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PostPosted: March 20th, 2017, 2:30 am 

Joined: March 20th, 2017, 2:15 am
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I've played this game a lot. as in more than 1000 times. This game has always needed a counter to the imbalance that happens when 2 premade l33ts decide to descend into an otherwise fun game of 6 other random players. So often this game is wrecked by the above scenario.

This game needs a voting mechanism at the opening (with the other votes) that operates very simply:

Keep Teams
Randomize Teams

If keep teams gets the most votes or tie votes, they are kept. If Randomize gets the most votes, then players are SHUFFLED so that the 2 l33ts don't get to enjoy their romp anymore and the 6 other players will have the democratic vote.

This should have been in place long ago.


Last edited by dude on March 29th, 2017, 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2017, 5:56 pm 
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[TryHrd] Akash.566
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Hi dude - welcome to the (mostly dead) forums :P
Nobody really posts here much anymore :C

Team randomization is an idea that has been discussed at length before, and ultimately was not implemented. I believe the reasoning was that the community didn't want to punish friends who played together, as MA is primarily a team game after all. It would be like randomizing 2v2 at the start of a standard sc2 match.

There is also the possibility of a superteam being formed, rather than broken up. And there isn't a good way to equally distribute players according to skill, since smurfing is easy and commonplace (as well as bank-resetting via deletion of the bank file).

Just FYI, development on current MA, as well as progress on LOTV MA, seems to be on hold indefinitely. So, we can discuss, but major changes will likely not be made.


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PostPosted: March 21st, 2017, 4:14 pm 
ralphwaldoem.322
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holy shit akash is alive?


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PostPosted: March 21st, 2017, 8:00 pm 
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     ralphwaldoemerson wrote:
holy shit akash is alive?

Ikr, I mostly play osu! nowadays, and I'm starting to become decent. Luckily osu! tires me out really quickly, so I'm forced to take breaks to do homework kek

Trying my best to stay away from sc2 for the time being, at least until summer - it's still my favorite game but takes so much time :C

Still haven't knocked the habit of refreshing TMA every day though...


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PostPosted: March 21st, 2017, 8:54 pm 
ralphwaldoem.322
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Haha this is the first time I've looked on here in a while


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PostPosted: March 22nd, 2017, 6:41 pm 

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hi akash. your logic is sound, except that in the case of a vote, if the majority of players want something, most maps give it to them. team "togetherness" should not trump the game itself. The joy of 2 players should not trump the joy of the other 6. If people want to stay together, they will simply vote to stay together. the voting mechanism would allow tie votes to default to keep teams so that it would literally take 5/8 votes to shuffle teams. 5 players voting this should, by logic, trump some kind of "happiness" that the other 2 players get in romping through the map. And in this case, a 5/8 vote to shuffle would not be anything like a 2 vs 2 shuffle. In the 2 vs 2 scenario, it is likely that 50% or more of those players would want to keep the teams, hence they would be kept. IMHO


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PostPosted: March 22nd, 2017, 7:53 pm 
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So, there are some who want to balance the game for the general public, and others who want to balance for the top players. I am, and have always been, one that wants to cater to the average MA player.

For this reason, I was originally in favor of a vote to randomize teams at game start. I had a few thousand games at the time of that post - some premade but majority solo. So, I can definitely see where you are coming from.

However, I realized after playing a few thousand more games (both premade and solo), that it essentially doesn't matter for this specific issue. Suppose that there are 2 players of above-average skill on 2 different teams. They will, unfortunately, often BM their less skilled allies. Additionally, the game turns stale, as solo skilled players often repeat the same strat every game (I hate this more than anything in MA) and still feed on pubs. This results in a less fun game overall, for everyone (including the average players). Better to have 6/4/2 unhappy people than 8, imo.

If it could be ensured that all teams have approximately equal average skill level, then I would agree with implementing the vote. This would certainly make the game more fair and exciting! As stated above though, there are many difficulties regarding this.

As a side note, there are also quite a few premade teams that do not consist of 2 highly skilled players. When I play, I often team with less experienced players who want to improve. And, some people like to play arcade games with irl or in-game friends (even if both are unskilled).

You are right, of course, in saying that it is unfair to make a comparison to regular sc2. That game is balanced around 1v1 play, whereas MA is primarily a team game in which both players are supposed to complement each other's play.

-------

Thanks for staying civil, btw :). I once tried to have this discussion with a group of unhappy players in game, and it was more of a 1-sided BM than a conversation :C


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PostPosted: March 22nd, 2017, 9:28 pm 
[ClIQ] HaydenEliza

Joined: July 11th, 2015, 9:18 am
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Hi dude
Premades team up so they can stomp solo or random players. Friends team up together because they enjoy playing together but ultimately would like to come up on top rather than losing. At the end of the day, most people find satisfaction in winning and keeping their win/loss ratio positive.

People act as if win/loss ratio determines their skill level as if veterans players don't know who's bad and who's good, but this is a topic for a later discussion.

We have Stat lines for wins and number of games played; Win streak and their skill level determined by their win ratio. However, there isn't a line that shows how many solo games a player has won. To me, and I think most people would agree when I say this... It is far more difficult playing solo than playing as a premade. In other words, theres a bigger level of respect for players that play solo that overcome dealing with a newb or pub ally.

If we were to make a stat line that shows how many solo game a player has won (determined by joining a game solo and not together as a team), it will encourage good players to play solo whereas they would have played as premades.

People will try joining simultaneously without partying up but this doesn't guarantee that they will pair up with each other. In addition, if the game was created rather than joined, they shouldn't be allow to rack up any points from the point system for obvious reasons of abusing the system to rack up points.

Just a suggestion and I think it would be fun to see who has the most solo wins, to me this is the true measure of skills in ma.


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PostPosted: March 23rd, 2017, 10:12 pm 
Donor

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Akash and Hayden, yall are two of my favorite players in the MA community. I've never seen either of you rage or BM.

Akash you are especially helpful to the newer players and to the MA community with all your special research. I wish there were more players like you in the MA community.

And Hayden, stop being OP. Haha. You need to come scrim with us (on the rare times we can get one going). A scrim captures the true competitive spirit of MA and is definitely a testament to your skill and ability to work as a team.


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PostPosted: March 24th, 2017, 3:59 am 
Zealous.174
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Scrims? :o I miss MA


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PostPosted: March 24th, 2017, 8:44 am 
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Zealous I miss you :'( ALSO MA misses you


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PostPosted: March 24th, 2017, 8:55 am 
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[TryHrd] Akash.566
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Thanks for your kind words MatPat <3

Also <3 HaydenEliza - I like the idea of a solo stat line, but I think MA has no way to tell if someone is solo/premade or even if the game was created/joined.

     hayden wrote:
People act as if win/loss ratio determines their skill level

check out my awesome 100 streak!
Spoiler:
<Section name="Statistics">
<Key name="PendingWin">
<Value int="1"/>
</Key>
<Key name="LongestWinStreak">
<Value int="0"/>
</Key>
<Key name="CurrentWinStreak">
<Value int="0"/>
</Key>
<Key name="CCkills">
<Value int="107"/>
</Key>
<Key name="TotalGames">
<Value int="100"/>

</Key>
<Key name="Wins">
<Value int="0"/>

</Key>
</Section>

Spoiler:
D- skill level OP


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PostPosted: March 26th, 2017, 10:29 am 
[ClIQ] HaydenEliza

Joined: July 11th, 2015, 9:18 am
Posts: 44
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     MatPat wrote:
Akash and Hayden, yall are two of my favorite players in the MA community. I've never seen either of you rage or BM.

Akash you are especially helpful to the newer players and to the MA community with all your special research. I wish there were more players like you in the MA community.

And Hayden, stop being OP. Haha. You need to come scrim with us (on the rare times we can get one going). A scrim captures the true competitive spirit of MA and is definitely a testament to your skill and ability to work as a team.


I usually babysit the time you guys play in house games. I would love to join you guys next time I don't have to babysit, I'll try catching you guys.


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 10:34 am 

Joined: March 20th, 2017, 2:15 am
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I truly stand by my original assertion that shuffling teams only at 5 votes is logical, rational, and would be a great addition to this game. Any votes less than 5 keeps teams. Keeping teams is the default, so 5 votes are required. This allows premade stompers to do their thing, but puts them in slight jeopardy in the case where they are the true minority. 5/8 simply means "this is for the enjoyment of the majority of players on this map for this round. The enjoyment of 6 outweighs the enjoyment of 2"

Plus think about it. You join a MA game. In the game is l33tBoy and l33tBoy2. They are the power premade team. Everyone else is random partner. At the opening, the l33tboys choose "keep teams" during the voting. Of course they would. This means out of the six remaining players, 5 must vote "shuffle". This would probably not happen most times, even in the case of one premade and 6 other random noobs.

I will personally send $50 bucks to pay Josin (or whoever is in charge) for his time to implement this feature. Not as a bribe, but just as a contribution for the time it would take him. It would greatly enhance my enjoyment of MA. I, along with many other solo players, could confidently stay in a MA lobby that has 1 power team and 6 randoms and still have a shot that the game will be balanced upon load (rather than leave the lobby and come back later).

Plus, there are some teams, such as David and Charles that I would just love to see split up. Would bring a smile to my face. And I know you guys out there would love to see a team or two sliced and diced.


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 1:49 pm 
[ClIQ] HaydenEliza

Joined: July 11th, 2015, 9:18 am
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     dude wrote:
I truly stand by my original assertion that shuffling teams only at 5 votes is logical, rational, and would be a great addition to this game. Any votes less than 5 keeps teams. Keeping teams is the default, so 5 votes are required. This allows premade stompers to do their thing, but puts them in slight jeopardy in the case where they are the true minority. 5/8 simply means "this is for the enjoyment of the majority of players on this map for this round. The enjoyment of 6 outweighs the enjoyment of 2"

Plus think about it. You join a MA game. In the game is l33tBoy and l33tBoy2. They are the power premade team. Everyone else is random partner. At the opening, the l33tboys choose "keep teams" during the voting. Of course they would. This means out of the six remaining players, 5 must vote "shuffle". This would probably not happen most times, even in the case of one premade and 6 other random noobs.

I will personally send $50 bucks to pay Josin (or whoever is in charge) for his time to implement this feature. Not as a bribe, but just as a contribution for the time it would take him. It would greatly enhance my enjoyment of MA. I, along with many other solo players, could confidently stay in a MA lobby that has 1 power team and 6 randoms and still have a shot that the game will be balanced upon load (rather than leave the lobby and come back later).

Plus, there are some teams, such as David and Charles that I would just love to see split up. Would bring a smile to my face. And I know you guys out there would love to see a team or two sliced and diced.


Hi dude! Yur such a funny guy. So passionate over something that Josie will never implement. Either way please add me so we can play together, we'll probably get wrecked but might beat some players in the process. Look for me in clan cliq


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 1:52 pm 
[ClIQ] HaydenEliza

Joined: July 11th, 2015, 9:18 am
Posts: 44
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     Akash wrote:
Thanks for your kind words MatPat <3

Also <3 HaydenEliza - I like the idea of a solo stat line, but I think MA has no way to tell if someone is solo/premade or even if the game was created/joined.

     hayden wrote:
People act as if win/loss ratio determines their skill level

check out my awesome 100 streak!
Spoiler:
<Section name="Statistics">
<Key name="PendingWin">
<Value int="1"/>
</Key>
<Key name="LongestWinStreak">
<Value int="0"/>
</Key>
<Key name="CurrentWinStreak">
<Value int="0"/>
</Key>
<Key name="CCkills">
<Value int="107"/>
</Key>
<Key name="TotalGames">
<Value int="100"/>

</Key>
<Key name="Wins">
<Value int="0"/>

</Key>
</Section>

Spoiler:
D- skill level OP


If you join solo yur solo. If you join as a pre-made then the game will classify you as pre-made


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 1:59 pm 
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[TryHrd] Akash.566
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@Dude
You have repeated yourself once again, seemingly without reading my previous post. I stated that I understand your reasons for wanting this change, but there were a lot of other points I made that you ignored. So, I guess our discussion on this topic is over.

----------

@Hayden
What I meant was, battle.net knows if you join as a party or not, but an arcade lobby doesn't (and neither does any given game of Marine Arena).

Bnet just uses parties to put people in adjacent positions in a lobby, starting with the first open team slot. MA only knows the position of each player in the lobby in order to determine spawn location - simply 1,2,...,8. Alliances are then created depending on spawn location after the game starts.

Essentially, premade/solo information is not transmitted into the game, which is where stats are calculated.

I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works.


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 5:59 pm 
[ClIQ] HaydenEliza

Joined: July 11th, 2015, 9:18 am
Posts: 44
Starcraft II Gateway: United States
     Akash wrote:
@Dude
You have repeated yourself once again, seemingly without reading my previous post. I stated that I understand your reasons for wanting this change, but there were a lot of other points I made that you ignored. So, I guess our discussion on this topic is over.

----------

@Hayden
What I meant was, battle.net knows if you join as a party or not, but an arcade lobby doesn't (and neither does any given game of Marine Arena).

Bnet just uses parties to put people in adjacent positions in a lobby, starting with the first open team slot. MA only knows the position of each player in the lobby in order to determine spawn location - simply 1,2,...,8. Alliances are then created depending on spawn location after the game starts.

Essentially, premade/solo information is not transmitted into the game, which is where stats are calculated.

I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works.


Sorry akash I don't know how things work. Just thought the game can determine premades if they come into a lobby together.


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PostPosted: March 29th, 2017, 8:14 pm 
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All good, it's a common misunderstanding. This lack of control/information is also why lobby hosts can abuse the system, and it's hard for Arcade game devs to do anything about it.


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