Proposal to adjust the AS voting penalty

[Tehnix]

Hey,

I would like to suggest 2 ideas to adjust the voting penalty a little bit in favor of the AS part of the playerbase.

First, this is how it works currently (unless this is outdated by now)

So, the voting on LDG1 works as follows:

There is a weight calculated based on the last 4 played games as follows for AS: Should AS been played:
0 out of 4 last -> max. weight 1.00
1 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.80
2 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60
3 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60
4 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60

On top of that, certain "overplayed" maps are set to 0.6 by default, like pierons, legowars or gasoline.

These are my suggestions:

1) Increase the default weight for "overplayed" maps from 0.6 to 0.8 - if your playerbase wants to play these maps, why wont you let them do it?
These maps also pretty much guarantee to bring alot of players when they get played. I've seen pierons start with 5 players, and end up with 24 and atleast 5 spectators, and this isnt such a rare occurance.

2) Make the AS penalty not kick in after 1 played AS match, but 3 matches, and do the calculations based on the last 10 played matches, instead of the last 4 played matches..

This means:

0 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
1 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
2 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
3 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
4 out of 10 last -> 0.80 weight
5 - 10 out of 10 last -> 0.60 weight

A change like this could probably catch the situations where there has been a long chain of race maps getting played (like 20-30 race maps) with a mediocre playercount, then have a popular AS map going on which attracts alot of people, and afterwards everyone just leaves cause another blazing won the vote.

Also I do believe that the activate playerbase consists of more than 30% of people who do enjoy playing AS, so a theoretical ratio of 30% AS - 70% RACE shouldnt be that far off.

[iZumo]

We can remove the overplayed maps penalty, but the general AS voting penalty stays as it works to secure no AS chainvoting, keep it mind that average AS game takes 2x longer than average RACE game. Currently in peak hours (stats lasting a few years though), populated AS and RACE have 1:1 ratio of time played.

I've only seen a single Blazing quit after AS when I checked through the log.

[Tehnix]

We can remove the overplayed maps penalty

thanks, thats already great news!

the general AS voting penalty stays as it works to secure no AS chainvoting

My problem with this is that people who enjoy playing AS might rather join an ongoing AS match, than joining an ongoing race map and try to vote AS, as this has been proven quite unsuccessfull. Once you join an AS match, the voting penalty already lowers your chance of playing an AS match from the beginning by a huge margin.

keep it mind that average AS game takes 2x longer than average RACE game.

[/quote]

but this can also be seen the other way around, race maps like ascend, comand&conquer or the one where the time limit increases(dont know the name) with every completed objective take usually longer than a match of fallencity or jumpship. What if short race maps only count 0.5 towards the 10 map suggestion above?

[iRobot]

0 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
1 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
2 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight
3 out of 10 last -> 1.00 weight

7 race maps is nothing, if you have some 3 minute specials it's not even an hour. The above however makes voting 4 assault maps in a row extremely easy, which would block out the server for 2-3 hours. Then the RACE players get fed up, leave, and assault continues until the server empties because no RACE voters are left.

[Tehnix]

you are merely looking at one specific extreme case scenario here. for a situation like this to occur you need 7 race maps that last less than a couple of minutes (similar to deathrace?) get voted in a row, having everyone doing nothing but rushing to get this maps done, and on top of this have AS win 4 out of 10 votes. I doubt this kind of situation would happen regularly.

[bOnO]

Or we could add 1 more step to the current penalty chain like:
0 out of 4 last -> max. weight 1.00
1 out of 4 last -> max. weight 1.00
2 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.80
3 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60
4 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60

Usually after people have played the 1st AS map, they don't say no to another one, and only after it starts to decrease...

[mini]

The only reason AS is getting palyed much at all is because of it's connection to RACE. I wonder how much a standalone AS server gets played these days? If it's a real problem then why not move AS to another LDG server? Which LDG server is used less?... move AS to that. If it's race then fair enough.

What I'm trying to say is that the more the server becomes AS weighted the less people you might see on it.

[Earl_Vencar.:LLS:.]

There is no other populated AS server, although some others do exist under the Assault gametype. The playerbase hasn't existed for some years to make a pure AS server viable (back in 2009/2010, before RACE, I remember the server getting a maximum of 10-12 players per night, similar to the BW situation now).

I prefer Bono's weighting, if you want it changed. AS populates the server short-term, but after a couple of 40 minute games the number drop dramatically.

[Tehnix]

Or we could add 1 more step to the current penalty chain like:
0 out of 4 last -> max. weight 1.00
1 out of 4 last -> max. weight 1.00
2 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.80
3 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60
4 out of 4 last -> max. weight 0.60

Usually after people have played the 1st AS map, they don't say no to another one, and only after it starts to decrease...

Thats a fair and decent suggestion and definitly worth a try, from what I see.

[iZumo]

I don't see 0.80 to be a significant penalty to completely block second match of AS, I'm seeing those are happening and some AS maps count as RACE anyway (Legowars, Pierons etc.). It has always been between 0.60 that was reducing it significantly. Based on the log, I'd see the adjustments:

- Review AS maps that count as RACE and check the setup is correct
- Remove any "overplayed maps" restrictions
- Possibly create a group for RACE - TRIAL, and reduce the weight to 0.80 when at least 1 out of 4 last has been played (would rarely kick in)

No adjustments to AS voting needed. If we intend to break long race chains (and if they are really causing damage), then pick a few AS maps that we deem as popular, and give them 1.20 votes when 0 out of 4 AS. That's what worked in past. Allowing chains of AS is not a solution and it's known well.