Elim Changes - Feedback requested

[ThePAP]

Hello everyone,

Recently a new feature (or annoyance, depending on your view/taste) has been added to the elim arena. This new feature is a splash window that shows the top 10 ranked Eliminiation Warbirds and Javelins. This splash screen will display to you for roughly 10 seconds upon entering the arena and will automatically update itself whenever there is a change in the ranks. This is done in such a way that you do not need to redownload the LVZ that is causing this. It's all done automatically, on the fly. The only time you may need to redownload something, is when the background image changes. (Which is 16kb in size, in the current download.)

That being said, people have different tastes and may be annoyed with this feature, so we've build in two new commands:

!disable	Allows you to disable the splash window showing upon arena entry. Using a second time, re-enables the feature.
!splash	Allows you to manually display the splash window to you, whenever you prefer this.

At this moment in time, !disable is not yet in its final version. We intent to have your preference logged into a database, but we still need to find a suitable location for this. So, at this moment, the bot will only remember your preference until it has been rebooted. Then all previous set preferences are lost. We will try to implement this as soon as possible, so that those who dislike this feature will not be bothered by it.

To continue the wall of text, this feature is still in a beta mode. Like mentioned above, the !disable command isn't in its final version yet, and a few other changes will be added to the system, to make the window more dynamic and useful. One of these features will be disclosed soon. Another possible feature is for it to also show the ranks for other types of ships, like the spider. (Yes, elim can be played with more than just the WB and Jav
Another thing that still may need tweaking, is the display time of the splash screen. Initially this was set at 5 seconds, but the first users found this too short. It's currently set at 10 seconds. We will need your feedback on this, if this is too short or too long etc, so that it can be fine-tuned to the best of our capabilities. The same goes for off-set characters and stuff like that. Don't worry though that every change will make you redownload the files. The only changes that will require this, is if we were to actually adjust the font of the text. (I.e. type, size, color) All other changes will be purely bot-side.

Finally, I want to give credit where credit is due.
- Demonic for requesting this feature about 5 months ago. (Sorry for the long delay, lots of other bot stuff that had to be done.);
- KrynetiX for providing the graphics, especially the letters;
- JabJabJab for providing assistance with the LVZs;
- D1st0rt for the original technology used to allow this without having to redownload the LVZ each time it changes;
- fiS and several EG developers which hinted at the previous technology;
- Several developers, staffers and players who helped me test this thing (special mention to qan);
- M_M God for enabling it all on the live server;
- POiD and 24 for advice on the database side of this feature;
- If applicable, the person who gave the idea to Demonic. (My memory is terrible, sorry.)

Anyhow, I would much appreciate any feedback you can give us, to improve upon this feature. Preferably constructive comments of course, but anything is welcome.

ThePAP

PS.
For those wondering what my part was in this. I wrote the actual bot module and optimized the technology written by D1st0rt in such a way that it wouldn't kick the bot or recycle the server.

[Mythril]

Looks great, I appreciate your work and effort. My only feedback has to do with elim itself. One of the biggest problems I see with subspace nowadays is the game's lack of ability to provide competitive players with instant gratification whenever they log on. Elim used to bridge the gap, but it's not nearly as active, or more importantly competitive as it used to be. This is because of obvious reasons to me: !scorereset feature was added and there's no more usage requirements.

Elim used to be viewed as its own league. Ranking in elim was one of the most respected and competitive things about this game. Now it's mostly a joke since everyone has infinite amounts of tries to rank with !scorereset or they can just decide to not have a rank at all and scorereset after every game. This takes away all accountability for the way people perform in elim.

The same applies for there being no usage requirement. There's countless trolls who are able to create a random name and play just to fuck with people. The usage requirement was 100 hours when I started playing in 2001 and was decreased to 36 around 2002. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to implement a requirement of 200+ hours usage considering 13 years have passed since then.

Making elim an active and competitive arena again could revive a lot about this game. Elim is a much better training grounds for this game than wbduel or javduel. I remember being a newbie and speccing people like banzi, Raspi and blood in elim for hours just to see how they played so I could learn and get better. People used to be able to make a name for themselves in elim. Newbies don't really have that opportunity anymore to build their game up as a solo player first and then into a team player in DDs.

[Exalt]

I agree with Myth with almost everything he just stated. This is true in my eyes.

My main concern with elim is that the merge of baseelim with elim really seems counter-productive at this point. Baseelim used to always be dead, and those players bitched for so long that finally staff decided to merge the two. This was a good idea at the time I suppose, except that it seems to me that baseelim is almost always what is voted for these days, and so regular elim players like I used to be basically quit playing it. I realize that after so many jav games, a wb game is forced on the system, but no wbs are willing to stick around for 4 or 5 jav games simply to play 1 wb game, and so usually when wb elim is either voted for or forced by roboref, everyone specs until the game resets and another jav elim can be voted upon.

Really, every time I used to quit for a few months at a time back in the day, my main way of unrusting was to play a bunch of elim (wb elim) games to get my aim/dodge/overall skill back. This is impossible to do nowadays, for the reasons I mentioned already. If I WANTED to play javs, I would've played baseelim or .?go javs back in the day. Merging the two basically either forces players to play a ship they don't really enjoy (be it either wb-prefering players being forced to play javs, or jav-prefering players being forced to play wb), or it forces players to look for alternatives to play the ship they prefer. It is rare for players to enjoy all ships in this game. It simply is. Yes, there are players that are good or at least decent in all ships, but those players are pretty rare, and a lot of players (at least back in the day) focused on ONE ship to become "elite" in that specific ship. This is pretty much impossible in elim these days.

I guess what I'm saying, to add to what Mythril already stated pretty well, is that it lowers the overall competitiveness of what elim used to bring, it lowers the overall skill level that players used to gain through focusing on one ship, and it basically has killed elim as an active arena in a lot of ways. I certainly hardly ever play elim now, due to A) wb elim being rarely voted for due to the over-abundance of javs and B) wb elim basically only having a couple actual wbs playing in it nowadays, with either a few bored jav players either doing it for shits n giggles, or them all specing until the next jav game is voted for (which it always will be voted for much more frequently than wb). Basically, WBs cannot win in this system, and it fucks up what elim used to be.

In my personal opinion, I'd like to see the old elim and baseelim arenas seperated, at least for a small trial period. The ONLY reason they were merged back in the day was due to the javs all bitching. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but now WBs have suffered for it. It really sucks that I cannot unrust the way that I used to by playing elim, because elim isn't a viable option for me anymore. I have wbduel, which as Myth stated, is not a good way to either unrust or gain in skill level, or I can play TWDD/TWL, which are both BAD places to be unrusting, since it affects the squad negatively if players like me (who are trying to unrust) are negatively affecting the outcomes if we are not pulling our own weight so to speak. I know on certain squads, like the one I am in now (lightning strike) is pretty understanding of the fact that I am unrusting (using myself as an example) and so give me all the chances I need in TWD to fix those issues for our upcoming TWL games on Sundays, but when I joined Wolf (for example), there are too many egos, all of which want to play, and so a couple games going negative basically issue a permanent benching. This is not really good for TW players who enjoy TWD/TWL overall, because there are quite a few players who are coming back to TW and wanting to unrust. A lot of them used to play elim to do that, but like I stated, that is not a viable option anymore.

Can we at least TRY to separate the two arenas again for a trial period? Also, could we not try to add the usage limit again? Make it somewhat prestigious again. Myth is exactly right about everything he said in which elim used to be a training ground and a good way to get better. Back when I became serious about getting better in TW and left pub for the first times in 2000/2001, I did so because elim was always packed full of great players like Raspi/blood/demonfaze/banzi/etc and playing against those players individually helped me learn their styles and both copy a few of their moves and also find ways to beat them with my own.

I agree with Mythril here on everything he said, and I hope that we can at least TRY to improve upon things. I truly believe that the merging of elim and baseelim, along with removing the ?usage limit was basically a bad call, considering how inactive elim truly is nowadays. Not only is it inactive, but nobody really great plays it anymore.

[Kim]

Removing usage limits for ranked elim makes the rankings less interesting to pursue. Really...I don't care that azngoku604 who is really a league player aliased has 1000 rating in baseelim, I don't even know who that is. It gives me no recognizable cue as to what squad this person plays on, what kind of reputation they have, nothing. I suggest that all players are allowed to play in elim, but only those who have a minimum amount of usage to participate in monthly rankings which reset. No scoreresets as Mythril says just to make things more interesting.

[Morh]

Baseelim used to always be dead, and those players bitched for so long that finally staff decided to merge the two.

So belim were dead and elim were active. Javs bitched about it, and the arenas got merged into one. Suddenly, everyone is a jav and no one wants to play wb? I don't know where you were when this happened, but it was elim that was dead and the wb's who complained.

[Exalt]

So belim were dead and elim were active. Javs bitched about it, and the arenas got merged into one. Suddenly, everyone is a jav and no one wants to play wb? I don't know where you were when this happened, but it was elim that was dead and the wb's who complained.

I don't know where YOU were, but I remember this completely differently. Nobody played baseelim back in the day, and all the javs played in .?go javs. Elim was always booming. Like I said, why can't we do it the old way with separate elim/baseelim arenas at least for a small trial period? Do it for a week or two and see what happens? How could this hurt? If elim is completely dead after that, well then so be it. If baseelim dies because of it and elim is still booming, then so be it. If both are booming, then everyone is happy, no? .?go javs is what ruined baseelim back in the day if I remember correctly. Elim was never dead like it is now until the two were merged. I think we are both remembering things differently.

Either way, is it such a bad thing to try the old system for at least a small trial period? Along with the ?usage requirements? What could this possibly hurt?

[Zeebu]

back in the day it was one arena. it was later separated into belim and elim and supported both for several years. population fell and then elim and belim both suffered and flourished at times. both ran sporadically. the main factor into seeing whether one actually started to take off seemed to be a big name going on a game winning streak. this happened in both elim and belim in what appeared to be a fairly common rate (though one at a time.) if i had to take a guess, id say belim was still slightly more popular.

it was combined again presumably due to additional population drop. now one group or the other controls it for games on end. it seems as if javs usually get control of it. if you split them again i would expect a general spike in activity for a couple days, then back to even less than now.

my opinion is that you should force it so you cant vote more than 3 games in a row of one ship. also remove the options of 1 or 2 deaths. thats fucking stupid. you arent going to make everyone happy regardless of the decision.

[Morh]

Either way, is it such a bad thing to try the old system for at least a small trial period? Along with the ?usage requirements? What could this possibly hurt?

I never said I disagree about this, didn't care much about belim any ways. Javs and Javduel are more fun to play, and if they got active and belim died, then it's all good by me.

[cash.MONay]

back in the day it was one arena. it was later separated into belim and elim and supported both for several years. population fell and then elim and belim both suffered and flourished at times. both ran sporadically. the main factor into seeing whether one actually started to take off seemed to be a big name going on a game winning streak. this happened in both elim and belim in what appeared to be a fairly common rate (though one at a time.) if i had to take a guess, id say belim was still slightly more popular.

it was combined again presumably due to additional population drop. now one group or the other controls it for games on end. it seems as if javs usually get control of it. if you split them again i would expect a general spike in activity for a couple days, then back to even less than now.

my opinion is that you should force it so you cant vote more than 3 games in a row of one ship. also remove the options of 1 or 2 deaths. thats fucking stupid. you arent going to make everyone happy regardless of the decision.

What my man dumptruck johnson said. Remove the lower deaths. And keep it all in one arena. Would barely have elim going if it separated again.

[Demonic]

Looks great, I appreciate your work and effort. My only feedback has to do with elim itself. One of the biggest problems I see with subspace nowadays is the game's lack of ability to provide competitive players with instant gratification whenever they log on. Elim used to bridge the gap, but it's not nearly as active, or more importantly competitive as it used to be. This is because of obvious reasons to me: !scorereset feature was added and there's no more usage requirements.

Elim used to be viewed as its own league. Ranking in elim was one of the most respected and competitive things about this game. Now it's mostly a joke since everyone has infinite amounts of tries to rank with !scorereset or they can just decide to not have a rank at all and scorereset after every game. This takes away all accountability for the way people perform in elim.

The same applies for there being no usage requirement. There's countless trolls who are able to create a random name and play just to fuck with people. The usage requirement was 100 hours when I started playing in 2001 and was decreased to 36 around 2002. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to implement a requirement of 200+ hours usage considering 13 years have passed since then.

Making elim an active and competitive arena again could revive a lot about this game. Elim is a much better training grounds for this game than wbduel or javduel. I remember being a newbie and speccing people like banzi, Raspi and blood in elim for hours just to see how they played so I could learn and get better. People used to be able to make a name for themselves in elim. Newbies don't really have that opportunity anymore to build their game up as a solo player first and then into a team player in DDs.

Some good points, but bare in mind it is only in beta so there are some new features as pap said to go on such as a rolling reset of stats, so someone cant play for 1 month get a great score and not play for the rest of the year and retain rank.

Usage requirement is a good point, and I wasn't aware if I am honest it was removed. Bad call, and definitely should look to re-instate that. With the new rankings as well, the ability to scorereset defeats the object so also should not be there.

Elim merged was the original settings, but with 500+ players splitting the 2 made sense. Since we have dropped below the 250 again, it made sense to re-merge. I agree the voting system needs tweaking and I will speak to pap about that. I personally like wb or jav to 1, but not every game so I guess we will need to look at a few different options on how best to implement that side. I have a couple of idea's, but feel free if you can think of some, to take them to myself or pap.

[Exalt]

I guess I am biased as my main ship is WB, so I'll get that out of the way right off the bat, just so everyone can know where I stand before they read further, assuming they even want to read anything I say at this point (due to my tenancy to write very long, drawn out paragraphs).

I used to unrust/practice in elim, which was always WB, with the occasional random Lanc elim to 7 or something stupid like that. Beyond that, I always unrustd in elim to get my aim back at the very least. It was also fun to rank in it, and yes, there was no score reset, so what you did in each game mattered.

With the merging of elim and baseelim, it basically seems to me that javs have taken the entire thing over. Maybe ship 2 is just a more popular ship these days, I don't really know, but I do know that I don't really enjoy playing it. I do it occasionally, and ironically, I win more games nowadays playing baseelim than I do playing WB elim. That being said, I don't really enjoy it. I've always played elim for the WB aspect, and the ranking aspect was always to be the best I possiby could be as a WB. That has always been my main ship, it probably always will be, and it is the ship I enjoy playing the most.

I do understand that the population is much smaller than it used to be, but I guess I'm just saying that elim was much more fun to me when I knew every game was going to be WB. The deaths didn't matter to me, since I could play safer/more aggressive based on that. The main thing I did was try out new styles, new approaches, and new shots in WB elim. I actually got better as an individual player by playing a lot of elim games. That's my perspective.

So okay, I am biased for WB elim. I will readily admit that. I am also biased with the ?usage requirement, because I don't really enjoy playing AZNPUBNEWB123 that is aliased and frankly, a lot of dueling a player 1v1 has to do with knowing their style of play and their tendencies. I play differently based on the player that I'm VSing. If, for instance, I'm playing a player like Raspi, I know he will log a lot of shots and will generally not rush me if I miss. He will play more of a radar/mid-range type of game. If I'm playing a playing such as Racka, I know automatically that if I miss a shot, I am going to be rushed, and I have to dodge his next shot that will generally be a rush-style game. See my point? I have no idea how AZNPUBNEWB123 will play, and so it messes up my game plan for things like that. This is where ?usage comes in, because it lowers the amount of aliases that can play, not to mention that it is MUCH more fun to play against KNOWN vets than against some random alias that nobody knows anything about.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm still for a split between the arenas, but if that's an impossible dream, than I am also up for ?usage requirements, voting restrictions, and overall fairness with what type of ship is going to be played in each elim game.

[Rule]

Looks great, I appreciate your work and effort. My only feedback has to do with elim itself. One of the biggest problems I see with subspace nowadays is the game's lack of ability to provide competitive players with instant gratification whenever they log on. Elim used to bridge the gap, but it's not nearly as active, or more importantly competitive as it used to be. This is because of obvious reasons to me: !scorereset feature was added and there's no more usage requirements.

Elim used to be viewed as its own league. Ranking in elim was one of the most respected and competitive things about this game. Now it's mostly a joke since everyone has infinite amounts of tries to rank with !scorereset or they can just decide to not have a rank at all and scorereset after every game. This takes away all accountability for the way people perform in elim.

The same applies for there being no usage requirement. There's countless trolls who are able to create a random name and play just to fuck with people. The usage requirement was 100 hours when I started playing in 2001 and was decreased to 36 around 2002. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to implement a requirement of 200+ hours usage considering 13 years have passed since then.

Making elim an active and competitive arena again could revive a lot about this game. Elim is a much better training grounds for this game than wbduel or javduel. I remember being a newbie and speccing people like banzi, Raspi and blood in elim for hours just to see how they played so I could learn and get better. People used to be able to make a name for themselves in elim. Newbies don't really have that opportunity anymore to build their game up as a solo player first and then into a team player in DDs.

I think the addition made is a good one Pap, thank you for making it happen. I agree with what Myth stated, Elim could really use a facelift to attract the games core vets, and encourage new players to get better individually at a time when league play is at an all time low competitively - never seen it this bad before - horrendous. TWD is a bridge to TWL, elim, javduel, wbduel, base, pub etc is a bridge to TWD for newer players.

Not even 10 active dd squads in the zone (less then 10 games doesn't count)
Less then 15 jd squads
A mere 10 bd squads.

Less then 15 active unique squads in zone. Most TWL squads not recruiting players due to roster locks, lack of interest etc. Little opportunity for new talent to grow. And the growth process for most players takes time, its not a short span. European participation at an all time low as well.

Base is a great event and should be promoted and run more often in my opinion. More bd squads then better. What I see now is it pops up has 3-4 rounds then is done for the next 10hrs. Another few rounds and that's it - and that's on a good day.

Myths right, about any newb coming on and playing under multiple aliases, ranking quickly then not bothering to play anymore. Then doing it again with a new name. That kills the spirit of competition and makes it faceless. Usage limits were a way to stop aliasers from changing up names constantly. Older players like myself have zero respect for trolls and losers who get on aliases to talk smack, and act like jackasses - have something to say - say it on your regular name!. Elim has no identity now, and no one takes it seriously. I like the idea of genuine new players being able to play in elim, without the usage limit, a way to get around that too would be good.

The other option is to leave things as is, it wont be the death of elim, things will just stay the same!

[ThePAP]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, and sorry for my absence of replies. (Have been rather busy lately.)

It seems that most of the feedback is in regard to things that I cannot decide on, or at least, prefer not to decide on due to not playing elim that often. (What did pop into my head, is that some of these points would make excellent subjects for the Council to decide when it's instated.)

Anyhow, I've finally come around to making the !disable memory of the bot permanent. I.e. it will now remember your preference even when the bot is disconnected or respawned. I know through various in-game reports, this was quite a nuisance to a few players. Sorry it took so long.

Another upcoming change will be what exactly is displayed. Currently it displays the all-time-high ranking of only the Warbird and Javelin. This will be changed, by long standing request of Demonic, to a monthly system. For nostalgia sake though, I prefer to implement it in a rather fancy way and have both. Don't worry, not going to spam everyone to death, but my intent is to have the monthly rating display upon entry, and that players can choose via probably the !splash command, to display this month's ranking or the global/overall ranking. Why the fancy stuff? Well, the main intent by Demonic for the monthly stats, is to give more incentive for everyone to play. My main intent for the global stats, is to honor players of the old days.
Additionally to this, I'll also try to get the ranking working for the other ship classes besides Warbird and Javelin. This will most likely be top-3's. (Yes, you can actually play elim in other ships than the wb and jav

I've also noted some things in regard to when a player actually becomes ranked. Did a bit of digging in the code, and it turns out, it will take at least 300 kills and deaths, not each, but in total, to become ranked. I've got no intend to resetting this each month though. I hope everyone's ok with that. Whether or not this boundary needs to be heightened or lowered, well, that's not my place to decide.

[Fork]

Monthly rankings is much better... though i still think "most games played" (each month) would give incentive for anyone (new players). Though one can argue it can be slightly abused during the these dead times... when a player can have 2 accounts and have very fast games in order to rank up.

Another suggestion is +1 deaths when out of base for so long like in ?go twjd... it can really annoy some people when they are specced by the bot the moment they go over the "do not cross line".

[Tiny]

reset elim rankings monthly or bi-monthly