wins/losses in ladder games, integrated into the lobby account.

I expect the community would get very competitive after such a system would be introduced, and 1v1, 2v2 games would really take off. You really cannot expect competitive play to happen on a large scale by people socializing in some obscure chatrooms and forums to organize some random tournaments every now and then.

There are several such system.
Springie autohost track individual stats for years in past calculating ELO based skill rating and balancing using it.

There is also ladderbot you can invite to track games which does similar thing and can list ladders in various categories.

[Hobo Joe]

BA/Spring desperately needs ranks based on wins/losses in ladder games, integrated into the lobby account.

I expect the community would get very competitive after such a system would be introduced, and 1v1, 2v2 games would really take off. You really cannot expect competitive play to happen on a large scale by people socializing in some obscure chatrooms and forums to organize some random tournaments every now and then.

There are several such system.
Springie autohost track individual stats for years in past calculating ELO based skill rating and balancing using it.

There is also ladderbot you can invite to track games which does similar thing and can list ladders in various categories.

Are there any Springie BA autohosts?

[Licho]

There sure were some. And springie can host any mod/map, you can tell it to create new autohost using !spawn

[Saktoth]

This isnt about CA, or BA, or something, this isnt some tribal turf war over mod loyalties.

Its moronic to tell a potentially skilled new player to go away because there are no good players anymore: that there is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When i said that its not like the 'Glory days' that was just my fond reminiscing. Then Gota goes on this long rant about how there is no point playing 1v1 at all anymore. I dont want to be associated with that or have my comment misconstrued to say that there are no more good players, especially to someone we should be encouraging to join the community, rather than scaring them away with this kind of pessimistic factional stuff.

[Hackfresser]

spring needs matchmaking imo.
if i join a 1v1 i can be sure to either play a veteran who will kick my ass without blinking, or a total noob who tries to rush tech t2.

also, 8v8 games are lopsided more often then not. playing time is just not the same thing as skill.

how about using the elo system and implementing a ladder for both duels and multiplayer battles?
both sc2 and league of legends use elo for multiplayer battles, and it works fine

i also think that a ladder would be an incentive for poeple to play more 1v1

[Neddie]

There is a ladder.

There will be no forced integration of accounts with win/loss rankings.

[REVENGE]

There is a ladder.

There will be no forced integration of accounts with win/loss rankings.

I feel that this functionality should be available to modders.

[Licho]

It is

[zwzsg]

What? Spring.GetPlayerList() now returns Elo rating and no one told me?

More seriously, now that Licho proved that Elo rating can be implemented and working, it would be nice if they were better integrated with lobbies and server protocol, instead of having to summon bots or use special autohosts.

An Elo per modShortName, or per gameShortName, would be best. Sticking to the ingame time rank, and refusing any better ranking system even though it's already coded and working would be to hurt the community!

[Hackfresser]

league of legends went with a system where only above-average players have their elo visible to others...i think that is fine, noone with a bad rating wants everybody else to know how bad he is

[Licho]

Springie reports elo to player list.