344 replies to this topic

[Luop90]

Muted = Considered in mumble.

Deafened = Not considered in mumble.

[MasterNoob]

If a player's mumble icon is red, i.e. they are in mumble but mic muted, does that count as in or out?

 

Currently, this does count as "in". However, it would be possible that we require AL's to be non-muted, since we expect people to actively participate. We will keep you guys posted on this.

[The Once and Future King]

I like the idea of muted not being counted as being in since they are only using one half of mumble.  Yes they can (presumably) hear calls from the team, however they cannot make them which is kind of the point of using mumble.  I have however encountered a few people who don't use a push-to-talk in mumble but rather bind a key to mute/un-mute Mumble and use that as a push to talk.  I'm not really sure why this is or how prevalent it is.

[Luop90]

The mute/unmute is not a push-to-talk, its a toggle. So you press it to un-mute yourself, and press it again to re-mute. Some people prefer it as they don't constantly need to hold a key, so they can make a call if in the middle of a fight. (From what I'm told at least, I use the basic push-to-talk, as I'm rarely in the middle of the fight)

[<basically deleted>]

I haven't read anything, sorry about that, so i might have missed some very important points.

 

Howerver i've got a question : I never played in any team. What if i want to play in these advances lobbies ?

 

Personally, i play some lobbies just to get better. Playing in a completly unorganized environment on tf2center is equivalent as playing in FFA on a good server, except i'm loosing my time here, because i've got to wait the lobby to start. Seriously, nowadays, these lobbies aren't even worth the filling time, they're pointless to me. I don't say that i carry like a boss, but i'm never at the bottom of the scoreboard, and even with mumble, this is so unorganized (no strats, people aren't where they are supposed to be (Medic main door on badland's last? You can yell as loud as you can, he won't move / report you for flaming) and people are non-cooperative ("Hey guys, i'm on mumble, but i don't say anything ! Sorry, i saw this spy behind you med but i was to lazy to tell you."). I'd like to play with more experienced people sometimes

 

Knowing that i don't meet every requirement (having played in a team once in this case), am i forced to play in casual lobbies ? I mean, really ? This is quite contradictory to the very purpose of the site : introduce players to the competitive side, and get better at this game ! Is there any kind of process to join this particular steam group / be able to play in AL(s)?

Edited by Melionelus, 29 October 2014 - 03:03 AM.

[MasterNoob]

I haven't read anything, sorry about that, so i might have missed some very important points.

 

Dude, get the fuck out of here. Not even going to bother reading your stuff...

[<basically deleted>]

"I haven't read anything, sorry about that, so i might have missed some very important points." means that i read 5 pages "only". It was 4am, i was tired and i hadn't the courage to read everything. This isn't an excuse, i know.

 

I know that the OP answers to my question.

 

 

To answer that last question, there are several ways to do that. First of all, there will be the community moderators who will decide if you fit into the whole thing. Next to that, there could be transition Lobbies where we allow 2 non-advanced players to try it, and see how they do. Another way would be allow them to try out AL’s when they have x Lobbies played, y hours and less than z RQ’s or whatever. All details to be implemented later.

 

However, this solution isn't "wide" enough.

 

"the community moderators who will decide if you fit into the whole thing" => If you don't (cf my post above) ?

"Next to that, there could be transition Lobbies where we allow 2 non-advanced players to try it, and see how they do." => Well this isn't a bad idea, yet doing that 2 players per TL, with a chance of not being "accepted" as a newbie, is a kinda slow way to make more players get in ALs.

"Another way would be allow them to try out AL’s when they have x Lobbies played, y hours and less than z RQ’s or whatever" => Again, good idea, but i'm pretty sure that those x, y, and z are going to be very high. So again, what if playing in regular lobbies makes me crazy because it's even worse than FFAs sometimes ?

 

Another way to get into these lobbies has to be added.

 

Anyways, those pages i didn't read aren't bringing any solution to this. Please consider those who are in my situation.

Edited by Melionelus, 29 October 2014 - 12:33 PM.

[<basically deleted>]

OH I GET IT.

 

Sorry, i wrote "anything", instead of "everything", my bad. I should sleep more.

 

[img face palm]

[fraac]

If there are Advanced Lobbies then all the rest could be considered Beginners Lobbies, where you could enforce no-offclassing. It's becoming really necessary, there's a permasniper in every game guaranteeing a loss for his team.

[kyumin2lee]

If there are Advanced Lobbies then all the rest could be considered Beginners Lobbies, where you could enforce no-offclassing. It's becoming really necessary, there's a permasniper in every game guaranteeing a loss for his team.

Off-classing is part of 6s and that will not change.

 

Non-Advanced Lobbies will be called 'Casual Lobbies'.

[RTC]

Alright, I've just read throughout the entirety of this and the majority of the conversation has been constructive and intelligent, and a lot of questions I was going to ask have since been dismissed. However, I do still have a few questions and points I'd like to make:

 

1: Why is this more appealing to the higher competitive playing field? From what I can gauge, initially it'll be a system with the highest quality players will be allowed, before slowly transitioning the rest of the more competitive community. Once that occurs, there is pretty much no incentive for the top tier players to play anymore due to the influx of lower tier (but still good) competitive players; they'd much rather play scrims with 11/17 players of their calibre. This'll cause the same problems that a fair amount of the TF2 elite have with the website.

 

2: With the change in attitude, does that mean there's going to be a modification in how these lobbies are moderated? The aspects of the staff taking these kinds of lobbies more seriously has been clearly expressed, but I'm talking more about rules related to insulting and abuse of the reputation system.  Obviously, these lobbies are going to be taken much more seriously and the attitude of players will represent that, and thus tensions will be raised if players make a mistake. There's a possibility that a flame war may erupt in the middle of a match and both distract teammates who are concentrating on the game, as well as the possibility of lines being crossed in relation to racism, sexism, ableism, mentalism and others. Will the latter be punished just as harshly as it now, bearing in mind that it may have spawned due to attitude towards the game and frustration? As for the former, how will this be avoided and dealt with?

 

3: #30 by Masternoob mentioned an private ranking system. Please keep this private to everyone except perhaps developers. Lobby leaders may demand a player to give them their rating and remove them from the lobby if it is unsatisfactory to their standards, which stunts the progress of what these lobbies are trying to achieve. The idea behind these lobbies is to make sure advanced players get a satisfactory experience and improve, not to be the literal king of the hill.

 

4: The reaction to casual lobbies and jumping to the conclusion that they will nearly always be terrible lobbies is totally unjustified. A healthy chunk of competitive players will still play in these lobbies, perhaps to unwind, or perhaps to tryhard, but you can't accurately predict that all competitive players will play solely advanced lobbies.

 

I do think the name of casual lobbies does give the wrong impression that you can do whatever the hell you want though. I think we should change the name to simply Standard Lobbies; it sounds a little less derogatory and still suggests that the game is to be taken seriously, with advanced being for the high standard.

 

5: Something else I think Masternoob posted was that 38% of users did not have a competitive profile. Are you counting literally everyone that has accessed the site, including those who haven't played many lobbies at all and are inactive? Most of the active regular visitors to the site do have a competitive profile (an estimate of about 75-80% in Europe). Not sure if this is massively important as I forget what prompted Masternoob to reveal that information, but I felt the need to point that out.

 

That's all I have for now.

[fraac]

 

If there are Advanced Lobbies then all the rest could be considered Beginners Lobbies, where you could enforce no-offclassing. It's becoming really necessary, there's a permasniper in every game guaranteeing a loss for his team.

Off-classing is part of 6s and that will not change.

 

Non-Advanced Lobbies will be called 'Casual Lobbies'.

 

 

The way off-classing is done in lobbies is not part of 6s, only part of lobbies.

[Kaelan Frey]

 

If there are Advanced Lobbies then all the rest could be considered Beginners Lobbies, where you could enforce no-offclassing. It's becoming really necessary, there's a permasniper in every game guaranteeing a loss for his team.

Off-classing is part of 6s and that will not change.

 

I'm sorry for the necrobump but I had to comment on this.

 

Off-classing is a part of 6s but it ultimately is a very advanced technique which requires a great deal of tactical justification and strategy to execute properly. Lobbies are seriously not your place to run specifically difficult off-classes like the Sniper which obligate the flank units to adapt to 3v2 scenarios or nigh-useless off-classes like the Spy who, while may be able to hinder the enemy combo greatly, will sacrifice players on his side (including himself) if he's not quick enough. Exceptions do exist - by all means off-class as Pyro or Heavy while defending last, they might prove more useful in a desperate defense than a Scout, but please please please please don't pick Sniper or Spy. Even on prem, the miracle that that off-class tries to achieve is very rare, let alone in a ~div6 scenario like lobbies.

 

There's a reason why cookie-cutter exists - it's just extremely effective in almost any scenario. There is absolutely no reason to run Sniper nor Spy for longer than a minute or two at a time. Two scouts alone can become stronger than the enemy's combo if they synergize well enough. A well-coordinated complete flank will drop more Medics than any Sniper will, it is far easier and does more collateral damage which benefits the whole team.

 

Of course, off-classes cannot be banned, that would make no sense. It's all up to each player's sensibility, some can be as absolutely dumb as a Pocket Soldier going Sniper or can be real genius as a Scout going Sniper on Badlands 2nd to get a sweet pick.

 

tl;dr if you think you can pull off a miracle as an off-class then please don't switch to one unless all hope is lost (and this is NOT whenever you think your team is bad)

[Captain Pegleg]

If there are Advanced Lobbies then all the rest could be considered Beginners Lobbies, where you could enforce no-offclassing. It's becoming really necessary, there's a permasniper in every game guaranteeing a loss for his team.

Off-classing is part of 6s and that will not change.

I'm sorry for the necrobump but I had to comment on this.
 
Off-classing is a part of 6s but it ultimately is a very advanced technique which requires a great deal of tactical justification and strategy to execute properly. Lobbies are seriously not your place to run specifically difficult off-classes like the Sniper which obligate the flank units to adapt to 3v2 scenarios or nigh-useless off-classes like the Spy who, while may be able to hinder the enemy combo greatly, will sacrifice players on his side (including himself) if he's not quick enough. Exceptions do exist - by all means off-class as Pyro or Heavy while defending last, they might prove more useful in a desperate defense than a Scout, but please please please please don't pick Sniper or Spy. Even on prem, the miracle that that off-class tries to achieve is very rare, let alone in a ~div6 scenario like lobbies.
 
There's a reason why cookie-cutter exists - it's just extremely effective in almost any scenario. There is absolutely no reason to run Sniper nor Spy for longer than a minute or two at a time. Two scouts alone can become stronger than the enemy's combo if they synergize well enough. A well-coordinated complete flank will drop more Medics than any Sniper will, it is far easier and does more collateral damage which benefits the whole team.
 
Of course, off-classes cannot be banned, that would make no sense. It's all up to each player's sensibility, some can be as absolutely dumb as a Pocket Soldier going Sniper or can be real genius as a Scout going Sniper on Badlands 2nd to get a sweet pick.
 
tl;dr if you think you can pull off a miracle as an off-class then please don't switch to one unless all hope is lost (and this is NOT whenever you think your team is bad)

Amen. I play sniper for one life, in certain situations, unless my team is rolling or getting rolled then I might stay on longer. The key for me is to surprise them, get a quick medic pick when they have uber and are about to push (and have no clue we have a sniper) - then back to scout. Added bonus, someone on other team takes the single play as a challenge, or assumes we will continue to have a sniper. So that's one less scout to worry about on the other team

Playing sniper 24/7 or even for just a whole round becomes a disadvantage, if you're playing against a coordinated team (which we hope is the case).

Spy is never viable against a team who has a clue. Never. It's only useful as a lolpick - for the humor of it, imo.

[MasterNoob]

We will consider this; thank you for your arguments ;-)

[inari]

Please, please don't auto-include everyone with a competitive profile. Lately people have started joining mumble lobbies while attending mumble, but not speaking at all. I've played several lobbies today where I and one or two others were the only ones talking. This ruins the game, and basically turns it into a non-mumble lobby with a few very frustrated players (among them me). From looking at the logs afterwards it seems that players with a comp profile are just as bad as the rest. Again the response when I bring it up afterwards is "it's just a lobby", and this is said by the comp players.

 

My suggestion would be to start out with a hand-picked few, who then include others by invite. Numbers will start out small but increase exponentially.

Edited by inari, 30 November 2014 - 02:00 PM.

[Tseini]

I would suggest a player having one season in atleast div6 instead of just being in div6 (Or x ammount of officials played)

 

While people said this will make casual-lobbies trash are wrong in my opinion. Many times us (more experienced players) are the ones who either A.Carry way too hard or B. Flame people for not knowing what to do (yes,i sadly do this too sometimes even when i try not to :C) and this can be big offset for the very new players. Why would playing with people more close to your own skill level would make it trash(Maybe trash in our eyes,but for them its "tight match")

 

Love the idea and hopefully this turns out to be good.

 

Now since this is "more competitive" lobbies,the maps should strict to the current leagues mappool,but you could still choose the config to use. (just my opinion)

[Humblebumbled.]

To be honest, I think we're going the wrong way, a few people mentioned the trash-up of casual lobbies and that's what we need to fix or solve first in my opinion. What I've learned from what we're talking about is that the few people that do qualify for the AL will be alone, since nobody could be able to pass due to the fact that there's nobody to learn from because 'casual' lobby's will just be organized pubs. To combat this problem I suggest we have an open leader board designed similar to how Starcraft 2 did it.

 

We have all the new players and bad players placed in the lowest rank (E.G Bronze), whoever appears to be the best of that rank will start being faced against players from the lower bracket of the second worst league (E.G Silver). If those bronze players that are going up against silver are failing then they'll be put back into their respectful rank of BRONZE. But, if they do well they'll leave post bronze/silver and go into the lower brackets of silver, see what I mean?

 

How this relates to the problem of trashed-up 'casual' lobbies is that each player looking for a chance at the brackets can get one without having to screw around in 'casual' lobbies with players not taking anyhing seriously, and those 'casual' peasants will find themselves repetitively being thrown back into the lowest bronze brackets because of their laziness and be subject to being the stepping stool for serious players.

 

I also have some things we must discuss under this matter if this were to be done.

 

 

 

3: #30 by Masternoob mentioned an private ranking system. Please keep this private to everyone except perhaps developers. Lobby leaders may demand a player to give them their rating and remove them from the lobby if it is unsatisfactory to their standards, which stunts the progress of what these lobbies are trying to achieve. The idea behind these lobbies is to make sure advanced players get a satisfactory experience and improve, not to be the literal king of the hill.

I see futility in this. if we have something like a tab that switches from 'casual' and 'bracket' lobbies we could filter them out from eachother, then in brackets we'd only allow players to play against players of ​similar/equal skill levels, then we'd make it hard to see a difference in skill level.

 

Side note: I'm making a diagram of what I'm thinking of.

[Ten'son']

We have all the new players and bad players placed in the lowest rank (E.G Bronze), whoever appears to be the best of that rank will start being faced against players from the lower bracket of the second worst league (E.G Silver). If those bronze players that are going up against silver are failing then they'll be put back into their respectful rank of BRONZE. But, if they do well they'll leave post bronze/silver and go into the lower brackets of silver, see what I mean?

How do you rate people?

Needs to be fair, not just dm or assists. Because sometimes it's just about having the right pick at the right moment. How do you rate that?

[Humblebumbled.]

How do you rate people?

Needs to be fair, not just dm or assists. Because sometimes it's just about having the right pick at the right moment. How do you rate that?

 

Well our first step would possibly consider how each gains or loses leader board points Unlike my example, Starcraft 2, it will not be as easy for us to find a way to rank people. One thing we should do is even out how many classes gain how many LB (leaderboard) points per points scored ingame. lets say Class 1 scores an average 40 points per game, and Class 2 scores 80 points per game, Class 1 gets one LB point for every 20 points they score and Class 2 gets 1 LB point for every 40 points they score. This makes sure that no class is hoarded to gain points. we then just compare how many points said player has and raise or lower them accordingly, like a leaderboard.