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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Z-Man
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Bugfarm Pit

Post by Z-Man »

Forked from here: http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 96#p217096

Bugfarm Pit is a server that, on the surface, looks like sumo, but the settings and scoring are trying to encourage direct combat. Like a pit fight :) So far, the core configuration looks like this:

Code: Select all

# based on sumo
include examples/cvs_test/sumo_complete.cfg

SP_MIN_PLAYERS 2
MIN_PLAYERS 2

# score modification
FORTRESS_COLLAPSE_SCORE -30
FORTRESS_HELD_SCORE -30
FORTRESS_CONQUERED_SCORE 0

# lower wall shrink to make camping harder
CYCLE_RUBBER_WALL_SHRINK 0.1

# award active combat
ENEMY_CURRENTTIME_INFLUENCE -2

# shorter wall keepalive to avoid misattribution
WALLS_STAY_UP_DELAY 3
FORTRESS_COLLAPSE_SCORE is a new item that adds that score as suicide score if you leave your zone. I'll probably change the mechanic so it can also award pushing players out. Anyway, it's a bit of new code; I don't think you can make it so that running away isn't punished with 0.2.8.x.

The rationale between awarding survival a bit (with 30 points, just as kills) is that that way, the average score available per player is 30 points, independently of how many players are in each zone. (The last player survives, so his 30 points are not available, so being in a full zone would be advantageous. Humm. Of course, regular sumo has the same problem.)

Suggestions go here, everything is up to experimentation. Testing has shown that so far, players don't treat it too differently from regular sumo. I guess we'll have to give it more time.
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Lucifer
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Lucifer »

Z-Man wrote:Testing has shown that so far, players don't treat it too differently from regular sumo. I guess we'll have to give it more time.
Could that be because the best way to win at regular sumo is to core dump your ringmates? ;)
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by DDMJ »

Z-Man wrote:

Code: Select all

# lower wall shrink to make camping harder
CYCLE_RUBBER_WALL_SHRINK 0.1
I don't see how this will make camping harder. It would only seem to make everything harder for higher pinged players.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Phytotron »

That seems more along the lines of the view sinewav has for scoring, which is fine. There's room for both and all scoring systems. My point was that if I were a sumo player (I only occasionally stop in if I see someone I know, and it's probably the most tolerable, least-worst alternate game mode), my primary grievance would be with the fact that there's just no freaking variation, both in terms of physics and scoring systems, with the latter being the subject here. Every sumo server I've looked at has the same dang system, even if there's some superficial change in the values (e.g., 1337 wins the match).

Anyway, the way I would do it is zero-out all sources of scoring (positive and negative), except for SCORE_KILL. If someone just ran or got pushed out of the zone, they'd just explode. Sure, this would save that person from giving up a point, but they also wouldn't be rewarded any point—it's like self-boxing and suiciding in a LMS server with only a SCORE_KILL point. Doesn't bother me. Set a score limit and that's motivation for not only a player to stay inside, but for the other(s) to keep him there, and vice-versa.

Of course, yes, the catch to this is score the detection which, I must repeat, I and most everyone I've brought it up with believe is far and away worse with the new detection than the old. I mean, it's downright absurd some of the baloney that happens. I put a small box right around a guy, and some other player whose nearest wall—not just his lightcycle—is on the other side of the arena gets the point. What?


...I figured the wall shrink thing was more of a bug fix for the fact that a receding tail would stop receding for the duration of its parent cycle touching a wall. In a game where there's a "depth of grind," it makes sense that the tail should continue to recede while the cycle makes a grind (or "dig," if you kids prefer). But then I don't play fortress enough to even see how this applies or why it's so hotly controversial.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by newbie »

Look at this hypothetical situation.
Untitled.jpg
Untitled.jpg (1.83 KiB) Viewed 6908 times
Tail end is gray on purpose. It shows that this is symmetric situation and both players have to work with the tail end, if they want to attack. It does not matter, who is the owner of it.

One of the players has to tap into his sick timing skills and meticulously get the gap in order to attack. But guess what does the other one do, he just hits the wall and gets transported through it? How unbalanced is that?
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Flex »

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.

Anyway, I've not yet played in Bugfarm Pit, yet. I want to try it out before giving my full opinion, but I feel this would work in the TST more than any other scenario, so far. But I'm not really favouring the -30.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Z-Man »

Flex wrote:But I'm not really favouring the -30.
Good, because I replaced it with what happens if you crash the rim wall, basically.

Phytotron: if you have a concrete, either recorded or reproducible, bug report about the scoring, go ahead and submit it. But I think we'd all like you a bit more if you stopped telling us how much sweeter candy was when you were young (even though you had to walk twenty miles to school, through waist deep snow, bare footed, uphill both ways).

Edit, oh yea, forgot about the rubber wall shrink: As I said, everything is negotiable :) There's no denying that a stronger shrink gives the owner of a tail an advantage while fighting near that tail. The question is, does this advantage make people camp more, or would they more often take a risk and break out of their tailchasing routine to counterattack? Can't tell without trying, so I'll up the shrink to 2. Yeah, 1 would probably be better, but we're experimenting here, and effects are best observed at extreme points of the spectrum.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Phytotron wrote:Anyway, the way I would do it is zero-out all sources of scoring (positive and negative), except for SCORE_KILL. If someone just ran or got pushed out of the zone, they'd just explode. Sure, this would save that person from giving up a point, but they also wouldn't be rewarded any point—
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?
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Z-Man »

1200 wrote: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?
Those walls don't shrink in on you :) Plus, they're hard boundaries, whereas the sumo zone is soft and tolerates well dosed temporary escapes.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by newbie »

Z-Man wrote: The question is, does this advantage make people camp more, or would they more often take a risk and break out of their tailchasing routine to counterattack?
Offensive players can attack only gaps. Defensive players have gaps and their tail ends (so their attacking spread is wider and thus easier). The question is, whether the server owner wants to encourage easier defensive approach.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by 1200 »

Zman wrote:Those walls don't shrink in on you Plus, they're hard boundaries, whereas the sumo zone is soft and tolerates well dosed temporary escapes.
Yes i do know that...why does the zone have to shrink for this type of game??
Typically in a real pit fight the arena doesn't shrink.... or are you just trying to preserve some of the characteristics from the original sumo game mode??
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Z-Man »

1200 wrote:are you just trying to preserve some of the characteristics from the original sumo game mode??
A bit of that :) But also, as players get killed, you want to give the remaining players less room.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Flex »

How about while in the mood to change Sumo so dramatically can we include LIMIT_ROUNDS to 12 instead of 10? I've always wanted it to be a tiny bit more and 12 sounds perfect, any specific reason why not?
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Z-Man »

Flex wrote:any specific reason why not?
Neither specific nor unspecific. Done.
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Re: Bugfarm Pit

Post by Lucifer »

newbie wrote:Look at this hypothetical situation.
Untitled.jpg
Tail end is gray on purpose. It shows that this is symmetric situation and both players have to work with the tail end, if they want to attack. It does not matter, who is the owner of it.

One of the players has to tap into his sick timing skills and meticulously get the gap in order to attack. But guess what does the other one do, he just hits the wall and gets transported through it? How unbalanced is that?
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.

Lowering rubber would help, but won't eliminate the problem. 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.
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