WCS is dead for a fucking reason.

[CYBER]

Sample reason why wcs keeps dying and will NEVER be the wcs we know again until you do something about those op fucking races zero...

I join a game to see 2 guys on ct recking a poor guy ( 3 in 16) and a fucking bot...
i join T to help him, he rage quits... i end up with the damn bot 2 v 2... with THIRTY (30) FPS AVERAGE on this shitty laptop...


i go orc and undead for 3 rounds... kill them pure by fucking around with predictable nades because they are skilless fucking cunts,
" :( " goes MAX FUCKING HUMAN, followed by a jack when it STILL wasn't enough...

http://i.imgur.com/04gPKGF.jpg
.....

4 rounds later i was an orc vs TWO fucking SPIDERMEN with full items... ME... on orc AND A FUCKING BOT that dies 2 seconds in...wow...

so much for joining to level alchemist.

no fucking shit the server is dead.

ZERO DISABLE THE FUCKING OP RACES when below 8 v 8. period.
if they wanna level those races, let them tome up in spec.
wcs will NEVER revive with those fucking faggotty mentality around..

AT LEAST GIVE US A DAMN WAY TO VOTEBAN RACES at less than 5 v 5...

- - - Updated - - -

no matter how many races you make zero. or how many plugins you add, or how many tweaks and remakes you do to the existing code... ITS NOT GONNA MATTER until you do something about such faggotry.

[ZERO]

Another solution could be to auto buff users against these races based on player count. But what races would be disabled?

Restricted races could have their restrictions updated automatically based on player count. Where as 6v6 unlocks them. So the formula of races allowed would be RoundToFloor((currentplayers/12)*amountallowed).

That formula would make it so races that are limited to 1 are disabled when <12 players. Races that are limited to 2 for example would be limited to 1 at <12 and 0 at <6. Logically we can tune these numbers as well. We could also build formulas that work based on the total level of all current players and other things as well.

[CYBER]

human spiderman molecule jack vagabond (yes even my main just to prove that this shit needs to be done) vagalion strider shadowhunter athena.


The last 3 are situational obviously and perhaps only banned until 3v3 rather than 6v6, but at such a low player count, those races are just either delaying the game or annoying to deal with.

but the rest is a definite ban...


========

[ZERO]

One example of a balance solution could be to permanently buff health of a team when unbalance is detected by a difference in total levels between the teams.

Example:
Team 1:

p1 = 300
p2 = 50
p3 = 500
p4 = 600
p5 = 200

Team 1 avg level is 330

Team 2:


p1 = 100
p2 = 50
p3 = 450
p4 = 500
p5 = 50

Team 2 avg level is 230

On avg players on team 1 have 100more levels. So we need to buff the bad players on team 2 to help make up the difference. We give 1hp for each level of deviation to the players who are below the average. As the avg level difference is 100 all players below level 330 will get 100 extra hp.

So on team 2 player 1, 2 and 5 will start with 100 extra hp to help them out.

[Passarelli]

Human, Spiderman, Die Xonvert, and Jack need to be restricted to 1 per every 3 people on the opposing team. This should be inclusive to all of them on the same counter. If they have say less than half of the levels in a race, then maybe allow them to play.

Vagas, Molecule, Shadow Hunter, Night Elf, and Athena should be restricted until it is a 3v3.

These numbers likely need to be tweaked, but we have to start somewhere.

Zero, your handycap mode is interesting--maybe make it activatable if say 40% of the server wants to turn it on?

Also, you should count total XP, and not just levels. There are those that play max human and nothing else. Hell, I'll be ranked 2nd again as soon as I can log in, and I still don't have all the races maxed.

[ZERO]

I could generate a theoretical level based on the users total xp. (apply a mathematical scale to the value to handle it the way the game would if it supported such a function.

I was thinking about having that option turned on all the time by default. I could also have it automatically trigger under preset conditions. What I am trying to do is find ways to approach some of the balance issues from a different direction.

We have seen that the issue goes beyond in some cases the power of individual races and becomes simply an issue where the experienced player simply has too much skill and it is impossible for a noob to ever win. (a similar issue to starcraft) The best workaround is to therefore try to buff the noob so that his team does not get dragged down and so that the player will have a better experience and continue playing. The key is doing this in such a way that creates a challenge for good players without upsetting the balance for players in the middle.

[ZERO]

Yea the best solution for race limits would be to use a standard rounding function based around how many players are in the server. Thus races restricted to 1 per team are automatically locked.

There is an issue with blocking low level races at low player counts b/c it limits options for new players. It is better to have a system where all players are treated the same under all conditions rather than trying to limit only experienced players race selections. This is also why I am going to try to take a multi pronged approach to balance.

[ZERO]

The health balance is in effect and appears to be working very well so far.

[Trigger Unhappy]

10 people in WCS right now. I'm about to join.

[Trigger Unhappy]

alright so 1st hand. I played with the new settings. 7 people. 3 v 4, the team that had 4 had 2 humans (1 maxed, 1 at level 26), a maxed jack, and maxed molecule. Our team got 121 hp added for balance. it made a bit of difference but the level and the use of humans with 7 people was too much to overcome. We probably won 1 or 2 our of 15. You can call me a noob but I think the race ban for under 5v5 should be put in place. Otherwise the HP buff was a great idea.

[StarsMine]

I dont really play op races usually, and I find I keep being to the only player on my team getting kills. Though the other side is usually ronnie and rawr since they always pick T. I think race ban is a bad idea since people are training those races.

im finding alot of people just are not very good at css any more, You have such a huge skill divide, you have newbs and dedicated css players like me who never went over to Go. Mid tier players all moved on.

[Trigger Unhappy]

I agree with you in part Stars. I didn't have trouble getting kills, but the same complaints were there from other players. When I got on there were 10 people.. in 30 minutes it was back to 4. If the problem is "population" we need to figure out how to solve that problem first and then try to bring back some of the functionality that was taken away. Get new players in.. get them used to the races and then slowly ease back on the restrictions.

[I'm a zambi]

I recently joined the server myself, after seeing this thread, and I'm going to have to agree with Stars.

There is definitely a skill gap (that I am on the lower end of), that was very apparent outside of zmod (which I'm usually playing, if I'm playing anything on CS:S). Usually when I play, I play to hit, not to kill, and I'm more used to having multiple targets than a single one, so keeping fire on one enemy is difficult for me and more often than not (I can't recall a single time) when I was alone against two or more people, my team lost. That's just me being bad (and having just joined, not having ability levels), and I can accept that.

On the other hand, I know that there were many instances where I took too long to kill the other team and ended up being set on fire, which severely hindered my ability to hear or see anything (I think this was the alchemist race). I don't really know anything about WCS or warcraft in general at all, so I don't know if these races are over-powered or just standard difficulty but as a new player, I found that my kdr was about between about 0.15 and 0.2 and it was pretty difficult. I don't know if that's something that gets easier as you level your abilities or races or if I'm just terrible. I will say that the extra health helped, but I don't know that I was given enough some times, and the 'noob shield' was well implemented. I noticed that it blocked out a lot of the damage I was taking from the fire.

Overall, even though I sucked at everything, playing on the server was still fun. The warcraft part is a nice twist on CS:S and I enjoyed playing with Rawr and Yoshi (the other names slip my mind). I honestly don't know whether or not I would try it again; maybe if zmod's on a shitty map and there are a few people on the WCS server.

[What]

perfect fix: Perma Ban Cyber and cut back to original races.

[rawrr]

Overall, even though I sucked at everything, playing on the server was still fun. The warcraft part is a nice twist on CS:S and I enjoyed playing with Rawr and Yoshi (the other names slip my mind). I honestly don't know whether or not I would try it again; maybe if zmod's on a shitty map and there are a few people on the WCS server.

You should play again, i enjoyed making you my bitch ;)

[ZERO]

well i did also limit it t only 50% of what I posted based on earlier results. But yea that by itself will not be enough.

[Wolfenstinger]

I played awhile ago under a different name on my main account, and had no issues holding at least an 8vs8 at the time for the next like 3 maps. I joined when it was some de_rats map (bombsite in middle of map on 2nd shelf, has a computer, a PS2? and some other noteable things on it). Noticed CTs were getting rushed hard at spawn, so I did two things - played vagalion, and played CT.

I think people are getting lazy to learn while people who play it normally just try and literally punish the crap outta them for even wanting to play the mod, even if they are just leveling casually. I'm not saying to NOT go all out like that, but when you get stabbed multiple times by me, wouldn't you expect to learn to NOT rush the damn spawn? I don't care if you buy a lace; big maps = I ain't getting stuck. Especially if I haven't played in awhile because I can't play as close to players like I used to, rather I can still long-range tele-knife somebody's face off.


The only thing we as players can really enforce is attempting to create change. Instead we decide to do the opposite, stay the same and create chaos. People wonder why Masskid decide to play Panorama or I play Genocide in order to create what we see as "balance". Whores like kills. We like watching them run out of bullets. You gotta reload eventually.

As for ZERO, you can add all sorts of restrictions, the players ALWAYS and i mean this, ALWAYS will find a way around your restriction. With this said, the most that can be done is a "Gentleman's Code" probably. Just about any change that is to be done to the server was stated through word of mouth in-game. That's how I used to find most of my information, before frequently checking the forums now because I have a convenient link :wtg: . Annnnnnnnnnnd now I sleep.

[ZERO]

This is also why I am starting to simply buff the unfavored players as it is clear that the experienced players will just figure out ways around being debuffed. Thus it is easier to simply keep buffing new players in various ways to try to even the field of play more even.

[rawrr]

The other day there were about 8-10 players on. Ronnie, Yoshi, Ks and i were trying to lvl alchemist and we were getting slaughtered 4-20 or so. there were no problems, no one complained, no one rage quit. So as a team we decided to stop lvling and start actually trying to win, counter the other teams races. We changed our races and won about 5 in a row and the other team started complaining and rage quitting rather than trying to work together as a team like we did. Its the players getting butthurt when they cant roll the other team that's killing the server. every race has a counter race. Rather than trying to counter other races they get mad and leave. Yes some races should be tweaked cause they're op, and the health balance helps. but there are always gonna be players who get too butthurt to stay and actually try to win

[CYBER]

zero.. i mean i dont rly get how u're enforcing that health thing.

I'm currently (if not downgraded) somewhere in the top % of ranks or some shit on the wcs server, i have a crapton of xp on multiple races which are all maxed out except alchemist/

So if i were to be "nice" and jump on undead, or panorama, or fly around with archmage to avoid using my favorite vaga races or playing op races, and then i'm facing off against some guy who is relatively newer to the server, has an overall crapton lower xp than i do, but most of which is on a MAX HUMAN... a max human HE IS PLAYING AT THE MOMENT...

would that fucking max human player get a crapton of "noob hp" too to reck my low-tier race simply bcos i have more total xp than him? because that would just add insult to injury...

[rawrr]

this^ is true

[Wolfenstinger]

I just had an epoopanny... epiffiny... eppiffiny? I HAVE AN IDEA!






We reset the server every 2 years.

WAIT BEFORE YOU SAY Wolfenstinger, your idea is bad and you should feel bad. Here's why -

1) This server ran to where it was 20/21 around 2010-2011? When the STEAM Pipe update hit, we were still strong but it wasn't the same group (I noticed this when I came back after a slight hiatus). Therefore, we clearly lost people who disappeared due to IRL events or other games. Yet it was still 20/21 with new people coming in and out daily from the reset.

Around a bit after 2012, beginning of 2013, we had some of our hardest cases on aimbotting solved (iREAPER Benihime + Mistral, Balto), who I might add, are up there in the database for levels still (You just gotta do some searching ingame). This is probably where the server also began to die due to CSGO getting patched and becoming popular. By like mid-summer to beginning of 2014, we started to hit some all-time lows daily.

[IF ANY OF THIS IS WRONG, BY ALL MEANS QUOTE AND SAY SOMETHING.]

2) Once players did hit 975 (now with alchemist it's like ~1025?), the most they could do is just play and be considered "whores" for playing races they enjoyed. I can't blame somebody who goes and plays Human once they maxed EVERYTHING, there's not much else to do. I'll hate you for it, but I won't hold too much of a grudge to not try and stab you.

[If I recall, ZERO plans on having Over-Leveling to come back? That would hold some people for an extent, but it'd be much better than having nothing once players maxed everything.]

3) Increase the incentive to maxing all the races. Like, there is not much I can do but theorize a 'What if?' like ...
-What if when you hit maxed on everything, you unlock a trail (similar to succubus) that isn't distracting [Off by Default, can be toggled through commands]?
-What if maxing everything enabled tracer rounds?

Small incentives, they don't have to be as rewarding as tracer rounds though.

4) Make top 10 actually mean something to the player. By this I actually thought about reserved slot for like a week+ for the WCS server only. Though I don't know too much, I'm just talking outta my ass at this point on it.


But yeah - that's what i'm coming to. If we reset the server and everyone starts from scratch, not only do we all work back up to what we wanna play again but it brings life back to the server while there is a mass bug check on all the races. Granted losing all our work we put in for the past however long some of us played will be lost (sucks... even I'm gonna be losing a lot of time that I spent on Vagalion, Succubus, Genocide, etc.), create some new memories and shenanigans. Those are my thoughts though, they just came in today.

[SCRIBBLE]

Reset the server and I will play again. I am sure others will end up doing as well. Otherwise, nope. It is not fun trying to level alchemist with one other person in the server.

[phil.™]

If everything is restarted, I would play. Hate leveling my Orc and undead while everyone have vaga's and jacks all over my ass.
Oh, and cyber likes to play a game called "don't kill Phil, he's mine". But that's every server.

[ZERO]

Made some more adjustments to tune it down based on how high a users current level is (subtracts 2x the hp that it would have given where X is their current level)

[Wolfenstinger]

Made some more adjustments to tune it down based on how high a users current level is (subtracts 2x the hp that it would have given where X is their current level)

is it live now? Because I was having issues killing a Shadow of the Void who had roughly 400+ HP as a Vagalion. Note he had no shadow hunter, alchemist, anything that gave him health on his team. Also I know I should've killed this guy multiple times because I hit him for like 210 in 2 hits (2 crits) before getting stuck and dying due to how much health he has.

[ZERO]

You do realize that it only gives them the health when they spawn, it does not keep giving it to them. Also the point here is if it is keeping the actual teams balanced or not, if that means we got an op noob running around to counter an op pro than so be it. What I do not want it the team that is getting the balance being impossible to beat. The intent is that the games are balanced. I will though edit the observer hud program so that you can see who is getting the bonus and how much of one.

[ZERO]

Ok that would actually take a lot of time b/c I need to reprogram a lot of stuff and make things differently to implement that amount of sql calls without needing to worry about lag and causing errors.

I have though implemented a scalier so that users who are closer to their teams average will get less health than those further away. This way the buff is given to the players now as a % of their difference from their teams avg instead of just trying to give them all the same base boost amount.

[Trigger Unhappy]

Zero question about the logic you are programming. If a player were to reset their skill allocation would the % health read them at the same level or at level 1?

[ZERO]

Their level does not change when their skills are not set to anything. Your skill points and if you have applied them to anything are not confused by the system with your level. The races level is the same even if a user runs resetskills.

[rawrr]

Another thing that ive noticed...
I have a shit ton of xp, and im a decent wcs player. But going up against a really good player with low/med amount of xp getting a health bonus, makes it impossible to compete.
Any suggestions on that?

[What]

WCS right now reminds of this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE

[ZERO]

I already said that I only give a fraction of the health now... players that are close to the average should not be getting much of anything any more.

[rawrr]

I believe this was after you changed it

[ricochet]

I tried WCS for about 5 minutes until I realized I had ZERO fucking chance at having any kind of meaningful fun when everyone was maxed out and I was just beginning. This was probably at WCS's height a few years back. I couldn't even fucking leave spawn. I haven't gone back. The most fun WCS servers I ever played on (years ago) were reset every single map but the round times were very long. How are other WCS servers that are popular doing? Are they sagging as well?

[Passarelli]

Zero, an easy solution for the race restriction: only restrict them when they are maxed.

This way people can level them. Also, the restrictions I previously listed would work well, because they group the races that are OP because of the similarity of their powers.

One other thing that should be done if you do decide to implement my idea: if someone switches to human to level it, it kicks someone off of maxed human and makes them choose a different race.


Ricochet, so you know I joined in 2012 when there were already many people who was maxed. All you do is focus on a single race, try to get kills, buy tomes, and try to learn how to counter. Being fagarushed? Buy a lace and use corners. being spidyrushed? Camp in spawn in a non obvious spot and shoot then when they land to shoot someone.

If the other team is winning, see if one of their players wouldn't mind switching with you to balance.



I personally don't feel that a reset would be the best solution, since it is only a handful of races causing the major issues. I honestly would rather see those races removed or were reworked to not be so absurd.

Some possible reworks: When human has a gun out, make them only 50% translucent. Bash stuns for half of the current time.
Spiderman: Bash is replaced
Die Xonvert: Bash is replaced
Santa: Flight speed reduced when gun is out


That said, if resetting the servers would get people to play again that stopped a while ago, than go for it. I forsee the problem being just as bad in a few months though, if not worse since everyone will be playing humans.

[Trigger Unhappy]

In case people haven't been in the server, for the last 3 weeks I've seen a good population of people.