   dyth68My point still stands, you have yet to provide any compelling reason what stopping these people that voted for small team preferences from playing with each other. You claimed they are not minority so what's stopping a majority from playing small teams. Arguments need to make sense. Marketing involve practical actions and typical gaming marketing is without said, typical, includes SNS marketing. The thing is nobody here is interested in marketing the game, me included of course. In another thread, there is talks about how a taiwan streamer filled up the lob pot the other day. It seems like it is a trend here to impose what you want on others through any means than to work to get what you want. Like I have said to   manero, you can go ahead and try to impose what you want on others, let's see how that that gonna turn out for the community.
+0 / -0
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  Lu5ckI'm sorry if the idea that I want to impose something on others has passed. i just think it can be fun as it has been said in 16v16 on eg. red comet splits in two, as already mentioned, with two balanced 8v8 teams. The game benefits from it, because you don't have waiting times of 45 minutes on average to play, above all you don't have the cursed lag, which forces you to move very slowly or crash. But only I find them unpleasant things? Would people leave ZK for this? Then that means they don't like this game. If you love it you want to play it the best
+2 / -0
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quote:
The solution of these problems is always one which is to boost the player base. |
Problem is how we switch from one stable state (one host) to another (multiple hosts). One (miracle) solution is a big sudden influx of players (did not seem to happen even with the occasional streamer). Another (potential/possible) solutions could manage this with a technical solution (ideas discussed here). The way I see it: assume we don't have 24h per day 64 players online (probably with time zones it will happen). At some point 32 players will start host one. The 33rd player comes and joins as a spec. He might need to wait for 30-40 minutes (large games tend to take longer). The 34th players comes and joins as a spec (and so on). 20 minutes have passed and there are 10 specs. What do you think will happen now? Will all 10 players wait until there are 32 waiting? Or some will get bored and leave? If some get bored and leave you will NOT reach the 2 hosts with 32 players.. If you think players will join fast enough to reach a large number of specs that can start a game... how will that happen practically? I rarely see people "moving to a new host". What about: if waiting list gets to 16 players (or 12, or 10, dunno) a second game is started? (or a vote appears to start one with rings and so on). There should be something automatic managing one host to two host transition.
+2 / -0
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Can't think you really don't get it, so I feel sorry you are so angry. Just to be clear I would love there to be two (or more) 32 players game (it would allow to join faster a game). In the current state I doubt this will happen (see above explanation). Yes, sometimes besides the 32 players games there will be smaller games. But that already happens (at the end and at the beginning of the day). Yes, if there is a 20 player game and 30 player game I will probably join the (smaller) 20 player game, but that is my choice and the limiting factor now is that we barely get 40 people wanting to play (because, again, I guess that people to far in the waiting list will not stick around). You seem happy with the situation or afraid of change or don't want to discuss ideas but that will not help you much - if someone (dev) will get convinced by one (potentially bad) idea it might get implemented. So if you would explain why you think something works or doesn't you could prevent more damage than shouting around.
+0 / -0
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  malricIt is my fault to assume we are arguing on the same understanding. I guess you need to refer to what dyth68 has said. Majority of the people are small team players. So why would there be excessively waiting list and likewise waiting time for lob pot? As per dyth68 assumptions, there won't be excessive waiting list nor waiting time because if there's any so-called excessive waiting players, they very well could have filled up the small team preferences. Afterall, base on dyth68 assumptions, 7 out 10 people would prefer small teams. Therefore, wouldn't leaving the excessive players and excessive waiting time, if there is any to begin with, would benefit the small team preferences? If your intention (is sincerely) to strive to create a 2nd lob pot, that is pretty contradictory to what OP is trying to do because OP want to have smaller teams. Also, if there is indeed excessive waiting list and waiting time to the point of able to create 2nd lob pot, they can very well move to the 2nd room on their own. The last time I seen a 2nd lob pot was a year ago and so yes, people do move so don't try to babysit too much.
+0 / -0
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Lu5ck: thanks for more detailed explanation. I will comment on them, just so it is clearer what I think. I am not strongly advocating for one thing or another, but I am unhappy about the situation so wondering if we can do better quote:
Majority of the people are small team players. |
This to me sounds like "Spherical cow" (google if you did not hear about it). Taking me as an example: sometimes I will want to play in a large game, sometime in a small game. Sometimes I don't care. If I would be to pick one I would say "games around 16 players" - but that is not what I always want. If someone tells me "majority are X (big/small) team players" I will think this is an oversimplification. quote:
So why would there be excessively waiting list and likewise waiting time for lob pot? |
The same reason why sometimes start vote fails (wouldn't it benefit all players that want to play for the game to start? It would and still it does not always happen instantly). Because not all people react and behave as you imagine. Making a waiting list make another host relies on everybody agreeing and moving AT ONCE. Otherwise if half of waiting list is away doing something else (eating, etc.) you will not manage to even if all of them would agree. This sadly makes seeding another host harder. Now, this will not directly lead to a second pot, but the problem will be there even when there will be 20 waiting (how to move them all at once). quote:
they can very well move to the 2nd room on their own |
See above, but again, I find trying to determine whom on the waiting list pays attention, is interested in the game of the size of the move very complex to do. If people are spec-ing and in-game there is chat your message will fly by. If people are away you have no clue. If people like large teams you will need to get a message from each. The waiting list can't telepathically determine "oh the waiting list will be ok with a 4x4 game and there are 8 players that will move now" quote:
The last time I seen a 2nd lob pot was a year ago and so yes |
For me this sounds more like worrying that player base of team games is limited by one host. After steam release I do not remember seeing two lob pot, and I am sure it happened sometime, but is for sure not common. Not sure we can do something about it, but I would bet that if nothing changes next year will be in a very similar situation "oh, I have seen one year ago 2 lobpots once"
+0 / -0
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malricFor once, you got me there. That is right, just because the poll says something, it doesn't always mean it is always true. That is something dyth68 need to learn. I think I need to define what I constitute as "excessive". I mentioned "waiting time", yes? To me, when waiting time exceed a game, only then that is considered "excessive". Why that is important because you need to understand the nature of lob pot. ZK does not have a huge playerbase to match make with, unlike valorant, fornite, csgo, dota, pubg etc.. What this means that chances of quality gameplays or in other words, satisfying gameplays are far in between. Why? As mentioned earlier post, players skills and mentalities varies greatly. This pot is formed under the conditions of lack of players to match make with, so the skills and mentality naturally varies greatly. In this kind of environment, quality gameplays are as mentioned, far in between. What this means is it will result in great population fluctuation. Why this matters because if your turnover rate is so high, high to the point that your waiting time is at most one game, then is it still realistic to actively intervene the creation of 2nd pot when the two pots more than likely to collapse to reform back into one? What did you managed to achieve in the end? Now, OP original post is to form smaller team. It was never about creating a second pot due to extra players. But you want to discuss about dealing with extra players to warrant a creation of a second pot. I can only tell you that there's need to be a threshold, a threshold of players significant enough that it won't deplete within a gameplay, enough that people won't feel the need to simply exit the room and collapse to the other room. Just by saying this, you should get that the threshold for this will be high and honestly, I haven't seen it reached high enough for people to feel comfortable to stay at for a year. Yesterday we do had a lot of people, almost reaching what I feel a good threshold but is gone within a game.
+1 / -0
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Lu5ck: I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding you and what your point is. Do you disbelieve the data because you can't think of a mechanism so instead think most people are just lying/wrong? If so, my snarky reflex is to wonder whether I should also assume your stated preference for big teams is also just another example of the apparent tendency of Zero-K players to lie/be wrong about preferred team sizes against their best interest. But to be actually productive: I think   katastrophe and malric's posts on the subject outline some plausible mechanisms. Pondering on actual solutions to the issue I will mostly leave to other people, but I could see something like a multi-game megaroom working. Spitballing: new all welcome autohost having a "split at over 32 players" mod option which both: will start two games when the start vote passes and displays what the team composition will be (e.g. the moment you get over 32 players the UI will change sorta like how multiple teams works), first game that finishes dumps players back into the same room, where they can either try another start vote or spec the second game. This solves the problem of people not being able join because the room is too full while not causing the main issues that two separate rooms has. Main downside? This sounds really hard to implement infra-wise.
+1 / -0
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quote:
Main downside? This sounds really hard to implement infra-wise. |
The main downside is that what you describe essentially already happened (it was one of the first things tried, maybe over a decade ago now) and it doesn't work. Here is what happens.
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At least one of the rooms becomes sad when they load into the game and find 16 players rather than the expected 32.
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The sad rooms have players leave or vote to exit. In either case a game doesn't happen.
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Players filter back into the room players perceive to be the "main room".
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If only one room is sad then the affected players possibly pressure the other room into exiting the game too, otherwise they either wait for the game to end, or give up.
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Enough players give up during this process that the next game probably starts with fewer than 32 players.
Your proposal differs in a few details, such as having the split room re merge automatically, but it overall doesn't seem distinct enough to give a different result. One thing you didn't mention is how is the split done? We had it done by skill rating, on the assumption that reducing skill gap is better, and interestingly the lower skill room was almost always sad.
+1 / -0
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To deal with the crossposting between https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/35648?page=1 and here, I locked the other thread.
+0 / -0
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I might add something, but I first have to say that I still think it would be nice if we had more small-teams avaidable. My conclusion I draw from my observations is that while a lot of players like to play small-teams, its not important enough for them to seed their own room. They have 2 choices: Try to organize a small game and potentially fail, or play a clusterfuck now. Since the second option usually wins, it seems that getting a game NOW is more important than the game being the prefered size.
+5 / -0
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quote:
The main downside is that what you describe essentially already happened (it was one of the first things tried, maybe over a decade ago now) and it doesn't work. Here is what happens. |
quote:
At least one of the rooms becomes sad when they load into the game and find 16 players rather than the expected 32. |
My initial reading of the proposal above was that it would be two games running in one room. With the room then essentially being a chat-enabled matchmaker queue, or something. So games get split, but the community stays together, and also !exiting to go back to "main" does nothing because you're already there. Re-reading i guess it was actually a proposal for a full split with a temporary merged room, which is different, so nevermind. Maybe the room-as-queue could work, maybe not. I think with the wait list addition it could work much better, by not creating a second game until there are enough players in the wait list to make its size pass the threshold of "big enough". quote:
My conclusion I draw from my observations is that while a lot of players like to play small-teams, its not important enough for them to seed their own room. They have 2 choices: Try to organize a small game and potentially fail, or play a clusterfuck now. Since the second option usually wins, it seems that getting a game NOW is more important than the game being the prefered size. |
Aye, that tracks with me. If i am looking for a quick set of robots blowing each other up, then i get a choice between idling with matchmaker 1v1 (~1h wait before game), seeding a micropot (1h+), or jumping into the lob pot (5-10 minutes). If i only have one hour to waste, then the pot will give me a guaranteed low-quality game while the other options run the risk of giving me no games.
+1 / -0
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Some sort of "MM with chat" style system could probably work, but there are issues to work out. The current hosts work well for hosting an individual game. People joining them get a game to spectate and a preview of who is possibly in the next game. People get to vote for the next map and games are fairly easy to restart quickly if there is a problem. The room hosting a single game coordinates people into playing that game and provides a decent level of certainty about when the next game will start. Preserving this in some sort of multi-game host seems good.
+4 / -0
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Some comments:
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a split does not necessarily mean "two equal hosts". Splitting 40 players into 30 and 10 might work if you have some people that specifically made a preference, and the "big room" stays big.
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one bad thing of more independent rooms is that when your room dies you have to wait from the start in another room. Some kind of "common room" would eliminate part of this issue.
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it would be nice if a solution is thought from the start to work for transitions both increase in room numbers but also decrease of room numbers.
Of course as    GoogleFrog mentions, the above issues were not yet fully addressed in any proposal in a reasonably complete way (ignoring if someone will find the time to implement it) I think the discussion is worth having as personally I ended up twice into being on the waiting list (this year) and not getting in the game at next restart. Once I had the patience of spec-ing one more game, the second time I quit. Maybe I was unlucky (at least in one case I remember was the only one not getting in), but makes me think this could be a limit to player growth.
+1 / -0
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Does the MM kick people out of the queue when a (room-based) game starts? Does it offer games to people already playing a game (if it doesn't actually kick them out or if they just re-enter)? Perhaps something to try would be to make MM-queued people already playing ineligible for a game (as if they were outside rating threshold with everybody else), but still in the queue (so eligible again inbetween room games). Then there is no downside to just queuing to MM before entering the pot. You won't ruin anybody's game, and nobody will ruin yours, by rejecting due to already being in a game. Some further minor changes would likely be needed as well, but maybe these are not needed for the core idea:
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prevent race conditions. Perhaps people in rooms that are not yet ingame but are undergoing a !start vote are ineligible. Perhaps !votestart asks the MM to proc, and if there is anybody in the room that gets an invitation the votestart is delayed. Perhaps in an autohost, the usual no-vote period and the subsequent forced !map/!start votes are delayed to let MM work.
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perhaps mark people differently, eg. instead of "8 people queued" it's "3 queued, 5 busy ingame" so it doesn't look dead but also not bugged when it doesn't make a game.
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perhaps have the MM itself delay an iteration after a lobpot ends by say 30s, to give people some breathing room. Or maybe the invitation lasts a bit longer than usual, idk. Basically, replicate the little breathing room the lobpot gives.
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perhaps if MM drags you out of a lobpot, the pot remembers your waiting list position. So if you come back to the same room after the MM game you aren't disadvantaged.
This avoids the pitfalls of previous attempts:
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it would still require manually clicking the MM button in the MM tab, there is no popup prompt or anything. This is good because it prevents randoms from not paying attention, clicking the popup to go away, and then ruining the game by exiting.
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it is not forced. If nobody in the lobpot is queued, they keep all 32+ people.
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it obeys people's exact preferences. If everybody in the lobpot somehow signs up for the 1v1 MM, it immediately makes 16 1v1s afterwards (as opposed to split that makes two 8v8s and that doesn't split further). This also somewhat prevents the case where sad lobs from the low skill half plead for the other half to exit (since the MMs are exactly the size the people inside want them to be, they don't want more).
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it still has the built-in MM quality control that won't make a stupidly imbalanced game. People can pick wide/regular queues to declare how good of a game they expect. This is another part of preventing sad lobs from getting not what they wanted and exiting. Bad MM games can still rarely happen but in that case we should tweak the MM algo regardless of the lobpot case because MM also works standalone.
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it doesn't require the arcane knowledge of obscure !commands, it uses the existing MM GUI.
+1 / -0
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GoogleFrog: I guess I wrote that way too quickly. Was spitballing, but let me try fleshing it out a bit. The idea is indeed a single room from which multiple games emerge.
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The room looks ordinary enough (except from the name "Main room" or somesuch, and the fact is has the `multigame=true` modoption) until you go above 32 players. That makes the UI show two different sets of players, as if it was a Custom game with multiple teams but instead of saving "Team 1" and "Team 2" it says "Game 1" and "Game 2" (with other UI differences to make it more obvious that this is NOT just two teams).
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Players are assigned randomly to games with the exception that it does not break up clans and parties.
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Once the start vote passes then the players in each "Game" are put in two different games.
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The first one game to finish dumps players back in the main room. They can then either make a new start vote (which will apply only to players who aren't playing or speccing the other game) to start up another game again or they can spec the second unfinished game.
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If there are two games running for a single room then all chat will not show up in the lobby chat (and vice versa).
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If the number of "active" (wanting a game) players drops below 33 when there are no games running then the room reverts to its previous normal behaviour (as if the mod option wasn't active).
+4 / -0
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(personal opinion as user) Using queues is very anti-social. You do not know who else waits. You cannot chat with them. You have no estimation about when next game will start (even very approximate based on history, or on other games happening for that queue). I generally do not use a queue because of the above. dyth68 proposal tries to "humanize" the queue mechanic (probably still requires adjustments), which sounds for me as a good direction.
+2 / -0
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