After around almost a month and a half of the experiment, id say its not working as well as intended anymore. The first few days did give great results but now today it feels mostly the same pre-lobby size reduction with 1 taw room dominating the game with the occasional small second taw during some peak hours. it also kinda damaged the playerbase as a decent chunk of zk either refuses to play in protest or outright left. Overall despite me perfecting smaller lobbies i think the 22 player experiment overall did more bad than game and instead I think we should take some lighter ideas that wont damage the playerbase while also help decentralize the 1 lobby monopoly without angering a good chunk of the player base.
1. "Lobby roles"Allows player to apply to a pinged role similar to a discord ping in game for certain lobby sizes, so if somebody wants to start another lobby they could do a ping to that role to players that applied for something like a "2v2-4v4" role and so on. Can also go the other way as well. Would only affect people currently playing in game.
2. Different/New/Reworked lobby split was already probably suggested but bringing it back upMake a command that can start a poll only people on wait list can vote on to make all players on the wait list start another lobby during a long lobpot game. Could also do the same command for spectators as well
with a special condition of even it failing people who voted yes would be put into the new lobby!3. Bringing Fight Club back!Title says it all! Can also try to get more other events in!
These ideas can be tried while during both the 22 player and 32 player Taws. There's also the idea of also just downright improving Taw itself by....
1. Add BAR mapsI'm not that big on BAR but i can say its maps are pretty decent and also kinda big too, can add some of these bar maps into the pool to make larger games feel a bit better.
2. Adjust map pool systemadjust the map pool to make it do overall slightly bigger maps that adjust with lager player counts better. maps like ISIS and other small maps probably shouldn't be a voteable option in a large team settings.
3. Discourage/Nerf proc I probably expect this to be controversial and i know zk proc is kinda weak compared to other spring/recoil games but sometimes lobpot can get quite porcy. This can sometime make lobpot games a
very boring drag of just boring proc wars until somebody gets enough impalers, silos it, or until a sw is built for sizeable progress to actually happen. this is can be done either indirectly or downright directly.
4. Modded Event taws (and probably other lobbies in general)Make taw modded either by soft or full mods
(maybe even full on other recoil game ports!) on as a weekly event similar to FC back then to mix up taw and make it more interesting and less stale.
Though of course improving the taw experience wont really help with the 1 lobby monopoly problem. Though i do overall hope some or all these ideas would be tried soo both small team enjoys and large team enjoys can both be happy without angering the other side while fixing issues in zk!
:)
