Ladder- Extra Slots?

[blln4lyf]

Finally, Season 2 is apon us!

However, why did the slots of tbd and ball ladder get increased to 22 and 26?

That means if the server is full, in TBD there can be 12 people speccing and only 10 playing, and in ball there can be 14 people speccing and only 12 people playing.

This causes new issues such as you can potentially only get picked to play by the server to play in every third game. Even if you did not get in the last game, since there are 2 more specs than the game mode requires, you can be specced the next game as well.

The main complaint on ladder is probably the fact that you have to sit some games, and by increasing the slots you just increased the chance of getting sat by about 50% in tbd(used to be 8, now is 12 specs) and 75% in ball(used to be 8, now is 14 specs).

Please consider switching this back, as it seems unlikely that the extra slots will be a favorable change.

[shrode]

+1

I agree that extra slots will have a negative impact on ladder.

[Urpee]

I see a positive in going above the double range because then people can realize that they really should open a parallel ladder. Problem with that is that people may wrangle over which ladder to be on :P

[Patateh]

+1

I don't think it's a good idea about extra slots as balln said. It's very boring for players who had to spectate 2 games in a row.

[Clapon]

i have to agree here that extra slots are not good, im ok with 20 and24 at the most as this will allow u to at least play every other game if you want to.

[Karl]

As I write this there are 24/22 people in Ladder #1, I think eventually people will realize they can join the other ladder server... Perhaps you should try getting people to move to the other ladder server.

Or maybe if you're lucky nobo or one of the other admins will add a player threshold such that when the ladder player count exceeds 18 it will spam all the spectating players telling them to move to Ladder #2. Then to avoid being spammed you would have to type /iwanttospectate.

[elxir]

Originally Posted by Karl

As I write this there are 24/22 people in Ladder #1, I think eventually people will realize they can join the other ladder server... Perhaps you should try getting people to move to the other ladder server.

Or maybe if you're lucky nobo or one of the other admins will add a player threshold such that when the ladder player count exceeds 18 it will spam all the spectating players telling them to move to Ladder #2. Then to avoid being spammed you would have to type /iwanttospectate.

The problem is that people are so used to not having the numbers to fill two servers that they will autojoin the full ones and not even attempt to start a second ladder (of each game mode).

I agree with blln though - it's not that the increase in server population is a bad thing, but the lack of games you get to play whilst in the server SUCKS.

Perhaps add a line to the code that automatically lets "winners" stay if they join up again (re-randomize teams of course) if you are going to keep such huge numbers.

It really isn't fun spectating 30 minutes of every hour.

[blln4lyf]

Originally Posted by Clapon

i have to agree here that extra slots are not good, im ok with 20 and24 at the most as this will allow u to at least play every other game if you want to.

Good compromise. Tells you if there is enough to attempt to start a 2nd ladder and doesn't let you spec for 2 games in a row.

[elxir]

Actually, nobo's "other" idea was to convince you to implement a system wherein all the ladder's had 1 giant master server that everybody joined, and each individual player would /choose game_mode. Once 10/12 (dep. on mode) selected their preference, the master server would move them to the appropriate game play server for their match.

genius imo

[Karl]

Originally Posted by elxir

Actually, nobo's "other" idea was to convince you to implement a system wherein all the ladder's had 1 giant master server that everybody joined, and each individual player would /choose game_mode. Once 10/12 (dep. on mode) selected their preference, the master server would move them to the appropriate game play server for their match.

genius imo

If we ever got a larger player base I would strongly consider implementing a match maker and ladder system like SC2. As it stands our player base is just too small and a match maker ladder system would be a ton of work.

[Pieface]

Originally Posted by Karl

If we ever got a larger player base I would strongly consider implementing a match maker and ladder system like SC2. As it stands our player base is just too small and a match maker ladder system would be a ton of work.

Actually, the only thing we'd need to be able to do this is a server command that moves players from one server to another. Would that be difficult to add?

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Pieface

Actually, the only thing we'd need to be able to do this is a server command that moves players from one server to another. Would that be difficult to add?

Something like this? (With the word switch spelled correctly)

[Greekjr14]

Originally Posted by Karl

Something like this? (With the word switch spelled correctly)

that would work. I mean we were able to start up 2 ladders today with so many people. And with season 2 just starting, I'm sure we will be able to keep both ladders going at the same time for a while.

[nobodyhome]

Yes that would be perfect. Ideally we'd be able to switch people without their having to confirm (obviously this would only be allowed if you are only switchig people between servers belonging to the same altitude instance) but I can see why that might be problematic.

[elxir]

just gotta make sure the guys who are speccing aren't suddenly in an empty server with nothing to do and no idea what's happening in the other games

[Princess Squirtle]

Today, it was that for me : ladder 1 full > I spec > go ladder 2 with other spec > ladder 2 dies > go ladder 1 > ladder 1 full > I spec > go ladder 2 with other spec > ladder 2 dies > go ladder 1. And it makes games with a few people, so not a lot of choice to have good balanced teams (even though it's still not balanced, anyway).

[andy]

I think we had three 12-14 people different ladder servers at the same time. A function like that would be better because you wouldnt have to spam people to join the other servers etc.

[bummeln]

A simple solution may be to have a cross server message sent to specs when another ladder game ends or 'vote custom' is started.

[shrode]

Until this happens, can we put ladder back down to the original server sizes? Specing every other game is really annoying.

[nobodyhome]

I am a bit confused as to what the issue is. Let's consider the scenarios (assume tbd).

Server has 18 or less people -> you spec nearly every other game, but this was like this before the change.
Server has 18-20 people -> you spec pretty much every other game, but not much more than when there were 18 people.
Server has 20+ people -> you start another ladder, yo.

Can you explain more why this change is bad?

[Fartface]

And even if there are 22 people in the server, probs they won't all join in the lobby. And even if they do, you'll almost always get to play every other game. And even if you don't, then you get to play after one more game. I fully support this change d:

[Wok3N^]

Personally, I love this change. Before, those who could not join ladder due to it being full wouldn't even bother trying to start another ladder. Now, there are often two tbd ladders running at once which means more games for everyone.

[undertheinfluence]

I agree this would be good. However, it all depends on the people in the server... I like idea of having that message, where u can chose to stay or go, and if enough people chose go, then it will switch servers. Otherwise, (even though not always), people just refuse to leave the first ladder and attempt to start the other. When i was in ball ladder a day or two ago, the server had the full 26 people. However, as 8 or 9 of us switched over, the people in the first server realized: "O wait, why change servers when there are only like 4 specs in this one now. Now its not really full at all!" By this time auto-joining players begin to refill first server as the players trying to start the second go back two... leaving another 26 player server with guaranteed speccing every game, and players who were previously in the server, now auto-joining. And auto-joining can be anywhere from 1 min to nearly 45 min to 1 hour sometimes for ladder.
This was really long by the way because i just kept on typing...

[shrode]

How about we assume it's ball. Previously, assuming the worst conditions (except admins joining after full), you had a 33% chance of playing again, which isn't that bad of a percentage. i can live with that. There were clearly enough specs to keep the server alive even if a handful of people left at the same time.

But no, now it is 26/26. Your chances of playing two games in a row are now zero. In fact, you have now introduced an unlikely, yet possible occurrence of specing twice in a row. This. Is. Not. Fun. The nice part of ladder before was that, when you were in the server, you had a generally pleasant experience, and were playing statistically most of the time. In fact, people would be like "god damn ladder keeps specing me every other game," when it happened, because they didn't like it and it was not normal. And when you weren't in the server, you were off playing official 3 or dojo having a decent time chewting playnz while u autojoined.

Simply trying to "get the specs to go to another ladder" is not as easy as it sounds, especially considering the fact that some people like playing with certain people, who may be playing in the first ladder game.

[Ribilla]

I don't understand what the problem is with the previous suggestion of changing the slots to 20 and 24. Even when it's full you play every other game and, when it's full, you can start another ladder from specs. This is a much more ideal situation to the one we have at the moment.

[Tekn0]

We should NOT implement moving players to another ladder server without asking his explicit confirmation if we ever go with the moving players approach.

[Toadkiller Cow]

26 ain't really enough if you're trying to show that 2 ladders can be supported. You can expect to lose 2-4 players a game due to attrition. With 26, you get a a group of 12 and a group of 14. One of those servers is going to die after 1 game, unless other people join. But you have no way of knowing whether more people will or not when you start the second server up.

[MajorPayne257]

Yes that can definitely happen, but we did successfully have both bladders running a couple days ago. In the original server we had a couple games where we had to whisper one or two people in, but it didn't take too long.

[JWhatever]

I think I might have been there. The problem was, most of the good players were stuffed in the other ladder and the rest in the other were mainly medicore or worse.
Elite Jerking Ring or w/e it was called.

Anyways, the "noob" ladder died since some players wanted to play higher quality games and joined the other ladder. This was in ball btw.

-J

[shrode]

naw the real elite circle jerk = caps games. <3 caps games

[drunkguava]

ok, nobo, how do you pick people to put in games? People are getting to play 2x in a row, while specs are being forced to spec once again... that's not cool man. Fix/Reduce server size plz.

[sunshineduck]

with a max server, players won't play twice in a row, but spectators will have a chance of spectating two times in a row. in fact, it's mathematically possible that someone spectating will literally never play in a full server.

on the flip side, if you have a full server, even if there are two people eating tacos/masturbating/both, you'll be able to start up a new ladder and instantly play. people that are autojoining the full ladder will get in, and some will migrate to the new server.

i like this change. i've seen both tbd ladders going or both ball ladders going far more times in this new season than i did in the entirety of last season, and the more ladder that gets played the better imo.

[drunkguava]

nono, people did play two games in a row. i counted at least 5 players who played 2x.

[nobodyhome]

guava, pics or it didn't happen.

(despite the snideness of the above remark i am serious. the current intended functionality is as ssd describes it, and without further details i can't really tell you what went wrong or how i could fix it)

[cipso]

Originally Posted by nobodyhome

guava, pics or it didn't happen.

(despite the snideness of the above remark i am serious. the current intended functionality is as ssd describes it, and without further details i can't really tell you what went wrong or how i could fix it)

I've just played 5 (!) games in a row, even though there were many specs (but I don't think server was maxed). Too bad first one didn't count, and I lost 3 out of 4 of next games :-( (matches 893 - 896, one that didn't count was just before match 893, not sure what happened, it was properly started and also finished correctly)

[drunkguava]

i was gonna take a pic, but i didnt think it'd be much help. There 13 specs and some of us didnt get into the next game, while tgleaf, cips, and a couple others got replayed. Maybe it was because that game didnt get counted? idk.

[nobodyhome]

yes, if the previous game didn't count then the server doesn't really know who was in it, so for picking players for the game after that it assumes that the last played game was the game before the game that didn't count. unfortunately this generally results in the pretty much the same players being picked again. there isn't much i can do about this, seeing as having a game not counting means that something inherently broke.

the other reason you could be speced twice in a row is if you simply forgot to press f when the second game is starting.

theoretically when the server is filled with twice the number of people allowed per game (so 24 for ball and 20 for tbd) then there is no way you can play twice in a row, given that everybody presses f in the lobby. in practice though not everyone presses f so that if you have say 24 people in a ball server, and 20 of them pressed f (11 who have just played and 9 who haven't) then the server will first pick the 9 to play and fill the remaining 3 spots from the 11 who have just played).

[MajorPayne257]

Originally Posted by sunshineduck

with a max server, players won't play twice in a row, but spectators will have a chance of spectating two times in a row. in fact, it's mathematically possible that someone spectating will literally never play in a full server.

on the flip side, if you have a full server, even if there are two people eating tacos/masturbating/both, you'll be able to start up a new ladder and instantly play. people that are autojoining the full ladder will get in, and some will migrate to the new server.

i like this change. i've seen both tbd ladders going or both ball ladders going far more times in this new season than i did in the entirety of last season, and the more ladder that gets played the better imo.

Currently it is working quite nicely and remains possible, but maybe once the novelty of a new season starts to wear off and ladder population goes back to season 1 levels, then we should consider lowering max player slots.

The amount of time ladder is running throughout the day is pretty awesome at this point. I was playing until about 2:30 - 3 am MST which was unheard of in season 1. I'm guessing though that it will at least somewhat go back to season 1 numbers which would make starting both ladders pretty difficult.

Cross that bridge when we come to it though.

[Smushface]

Originally Posted by nobodyhome

I am a bit confused as to what the issue is. Let's consider the scenarios (assume tbd).

Server has 18 or less people -> you spec nearly every other game, but this was like this before the change.
Server has 18-20 people -> you spec pretty much every other game, but not much more than when there were 18 people.
Server has 20+ people -> you start another ladder, yo.

Can you explain more why this change is bad?

Is answered by this:

Originally Posted by Toadkiller Cow

26 ain't really enough if you're trying to show that 2 ladders can be supported. You can expect to lose 2-4 players a game due to attrition. With 26, you get a a group of 12 and a group of 14. One of those servers is going to die after 1 game, unless other people join. But you have no way of knowing whether more people will or not when you start the second server up.

95% of the time, this is what happens when we try to start a new ladder.



5 Minutes of spamming flist and servers, we revert back to this:

[elxir]

you revert back to giant screenshots?