?go Base Captaincy Needs a List of Veteran Caps

[BIET]

Like I said I?m not at all familiar with what happens in ?go base lately, maybe they have gone, but it looks like there are still players (trying to) sabotaging game, not only base, for whatever reason. Also, I can?t remember any of the names since it has been years, probably 5 years or so, and I rather forget them to be honest.

It is tough to guarantee every getting a (cap) spot, but hey this isn?t pub, while also making it more difficult for players to sabotage. Maybe the timer should be shortened to only a few seconds, which should also be enough time while barely making it a wait, or have a usage requirement of lets say 100 hours plus a list of players that are banned from capping. The usage requirement should stop players from switching to a new account over and over to evade the ban. And this is just a limit for getting a cap spot. Everyone is still up for being added and it is up to them to prove themselve worthty to be picked, some like to add more newer/a variety of players than others.

Feel free to suggest other solutions to the posted problem. It?s an open discussion and nothing is set in stone. Everyones opinion is welcome, as long as it is constructive.

[qan]

If you wanted to make it more complicated, you could even do it with two lists: first-tier (8*+) and second-tier (7*+). Second-tier caps could have a very small wait time, perhaps 5-10s. Considering some 7* have played over a decade or more, it would respect the fact that they're far, far better than a random/newbie/troll is at capping.

But regardless of implementation, in order to avoid any appearance of favoritism, a very specific and openly-stated criteria must be used. Then there's no question of why one person is on a list and another isn't. Minimal drama is best, for everyone's sanity. And as BIET said, we can keep brainstorming solutions and ideas.

Also, we should remember that we've only had automated caps in ?go base for an extremely short time. Before that it was nominations, and before that caps were assigned by staff. (May have tried other things somewhere in there ... I've quit and come back to the game several times, like most of us, and my memory's far from perfect.) This did mean if you had an inexperienced staffer answering your call, you might get a somewhat random cap, but usually experienced players were chosen because they have a greater ability to deliver balanced games. That said, there's always been a problem of new players not getting play time when many vets show. But someone's going to get excluded when there are more players than slots available, and it's going to be the less experienced/unknown players. That's just how it works in every game in the world, video game or otherwise. Newer players can try to urge captains to give them a chance after practicing their spider game in pub a bit more. Put me in, coach!

[BIET]

Hm, ogron already mentioned a minimum requirement of 7*'s to be able to cap. If we take that as a starting point, which I presume is what is been done right now, we can build upon it by adding players to the list by performance in base games themselves? We could track number of games played, time played, lagouts, number of kills/deaths. There must be a combination of those stats that tells the bot to add a player to the list. You can maybe raise the number of required games whenever a player performs below par in a specific ship. Maybe favorite and give advantage to capping player who have played terrier before, since it is such a crucial ship in basing. Just some ideas!

[Rab]

I posted a list of players yesterday. It includes most 8s and some 7s, based on my judgement basically. Just need someone to check it, amend, approve, and we're sorted.

[qan]

That's not going to work, as it's just going to stir up tension. Needs to be a hard limit based on something measurable outside of the list itself ... for instance, tied directly to TWDT stars. I doubt any 7* basers are going to seriously screw things up by capping, for instance. If they are, they're probably overrated anyhow.

[Rab]

Sorry qan but you're just wrong. Think of it like any sports team, some players become managers, most don't, it's a different skill set.

Quite a lot of the newbies who are so bad at capping it results in an imbalanced and therefore waste of time game are 7*.
If you included everyone who's 7* it wouldn't solve anything.
If you included everyone who's 8* it's less bad, but there's still people in there who can't cap or are inactive.
I resolved all that for you with my judgement and that's what my list is.
I'm not saying do exactly what I say, I gave us a starting point that other players can add/remove people from... waiting for someone else to contribute something constructive...

For example, last night we had 3 games in a row ruined by newbie caps.
Jessup (7*) pissing about with specials vs JAMAL (10*): http://www.trenchwars.org/base/129055
Johnie (6*) letting JAMAL (10*) have all the top players: http://www.trenchwars.org/base/129056
Johnie (6*) putting people in the wrong ships vs Morph (8*): http://www.trenchwars.org/base/129057
People got annoyed and went back to elim. Base could have continued all night, newbies killed it.

[Rab]

Also, if there's a cap who is a 10* player, and the other captain is only 7* - that's a massive advantage in lineup before picking even starts, the 7* captain would have to be an extremely good cap to overcome it.

[qan]

Think at one point we had basing captain ratings. Ogron, you did them for S1 TSL, maybe? We could look at something like that. It needs to be quantified somehow, though, and reviewed for accuracy by many people like a TWDT rating might be, as there's just too much history and bad blood over the years between so many different people that there's practically no-one who can be trusted to act as a disinterested source of evaluation.

If we worked with captain ratings, it would also be easy to attach delays to ratings. The worse the rating, the larger the delay.

[BIET]

I am curious about the timing of the captain spots being claimed. Are both spots claimed well before 30 seconds passed after the arena message or was there a waiting game on who would claim the second spot? Also, if players are really pissed off about games being ruined by sub par captains, they could start a TWBD game and borrow. It isn't much more effort and would ensure overall better captains. If theres at all an opportunity of players to claim a captain spot before a less desirable players takes it, it should be up to the more experienced players to prevent that and no extra help from a timer and approved list should be needed. If the spots are taken within 2 seconds it might suffice to give approved captains a 5 seconds breathing room to claim a spot before it is up for grabs for anyone. 30 seconds might be too long to make approved players not appreciate the privilege they have been granted or abuse it as such. They should be the ones responsible for not stepping up if a timer is in place with the punishment being (a) possibly terrible captain(s). We HAVE to make players understand they can also help in improving the state of the game and not let them think someone else will fix it for them. We can do so much as a community and we shouldn't need to have to resort to curated lists of any kinds.

[Rab]

I don't mind it being achieved as "captain ratings". I'd just recommend that we get our act together at having a central ratings database. Every time we need ratings we create another copy, it's pretty silly.

I think you're a bit too worried about bias. The nature of this issue is we are judging people, but we're doing it based on ability, not personal feelings. As it should be.

[Falconeer]

How is this going to ensure the guy from pub, other zone, or who wants to practice for league won't be waiting 5 full base games before being chosen on a team? I will test it out by going to base and if I have to wait longer then 2 base games and on top of it I can't even captain to get in, then your game is elitist and broken.

1. I could enter as myself, and never speak. Bet I would never get added for 1 year.
2. I could enter as myself and speak up "Add me" see how long it takes?
3. I could enter aliased and never speak.
4. I could enter aliased and speak up "Add me"
5. Repeat all variables after being added once and see how often I am added.

If base could have continued all night... then why didn't a pro ?claim a captain spot and continue it all night? You're not making sense. What is the constitution of people in this zone? Paper? Wah someone was a noob I'm going to go when otherwise I could just claim a spot and play a quality game all night? I don't get it. If anyone can claim a captain spot what is stopping 10 pros from doing it? They clearly outnumber the noobs?

How was Johnie able to claim two spots in a row? or was there in fact other games in between?

I am curious about the timing of the captain spots being claimed. Are both spots claimed well before 30 seconds passed after the arena message or was there a waiting game on who would claim the second spot? Also, if players are really pissed off about games being ruined by sub par captains, they could start a TWBD game and borrow. It isn't much more effort and would ensure overall better captains. If theres at all an opportunity of players to claim a captain spot before a less desirable players takes it, it should be up to the more experienced players to prevent that and no extra help from a timer and approved list should be needed. If the spots are taken within 2 seconds it might suffice to give approved captains a 5 seconds breathing room to claim a spot before it is up for grabs for anyone. 30 seconds might be too long to make approved players not appreciate the privilege they have been granted or abuse it as such. They should be the ones responsible for not stepping up if a timer is in place with the punishment being (a) possibly terrible captain(s). We HAVE to make players understand they can also help in improving the state of the game and not let them think someone else will fix it for them. We can do so much as a community and we shouldn't need to have to resort to curated lists of any kinds.

This makes sense.

Also in hockey zone you can get in line to captain at any point. Are you saying you can't get in line to captain until the current game ends here? The benefit of being in a queue for captain is that after a 20 minute game, you have 5 seconds to claim the spot, and if you miss it, the next person in captain queue is up. Also by the time a game ends you could be disinterested in captaining so you could !release your captain spot and move on. Not sure how it's working in TW.

[Rab]

How is this going to ensure the guy from pub, other zone, or who wants to practice for league won't be waiting 5 full base games before being chosen on a team? I will test it out by going to base and if I have to wait longer then 2 base games and on top of it I can't even captain to get in, then your game is elitist and broken.

If base could have continued all night... then why didn't a pro ?claim a captain spot and continue it all night? You're not making sense. What is the constitution of people in this zone? Paper? Wah someone was a noob I'm going to go when otherwise I could just claim a spot and play a quality game all night? I don't get it. If anyone can claim a captain spot what is stopping 10 pros from doing it? They clearly outnumber the noobs?

How was Johnie able to claim two spots in a row? or was there in fact other games in between?

New people do get added. There were some people playing yesterday I'd never seen before.
New people capping because they don't get added might happen currently, and when it does it breaks the game because they don't know who to pick. This is one of the scenarios we want to be fixed.
Johnie got cap because he was one of the first 2 people to do it. That's not a good system for ensuring a good quality game.

[BIET]

Let's say there are 20 players in base and all wanting to play, you end up with 4 players not getting to play. The reason they weren't picked can vary a lot, maybe they are inexperienced, not recognized by others, overlooked or just entered later. Would you force captains to pick players that have been in spec for a long time waiting, and would it be elitist if they were just picking their preferred lineup? This game is over 20 years old now, I'd assume some of these rules apply a bit differently than they do in other games. Doesn't mean it isn't a shame some players aren't getting the play time they want, but it is hard to get 1 base game going let alone two. I believe most of the times both games die completely whenever two games are running. The players needed to for an extra game of base is at least 12, theoretically, and in practice a bit more.

[Falconeer]

Let's say there are 20 players in base and all wanting to play, you end up with 4 players not getting to play. The reason they weren't picked can vary a lot, maybe they are inexperienced, not recognized by others, overlooked or just entered later. Would you force captains to pick players that have been in spec for a long time waiting, and would it be elitist if they were just picking their preferred lineup? This game is over 20 years old now, I'd assume some of these rules apply a bit differently than they do in other games. Doesn't mean it isn't a shame some players aren't getting the play time they want, but it is hard to get 1 base game going let alone two. I believe most of the times both games die completely whenever two games are running. The players needed to for an extra game of base is at least 12, theoretically, and in practice a bit more.

Yes it's elitist not to pick players consistently because you think they are bad, you pre-judged them, or you prefer someone else over them. That is the very definition of elitism, when a certain group of players get to play constantly and another group is excluded and often ignored.

If it were me I would include player ratings in base and make it so each basing team needs a total rating between a minimum limit and a maximum limit. If a top player was rated 10k and there were 8 players, it would be a maximum limit of 80k skill team. This would not be encouraged. Instead teams would have to be between 40k and 60k. And would have to have a similar rating to the opposing team. You could recruit 4 pros to get to 40k and then 4 players who are rated 5k to get to 60k. BTW these numbers are just examples.

My point is I would want someway to ensure always that 1-2 noobs if they are in spec are prioritized and chosen, on each team, while keeping the teams balanced. Like even if it's a culture of "The last/eigth player chosen must always be a noob, or someone who didn't get much game time yet". Can we start that culture up? If so then you can have preferential captains imo, since it won't cause harm.

Like if team sizes are 8, then each team having 1 new/inexperienced player, should be balanced. As a captain I would be trying to get people play time as a first priority and as a second priority i would offset someone i think has bad skill by picking someone good who could carry them. The issue is when the other captain stacks the team and has no consideration for the new guy. Then my team would be at a disadvantage (though i typically don't care and play anyway).

Anyway, you guys decide whatever, if it's unfair later when I have time i'll probably start a thread saying I can't play in ?go base i have to wait 1/2 hours to get chosen lol.

[Rab]

Falco goes into a thread about newbies wrecking the game and says what it needs is more newbies.
Newbie logic.