Fair Play Inc - Prize Table / Feedback / Updates

[TomUjain]

it would, for sure cause some annoyance and complaining -- but it is a brute force way of getting it all to work.

[NodSaibot]

1 hour ago, roweboat said:

I don't remember which game did /does active shuffling (an EA title I'm sure), based on player count, team score, personal score etc.

during an active match of whatever game it was, I remember players being auto-swapped to even out teams actively throughout the match.

It did get a bit disorienting at times, but to the health of the game and the match, it always kept things as even as possible.

 

point is, dynamic auto swapping isn't an untested idea and could work. although I'm sure many here would be against something like this.

I just really don't like this. Imagine you're about to do a doza rush, and you get swapped. Is the rush ruined because you have one less or because you tell GDI that it's coming? Or you're in a vehicle and you just get swapped (although I do think that insta destroys the veh anyway). Plus, you could have a lot of points, and you earned the match win. You killed 1 building, but then the game swaps you over. Feels kind of betraying.

[vandal33]

18 hours ago, TomUjain said:

• Intoducing a 10m - 30m timer on team swaps (giving mods the power to move players at request to address rage quit issues)
• Giving mods the power to auto shuffle teams if it becomes one sided 

Would be bad for a player who contributed a lot for his team to only have all those efforts for nothing if he is put to the losing team during the match. I know it's about fun and not about winning or losing, but people want to be rewarded by their efforts. All of the hard work would be wasted and hamper his own newly-switched team. It gets more frustrating if you had done a lot for the team but gets switched just because the losing players rage quit.

18 hours ago, TomUjain said:

Remove 'swapping' rights from players who continue to stack

This I agree. There is nothing wrong with the swapping feature. The problem is when the experienced people are abusing it to stack teams for their own selfish reasons. The swap feature shouldn't be changed just because several people are misusing it, the majority of the players don't stack teams and limiting the swap features would create more problems to most players who would want to use it legitimately. Keep the swapping feature lax, if people misuse it for team-stacking or abandon their former team to the winning side, give them a friendly warning. If they continue to the point of making you feel like limiting the feature, blacklist them! Then, remove their swapping rights.

Edited May 16, 2018 by vandal33

[NodSaibot]

Just now, vandal33 said:

Would be bad for a player who contributed a lot for his team to only have all those efforts for nothing if he is put to the losing team during the match. I know it's about fun and not about winning or losing, but people want to be rewarded by their efforts. All of the hard work would be wasted and hamper his own newly-switched team. It gets more frustrating if you had done a lot for the team but gets switched just because the losing players rage quit.

This I agree. There is nothing wrong with the swapping feature. The problem is when the experienced people are abusing it to stack teams for their own selfish reasons. The swap feature shouldn't be changed just because several people are misusing it, the majority of the players don't stack teams and limiting the swap features would create more problems to most players who would want to use it legitimately. Keep the swapping feature lax, if people misuse it for team-stacking or abandon their former team to the winning side, give them a friendly warning. If they continue, blacklist them! Then, remove their swapping rights.

 

 

^^ I suggested the same thing yesterday.

[roweboat]

1 hour ago, Sarah! said:

I just really don't like this. Imagine you're about to do a doza rush, and you get swapped. Is the rush ruined because you have one less or because you tell GDI that it's coming? Or you're in a vehicle and you just get swapped (although I do think that insta destroys the veh anyway). Plus, you could have a lot of points, and you earned the match win. You killed 1 building, but then the game swaps you over. Feels kind of betraying.

fair enough!! 

 

simple limits on team swapping might be the best option

[TomUjain]

I agree with Sarah, auto-swapping on a script would work in theory, but has too many issues to make it an effective answer to the problem. I am unsure about the removal of priviliges because that rule would only apply to people who are good.

As an example;

if we had 2 'average' players who normally stack -- that is allowed? Yet we punish only the two 'pro' players because they are good? (which is what it boils down to),  if / when Ren-X becomes more popular; more 'pro' players are likely to crop up; which would mean the admin / mod team would have to spend time enforcing this rule and defining what is classified as 'good'. This also begs the question; what happens if some players 'stack' by chance? -- we can't aways be around to check this, and it is very easy to join with fake names. in short, excuting this would be a mess.

I am leaning towards turning off team swap for a set amount of time, that is the most fair and humane way to try and tackle this issue, with no needed input from the already busy team.

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by TomUjain

[NodSaibot]

2 minutes ago, TomUjain said:

I agree with Sarah, auto-swapping on a script would work in theory, but has too many issues to make it an effective answer to the problem. I am unsure also about the removal of people who abuse stacking because that rule would only apply to people who are good thus.

As an example;

if we had 2 'average' players who normally stack -- that is allowed? Yet we punish only the two good players because they are good? (which is what it boils down to),  if / when Ren-X becomes more popular; more 'pro' players are likely to crop up; which would mean the admin / mod team would have to spend time enforcing this rule and defining what is classified as 'good'. This also leaves begs the question; what happens if some players 'stack' by chance? -- we can't aways be around to check this, and it is very easy to join with fake names. in short, excuting this would be a mess.

I am leaning towards turning off team swap for a set amount of time, that is the most fair and humane way to try and tackle this issue, with no needed input from the already busy team.

 

As I've expressed before, you're really over-complicating things. Your whole counter argument is based on big ifs and maybes. Just deal with the current problem at hand first.

[TomUjain]

This isn't an argument Sarah, just throwing thoughts on the table. Most of what I have said above is not if's and maybe's -- I doubt it will be as simple as looking at the specific people who we have in our sights known for stacking, because ultimately we have other good old and new players who come and go, i.e. after pugs.

this system would mean that we would have to define what is 'good' -- because we have not done so. Do we define good based on how many people complain? their overall reputation? Or maybe score and/or K/D ratio? We need to be extreamly careful not to have this funnel into a hate and/or fustration compain. This isn't overcomplicating it, its being sensible because introducing such a heavy system like that will have huge effects if we don't atleast try to put it upto basic scrutiny first.

[TomUjain]

the suggestion posted in the image above is aimed at well known stackers, and yes in theory it will address part of the problem -- but these 'stackers' are hardly the only two we will encounter in the future, and this is where (I feel) your suggestion will begin to develop holes as it means we will need to keep on the look out for any more future stackers and that will be a time consuming job; people can always use a different name and easily pose as someone else.

However, if I can get Goku and several others to agree to this then I am willing to give it a trial run.

The point of this whole thread was to be more of an open debait not a who is right / wrong. It is important to have a good hard look at any big changes to the server before we blindly implent systems that may not work as intended.

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by TomUjain

[JoeBrogan7]

I have a suggestion, Tom, though I don't know if it is technically feasible or not, so I'll just throw it out there.

How about a system where a team swap is only allowed if the player switching teams is replaced by a different player of roughly comparable performance. How do we measure that? We could tie it to kills, k/d, wins, or points per x unit of time (or a combination of any of these). Since the "pro" team stackers in question usually have a ridiculously high kill count and k/d ratio compared to the rest of the players in the match, let's pick some numbers and say that two players need to be within 85% of each other in terms of kills per the last 180 minutes of gameplay in order to swap teams.

• Scenario:
  • Player A = 414 kills over the last 180 minutes of game time. 2.3 kills per minute (kpm)
  • Player B = 46 kills in the same period. 0.26 kpm
  • Player C = 364 kills in the same period. 2.02 kpm
  • Player A cannot swap teams with Player B because there is too big a discrepancy between the players in kpm. However, Player A can successfully swap with Player C because Player C is within the 85% threshold in kpm at 87.8%.

This would keep team swapping allowed for most of the playerbase, but the elite players, who can handily decide a game when they stack together, wouldn't be able to swap unless someone of comparable performance is willing to take their place, keeping some semblance of balance in the match. Admittedly, focusing only on kills per x unit of time is only really targeting a certain type of team stacker, and wouldn't really stop another type who forgoes sniping and prefers sneaking or something else. But again, there are many metrics that could be used for this, including a combination of a few of them which I think would make the most sense (especially wins).

But I realize this is a pretty complicated solution and might not even be possible to implement server-side, so

Edited May 23, 2018 by ps212
mistake with Person C being called Person B

[NodSaibot]

9 hours ago, TomUjain said:

the suggestion posted in the image above is aimed at well known stackers, and yes in theory it will address part of the problem -- but these 'stackers' are hardly the only two we will encounter in the future, and this is where (I feel) your suggestion will begin to develop holes as it means we will need to keep on the look out for any more future stackers and that will be a time consuming job; people can always use a different name and easily pose as someone else.

However, if I can get Goku and several others to agree to this then I am willing to give it a trial run.

The point of this whole thread was to be more of an open debait not a who is right / wrong. It is important to have a good hard look at any big changes to the server before we blindly implent systems that may not work as intended.

 

An open debate, which includes arguments and counter arguments ^^ That's how debates work

[ex_member]

...

Edited September 22, 2018 by ex_member

[JoeBrogan7]

1 hour ago, dr.schrott said:

Hi guys,

it’s gonna be hard providing an efficient and easy to manage solution without having a centralized player database and login. 

This has to be a starting point to deal with player statistics and then use this statistics to handle the team balance and other related problems.

Personally, I think it's a problem worth focusing on, even if it's difficult. Balanced teams are so important in RenX and team stacking is a significant problem in that regard.

[NodSaibot]

22 minutes ago, dr.schrott said:

Hi guys,

it’s gonna be hard providing an efficient and easy to manage solution without having a centralized player database and login. 

This has to be a starting point to deal with player statistics and then use this statistics to handle the team balance and other related problems.

I doubt it would provide any useful data in most of these situations. And I mean, that's a RenX thing, not FPI thing. It's been discussed, the things needed for it shown. 

 

Balance itself in a game this small will never be achievable. Look at Dota 2, League of Legends or Hearthstone. They have matchmaking, not servers. Millions/hundreds of thousands of players (tens of thousands of concurrent players in each region.) With a playerbase this large, it is far easier to create more balanced matches. However, this is certainly not the case for RenX. With a playerbase this small, it is not really possible to achieve balanced matches.

[TomUjain]

it would be nice if the deves put in a loggin system, despite how much of a pain it would be-- it would for sure help tackle a lot of problems i.e traceabilty. We have played around with the idea of only allowing steam users onto the server, but as a good chunk of players do not use steam we would effectivly be cutting off a big portion of the community.

Your idea is well thought out Ps212; but sounds hellishly complex to code in. Ideally if we do plan to use any more modifers we should try and keep it as simple as possible. Personally I feel having team swap turned off for the 'warm up' phase of the game might be a good starting point we can test from.

Although I agree what Sarah is saying in regards to RenX being difficult to balance, I still believe systems can be put in place to atleast make the edges less rigid; one thing we shouldn't do is simply write this issue off or ignore it.

[ex_member]

...

Edited September 22, 2018 by ex_member

[NodSaibot]

6 minutes ago, TomUjain said:

it would be nice if the deves put in a loggin system, despite how much of a pain it would be-- it would for sure help tackle a lot of problems i.e traceabilty. We have played around with the idea of only allowing steam users onto the server, but as a good chunk of players do not use steam we would effectivly be cutting off a big portion of the community.

Your idea is well thought out Ps212; but sounds hellishly complex to code in. Ideally if we do plan to use any more modifers we should try and keep it as simple as possible. Personally I feel having team swap turned off for the 'warm up' phase of the game might be a good starting point we can test from.

Although I agree what Sarah is saying in regards to RenX being difficult to balance, I still believe systems can be put in place to atleast make the edges less rigid; one thing we shouldn't do is simply write this issue off or ignore it.

Traceability exists already, and adding a login system wouldn't change anything if people wanted to be anonymous.

 

2 minutes ago, dr.schrott said:

@Sarah I think I understand what you mean. Nevertheless, you need to think out of the box, otherwise it will remain a  chicken and egg problem. I think the main point around this topic is that balancing the teams in a good way would help the game and it might also help the community to grow. 

But, if it is time consuming to build a player base and implement the support in RenX, than that could be a challenge standing in the way and be a reason for not doing it currently as there might be other priorities which need to be handled.

 

And the chicken came first.

[JoeBrogan7]

7 minutes ago, Sarah! said:

Balance itself in a game this small will never be achievable.

I think that's a bit of hyperbole. When team stacking is *not* going on, there usually aren't any balance issues. One team might randomly get assigned better players for a single match, but it gets corrected on the next. This isn't a problem; but intentional team stacking that throw off the balance of the server for 8+ matches in a row is a huge problem.

[NodSaibot]

Just now, ps212 said:

I think that's a bit of hyperbole. When team stacking is *not* going on, there usually aren't any balance issues. One team might randomly get assigned better players for a single match, but it gets corrected on the next. This isn't a problem; but intentional team stacking that throw off the balance of the server for 8+ matches in a row is a huge problem.

Absolute balance, anyway.

[JoeBrogan7]

4 minutes ago, Sarah! said:

Absolute balance, anyway.

Good thing - if we had absolute balance then our marathon matches would never end

[TomUjain]

Having accounts will make it a lot harder for players to pose as someone else and/or different names; though it won't remove the problem wholeheartedly it will put up a barrier. Currently it is very easy for a player to join with a new name and unless we do regular ip checks it can be time consuming to address who is who.

it would be silly to think we can balance every game, everytime perfectly; and impossible. However we can agree that there is room for improvement, if it is possible for a select group of players to all mush onto one team, causing endless one sided loose loops then it is pretty clear there is a problem, otherwise the phrase 'team stacking' wouldn't be popping up over and over.

In order for matches to be as fair as possible, we need to take a hard look at the causes; and a big part of that seems to stem from team swapping at the start / mid match. I am not saying messing with the swap feature is the perfect solution, nor am I saying it will not be met without some hostility from the community, but it is a key step forward.

I see no reason in implenting any system if the players have the option to swap over. I'll be speaking with Serah and Goku about this on Friday, and see if we can all agree on something; as I am willing to try anything -- even if I disagree with the idea.

[Eagle XI]

how about we auto-swap the worst players with an average guy on the opposing team instead every x minutes, that way both teams would have equal chances of point-farm. :p

[isupreme]

Where can i find a listing of the points i have accumulated?       Pardon me if i missed the obvious somewhere....

[NodSaibot]

5 hours ago, isupreme said:

Where can i find a listing of the points i have accumulated?       Pardon me if i missed the obvious somewhere....

!rank ingame

 

Will eventually get a leaderboard webpage

Edited May 20, 2018 by Sarah!

[NodSaibot]

Added Crash_Site to rotation.

[vandal33]

The repair tools are bugged. Ammo keeps showing 1337/0. Please fix it. It's unbearable for me.

[NodSaibot]

23 minutes ago, vandal33 said:

The repair tools are bugged. Ammo keeps showing 1337/0. Please fix it. It's unbearable for me.

Not really a bug. Just look at the ammo amount bar.

[Sn4ke]

4 hours ago, Sarah! said:

Not really a bug. Just look at the ammo amount bar.

have the same issue as @vandal33 - the bar is working, but it's easier to check the number (esp. if you're used to do that instead of looking at that bar)

also.. why is the rep tool price displayed as 200 $ instead of "free" (like it was on AGN)? is that because you don't want free inf have rep tools right from the match start? If so, please change the price tag to something else. like "free, but you need some cash to buy it"

[Fffreak9999]

It’s not that simple.

By default, choosing the price in the vanilla game (no mutator affecting the purchase system) does not alter the initial availability of the item, always showing 200.

The AGN mutator overrides the purchase system, enabling the initial available price to be altered.

[NodSaibot]

5 hours ago, DarkSn4ke said:

have the same issue as @vandal33 - the bar is working, but it's easier to check the number (esp. if you're used to do that instead of looking at that bar)

also.. why is the rep tool price displayed as 200 $ instead of "free" (like it was on AGN)? is that because you don't want free inf have rep tools right from the match start? If so, please change the price tag to something else. like "free, but you need some cash to buy it"

Because I don't want to overwrite the whole purchase system and go through the trouble of implementing it just so I can change 1 price lol. or what freak said. And I'm pretty sure you get near 200 creds at the beginning anyway. I honestly don't care if free inf have repair tools at minute 0.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Sarah!

[Fffreak9999]

If you really wanted to, you could just alter the default inventory option for all classes to include a repair tool.

It would get past the issue of anyone needing to buy one.

[Sn4ke]

was curious if it was intended due to gameplay reasons. not sure about the current starter cash on FPI, but having a (free) rep tool from the start can make a huge difference. (e.g. small sneaker group or also to keep harvester alive).

[Madkill40]

On 5/17/2018 at 12:09 AM, ps212 said:

Scenario:

• Player A = 414 kills over the last 180 minutes of game time. 2.3 kills per minute (kpm)
• Player B = 46 kills in the same period. 0.26 kpm
• Player C = 364 kills in the same period. 2.02 kpm
• Player A cannot swap teams with Player B because there is too big a discrepancy between the players in kpm. However, Player A can successfully swap with Player B because Player B is within the 85% threshold in kpm at 87.8%.

 

If Player A and C are friends and want to be on the same team, chances are they would have swapped within the first 5 minutes of the game so this formula wouldn't work particularly well.

[Guest]

About the money and rep tool topic:

Regarding the rep tool, it does effect the first 2 minutes of the game a lot, because of the harvester. You can kill off the enemy and repair it with the same unit (since you start with 300+ credits). Same goes about the tech buildings, you dont need an engie, just a combat unit with a rep tool.. btw the rep tool isnt an essencial tool anyways, if you dont have 200 credits to even get it then you probably dont need it.. 

And the "issue", i guess, with starting with 300 credits is a bit too much. If a team is well co-ordinated they can easily take out essential buildings with a few* rockets (mainly because everyone usually focuses on the harvesters).

[Eagle XI]

also factor in people can coordinate donation to roll out stuff faster with an generous 300 credits per player.

[roweboat]

16 hours ago, Fffreak9999 said:

If you really wanted to, you could just alter the default inventory option for all classes to include a repair tool.

It would get past the issue of anyone needing to buy one.

 

[JoeBrogan7]

10 hours ago, Madkill40 said:

If Player A and C are friends and want to be on the same team, chances are they would have swapped within the first 5 minutes of the game so this formula wouldn't work particularly well.

I'm not sure what you mean. That's the whole point of the suggestion...the only way that swap goes through in the first 5 minutes of the game is if the person swapping is being replaced with another player of comparable performance. Otherwise, it doesn't happen.

[Madkill40]

On 5/23/2018 at 4:53 PM, ps212 said:

I'm not sure what you mean. That's the whole point of the suggestion...the only way that swap goes through in the first 5 minutes of the game is if the person swapping is being replaced with another player of comparable performance. Otherwise, it doesn't happen.

So this would be based on their lifetime stats and not the current games' progression?

[TomUjain]

Mods will have the power to manually shuffle teams at the start of the session (if needed) hopefully this will help a little if teams do get a little too stacked, though I understand this won't address 'friends / pro players' from playing together.

The most popular way to address stacking is to have a smarter 'team shuffle' based on total score; and something we can try and look into as the 50% / 50% 'randomizer' has a small chance of re-stacking a team at the start of every session. Another idea was to give the 'losing' team a small boost based on total score difference - the idea behind it is if a team is stacked, it is reflected in the team score and giving buffs to help remedy that evens it out, alternatly if the score re-balances, or goes the other way then the bonus scales accordingly.

an example;

• 1000 point difference - 5% att / def bonus
• 2000 point difference - 7% att / def bonus
• 3000 point difference - 9% att / def bonus
• 4000 point difference - 12% att / def bonus
• 5000 point difference - 15% att / def bonus
• 6000 point difference - 20% att / def bonus
• 7000 point difference - 25% att / def bonus
• 8000 point difference - 30% att / def bonus
• 9000 point difference - 35% att / def bonus
• 10,000 point difference - 40% att / def bonus

The point (pun intended) of this system, is to help prevent the 'base locking' that takes place in several maps (i.e. under) and to help the game flow a bit better, but I welcome feedback on this idea.

I understand the concern about the 300 starting credits -- but after a month trial it seems to work well; arguments can be said on both sides, but generally I've noticed having a 300 starting credit system prevents a lot of inf rushes as the base tends to be mined before they can get through.  It also dampers the effect of losing the harv, allowing the team to get some basic tanks on the field to counter. Though this doesn't stop rocket rushes, a lot of recruit rocket rushes tend to fail due to the amount needed to successfully take out a building.

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by TomUjain

[Eagle XI]

48 player functions better for the current maps than piling 64 people into same room.

its not an good impression when the game drags on for hours to infinity as one side is camping the other teams entrance on Under(just happent to came out of such an match) because they happent to be good enough to camp the entrance but not to take the base and finish it.

I can suggest running 2x 48p servers rather than one 64p.

[Fffreak9999]

Bare in mind that I did quite a bit of testing with player limits back when the limit was 40 players (using a mutator to increase the limits). 

Trying to run 2 servers instead of 1, just doesn’t work to spread players unless they are forced across into the other server.

Players prefer to join the established (high count) server over beginning a fresh game. We do have enough players on some days (mostly weekends) to fill 2 64 player servers) (as can be seen by the PUG server being at like 50 players) and a 64 player server full with a couple of testers on their own servers.

The only issue is the lack of visibility before joining a game as to who is willing to look for a match and then directing them to a server.

 

[roweboat]

9 hours ago, Fffreak9999 said:

The only issue is the lack of visibility before joining a game as to who is willing to look for a match and then directing them to a server.

 

 

I feel this should be implemented before any other changes are made.

[TomUjain]

I agree, the player count would be healither around 40 - 50; but to do that, I feel we need more players overall, which can only really be done via promotion.

[roweboat]

On 5/26/2018 at 7:33 PM, TomUjain said:

I understand the concern about the 300 starting credits -- but after a month trial it seems to work well; arguments can be said on both sides, but generally I've noticed having a 300 starting credit system prevents a lot of inf rushes as the base tends to be mined before they can get through.  It also dampers the effect of losing the harv, allowing the team to get some basic tanks on the field to counter. Though this doesn't stop rocket rushes, a lot of recruit rocket rushes tend to fail due to the amount needed to successfully take out a building.

 

2

Personally I like the higher starting credits. I remember a few years back, when CT & EKT both (nearly) full servers most of the time, it was nice being able to switch between the 0 starting credits and 300 credits (EKT always favored higher starting credits), because the strategies change quite a bit.

[ex_member]

...

Edited September 22, 2018 by ex_member

[NodSaibot]

5 hours ago, dr.schrott said:

Hi,

do the recommendations go to 0 after some time ?

I am asking this, as I had 32 rec two days ago, and yesterday 0 ?

Blame Jupiter

[Madkill40]

On 5/22/2018 at 10:24 PM, Fffreak9999 said:

If you really wanted to, you could just alter the default inventory option for all classes to include a repair tool.

It would get past the issue of anyone needing to buy one.

If players have to choose between a timed c4 or a rep tool on load-out then this is probably a good idea, maybe the rep tool should be re-implemented in a patch to work like this instead?

Edited June 1, 2018 by Madkill40

[Sn4ke]

12 hours ago, dr.schrott said:

Hi,

do the recommendations go to 0 after some time ?

I am asking this, as I had 32 rec two days ago, and yesterday 0 ?

maybe someone constantly used the !noob command on you? No reason to downvote Sarah though I guess

[NodSaibot]

2 hours ago, DarkSn4ke said:

maybe someone constantly used the !noob command on you? No reason to downvote Sarah though I guess

Jupiter has an issue where it clears the players information. It also did it to me. Not sure why it happens. It just sets it to nothing.

 

[JoeBrogan7]

Every time I am in the server and a new map loads, it defaults me to GDI. It doesn't happen on the other servers (or at least it didn't used to, I've only played on Fair Play over the last few weeks). So I'm thinking it might be a server-related setting? Is this possible?