24/7 High Elo Team Lobbies

quote: Encouraging people who want to play a sweaty game to just ditch the lobsterpot whenever they feel like it does penalise the players who want to play a game that is both (a) not a total joke and (b) not super tryhard.

Why do the middle of the road players need the try-hards to stop a game from becoming a total joke?

Moreover, this is a social exercise which means a certain etiquette should organically build up. Consider:

You've got a full no-elo pot. Someone in that pot says
"Anyone want to join a competitive game?"
Let's say 5 other people agree, but 4 of them are from 1 team, meaning their departure will seriously skew the player count. Those 6 may ditch it there and then. However, someone, whether they are part of that group or not then posts an !exit vote advising the pot that the game is going to be skewed and a restart might be preferred.
The rest of the pot votes and so makes a collective decision on whether to continue despite the imbalance or to abort and start again. The 6 go off and play their competitive game, the remainder either carry on or restart. Everybody is doing what they want to do instead of some doing something they're not completely happy about.

That may even be an extreme example. Perhaps those 6 would actually be willing to wait until the conclusion of the current game to hive off after all. Perhaps it's an hour long marathon that everyone, even the tryhards has invested so much in they want to see it out.

The no-elo option might make it permissible to ditch a game in full swing, but that does not mean people will suddenly run to the extreme all the time.

The legalisation of cannabis in various jurisdictions hasn't resulted in everyone suddenly puffing joints all day long (yes, I know there are still other disincentives to toking up like taxation but I'd suggest the basic premise still holds). All it's done is shifted the boundaries of the permissible in society. For that to happen in any community, you need two things:
1) a portion of the community wanting to push in a certain direction.
2) a signal from the the "authority" that it's OK to go that way.

The no-elo default lobsterpot is a simple (and better yet, low cost) signal saying it's OK to "not lobsterpot" which we don't really have at the moment. Sure everything I've discussed here is theoretically possible today, but (possibly through inertia, I'll admit it's only having this debate that's made me think in these terms) in reality it falls outside the permissible in the Zero-K community, evidenced by the fact that it is not already happening.

I'd suggest the onus is on you to show why the way things are, with a portion of the community persistently dissatisfied is better than the way things could be if we loosened up just a little bit.

Many (most?) of us live in jurisdictions where it is the law that reasonable steps must be taken to accommodate the preferences of a minority. Now, I hesitate to make this argument, because I don't want to sound like I'm saying the stifling of my gaming preference is in any way comparable in magnitude to the suffering of oppressed minorities throughout history and in many parts of the world today (let's be clear, it absolutely 100% isn't) but the principle that it is desirable that a minority should be accommodated to a reasonable extent by the majority holds whether the competing interests are gaming preferences or deeply held religious or philosophical beliefs. I'm already accommodating the majority by participating in lobsterpots, why don't they return the favour?

I feel like the main problem here is the lobsterpot.

• The problem is when people join, they either have the chance of waiting in a new room for a high quality small team game, or immediately joining a lobsterpot for a low quality sh*tfest where nothing really matters.
• Most people choose the 2nd option and then go afk waiting for the lobsterfest to end. And this is logical, because a boring game is better than no game.

• But why does it have to be this way?

Why can't we make small teams the default, and then only open up lobsterfest hosts on special occasions, like weekends or busy hours?

• And it would be even better if there was juggling to pull spectators into lobbies that are missing players.

quote: Why do the middle of the road players need the try-hards to stop a game from becoming a total joke?

They need the try-hards not to actively sabotage the game by leaving. If the try-hards just weren't playing a particular game in the first place it would probably be fine.

quote: The rest of the pot votes and so makes a collective decision on whether to continue despite the imbalance or to abort and start again. The 6 go off and play their competitive game, the remainder either carry on or restart. Everybody is doing what they want to do instead of some doing something they're not completely happy about.

Except for anybody who was enjoying the game they were playing and has had it taken away by the whims of the people who left.

quote: I'd suggest the onus is on you to show why the way things are, with a portion of the community persistently dissatisfied is better than the way things could be if we loosened up just a little bit.

You are suggesting that we trash any form of meaning in large team games (and, in my opinion, make them substantially less fun) to make life slightly more convenient for the fairly small minority who want "competitive" games, but don't want to play 1v1. The fact that you can't see the problem with that does not put any "onus" on me to do anything.

I believe GoogleFrog has been working on implementing an alternative which may address the issue. He'd have to say exactly what the details are and when it is expected to happen.

for the MM, I assume my problem with it is singular to me, it doesn't offer my preferred game mode 3v3-5v5, it only goes up to 1v1-2v2

3v3 and above is virtually nonexistence

ooohhhh gooodies, I don't know about other people but I promise to use it at least 3 times every day off I have for a month

quote: I was an avid supporter of the split command and can corroborate GoogleFrog's observations.

Since all of you seem to agree that that was indeed the result as GoogleFrog claims I'll take your word for it.

Upon rereading the conversation I noticed that this split you talked about was not enforced, as in anyone could simply rejoin the higher/lower elo room. That is a simple problem to correct, by disallowing the lower elo players from joining the higher elo room and the higher elo players from joining the lower elo room. Elo limit would apply to spectators too to discourage idling in favour of playing.

You could have:
1 server for any elo
1 server for high elo
1 server for non-high elo

Mixing shit players with not shit players is making the game worse for both parties.

I have heard of this idea for years.

Basically the problem was *before years ago* that there isn't enough players online at any one time to fill two 16x16 game. New players like the big games because less stress and less work and more fun. Elite players do not want to play ***ON THE SAME SIDE*** as new players.


When I blamed downvotes for creating a toxic groupthink echochamber and driving players away. People reply that there are far more players now than before.


Yet, I read this thread that suggests that splitting the main room into two rooms will cause issues, I am confused because years ago the reason auto room splits were problematic is because not enough players to fill both rooms.



Again I ask remove downvotes.

I'm sorry to hear that PRO_rANDY. The problems with kicking were unlikely to apply to a 2v2 room. Kicking a disruptive spectator will not get you banned, and even kicking players can be fine. A good way to think of kicking is that you are borrowing moderator powers so should apply similar standards. Also, most of the forum is talking about larger battles where kicking prevents the player from playing at all. If someone is stopping a game from happening then by kicking them they lose nothing, while other people gain.

Kicking and elo limits are issues in rooms which are big enough to be the default big room. Players will flock to it not knowing or caring that some portion of players are unable to play. The excluded players have to choose between seeding their own competing room from scratch (an unlikely prospect) or just spectating and getting a bit of fun that way.

In the case of an elo limit is is obvious how some players are blocked. With hosted games it can be subtle and they tend to be fine provided that the host does not kick spuriously. You might think that a host should be free to police the battle however they wish, but this does not apply to a host that has displaced the autohosted large game. We tried fully self-policing non-autohosts for a bit and the result was trolls seeding alternate teams rooms so that they could kick whoever they had a grudge against.

Perhaps minelo could be applicable to non-autohosts up to a certain size (say 6) and there could be better ways to kick people or block voting, but we don't have the developers to pursue this at the moment. For now I have fixed !proposebattle.

Send '!proposebattle minsize=4 maxsize=4 minelo=2500' to any chat to create a link that anyone with 2500 casual or MM elo can click. Once three people click, the four of you will be put into a passworded game with you as the host. The link can be sent multiple times and even works to invite people into the room once it is hosted. The room won't attract unwanted spectators or disrupt seeding unless you remove the password.