Stupid football servers

[guest_23984729837]

I believe that these football servers are doing a huge disservice to the Ball community. When new player joins, he has very little chance to play real Ball other than football map. That's sad. This is what a new player can see:



It may be a problem of time when I try to connect (EU evening time), but this is a consistent image of game servers over last couple of weeks I tried: several full football servers, and two BALL servers which newbies cannot join. No other Ball servers with players

Unfortunately, people apparently want to play these simple football maps

[soccernamlak]

Hmm, there are usually plenty of EU players in the evening on Altitude, which is weird to see it as empty as your screenshot shows.

That being said, ball_football is a popular server for many new and even seasoned Altitude players, hence why it tends to be full or populated for many hours in the day. That being said, I understand your frustration. As a new player once, I found my interests in BALL were the maps outside of football.

As you are new to the game, you won't be allowed in just yet to some of the restricted servers. Ladder being the main one. Ball Dojo and AIR EU being the other two. These tend to have Level restrictions on them as to foster a more competitive environment. You will have access to these servers once you hit Level 60.

Until then, I would suggest the Official New Player servers that aren't just football and/or the Official Servers for ball maps if possible. If not, there's not a whole lot that you can do except play football and level up quickly. Server population and map availability is ultimately decided by the community. You can't really "force" people into specific servers per se to "foster" a ball community. As this is a multiplayer online game, it will suffer the same disadvantages for new players as any other game.

One that is frustrating, yes, but your peers decide the server they want to play in. So I'm not sure what answer you are looking for here....

[[hlx] FatTristan]

I was recently leveling up a new account and I realized the same problem. AIR EU and Ball Dojo have 60 player minimum requirements. The first 20ish hours a new player will play in is football.

I think this causes people to see an incredibly narrow scope of the game. It results in people not playing the game as much as they would have or telling their friends about it thus leading to a smaller dedicated community. I don't really have a solution, but to you non-believers, I would just like to say that this is a real problem.

[guest_23984729837]

I don't have a good suggestion here... maybe get rid of level requirement on non-football servers? Maybe put a limit requirement on football servers, so that newbies go to other servers first? Get rid of football-only servers altogether? Admittedly none of these are very good suggestions.

[soccernamlak]

Originally Posted by guest_23984729837

I don't have a good suggestion here... maybe get rid of level requirement on non-football servers? Maybe put a limit requirement on football servers, so that newbies go to other servers first? Get rid of football-only servers altogether? Admittedly none of these are very good suggestions.

Typically the level requirements appear on Ball Dojo, AIR EU, and the Ladder servers (there might be a few others, but I wouldn't know them off the top of my head). The reason for this is due to the ideals behinds these servers: fostering a higher level of competitive game play. I do not doubt that there are people who start this game off playing well, but like any game, the longer you play, the more proficient and skilled you become. These servers exist to cater to that group who want to push themselves a bit further in competition. Unfortunately, to eliminate the level requirement in these servers would I think do more damage than good in the community (which isn't large by any means).

Regarding football servers, I think getting rid of them would be to get rid of something that a selection of Altitude players enjoy, which wouldn't be nice or fair.

The only suggestion that would be interesting to see tested is the limit requirement: essentially have players (initially) manage their playing time equally between TBD, FFA, 1DM, and BALL servers (with BALL being split into football and non-football). It's not necessarily fair to force someone to join specific servers, but it would be interesting to perhaps have all, say Level 1-15 players, join 1 or 2 specific servers that rotates between all of these playing types so they aren't just having to end up in a populated ball_football map.

But past that, the nice thing about ALtitude is anyone can make a server and host it from another site or even their own computer. It's a matter of garnering interest that's the hard part.

[Jayfourke]

Ball_Football is one of many nails in Altitude's coffin.

[tgleaf]

I appealed to the ball_football server admins a long time ago, but the response I got was "I'll keep providing this service to the community as long as it continues to be popular." I then suggested that they at least enable other maps, making football the default, or even take a trial run of a week or two without any football just to see if people would populate it. I didn't get much interest from them.

[some poor soul]

people might play football and move on to playing dojo.

i see no problem here.

[soccernamlak]

Originally Posted by some poor soul

people might play football and move on to playing dojo.

i see no problem here.

The problem is new players can't get into Dojo until Level 60. Now, during a peak US evening, a new player has plenty of ball options, as typically the Official 2/3 servers are full. But during EU afternoon or even into the evening (as the OP is a part of), these servers aren't populated; the only ones that have players in them are Ladder (can't play), AIR (can't play), or football. For someone who wants to play a ball map other than football, this is an issue.

[classicallad]

They can play tbd.

[Aki1024]

I brought a friend into the game, and repeatedly I found him in the football servers. This guy can kick my ass nine ways to sunday in any COD that gets shoved into a system with a 9:1 ratio while I'm struggling to stay even. I asked him why he was in a ball_football server instead of a real server and he would point out that there were no other options.

Sure enough, looking at his options, he couldn't autojoin dojo, and Officials had but 2 or 3 players in them or also full with no other notable servers. He is now around level 43 and hasn't played in as many days.

I hate to point at other games and say "I want that" but in this case having a list of game types TBD, Ball, TDM, coop, and ball_football could allow players to jump into whatever game was populated and when enough people would populate an official server, or if those are full any of the massive number of servers we have available with the lowest average ping of this potential group. I fear that this feature would be viewed in light verse other matchmaking systems and looked at with cruel eyes as people could see monstrous queue times.

Using this queue system's game selection with a chat room could be a way of showing interest in a game mode. This second idea might also join people like the above, but I fear that is overkill with lower populations. Instead that selection from above puts the user into a public chat room of other like minded folk looking for a server, listing those players in blue for not in a room, green for in a room of a matching game type of the room, and in yellow for in a different game type then the room is. Or perhaps the same feature that shows which games your friends are in, this shows a new icon meaning a chat room person is in a matching game type of that chat room.

Edit: blast it, my post is number 403. This can't be done because it is forbidden!

[elxir]

maybe people just like football

[Notsobad]

Originally Posted by Jayfourke

Ball_Football is one of many nails in Altitude's coffin.

You are kidding, football is keeping Altitude alive!

[guest_23984729837]

Originally Posted by Notsobad

You are kidding, football is keeping Altitude alive!

It sure looks that way

[AzzedariuSuiradezza]

Considering the amount of abuse you'll recieve from some older players if you do something wrong, you can hardly blame people for playing football.

[CmdrNoval]

Originally Posted by Notsobad

You are kidding, football is keeping Altitude alive!

In a way, Yes... Football has the smallest learning curve, most overall players, and the most populated servers... not to mention the sheer quantity of servers...

Originally Posted by AzzedariuSuiradezza

Considering the amount of abuse you'll recieve from some older players if you do something wrong, you can hardly blame people for playing football.

And this is an issue too... Even in football, when more experienced players are in the server... Alot of 'dissin' going on... Very discouraging for new players...

[ktktsun]

It is like the best map ever, lol

[Slender]

I see ball_football as a relaxing way to play alti after a long night in ladder. Chilling around on some Ledow's server and fooling around imo.

Could do some whoring as well. I was drunk this game

[elxir]

Originally Posted by CmdrNoval

And this is an issue too... Even in football, when more experienced players are in the server... Alot of 'dissin' going on... Very discouraging for new players...

i personally will never insult a player for being "bad" in any public server.

it's really pathetic to see players insulting people in public servers, by the way, especially when those players are themselves bad.

[Slender]

Originally Posted by elxir

i personally will never insult a player for being "bad" in any public server.

it's really pathetic to see players insulting people in public servers, by the way, especially when those players are themselves bad.

Like I said, public servers (in this case, football ones) are just to play some casual games, take off the stress from losing games on ladder perhaps, no insulting at all and actually having some fun out of the competitive scene.

[VAN1SH1NG]

For a long time I was heavily promoting Altitude to players in a very similar game which was dying. I got some players to try out Altitude but it was very difficult to get them out of football servers with the level requirements on dojo, etc. None of them ended up sticking around even though they should love Altitude with the play style (of ball) being so similar.

The big problem with Altitude is it honestly is kind of crappy as a new player. You have to give stick it out awhile before it is very enjoyable and I don't think most players give it the time and/or are stuck playing football.

When you start, particularly in football servers, you die constantly seconds after spawning until you get the hang of the game. Most players aren't used to getting killed so quickly in games and I think it turns them off.

I'm sure plenty that would have loved Altitude gave up on the game too early. It just feels like a big spamfest when you start in football. You don't see any strategy or thought in the gameplay, just spawn, shoot off a few missiles, die, and repeat.

[CmdrNoval]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

When you start, particularly in football servers, you die constantly seconds after spawning until you get the hang of the game. Most players aren't used to getting killed so quickly in games and I think it turns them off.

I'm sure plenty that would have loved Altitude gave up on the game too early. It just feels like a big spamfest when you start in football. You don't see any strategy or thought in the gameplay, just spawn, shoot off a few missiles, die, and repeat.

Perhaps we could ask Ledow, or other hosters to make one of their football servers for 1-59 only..? Would keep the Aces from smoking the newbies, and lessen the 'insta-kill' factor a bit...

I would be willing to host a second server for that purpose, once I get the \H20/Clan Ball Server fully stabilized and useful for competition...

[LewisH]

Are you a Newb?
Are you tired of ball_football?
Do you live in the EU?

If you answerd yes for one or more of the above, join "A notsobad Server[Ball]" today!
We have all the standard ball maps, and the level limit? It's non-existent!
How many people play it, you ask?
er.. well.... about that.....

I think that explains it quite well. The servers are there, but nobody plays on them. so I don't think there is a "fix".

[sonicking917]

It's a shame I don't have any means right now to host a server, I would put up another one or two that newbies could join... But my computer, a laptop, probably couldn't really handle it...

[guest_23984729837]

Originally Posted by sonicking917

It's a shame I don't have any means right now to host a server, I would put up another one or two that newbies could join... But my computer, a laptop, probably couldn't really handle it...

I think that this isn't a problem of not enough servers.

[sonicking917]

I meant that if I could, I'd be willing to make more servers that were newbie friendly.