Distension discussion

[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.

[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:

[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.

[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

[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'.

[KuNi]

ok, lanc and weasel are almost impossible to unlock now, unless you have already unlocked them. spider can no longer unlock lanc, cause everybody can tank a lot of level 1 bullets, and noone is even near unlocking level 2s, terrier cant unlock it easily either cause theres so many people shooting bullets all over the place(cause everyone is such high level and high charge rate) that they cant come out and shoot without dying.
weasel is also hard to unlock, but not as hard as lanc. most people would of unlocked weasel by camping with wb in fr, but a lot more people can tank level 2 bullets easily, and theres jabs lobbing bombs in the side of fr.Also they're in the path of where x's sneak into fr, and of course they cant see them cause hardly any wb's have xradar.
lots of newbs coming to distension will want to play as there favourite ship, and there are lots of complaints about, "wheres my weasel!",and "how come i cant use lancaster!", its hard enough to unlock them with a level 0 ship, and by the time they are a higher level, it will be even harder to unlock the 2 secret ships.
I dont know how to fix this problem, but maybe for players that have been playing distension for a long time, get weasel and/or lanc once they get to commander rank(100 army wins)?
i hope there is a way to make it easier, because or else, all the players who have weasel and lanc now will be the only ones with it, and will make them more overpowering.

or you could just give me lanc and ill shut up

[Lizard Fuel]

I never really thought about it this much, but I agree with this guy. Back when my highest level was like...15, I obtained the weasel rather easily. Ended up losing it the very next battle to Stabwound anyways, but I didn't care much at the time cause I figured I could get it back whenever I wanted. Now I can't even get close to the 20 streak required (Sir Chrono has killed me 7 times at 18 or 19, then I stopped trying).

I would suggest a level unlock for both ships, like maybe a level 40 ship for weasel, and a 50 ship for lancaster, not to replace the current standards, but an addition to.

[jngy slate]

how do u unlock weasel and lanc?

and also for the balanced teams algorithm, the bot should consider a lot more than just RP. like danknuggets said, emphasis should be put on terriers and sharks. what else does the bot keep track of in the database? does it keep track of how many total kills and deaths someone has? it should consider k/d ratio. im not sure how the k/d ratio for sharks in distension is, but in base and pub the ratio is like 1/15. so it should keep in mind if people are playing their role in their ship, or just running around killing people. it should consider teks, are the ships who should be killing the terr killing it most of the time? for the 15 vs 10 problem, i don't know if it does this but does it shuffle just the people who are currently online, or does it shuffle every single player in the database? if it's every single player, it should organize the team by the ones that are currently online, have been recently online, or have played in recent distension events. because some people get on just for distension and nothing else. or get online when distension starts and stay.

someone with access to the database, what are all the fields in the users table?

and cheese!, you could try looking at this site for design ideas
http://www.oswd.org/

[Trunks_rage]

I never really thought about it this much, but I agree with this guy. Back when my highest level was like...15, I obtained the weasel rather easily. Ended up losing it the very next battle to Stabwound anyways, but I didn't care much at the time cause I figured I could get it back whenever I wanted. Now I can't even get close to the 20 streak required (Sir Chrono has killed me 7 times at 18 or 19, then I stopped trying).

I would suggest a level unlock for both ships, like maybe a level 40 ship for weasel, and a 50 ship for lancaster, not to replace the current standards, but an addition to.

I don't think it should be easier to unlock Lanc to be honest because then everyone would be lanc. Similarly with the weasel. But I do think the spider is too hard to upgrade or at the very least should be able to get lvl 2 bullets at rank 40 rather than 47. It's still my highest ranking ship but it isn't very effective now that most people can eat so many lvl 1 bullets. If the spider was easier to upgrade it would be easier for people to get lanc because it is the best ship to unlock lanc with. As it stands now the point spreads are enormous to get to rank 47 and having only lvl 1 bullets isn't going to be enough to get there.

[Stabwound]

The only real stats the db stores are battles won and your ship unlocks/ranks/upgrades. It doesn't store kills/deaths or anything like that. I found that kind of odd, though, and really don't know why it wouldn't at least store K/D and maybe total time played.

I've made some suggestions to qan as far as team strength goes. Right now every ship is equal in weight: a rank 50 terrier has the same weight as a rank 50 spider, even though the terrier is clearly much more useful to the team and should be worth at least 2x as much as the spider. Terriers, and to a lesser extent, sharks, should weigh more in team strength than they do now, as they are by far the most important aspect of a successful team. I also suggested that teams with only one terrier in a 2-flag game should have a large amount of strength rating taken off, as it is virtually impossible for them to win. The same should happen with sharks but with a lesser amount of strength taken off. These changes would go a long way toward making team strength ratings more accurate and should make avarice happen much more often in unbalanced games.

[KuNi]

soo... what happened this morning? distension died? could of at least recycled the server 30 seconds later to save the 45 minute round.

[roxxkatt]

ill just leave this here...

jngy slate> whats $?
jngy slate> no srsly whats $?
5:jngy slate> hahha suckas
5:jngy slate> i asked the mods
5:jngy slate> so prooud that u know ur little online game slang and someone else does

I would suggest a level unlock for both ships, like maybe a level 40 ship for weasel, and a 50 ship for lancaster, not to replace the current standards, but an addition to.

a very wise idea

someone with access to the database, what are all the fields in the users table?

its np, i have those, theyre already in

It doesn't store kills/deaths or anything like that

ive wanted a !stats since almost the beginning, but it isnt that important, theres a whole bunch of random crap we could keep track of

[KuNi]

"I would suggest a level unlock for both ships, like maybe a level 40 ship for weasel, and a 50 ship for lancaster, not to replace the current standards, but an addition to."

I don't think that is a good idea cause terr is obviously the ship that is easiest to level up, and you would be able to unlock lanc much quicker in a terr compared to, say, a spider.Or would this be the reward for people playing terrier because its the most important ship in the team?

[Chasov]

i agree that we need another way to unlock weasel+lanc.
maybe get lvl 30 in all assault ships for lanc
and lvl 30 in all support ships for weasel?

[Stabwound]

(MessageBot)>2009 Jan 19 9:01AM (distension) qan: Until we're able to get a better bot server, the player cap has been set to 24, and the message rate has been reduced somewhat. This is just a temporary precaution.

This is due to the crash that happened a few days ago. I know that cap sucks but it's better than not being able to play at all.

(MessageBot)>2009 Jan 19 9:01AM (distension) qan: Additionally: Ops, please spec-lock or ban those who abuse the assist system, and shut down the bot if the winning freq refuses to assist and it's heavily imbalanced.

There are people that abuse the shit out of the assist system by purposely assisting onto the stronger team, or assisting right before a win, etc (and you know who you are) and if you do it you're going to be punished. On the other hand, in the case that the teams are greatly imbalanced, feel free to assist the losing team or you might find the bot going down. :greedy: