Bugfarm Pit

For things that have to do with those crazy test servers... and yeah. By request of z-man, and, of course, you gotta obey...

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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by newbie »

Lucifer wrote: Ah, yeah, remember why the shrink is there? Because if the player who owns the wall hits it, rubber kicks in and the tail stops shrinking. But the player who doesn't own the wall will hit it with rubber and the tail will recede and he'll make the gap.
Rubber is a safety net. It does not have anything to do with cycles moving, imo. There is a clear difference in your example. It's a rarely seen skill to hit a tail end and make the gap before your safety net runs empty. This is another reason why being offensive is better than being defensive. Hell, 95% of the players does not even know, that they should aim for the tail end and not for the gap.
Lucifer wrote:The reason for the shrink is to give the player who owns the wall the same chance with it that the player who doesn't own the wall already has.
Making the gap because the tail end recedes and making the gap because it gets shortened are two totally different things. It is not about giving chances. It is about making something easier and less vulnerable to offensive attack. Just admit literally that it makes defense easier and I will leave this issue alone. :)
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Olive »

newbie wrote:Hell, 95% of the players does not even know, that they should aim for the tail end and not for the gap.
I belong to that 95% group. Thank you newbie, finally understand why I suck at cutting.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Newbie wrote:Making the gap because the tail end recedes and making the gap because it gets shortened are two totally different things.
How does the latter happen for the attacker? I thought the tail only shortens (shrinks) for the owner of the tail?
Newbie wrote:Just admit literally that it makes defense easier and I will leave this issue alone.
I think everyone would agree that the tail-shrink feature does make defense easier. And I would say if it makes defense easier than it will make offense harder.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Van-hayes »

Just admit literally that it makes defense easier and I will leave this issue alone. :)
I think that was the point of wall_shrink to begin with, it used to be only the attacker could go through the tail end of the defense in fort so all you had to do was aim for the end of the defense's tail if they had even a little gap and since they kept moving you would go through it. And since it was harder to stay alive/not shrink the zone when you had to stay within your own tail most defenders either stayed on the outside of their tail or left a tiny gap so they wouldn't be stuck on the inside. With wall_shrink now the defense can go through their own tail as well, so it sort of evened the play, maybe even gave the defense more of an advantage now.

But that is fortress, not sumo. With it at 2 in bugfarm i found it helped offense more then defense since you can go through, what seems like, more of a tail end. Helps getting into someone's area if they are just camping and helps jump out at others if you are camping.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by sinewav »

Hmm... I think adding some zone points would be good. In traditional Sumo, if you are forced out of the ring that moment when your enemie's zone collapses, you miss out on those points. And since staying in the ring is such a huge part of the game, it seems like those who can stay in better should be rewarded.

But I'm certainly not saying the zone points should be equivalent or greater than kills. Maybe 10 points.

Vanhayes mused about a total revamp of the scoring in Sumo; something I've thought about for a while too. I fantasize about a zone conquer being worth 1 point, and a core dump 3 points, and ending the game at 50 or something like that.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Phytotron »

Z-Man wrote:[stop] telling us how much sweeter candy was when you were young
But it's true.* To whit:
Flex wrote:Phytotron, have you ever played any other games? Such as Counter Strike? Almost a million servers and probably 90% of them are all the same settings and typical default map cycle. I don't see why you keep stressing on about this. This is normal and I think you should kind of realise the reason why not, instead of why every server is mostly the same.
Why should Arma be like "90%" of all other online games, especially f'cking Counterstrike? That's the thing, it didn't used to be normal for Arma that every server had the same physics. The thing that used to distinguish Arma from other games, and Arma servers from one another, was the configurability of the physics and game rules. That's what made it cool. And there are even more configurations available now. But some of you talk about "classic" servers as though there's only one or two ways to do it. And the only way you can think of adding variety and interest is with goofy game modes and power ups. That's a lamentable lack of imagination and creativity, shows a lack of appreciation for the "core" game (similar to how young, modern console gamers don't appreciate the "Golden Age" arcade games), and results in the server list being a vast wasteland of uninteresting sameness. Appeal to the quantity of the masses rather than the quality of the game and its players.

1200 wrote:I know we are just experimenting and trying new concepts out but if this is turning into a pit fight thingy i don't think it would be a sumo anymore.
Because a part of the sumo's game is to try to push the opponent out of the zone and you should be rewarded if you do so....

If you wanna make it a pit fight why not just make it just like a regular LMS in a square arena walls with sumo physics?
I'm not the one who named it "sumo," and why must it be named that, anyway? And why must the only purpose be to push an opponent out of the zone? And, again, why is there even such a thing as "sumo physics?" And the point of using a zone in this case, rather than a standard arena, is that it would forcibly keep the players engaged with one another. Z-Man's not even scoring it the way I had in mind, anyway, so I don't know what you're fretting about.

Jesus, and you guys want to portray me as the one resistant to change. :roll:
[/me recalls the cycle width test thread]


* Unless you want to be literal, in which case all this high fructose corn syrup poison has made everything (not just candy) sickeningly (both literally and figuratively) sweeter than when I was a kid.
Last edited by Phytotron on Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by newbie »

1200 wrote:
Newbie wrote:Making the gap because the tail end recedes and making the gap because it gets shortened are two totally different things.
How does the latter happen for the attacker? I thought the tail only shortens (shrinks) for the owner of the tail?
You thought right. And the latter happens for the defensive player (hiding behind his wall) that makes a move against the offensive player. His gap is made by going through the wall. This is impossible for offensive players.
Van-hayes wrote: I think that was the point of wall_shrink to begin with, it used to be only the attacker could go through the tail end of the defense in fort so all you had to do was aim for the end of the defense's tail if they had even a little gap and since they kept moving you would go through it.
There was more offensive action in fortress then, don't you think? :]
Van-hayes wrote:Helps getting into someone's area if they are just camping and helps jump out at others if you are camping.
Tail shrink might be very confusing. What you're saying would be true, if tail shrink worked for everyone, but it doesn't. Directly it has nothing to do with you getting into someone's area. What you mean by 'getting into someone's area' is about the tail end receding only. And jumping out of own area is about tail end being shortened only.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Sine wrote: I fantasize about a zone conquer being worth 1 point, and a core dump 3 points, and ending the game at 50 or something like that.
If i had to counter argue about this, i would say since the system of who gets the point for core dump is inaccurate so it should have less weight.
Add a situation where people suicide or make mistakes and gives points to the player/team that happens to be there adds more luck factor to the scoring.

Phytotron wrote:I'm not the one who named it "sumo," and why must it be named that, anyway? And why must the only purpose be to push an opponent out of the zone? And, again, why is there even such a thing as "sumo physics?" And the point of using a zone in this case, rather than a standard arena, is that it would forcibly keep the players engaged with one another. Z-Man's not even scoring it the way I had in mind, anyway, so I don't know what you're fretting about.
I never said you named it or said that it should be named that way.
Its called Bugfarm Pit anyhow....

And I'm not fretting, just stating my opinion. It seems like to me you're the one fretting about my comment getting defensive and aggresive.
Last edited by 1200 on Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Phytotron »

Eh, don't get too hung up on perceived "tones" on the internets, man.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Lol. Who's hung up? I like your passion but don't assume and over exaggerate...
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

I think most of the people that posted here had a chance to play on this server.
Cycle_rubber_wall_shrink has been 2 so far.
Can we now possibly have this set to 0 temporarily and see how it will change the game as suggested by Newbie?
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Lucifer »

Wow, Phytotron's actually right about something. :) We *did* used to spend a lot of time on physics, trying to make the game exactly the way we wanted it. Last time I checked, people didn't do that any more, they *do* just dream up a game mode, slap some boilerplate physics on it, and go.

Wow. The Lobster Shack, Breakfast in Hell, Swampland, Armagoshdarnish, Tigers, all servers with completely different physics settings (and mostly derived from a common lineage, afaik). So what is classic play, then?

Well, BiH tried to solve the problem on Breakfast Burrito where people would camp out near the walls and not attack. Or they'd fight a bit, but it was easier to run. So I made a smaller grid where you couldn't run to.

Bugfarm Pit looks like a similar idea, only by using zones instead. (Anybody remember me suggesting we make Sumo the default game? It's been a few years....)

Anyway, Phytotron, I think you're wrong about HFCS. It was already in everything even when you were a kid. ;)

On wall shrink, I think you guys are missing something. If I hit someone's wall near the tail, and his cycle is moving, then the wall will recede. If the end of the wall passes me before my rubber runs out, I will start moving again. If I do that on my own wall, then the wall will stop receding, because my cycle will not be moving anymore. Wall shrink is supposed to make it so that my wall will behave in that situation the same way someone else's wall behaves. Why it was done is irrelevant, and what effect it had on fortress play is irrelevant. In *this* thread we were talking about a situation drawn in a picture where the poster said that without wall shrink, the two cycles have the same choices, and I'm contradicting him to say that wall shrink is what gives the two cycles the same choices. Without wall shrink, the owner of the wall in the middle has different choices than the non-owner, because once the owner hits his own wall, it'll stop receding.

And finally, Phytotron, I've been talking trash to people resisting change since even before the cycle width thread. ;) I loved that change because it made so many people angry, wailing about how it's ruined their favorite game and that things should be changed back to the "old" way for what was basically a new and experimental game. ;)
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

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At the beginning you're describing perfectly natural behavior. If you weren't enough good at the time of Ladle 9 (probably the last ladle with shrink 0), you won't get it that shrink works just like a small hax. You like it, because it makes life easier for you.

Anyone who was a newb three years ago will have troubles understanding this, because they've never got good at working with shrink 0 defenders.

The other thing is, that I find simple-minded trying to induce combat/attacking and preserve anty-attacking settings at the same time.

Over the years people have started to love hugging their own tail ends so much, that now it would be difficult for them to change and start doing something else.

So let's just forget about it, but don't do things, that were known years ago.
wrtlprnft wrote:
my client wrote:CYCLE_RUBBER_WALL_SHRINK is currently set to 2.
Wow, you're making it nice and easy for defenders…
2020 wrote:played on the huge shrink
absurd
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Lucifer »

newbie wrote: Anyone who was a newb three years ago will have troubles understanding this, because they've never got good at working with shrink 0 defenders.
I guess you missed the part where this thread isn't about fortress? ;)
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Lucifer wrote:The Lobster Shack, Breakfast in Hell, Swampland, Armagoshdarnish, Tigers, all servers with completely different physics settings (and mostly derived from a common lineage, afaik). So what is classic play, then?
Classic: Having a high quality that is recognized and unquestioned. (Oxford American Dictionary)

From that list i would only include Swampland since the others are not around or nobody plays them anymore. Personally I would also add fort, sumo, HR, Shrunkland & Nexus in the classic settings list as well...
Lucifer wrote:Why it was done is irrelevant, and what effect it had on fortress play is irrelevant.
Hmm it seems to me that its totally relevant and its the crux of the dilemma.
Lucifer wrote:The reason for the shrink is to give the player who owns the wall the same chance with it that the player who doesn't own the wall already has.
Could you explain this statement a little more? How is having the shrink giving the player who owns the tail the same chance and same chance at doing what?
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