Pickup survey results are up!

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epsy
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Pickup survey results are up!

Post by epsy »

Survey results are up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... uNGc#gid=0 (Switch sheets at the bottom for synthesized data.)

Following recent discussions, #armagetron.pickup will be suspended for two weeks starting tomorrow at about 14:00 CEST. This will be a chance for everyone to see what the gridscape looks like without pickup and decide what is best for everyone. A survey will be organized at the term of this period, which I will start drafting, with your help, during the second week.

"ger1" and "ga1" servers will host adaptations for public play of the fort6 and tst pickup gametypes, kotf being already available. If you wish to chat with other armagetroners off the game grid, you are still very welcome to do so in #armagetron.

Questions to be put in the survey
A — Issues with the state of Armagetron Fortress and Team Sumo

State how much you agree/disagree with the following statements:
(Strongly agree/Somewhat agree/Neither agree nor disagree/Somewhat disagree/Strongly disagree)

There are not enough public fortress games.
Pickup fortress games are competitive.
Public fortress games are competitive.
New players can find and join pickup games.
New players can find and join public games.
Pickup tends to have players intending to play sit idle while they wait for a spot.
Public servers tend to have players intending to play sit idle while they wait for a spot.
Players wait in sumo/fortress for a pickup game to start.
Players wait in sumo fora public fortress game to start.

...

B — How pickup can be changed to address those issues

Don't attempt to reply to the survey here, you will be able to do so after June 5th. Propose more questions and/or answers if you think of any.
Continue to suspend pickup indefinitely. Yes/No

Keep pickup open only on the evenings of these days[Selecting Monday opens pickup from 12:00 UTC as read on a 24-hour clock on Monday until 12:00 UTC on Tuesday]: Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun

Agree/Disagree scale:
Track statistics on all fort6 pickup servers.
Auto-pick fort6 players according to those statistics.
Auto-pick server location based on player preferences.
Use 0.2.8.x servers to ensure greater compatibility with 0.2.8 clients (but ditch referee voting and warmup mode)
Limit the amount of pickup games to be had in one day: No, don't limit it / Yes, limit it to: []

...

C — How public servers can be changed to address those issues
Note: This is hardly under my control.

Limit the amount of spectators in servers meant for public play: No, don't limit it. / No, allow no extra room for spectators. / How much extra room to keep: []


D - New facilities

Agree/Disagree scale:
Should they be put in place, use fort6 stats to select a VIP league.
This VIP league should consist of access to a private pickup mode.
This VIP league should consist of participation to regular show matches.
Members of this league should help tech players interested in fortress.
Don't attempt to reply to the survey here, you will be able to do so after June 5th. Propose more questions and/or answers if you think of any.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by ogo »

Nice, thanks for taking the initiative in regards to recent feedback from the community

The principal criticism of pickup is that it prevents new players from getting into fortress and, to a lesser extend, sumo. Of course a two week break from pickup will not tell us the extent to which this argument is true. It will, however, give us the opportunity to try and organise our competitive public fortress/sumo in a new way, rather than relying on what pickup has to offer every time

It would be good to use this thread to get feedback from people in regards to how public fortress and sumo is in the next fortnight. Suggestions for how we can organise ourselves to encourage competitive play whilst discouraging boundaries that prevent new players from getting involved would also be excellent
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by Vogue »

I suggest 6v6 servers because "megafort" is too chaotic and prevents any type of competitive play.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by sinewav »

This is a great opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about pickup vs public.

My personal feeling is we have no need to remove pickup to favor public Fortress, rather we should come up with a new approach that mixes the best of both worlds. How can we use existing settings to solve problems in both environments? I think /scramble is a useful function and maybe it has a place in the new Fortress? (If you don't know, /scramble automatically shuffles teams.) At one time ct_ed had a server that picked teams based on scores of the previous match. Is there a way to /vote for a referee then have that authority expire after a certain time or number of rounds/matches?

How about writing a server that does the following? It falls into warmup mode after every match, shuffles the teams, gives spectators priority, and roughly determines team balance by some unknown measure of performance. Can we do this with existing technologies?

No system will be perfect. Pickup isn't perfect. Public always has problems. But as I said above, I don't think pickup should be removed (it is a great meeting place!), but rather, let us come up with something better -- something that makes pickup inferior or at the very least uninteresting and outdated.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by takburger »

public weakness: lack of organisation --> no challenge --> no fun

pickup weakness: too slow, uneven teams, some do not tryhard --> no challenge --> no fun

What is fun ?

To me: fair games where people actually try.

Please answer below what you think is fun in arma. (to answer "drama" is not allowed kthx)
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by sinewav »

takburger wrote:Please answer below what you think is fun in arma.
I don't mean to cut you off, but this is not helpful. We all know the problems. We need solutions. I would rather see well-thought out posts with viable paths toward a better, hybrid system.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by takburger »

sinewav wrote:
takburger wrote:Please answer below what you think is fun in arma.
I don't mean to cut you off, but this is not helpful. We all know the problems. We need solutions. I would rather see well-thought out posts with viable paths toward a better, hybrid system.
Well ok then do me the list of all the problems.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by Word »

Why, can't you make one yourself? Come on. Just skim over the relevant topic titles.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by takburger »

Word wrote:Why, can't you make one yourself? Come on. Just skim over the topic titles.
I was told it was obvious. Since its not obvious to me, I ask for the one who tells it is obvious what is it.

If it is really obvious, then it shall not take long for him to write it down.

I just want this because problem solving is super easy while the real issue is to identify the problem.

If we just stay here throwing senseless possibilities based on self assumptions, it will just be another random topic about pickup that will just add bytes of data in the forums database but nothing else.

Please, lets have some kind of methodic processes to achieve better result.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by Word »

If it isn't obvious to you how can you claim that problem solving is super easy? If that was the case, why do you think nobody has come up with a solution yet even though it's obvious to them? Maybe you're just smarter than everyone else, ultra rich and have nothing to do right now though, so nevermind. If finding out those problems itself is a problem, why isn't that super easy too? :)

(Although I don't really want to start a discussion about logic now...)
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by ogo »

Yo, get back on track with what we're discussing
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takburger
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by takburger »

Word wrote:If it isn't obvious to you how can you claim that problem solving is super easy? If that was the case, why do you think nobody has come up with a solution yet even though it's obvious to them? Maybe you're just smarter than everyone else, ultra rich and have nothing to do right now though, so nevermind. If finding out those problems itself is a problem, why isn't that super easy too? :)

(Although I don't really want to start a discussion about logic now...)
lol that answer....

Problem solving is easy, yes. If nobody came up with a good thing, it is just because nobody took the time to properly identify the problem.

I'm not evaluating people's mind or money, idc about that, it's internet, it means nothing.

It's just that people like to talk talk and read themselves and have a boner. It goes is nowhere. Like now.
ogo wrote:Yo, get back on track with what we're discussing
Yes thanks.

ps: word, read vineet nayar's book and you'll understand what I mean. Also please read "Buy in - Kotter" you might learn about your behavior :)
pps: i'm not trying to start an argument with you
ppps: you can have a summary on wikipedia
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by Word »

it's internet, it means nothing.
pps: i'm not trying to start an argument with you
It's just that people like to talk talk and read themselves and have a boner
Alright, then why you are you still talking and ask others to identify those problems for you?
word, read vineet nayar's book and you'll understand what I mean. Also please read "Buy in - Kotter" you might learn about your behavior
You haven't even presented a substantial idea yet, so there's nothing that one could "shot down" as that book description puts it. My "behaviour" is just asking you to do your homework yourself and present an actual idea instead of a simple declaration of intent to "solve" problems by letting someone else compile a list. Then all you need to say is "Oh, we have to change this, this and that!", and I'm pretty sure the person compiling that list could do that part himself as well. You could browse 2020's posts, or the bug reports, or launchpad, and you'd probably find what you're looking for in less than 30 minutes.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by takburger »

Because people said that all the problems were obvious. So I ask for the clear list so we can all try and find an idea.

About the books, well, its not about the idea, its about the behavior of the crowd. And to make it more obvious, I'm just saying that you are ruining any hope of having a good idea by shooting eyes closed to everything people post.

Maybe the "good idea" was to have a clear agreement of everyone about what are the pickup problems.
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Re: Pickup will be suspended from May 22nd to June 5th

Post by sinewav »

Tak, I mean this in the best way possible, but if you are not familiar with the pickup vs public problems and what tools we have available to solve them, you might not be qualified to take part in this discussion. Can you back off a little and post when you have a some solutions? Thanks.

Back on topic...

I seems like one solution would be to develop a way to transform public Fortress into a serious game when 12 players are reached. I believe Pathetique set up a server with pickup code several weeks ago. Is it possible to turn pickup functions on and off with a vote? Can teams be scrambled in-between matches? Some people don't like the idea or random teams, but having some function to pick teams automatically would eliminate the time wasted with picking.

I think one reason public Fort games suck is because the team inbalance rarely gets corrected between matches.
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