Decreasing playerbase

[Ollievrthecool]

The board that pops up at the end should promote Team games like "Proxy heal" and "Thaw time" and shouldn't show people as shit.
for example:

Most kills = Timothy
Least deaths = Johnny Depp
Highest thaw time = Ollievrthecool (:P)
Highest Proxy healer = Jack
Highest Healer (with weapons) = Killerboi333332
Best team player = BUFTY

It makes people feel in the zone like they want to play the game for fun. it would give them happiness since there is no -0.05 skill loss in red on the screen putting people off

[Azarael]

The general reason not to play is frustration, and being frozen in Freon too often is why weaker players give up.

1) Can players with lower skill thaw relatively faster? Better players will still score more, and it would give an incentive for weaker players to target them.

Needs discussion.

2) The choice of weapons is large and daunting for new players, but too many of the weapons are distinctly average or poor. I humbly suggest removing all weapons that are rarely used by anyone.

While I won't deny that at any given period there are weak weapons, I just haven't gotten around to reworking them yet. The following weapons are due a rework:

M763, MRS138, LS14, R9, R78.

I'd love to hear which weapons are considered weak, however. A weapon that is not popular is not weak - see the Dark Star and Nova Staff, which resurfaced only after I started using them.

3) KS2 are fun for top twenty players, but very powerful and never achievable by weaker players. Scrap them, or nerf them into a single larger KS1 group.

Objection here - KS thresholds are skill-dependent. Weapons like the AT40, LAW and airstrikes cannot be made viable KS1s.

---

My main reason to play less is that P/L and micro-stutter have got worse at LDG this year - it is difficult to get used to the exact amount of lag because it is varying constantly (some of this may be down to my ISP, Virgin Media in UK, which is known to be poor around Birmingham at peak times, but Butcher is also having problems from DE).

1) Can all of the LDG UT servers' default netspeeds, tickcounts, or whatever be reviewed? A default netspeed of 20000 seems high. If all your UT servers are on the same physical machine, does Racing really need the same level of accuracy as BW?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe netspeed 20000 means 20,000 bytes/second. There is no way this is causing a problem, the game was made in 2004.

2) What about ping compensation on the server? Is it on or off? Is it just for certain players? How strong does server-side prediction have to get before it becomes too much of an advantage? I struggle to hit certain players (only) at medium to long distance.

Ping compensation is managed by a replicated mutator which shifts the position of pawns forward depending on your ping.

</tears>

There was another thing which I noticed when I first joined the LDG servers: nobody ever switches teams to fix the balance. I've been playing on russian TAM servers before and even though there was no rules and people were able to swear and do whatever they want, they still tried to keep the matches balanced. They were actually switching.

Skill again. Nobody wants to risk their skill, their current spree, their KS and the free death you get for switching, especially with a high net. Or maybe I'm just projecting, but that's how I look at it.

[iZumo]

Skill system;
Well documented, but to restate, ‘in your face’ reminders about how good/bad you are at the game doesn’t really achieve much other than de-motivating you. Once again, stating intent at removing any visible presence in game or on forum.

Strongly agree. When I'm playing badly in general, as I am right now, I lose my motivation to play tracked Freon very quickly and only join for Onslaught games. It also has a seriously negative effect on my attitude towards the game and other players in general, some of that stemming from old personal issues. I am for hiding skill entirely.

Fair enough, giving green flag on whatever Aza decides with that. Let me know if I should hide the skill & EFR column under phgstats and logviewer. There was no noticeable effect the last time skill was hidden, though.

If the decision to hide skill system is taken, correct way to implement is to use a config option for the GameType, based on which bSkillMode is set to false in Freon PC. That should do the trick ingame, but perserve the actual tracking.

[Azarael]

All right. I'll give some time for any objections to be made.

[CaptainXavious]

I'm all for the idea of hiding skill.

Additionally, I think the default game type of Freon itself may be a factor for drawing in new players.

I'm not saying Freon is a bad gametype, in an environment where everyone is fairly equal in skill and players actually used communication and coordination I'm sure its awesome, but neither of those are the case in LDG, generally speaking.

You could be alive for half a minute and then you are sitting there doing nothing. Its probably not going to draw a lot of interest or desire to come back for a new player.

I think more gametypes being played more regularly would help some. No vehicles ONS seems to be drawing some regular play, I don't think people would be too opposed to trying something new.

[Butcher]

....
My main reason to play less is that P/L and micro-stutter have got worse at LDG this year - it is difficult to get used to the exact amount of lag because it is varying constantly (some of this may be down to my ISP, Virgin Media in UK, which is known to be poor around Birmingham at peak times, but Butcher is also having problems from DE).....

2) What about ping compensation on the server? Is it on or off? Is it just for certain players? How strong does server-side prediction have to get before it becomes too much of an advantage? I struggle to hit certain players (only) at medium to long distance.

Skaldy has described exactly what happens to me so often that is annoying...
Number 2 is always with Calypto, but also common with the admin staff.. Aza, Gizmo, and Earl seem to be always a bit ahead. Could it be the admins are not affected but only the users?
About playerbase:
A bit promotion using youtube fragvideos pointing to LDG webpage, and linking them to the new development of UT4 and mods topics might bring some new prospects into the pit ... just saying...

[Azarael]

Everyone's affected - check the source code for the PingCompensation.u package. The server predicts nothing. The client shifts the position of the pawns.

[Butcher]

Everyone's affected - check the source code for the PingCompensation.u package. The server predicts nothing. The client shifts the position of the pawns.

just asking... but does this mean , one could eventually disable it, such that it doesn't shift the position and show the correct one? as is of my understanding, client side is not to be trusted, ain't it?

[iZumo]

I suggest disabling it if it's not reliable.

[focus]

For me it's obvious. Although i am off of here for quite a time, and i am not aware of the current situation.

When player joins the server, he wouldn't play here forever. Sooner or later, one will be tired of the game (coz its not the job, after all), or one will get different life priorities, etc.
For me its kinda amazing that there are players who are here for 3 years.

There is no new blood on the server, so playerbase is decreasing.
Also, this is aggravated by players-attract-players effect. So, when you lose first half of the playerbase, second half would be lost much more quickly, coz server becomes less populated, and there is much lower interest to play here.

You guys could gather statistics about playerbase, number of 'core' players, number of hours played, etc.
I believe, graphs would show it all in a much more acute way. I think this trend have started long time ago.

I believe that Minecraft illness have spreaded to BW server too.

To save LDG, new games with new players are needed.


About introducing new weapons.
Since rate of making them is much less then rate of getting bored of them, its unreal to expect that they will change the situation.

Also. When players are newbies, they enjoy everything. Environment, ways of fighting, etc.
When players are experienced, joy is gone. There is only technique. Players go the most optimal and
unfortunately boring way (look at the F1 races ).

And also, for the rare newbies there is simply no opportunity to explore the game, get their joy. Potential barrier for entry to this game is so high, that they decide not to get involved.
When the current community was young and unskillful, such barrier was much lower.