Test a Cram Reset in ?go base

[Zeebu]

looks like the thread mentioned some things more along the lines on what i envisioned. the major problem we're trying to resolve is endless crams being unbroken. instead of finding a clever time to warp everyone, do what was mentioned and after a certain amount of time, make the flagroom itself less easily defendable. add a gate that opens up after a couple or modify the flag room opening to make it easier to be repped out of cram. having something a bit more gradual than the sudden warp helps things. also, most people can see the vast majority of the flag room all at once, once a new entrance is opened its pretty easy to spot. making the entrance attainable but not super easy to break also still leaves the team holding the flag room at an advantage, which you want. that team is doing better and should still be rewarded. it just makes it more difficult to hold. you could even do something progressive if the code can be done that way, first modify the FR entrance to make it slightly easier to enter the traditional way, maybe add a hole that allows for a more direct line of fire to where the terrs typically camp. just force the terrier to be a little more reckless to stay in cram or have to back off. if that works, job done, cram broken. if the team holding cram can work around that a little longer, then open up something else, a different path into the flagroom maybe. all it would take is one spider getting in there and the cram is likely broken and a flag room battle starts.

i like that sort of option more than just warping entire teams. the only real downfall i see is that when the gates are put back into the game, someone could be accidentally warped. the shooting holes arent an issue there but the additional entrances would be. if a ter is hanging around those after a flag room clear though they likely arent he brightest

[Jessup]

I still laugh at any rational that ?go base should be this elite cap situation though. Cmon guys that's stupid as crap. Why was this preferred cap list steam rolled through when no evidence was ever presented that ?go base games were being trolled and ruined as was claimed by ogron. Leagues are one thing but excluding countless 10 to 20 year vets from capping ?go base is a joke. Remove that preferred cap crap at once I say. Ogron is abusing his cap powers and has not added me and many others waiting to play base since it was set in place. I wasted 2 hours sitting in spec to play base and wasn't added once the other night. Oh wait actually ogron did add me the other night but only for the purpose of being a troll and subbing me out 30 seconds into the game when I was top scoring spider so far on our freq. Excluding 10 to 20 year vets from ?go base is a terrible precedent for the zone to take in a public duel arena. If anything we need rules forcing captains to ADD players. If you have patiently waited to play in the public arena caps should be forced to use you. THIS IS A PUBLIC ARENA!! IT IS NOT TWBD. All this is doing is pushing players who want to improve in base away from it. It's bad enough for 10 plus year vets. If you are a new player this system completely squashes you. It pisses me off seeing new people ask how do I get in.. while they really want to play only to be told. "you need to be picked". They wait and never are and just leave. .. That my friends is how you kill the zone. Terrible standard to take. Mandatory playtime for those who wait out last game in spec implemented NOW please.

[Zeebu]

yeah not real sure about whitelisting caps in general. i can probably get behind a whitelist of caps that are allowed to assign special ships. if you dont know what youre doing you should definitely not be allowed to give people a jav or something

[qan]

There's no preferred cap list. I spent a great deal of time demonstrating how difficult it is to create one and remain fair.

However, there is a seconding system, where anyone who tries to cap needs to receive a second from anyone else in the arena. I thought it's pretty clear. Have you read the bot output when you type !cap? Do any of the messages need to be changed to be more clear?

It's not perfect, but it strikes some balance between fairness and prevention of weak/troll caps. If not even one other person has faith in you as a cap, probably you need to play a bit more so that you understand the strengths of the various players and can put together a better line.

[Jessup]

Please address the players who are waiting to participate and not being added in this public arena. Please implement a feature where they must be added if they are signed up to play but were not added the previous game. The cap vote system I could accept and embrace if this was set in place. The fact is hours go by where players want to play base but are not allowed to and wind up being shut out and excluded. That is a terrible precedent for the zone to embrace in a public arena. How is someone supposed to practice and improve in ?go base when they can not even get added time and time again. The same players are monopolizing base and controlling every game being played now while they play favorites and are only adding certain people. I think this logic is very flawed here qan. This is NOT some elite league.. it is ?go base and should be open for the entire community. We have twbd, twdtb and twlb for a reason. PLAYERS BEING EXCLUDED BY TROLL CAPS ABUSING THE SYSTEM SET IN PLACE IS THE ISSUE I'M TRYING TO ADDRESS HERE.

[Falconeer]

Please address the players who are waiting to participate and not being added in this public arena. Please implement a feature where they must be added if they are signed up to play but were not added the previous game. The cap vote system I could accept and embrace if this was set in place. The fact is hours go by where players want to play base but are not allowed to and wind up being shut out and excluded. That is a terrible precedent for the zone to embrace in a public arena. How is someone supposed to practice and improve in ?go base when they can not even get added time and time again. The same players are monopolizing base and controlling every game being played now while they play favorites and are only adding certain people. I think this logic is very flawed here qan. This is NOT some elite league.. it is ?go base and should be open for the entire community. We have twbd, twdtb and twlb for a reason. PLAYERS BEING EXCLUDED BY TROLL CAPS ABUSING THE SYSTEM SET IN PLACE IS THE ISSUE I'M TRYING TO ADDRESS HERE.

+1 to this, need some sort of system in place where people who played previously do not have priority over players who didn't. As well need some incentives for captains to add new or inexperienced players to their lineups. You could even have it so every third game is a training game, which is announced in pub, and captains are *required* to take on people who didn't have a chance to play yet. Captains who take on training games, get some points, if you make a point system... though unsure atm how to implement a fair point system and to what end..

[qan]

Forcing play of any players goes against the precedent set in the arena over the years, which is that caps are allowed to play whomever they wish. It might be worth including some kind of feature that PMs the caps letting them know who benched all of the last round and is not idle/wants to play. Or, some kind of wait list, where if not chosen, players can send a command and are added to the "I got next" list, and this list is PMd to caps, but doesn't force them to add.

There are people in this game who carry personal vendettas to extremes (and nobody but Ogron would challenge that Ogron is one of them) ... and I would agree that they might not add you to their line while they're capping because of this. But this isn't against the rules, and I'm not really sure how you can make it against the rules without radically transforming how base works as a whole.

I'd recommend you instead get proactive, and find one other person who is also not getting added. Then team up with them so that one of you gets cap. One does !cap, and the other seconds. Then you can add yourselves, if you please. If you can't find even one other person in the arena who thinks you should cap, you probably shouldn't cap. Regardless of if you're not being played for personal reasons.

[Jessup]

Making popularity contests and forcing limitations on who can claim captain in OUR public base zone goes against the precedent set for years too but you seemed fine with that. The very person you agree holds vendettas and trolls players asked for this and you just gave in. There was no proof base was being ruined. You would not listen to logic and look for true incompetence with captains unable to do the commands but rather focused on an unsubstantiated complaint that game quality was suffering. I suggest opening your eyes and see that players are being shut out of playing games because of the actions you endorsed from known trolls in the game. Please spare is the indignity with this fake stop gap "I got next" feature too. Just admit that you support handing it over to "veterans" and "popular" people and as a result regular players who are new or unknown in these crowds have zero chance to ever play it again.

I do not see how I was unreasonable at all requesting participation for those who desire it in this arena.

[qan]

It ran for years and years through a captaining system that was essentially a whitelist, in which staffers would assign captaincy only to veterans (or else be groused as newbie staff for giving cap to any old player). It was only very recently that it converted over to a free cap system after the failure of the !nominate feature, mostly because activity was so pitifully low that it didn't really matter much anymore.

Are you saying that not only is there nobody who will second you as captain, but also nobody who will add you to their line? If so, maybe it's time to start looking inward a bit. Is there a way you're behaving that makes people not want to play with you?

[Jessup]

It was not "essentially a white list" before. Many staff gave it to the first person who typed "cap" while others didn't. There was no set rule nor great pressure either way as this was only our public basing arena. There was hardly any of this elitist / popularity contest set into play. The environment was much more inclusive with people readily helping each other. Often even players who had never even been cap had staffers assign them the position and were helped along their first few times with patience. People back then were often mindful of who played and who didn't and willingly would sit and allow those waiting to participate.

This is not about me alone either qan nor have I ever made that argument in this thread. I did share my experience with ogron having never added me and the one time he did trolling me with a sub out as soon as the game began as an example of the type abuse that can take place within this system. I am not the only this happens too. I have seen many complaints in spec when games begin by those waiting and shut out after hour plus waits just to get in the game. I am not causing disturbances before games nor am I a terrible baser by any means. I am 100% capable of capping and playing ?go base. People deserve a chance to play who have waited. This is common fairness and logic. Do not ask people to look inward at themselves either who get trolled which is what I explained happened to me. It is like saying to an abused wife or something.. look at yourself.. you have some reason deep down that gives him the right to hit you. I feel as though I am standing up for players rights to not be trolled and participate in base is all.

[qan]

Then give me some solution to work with that everybody can be happy with. Forcing caps to choose players is extremely heavy-handed. Even if they're chosen, there's no reason caps couldn't just sub them out. (Do you make subbing out of forced players illegal? Or only allowed if they're within certain lag limits? Do subs need to be checked by staff?) They can also put them into a ship they can't play well (need adds/switches verified?), etc. We'd need to create a ruleset for enforcing fair play of these forced players that captains don't want to pick.

The point is, this is a bad solution for many reasons: many players would hate it; it adds on a lot of development time; and it requires a lot of oversight/additional rules. The best solutions are ones that require no staff oversight at all. That one is probably the most important consideration, if the solution is seen fairly neutrally in the community. Low development time is desirable but not necessary. And ideally, more than two people should agree to implement the idea.

I'm sure, given a bit of thought, you can brainstorm some solutions that fit the bill. Or you could advocate going back to the open !cap system, or staffcaps. Don't see how forced choices would work at present, though.

[Falconeer]

Forcing play of any players goes against the precedent set in the arena over the years, which is that caps are allowed to play whomever they wish. It might be worth including some kind of feature that PMs the caps letting them know who benched all of the last round and is not idle/wants to play. Or, some kind of wait list, where if not chosen, players can send a command and are added to the "I got next" list, and this list is PMd to caps, but doesn't force them to add.

There are people in this game who carry personal vendettas to extremes (and nobody but Ogron would challenge that Ogron is one of them) ... and I would agree that they might not add you to their line while they're capping because of this. But this isn't against the rules, and I'm not really sure how you can make it against the rules without radically transforming how base works as a whole.

I'd recommend you instead get proactive, and find one other person who is also not getting added. Then team up with them so that one of you gets cap. One does !cap, and the other seconds. Then you can add yourselves, if you please. If you can't find even one other person in the arena who thinks you should cap, you probably shouldn't cap. Regardless of if you're not being played for personal reasons.

I already gave you a system, every third game is geared toward people who didn't get a chance to play yet. Vets should already be satiated by the fact that they had two full base games before hand, and I know 99% of people here want to help the game and train players to be good in league so why would they be upset if there was a structure in place geared towards that?

there is no real forced aspect of it, it could be as simple as providing incentives for recruiting people who didn't play yet.. it would have to be incentives for the captain, like some sort of encouragement. it could be as simple as calling the third game a training base game, and the bot saying recruit players who didn't play yet: the community would manage itself and try and follow along because it's what was setup to help all of trench wars.

when the bot says it's a training game, and to recruit someone who didn't play yet, and people willfully choose against that, not just once, but continually, it then becomes trolling/greifing, they would be showing little care for players and for the zone. so it manages itself essentially. even ogron and rab seem like they can get behind helping players, i honestly don't see why not.

[qan]

I wouldn't call that a system so much as the start of an idea.

We'd have to look at how many consecutive base games run, to begin with. See http://www.trenchwars.org/base to get a feel for it. We're basically looking at the days where there are 5-10 games running in succession.

I'm not sure that simply branding a game (from the dev/staff side of things) as a training game would be taken seriously by players. It'd need support from the community to be put in and have any impact.

Incentivizing playing unplayed players would be interesting. But not sure of the sort of incentive that could be offered, especially without it getting abused.

Maybe during a training game or similar, could display the overall team strength based on past records? (Wouldn't work with aliases, though.) Or, make a few simple changes, such as showing the list of players who weren't played last round. When players who were added last round are added again, could even include a simple notification when they're picked, such as "(picked last round)". Small, subtle hints that encourage more rotation.

[Jessup]

I personally would like to see it just go back to the automated cap race where the first to claim it gets it. Base worked really smoothly using that system for a few years now. If there is a player failing to add or trolling their cap position ruining the game they should be dealt with by staff and have cap position removed and given to another player. The captain should then be warned who was trolling and disrupting play within the game. Troll caps could also get a strikes on them and have it recorded within staffbot and if you get like 3 strikes be set on a no cap list for a period of time. (I still was not seeing this hardly ever). I don't feel anything should be changed with the sub out feature but it would be nice to see staff review caps actions and look for patterns of trolling using this feature. Troll subbing should be frowned upon greatly and fall into a strike zone against captains who abuse this feature.

Also I'm sorry if I seemed overly harsh towards you. You do a lot of good work for the zone and I don't want to make it seem like I don't appreciate you the majority of the time. I just strongly disagreed with this idea from its inception and it gets my blood boiling now seeing people doing the exact exploits, exclusion and abuse of players I feared would happen all along.

[Falconeer]

I wouldn't call that a system so much as the start of an idea.

We'd have to look at how many consecutive base games run, to begin with. See http://www.trenchwars.org/base to get a feel for it. We're basically looking at the days where there are 5-10 games running in succession.

I'm not sure that simply branding a game (from the dev/staff side of things) as a training game would be taken seriously by players. It'd need support from the community to be put in and have any impact.

Incentivizing playing unplayed players would be interesting. But not sure of the sort of incentive that could be offered, especially without it getting abused.

Maybe during a training game or similar, could display the overall team strength based on past records? (Wouldn't work with aliases, though.) Or, make a few simple changes, such as showing the list of players who weren't played last round. When players who were added last round are added again, could even include a simple notification when they're picked, such as "(picked last round)". Small, subtle hints that encourage more rotation.

I agree with these, I can't think of a system either and I wouldn't want to decide one for a group of people on my own. It's more like if there is a system, then within that system we could provide incentives to pick at least 1 inexperienced player that round. (so again nothing forced, but more like positive reinforcement, or some small gain or something, maybe even pubbux). So what that system is, or what the incentive might be... i basically leave that up to everyone else to decide.. haha =) heck maybe you can reward people with a trainer ship skin, which can expire, so basically if you let in people who the bot says never played yet, or let in an inexperienced player, you get rewarded a ship skin over time, and if you stop doing this the ship skin is taken away.

But yeah, of course showing who played last round is a start, or even better, just list who hasn't had a chance to play that day. So a new game is starting, the bot announces: player1, player12, player18, have not played today yet. something like that anyway might encourage people to ask them if they want to play.

the goal isn't just to get new players playing, i just want people in general who haven't had a chance to play to be able to, even if they are pro or a vet. sometimes i see the same lines over and over again, and many good players are left in spec too.