344 replies to this topic

[fraac]

Maybe there is a market, I'm just kvetching because it looks like non-mumble lobbies won't have team balancing, which is literally all I wanted.

There IS demand for actual high-level pugs - http://etf2l.org/for...c-31634/page-1/

 

You could sneak the action away from tf2pug.me and tf2pickup.

[elliott]

How is there not a market? There's over 1,000 concurrent online players during peak time, and out of those 1,000 players, there will be several hundred who qualify / can play ALs. Also, how exactly can someone get rich off of 10 euros per year? The point of ALs is not so that the devs get a paycheck every month, it's to support the site so that we can host more tournaments with prizes, and purchase hardware (such as servers) to house these tournaments, etc.

 

so like, based on the official criteria from earlier in the thread (div 2+/top 5 or 10% of players), 1000 players probably isn't enough, when 99% are div3 or lower. Add on to that the fact that only 600 at most are Euro and you really just don't have enough players to really make a good rankning system. Assuming all 600 players are going to be interested in ALs AND Highlander, you have 60 HL players. That's enough for 3 concurrent games at most, but once you start dividing them up, i'd be surpised if 60 players is enough to guarantee actually skill balanced games. The population is so small, that even if the skill levels are evaluated, I dont think there's a big enough player pool to really balance the lobby, you know what I mean?

 

and no one is going to leave tf2pug.me for this just because pug.me doesn't make browsers lag

[b33p]

For highlander in EU there isn't really any way to play half decent games outside of scrims.

 

The spreadsheet we use might not even average 1 game per night. tf2pickup, highlander section, barely has any games either as that site is mainly used for 6v6. But when HL pugs do happen, I know most of the faces there and they all use TF2C anyway. We barely visit tf2pickup for HL, we just play loads of poor TF2C lobbies instead. This system gives us a chance to get a half decent game on a site we frequent very often.

[Migthy Burger]

For highlander in EU there isn't really any way to play half decent games outside of scrims.

 

The spreadsheet we use might not even average 1 game per night. tf2pickup, highlander section, barely has any games either as that site is mainly used for 6v6. But when HL pugs do happen, I know most of the faces there and they all use TF2C anyway. We barely visit tf2pickup for HL, we just play loads of poor TF2C lobbies instead. This system gives us a chance to get a half decent game on a site we frequent very often.

 

This this this. And to be honest, Pickup is also like a  box of chocolates, except that you have to wait forever for a game that isn't always of the best quality (at least not for the time you spend waiting). I'd rather chill in lobbies and leave the serious business to scrims than have something that is in between, but good for neither.

[Yggdrasil]

looking forward to this  - seeing some good discussions & arguments in the comments here.

 

something i've been asking myself - is the div6 requirement met simply by joining a team in open/iron/div6 whatever and signing up for a season? or do you need to have played a match/season on top of that?

 

- elliot does have some points worth discussing, too bad they are packaged amongst elitist 6s bullshit and vile comments - or he would've actually been taken more seriously.

Edited by Yggdrasil, 07 June 2015 - 11:18 AM.

[Mother Tereza]

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[CbIHoK]

Not sure this AL idea will work for now - even with 250-300 EU people online lobby can't start in 30 mins, so this one have to fill for hours, just like pickups. And players will behave like - oh, look, AL didn't start, lets play some regulars while waiting.. and one more match.. and again.. and then just forget about that Advanced match that is still waiting for medic and engie.

[Luop90]

Not sure this AL idea will work for now - even with 250-300 EU people online lobby can't start in 30 mins, so this one have to fill for hours, just like pickups. And players will behave like - oh, look, AL didn't start, lets play some regulars while waiting.. and one more match.. and again.. and then just forget about that Advanced match that is still waiting for medic and engie.

That is true with typical lobbies, but that is because there's normally 3-4 lobbies up. With ALs, the number available is completely based on number of players online. If the system determines that there are enough players online to fill one, it'll create one. Else, it won't.

[The Once and Future King]

I like how you took features like max lobby count based on players online that could be used to make your overall site better and put them up on a part of the site that people can pay for.  It's all starting to make sense now, ignore complaints and suggestions about the site and allow it to delve into more and more crappyness until you take all of those complaints and suggestions and fix them but only for the people who are willing to pay.  Good marketing strategy really.

[Emily]

I like how you took features like max lobby count based on players online that could be used to make your overall site better and put them up on a part of the site that people can pay for.  It's all starting to make sense now, ignore complaints and suggestions about the site and allow it to delve into more and more crappyness until you take all of those complaints and suggestions and fix them but only for the people who are willing to pay.  Good marketing strategy really.

 

You sound upset.

 

While I see the attractiveness of a max lobby count, for example, I also see issues with it.

 

What deems "too many" lobbies? How many variables are going to determine that, or is it constant? What if there is an influx (see: Muselk's video + matchmaking) that dramatically increases the playerbase?

 

Here's how I would write a basic code to determine max lobbies:

 

pull number of 6s lobbies, 4s lobbies, hl lobbies

let 6s = 12*number of lobbies, 4s = 8*number, etc. Gets the total player count to completely fill the current open lobbies.

 

sum all

 

if sum/total online >= some percentage then disallow more lobbies (is it 20 percent of online people, or is it 50? 5%? How do you decide that? How often does this refresh - every second, every 10 minutes?)

 

However, you need to factor in tons of things. Are these online players idle? tf2c is always open for me. What region are they in? Are they currently in a lobby? How do you check for these things? If you don't, is it really an effective code, and will idlers fuck up the system?

 

 

Of all the things tf2center needs to implement, a max lobby count is not one of them.

[The Once and Future King]

Snip

 

 

Really?  You can hear me?  Are you with the NSA and have access to all their spying information or something?  I was just trying to complement them on their marketing strategy.

 

Which is why I was only using that as an example.  Like I said, they took features like max lobbies (notice features has an S at the end and is plural, not the singular.)  In fact I think it would be more beneficial than you seem to think since one of the big problems can often be the time it take for a lobby to fill.  when there are 4-5 HL lobbies up each missing 1-2 players and suddenly a new HL lobby goes up then all of these suddenly go from missing 1-2 players to start to needing 3-5 players to start .... seems like a problem to me.

 

Yes, there are plenty of other features that could help the site, the biggest of which is probably and adjustment of the "it's just a lobby" attitude, but yes even that will not be addressed outside of advanced lobbies.  Based on this implantation of certain feature this way I think we can see that most of those type of improvements in the future will likely only be available to advanced lobbies and the basic system will stay the same.

 

I am actually happy though that they are admittedly selling a service instead of trying to disguise it as "donations" like the current donation system which is not actually donations but buying extra features, since the main reason I haven't "donated" yet is because they won't admit that it is really not a donation but actually a payment for a service they might actually get some money from me for the Advanced lobbies since they are actually calling it what it is (a payment for a service) of course that depends if they decide to tell me the cost in USD or only in Euros.

[fraac]

So when will they start?

[MasterNoob]

So next Saturday we will have the show matches, Sunday after that we open to the Grand Public ;-)

[XOtf2]

So do you really need to pay to play in the advanced lobbies or is it just the first 4 lobbies or what??

[MasterNoob]

So do you really need to pay to play in the advanced lobbies or is it just the first 4 lobbies or what??

 

http://tf2center.com/al

[quintosh]

and who is invited to the  saturday lobbies?

[MasterNoob]

We will announce the final player list shortly.

[quintosh]

yes

[Kengur]

 

Not sure this AL idea will work for now - even with 250-300 EU people online lobby can't start in 30 mins, so this one have to fill for hours, just like pickups. And players will behave like - oh, look, AL didn't start, lets play some regulars while waiting.. and one more match.. and again.. and then just forget about that Advanced match that is still waiting for medic and engie.

That is true with typical lobbies, but that is because there's normally 3-4 lobbies up. With ALs, the number available is completely based on number of players online. If the system determines that there are enough players online to fill one, it'll create one. Else, it won't.

 

When you describe it like that it reminds me of one of those fancy new cars which will detect my eye bliking and tell me to get the fuck out and get some sleep when I'm driving too much 

[MasterNoob]

Interesting analogy Kengur ^^

 

Anyway; the system Luop describes is actually a bit simpler: just one AL per game type and region (EUHL, EU6v6, NAHL, NA6v6) should be open. You should know that the filling time of AL's is a high priority, so we will try to do everything we can to make it fill as quickly as possible. So the only thing we all can do is wait and see ;-)