Lower the Rubber

[DaGarBBaGeMAN]

Yes, I'd like to see a tournament go down with these settings. Although I wanna add that if you think fortress is boring to watch now, then I think these settings will make it much more boring. Since the slightest mistake can kill you, you would avoid getting into sticky situations altogether (even more than now).

[RoterBaron1337]

probably you are seriously right, i mean i could even do risky shit with 2 rubber..
i would love to try it in a fort game to see how it is my self..
i mean i played 7 ? years of fort..5 rubber seemed always good for outdigging, defending and killing the other defenders with some tricky moves where u might not need the "5" rubber for but can make the attack so that he shrinks or has to use rubber to not let you in..

[Flow]

Did any of you see the yawn-fest in yesterday's final with Luffy attacking Soul? If the rubber was 20, that would not have made it any more exciting.

And if the rubber was 1, that would have made it less exciting. Do you really think people won't play even more conservative and boring in a tourney if they're given less rubber?

+1

Why would people be less conservative when they have less rubber?

[RoterBaron1337]

i srsly like the settings... u guys should give a try b4 bitching

[Concord]

vov, the same "problem" exists with 5 rubber, but if you guess wrong you get to walk away saying, "gee, that was close." Lag means you have to make a decision with imperfect knowledge, but there are still good decisions and bad decisions, and there's nothing wrong with having to pay for the bad and getting rewarded for the good.

Lucifer, there are two test servers up. one for fortress, one for sumo.

[Lucifer]

Lucifer, there are two test servers up. one for fortress, one for sumo.

Yeah, after *I* said something about it they got setup. I don't recall you asking for test servers, just running up a petition. So, how is it that I don't deserve more than a one-liner?

[ElmosWorld]

From the time I played in the server, aside from my constant slides which I will blame on my ISP,

Double grinds should be possible, just have to do what dlh does.
Box defenses will be overpowered. You can keep a speed of 60, use no rubber, and not shrink at all(or a negligible amount)
Center attacks should still be possible. I didn't really have a chance to test it out, but I see no reason they shouldn't be possible.

I don't know if I would change the fort that we play in ladle, but this game was still fun so if we could call it something else (like we have CTWF for the crazy maps, multi axis etc), but I don't have any ideas.

Just some thoughts.

[Concord]

yeah the settings still need tinkering

[0000]

Settings used today in Sky:

rubber .8
rubber mindistance .05
rubber time 1
rubber speed 212

The timebased setting was not used.

[Titanoboa]

There's now a 0.2 rubber sumo bar hosted in UK, called Titan's Sumo Bar. Try it out!
Might change it to 1 rubber if needed.

[LOVER$BOY]

Currently I and vov are working on the settings ourselves in this server:
_| Alpha Project |_ Zero-Balance | Ladle

Come and join us and improve the settings for Low Rubber

UPDATE:
Pulled an all nighter and got the settings working smoothly!
Come and check it out guys

[boobert]

You should just disable brakes. Then go down to 4 rubber. 3 would be better though.

[LOVER$BOY]

disable brakes and you know your putting yourself in heaps of trouble

At-least give people chances to try and survive. Rubber 1 really is a death sentence

[Lucifer]

He squeezed this in before the lock on the other thread, and it's useful in both, so I've quoted him. I asked him to copy and paste, and then realized how dumb the request was, so here it is.

The entirety of the argument in this thread is bogus—on both sides—as it suffers from two flawed premises.

1. You're all acting as though Fortress (and Sumo and CTF) is a defined, game-wide game mode, an all-encompassing description of which includes all the physics settings. It is not. You're all suffering from a misconception. Fortress is defined by the zone behavior, period. That means a server can have any combination of physics settings—any rubber values, speed, acceleration, wall length, turn delay, walls stay up delay; as well as any sort of scoring—and still qualify as Fortress so long as it has the appropriate zone behavior. I know a lot of you don't want to accept that and would say "but it's really not Fortress," with an implied "as I know it," but thems the facts.

It's nothing more than a matter of convention (albeit, one somewhat codified in the Ladle) that has all these Fortress servers being clones of one another. Also, laziness, since all one has to do to create a "Fortress" server is use some pre-made config or map file (another negative side-effect of those damnable things). Same goes for Sumo and CTF. There's no reason whatsoever why every Sumo server should have Fortress-like physics, or why every CTF server should have high rubber and minuscule turn delay (CYCLE_DELAY).

It's similar to the way people conflate "high rubber" and "open/loose/dogfight" with an overall set of physics settings. "High rubber" describes the amount of rubber, period. There's no reason every one should have high speed and acceleration, minuscule turn delay, and usually heavy brakes. "Dogfight" is a description of (moronic) gameplay rules, not physics at all.

Or even the very fact that there is a large proportion of people in this game (and the Wiki, inconceivably) who actually refer to "rubber" as a game mode. "Do you play rubber?" "This is just another rubber server." That's just plain stupid.

Anyway, Lucifer alludes somewhat to this: Servers in this game used to be made distinct by their physics settings. Then all these "special game modes" were introduced and now there's actually less variety than there was in the old days. How's that for irony. But anyway, then he made the point about just making a Fortress server the way you want and leaving it to competition. And ordinarily I would mostly agree with this, except for the fact that what defines "Fortress" to most everyone playing these days—this all-encompassing view that includes a particular set of physics—has become so conventional. In effect, that convention has become a monopoly on Fortress; it's not a fair market environment. The default config and Ladle make putting up servers with alternative Fortress physics (whatever they may be) an even more disadvantaged position.

So, I don't have a solution (nor do I really care, since I don't even believe in Fortress's existence , but that makes me impartial, right?), but from an outside position, I'm informing you all that this premise is wrong. And you can begin to work toward a solution yourselves when you realize and accept that statements like "Lower the rubber in fortress!" or "OMG Don't change fortress!" simply don't make sense. In the first case, you can't change the rubber in every Fortress server because it's not a game-wide, all-encompassing game mode. In the second case, changing the settings—any settings besides the zone itself—in one or several Fortress servers isn't changing Fortress. It's only that server(s).

The statement "In regular fortress, I don't think it's feasible. I do, however, think there is merit for a new mode of fortress with lower rubber and other altered settings" doesn't make sense. "[J]ust make it as 'other gametype'" doesn't make sense. It wouldn't be a "new mode of Fortress." It would still be Fortress.

This is not a game like other online games you all play. Game modes, physics, and other rules are not set by the game developers or some central authority. The community, with server configurations, is supposed to do that. It's just that ever since "special game modes" were introduced, not many have.

If you change fortress' settings, then you'll have to change sumo's settings too, otherwise there is no uniformity.

Why do you need uniformity? Uniformity bad. There used to be more creativity in this game before "special game modes."


2. There are a lot of misconceptions about what rubber is and what it does. I'll just quote some of them mostly chronologically. But I want to preface by pointing out that rubber is not meant to be a gameplay feature or mechanic—meaning you shouldn't lament the loss of gameplay mechanics that are lost by reducing rubber, as they were an abuse and exploit in the first place. It is meant to compensate for lag—something Concord mentioned in his first post, but then later dismissed, which I found odd.

I also want to point out that rubber is not a single setting, despite there being that one HUD bit. Rather, there are several rubber settings, all of which work in concert to varying results, and are furthermore affected by non-rubber settings, such as speed. While a few people made posts that showed some of the other rubber settings, I'm betting most looking still don't realize or understand that. So, to commence with the quoting. Developers do correct me if I get anything grossly incorrect.

Rubber is illogical. Rubber comes into effect when you hit a wall, but if you are in contact with it, how can you get closer to it?

Because you're not actually contacting the wall at that point. To now quote myself from an earlier thread: Rubber isn't a shield. And it doesn't produce seals (like a gasket or something). In the "old days" people didn't use terms like "digging" or grinding "deeper." They referred to making a very close grind. The reason being, rubber's purpose is to stop and slow you before you actually make contact with a wall. Now, most of the time this isn't visible; it happens on an infinitesimal visual scale. You think you've touched the nose of your cycle (the model of which is entirely cosmetic, by the way; it's really just a singular point) to a wall and laid your wall up against it, but as far as the code is concerned, you haven't actually made contact. The more rubber you use, the closer you get. Once rubber runs out, you'll actually contact the wall. Contact is immediate death, just like GLTron.

If you want to see this in action, set CYCLE_RUBBER_MINDISTANCE to something like 0.5. You'll see how it stops you cold before making contact with the wall.

Then, set CYCLE_RUBBER to something ridiculous like 100, and CYCLE_RUBBER_MINDISTANCE_RESERVOIR to 2. You'll see how, after MINDISTANCE stops you, you'll slowly move toward the wall as your rubber gets used up. That's what's always happening, just on a much smaller scale.

That said, yes, this is one of those situations where what makes sense to a programmer doesn't make sense from a design standpoint. This game has programmers, not designers. You can do things with the settings to try to reduce that visual effect (as I have tried to do, which Concord has in the past shat on), but it's almost impossible to eliminate without setting rubber values to 0. Which would be a bad idea since rubber is so integrated into the code, such as how it handles latency. It causes all kinds of problems. That said...

We need lots of rubber for lag!

No, you don't. You need only enough rubber to compensate for latency, no more. That does not include being able to turn against a wall you're already grinding (e.g., "double grinding"); that's an abuse of the settings that shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

It does include a setting like CYCLE_PING_RUBBER, which will basically add a little more rubber to those who have higher pings. I don't know what it is in the typical Fortress clone. I have, however, seen it set too high in some servers to where higher-pinged players have an advantage in the closeness of their grinds.

It does include balancing rubber against speed. However, that's only if CYCLE_RUBBER_TIMEBASED is set to 0. If that's the case, then rubber usage is distance-based. This means that when you "hit" a wall, rubber usage is determined by how far you would have gone had that wall not been there. Obviously, the faster you're going, the farther you would have gone, so rubber gets used faster. That is the original and still the most common setting.

But what it also means is that the 5 rubber in the typical Fortress clone is not the same as 5 rubber in a server with different speed. In a slower server it would feel like more, and in a faster server it would feel like less. Rubber is not a universal value when _TIMEBASED is set to 0, and in most cases it is.

On the other hand, if that value is set to 1, then rubber consumption is determined solely by how long you're "contacting" that wall, regardless of your speed. The value for CYCLE_RUBBER becomes a timer, in essence. In this case, there's really no reason to increase rubber to match speed. Indeed, with that set to 1, I would never set basic _RUBBER above 1.

Then there's CYCLE_RUBBER_TIME, which determines the speed at which rubber recovers after a grind. This operates independently of _TIMEBASED.

A typical Fortress server uses a base CYCLE_RUBBER of 5, with _TIMEBASED set to 0, and _TIME set to 10. That means that rubber has to be balanced against speed, which has a base of 30. Personally, with that combination, I'm not awfully bothered by it being 5, although I would enact CYCLE_RUBBER_DELAY to prevent 180's and adjusts against walls. Also, brakes for weaks.

But the other major point is the speed. Fortress servers are set to what I consider a rather high speed. Higher speed is going to cause more problems with lag (so does higher rubber, but in a different, buggier way, like "instas"). Speed is relative to distance and time. What would be more effective than raising rubber in reducing problems with overseas lag would be to scale down the speed, and along with it the size of the server, zones, and wall length—and rubber. You might also want to experiment with slightly increasing CYCLE_PING_RUBBER and slightly decreasing _RUBBER_TIME to satisfy overseas complaints.


As an aside, my personal favored rubber combo is _RUBBER 1, _TIMEBASED 1, and _TIME being something like 0.3 (which is as low as I can make it without it doing broken things, like never 'sploding), as Gene noted. That takes speed out of the rubber equation, and minimizes rubber as a gameplay mechanic. Also, CYCLE_RUBBER_DELAY 1 and _DELAY_BONUS [something, I forget] to eliminate adjusts and 180 grinds. I've also found that overseas players don't have abnormally disadvantageous rubber-related lag issues in my servers with those settings, despite a low CYCLE_PING_RUBBER (may even be 1).

5 rubber means I can try to outdig someone, or dig harder to get out of something

Putting aside my disdain for the word "dig" and the misconception about rubber that it creates, you can do those things whatever the rubber value is. It's always relative. Where I quoted myself above—that was in response to my answering someone who said "what do you mean there's no such thing as closed?" If there's a wall there, you can get behind it. Whether the rubber value is 1 or 50, if the player who laid down the grind got 80% closeness on his grind, you can always go to 85%, or 95%. Closeness is a proportion relative to a given rubber value; it's not a constant, universal value that stands irrespective of the rubber value. Dig?

Plus, [lowering rubber] might upvalue "open play", if it's misinterpreted.

That has some truth to it, but in a twisted sort of way. It's true that you hear "open" players in their spitting bile say, "if you want to seal go to a high rubber server, noob." Trouble is, they're almost always in high rubber servers when they say that (shit, high rubber is pretty much all that's left). That Dogfight server is high rubber. Way high, especially when you consider the other physics settings. So, there's really nothing you can do about that so long as the general Arma population has this completely out-of-whack concept of what constitutes "high rubber."

low-rubber servers like Mud Puddle (5 rubber)

Perfect example of a few points I've made. First of all, it shows that rubber isn't universal because there are several settings that factor into its behavior. Typical Fortress has a value of 5 as well, but is the rubber behavior the same? You know it's not even close. Why? Because Mud Puddle also has _TIMEBASED 1. That means you use the same amount of rubber on a grind no matter how fast you're going. And it has _TIME 5, meaning rubber recovers twice as fast as on a typical Fortress server. Moreover, it has a much smaller CYCLE_DELAY, meaning adjusts or doublebind turns are faster and tighter, meaning adjusts or 180s against a wall consume much, much less rubber. There's also the matter of its short walls, which in combination with all that, make surviving smaller boxes imminently easier, especially with crutches.

So, that server is totally a high rubber server in its behavior. It's not even close. For another comparison, Yellow Submarine has 15 rubber, but because _TIMEBASED is 0 and _SPEED is 35, despite _TIME being a little lower at 4, rubber is, on average, consumed much more quickly on that server. In effect, Yellow Sub actually has effectively lower rubber than Mud Puddle. It's still totally a high rubber server, though.

Which is the other point that comment is an example of: The utterly twisted concept people these days have of what constitutes high or low rubber.

The distance you get closer to a wall depends NOT on how much rubber you use but rather on the amount of time you spend digging into the wall. This is not well-known among the community, because it goes against intuition.

Doh! Wrong on two levels. One, rubber usage is exactly what determines your closeness to the wall. (So does _MINDISTANCE and a couple others, but that's the initial slowdown.) Secondly, what I said about _TIMEBASED. In a typical Fortress server it has nothing to do with time. I hope you're not spreading this around.

a brand new player is more likely to stick with a game if the game mechanics are intuitive. Therefore, we should reduce the presence of rubber in the game.

With this I totally agree. That's what I've tried to do in my servers. There's nothing at all intuitive about being able to sit on a wall for any amount of time, or 180 against it. Sadly, rubber and the abusive/exploitative gameplay it produces has only increased over time. The community isn't going to go reverse course on that, only the developers have the power to do so, and they ain't gonna—despite their, and Z-Man's specifically, position against high rubber. "Open source" philosophy, I guess. And after all, also because of that, even if they did do something about it, the bulk of the "community" would leave and make a fork or branch or whatever with all the rubber. It's a lost cause.

Change sumo rubber to the same settings then please. I want it to be equal.

I refer to section one. Your comment doesn't make any sense.

And cycle_turn_delay half of what it is in current fortress config.

No such setting. It's CYCLE_DELAY. I don't know what you think that would accomplish, though. It would make for tighter multibind turns (something I totally oppose), and would make adjusts and 180s more effective by using less rubber, as I described above.

Also, I believe there is a setting (cycle_rubber_timebased or something?) that dictates whether the distance you are from the wall is determined by rubber used or the time spent grinding against it.

To reiterate:

1) _TIMEBASED decides whether rubber usage is determined by speed (and would-be distance traveled) or time. A value of 0 in the first case (default, old way), or 1 in the latter.
2) Rubber usage equals closeness to a wall, regardless of the value of _TIMEBASED.

I don't know what you mean by the grinding bit. Rubber isn't used when grinding against a wall, if you mean when you're running parallel to it.

Ok, I put up a server, hosted in Virginia, USA for you guys to test this in. It is called "Low Rubber Fortress". Currently it is running current Ladle settings with only the following 2 changes.

Code: Select all

CYCLE_RUBBER_SPEED 60

What do you believe you're accomplishing with that one? Some people assume that has something to do with cycle speed; it doesn't.

I'd opt for slightly stronger/more brakes and acceleration and less base speed instead, I actually tried that and it works and it makes it more tense than no rubber.

More brakes and less speed, with the same rubber value, means more effective rubber. Also, no one has suggested no rubber.

actually, driving parallel to walls is what creates acceleration. rubber does get you slightly closer to walls, but this creates very very minimal increased acceleration.

Eh, kinda sorta, but not really. You're right on the first sentence (despite its lack of capitalization, you rebel, you), of course.* But on the second, it's CYCLE_WALL_NEAR that determines at what distance to a wall acceleration kicks in. Surely you've all noticed that you can catch acceleration off a wall without actually grinding it. Now, once you make a grind, sure, if you use 80% of your rubber instead of 30% you might get a little more acceleration, especially if _WALL_NEAR is set to something really low (which in a typical Fortress server, it isn't), but it's negligible.

* I don't think vov was claiming that there was claiming that acceleration was derived from rubber, however. I think he was making the point I made earlier: Higher speed usually requires higher rubber to compensate.

lag's effect on gameplay is marginal. lag kills you when you are trying to outgrind 3.5 at the same frequency it kills you when you try to outgrind 0.5.

The following to both sides of this argument: That's not the point. It's not about outgrinding. It's about the player's client not thinking they've yet hit a wall, but the server saying they have. Rubber is meant to make up the difference between the player seeing "I'm not even close to hitting that wall, so I'm not going to turn yet" and the server saying "oh no, you already passed it, dude; die now." That was the original intention of rubber, not about beating grinds or doing fancy "tricks" or other nonsense. And it's a real, inescapable problem that has to be dealt with somehow. That's why 0 rubber (even 0.n) is unworkable with this game. People with higher pings will get the message too late that their cycle has already crossed that wall. Which, again, is further exasperated as speed goes up.

Again, to Concord, if this is a negotiation (which it probably should be if you want anyone to come to your side), you should at least offer to try increasing CYCLE_PING_RUBBER a tad, possibly decreasing _RUBBER_TIME, in compensation for lowering rubber.

Whatever settings are currently going on in the low rubber server is whack (imo). Turns feel really weird.

That makes no sense, unless someone changed settings related to turning. Rubber has nothing to do with turns.

Code: Select all

CYCLE_RUBBER_DELAY 0.0
CYCLE_RUBBER_DELAY_BONUS 0.5

There's no point setting _BONUS to anything if _RUBBER_DELAY is set to 0.




Finally, just a few random responses:

I would suggest that almost everyone who played in the Ladle today is of similar or greater quality to the hardcore players of 2005-2006 that Lucifer describes.

No way. Wait, where'd you get those years? That's actually the 0.2.7.1 era, when most players were 180 freaks and high rubber servers were really coming to rule the day, so that was bad. But players preceding that, I would say most on average better players than today's average.

pussies

Stop using misogynistic and macho posturing language like this. All of you. Just stop. And it's not just the "low rubber" crowd, either. It's the Fortress crowd in general against people who play other "game modes." It's the "open" crowd. It's everybody. It's gaming culture in general, and a big part of what makes it so goddamn degenerate.

[No one] is a coward and [no one] is a pro here. Nobody gets paid as far as I know.

Word up. "Pro" is one of the stupidest terms in gaming, after all the bigotry and internet culture memes, anyway.

[Hoax]

Why's the other topic locked
I didn't know I was on any list
Always down for more testing