Test a Cram Reset in ?go base

[Mootland Farmer]

This is essentially, a mercy / surrender rule.

There have always been blowouts in games, even in TWLB games, and the response from other teams was that they became better and developed new ways to break the cram.

It is hard to imagine anyone who takes competitive games seriously wanting to have this implemented.

[Rab]

Just played it, the warps are totally unexpected, there's a green message but ur not looking at the chat when u play so u never see it. It doesn't make a sound or anything. Completely surprise to be warped, means u don't take proper advantage of it, everyone just types "WTF" instead of getting the flag.

One way of doing it is to warp to the safe, wait a couple of seconds, then warp to fr.

[Jessup]

Careful mootland.. you're fixing to get forum ignored by ogron and rab disagreeing with this and then trolled nonstop in game by them too.

While I personally am not against this idea to be TRIED OUT .. I still feel your pain. I had a similar reaction to his idea of an "elite whiteout list" for ?go base which would be excluding large numbers of 10 plus year ?go base vets.

I'm holding my final judgement on this implementation until I see the results and play a game or 2 in it.

Your comment is noted.. at least in my mind.. (and I'm sure MANY others)

[qan]

Had a chance to see this in action over breakfast. Seems like it has potential, but at the moment there are some serious flaws.

- Need to reset mines and other weapons by warping to safe
- Need to make it clearer that it's about to be triggered, so people aren't surprised:
* Sound at 10 second warning
* Warp to safe for a few seconds? (This could mean that the capping team gets a few free seconds, potentially even the seconds that win the game, though perhaps this is totally fair, as if they were holding cram there's no chance the enemy team would be able to cap within that limited time ...)
* GO GO GO at actual earwarp?

- 3 min timer might be a bit short? It didn't seem like these were situations where cram was solidly locked down with no hope of coming back. But that might be addressed by:

- Starting the timer from the TeK. This is harder than it sounds (from a clear would be too much to think about atm). Considerations:
* In most situations, a flag claim will precede a TeK, as the claimers move into position and then push out the team. This is easy enough to handle: the timer starts from the first TeK after the flag is claimed.
* In some situations, such as with out-of-position Terrs, warps, shrap, and unrepped strays from specials, a TeK will precede the cap. In this case we need to start the timer from the flag claim itself. The question is, how many seconds should a pre-cap TeK be "valid" for, for the purposes of starting the consecutive timer from the flag cap and not a TeK that occurs after the cap?

- Special considerations:
* If the cram was broken and the attacking team is now in FR, but the consecutive timer is still going, it will feel quite annoying if play is interrupted by earwarp. Potentially, an FR battle could rage for a long time without the attacking team taking flag, and at any point during this time earwarp might occur.
* Weird behavior could result if counting timer from TeK and it happened that both Terrs were killed.

[qan]

The more I think about this, what we're really testing for is unbroken cram of a certain length, which is totally separate from flag claims and even TeKs. It basically has everything to do with the position of the attacking Terr. So it seems we should be checking the position of the attacking Terr every second to see if it doesn't make it past cram for a consecutive X seconds (180s currently). That's a lot more simple than any of the other conditions. If the Terr is outside of FR for the whole of the specified time, that's a truly unbroken cram. As Moot said, this is more of a mercy condition, and probably not something that should be triggered all that often.

If the attacking team is partially breaking in, even without a flag touch, it doesn't seem to indicate they need this kind of assistance, does it? They're totally capable of cram break. Or, even more simply, maybe they're making it into base but the Terr is still kept below the bar and can't advance to cover one of the sides? Would it suffice to check if the attacking Terr is below the bar for a consecutive X seconds, with flag also held by defenders during that entire time? (That's also an extremely easy check.)

[ogron]

If you can make the conditions more specific so it kinda knows when its a true tek and cram and start the clock only on those conditions, that's awesome.

I thought the reset warp was really beneficial to ?go base, and it only happened 1-2x a game, and made it more fun and competitive. A lot of times people lag out, or leave for a jd, or are making subs, and you kinda want a big reset to get the other team back in it.

As I said, I think this belongs in ?go base.

The comments I saw from veterans who believed this was going into TWL were very negative. I don't think there will be the support to implement it this season, and frankly I'm not sure there should be a cram reset in TWL, but I'm certainly more for it than most.

When I told them it was just for ?go base, the sentiment shifted quite a bit, from neutral to positive, although there are some holdouts.

I think there's enough community support to really push for this in ?go base, and nothing else.

That's where I'd leave it.

If it gains momentum for TWDT or TWL or TWBD at some point, we can re-visit it, but it's not there right now, and it needs to be tested out more and refined and people need a better warning on-screen somewhere as to when it is going to happen (ie, a timer).

[qan]

I think consecutive flag time held combined with the attacking terr being below the bar that entire time should give us roughly what we're looking for. After the terr dies, FR's cleared and the cram goes into place, if the attacking terr can't for that entire period of time get above the bar, the hold has effectively been unbroken (even if they're getting into FR, only to be pinned down and then wiped out again).

Can work from that. Not 100% confident that represents the intent, but I think it's decent enough. Certainly a lot better than just flag claim time, and not laden with problems of checking for last TeK before or after the claim.

Just added safewarps and sounds to provide slightly better indicators of when this is happening, so it's not as big a shock, as well as using the countdown timer at round start. Hopefully not too confusing/mistaken for a total game reset.

[Jessup]

Thanks for the work you are putting in qan.

I think this diagram is the best spot to focus on for the cram buster clock to reset. Once the terr crosses this line reboot the clock to wait for another TEK. I suppose the coordinates need to be found and inputted. Might be tricky for you.. not sure .. ur the coder wiz We are lucky to have you.

When the actual clock kicks in to reset teams and break the cram I suggest simulating the public arena gogogogo code you made for the start of each round there. That sound byte would be perfect too as a notice. Can you just copy that part of the code you already wrote and add the coords into it? It works well for pub. It wipes out mine exploits and ports. Respawns entire team in their perspective ear with all ships maxed out in full energy, repels, bursts and ports.

The delay that you get in the pub arena when the new round starts and resets the game sending us to safes and then back into the ears is all we need to react to it too. I also see no reason for an external clock popping up showing the countdown until this reset happens. We don't need teams just looking at it and waiting around for it. That could KILL action. Have the clock hidden definitely internally for cram bust warp. .

If you want to make a bigger scoreboard clock.. that would be really nice too. Please don't overlay anything on field of play though. I can't wait to try a game with this!.

[Jessup]

edit kills imgs on this forum. reposting the diagram cram buster line for clock reset that waits for the next Terr kill/TEK

[qan]

Hmm. I think those coords would be better than the bar, yes. But, the bar is a lot easier to code, as it doesn't require regions to be setup. So I've made it just use the bar for now -- once an attacking terr goes above the bar once, the hold timer is reset.

Right now I have it set up to do the following:

- After a team begins holding the flag and enemy terr is below the bar, consecutive hold timer is started. (This isn't great, as there are plenty of situations where an enemy terr could be in FR below the bar a significant time. But this is still a big improvement over starting the timer from the flag claim)
- Any time enemy terr goes above the bar, the hold timer is reset
- When 10 seconds are remaining before hold completion, a 10 second warning arena msg is shown, with sound
- On hold completion, hold notice shown, with sound
- Immediately after hold notice, warp players to safe for 5 seconds
- Display the 5-4-3-2-1 graphic (as it's already there) -- this won't cover any action, as players will be in safe
- Warp into FR and play the GO sound along with a GO message

[skyforger]

Change the map a bit. Some holes in the walls to allow a direct shot at the cram or even an extra entrance.Imo bot use should be last resort and cram isn't such a problem to warrant it to begin with.

[Jessup]

ok that is a great start! good work, wish I got to see it in play today. Ideally the lines on my image I showed would be best though. I am a little confused why you are resetting the cram clock inside the base when there is no cram happening. I thought the idea was to start the clock as soon as a TEK takes place. The cram is almost always after a TEK unless the terr runs out of base or has a port below. It makes some sense to do it your way though now that I think about it because a cram can in fact happen without a TEK though it is kind of rare but certainly not unheard of. Perhaps there are obstacles resetting a clock with specific vertical coords? Why is the bar in base easier to code being horizontal instead of my spot being vertical??? Is it a never ending line you have to deal with in coord position in order to trigger the cram clock?? If so below the base is the way to go.

I sadly do not know what is possible and not possible in these coding regards. I've made maps and seen specific cords listed. I've done warp commands for players to specific locations but I've never coded a matchbot lol. I understand Continuum is closed source game and you have to work within the parameters of code by integrating it into the matchbot which relays from the bot server and then tie it into the game server. I know it is a messy way to go with more hurdles than open source would be. Seems dirty and tricky to do and I understand the hurdles you are facing.

If it is a never ending horizontal line that is the issue for the cram clock activation I would reset the cram here in below image.

[qan]

Yes, it's basically checking an endless line, one coordinate, rather than checking two coordinates and all the coords inside them (a region, such as FR, which is a series of tiles rather than a single coord).

The issue with checking after a TeK, if you read up to one of the messy posts I made earlier today, is that it's not a guaranteed method. The TeK can occur before or after the flag claim; a double TeK can occur (both sides); and if the defending team can't clear, a terr can even return to FR after being killed without facing a cram. In many cases it doesn't make sense to start counting a "hold" from the time of a TeK, because it's just not a real hold.

(Aside about the bots: There's a lot that's possible even with our client-side bots, surprisingly. Honestly it makes it a little bit more fun sometmes, because the limitations mean you often have to think of unusual solutions. However, some things are definitely harder than they need to be, or in most cases, just time-consuming. Regions are slightly time-consuming, though if needed I can harvest the code from pubsystem. We're not even sure if this feature's worth keeping around yet, though.)

I'm a little confused about your line. Any terr will easily be able to cross that line and reset the consecutive hold timer, no? Terr is killed, Terr is outside the line while in spawn, Terr begins assaulting cram and crosses line in the process. Hold broken. This isn't just for cram clock activation, but rather, the line which can not be crossed at any time during the hold by the attacking terr in order for the earwarp reset to take place.

[Jessup]

Lol as suspected when you build something new you run into the old saying of "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". I'm just realizing my line here would reset over and over during the cram every time the terr crossed it which would happen a ton sigh. So if it is a never ending horizontal line you have to work with here would be the place to have it activated. If a terr got crammed out before dying.. they would have to fly down here on purpose and cross the line to reset it for the team to take advantage of the cram buster warp clock reset. Of course any TEK will auto reset it by having respawn below these lines.

I'm just really confused how why the inner base bar is being used to reset the cram clock.

[Falconeer]

Lol as suspected when you build something new you run into the old saying of "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". I'm just realizing my line here would reset over and over during the cram every time the terr crossed it which would happen a ton sigh. So if it is a never ending horizontal line you have to work with here would be the place to have it activated. If a terr got crammed out before dying.. they would have to fly down here on purpose and cross the line to reset it for the team to take advantage of the cram buster warp clock reset. Of course any TEK will auto reset it by having respawn below these lines.

I'm just really confused how why the inner base bar is being used to reset the cram clock.

Whoever ignored jessup is missing out on the awesome diagrams... rofl