Distension discussion

[E sharp]

It still looks like Geocities in 1999.

And for all the talk of reshuffles and strength and whatnot, I'd point out that this business of trying to create balance on the basis of rank or even past wins is only a best-guess heuristic. Pefectly matched numbers give you fair potential to win, but they don't guarantee it; there are also the factors of, for instance, skill (yes!), plain-old luck, and even defeatism ("Well, we're going to lose anyway—might as well not even try"). The bot cannot, or should not, account for those things. And of course all things being even there are still going to be bad streaks; try flipping a coin a dozen times and you're sure to find that it's sometimes 'severely imbalanced'.

[roxxkatt]

which is why terrs/sharks need to have more weight...


unrelated:

I am pleased to announce that I have created Distension Database backups! Those who remember the crash that distroyed Beta can now take comfort in knowing that their data is now safe! -Cheese

also:
trying out some darker colors for the new site, tell me what you think...
http://cz.sshq.net/distension

[Stabwound]

The shuffle isn't random; it sorts the entire list of players by battles won in descending order and them distributes them (mostly) equally between both teams. If one team sucks after the shuffle it's probably because one team has more/better sharks/terriers or greatly outnumbers the other. That's all the games really come down to.

[KuNi]

Isn't it funny that after the shuffle, and one team wins 0% of the time, that i am the only complainer. And when one team wins 33% of the time, heaps of people keep complaining, and yell out shuffle the teams? all of the complainers are on 1 team, and now that they're the winning team all they care about is rp, and gaining levels. They won the round in less than 10 minutes almost every time, and when they win, they score 10 goals to 0 every time, oh wait, dw, the losing freq scored twice in the two hours, scratch that.
At one stage the losing team had 18-14 players but they were still losing, is there a way to make the shuffleing thingo make teams more even, by including different skill levels,among other things (ask jngy). And when the teams were 18-14, a lot of people assisted to the winning team, and when the winning team got more people(16-12 at one stage), noone chose to assist back.
not happy :crying:

[Trunks_rage]

The bitching about "unbalanced" teams is annoying as shit. I agree that it sucks when one team wins 5-minute games over and over, but that hasn't really been happening when I've been there (and if it did, I'd shuffle). If the games are 20-minutes long and one team wins more than the other, how in the world are they unbalanced? There are a few loudmouthed idiots who scream "SHUFFLE TEAMS!!!!!" every time their team loses, even though the game went on for 15-20 minutes. Sorry, but that's not unbalanced; your team is just sucking near the end.

I just don't understand it. In the above post, one team won 66% of the time-- what exactly is your problem with that? I guess people will only be happy when every game ends in a stalemate? Or perhaps teams should just take turns letting the other team win so the wins are split 50/50? :rolleyeso

I played last night on the 9-11 shift. I was there for the whole thing and my team didn't win a single round, also during the ball game the other team scored at will. The reason being they had better terrs and better players all around. The best we did was the last round where we finally pushed it to a tie. I think there should be a limit to terr rank per team and someone on staff needs to actually shuffle games when they are imbalanced because i've never seen it done once. It's not such a burden to type a simple command is it?

You say it's because one team sucks at the end, that isn't true. Games can go on for a long time but that doesn't mean your team ever has the advantage, in fact it isn't that hard to defend only one base, but when you venture out and actually try to win the game you get overpowered because you don't have TWO good terrs. Ultimately the crappy one dies and you lose your home base while attacking the other one. I've seen games go on for 20 minutes that were extremely one-sided. One team is constantly on defense and no point during the game possesses both flags.

[roxxkatt]

the balance fix is long overdue

[DankNuggets]

While I think it's fine right now (i.e. no need to implement this) I've been thinking of a "point system" for figuring out army strengths:

assign points to an army based on a player's rank/ship combonation. instead of straight rank. Would be done on a different scale for each ship, since a rank 5 and rank 20 jav differ differently than a rank 5 and rank 20 shark.

something like:

rank|0-5|6-15|16-30|31-50|50+
WB  | 5 | 8  | 15  |  ?  | ? 
Jav | 5 | 8  | 12  |  ?  | ?
Spid| 5 | 10 | 20  |  ?  | ?
Levi| 5 | 10 | 18  |  ?  | ?
Terr| 20| 30 | 45  |  ?  | ?
 X  | 5 | 12 | 20  |  ?  | ?
Lanc| 5 | 12 | 25  |  ?  | ?
Shk | 10| 20 | 30  |  ?  | ?

something that would reflect the relative "strength to the team" in regards to the ship's abilities.

obviously this would require someone to have a good knowledge of what ranks certain ships become more powerful than others, and at what point would you say "X rank is worth twice as much as Y rank" or "A ship is worth two B ships"

That way your army's strenght relies on both the ship choices as well as the skill (loosely defined through rank) of the players.

A good counter argument to this though, is that it allows a team to field a really weak line (i.e. no terriers or sharks) and cause avarice because they're too lazy to play the basing ships.



All of that is good and all for giving strength to players, but someone still needs to figure out a way to fix the "well it's 12 v 16 right now, strengths are even based on ranks, but we're getting raped because we're outnumbered" problem. I think if someone's going to tackle this right, they should include the ship types to some degree, as well as reduce the importance of one or two high-ranking ppl in the formula (team with 12 probably has 2-3 really high ranked ppl, who despite having 5x the RP, aren't 5x better players to compensate).

I think Qan tackled this with giving a base rating, then adding to it for each rank. That makes the difference a little better since it doesn't start at zero, but it's still an arithmatic approach when what we ideally would have is a weighted one.

[Zeebu]

instead of going with wins and losses, can you keep a tally of the RP difference between teams? then if one team starts to pull away alot, swap them around.

[Stabwound]

The bitching about "unbalanced" teams is annoying as shit. I agree that it sucks when one team wins 5-minute games over and over, but that hasn't really been happening when I've been there (and if it did, I'd shuffle). If the games are 20-minutes long and one team wins more than the other, how in the world are they unbalanced? There are a few loudmouthed idiots who scream "SHUFFLE TEAMS!!!!!" every time their team loses, even though the game went on for 15-20 minutes. Sorry, but that's not unbalanced; your team is just sucking near the end.

I just don't understand it. In the above post, one team won 66% of the time-- what exactly is your problem with that? I guess people will only be happy when every game ends in a stalemate? Or perhaps teams should just take turns letting the other team win so the wins are split 50/50? :rolleyeso

[roxxkatt]

END OF BATTLE 1: Victory for INTERGALACTIC PLANETARY, INC. (1)
END OF BATTLE 2: Victory for PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY (0)
END OF BATTLE 3: Victory for PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY (0)
END OF BATTLE 4: Victory for INTERGALACTIC PLANETARY, INC. (1)
END OF BATTLE 5: Victory for PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY (0)
END OF BATTLE 6: Victory for PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY (0)
END OF WAR: GRAND VICTORY for PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY (0) !!


gonna keep track, for evidence

[roxxkatt]

have you tried to fix it?

[KuNi]

my sound for picking up a green is the same as mario picking up a coin in all the mario games
And now that i check i cant here it anymore
I should take ?go distension out of my auto, or i wont here that coin sound again

[roxxkatt]

if u dont want to, esc q, then options, then uncheck 'use optional lvz shit'

[roxxkatt]

grab a fresh copy of continuum

[jngy slate]

Now that I think about it I get that same thing too. o.O After Distension the sound of picking up a green is gone. I've been thinking it got changed. >_>