New features in point reloaded create more disadvantages for new/low level players

In hope that the scrambled teams might be more of a challenge maybe? ive obviously seen more unsuccessful vote scrambles than successful ones but i do see a fair few so people in the winning team do vote yes sometimes and im guessing its because their lookin for more of a challenge, thats why i vote yes on a scramble when im on a team thats winning by a lot of points anyway.

 

Hey, for the people who don't know me, i'm mainly a denizen of the USA Versus Points Reloaded, while playing EU and coop Points Reloaded servers occasionally. I will agree that the issue of stacked teams is the most prevalent one on these servers at the moment, with rushing and the tank heal glitch the runners up, but those are different beasts entirely. Oddly enough, 40% of the time, i've noticed the following with respect to stacked teams:

1. Team 1 is winning, Team 2 is losing.
2. Low level players (and some high level players who should know better, no names), whether they just joined or have been in the server a while, switch to the winning team to get points faster, stacking teams more.
3. Team 1 is full, Team 2 has slots open due to switchers and rage quitters.
4. Since Team 1 is full, high level players who join are placed onto team 2.
5. 1 or 2 high level players in Team 1 leave, which prompts more switching, usually by the lower levels.
6. Team 2 has higher leveled players than Team 1, and starts winning their rounds.
7. Rinse and repeat with opposite numbered teams.

Note, this doesn't happen every time, but i've seen it enough times that I feel like teams just end up evening themselves out over time. This is just an observation of mine about team switching.

Onto the points that have been brought up in this thread:

"Team Scramble is Broken": True, very true. I can't begin to keep track of the times i've seen a vote scramble shift over a few higher level people to the other team, only to have the teams stacked the other way. Here's an idea: Keep track of the extent to which players have completed their upgrades/skills/buffs/whatever. Say, Player A has 80% upgrades, 58% skills, 100% buffs (counted by number of buff slots filled by something), and 0% gem upgrades/skills/buffs (The gem stuff should be counted separately). Keep track of that, and use the combined total of all of these to calculate a total % complete, and rank people based on THAT in team scramble, not level, which, as supreme lottery has shown, is not working out.

"Players should not receive any points for the map after team switching": Not feeling this one. In many cases, players who try to switch to the winning team are vote kicked out, and i don't feel like other situations have been taken into account, for example:

• Person gets disconnected from the server, rejoins and is put on the other team, so he switches back to his original team
• Person switches to the LOSING TEAM to balance things out

To name a few. I agree that 9 times out of 10, team switching is done to be on the winning team, but i feel like there are attitudes in place already that account for this. Like i said above earlier, the teams tend to balance themselves out eventually.

"The Percentage of yes voted needed for a team scramble should be decreased": Hmm...this is a tricky one. If a decrease were to take place, i feel like it should be lowered to 40 minimum. Otherwise, it would be too easy to call a scramble vote when its not needed and have it succeed. I agree that more times than not, the scramble vote fails, especially when you have people like Mutated Oreo, who never votes yes to a scramble and tells everyone else to vote no. However, if the acceptance percentage is lowered too much, that could mess things up too

"At it's core, it's a farming server": I think you took a wrong turn somewhere, we aren't talking about the coop server, where people will literally stand for 5 minutes outside the safe room farming. Yeah, having 3000-300 is pretty indicative of people wanting to farm, but you'd be surprised how many people i've seen play on this server not for the completion, but to have fun and be competitive about it, with plenty of fun perks due to the points reloaded mod.

"Disable upgrades that require a higher level when you level down due to supreme lottery": Eeeeeehhhhhhhhh.... I want to agree to this one, but i can't... It's an interesting idea, but i feel like it would make gems a lot less attractive to the people thinking of buying them, and make the people who already leveled down from buying them wonder why they bought them in the first place. I don't know...i just don't like the idea... I'll agree with Mr T that if you make the supreme lotto this damaging, that there should be another way, besides Karma charging Honorcode and the supreme lotto, to obtain gems. A way that doesn't involve being very very very lucky and being in the right place at the right time, or risking levels, upgrades, and points.

"Lower leveled players can get used to the system on coop, then move to versus": Agreed, and i feel like more emphasis should be placed on this somehow. There have been a few time's i've seen a poor level 1 join USA versus, only to have his ass handed to him and wonder why it happened. In some cases, they don't come back after this. Speaking as a person who started out level 1 on versus, the whole thing can be relatively overwhelming at first, and you have to figure out a lot of it on your own. It took me 50 levels before i realized how necessary knife was. I didn't realize how important self revive and crawl were until level 15. I feel like people should know that coop is a place to get familiar with the system, and it doesn't seem like that's the case in some situations.

Anyways, sorry for my behemoth of a post, but i've been thinking about these kinds of issues, since they come up every time you play on the server. If you leave this post with only 1 suggestion of mine, look into the team switching idea. I appreciate the work you guys have put into this server, and many of the problems i see in this server are entirely human based, not server based.

-Kitties

 

Allot of the admins, including you Davzee should also understand that players generally act politely while an admin is on. After all...the admin will just kick or force scramble should things get out of hand, so players generally behave.

If rushing is that big of a pet peeve for Honorcode (and I assume it is...) The easiest fix for rushing would be to disable the closing of the saferoom door until all players are either dead or in the safe room.

And 2-3 players rushing will just find their asses handed to them as they wait in a nice closed in safe room. while the other team spawns infected to slowly wear them out and kill them.

The other issue with this server is cold stream. This map is just a cluster fuck for survivors to get through. But it got me thinking...if an upgrade was that survivors can climb ladders while incapped. It would solve at least one section of this map. (it would also help No Merci rooftops for that matter)

And please...for the love of all that is holy...STOP ADDING ABILITIES. (ironic, I know because I just suggested you add one...but this ability is specific to help balance a broken map, and isn't that ridiculous to the overall balance of the mod)

I half jokingly mentioned to Nine after I found out about tanks not staying on fire ability, that the next power up will be a 100 gem cost for the ability for survivors to fly. I say half joking because it's a ridiculous prediction, yet not at all far fetched with how distorted the gameplay is becoming because of all these ridiculous buffs.

The mantra "but this ability costs allot" doesn't fly. Eventually everyone will farm and get it...and in the end you will have a cluster fuck of broken game play with people lobbying grenades and rocks at each other from the other side of the map.

World of Warcraft designers have sit downs and discuss every new ability or nerf they want to implement in the game, and then once agreed upon, it is play tested religiously by a team of testers. Here I swear it feels like Honorcode thinks some cool sounding shit up, and then tosses it in the game without any thought as to how it might implement game play.

At anyrate...with regards to team stacking (which kitties admits is the primary issue with this server, yet doesn't admit that this server at its core is a farming server...) people are trying to "police" themselves. But just tonight, I bitched at a doner for team switching(stacking) to my team, while Kiris tried in vain to vote kick his immune ass off the server.

Not the first time I've had issues with a doner. I feel vote kick immunity should not be on the plate of what is offered to a doner.

 

Alright, i'll admit that the points reloaded system is, at its core, a farming system. I suppose the only point i was trying to make is that some people do not consider it their main focus on these servers, and that it's much worse on the coop servers than on versus.

 

Hey, I'll agree...there are a few people that actually wanna play it competitively. Those players are few and far between.

But rushing and team stacking are all mating calls of the farming. And I'll freely admit it. I rush. I'm usually trying to complete rambo challenge, and it serves me no purpose to risk the point rewards of that challenge to hang back and help.

If honorcode doesn't like rushing, than that challenge needs to go.

 

a BIG THANK YOU to honorcode for the swift update and taking my recommendation into account.

The auto balance is working but it evaluate too soon for each new round.
reason being is not all of the players are connected in game as quick as the others.
thus the evalution result is computing on players with high internet speed connection..
thus players with slow internet connection are not part of this evaluation as they need a longer period to connect to the game.

Recommendation:
1. Maybe you can extend the timer for the auto balance evaluation system a bit longer so that all players are connected in game and a fair evaluation is made. this is because i have seen some of the new rounds being evaluated too soon, leaving one team with 6 players and the other with 10 players and stating "Team is alright" which is not and it dont make sense at all.

2. Players are still able to switch back to their original team, i hope there is a feature that does not allow players to switch back once teams have been scrambled. they can rejoin the game or whatever, but just do not allow players to switch back for that round as it makes the game uncompetitive and difficult for players like me to help others when your team has lesser players than the other due to team switching.

Appeal:
The votekick immunity serve a good purpose if its not abuse. i for one vote for it to stay as it helps me to remind the naughty players not to stack team which is still a big issue and will be here to stay for a long time. so i dont see a big issue with the immunity. the naughty ones may see a big issue with this and i have seen rarely people abusing it.

 

Once again I remind you, LittleBrother, that you were one of the abusers for which I mentioned.

The difference between you and I is that if I get out of line, I can be votekicked off...if you decide to have one of your little temper tantrums AGAIN...we are at your mercy.

This is the second time I've had to deal with it's abuse....and I still am at a loss what the gain is for doners TO have immunity. I see no benefits from this...only possible abuse.

 

The way i see it since donors are contributing something tangible into the up keeping of these servers......why should they not get votekick immunity? some people can be votekicked for no good reason like a personal vendetta or somethin and im pretty sure its safe to say someone contributing money towards the servers at least has the assurance that isnt going to happen...

With all that being said this doesnt mean donors are exempt from any of the server rules, we wouldnt let them abuse their votekick immunity and if found doing so they would be punished accordingly whether it be a slay/kick/ban...whatever (though lets face it...team switching is a relatively small crime and only if they were doing it constantly would i personally slay/kick...) If someone DOES find a donor to be abusing their votekick immunity though while there is no admin present, let us know

 

Instead of vote kick immunity, it should play out like my old team fortress server. where as doners get to playwhenever they want to play. meaning if the server were full, the doner connecting would boot a non doner...taking their spot.

If it worked like that, I'd be a doner.

 

Well Mr T, you had never been voted off, it has always been you who votekick other players for switching to your team. and when you yourself switch team, did other players kick you and did i kick you???? The answer is "NO".

Naughty players like you who are not out to play competitively but to farm points, need not even post your comment in this thread if you are not here for competitive gameplay, go play coop man. points reloaded is no place for players with no competitive spirit.

Immunity is important as it helps players like me to remind players like you to play fair and team stacking is always there with or without immunity, so whats your logic man???????

i know you are just waiting to get me, and what davzee said is true about the personal vendetta and you are still going around to badmouth other players in this thread. you still have not learnt that this thread is to improve the gameplay.

by the way your idea of donors' features only keeps the old players and not attract the new ones, only selfish players would ever think of such an idea, kicking non-donors so that donors can play, man are you selfish and dont think through an idea thorougly.

imagine how many servers will marvel have to rent just to cater to these idea of yours where lets say all were to become donors. and marvelous gaming has more than 20 players coming into their game everyday, they have hundreds of players. so how will marvel cater to your reserve slot for donors.. How many servers does he have to rent..... well he could do so that is IF all players became a donor. So what the impact on new players when their in game experience is ruin because they were kick out for not donating??? are they ever gonna return??? so whats the traffic like for regular donors against non donors??? are there more new players coming in against the number of current donors that marvel has??? how many donors subscribe to a month, months or a year of subscription???? can all this cover the cost of renting that many server??? what is the likelihood of donors ending their donation after getting bored after months of playing this game??? isnt it regretful not to attract new players.

so as you claimed that you have seen me and another player abusing the immunity??? so what does that mean??? Two people abusing the features out of hundreds of other players. thats a small issue and like i said it rarely happens.

Mr T, please come out with an idea that is useful and non selfish. if you like team fortress so much, go play there since it appeals to you more than l4d2. Out of the numbers of people that post in this thread,you are the only ONE who seems to have an issue with the immunity more than with regards to STACK TEAM???? why is that??? Is it because,, you cant farm points BECAUSE IM IN YOUR TEAM

 

Exactly which idea have I presented that has, in anyway, a direct reward for myself?

 

Duh.. go figure

 

Forgive me for my supreme ignorance but I thought Team-Stacking was this at 00:16. And I also thought that the game now kills off any infected bots.

In any case, Donors keep the game alive and MG alive. They are like admins but different. They pay to play on our servers and expect their money's worth, so if a person is mic-spamming they would see to it that he is kicked, it would be stupid to let him continue playing because it's spoiling what they are paying for; which is a satisfactory game of L4D1/2 on our servers. They pay for the benefits such as vote-kick immunity because what if the mic-spammer suddenly tries to kick them out? They have immunity so that they can avoid such a kicking.

I really do not like this topic. Strayed so far out of place that it's now become an anger management session between two enraged players.

As I said way back:

If you learn something from this thread it is this: Admins - Monitor, Donors - pay, Players - play. Such is the hierarchy. If you want to go up the hierarchy, feel free to donate.

 

*waits looking at this guy claw at a railing then looks up at the door* ROFLMFAO XD

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a L4D related video lol... okay maybe L4H but that's for a different reason.

If you guys really want a good idea as far as votekick immunity goes, try it like this. Baseball. If the person gets voted to be kicked 2-6 times (in the same map) then the votekick immunity wears off for say.... an hour. With the last one they can be kicked. And as for the spoiled mic spammers, they can be kicked before the donors votekick immunity wears off.

Although most of the time I don't have a problem with any donors, I would suggest opening the GM applications again or making a new hierarchy for the GMs, there used to be a game I played that its GM system went like this.

Level 7: Owner (Exclusively for the top dogs )
Level 6: Co-Owner (For the ones the top dogs trust enough)
Level 5: Lead Administrator (Has the ability to change some codes in game + below)
Level 4: Administrator (Votekick Immunity + below)
Level 3: Lead GM (Can camera fly, make sure no one is abusing any of the system for whatever reason + below)
Level 2: GM (Can force-kick, force-change the map and force scramble)
Level 1: Trainee (Can change the map. For seeing if the person is worth becoming a GM for your server.)

I know this would take a lot of coding, but we would have more GMs on and whatnot. It'll keep teams balanced. Also, with the ability to record everything on L4D2 it'll be easy to keep all the GMs in line as long as someone records it when they're abusing their powers.

Also for a side note... I just cleaned out my personal activities folder O-). 52 GB | Wonder if my computer will go any faster now?

 

Well, i have to agree with legend that this thread does not make any sense anymore due to an impolite forum member*

I made this thread to help improve the gameplay for both regular and new players but a certain forum member spoilt it with remarks that does not even improve the gameplay.

I also agree with tbuki about the immunity features. I have not encountered any abuse of immunity by donors. and i do not understand why its such a big issue for a certain player.

However i do have some comment about tbuki suggestion, in a way what he wrote is useful but it can be exploit in the wrong way by naughty players like you know who*

There is actually nothing wrong with the immunity features, the BIG issue here is team stacking and team switch which needs more attention.

Well, I started this thread and i am more than please if admins can lock or close this thread as it has digress from the topic of discussion.

But the thread was hot right???? LOL

 

Before this thread is closed, has anyone looked at my suggestion for team-scrambling? I feel like it would be a more effective alternative to what we have now.

 

Easy way around getting it exploited, bind the users GM powers to their Steam ID, so if some people try to hack it, they are instantly found and can be banned. And like I said in my other post

 

Meh....why over complicate things....the system we have now works pretty well.

 

LOL +10 xD

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