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[quote]Imo there should be an option in autohost lobbies and in custom made lobbies to disable widgets for all players. I also don't think players in matchmaking should be able to use their widgets to get an advantage too. [/quote]This exists in advanced options.
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[quote]Imo there should be an option in autohost lobbies and in custom made lobbies to disable widgets for all players. I also don't think players in matchmaking should be able to use their widgets to get an advantage too. [/quote]This exists in advanced options.
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There is a lot of repetition here so let me start with some distracting points that I already consider settled.
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There is a lot of repetition here so let me start with some distracting points that I already consider settled.
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[quote]As I've said in the last few threads, as long as widgets are publicly available (and are merged in as optional widgets after development is complete) I see no problem with them.[/quote]"Publicly available" could mean posted on an obscure website and linked to one time. Any widget can be merged and disabled by default if I click the merge button, regardless of whether it works for more than its creator or not. Here is how it is:
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[quote]As I've said in the last few threads, as long as widgets are publicly available (and are merged in as optional widgets after development is complete) I see no problem with them.[/quote]"Publicly available" could mean posted on an obscure website and linked to one time. Any widget can be merged and disabled by default if I click the merge button, regardless of whether it works for more than its creator or not. Here is how it is:
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* If a widget or setting cannot be enabled without ticking Advanced Settings or opening the widget list then it may as well not exist for most players. You cannot expect everyone to want to dig through all the technical nonsense just to play the game. We already expect people to bind obscure hotkeys if they want to maximise their abilities.
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* If a widget or setting cannot be enabled without ticking Advanced Settings or opening the widget list then it may as well not exist for most players. You cannot expect everyone to want to dig through all the technical nonsense just to play the game. We already expect people to bind obscure hotkeys if they want to maximise their abilities.
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* Putting a widget or behaviour change in the game in a form that many people can actually use takes a lot of work. Few widget creators seem interested in putting in this level of work.
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* Putting a widget or behaviour change in the game in a form that many people can actually use takes a lot of work. Few widget creators seem interested in putting in this level of work.
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The fact of the matter is that there is a big difference between making a widget for yourself and making something that could improve the game for everyone. Widgets help their creators. Game development helps everyone.
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The fact of the matter is that there is a big difference between making a widget for yourself and making something that could improve the game for everyone. Widgets help their creators. Game development helps everyone.
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[quote]They mostly make things a lot less frustrating.[/quote][quote]I think widget development should be encouraged as much as game development. I'd even say widget development is game development. Since widgets are what allows ZK to be so fluid and intuitive to play.[/quote][quote]Besides the part on how to go about new developments, wouldn't you agree that ZK's open widget policy has allowed for the game to make its own niche in the first place? Would ZK be worth playing over other games if it had all automation disabled and was limited to point commands?[/quote][quote]Automation moves the game away from micro and towards macro strategizing, which is a good thing to me. But, I suppose a bad thing for players who feel like micro skills are a valuable part of the game.[/quote][quote]Unit auto-fight behavior is AI-based assistance though, and I don't think anyone wants that to go away. [/quote][quote]I actually have no problem with Widgets in general, as they usually reduce unnecessary micro.
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[quote]They mostly make things a lot less frustrating.[/quote][quote]I think widget development should be encouraged as much as game development. I'd even say widget development is game development. Since widgets are what allows ZK to be so fluid and intuitive to play.[/quote][quote]Besides the part on how to go about new developments, wouldn't you agree that ZK's open widget policy has allowed for the game to make its own niche in the first place? Would ZK be worth playing over other games if it had all automation disabled and was limited to point commands?[/quote][quote]Automation moves the game away from micro and towards macro strategizing, which is a good thing to me. But, I suppose a bad thing for players who feel like micro skills are a valuable part of the game.[/quote][quote]Unit auto-fight behavior is AI-based assistance though, and I don't think anyone wants that to go away. [/quote][quote]I actually have no problem with Widgets in general, as they usually reduce unnecessary micro.
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This helps the game in general to give more time to think about a strategy and how to approach engagements on multiple fronts at the same time.[/quote]I don't think any of this matters to the question at hand. Those worried about widgets (excluding @PRO_rANDY) are worried about the single widget that breaks the game, not the 99 others that give people a little QoL or customisation. What widgets 'usually' do is not relevant, and the benefits they have conveyed in the past only matters as much as we expect similar benefits in the future. Blocking problematic widgets and leaving the others unaffected is just about impossible
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This helps the game in general to give more time to think about a strategy and how to approach engagements on multiple fronts at the same time.[/quote]I don't think any of this matters to the question at hand. Those worried about widgets (excluding @PRO_rANDY) are worried about the single widget that breaks the game, not the 99 others that give people a little QoL or customisation. What widgets 'usually' do is not relevant, and the benefits they have conveyed in the past only matters as much as we expect similar benefits in the future. Blocking problematic widgets and leaving the others unaffected is just about impossible
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[quote]That's the opposite of what I wanted to say. I think widget development should be encouraged as much as game development. I'd even say widget development is game development. Since widgets are what allows ZK to be so fluid and intuitive to play.[/quote]
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[quote]That's the opposite of what I wanted to say. I think widget development should be encouraged as much as game development. I'd even say widget development is game development. Since widgets are what allows ZK to be so fluid and intuitive to play.[/quote]
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Do widgets help development? In the present? As far as I can recall the last time a true player widget was merged into the default UI was 2013. This is the Newton Firezones widget, and I still had to write the settings and other integration for it.
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Do widgets help development? In the present? As far as I can recall the last time a true player widget was merged into the default UI was 2013. This is the Newton Firezones widget, and I still had to write the settings and other integration for it.
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Widgets that break the game are less "helping development" and more forcing me to do tedious stuff that, in the end, has very little impact on the game. If someone really thinks that they are helping by "pointing out" some minor flaw in the mechanics then they could simply fix the game instead of putting in all the effort to write the widget in the first place.
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Widgets that break the game are less "helping development" and more forcing me to do tedious stuff that, in the end, has very little impact on the game. If someone really thinks that they are helping by "pointing out" some minor flaw in the mechanics then they could simply fix the game instead of putting in all the effort to write the widget in the first place.
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[quote]They mostly make things a lot less frustrating.[/quote]
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[quote]They mostly make things a lot less frustrating.[/quote]
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Patching game mechanics "revealed" by widgets to be frustrating is a process of diminishing returns, and we are at the thin end. At the start we were sweeping away many frustrations of the type @dyth68 alludes to. Ordinary players were benefiting from reworked mechanics or extra unit AI that made the game better, and relatively cheaply. Now we're scraping the bottom of the barrel and many of the widget fixes on the horizon look both expensive to implement and liable to actually make the UI worse. Not all widgets do things that a human could feel frustrated in being 'forced' to do to play well.
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Patching game mechanics "revealed" by widgets to be frustrating is a process of diminishing returns, and we are at the thin end. At the start we were sweeping away many frustrations of the type @dyth68 alludes to. Ordinary players were benefiting from reworked mechanics or extra unit AI that made the game better, and relatively cheaply. Now we're scraping the bottom of the barrel and many of the widget fixes on the horizon look both expensive to implement and liable to actually make the UI worse. Not all widgets do things that a human could feel frustrated in being 'forced' to do to play well.
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Consider prefire. To patch the problems of prefire we would have to either delete AoE weapons or hamper the interface for force firing at the ground. If instead we included prefire then suddenly all the unit AI would become worse, in lieu of a massive amount of programming work for essentially no benefit. In both cases the UI for most of the people playing the game has been degraded for little improvement.
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Consider prefire. To patch the problems of prefire we would have to either delete AoE weapons or hamper the interface for force firing at the ground. If instead we included prefire then suddenly all the unit AI would become worse, in lieu of a massive amount of programming work for essentially no benefit. In both cases the UI for most of the people playing the game has been degraded for little improvement.
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At this point I think I can safely say that players writing their own widgets does not, on balance, "help development". If anyone disagrees then they can put their time where their mouth is an actually help development. So with that revelation, widgets are not banned for the following reasons:
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At this point I think I can safely say that players writing their own widgets does not, on balance, "help development". If anyone disagrees then they can put their time where their mouth is an actually help development. So with that revelation, widgets are not banned for the following reasons:
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* A fraction of the playerbase finds the fun of ZK in writing and messing about with widgets.
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* A fraction of the playerbase finds the fun of ZK in writing and messing about with widgets.
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* Widgets help developers test stuff.
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* Widgets help developers test stuff.
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* The hope that they might someday resume helping development.
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* The hope that they might someday resume helping development.
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Patches that stop widgets breaking the game exist to serve that fraction of the playerbase, since the alternative is blocking local widgets. Nobody else is feeling the benefit from it. Maybe those players should step up and patch their problems.
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Patches that stop widgets breaking the game exist to serve that fraction of the playerbase, since the alternative is blocking local widgets. Nobody else is feeling the benefit from it. Maybe those players should step up and patch their problems.
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[quote]My angle is that casual should allow widgets, and ranked play should not. If that would be bad for widget users who enjoy ranked play, we really need to address the different ladders we support. Vanilla ranked, widget enabled ranked, casual 1v1, teams, ffa etc. A lot of work.[/quote][quote]I think custom widgets are fine for casual play but should be disabled on the ranked matchmaker. [/quote]
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[quote]My angle is that casual should allow widgets, and ranked play should not. If that would be bad for widget users who enjoy ranked play, we really need to address the different ladders we support. Vanilla ranked, widget enabled ranked, casual 1v1, teams, ffa etc. A lot of work.[/quote][quote]I think custom widgets are fine for casual play but should be disabled on the ranked matchmaker. [/quote]
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The
widgets
that
'break'
the
game
affect
balance,
and
I
am
not
going
to
balance
two
separate
games.
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The
widgets
that
'break'
the
game
affect
balance,
and
I
am
not
going
to
balance
two
separate
games.
I
am
responsible
for
making
sure
that
the
whole
of
teams
does
not
devolve
into
widgetised
precision
Lobster
clouds,
even
if
such
a
thing
is
blocked
in
the
matchmaker.
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Would you propose that non-MM games have a modifier that gives AoE units more range? Because that is essentially equivalent to only allowing local widgets in battlerooms (with the implication that the problems they raise are never addressed).
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[quote]Bots will become better than some players as time progresses. Already now Circuit AI would outperform more than half of the competitive 1v1 ladder. That is no reason to ban automation or stop us from having fun. It is up to the player to choose his level of automation and the control he wants to retain. If your Matchmaker opponent decides to use some AI to boost his skills the Matchmaker should take ratings into account to keep the games balanced. If you don't want to play against robots, just look at the top Starcraft players, their playing is much more robotic than Godde in ZK with all its automation tools.[/quote]
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[quote]Bots will become better than some players as time progresses. Already now Circuit AI would outperform more than half of the competitive 1v1 ladder. That is no reason to ban automation or stop us from having fun. It is up to the player to choose his level of automation and the control he wants to retain. If your Matchmaker opponent decides to use some AI to boost his skills the Matchmaker should take ratings into account to keep the games balanced. If you don't want to play against robots, just look at the top Starcraft players, their playing is much more robotic than Godde in ZK with all its automation tools.[/quote]
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This
paragraph
isn't
convincing
anyone
who
isn't
already
a
full
cyborg.
If
you
can't
see
that
there
is
a
difference
between
playing
against
a
player
and
playing
against
a
bot
then
you're
going
to
have
real
trouble
talking
to
half
the
people
in
this
thread.
Eventually
AI
is
going
to
become
powerful
enough
for
a
widget
ban
to
be
required.
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This
paragraph
isn't
convincing
anyone
who
isn't
already
a
full
cyborg.
If
you
can't
see
that
there
is
a
difference
between
playing
against
a
player
and
playing
against
a
bot
then
you're
going
to
have
real
trouble
talking
to
half
the
people
in
this
thread.
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Eventually AI is going to become powerful enough for a widget ban to be required. What if such players swarm the matchmaker? Where do new players who want to play people play?
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Widgets vs Cheating