Ladle 49

[Z-Man]

INW: where there real autobans (that shouldn't happen) or did everyone just time out?

Recordings for 0.2.8.3.1 (0.2.8.3.2 and its betas will probably work, too)
final_inw_sp_vs_mym.aarec 35792kb 3923s

semi_ctmbx_r_vs_sp.aarec 47548kb 4824s
semi_inw_mym_vs_ct.aarec 33916kb 4081s
semi_inw_mym_vs_ct_part2.aarec 8780kb 2119s

quarter_ctliv_dv_vs_sp.aarec 9492kb 1121s
quarter_ctmbx_ot_vs_r.aarec 15156kb 1778s

[Z-Man]

cont:
quarter_inw_ct_vs_unk.aarec 23596kb 2440s
quarter_z_ds_vs_mym.aarec 24340kb 2749s

ss_aot_dp_vs_dv.aarec 26264kb 4243s
ss_ctmbx_pru_vs_ot.aarec 28552kb 4140s
ss_inw_ct_vs_sh.aarec 29416kb 3178s
ss_z_ds_vs_id.aarec 22272kb 2367s

[FoFo]

Nice matches PL , unk , dv , R , mym , grats on your victory , i kind feel sad people got disconnected during final , but thats life whatever , server was fine for me .

I agree with insa on what he said talkin about dv thats true i think you could have done better in usa serv but at start of the match we agreed on playin in eu and we were rly late thats why we didnt want to change on 2 nd match i think we were like more than 30 mins late , anyways wont happen again.

I really enjoyed it until my mates s connection problem , thx to everyone , nice job organisators as always , thx for recordings z-man

Next ladle is ladle 50, time goes fast!

[PokeMaster]

whew. Hell of some matches. Tx, you guys were something...hour and a half round? Jeebus. You guys had my heart beating at 100% capacity the full time. Open team, you guys were fun, especially chrisd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And sp....oh boy, you guys are jerks for beating us when we worked our butts off against you, but really, those were some of the best fort matches I've ever played in.

Thanks to everybody who contributed to this. z-man, awesome job with the recordings, looks like you've outdone yourself this time.

And a final thing, is it just me, or do any other northern americans feel more comfortable playing in euro servers than US ones? Smaller lagometers is nice, but I'm just so used to the high ping rubber since public fort is 9 times out of 10 in european servers.

[sinewav]

...is it just me, or do any other northern americans feel more comfortable playing in euro servers than US ones?

You're not alone my friend. I think a large percentage of US Fort player prefer EU servers. You come to rely on that tiny bit of extra rubber and it throws off your timing when you want to dig/seal/grind. Why else would we all play in MB's server in the middle of the night with Hoax, the only EU players. And when someone says "oh we should go to a US server" we all just shrug as if to say, "meh, whatever, this is good."

[PokeMaster]

yeah totally. I think in the very first round of the ladle I killed myself by digging to hard and accidentally going into a tunnel that I didn't think I could go in, all because I had 55 ping versus the 160-210 I'm used to.

[DDMJ]

CT USA was abominable. Never again.

I felt like I was at a water park, slippin 'n slidin' all over the place, seriously.

[Desolate]

I was fine there except for a few minor bumps, usually I get lags.

[sinewav]

CT USA was abominable. Never again.

CT USA has been sketchy the last few months. However, we don't really have a choice but to use it. This goes for all server complaints for which there are many. Are all the Ladle servers not performing as good as they used to... or are we all expecting more because the competition is so intense?

How can we secure eight stable servers for future Ladles? It's already difficult to to get the ones we have already every month.

Also, bump on this:

A new rule/guideline that's needed:

If the server you're playing in crashes, then an admin will reset the scores to what they were before the server crashed. The player imbalance, such as 6 players vs 4 players, is not necessary to restore. The round state when the server crashed can not be recreated exactly—restoring the scores is sufficient.

I'm inclined to drop this right into the wiki as is before too long. I think this is generally understood, but it would be nice to document a procedure.

[-*inS*-]

Are all the Ladle servers not performing as good as they used to... or are we all expecting more because the competition is so intense?

With longer rounds, there is more time to lag and die, thus creating a bigger influence on the game. Freako was saying that INW's was 95% good for him, he would just get a big lag once every few minutes and die (which happened to be shorter than an average round). Similar things happened to our other European players (ie. the problem wasn't client side).

Not sure of any ways around this though, and the problem could get even worse as teams start to improve, prolonging each round and match. Personally I love long fights, especially 1v1s, Psy made a good analogy to Chess, 2 grand-masters dueling each other. However I realize that not everyone is as patient as I am . Also it comes with the effect of making the ladle longer overall which causes issues of time commitments for players.

Anyone have any ideas on how to
1. Shorten rounds + matches
2. Reduce lag in games

The obvious solution to me would be to play with less players on a team, but I'm sure that suggestion would be widely frowned upon as people are used to 6v6.

[Desolate]

There's nothing about putting less players on a team that makes the rounds shorter, it could take just as long.

[owned]

A new rule/guideline that's needed:

If the server you're playing in crashes, then an admin will reset the scores to what they were before the server crashed. The player imbalance, such as 6 players vs 4 players, is not necessary to restore. The round state when the server crashed can not be recreated exactly—restoring the scores is sufficient.

I'm inclined to drop this right into the wiki as is before too long. I think this is generally understood, but it would be nice to document a procedure.

I know everyone else who's posted so far agrees with this, but I'd like to push out an argument for the other side because I think the player imbalance should be restored.

When restoring a server after it was shutdown in the middle of a match, you have two goals:
1. Make the match conditions as close to how they were before as possible.
2. Not delay the game too much or cause too much hassle on the players.

These are somewhat contradictory goals. Obviously the score should be restored as it fulfills both goals. On the other hand, players should obviously not be forced to go in the same positions because it completely breaks goal 2. I argue that restoring player imbalance fulfills both goals. Obviously it fulfills the first goal, and as for the second goal, all you need is for an admin to admin kill the dead people at the start of the new round. That doesn't delay the game at all and causes very little hassle on the players.

[-*inS*-]

There's nothing about putting less players on a team that makes the rounds shorter, it could take just as long.

My perception of it was rounds were 3v3 in the middle with 3 players defending = not interacting with anyone else. Why not just get rid of the sweepbox around each defense and make it 4v4? This way there would be interaction with the defense right from the start which would signifcantly reduce round time as the majority of the ladle was spent waiting for sweepboxes to breakdown. Of course it could take longer just as one round, but the average time would be quicker.

[owned]

I seem to remember the 4-player fortress tourney taking so long that we had to move the finals to the next weekend.

[kyle]

CT USA was abominable. Never again.

I felt like I was at a water park, slippin 'n slidin' all over the place, seriously.

I am planning on re-imaging it sometime and starting fresh, if that does not help. only a few more months and i can change providers

I had changed some stuff after the last ladle and I had not had problems all month until yesterday