altitudegame: Introducing: The Altitude Ladder page 2

[Y]

02-15-2010, 01:06 PM

Nothing new at a glance and nothing new on the ladder website...

Is the update supposed to be the ball ladder?

r87

02-15-2010, 11:15 PM

Hey, just wondering what the deal is with the ball ladders and how to access them.

Thanks

nobodyhome

02-15-2010, 11:20 PM

yes, the update is the ball ladder servers. these servers are titled Ladder #3 and Ladder #4 for ball. the password is "ladder1" like the tbd ladders. you play them the same way you play the tbd ladders except that you have a 6v6 instead of a 5v5. get a 6v6 and run /vote startTournament in the ladderlobby map. then change map and play.

r87

02-16-2010, 12:20 AM

Ahh, I see. I've never played the TBD ladders so I was like 0_o

Thanks!

Kuja900

02-16-2010, 04:36 AM

Kuja still has way too many fanboys.

The ladder community as a whole needs to discuss dodging. I can understand not wanting to play if certain players are on your team, but making an entire server go through the team picking process and then deciding not to play because you are unhappy with the results is stupid. I think dodging should become a kickable / bannable offense. Teams aren't always going to be fair, and yea, sometimes you're going to get a nubby reverse HC biplanes on you're team, but so be it.

Im just going to leave this here:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/8743/altitude201002152311544.png

[23:11] [IB] Ajuklor999: smush
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: ajuk
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: k
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: cannib
[23:11] Smushface: uhh
[23:11] Smushface: look at the time
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: DODGE
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: DODGE
[23:11] [fLb]Kuja900: DODGDE
[23:11] [IB] Ajuklor999: lol
[23:11] (||)on1x: lol
[23:11] [fLb]Apathy: ;x
[23:11] {ICE}Pein+: lol
[23:11] magpie: lool

Ajuk999

02-16-2010, 04:39 AM

Point Well Made Kuja, Bravo! Bravo!

By the Way, when are the ladder servers going to start recording again?

Evan20000

02-16-2010, 04:57 AM

I'll add that he proceded to join mid-game and spectate.

[FN]MONXY FIST

02-16-2010, 05:00 AM

Nobody wants a free win.

Smushface

02-16-2010, 05:14 AM

Few things.

1) Show me a record that this game happened. All I see is a possibly doctored screenshot. Where's the evidence of any game happening? Hmmmm?

2) In my defense, I did say that if Ajuk picked me, I was going to leave because of how stupid your choices of captaining was.

3) For that matter, why do you insist on pushing for games where you captain against some noob? Literally every game I've ever played with you and people suggest fair captains, you immediately suggest some random scrub who obviously is going to do a terrible job and who is so excited at the prospect of captaining, that he jumps up immediately. What are you trying to prove? That you can single handedly ruin a ladder game? Cause you're right. You can.

4) Yea, probably a little hypocritical but then again I shouldn't blame you for trying to bring back things from internet past. On that matter, maybe I'll get Gumby to resend me the pics that you sent him of "girl" you. Because that girl and the girl you posted on the forums aren't the same.

5) Note: Evan has comically gone from a decent, funloving player to a "I have kuja's balls in my mouth" player in about 2 days.

6) Hey Ladder develops, in case you didn't know, Ladder doesn't seem to be working. At least the TBD servers, haven't done any ball testing. Much love.

7) rabble rabble rabble rabble

Evan20000

02-16-2010, 05:22 AM

Few things.

1) Show me a record that this game happened. All I see is a possibly doctored screenshot. Where's the evidence of any game happening? Hmmmm?

We both know this happeded, don't try to deny it.

2) In my defense, I did say that if Ajuk picked me, I was going to leave because of how stupid your choices of captaining was.

After reviewing my chatlogs, you did. Fair enough.

3) For that matter, why do you insist on pushing for games where you captain against some noob? Literally every game I've ever played with you and people suggest fair captains, you immediately suggest some random scrub who obviously is going to do a terrible job and who is so excited at the prospect of captaining, that he jumps up immediately. What are you trying to prove? That you can single handedly ruin a ladder game? Cause you're right. You can.

Again, I'll conceed.

4) Yea, probably a little hypocritical but then again I shouldn't blame you for trying to bring back things from internet past. On that matter, maybe I'll get Gumby to resend me the pics that you sent him of "girl" you. Because that girl and the girl you posted on the forums aren't the same.

Kuja is a man. There isn't doubt there.

5) Note: Evan has comically gone from a decent, funloving player to a "I have kuja's balls in my mouth" player in about 2 days.

I would have reported any player dodging, even Kuja. If joining a team, means I "have balls in my mouth" and don't like having fun, then we have very different definitions of these terms.

6) Hey Ladder develops, in case you didn't know, Ladder doesn't seem to be working. At least the TBD servers, haven't done any ball testing. Much love.

Yeah, I was wondering why it didn't update.

7) rabble rabble rabble rabble

Rabble indeed.
Bolded. 10char

Kuja900

02-16-2010, 05:37 AM

3) For that matter, why do you insist on pushing for games where you captain against some noob? Literally every game I've ever played with you and people suggest fair captains, you immediately suggest some random scrub who obviously is going to do a terrible job and who is so excited at the prospect of captaining, that he jumps up immediately. What are you trying to prove? That you can single handedly ruin a ladder game? Cause you're right. You can.
e

What are you talking about? This is the only time I have ever suggested a captain and I did it because I wasn't having fun waiting 20min for someone else to step up to the plate. You had the captain chair offered to you and you turned it down, do not blame the guy who stepped up.

Sarah Palin

02-16-2010, 06:10 AM

Few things.

1) Show me a record that this game happened.

Well I went to the ladder to find the match link and make fun of you, but... according to the ladder Ajuk and Kuja have never played a game together.

There are a few players I just refuse to play ladder with cuz they make the game so unfun (win or lose)... on my blacklist there's one terrible noob, one guy who yells at everyone in teamchat, one bombcircler, and one ACE who never stops raging (not naming names, and that shouldn't narrow it down too much haha).

My solution to that situation is just to spec and to advertise, before captains or LB, that I refuse to be part of the same game as them.

Kuja900

02-16-2010, 06:34 AM

Well I went to the ladder to find the match link and make fun of you, but... according to the ladder Ajuk and Kuja have never played a game together.

There are a few players I just refuse to play ladder with cuz they make the game so unfun (win or lose)... on my blacklist there's one terrible noob, one guy who yells at everyone in teamchat, one bombcircler, and one ACE who never stops raging (not naming names, and that shouldn't narrow it down too much haha).

My solution to that situation is just to spec and to advertise, before captains or LB, that I refuse to be part of the same game as them.

The ladder is actually broken atm, games arent registering for tbd or ball.

nobodyhome

02-16-2010, 06:48 AM

The problem with the ladder not recording games has been noted. The ladder servers have been shut down for now while I look into a fix. Apologies.

nobodyhome

02-16-2010, 08:23 AM

Servers are back up. Putting a temporary fix for now (for this http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2720 issue). This should work fine as long as there are no more updates. Will have a more permanent fix once I port my code to the JSON logs.

tgleaf

02-17-2010, 12:13 AM

I've seen some formatting errors, such as this:

http://www.altitudeladder.net/matchlist.php?id=109&mode=1

and this: http://www.altitudeladder.net/matchlist.php?id=98&mode=1 (change amount is obviously incorrect for one game, but I think it actually was correctly calculated in my rank)

On a side note, should we start a new thread for the BALL Ladder, or just use this one?

eth

02-17-2010, 03:54 AM

Just use this one.. I think I fixed it a while ago though, do you still get any errors? If so, can you screenshot it? Looks fine to me(now).

Varonth

02-17-2010, 03:57 AM

And there is a preview of new matches that I will upload soon:
The lost ball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZF5h-dmxE)

Have fun :D

Kuja900

02-17-2010, 04:00 AM

And there is a preview of new matches that I will upload soon:
The lost ball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZF5h-dmxE)

Have fun :D

So much fail in that video *aneurysm*

Evan20000

02-17-2010, 04:50 AM

And there is a preview of new matches that I will upload soon:
The lost ball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZF5h-dmxE)

Have fun :D

And that's why each team should field a miranda. But sometimes it's tactically better to let the ball get lost.

ufo

02-17-2010, 11:54 AM

5) Note: Evan has comically gone from a decent, funloving player to a "I have kuja's balls in my mouth" player in about 2 days.

yea whatever happened to that guy. enter the age of trollstar20k i guess :p

<33

Evan20000

02-17-2010, 01:45 PM

Lawl, trollstar. I'll have to remember that. <3

Varonth

02-17-2010, 03:53 PM

Some new laddermatches, today featuring the new Ballmode:
Match 32 Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37g3p73nrRM)
Match 32 Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ6lhAOqT40)
Match 33 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENJeTdQVofw)
Match 34 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHZdh3XtO08)
Match 35 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VoUpHZcBs)

Triped

02-17-2010, 04:10 PM

eth

02-17-2010, 06:25 PM

Flyngbanana

02-17-2010, 07:42 PM

Am I a bad person for wanting to see who your worst teammate is in your general stats along with best teammate and worst enemy? :)

gemigemi

02-18-2010, 12:20 AM

Haha, played some ball ladder tonight. Guess what, I'm ranked the 4th WORST ball player out of 111. Well, I guess I just suck. Better pack my clan and stop playing then. :D

In all seriousness, the problem is that people are choosing teams with random captains who fail to create balanced teams, and even if everyone sees that the teams have no balance they just vote starttournament and you can't even do a protest leave in fear of getting banned from the ladder altogether. 90% of all captain games tonight ended in 6-2 or worse, while the few (3?) games with teams balanced by the ladder website were all 6-5. Before people stop using captains and start using the ladder balancing I will personally stop playing the ladder completely. It blows to be selected by a captain who has no idea of what he is doing and then forced to play. Seems like I'm not the only one whose rank is suffering from this as I see even better players ranked very low.

Oh, and get better servers plox. Many matches had serious lag spikes lasting even many seconds on some occasions. Neither team is happy when goals are made due to this. Also, please consider adding a EU server or two. If you don't have the possibility I can try to help you get a place to host it on.

_micro

02-18-2010, 12:25 AM

Agree with Gemi.

The captain idea just sucks and the server are lagging as hell....

tgleaf

02-18-2010, 01:20 AM

In all seriousness, the problem is that people are choosing teams with random captains who fail to create balanced teams, and even if everyone sees that the teams have no balance they just vote starttournament and you can't even do a protest leave in fear of getting banned from the ladder altogether. 90% of all captain games tonight ended in 6-2 or worse, while the few (3?) games with teams balanced by the ladder website were all 6-5. Before people stop using captains and start using the ladder balancing I will personally stop playing the ladder completely. It blows to be selected by a captain who has no idea of what he is doing and then forced to play. Seems like I'm not the only one whose rank is suffering from this as I see even better players ranked very low.

Gemi, everything you said is true, but there are a few things to consider (btw, I think I'm currently ranked 87th):

(1) Maimer stated in-game that the ladder balance mechanism was not working, so we avoided it today. Last night, it worked well, providing games that were evenly matched and often ended 6-5.

(2) The ladder balance requires that there is a good supply of data from previous games. Currently, many of the people on the ladder have only played one or two games, so balancing them doesn't really mean anything. Or at the worst, it unbalances the rest of the players. I'm all for trying ladder balance instead of captains' games, but we also need to allow for some errors in the process until the system ages more.

(3) Ladder BALL games are nearly devoid of strategy right now. They tend to resemble public servers or TDM matches more than competitive ball. We're all trying to figure out how this can best work. Clans that have played together are split apart, and some players/captains don't know many other players and can't choose that well. I'm sure the TBD ladder went through (or is going through) the same growing pains.

I understand your frustration. I can't say I'm happy to have a losing record, or to be ranked so low, but I'm looking at this in perspective. In a week or two, the ladder rankings should settle into place and -- hopefully -- the ladder balance will be fixed and based on more data. Give it some time (if you have the patience).

eth

02-18-2010, 02:00 AM

Gemi, you can leave and dodge games all you want before startTournament, we're not banning for that. As for the ranking system, it's obviously gonna depend on who you get as teammates, and the higher you get, the more you're expected to do for the team. I thought I fixed the ladderbalance for ball though.. they seem to be balancing correctly now? What are the problems with it, apart from the obvious one that new players with 0-0 are gonna skew it?

The servers cost money though(which we don't really have), so I'm not too sure what we can do about the instability.. will keep looking for options.

Let me just reiterate that you won't get banned for leaving before the game has started. Leaving after startTournament will give you an incrementally bigger ban for each time you do it, starting with 2 days.

gemigemi

02-18-2010, 10:18 AM

(1) Maimer stated in-game that the ladder balance mechanism was not working, so we avoided it today. Last night, it worked well, providing games that were evenly matched and often ended 6-5.
Yesterday evening people were agreeing in the chat that ladder balance produced nice games, but "it was too hard to use" so they instead used captains, ending up using even more time and getting worse teams.

(2) The ladder balance requires that there is a good supply of data from previous games. Currently, many of the people on the ladder have only played one or two games, so balancing them doesn't really mean anything. Or at the worst, it unbalances the rest of the players. I'm all for trying ladder balance instead of captains' games, but we also need to allow for some errors in the process until the system ages more.
It is true that players with only a few plays might unbalance the games, but tbh captain teams are far more unbalanced than any ladder balanced teams I've sen so far. Also, players with a very high/low ranking compared to their real skill will affect the teams. (I assume all the good players with unlucky bad rankings atm will start getting too good teams once ladder balance is used. The good side and the meaning of the system ofc is that the rankings will correct themselves in this way, so that's not really a bad thing.)

(3) Ladder BALL games are nearly devoid of strategy right now. They tend to resemble public servers or TDM matches more than competitive ball. We're all trying to figure out how this can best work. Clans that have played together are split apart, and some players/captains don't know many other players and can't choose that well. I'm sure the TBD ladder went through (or is going through) the same growing pains.
This is something that only gets fixed once people learn to play well with other people without knowing them too well. I think this will increase the overall ball skills of players, but it will take time.

Gemi, you can leave and dodge games all you want before startTournament, we're not banning for that.
The problem is that once you are picked you are expected to join and play without complaints. If you don't join the team you get constant "PLEASE JOIN THE TEAM" spam and are held as a difficult and irritating player who makes it difficult for others, while if you join the team the players will proceed with starttournament and you will either have to jump out before the vote ends (thus frustrating everyone) or sticking in while trying to explain why you don't like team picking and then be stuck in the team. The third option of course is to say that you wont join any captain teams, but that basically results in no playing then, which is even worse compared to playing with crappy 6-0 teams.

As for the ranking system, it's obviously gonna depend on who you get as teammates, and the higher you get, the more you're expected to do for the team. I thought I fixed the ladderbalance for ball though.. they seem to be balancing correctly now? What are the problems with it, apart from the obvious one that new players with 0-0 are gonna skew it?
From what I've seen the ladder balance works well. Players with no plays or only a couple of plays will of course be a difficulty, but generally you wont see much of those. Besides, the ladder corrects itself quickly, as when a good player gets a bad rank he will get better teams and rise in the ranks, while if a bad player gets a good rank he will get worse teams, ending up lower in the ranks. So basically it doesn't matter if the occasional match has weird teams due to new ladder players.

[QUOTE=eth;38119]The servers cost money though(which we don't really have), so I'm not too sure what we can do about the instability.. will keep looking for options.
Let me know what things you need installed on the server and I'll see if I can lend you something in Europe.

Smushface

02-18-2010, 05:16 PM

So now that everyone is getting sick of prestiging, can we start laddering again?

Please?

Evan20000

02-18-2010, 06:48 PM

So now that everyone is getting sick of prestiging, can we start laddering again?

Please?

Seriously, this. Why was everyone prestiging if they weren't going to ladder until they were done?

tgleaf

02-19-2010, 06:05 PM

Apologies if this has been mentioned before:

On the BALL ladder page, the sort buttons at the top (Rank, Rating, Streak, etc.) actually take you to a sorted TBD ladder page rather than a sorted BALL ladder page.

eth

02-19-2010, 07:14 PM

tgleaf

02-19-2010, 07:19 PM

Fix't, thanks for report!

eth, thank you! Everything works except for win%

eth

02-19-2010, 07:52 PM

eth, thank you! Everything works except for win%

Well, that's embarrassing. Fix't :V

gemigemi

02-20-2010, 03:31 AM

Just a quick celebration post for reaching the last spot of the ball ladder. Actually, I don't mind getting the bad teams anymore. :)

Flyngbanana

02-20-2010, 10:27 AM

Just a small thing but on the matchlist page my matches always come up from the opposite order now when I first load up the page. In other words the very first match I played on ladder comes up at the top of the list, rather than the last. Its the same on both tdb and ball. Ya I know I can switch it round by clicking on the "played ^" button.

Are the server lag/spikes related to the number of servers running on your end? If so I'm sure most people wouldn't mind sacrificing a server to get to the pre-ball server stabilities.

eth

02-20-2010, 10:59 AM

Flight 666

02-20-2010, 08:49 PM

Brazil's flag please.

eth

02-20-2010, 10:21 PM

Brazil's flag please.

We have all the flags, the problem is that IP ranges change and our IP database isn't commercial quality(those things cost cash). I might look into scrapping the database entirely in the future and relying on a webservice instead, but such an update would be tedious as hell.. will see what I can do.

Flight 666

02-20-2010, 10:50 PM

We have all the flags, the problem is that IP ranges change and our IP database isn't commercial quality(those things cost cash). I might look into scrapping the database entirely in the future and relying on a webservice instead, but such an update would be tedious as hell.. will see what I can do.

<3 Thx, I loved to see Brazil's flag on top... (its not a comum thing)

MasTR

02-20-2010, 11:07 PM

We have all the flags, the problem is that IP ranges change and our IP database isn't commercial quality(those things cost cash). I might look into scrapping the database entirely in the future and relying on a webservice instead, but such an update would be tedious as hell.. will see what I can do.

If you could link the Altitude account with the ladder one you could just pick your flag, it would solve that "problem" but I don't know if you can.

Boko

02-21-2010, 05:35 AM

About all the ladder balance problems:

It was said before (A month ago) that you guys couldn't just inject into Altitude and force player x in team y, but since Feb 3rd you can right?
Just write something that'll use the assignTeam command and write that into the command.txt file. That way you can let an algorithm or whatever create a team based on the players in the server, then force them on their teams and start the tournament. Orrrr am I missing something here? :(

Btw I just made a a little somethin in C# that gets a country code or name by ip via a webservice, if you need it I'll be happy to share the source. I also made a really simple (srsly simple) program that writes to command.txt that could be used also? Anyways I'm going to bed now so I'll have a look here again tomorrow.

nobodyhome

02-21-2010, 06:44 AM

Orrrr am I missing something here? :(

You are 100% correct. The only thing you're missing is that you're underestimating my laziness haha =(. Will get to doing auto balance as soon as I can.

Flight 666

02-21-2010, 06:26 PM

Thx for the flag!

NomNom

02-22-2010, 12:56 AM

Too many ladder servers right now, lag spikes all the time, take down one of the ball servers maybe?

eth

02-22-2010, 01:47 AM

Too many ladder servers right now, lag spikes all the time, take down one of the ball servers maybe?

Moving servers within the week hopefully! More to come on that later :P

Boko

02-22-2010, 03:13 AM

Dunno if you read my post about the webservices, you guys use mysql for the player database btw? I could program ahead if you do.

eth

02-22-2010, 11:48 AM

Dunno if you read my post about the webservices, you guys use mysql for the player database btw? I could program ahead if you do.

We use mysql yes - thanks for the offer, but I already changed my code to use a webservice :P

Boko

02-22-2010, 05:10 PM

I see, it works way faster now, great! The page used to have a long load for me.

nesnl

02-23-2010, 05:19 AM

NomNom

02-23-2010, 08:57 AM

Servers have been relocated onto a much faster and more reliable machine. The new machine is located in Chicago and the old one was located in Pennsylvania. So if your ping goes up or down slightly it is because the difference in location of the server. (sorry euro players but we are working on euro ladder servers soon).

Much thanks to phong for lending us the server space. Let us know if there are any problems with lag or spiking.

Phong's 5v5 servers were pretty stable as far as I remember, thanks for helping out!

Shouldn't bother with a euro server though, the community is too small. We don't always manage to fill up a ladder server with everyone mixed so making seperate servers is pretty pointless, everyone will be together anyways.
It would be nice however if instead we could get some more reliable servers for the APL because we had a lot of problems last season with spikes and crashes which really detracts from the quality of the games .

Stormich

02-23-2010, 09:09 AM

Yeah, most of the euros will stick to US servers anyway since there's not a lot of good players overseas :D

Flyngbanana

02-23-2010, 09:12 AM

Yeah, most of the euros will stick to US servers anyway since there's not a lot of good players overseas :D

Even though 6 out of the top 10 in the tbd ladder are from overseas? :)

classicallad

02-23-2010, 09:29 AM

Yeah, most of the euros will stick to US servers anyway since there's not a lot of good players overseas :D

simply not true.

classicallad

02-23-2010, 09:31 AM

Phong's 5v5 servers were pretty stable as far as I remember, thanks for helping out!

Shouldn't bother with a euro server though, the community is too small. We don't always manage to fill up a ladder server with everyone mixed so making seperate servers is pretty pointless, everyone will be together anyways.
It would be nice however if instead we could get some more reliable servers for the APL because we had a lot of problems last season with spikes and crashes which really detracts from the quality of the games .

dude, seriously, look at the APL registration, GMT or thereabouts outweighs US.

NomNom

02-23-2010, 10:09 AM

dude, seriously, look at the APL registration, GMT or thereabouts outweighs US.

No, it does not. More importantly the top teams with the most active players/participation in the ladder (ACE, FN, L*, FLB, Sammich, IL) are mostly north american based.

gemigemi

02-23-2010, 01:24 PM

Shouldn't bother with a euro server though, the community is too small. We don't always manage to fill up a ladder server with everyone mixed so making seperate servers is pretty pointless, everyone will be together anyways.
The thing is that setting up Euro servers isn't taking resources away from anything else. If you have the option for US and EU then you can choose one so that the majority of players get a server close to their location. Eg for ball we've had a lot of games with many EU players but we've still had to stick with the US servers.

For anyone interested the euro server for ladder will most likely be hosted on the same server as the {arr} ball servers are at, as long as the server owner is able to set up access for Maimer. The server location is somewhere in France and resources are plenty, so ping should be low in all of Europe and no server lag should be present like on the old US server.

classicallad

02-23-2010, 10:29 PM

No, it does not. More importantly the top teams with the most active players/participation in the ladder (ACE, FN, L*, FLB, Sammich, IL) are mostly north american based.

Ok my bad, my research or lack of doing has let me down. But what im trying to say is that there are plenty of APL players that are euro based (most of Bong's, KLF) for example.

I stress the importance for servers that cover those areas to overall improve the standard of gameplay for those teams and others.

Im not saying im expecting someone else to provide it all, i am looking into securing a UK VPS to run alongside PL servers, unless of course one is already in the pipeline which im loosely told is the case.

We want less lag! as do all preferably. lol

wolf'j'max

02-23-2010, 10:44 PM

Like 3-4 players from bong's are US. For what i know only 2 guys from KLF are US
And the majority from IL is not US too.
Bong and prog are even far east azia. Hartz is from estonia and almost everyOne in Dw is from Russia. The {arr} guys want the same timezone so for what i know they're all EU. Thats all but it still is alot. So if anyone could be able to put up one european APL server (im not complaining about the servers they're good but who knows if someone could put one up) i think we could get a fair amount of non laggy non-US players since the eastern guys won't lag then.

MasTR

02-23-2010, 10:50 PM

Will anyone think about Uruguay?

Smushface

02-24-2010, 01:06 AM

I think North American players still make up the majority and if not, we overwhelmingly have the plurality. Also keep in mind that European servers don't help the South Americans, Asians, and Aussies.

DiogenesDog

02-24-2010, 05:18 PM

Even as a euro-based player, I don't really think there's any benefit to adding european servers for APL.

drunkguava

02-25-2010, 05:32 PM

I've uploaded a bunch of ball ladder matches. I played in a couple of them though, so you can't see everything. 216, 217, 221, 223, 225. I'm too lazy to link to them individually so just go to my channel :D. More to come!

altitudedrunkguava (http://www.youtube.com/user/altitudedrunkguava#p/u)

Let me know if you have any suggestions on improving quality, etc.

uberknarf

02-25-2010, 09:43 PM

I made an AutoHotkey script to help with some ladder functionality. It has 3/4 main functions:

- Doing /startTournament and /stopTournament votes in one keypress
- Picking a map randomly from the list (and automatically voting it if you so choose)
- Picking a random team to pick first in captain games

It's pretty easily customizable if you open it up, but by default it will automatically perform all votes and send messages to chat (you can make it not do that and put messages in the clipboard instead, if you'd like).

By default, the hotkeys are:
F6 - Start tourney
F7 - Stop tourney
F8 - Choose captain
F9 - Choose map

To customize it, just open up the script in a text editor (notepad, etc.) and read from the top, there are instructions as to what each section does and what to change if you'd like to customize it.

This script will only work on Windows, but that shouldn't be much of a problem because really only 1 person needs to be running it in any given ladder server.

DL Link: http://tec27.com/LadderHelper.ahk :) :) :eek: :)

And if you don't have AutoHotkey installed, you can get it at: http://www.autohotkey.com/

From way back on page 4 - tec27, I want to say that this is the handiest little program/script ever. Random map, random capt selection, single-button tournament start/stop... Between this and your AltBouncer, you've added incredible value to the community. I hope you've gotten some gratitude from people, but in case you haven't, here's mine: thank you.

I put together a "Ball Ladder" version of the script, zipped with original for anyone who's interested:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6qqf7a

tgleaf

02-28-2010, 01:56 AM

Harmonica has been pushing for a "ladder balance w/veto" approach to BALL ladder games. Basically (and correct me where I'm wrong, harm), you get 12 players together, someone runs the ladder balance (http://altitudeladder.net for those who don't know), everyone joins the appropriate teams, and then... if a player feels strongly that it's not a fair match, that player can opt out.

Yes, it throws more drama into an already wrought system, but the other two alternatives (captains games -- love 'em because I very often win, but they are NOT fair; and standard ladder balance w/o veto -- sometimes fair, sometimes lopsided... as an example, I went from #187 to #40 on the ladder in less than a day, and that was after I had played roughly 50 total games... I would be considered a weak teammate one day and a strong one the next) are not perfect either.

What say we give it a shot?

[Edit: I see two immediate problems with this idea: (1) people can exploit it by opting out of any games they think they will lose, and (2) start tournament is usually voted immediately after players join a ladder-balanced game. The player opting out would likely get a "leave" added to his/her stats.]

Harmonica

02-28-2010, 02:19 AM

Harmonica has been pushing for a "ladder balance w/veto" approach to BALL ladder games. Basically (and correct me where I'm wrong, harm), you get 12 players together, someone runs the ladder balance (http://altitudeladder.net for those who don't know), everyone joins the appropriate teams, and then... if a player feels strongly that it's not a fair match, that player can opt out.

That's not quite what I meant.... Oftentimes, half the group will be calling for LB and the other half will be calling for capts, resulting in a deadlock that delays the team-picking process even further. So, the idea is to get everybody to agree on a team-picking method (LB), while doing away with the fears that LB will result in horribly-lopsided teams. If the post-LB teams are lopsided enough that one of the teams wishes to veto (as a whole) then everybody specs and captains pick new teams.

So the idea is not "that player can opt out", but rather "if the overall consensus is that the LB-generated teams aren't fair, some other method can be used". If only one or two players dislike the team balance, but the rest of their team is fine with it, those players should not be allowed to dodge. =)

Pieface

02-28-2010, 06:38 AM

The Admins of the Ladder said earlier that there is no penalty for dodging. So if you absolutely feel that the ladder balance didn't do a good job, you can always opt out (granted this will make a lot of people pretty angry with you).

gemigemi

02-28-2010, 06:51 AM

That's not quite what I meant.... Oftentimes, half the group will be calling for LB and the other half will be calling for capts, resulting in a deadlock that delays the team-picking process even further. So, the idea is to get everybody to agree on a team-picking method (LB), while doing away with the fears that LB will result in horribly-lopsided teams. If the post-LB teams are lopsided enough that one of the teams wishes to veto (as a whole) then everybody specs and captains pick new teams.

So the idea is not "that player can opt out", but rather "if the overall consensus is that the LB-generated teams aren't fair, some other method can be used". If only one or two players dislike the team balance, but the rest of their team is fine with it, those players should not be allowed to dodge. =)

I like this approach a lot. We should definitely give it a try. (and get even those not reading the forums to go with it, which is the hard part I think)

elxir

02-28-2010, 09:08 AM

We were talking about ways to make the ladder balance more fair...

Is there a way to record which plane each player uses the most, and account for that when balancing?

It kinda sucks when the LB puts 6 people who can only play loopy onto a team, ya know...or when one team gets all the best whales...etc...

Stormich

02-28-2010, 09:15 AM

It's possible and I think it's probably going to happen with time, it's gonna take a while before it gets implemented cause balance using plane types as a weight is gonna be harder to figure out

tgleaf

03-03-2010, 07:18 PM

Seems the ladder isn't working this morning. We played a game on Ladder #4 and it wasn't recorded. Also, ladder balance just shows as blank.

nesnl

03-03-2010, 07:30 PM

Seems the ladder isn't working this morning. We played a game on Ladder #4 and it wasn't recorded. Also, ladder balance just shows as blank.

Looking into it now.

eth

03-03-2010, 07:38 PM

Seems the ladder isn't working this morning. We played a game on Ladder #4 and it wasn't recorded. Also, ladder balance just shows as blank.

Weird issue.. we're looking into it but it's up and running again now. Sorry about that :[

tgleaf

03-03-2010, 07:41 PM

Thanks Maimer, eth!

nesnl

03-03-2010, 07:49 PM

Thanks Maimer, eth!

If you ever join again and you can't see people on the Autobalance page then it most likely won't record a game either because it means the servers are having an issue connecting to the database. Just post here if you see this problem again.

Varonth

03-03-2010, 08:35 PM

argonide

03-04-2010, 01:20 AM

ladder suggestions:

1) automate the ladderbalance. Every time a player gets frustrated over not being picked in capts, god kills a kitten. You don't want kitten death on your hands, do you nobo? DO YOU?

2) try changing balance algorithm a bit.
As I see it there are a couple factors that hurt the balance.

-new players to the ladder tend to be over-rated, a provisional period where their ratings count less towards the balance would help this

-ladder variance(pretty huge) hard to really help this without a switch to 4v4, but something that accounts for volatility would help a bit

-the "omg, none of the players on my team can aim syndrome",
If I'm in a balance where all the other players are 1700 or less, my 2200 rating means that the next 3 or 4 highest rated people will be placed on the other team. Assuming that ratings represent players goodness(which isn't always true due to variance), this will guarantee my team gets rolled. When I was playing ladder regularly and attempting to hit #1, I would only play when there was at least 1 similarly rated player as me due to this weakness in the balance.

I think a "captains style ladder balance" may improve this.
It would work something like:
1. the two highest rated players are captains, and their ratings are their teams ratings
2. the lower rated team picks the next highest rated player
3. the higher rated teams picks the next highest rated player
4. the picked players ratings' are added to their teams rating
5. goto 2

Pieface

03-04-2010, 01:25 AM

1) automate the ladderbalance. Every time a player gets frustrated over not being picked in capts, god kills a kitten. You don't want kitten death on your hands, do you nobo? DO YOU?

AFAIK nobo's working on an in-game ladder balance command in his free time. Whatever happened to Maimer's idea of chaining him to his desk? Minimizing kitten deaths is essential as far as I'm concerned.

nesnl

03-04-2010, 01:56 AM

I think the end goal is to balance based on a lot of different information. However, this requires using the new logs and we are still waiting on nobodyhome to finish the work on his end. Eventually, the balance will include rating, K/D ratio, Base Damage per Game, Goals per game, Plane preferences, etc. Hopefully this will help with some of the problems you were referring to. However, getting meaningful data means people have to play games. So I think the "new player" problem will always be present in a certain sense and will always create some type of variability that can't be predicted.

I have also been trying to work out a feasible system to enable Captain's Games so that they aren't these long drawn out 20 minute processes in the lobby. (This is different than the Captains Balance you were referring to King)

argonide

03-04-2010, 02:18 AM

K/D ratio, Base Damage per Game, Goals per game, Plane preferences, etc.

While it's interesting to collect these stats, it goes against the point of the ladder to balance against them. Since your rating is supposed to indicate how much you help your team win. If you balance by anything but rating then its essentially saying "we don't trust our own ladder system".

The 6v6 ball ladder will never work because there is too much variance. The nature of the game is too random to support a ladder.

nesnl

03-04-2010, 03:40 AM

While it's interesting to collect these stats, it goes against the point of the ladder to balance against them. Since your rating is supposed to indicate how much you help your team win. If you balance by anything but rating then its essentially saying "we don't trust our own ladder system".

The 6v6 ball ladder will never work because there is too much variance. The nature of the game is too random to support a ladder.

I think that you have touched on one of the major issues of our ladder, which is variance of ratings in a game. The problem of course is that we don't have match making system outside of who is available in game. As you said yourself, you don't like to play games unless there are other high ranked players to play with. This makes sense because the game will be higher quality. I feel like a game with high variance of ratings does less to actually determine the ratings of people than a game with low variance. However, note that I am talking about the variance of the ratings and not the variance of the game.

As for variance within the game that is much harder to account for. You say that by taking into account other factors than pure rating means that we don't trust our own system. However, unless the system was changed from a pure number for a rating then there is no other way around including these things. Think of any other team sport and try to come up with a numerical way to rate people without taking into account what they do in the game. Sure, you might be able to say person A helped his team win by X amount and person B helped his team win by X amount, but that doesn't mean that the role they provided was the same. Take for instance football. Let's say you rated everyone in the NFL on an Elo scale. This doesn't mean that you can field a team of all quarterbacks purely because they are all high rated. But on the same note it doesn't mean that you balance purely on position. There has to be some kind of middle ground between the player's ability to contribute and the role they play. Obviously in Altitude the positions aren't as clear cut as in professional football.

In the end it will be finding that key balance between balancing based on numbers and then balancing based on the other factors. And the important thing to remember is that the ratings will never be perfect since you are always relying on your team to win in these ladder games. For example, let's say you have a group of players that includes two proficient bomb runners (based on stats). Let's say that their ratings allow for a perfect split in team ratings of 1600 vs 1600 but only if both bomb runners are on the same team (However, note that including these stats becomes even more obvious if you could balance perfectly 2 ways: one with both bomb runners on the same team and one with them on the same team). But how much rating difference is worth splitting up the bomb runners. Let's say it became 1590 vs 1610 in order to put one bomb runner on each team. I would think most people would agree that that is probably a good thing to do. But what if it becomes 1500 vs 1700 if you split them up, then maybe it's no longer a great idea. That is where we will need to sit down and figure out an optimal setting for how the ladder will balance. This will hopefully take into account all of the things I mentioned, but to each a different degree.

Also, if you are interested, we have included a "Match Quality" function in the Match Details page of any match that has been played. It takes into account the difference in average ratings for each team and the variance of those ratings. So I think you might be interested to see that just because you did "Ladder Balance" and had a perfect game in terms of average rating that the system (designed by Esoteric) might rate your game as a much lower quality percentage. Maybe it might be best to use some type of quality function in also determining how many points could be won or lost by that game to encourage people to not only play even games but to also play low variance games. So for example in any game there are 50 possible points at stake. In an even 50/50 split of average ratings that means that the winners get 25 points and hte losers lose 25 points, but maybe if the varaince is high that number should be reduced. So let's say the game is a 50/50 split as far as ratings go, but due to variance the match only has a quality rating of 80%. Then maybe that should act as a multiplier so that instead of 25 points won/lost it becomes 25*.8, or 20 points.

Anyway, your thoughts and input are always welcome and I am interested to hear what you think of all of this.

argonide

03-04-2010, 04:54 AM

Your post needs cliff notes.

I agree that there is a lot of a variance, but like i said above this is pretty much inevitable for random 5v5's. Currently LB isn't that bad and seems to get a decent game >75% time, my first post was just about where it was weak or failed.

As you said yourself, you don't like to play games unless there are other high ranked players to play with. This makes sense because the game will be higher quality. The balance fails if there isn't a similarly ranked person as me in the balance, since it is done by averaging. 3 mediocre players are always better than 1 very good player and 2 bad players.

Obviously in Altitude the positions aren't as clear cut as in professional football.
In tdm there are only 2 roles:
1) running the bomb
2) killing planes(be it escorting, defending a push, or fighting for control of neutral bomb or specials)
The best players can do both, but the more important one is 2 in randomized 5v5.

nesnl

03-04-2010, 05:07 AM

The balance fails if there isn't a similarly ranked person as me in the balance, since it is done by averaging. 3 mediocre players are always better than 1 very good player and 2 bad players.

This is something we tried to address in the balance. Esoteric was trying to build in a function that would determine the variance of possible teams and then adjust them based on the same ideas you just said. The problem was that we had a hard time determining where the lines were drawn and by how much difference in average team rating were you willing to allow in order to now have something like a 2 PRO 3 NOOB team versus a 5 MEDIOCRE team. I don't think we ever agreed on anything so right now it's just a standard average.

In tdm there are only 2 roles:
1) running the bomb
2) killing planes(be it escorting, defending a push, or fighting for control of neutral bomb or specials)
The best players can do both, but the more important one is 2 in randomized 5v5.

I think that for the top players the categories are easily split into those two roles. I know that I always choose my plane based on the choices of my teammates. However, one of the biggest complaints we have received is that the balance makes teams that are "stacked" with people who only play a certain plane type. I think when you look at the population as a whole, there are a fair majority of people who only play one plane very well. This then dictates how well they can kill planes because it is partly related to what their team is flying. I assume we can have some type of middle ground in the function. For example we could balance by using an equation that factors in what percentage they use a specific plane (and not just a simple 'what plane do they use most'). So someone who uses Loopy 95% of the time would be balanced more heavily on their plane preference than someone who uses Loopy 50% of the time or someone who uses all planes an equal percentage.

cipso

03-06-2010, 09:27 PM

I cannot see them in my servers list anymore :-(

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 12:50 AM

1) automate the ladderbalance. Every time a player gets frustrated over not being picked in capts, god kills a kitten. You don't want kitten death on your hands, do you nobo? DO YOU?

The point of ladder is for good players to play against other good players.

The point of ladder is not to play with terrible people, or have the server automatically put a crappy player on each team just so that crappy player can play.

If you are going to do that, you may as well play on normal public servers, where instead of games being decided by teamwork, they are determined by which team has the fewest idiots.

nesnl

03-07-2010, 01:05 AM

I cannot see them in my servers list anymore :-(

Ladder servers were down while we updated the balancing system. I am putting them back up now as we speak.

The point of ladder is for good players to play against other good players.

The point of ladder is not to play with terrible people, or have the server automatically put a crappy player on each team just so that crappy player can play.

If you are going to do that, you may as well play on normal public servers, where instead of games being decided by teamwork, they are determined by which team has the fewest idiots.

The point of the ladder is to determine your skill when you play the game, not your skill at being a good "picker" as a captain. This is why the function of being able to have captain's games is being removed. I don't really think there is an argument in favor of captains games other than you don't want to play with "noobs." In which case if there are people that you don't want to play with I suggest you try the ladder at a different time. The only other way around this problem is having a match making system that considers players not currently on the server, which is something that we can't implement unless something changes.

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 01:17 AM

The point of the ladder is to determine your skill when you play the game, not your skill at being a good "picker" as a captain. This is why the function of being able to have captain's games is being removed. I don't really think there is an argument in favor of captains games other than you don't want to play with "noobs." In which case if there are people that you don't want to play with I suggest you try the ladder at a different time. The only other way around this problem is having a match making system that considers players not currently on the server, which is something that we can't implement unless something changes.

But his complaint was basically "bad players don't get picked".

Removing the need for captains is great, being a better "picker" shouldn't give you better rating. Automated teams would also decrease the sometimes long wait times between games when people dick around (although, if someone says "brb", it could mess up the automation, whereas captains would just not pick them). So I support that.

But I still don't support "bad players need to be on teams too!". Then you just have "getting the less-bad people increases your rating". Not to mention that forcing bad players on teams would just decrease the quality of the games on the ladder server...

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 01:22 AM

Automation (though already mentioned), would definitely need to consider most played plane. Getting a team of 3 randas and 2 loopies would just be stupid.

nesnl

03-07-2010, 01:41 AM

Automation (though already mentioned), would definitely need to consider most played plane. Getting a team of 3 randas and 2 loopies would just be stupid.

Currently it is purely based on rating. We will probably start working on including plane usage as well as other stats at the start of season 2, which will also include detailed stat tracking in the player profiles as well as match details.

nesnl

03-07-2010, 01:43 AM

Also, just wanted to put this out there for anyone who was counting on season 1 ending on March 15th. We have chosen to extend the first season and we have done this for 2 reasons. There is no immediate reason to reset rankings, this will be done once we start tracking all the new stats and hopefully have a more complex balancing algorithm. Second, since we introduced the ball ladder so late in the season we want to give that ladder enough time to play itself out.

I will update this post with the new Season end date soon, until then just keep playing!

gemigemi

03-07-2010, 03:54 AM

If I'm in a balance where all the other players are 1700 or less, my 2200 rating means that the next 3 or 4 highest rated people will be placed on the other team. Assuming that ratings represent players goodness(which isn't always true due to variance), this will guarantee my team gets rolled.
Actually, if you think about it, the ladder will give you poor teams if your score is too high compared to your actual skill and good teams if your score is too low. This forced you to drop/raise to the level that you belong on. If you constantly get rolled due to your high score then your score is just too high for your skill level.

The problem is that people try to get higher and higher and still want to play balanced games, so then they end up using captains or other sorts of systems that let them raise higher even though their score isn't actually in any relevance to the other players on the ladder. This means that if they do LB then they get an even worse team (as they should since their score is "too high") and eventually they don't want to play lb because they don't want to drop in score.

Of course this ladder system avoidance isn't necessarily a problem, it just depends on how everyone wants the system to work. I don't really care either way, but I'm just pointing this out. If we don't want the ladder to make care of balancing players to their correct scores by forming the teams that way, then maybe the whole balancing system should be based on something else entirely than the score of the player on the ladder. The options are 1) get unfair teams now and then due to the ladder "wanting" to move the players to their correct spot 2) get a new balancing mechanism that balances the players according to real skill instead of ladder score, thus causing each game to be fair and allowing players to rise really high or go really low.

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 04:42 AM

Actually, if you think about it, the ladder will give you poor teams if your score is too high compared to your actual skill and good teams if your score is too low. This forced you to drop/raise to the level that you belong on. If you constantly get rolled due to your high score then your score is just too high for your skill level.

Sorry...I was under the impression that this is a team game.

If the server keeps giving you ****ty teams, it really doesn't matter what your "actual skill" is, you are going to lose.

Any automated system (especially one that lets terrible players in...like some people want) isn't going to create a more enjoyable environment. It isn't going to create more balanced teams compared to capt. It will just create frustrating games of "why the hell is my teammate going towards our goal with the ball?".

nesnl

03-07-2010, 04:47 AM

Sorry...I was under the impression that this is a team game.

If the server keeps giving you ****ty teams, it really doesn't matter what your "actual skill" is, you are going to lose.

Any automated system (especially one that lets terrible players in...like some people want) isn't going to create a more enjoyable environment. It isn't going to create more balanced teams compared to capt. It will just create frustrating games of "why the hell is my teammate going towards our goal with the ball?".

I think you are missing the point of what he is saying. He is saying that if the teams aren't even in skill it is because the ratings assigned to those players are incorrect. Sure, you might be able to make a more even game with captains in terms of skill, but it won't be even rating. The whole point of a ladder is to try to improve your rating. The only way to do that is to compare that rating against the other players on the ladder. So for example, if you are in a game that is evenly rated in terms of rating but then one team beats the other, they all go up 25 points a piece and the other peopel go down 25 points a piece. If you then rebalance for another game, it will provide different teams and the cycle will continue as the players either gain or fall in rating until they reach their potential rating.

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 05:12 AM

So for example, if you are in a game that is evenly rated in terms of rating but then one team beats the other, they all go up 25 points a piece and the other peopel go down 25 points a piece. If you then rebalance for another game, it will provide different teams and the cycle will continue as the players either gain or fall in rating until they reach their potential rating.

Except, let's assume that one of those players is far better than the others.

Eventually, he is going to start getting absolutely terrible teams, which will pretty much guarantee a loss for even the best arpun flyer. Every time he plays he will get a bad team until his rating is killed back to mediocre.

It doesn't let people "pull ahead", because they will continually get stuck with bad teams. All it would do is enforce some kind of mediocrity, with major frustration if you start pulling ahead of the mediocrity.

tgleaf

03-07-2010, 05:27 AM

"why the hell is my teammate going towards our goal with the ball?".

Don't play with ssd, imo.

cipso

03-07-2010, 09:57 AM

Ladder servers were down while we updated the balancing system. I am putting them back up now as we speak.

I still cannot see them in my list. Are they renamed? I see only these Test #1 and Test #2, not sure if they are related or not. Thank you.

nobodyhome

03-07-2010, 10:30 AM

Was down for today, should be fixed and back up now.

eth

03-07-2010, 11:09 AM

JDR

03-07-2010, 11:40 AM

Ladderbalance shouldn't even exist tbh. A group that isn't completely apathetic is able to elect two qualified captains and then backseat-moderate what those captains are doing with their picks until they have their lineups. Our own impressions of who's great and who's just good is infinitely more accurate than ladder ratings, which are primarily based on participation.

Ball goals / assist should be used to calculate rankings. That puts more of an emphasis on the individual's actual skill. Only going off of wins/losses (or whatever formula is currently used) is something that doesn't really work without humongous sample sizes for every player.
Yes I know people can contribute (even be MVPs) without getting assists or goals. This game seems too primitive to track that, but maybe kills near one's own goal could be recorded, and saves (assuming the game can know in advance whether the ball will go into the goal or not).

gemigemi

03-07-2010, 02:16 PM

Except, let's assume that one of those players is far better than the others.

Eventually, he is going to start getting absolutely terrible teams, which will pretty much guarantee a loss for even the best arpun flyer. Every time he plays he will get a bad team until his rating is killed back to mediocre.

It doesn't let people "pull ahead", because they will continually get stuck with bad teams. All it would do is enforce some kind of mediocrity, with major frustration if you start pulling ahead of the mediocrity.

He will only start to get bad teams when he's rating is too high when comparing his skill-score ratio to the other players' skill-score ratios. Let's say you are double the good than others, then you'll get okay teams with double the score, but if you win, you will get teams that will lose since your double goodness doesn't allow you to win games where your score is over double. When you fall back to your double score you'll get even teams again and if you go below it you'll get good teams. So basically your score will keep bouncing near the double score as long as your skills level stays there.

This way the players will stay where they deserve and wont be able to get more and more and more score indefinitely. Of course if this isn't what you want from the ladder system then the system need to be revised like I said earlier. That's just how it currently works (assuming people would only use LB which they don't so the whole system is just messed up)

Ball goals / assist should be used to calculate rankings. That puts more of an emphasis on the individual's actual skill. Only going off of wins/losses (or whatever formula is currently used) is something that doesn't really work without humongous sample sizes for every player.
Yes I know people can contribute (even be MVPs) without getting assists or goals. This game seems too primitive to track that, but maybe kills near one's own goal could be recorded, and saves (assuming the game can know in advance whether the ball will go into the goal or not).
I agree that better stat tracking for score should be implemented, but the thing is that it's really hard to do. How do you measure a defensive whales participation in the match? A great whale can have a lot more effect than a single goal scorer, but there is no way currently in the game to track that, and it's not even possible to do very accurately through automated means. The game could include a "saves" stat where every time you catch a ball that would have gone to goal if there was no one in the way (easily figured out by the game) you get a save. But this only goes so far, as there is a lot of preventive actions that you can do without the opponent even getting a shot at the goal, and these are the things that really can't be measured. Kill count could also help a bit, but it's not an entirely reliable stat either.

cipso

03-07-2010, 05:23 PM

Was down for today, should be fixed and back up now.

We can now join the ladder servers, but /vote custom start_<map> doesn't work. When we vote it, even with 100% yes votes, it doesn't do anything then. It simply stays in lobby map. We tried on Ladder #4 - Ball server.

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 08:55 PM

Sure you can, this is something that happens to every player above 2100 rating.. your team WILL be absolute **** compared to the other team if you are the only high-rated guy. And it very much is possible to pull ahead, you just have to find a method to carry your team which works out for you.

Wasn't aware that in chess matches, when your rating raises, you have to play with fewer pieces to retain some kind of mediocrity.

eth

03-07-2010, 09:52 PM

Wasn't aware that in chess matches, when your rating raises, you have to play with fewer pieces to retain some kind of mediocrity.

Yea thats an excellent analogy bro, rofl. Let me try to spell it out more clearly: as your rating rises, you are expected to do more for your team. Does that work for you?

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 10:00 PM

Yea thats an excellent analogy bro, rofl. Let me try to spell it out more clearly: as your rating rises, you are expected to do more for your team. Does that work for you?

While your team does less.

You are forced to play with a handicap as your rating rises. Anyone who doesn't think playing with a bad team is a handicap is naive.

He should be penalized by getting less and less rating points as his rating rises, not put at a significant disadvantage to give him good chances of losing...that's just retarded.

I know, I know, it gives bad players a better chance of getting on a team and having someone carry their ass, but it is dumb as hell for the one good player.

eth

03-07-2010, 10:41 PM

You are aware that with your system, players at high ratings would get 0 points from games. The player pool isn't big enough so we can have 2100+ rated games. If games were perfectly balanced all the way up, you wouldn't have to carry your team. But when you have a 1100 player and a 2100 player, obviously the latter has to carry. Don't really see how that's retarded.

Deathblade

03-07-2010, 11:37 PM

blln4lyf

03-08-2010, 12:38 AM

Currently it is purely based on rating. We will probably start working on including plane usage as well as other stats at the start of season 2, which will also include detailed stat tracking in the player profiles as well as match details.

This is def. needed. As of now you can not have a balanced LB without tracking the players most used plane, etc.

blln4lyf

03-08-2010, 12:43 AM

We can now join the ladder servers, but /vote custom start_<map> doesn't work. When we vote it, even with 100% yes votes, it doesn't do anything then. It simply stays in lobby map. We tried on Ladder #4 - Ball server.

This. .

nobodyhome

03-08-2010, 02:15 AM

Ok it should be fixed. Hopefully for reals this time. Apologies for delay.

cipso

03-08-2010, 06:17 AM

Ok it should be fixed. Hopefully for reals this time. Apologies for delay.

Big Thank You!

drunkguava

03-08-2010, 07:21 AM

i love the auto-LB, thanks for that. It makes it so much easier to start games this way, and i think it is a fairer way of determining ladder position as well.

One thing i noticed today was that some people were simply not playing. I don't know what their reasons were, they didnt explain when they came back. Is this allowed on the ladder? Can I report ppl who do this? I /vote kicked them after the game because i didn't want to play with players who will spec through a match. but obviously they can return. this doesn't get counted in the "leaves" stat either, obviously, bc the player never actually left the server.
can anything be done about this?

nesnl

03-08-2010, 07:45 AM

gemigemi

03-08-2010, 02:32 PM

I haven't actually played on the ladder after the addition of this new auto-balance (which doesn't seem to have been mentioned in any topic here and not in the ladder changelog), but does it just pick guys who are speccing and assign them to teams? This might mean that someone who is afk is put on a team and that's why they aren't playing.

drunkguava

03-08-2010, 02:47 PM

it does not pick specs. 12 people need to be on teams (doesnt need to be 6v6 I think) and those 12 will be balanced. It's in the instructions in the lobby. You'll see next time you play, it's good stuff.

Thanks Maimer, I'll do that next time.

gemigemi

03-08-2010, 03:25 PM

tgleaf

03-08-2010, 05:03 PM

Just wanted to add to the chorus that the auto-LB system is fantastic. Games start quickly and there aren't many complaints after the fact.

Just one question, though: what is the proper procedure for teams that want to ladder balance but choose a map (instead of a random map)? Do they then need to use the website to balance?

drunkguava

03-08-2010, 05:16 PM

Just one question, though: what is the proper procedure for teams that want to ladder balance but choose a map (instead of a random map)? Do they then need to use the website to balance?

you can choose a map too, we were just randoming while you were playing. Blame blin :p. /vote custom start_*map* i think

tgleaf

03-08-2010, 06:19 PM

you can choose a map too, we were just randoming while you were playing. Blame blin :p. /vote custom start_*map* i think

Ah, okay thanks. I always like to have someone to blame.

Flyngbanana

03-08-2010, 07:48 PM

Could we have a slightly longer delay at the start of matches please? Its kinda rushed at the moment with everyone sorting out plane types and general connectingness :)

tgleaf

03-08-2010, 10:00 PM

Could we have a slightly longer delay at the start of matches please? Its kinda rushed at the moment with everyone sorting out plane types and general connectingness :)

Yes, this is a very good idea. I believe it's currently 10 seconds, but it should be 20 seconds. With the new (wonderful) random auto-balance system, you don't even know your teammates or the map until people are ready to spawn. Having an extra ten seconds would be invaluable to allow for quick plane choice and player role discussions.

tgleaf

03-08-2010, 11:20 PM

Idea: remove Lost City and Labyrinth from the ball ladder pool.

Reason: they are fun maps and some people love them, but they aren't great competitive ball maps.

Please comment. Thanks.

Harmonica

03-09-2010, 12:23 AM

Idea: remove Lost City and Labyrinth from the ball ladder pool.

I agree. I don't mind Labyrinth as much personally, but it's definitely not among the more passing-oriented maps.

I'd also propose removing Core, for similar reasons.

As an alternative, and a possible way to integrate some of the non-official maps, what if a second "random" option were added? E.g.:
/vote custom start_random = picks from the 'selected maps' pool (as it does today)
/vote custom start_random_extramaps = picks any Ball map, official/unofficial

nesnl

03-09-2010, 01:26 AM

Could we have a slightly longer delay at the start of matches please? Its kinda rushed at the moment with everyone sorting out plane types and general connectingness :)

I will look into putting a longer delay on the next restart. I will probably put something like 20 seconds.

Idea: remove Lost City and Labyrinth from the ball ladder pool.

Reason: they are fun maps and some people love them, but they aren't great competitive ball maps.

Please comment. Thanks.

I agree that some maps tend to lend themselves less towards ball environments in general. However, I think that while I have favorite maps, others have a different set of favorite maps. We can't cater to everyone's desires by removing the maps that certain people don't like. I tried to pick a fairly standard set of maps for the ladder and you can always choose not to play when certain maps are voted (of course you have to take a chance with random).

I agree. I don't mind Labyrinth as much personally, but it's definitely not among the more passing-oriented maps.

I'd also propose removing Core, for similar reasons.

As an alternative, and a possible way to integrate some of the non-official maps, what if a second "random" option were added? E.g.:
/vote custom start_random = picks from the 'selected maps' pool (as it does today)
/vote custom start_random_extramaps = picks any Ball map, official/unofficial

Same reasoning as above. If we removed Core because you don't like it, why not remove mayhem2 because someone else doesn't like it, or Snow because someone else doesn't like that. Personally, Core is one of my favorite maps. I just say take the good with the bad. If it gets to a point where there is just a general consensus that a map is just bad then we might remove it, but we will probably look at the stats first (ie map played percentage) to see what will get the axe.

You guys should just be glad I didn't include ball_football! What if someone came in here asking for that to be added!

------------

Also, I posted this in the Ladder Contest Thread (http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2486), but figured i would post it here as well. (and if you aren't aware of the contest for Community Points, then go read that thread!). I made a video promoting the Ladder and Altitude. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

ALTITUDE LADDER PROMO VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAvKWY1rnb4)

ryebone

03-09-2010, 04:08 AM

Also, I posted this in the Ladder Contest Thread (http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2486), but figured i would post it here as well. (and if you aren't aware of the contest for Community Points, then go read that thread!). I made a video promoting the Ladder and Altitude. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

I love 1:08. TeH ApA is so fail.

tgleaf

03-09-2010, 04:30 AM

Ladder #4 is balancing 7v5 about >50% of the time now.

[Edit: I don't have a screenshot, but it happened at least five straight games between say 8:25-8:35 PM (same time as this post, originally)]

nobodyhome

03-09-2010, 06:18 AM

I'm having trouble tracking down this bug. If anyone else encounters this, please screenshot it and post it, along with the approximate time that this happened. Thanks.

tgleaf

03-09-2010, 05:21 PM

You guys should just be glad I didn't include ball_football! What if someone came in here asking for that to be added!

I realize, of course, that everyone has different preferences. That's the reason I said "please comment" instead of "please do this, Maimer." lol

If enough people didn't like those maps, maybe we could come to consensus, but I'm not asking they be dropped just because I think they don't work well. =)

I made a video promoting the Ladder and Altitude. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Sweet video! Nice work. I think I need to go feed my addiction. That music at the end sounds like ExciteBike (http://www.1980-games.com/us/old-games/nintendo/e/Excitebike/big-game.php).

tgleaf

03-09-2010, 06:39 PM

On the details page for my last game, I noticed that the "Autobalanced" stat is listed as "NO" even though we used the /vote custom start_random command.

nesnl

03-09-2010, 07:18 PM

Sweet video! Nice work. I think I need to go feed my addiction. That music at the end sounds like ExciteBike (http://www.1980-games.com/us/old-games/nintendo/e/Excitebike/big-game.php).

Yah it is excite bike. Most people who play this game are too young to have played it though.

On the details page for my last game, I noticed that the "Autobalanced" stat is listed as "NO" even though we used the /vote custom start_random command.

Yea, the Autobalanced field on the website never worked properly for the Ball games. You probably didn't notice but every ball game says No for the Autobalance. It was going to be fixed but then this new in game autobalance feature was being added and we realized that the feature on the website that lists whether a game was autobalanced would become redundant as all games are now autobalanced.

tgleaf

03-09-2010, 08:33 PM

we realized that the feature on the website that lists whether a game was autobalanced would become redundant as all games are now autobalanced.

Oh yeah, good point!

tgleaf

03-09-2010, 09:56 PM

How about some sort of prize/community points/recognition for the player who manages to have the highest combined ranking on both ladders? Currently, Apathy has the #12 spot on the TBD ladder and the #8 spot on the BALL ladder. Go Apa!

Flight 666

03-09-2010, 10:44 PM

Why we cant play more captains in ladder?

Captains game mode is the most fair of all.

nobodyhome

03-09-2010, 11:05 PM

The reason why captain's game seemed to be fairer than ladder balance at times is exactly because of the fact that we allowed captain's games to happened. Much of the time, the outcome during captain's games was determined by the picking skills of the two captains. Thus, there were many players whose ratings were rendered inaccurate, thus making ladder balance unable to balance properly.

With a single system of setting teams as opposed to two, peoples' ratings will converge to their accurate rating much more quickly, making ladder balance more fair in the long run.

blln4lyf

03-10-2010, 02:10 AM

you can choose a map too, we were just randoming while you were playing. Blame blin :p. /vote custom start_*map* i think
Hey now, we went forever using only Darkwar and Snow, liked the change up for a while. That being said, it is getting a bit annoying now and I'll likely start picking maps more often when voting. /vote custom start_random is the command btw.

drunkguava

03-11-2010, 12:39 AM

I agree that some maps tend to lend themselves less towards ball environments in general. However, I think that while I have favorite maps, others have a different set of favorite maps. We can't cater to everyone's desires by removing the maps that certain people don't like. I tried to pick a fairly standard set of maps for the ladder and you can always choose not to play when certain maps are voted (of course you have to take a chance with random).

Same reasoning as above. If we removed Core because you don't like it, why not remove mayhem2 because someone else doesn't like it, or Snow because someone else doesn't like that. Personally, Core is one of my favorite maps. I just say take the good with the bad. If it gets to a point where there is just a general consensus that a map is just bad then we might remove it, but we will probably look at the stats first (ie map played percentage) to see what will get the axe.

You guys should just be glad I didn't include ball_football! What if someone came in here asking for that to be added!

I don't think anybody but CCN really likes cross... Can we please remove that? I like the random feature because it gets us playing some of the less played maps, but i cross my fingers every time hoping that it's not cross. Judging by most other ppl's reactions, I think it's a shared opinion.

I understand, though, that you don't want to remove a map just because one or two people say it. How can I prove to you that it is widely disliked? Screenies of the chat from when we get that map randomly? Survey ladder players over a week?

gemigemi

03-11-2010, 01:10 AM

Cross really isn't liked amongst the players. Also I'm not sure if Funnelpark is in the set or not but I remember seeing it played once a long time ago and it's also a map that most people don't seem to like. (for good reasons just as with Cross)

elxir

03-11-2010, 03:12 AM

1) That video is awesome! I feel like a movie star. :cool:

2) Funnelpark and cross should be removed from random, but still allowed if you manually select them (I guess). I actually love both maps, but personally I do not see those maps enough (read: ever) to feel comfortable playing them on ladder of all places.

argonide

03-11-2010, 07:49 AM

Great job with the automated autobalance, way easier to get ladder games going now!

tbd_justice should be removed from the tbd pool, also it would be nice if the randomizer is forced to never pick same map twice, we played mayhem thrice in a row randomized before... just imagine if that was loco! the horror.

CCN

03-11-2010, 09:08 AM

just want to say my thanks for all the hard work.

Ladder is great, autoteams is great.

Thanks =)

Evan20000

03-12-2010, 05:29 AM

Is it possible to identify games where the ball has been split in two and cancel its results?

elxir

03-12-2010, 06:24 AM

Is it possible to identify games where the ball has been split in two and cancel its results?

Yes please.

Also...seriously remove cross.

Nobody knows wtf is going on there...nobody ever plays it...and it showed up three times on random tonight. :eek:

CCN

03-12-2010, 06:51 AM

Yes please.

Also...seriously remove cross.

Nobody knows wtf is going on there...nobody ever plays it...and it showed up three times on random tonight. :eek:

I love cross, great map.

I've lost 1 time on that map

nobodyhome

03-12-2010, 10:21 AM

Is it possible to identify games where the ball has been split in two and cancel its results?

I don't think so. That sounds like an obvious bug and if lamster is somehow able to report that into the logs, then he would instead just take care of that himself (and prevent this from ever happening).

nobodyhome

03-12-2010, 10:23 AM

What you can do when that happens though, is just call a /stopTournament (we've only disabled startTournament). I'm assuming that everyone is smart enough to notice that there's two balls and two balls is bad and will vote for it though, which might not necessarily be the case.

tgleaf

03-12-2010, 02:17 PM

Okay, no one chimed in about lostcity, but plenty of people in-game are quite unhappy with both cross and labyrinth being part of the ladder mix.

drunkguava

03-12-2010, 04:00 PM

i think cross is in a level of terrible all by itself. sure funnelpark isn't great, neither is lostcity, but they can both lead to interesting games at least. Cross is just boring and dumb. The ball goes to the bottom of the map and just bounces back and forth for a while. Labyrinth is actually growing on me. I think much of the problem with labyrinth is that it is not played very much, this is not the same problem as cross. The more you play cross, the more you hate it. Labyrinth has actually led to some of the most exciting games i've played in ladder. It also lends to some neat passing tricks that happen at least a couple times (sometimes on accident) a game.

also i like elixir and argonide's ideas about removing some maps from random and making sure the same map isnt played twice in a row. if that were possible it would improve random a lot.

and yeah, thanks devs, and phong for the servers, for making ladder so incredible(ly addicting). The addition of autobalance has actually increased the pool of players who are willing to give it a try, I think. Waiting and arguing in the lobby is out, and now it's usually just a mad rush to get on a team.

Flyngbanana

03-17-2010, 11:21 PM

Any ideas on a definite date to end the current season with? I'm sure people would like a deadline to try and reach the top 3. :)

nesnl

03-18-2010, 02:19 AM

So we are going to schedule the end of the Season 1 for April 15th (8PM ET). This will be the final date for both the prizes available for the top 3 rated ladder players as well as the most games played.

This date will also be the final submission date for the Video contest. (See thread http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2486).

We are anticipating launching the new ladder system on that day as well, which will include all of the new stats. However, if for some reason it isn't ready for that day we will still award the prizes at that time. So for those of you working on videos, you have a little less than a month to get it done!

Good Luck!

nobodyhome

03-18-2010, 02:53 AM

So we are going to schedule the end of the Season 1 for April 15th (8PM ET)...We are anticipating launching the new ladder system on that day as well, which will include all of the new stats.

Crapcrapcrap.

elxir

03-18-2010, 03:06 AM

Okay, no one chimed in about lostcity, but plenty of people in-game are quite unhappy with both cross and labyrinth being part of the ladder mix.

Labyrinth is a great map.

u crazy

as red as black

03-18-2010, 03:17 AM

cross is tight.

blln4lyf

03-21-2010, 02:01 AM

kesse

03-21-2010, 02:11 AM

I don't agree with banning for a vote or even calling the vote to stop mid ladder. I was there, I thought it was immature to want to stop the match and I voted against it, but the majority apparently wanted it to stop or it wouldn't have been stopped mid game. Can I tell M4v to go tell his admin friends that blin voted against my call to change a map too? This is an obvious abuse of power and/or miscommunication. I just ask that you please fully look into the issue before benning users. imo nobody should be banned, even the person who called it.

If this is in fact a bannable offense and you wish to stick with the decision I ask that you remove the feature to stop a ladder game completely, because this is not fair whatsoever.

Didn't think voting/calling for a vote was bannable, so hopefully you reverse your decision. In the future you probably shouldn't listen to your little pal and act on pure aggression.

Clapon

03-21-2010, 02:24 AM

Did I really get banned for hitting 1 on a stop tourney vote that was cast by someone else during ladder?

There was a dude at 600+ ping constantly and often at 999 scoring goals b.c no one could kill him with the lag.

Not to mention people stop the tourney because of 4v4 or 5v5 play all the time when they are losing.

It is only 2 days so its not a huge deal, but the fact that I actually got banned at all for this is beyond stupid. I did nothing but hit 1 on a vote during a controversial topic, hell even some on the other team agreed.

Also I hope you banned every single person that hit 1 or I am just getting wrongfully attacked b.c Mav has mod friends and doesn't like me.

Do the right thing and reconsider this, because honestly it is bs to get banned for what I did.

I want to point out the fact right off the bat that I WAS NOT THERE TO WITNESS THIS INCIDENT. but from a third party perspective this sounds rather bad and unfair simply from voting or not voting on something should really not deserve a ban regardless. maybe the person who starts the vote but not the voters as much imo. i know myself i usually always press one with out even looking, weather i agree with it or not. and from what i heard about this the reason for the stop may have been reasonable. there has been many other times where the tourney has been stopped for much more insignificant reasons with out any bans or discipline. now im not sure on any banter or talk that was taking place in chat at the time that may have warranted, along with the vote, a ban but just the vote and having an opinion seems abusive to me. again i wasn't there so i am saying this without witnessing it first person. so i hope either there was more of a reason or everyone that voted yes gets treated equally.

with much love,
Clapon <3

Herodadotus

03-21-2010, 02:29 AM

nesnl

03-21-2010, 02:46 AM

http://www.altitudeladder.net/rules.php

It's in the rules and it is common knowledge that stopping a ladder game is prohibited. I have the results of the vote itself as well as the chat logs of when this happened. Also, note that you were playing on the no max ping server. Therefore you made the choice to play the game with those people.

I got the report of the incident and then I got both sides of the story. I was the one who implemented the bans, but it is only two days.

We are looking into changing the threshold of the stopTournament command to something really high (like 90%) to prevent one team from highjacking a game's result, which is what happened in this case (only need 50% currently). If we simply remove stopTournament we would also have to remove changeMap, which means you wouldn't be able to mess around when waiting for new players. I guess it's up to the players whether they want it more strict. However, this was the first real problem we had with players trying to avoid a loss. So hopefully it will be a lesson learned and we can all move on.

Deathblade

03-21-2010, 05:39 AM

Stop ****ing crying blin

as red as black

03-21-2010, 07:11 AM

Guys, take this up with the mods over PMs. No need to cause drama in the forums as well.

I'm certain that after the Ace Ranks debacle, the community would like a respite from any personal in-game issues.

I hate people like this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I don't know why, they just annoy me. Who died and made you admin?

Guys, take this up with the mods over PMs. No need to cause drama in the forums as well.

or what? It's nice being able to see problems like this and seeing how they get solved. The forums are for sharing experiences, asking questions, solving problems, and bitching. I like to know what's going on in the world of altitude. If you don't, gtfo or stop bein a lil bitch because you're annoyed you clicked to this thread and realized you didn't care about what was here. And lol you make it seem like this drama is really getting to you and is just such a burden on your system.

I'm certain that after the Ace Ranks debacle, the community would like a respite from any personal in-game issues.

you are certainly wrong

again...forums are about in-game issues. And you make it seem like that "ace ranks debacle" just drained you sooo much that you just can't handle any drama. If you don't like what you see, press the ****ing backspace button and read something else. I like to read about all the issues going on in alti, especially because as of now it still has a relatively small, tight knit community base whose 2 cents on this forum can really affect the game.

==================================

to respond to the issue at hand...I've been a part of many BS ladder games where like 2 or 3 members of my team drop out, then the majority decide to stop tourney. Should we get banned for that? Perhaps ladder games should automatically be stopped if a team's composite ping goes past like 1000? Or if at least 1 person drops for more than two minutes without rejoining?

I think that ladder games should be able to be aborted (with maybe a 65% vote), and that pressing 1 on a BS game shouldn't get you banned.

however, i think Blln needs to stop caring because the ban is only for two days and it's a 2d flying game. Get over it, you'll live lol.

Herodadotus

03-21-2010, 03:43 PM

Boko

03-21-2010, 06:29 PM

I request being able to fly around on the ladder lobby map!

I can't see why not? Altitude Pro League haz it too.. :D

+ unban blln please, he was fun to play a ball game against/with.

Flight 666

03-21-2010, 08:54 PM

Captains mode please

blln4lyf

03-22-2010, 02:16 AM

Wow, that's a monster of a post attacking my two sentences... I guess you're right in the fact that I should've just ignored it, but I don't see this as a problem yet. When only one person has come to complain about the ban, it means one of two things:

1. Blin's the only one with a forums account who got banned.
2. The other banned members have adapted and chose not to whine about it in public.

I'm feeling that number 2 is more likely, so he should've, instead of trying to crusade for a couple of days, just play the game. I took it a bit far with backseat modding, I know. But can you honestly say a two day ban from a private server is really worth complaining over?

I guess I worded my Ace Rankings thing wrong. I meant to use it as a comparison. 'A two-day ban? Some people got permabanned!... And then they all lived happily ever after.' Was just trying to point out that his problem was really just him whining while saving my iPod's battery. My mistake.

Apologies in bold >_>

EDIT: ARAB, I agree with your ideas up there.
And I would like it if you would stop hating me . . . Please?

I meant to edit the second post after talking Maim, but do you really believe that putting me down is the best way to act as a mod? I decided to complain for everyone, as many people who got banned told me how it was BS and liked that I decided to search information on the issue. Did I have to post about it? No, and the ban doesn't bother me as 2 days without ladder is not a big deal but at first it seemed like we got banned because Mav is friends with the Mods, which would be an issue.

I'm sorry for spoiling your forum experience by posting about it, but seriously get over yourself, if I want to post on something I can, and as a Mod you shouldn't act like, for a lack a better word, a dick.

Herodadotus

03-22-2010, 02:30 AM

I meant to edit the second post after talking Maim, but do you really believe that putting me down is the best way to act as a mod? I decided to complain for everyone, as many people who got banned told me how it was BS and liked that I decided to search information on the issue. Did I have to post about it? No, and the ban doesn't bother me as 2 days without ladder is not a big deal but at first it seemed like we got banned because Mav is friends with the Mods, which would be an issue.

I'm sorry for spoiling your forum experience by posting about it, but seriously get over yourself, if I want to post on something I can, and as a Mod you shouldn't act like, for a lack a better word, a dick.

I'm not a mod. Don't know where you got that from, with both ARAB and I stating that I'm not a mod. It's not that I think you're an idiot, because you obviously aren't. I just don't see the point in making this big a deal over this. And being a jerk back to the jerk. Would that make you a jerk also? Because being blatantly rude to anyone who disagrees with your cause won't help it.

I get your point, but without the opposing sides view, I won't change my mind here.

Looking back, it seems I was a bit short, and I apologize.

as red as black

03-22-2010, 05:25 AM

Looking back, it seems I was a bit short, and I apologize.

all that matters is how you use it

nobodyhome

03-22-2010, 07:34 AM

About the bans:

It's fairly obvious (not to mention in the rules) that you shouldn't be stopping a game you're losing without the consent of both sides first. Sure, someone was lagspiking, but by playing in the no max ping servers you implicitly consent to the risk of that happening. The fact that the vote "passed" doesn't make a difference when the threshold is set to only 50% (thus allowing people to stop the game with votes from one side only). We would change this but we can't, it's hard coded in the game, and we were assuming that people would have enough common sense not to abuse this.

Again, you guys weren't banned because mav is our friend or whatever. Sure, him being our friend made it easy for him to report the issue (by just whispering us in game rather than having to PM on forums or post here), but we would've done the same if it was anyone else reporting the issue. We understand that there was lagspiking and it's frustrating to be on the receiving end of that, so that's why the bans are only 2 days, as a minor slap on the wrist so you know that you shouldn't be voting to stop the game without the other team's consent.

I agree that in a perfect world you would not be banned by simply voting (although calling the vote is another matter), but the way things turned out, your votes changed the result of the game, which is bad. Again, this means that if the threshold was higher, the vote wouldn't have gone through and there would be no problem and we wouldn't have banned you--but as it stands, they did go through and that's why we are giving you a ban, but only a 2 day one as a warning.

To herodatus: these forums (and especially this thread) is for discussing issues like this. Yes, no one likes to see drama, but these need to be resolved, and it's best to do it in public so everyone is held accountable for their actions. If you don't like, don't read. We the ladder admins don't mind people posting issues here because that's how we hear about them. There's also three of us, so if they get posted here we all get to see it rather than just one of us.

thatdarnedbob

03-27-2010, 05:33 AM

So I got banned last night for leaving in the middle of the game. On my end, my connection looked jumpy as all hell and I can only assume my plane was doing weird things to other people. Is it possible to explain it better and leave partway through, or should I just stay until the end next time?

nobodyhome

03-27-2010, 06:29 AM

I remember that game and didn't recall any lag from you, so since you didn't say anything I could've only assumed you left for no reason. Been handing out two-day bans recently to let people know that leaving isn't quite ok.

Next time if you experience some lag at least give people a heads up before leaving in the middle of a game. Even though someone on the other side could sit, remember that leaving is detrimental to the competition because 4v4 is somewhat less competitive than 5v5.

Stormich

03-27-2010, 07:15 AM

IMO it doesn't matter if you have lag problems or if you leave mid game, both of those are bans. If you have lag issues don't play. I feel leaving needs to be sanctioned more. People are whatever and leave. If they got banned for doing stuff like that they would reconsider.

elxir

04-04-2010, 09:34 PM

nesnl

04-04-2010, 11:02 PM

phong

04-05-2010, 12:12 AM

Occasionally a network maintenance may take the server down, typically performed off-hours though.

morelikeATTITUDE

04-08-2010, 05:42 PM

i won't be playing this game anymore. my friend quit about a week ago for the same thing.

i was playing a game last night, and somebody from my team left. my team asked the other team to sit and they did not. they continued to play with all 6 players for well over a minute, probably 2 minutes. in that time i personally killed multiple people from their team, as well as constantly and consistently said SIT ONE in chat (along with a bunch of other people from my team)

some members from other team said "i'll sit when i die" and in the mean time flew around killing myself and my team, dying themselves, and respawning without hesitation.

then they scored, and after they scored, somebody sat out (having secured the lead their team)

well, i refuse to play an unfair game like that and i left the game. i'd do it again too.

i got a 3 day ban, and as far as i was told, none of the cheaters were punished at all.

this same exact thing happened to my friend, and he hasn't logged on altitude in over a week, except when it happened to him, the other team had lost a member so somebody from his team sat down, and when the guy from the team got back, he jumped right in and scored a goal, before the guy from my friend's team even rejoined his team.

people in ladder constantly shoot angles and cheat and sit people simply because they lose (they same people always seem to "drop" as soon as the other team pulls ahead)
i've been told by people in this thread that they will sit if there team falls behind just in the hopes they have better luck with a 5v5! people literally drop from a game more often than a game plays out with nobody dropping. with that kind of rate, you'd think people would be fair and understanding about specing to balance the teams.

whenever somebody on the other team drops, i don't care what i'm doing (unless i have the ball) i will litearlly crash into a wall and spec. at the very least, i would simply play Defense while i asked somebody from my team to sit.

the team last night, 60 seconds after my teammate dropped, they were still bring 6 members into our base trying to score. relentless.

It should be against the rules to play a 6v5, especially if there's no doubt where the other team acknowledges the unfairness by saying "i'll sit in a little bit, or i'll sit when i die, or i'm not sitting because i'm too good"

those people are admitting to making an unfair game, and it's unacceptable to ban me just because i refuse to let cheaters take advantage of me.

i of course wasn't asked about why i left or anything like that, and of course none of the people who refused to sit from the other team were disciplined because most of them were regulars in ladder, friends of nobo, who was either involved in the match or actively spectating at the time (he'd typed in chat beforehand)

so anyway, just wanted to say that i won't be playing this game anymore, and will have nothing but bad things to say when somebody asks me if i've heard of the game altitude.

congrats, cheaters. you got your 24 points, and your community lost some (much-needed) support.

as red as black

04-08-2010, 05:57 PM

is there a way for the server to say something like "BLUE TEAM SIT ONE" if say red team were to lose a player?

Then if no one sits after like 20 seconds, it picks someone randomly and specs them for the game or until the teams are balanced again.

nesnl

04-08-2010, 06:29 PM

There is nothing in the rules that explicitly say that a team must play an even game. I think ideally we would want to track players who habitually leave games and ban them from the ladder, but it's a large task to manage and there isn't always an admin around to deal with the problems. The ladder was made by three individuals in the altitude community and is not part of the official game. There are still plenty of other servers to play on if you feel that the games there are not fair. Unfortunately, the ladder is mostly left to be monitored by the players who use it. If you see players leaving all the time then you should just make a choice not to play with those players.

As far as what ARAB said, it would be possible to implement such a feature, but I feel like it would be abuseable and it would just add more coding time to nobo and he already has enough on his plate. I think people just need to pick who they play with better and if people are always leaving don't play games with them, report them, kick them from the server or whatever. It's the player's responsibility to police the games when admins aren't around.

Pieface

04-08-2010, 07:03 PM

If you don't like the rules of those few private servers, why not just play somewhere else? Disagreeing with an optional system in which you have no obligation to participate provides no justification for quitting the game itself.

[Y]

04-08-2010, 07:54 PM

Disagreeing with an optional system in which you have no obligation to participate provides no justification for quitting the game itself.

This, and then coming here and rage-posting about how you're going to quit as if a single player who isn't mature enough to handle losing one game because of unfair teams will ruin Altitude, its community, and its playerbase.

And as if that's not enough, you were oh-so-kind to inform us in your ragepost that you'll be talking sh*t about the game to whoever asks about it.

Seriously?

Why don't you take some chill pills and reread your post to see how immature you sound? And if you still feel the need to quit, then go ahead.
The community doesn't "need support" from people like you.

Harmonica

04-08-2010, 08:42 PM

The persistent game-leaving is the reason I stopped playing ladder altogether, and one of the reasons I'm rarely on Altitude anymore. My last 6v6 ball ladder game ended up 3v5 or 3v4 after a few minutes; the last in a long series of matches that basically just became a question of which team had the most quitters.

I think the ladder is a wonderful idea, but as it's played out I feel it's actually harmed the overall community. Every 5 minutes I get a request to join ladder: the ladder itself seems to drive players offline at a steady rate. It's like a pump pulling players away from the public servers, and flushing them offline.

I don't think anything can justify the full game-leaving ragequit posted above, but I feel that the ladder's apparent "driving people offline" effects merit some additional attention. A "play somewhere else" response does not get us any closer to solving the problem at hand.

drunkguava

04-08-2010, 09:08 PM

this is why i wanted to be a ball ladder admin :). self-policing sounds good, but it doesnt work in practice because everyone is in such a hurry to start the new games. a leaver can jump in easily and play without any time for a vote kick. I think it would be good if a few more players who play ladder often and who you guys consider responsible were given admin powers to help keep the players who leave games out of the server. that will make the game more fun for everyone else imo.
also, i think that most of the current admins are in the same circle of players, so not everyone who plays ladder knows who they are, or are friends with them and can shoot them a message. if you add admins from some other circles, i think you will see a lot more reported people.

btw, im talking about ball ladder here, i don't know how it applies to tbd ladder bc i don't play much of that.

Smushface

04-08-2010, 09:31 PM

Harmonica, just to clarify your position, you're saying that you agree with the reason behind the temporary ban of (morelikeATTITUDE aka redfangOC) but believe that ladder has become the center of Altitude which you view as a bad thing.

First, redfangOC was banned for a blatant ragequit which brought his team down to 4 and forced the game to be restarted via ladderlobby. The moderators have stated multiple times that they were going to take a much harder stance on people who left mid-game for illegitimate reasons and they've been handing out these short bans much more frequently at an attempt to eliminate the problem that you talked about.

In terms of ladder taking center stage, I have to agree. Outside of the 50 or so league games that I get to play in a year, ladder games are the only real fun I find in Altitude considering the alternatives are 7v7 TBD or 10v10 ball. Ladder also carries with it a certain level of emotional investment which means players will actually try hard to win instead of playing the 'kill the mikesol game' that happens so much on pubs. So yea, ladder has taken a central role in this game because its much more fun.

I don't know how long you've been around, but plenty of "vets" have quit playing Altitude for long stretches of time simply because playing pubs gets boring quickly. The start of ladder showed a massive surge of returning vets and people logging more hours / week (I blame the current inactivity on SC beta). So yea, while some people went to ladder from the pubs, didn't like what they saw and quit the game, I would say even more players went to ladder, liked what they saw and joined the competitive Altitude community. Teams like aV0 and KLF found much of their team via ladder.

But yea, I agree with DG in that there should be a ball-player mod or 2. The problem is finding a respectable, mature, good ball-player and we all know how few of those there are :P

Anyways, judging from his reactions to anything negative in game and the subsequent forum rant, I don't judge redfangOC to be much of a loss. Good riddance.

tgleaf

04-08-2010, 09:35 PM

But yea, I agree with DG in that there should be a ball-player mod or 2. The problem is finding a respectable, mature, good ball-player and we all know how few of those there are :P

Actually, they aren't _too_ hard to find. drunkguava, truepa!N, and Gemi are good examples of people who would be fair, upstanding BALL ladder admins if the decision was made to include more players in leadership roles.

Smushface

04-08-2010, 09:38 PM

Yea I know there's a few that would make good admins. I just can't resist taking shots at ball players.

Ajuk999

04-08-2010, 09:50 PM

morelikeattitude, I think you should understand, that this game has a big population of child players, and you can't expect them to be mature.

Also I support tgleaf for moderator of ball ladder!

Edit: It's sad to see that people would leave a game because of a bad experience...

tgleaf

04-08-2010, 09:55 PM

morelikeattitude, I think you should understand, that this game has a big population of child players, and you can't expect them to be mature.

Also I support tgleaf for moderator of ball ladder!

Not sure I've shown much maturity in the last few days, but thanks Ajuk.

morelikeATTITUDE

04-08-2010, 10:17 PM

to the people saying i'm not justified in quitting:
i'm not interested in a game without a ladder server and i'm not interested in a ladder server where over half the games are played in an unintended manner. therefore, i can't play altitude as long as the current system is in place. this holds true for a lot of people who play games for the competition. the fact that the ladder server is a joke (in basically every facet, from the way the teams are selected, to the ratings, to the people who run it, to the rules, to the enforcement, to the quality of the servers, to the maps in the rotation, to everything) means Altitude misses out on a very real demographic of players.
so to those assuming i quit a game i played just because something didn't go my way - untrue. the only way i play a game like altitude is with some kind of ranking system to motivate players to try, and seeing as that ranking system is easily cheated, and often manipulated, there's really not much fun in being part of it.

it's a pathetically unstable player-run and player-moderated server full of cheating and nepotism, inconsistency, and apparently, selfishness. i played a game the other day where nobo spent the entire match talking to people spectating.

i asked them to stop and they all told me to **** off and swore me out endlessly, telling me to shut up and deal with it, telling me to chill out, and that they were allowed to do it because they were talking to nobo, and nobo did nothing except continue to talk to the spectators (i'm talking a hundred lines of chat over the course of the match between these 4-6 people)

I couldn't communicate with my teammates or pay attention because i'm constantly trying to scroll up and see what my teammates were saying in chat, but it didn't matter, because the boss wanted to joke around with his friends so that's what he did, regardless of how it affects the actual person(s) playing the ladder match.
It is a joke.

:This, and then coming here and rage-posting about how you're going to quit as if a single player who isn't mature enough to handle losing one game because of unfair teams will ruin Altitude, its community, and its playerbas:

thanks for putting me up so high, but i never said that me quitting would be the end of altitude lmao. i said your community needs all the support it can get, and it just lost some.

Smushface: Thanks for repeating what i already said about why i left?
and since when is having to play a 6v5 not a legit reason for not wanting to play the game?

i simply refuse to play the game if it is going to be unfair. the other team made it crystal-clear by spawning, respawning, rerespawning, and outright saying "i'm not going to sit" that they weren't interested in fairness, they were interested in their egos.
i even said right before i left "i'm not playing with you cheaters anymore" or something to that effect. and then i left. so you're not solving any big mysteries by 'outing' me here lol...

as for how long i've been playing the game: not long. i bought it a while ago and didn't like the lack of competition on bouncy and nobody played hard walls. i found ladder like a week ago when i logged on to see if the game had changed at all, and played a few dozen games, and the first couple were fine. i quickly realized though that i'd just been lucky, and for the last 20+ games, at least 50%+ have been 6v5 or 5v5 or 4v4 or whatever. last night was the straw that broke the camel's back. i've probably only logged like 30 hours game time or so, and won't be logging any more until the unfairness of ladder is sorted out. and the only way it gets sorted out is by people complaining when they're unhappy.

so you can hate on me and kiss butt all you guys want, but ladder was pathetically implemented and is even more poorly run, and that should change if the game expects to grow/maintain a respectable community of serious players.

tgleaf

04-08-2010, 10:36 PM

I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to. Respond, that is. This whole thread is full of players who took the time to comment/complain about ladder and often to suggest constructive ways of improving it. As was mentioned, a small handful of people created and maintain the ladder system for 2000 other players to enjoy. It isn't perfect, but it's a lot better each week/month/whenever the creators have time to improve it. Features have been added, balance has been re-worked and re-worked, etc. So to attack the creators of it seems simply ridiculous when the problem you're describing has to do with selfish or ignorant players who leave ladder games, refuse to spec, or chat and ruin the experience.

Yes, it happens. I've played two to three games out of 140 where players refused to spec. That's an acceptable percentage to me. Doesn't mean it didn't anger me, but I can deal with those numbers. You've played 53 games, so maybe your percentage has been higher, who knows. The game I just finished was at 4v4 within a minute of starting. People politely and quickly spec'ed as soon as a player left. After another 30 seconds, all 12 players were back on the server and it was 6v6. I know ladder matches can often be 5v5, etc. It just seems that you're more interested in ranting than in finding a decent solution. It's also helpful to keep in mind that the ladder system is an add-on bonus feature of Altitude. You're entitled to your opinion of not wanting to play Altitude without the ladder, but most of us find clan matches, tournaments, league play, etc. to be equally rewarding.

There are plenty of people willing to consider alternatives (e.g. broadcasting messages or auto-specing players, as was already suggested) if that's really what you're interested in (i.e. improving your Altitude experience).

morelikeATTITUDE

04-08-2010, 10:47 PM

nobodyhome

04-08-2010, 11:02 PM

i understand where you're coming from and appreciate you trying to help me advance a point but:

"it would just add more coding time to nobo and he already has enough on his plate."

when the owners of the game take the approach that "we would.... if only we didn't have to do any extra work...." then it's far past the point of me being the one who needs the adjustment in approach.

Hi. I dislike you because I think you're a little b*tch but I'm going to curb my rage and respond reasonably to just this one point, because I think there's a misconception here that I'd like to clear up:

I don't "own the game". I have a full-time not-Altitude-related job, and I develop the ladder in my own free time. I was once just a player like you, and instead of going on the forums and complaining everywhere because I wasn't happy with my Altitude experience, someone told me an idea for making Altitude more competitive, and I decided to spend what has come out to over 100+ hours of my own time to develop this, all for everybody's benefit.

Here is the amount of money that I've gotten paid for my service: absolutely none.

So forgive me if I like to do things better with my time than just sit and code all day. Since eth has now quit altitude, I am the ONLY person who codes for the ladder. Every new suggestion to improve the system will take 10-20 hours of work to implement. For absolutely zero compensation.

Go ahead and whine about it all you want, because I am absolutely not going to put any work into this just to satisfy someone like you.

*edit*
i attacked him because it's counterproductive to ban people for leaving a 6v5 but not for leaving a 6v6. i mean, i have to actually lol @ that one.
well, that and the major thing of people being allowed to openly admit they're not going to sit during the 6v5, because since 6v5 isn't 'technically' against the rules, then neither is taking advantage of the situation for your own gain. it's really quite disgusting.

That's probably incorrect. I probably banned the guy leaving in the 6v6 as well, you just don't know about it because I didn't announce it. Either that or I forgot to ban him because I typically wait till the end of the game to ban people (to make sure that they intentionally left rather than just got ping-kicked or internet disconnected), and then forgot about it when your inconsiderate raging distracted me, causing me to just ban you. Oops!

nobodyhome

04-08-2010, 11:08 PM

For all the rest of you who actually have legitimate issues brought up: stay tuned, we are going to take some steps to address the problems that have arisen recently, hope that they will help. Thanks for all your support.

Pieface

04-08-2010, 11:17 PM

You know what, I have a better idea than you leaving the game. How about you stay, and create a better ladder system than the one nobo has coded? I'm sure it will be a very rewarding experience for you to put some actual work into making things happen instead of just complaining.

morelikeATTITUDE

04-08-2010, 11:40 PM

"then forgot about it when your inconsiderate raging distracted me, causing me to just ban you. Oops! "

actually my raging was quite considerate, thanks ;)
inconsiderate raging would have resulted in me saying nothing and considering nothing - hence inconsideration. regardless, so nice of you to admit that a single player like me is more than enough to distract you from your duties at hand.

you pretty much prove the point for me that you're incapable of doing what you're doing at a satisfactory level, and therefore more people need to be brought in.

as for your tearfully woeful diatribe on how hard you have: tough. you volunteered. do a good job at it or don't do it at all imo. if you want compensation for your work, then maybe your work should be of a higher caliber so as to demand compensation. in the mean time, continue to log on to fly cartoon airplanes and ban people who aren't mates of yours, because that's the angel you currently take.

it's really quite hilarious that you refuse to do something because i'm the one who requested it. as if spiting me is more important to you than the community.

elxir

04-08-2010, 11:40 PM

yo I just got DC'd from ladder #3 in like 3 different games. Every other server works fine for me, I joined normal #4 no problem afterwards to test. All of phong's servers were coming up as unresponsive for me.

My ping was ~70, not spiking.

Any ideas?

So, I just checked my ladder ranking and saw that I now have 15 ping kicks. I had zero prior to this issue starting, and I'm wicked confused. Ball ladder takes place on #4 (no ping limit) 99% of the time.

I do occasionally have ping issues as some can attest to, but I do not play ladder when it's spiking and AFAIK I have never been ping kicked from ladder due to a visible spike on the tab/score screen.

I check the score screen every few seconds to 1) see scores and 2) keep tabs on my ping. I would notice if it were spiking so much that I got ping kicked.

Now, when I get kicked the game simply says "server connection lost" or something to that effect. Normally when I am ping kicked, it is quite explicit about that.

I talked to someone else whose name is escaping me and he said he occasionally had this issue on ladder to.

Any ideas/settings I could check? I'm 99% certain it is not my internet because I am used to what happens when it spikes. The game gets real choppy, etc. On ladder, everything simply *stops* and planes fly in circles, sound dies, etc.

0_o

nobodyhome

04-08-2010, 11:47 PM

I would safely say you don't have to worry about the ping kick stat. The tracking for ping kicking is rather unreliable at the moment, so we've never taken an action resulting from data gathered from the ping kick stat. So you don't have to worry about being banned or anything.

Pieface

04-09-2010, 12:04 AM

as for your tearfully woeful diatribe on how hard you have: tough. you volunteered. do a good job at it or don't do it at all imo. if you want compensation for your work, then maybe your work should be of a higher caliber so as to demand compensation.

So in your opinion, it would be better to have no ladder at all than a system that doesn't follow your every desire. But you said that you wouldn't play the game anymore unless there was a ladder that satisfied you, so why do you care whether or not it exists? It seems to work well enough for the other 99% of the people who play on it that your opinion isn't going to make him take it down.

To be more constructive, how exactly would you like to see the ladder changed? Would you like more enforcement of bans, a better balancing system, or what? You'll notice that the reason people have a problem with you is not that you came here with suggestions, but that you came here with a vendetta against the creators and no positive ideas. Many people here have posted ideas to make the ladder better, and the Admins have listened carefully to each and every one. Heck, Esoteric even designed the balancing system that is being used now instead of the one nobodyhome, Maimer, and eth originally came up with.

I'll say this again: don't post about how much you hate the system unless you are willing to offer constructive criticism or design something better yourself.

Harmonica

04-09-2010, 12:47 AM

Harmonica, just to clarify your position, you're saying that you agree with the reason behind the temporary ban of (morelikeATTITUDE aka redfangOC) but believe that ladder has become the center of Altitude which you view as a bad thing.

Sort of -- I should have clarified a bit more. (I didn't really have any opinion on the ban before, but after seeing this latest discussion I fully support the ban.)

I think it would be wonderful if the ladder became the center of Altitude -- except that it seems (from my error-prone viewpoint) that playing ladder causes people to go offline much more quickly than playing pubs. Having enough players for ladder games seems to be a perpetual issue, as indicated by the number of "come join ladder" requests that get sent out. Other servers, public or private, don't seem to have that issue.

So, subjectively, it seems as though something about the ladder experience is driving people offline. For me, the incessant mid-game leaving/specing ruined my fun, but that's just me. Aside from the few people who are just bad sports about losing, are there other things that drive people away?

There's clearly a lot of interest and desire for ladder games, and I think that's a good thing. I'd love to see ladder reach its full potential, but it seems to still have some issues remaining which may have a negative effect. But again, this is all just a personal observation/guess -- made even more unreliable by my absence from ladder lately. =)

Deathblade

04-12-2010, 03:06 AM

Getting tired of getting kicked from your server because people like {ball}'n are faggots

Pretty retarded getting kicked from servers just because people don't like you, no other reason.

Deathblade

04-12-2010, 03:25 AM

Ladder is a joke.

tgleaf

04-12-2010, 04:28 AM

Getting tired of getting kicked from your server because people like {ball}'n are faggots

Pretty retarded getting kicked from servers just because people don't like you, no other reason.

So you act like a total jerk for your entire Altitude career and then wonder why people don't want you around. Again, this (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/toxic).

There is really no need to call anyone a "faggot." I don't know the details of your feud with blin, so I don't know if you're right in being pissed off, but just watch the language.

And really, do you need to steal the {ball} tag just to feel good about yourself? Was I not clear enough when I said that you couldn't join {ball} last week? I guess if you can't join 'em, pretend to join 'em? This is just sad.

Deathblade

04-12-2010, 04:47 AM

So you act like a total jerk for your entire Altitude career and then wonder why people don't want you around. Again, this (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/toxic).

There is really no need to call anyone a "faggot." I don't know the details of your feud with blin, so I don't know if you're right in being pissed off, but just watch the language.

I was kicked because I told blin to calm down after he was raging and telling everyone to f*ck their selves after he lost a game where one of his teammates dropped at the end of the game, and we scored before someone on our team dropped out.

I'm guessing others just used it as an opportunity to vent some frustration, which is bull****.

elxir

04-15-2010, 07:28 AM

Any word on what is causing several of us to randomly DC from ladder?

:confused:

nobodyhome

04-15-2010, 08:08 AM

Not sure. I've experienced it myself, what I've found is that it kicks you off, and if you try to get back into the server, you get stuck at the "connecting to server" window. Your internet is fine, so are all the other servers. If you try to connect several times eventually it'd let you in (but you have to cancel and retry if you get stuck, otherwise it just stays stuck).

Phong, if you see this, can you comment on the issue?

nesnl

04-16-2010, 12:29 AM

Ladder Season 1 "Officially" ended at 8PM EST today. The ratings won't be reset for a little while as nobodyhome is busy coding new features and we want to have the new feature release coincide with the ladder reset. However, that doesn't mean we can't name our champions and allocate the coveted community points prizes.

Season 1 TBD Champions:

1st Place - Esoteric - 150 Community Points
2nd Place - Matattack - 100 Community Points
3rd Place - Flight 666 - 50 Community Points

Season 1 Ball Champions:

1st Place - Brillo - 150 Community Points
2nd Place - Nikon - 100 Community Points
3rd Place - a frail old lady - 50 Community Points

Overall Most Games Played:

1247 Games - Apathy - 100 Community Points

----------------------------

Don't let the "Official" season end keep you from playing more games. Keep enjoying the ladder and look for the new updates and ladder reset for Season 2 in the near future.

I will be contacting Lamster about the distribution of the Community Points prizes. Please allow some time (at least a few days) for the transaction to occur. Also, please do not change your name during that period as it will make it harder to assign the points.

blln4lyf

04-16-2010, 01:11 AM

I was kicked because I told blin to calm down after he was raging and telling everyone to f*ck their selves after he lost a game where one of his teammates dropped at the end of the game, and we scored before someone on our team dropped out.

I'm guessing others just used it as an opportunity to vent some frustration, which is bull****.

LOL, so not what happened.

blln4lyf

04-16-2010, 01:12 AM

tgleaf

04-16-2010, 05:28 AM

Just a huge huge thanks for creating and updating the ladder. It's been a great addition to Altitude, and it's even more impressive considering it's a volunteer effort!

DiogenesDog

04-16-2010, 07:28 AM

What tgleaf said. Thanks a lot, guys. Altitude ladder is awesome.

ufo

04-16-2010, 08:02 AM

<3cha nobo, all this troll nonsense shouldnt even get responded to.

morelikeATTITUDE? psh...more like morelikeALTITUDE

elxir

04-24-2010, 09:19 PM

suggestion: code in a "force spectator" mode if one team loses a man. sometimes teams like to be pricks when they are losing and don't spec till they catch up to you.

so, is there a way to force teams to spec "next death" or something. i.e. red is down 1, next blue death cannot spawn unless someone else specs for him.

can it be done?

D4rt

04-25-2010, 12:27 PM

I've got a good suggestion: let us donate money via PayPal or something. I'm sure you'd get a buck or two.

York

04-25-2010, 04:24 PM

+1 for the donations.

so beacause it isnt reset, will our scores change at all?

elxir

05-03-2010, 08:46 PM

hey if/when you guys reset the rankings, can you archive the current ones somewhere so we can track player progress and whatnot

nobodyhome

05-04-2010, 03:04 AM

Yes, the old information will be saved somewhere, but it will be some time before I can get it back up on the website for you to view. The person responsible for making the website (eth) has left Altitude so website development in general will lag =x.

elxir

05-04-2010, 03:38 AM

that bastard!

nobodyhome

05-04-2010, 03:46 AM

yeah i'll give like several days notice before the ladder gets reset, so if you want to view your old stuff you should take a screenshot =x

cipso

05-08-2010, 02:53 PM

Hey. First of all, thank you for all ladder work!

I'd like to suggest small change to autobalance feature.

If there are too many connected people on ladder server, many of them don't get chance to play because they are not fast enough to join in the lobby, and others yell at them to spectate (because they have joined as last). The way it is now, there are people who sit all the time, and there are people who play all the time. Ok, maybe not "all the time", but you get the idea.

I'd like to see autobalance working differently ... all interested people join and autobalance feature chooses 12 players who will play (or 10 for tbd). If there were more people, autobalance will pick only 12. It would be nice if it can give preference to people who sat last game or who didn't play as much as others recently.

What do you think?

DiogenesDog

05-08-2010, 03:00 PM

I like cipso's idea! wooo

tgleaf

05-08-2010, 03:20 PM

It's been suggested before, and yes, it's a good idea.

But I believe Nobodyhome is the only person working on ladder and he's volunteering his time. We can't expect changes any time soon.

wolf'j'max

05-08-2010, 03:58 PM

the ladder is broken, the custom commands don't work anymore.

~wolf

nobodyhome

05-08-2010, 10:07 PM

Should be back up now.

Flight 666

05-14-2010, 11:55 PM

Please, Captains game in ladder. pls.

Ajuk999

05-17-2010, 03:26 PM

Thanks Nobo, the Altitude Ladder has helped Altitude in many ways.

phong

05-20-2010, 05:22 PM

nobodyhome

05-20-2010, 06:09 PM

I haven't noticed the random kicking in a while now, the server was probably just out of whack for a bit. Thanks phong.

[Y]

05-22-2010, 12:32 AM

Can we add some more bad maps to the ladder servers? I don't think we played enough bad games tonight.

Oh, and in before the QQ and the rage and the "BAN FU" demands

edit: skip to the last line of post to avoid wall of text

I apologize, nobo. Useless rage is useless. Twenty minutes ago I was playing in ladder 2, and locomotion came up after a vote for start_random. Most of us agreed that we didn't want to play that map, so we tried voting custom_stopTournament, but it fails by one percent :|. It's a while before someone decides to initial the vote to custom_stopTournament again, but by that time they hit twice (probably because a couple of us were circling around or not trying), so obviously any subsequent attempts to go back to lobby fails. Pein leaves in an effort to convince people to custom_stopTournament, but it doesn't work and we play 4v4 on locomotion. Five thousand hours later, we lose. No big deal, right? It's one game on an unlucky random map pick. Then comes tbd_woods. Sad game was sad. After that someone once again votes for custom_random, and tbd_justice is picked. We play 2v3 for a few minutes while everyone downloads the map (2v2, since I was circling around and spectating) and the other team manages to land a full bomb hit. Everyone else finishes downloading, and we jump into the game. Woken (on my team) pings at 999, and my other teammates soon join in the orange-red ping lagfest. Since this is the third bad map in a row, we've been bombed 2v2 in the beginning, Woken was bomb running, and this game is so lol, I go fire up some torrents to fit in with the rest of my team. Radium then announces to the rest of them server that I was lagging on purpose. Rage ensues and I get kicked. Woken then expresses surprise on mumble that he wasn't kicked too, despite lagging on purpose just like I was. I guess the rest of the server didn't know that since Radium failed to snitch on Woken.

Basically I'm just asking that middleground (3 hour games are bad) and locomotion (4 hour games are worse) be replaced with tbd_radioactive (http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3381) and tbd_cube (http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3338) since they could use some testing anyway.

nobodyhome

05-22-2010, 12:40 AM

Not sure what you're trying to say? If you're trying to say that there are some bad maps up on ladder that you want to be removed, it might be helpful to actually tell us what those maps are and why you think they're bad. Also would be nice if you could make some maps for us that are better than the ones we already have.

On the other hand, if you're just here to QQ about having a bad experience tonight, then I guess I'll just move along.

[Y]

05-22-2010, 12:59 AM

sorry, see wall of text above

York

05-22-2010, 01:26 AM

FU, you heard NOBO, GO BUILD A MAP!

Stormich

05-22-2010, 06:13 AM

After playing Justice yesterday I think it's a little gem since it was made symmetrical. IMO the only thing it needs is 1-2 more turrets low. I like justice cause it plays so fast.

Sunaku

05-22-2010, 06:25 AM

what those maps are
ball_funnelpark

why you think they're bad.
Crashfest. Long narrow passages making it heaven for solo riding but not really interesting for passing. Also, a crashfest. Nice graphics though. Still a crashfest.
Please ?

Also to a lesser extent, ball_cross while playable seems to be a trench battle, a bit like football.

drunkguava

05-22-2010, 06:28 AM

+ball_cube plz. it's ready to be tested in ladder play.

Sarah Palin

05-23-2010, 07:57 AM

BALL_planepark is getting ridiculous.

http://altitudegame.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=489&d=1264364126

I have kept a running count - because I disbelieved my first impression - over the past four days every time we play this map in Ladder.

Well, over 70% of goals are scored by running the ball along the bottom passage and scoring with either a dunk or a layup.

There is a confluence of reasons for this.

1. Spawns directly block the top passage, making that route impractical. Compare vs spawns in Snow or Labyrinth.

2. The bottom tunnel is almost completely shielded from all defending planes that aren't coming head-on the other way. Compare vs similar passages in Mayhem or Darkwar.

3. The tunnel is too narrow and too easily mined or walled, and the floor is completely smooth making dribbling easy. Compare vs similar passages in Lost City.

It's too easy to pass the ball down through the wide opening near the center of the map, then run it up and avoid confrontation with the defenders until you emerge right near the goal.

Conversely it's hard to clear the ball FROM the tunnel so once it gets down there, it stays.

I have seen games where the other team is full of clutch passers and great teamwork and we won because we threw the ball down there, walled it up, and then just kept pushing until someone dunked.

Maps should reward good teamwork. Snow for example is a good map because of all the curves - the ball just won't go anywhere unless you pass it.

I know people will say LARN 2 PLAY PALIN but Planepark is not good. It's pretty and took a lot of effort to make and we want to encourage map creation but bad maps should not be on Ladder.

I challenge anyone who disagrees with my analysis to keep a count of 10+ games and see what percent of goals come from which angle of attack.

Funnelpark is fine. It's not a lot of fun but it doesn't have this broken problem.

tgleaf

05-25-2010, 04:44 PM

I think we need some sort of voting/poll system for maps. For example, I really enjoy planepark but can't stand cross or funnelpark. To each his own. And while I've lobbied against lostcity and labyrinth in the past, I know many people like them.

Fwiw, no one seemed to enjoy asteroids during a recent ladder match. I like that map for 4v4 messing around, but it doesn't seem to work for 6v6 ladder at all.

tgleaf

05-25-2010, 05:03 PM

Please take a moment to rate the current ladder maps here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CQ9ZJNK.

When I have enough responses, I will post the results.

Edit: results here (http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?p=54657#post54657).

mjolnir416

05-30-2010, 07:29 AM

Its broken again, wont start after a successful vote.

nobodyhome

06-01-2010, 02:00 AM

I just put in some minor changes into the code. See changelog for details.

SkyTiger

06-04-2010, 10:19 PM

nobody,
I wonder if we can set up something for Australia/Asia region to play ladder?

Kuja900

06-05-2010, 12:41 PM

When playing on the map Underpark me and many others experience an unexplained choppyness with our Altitude (with movement not visuals). I have tried /parafalse and that made it no better. I have talked to the person who created this map (Mandrad) with Maimer's assistance and they are aware of the choppiness and at this time have no idea how to fix it. If any other experienced map makers (pig ect) would like to assist in the identification of the problem Mandrad would appreciate it. Until such a time this problem is fixed I'd like to see Underpark removed from the ladder map pool. Also take out Bowser's Castle, it has the same problem but in addition the map is just ****ing stupid to have in a competitive environment.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4149/altitude201006050736013.png

York

06-05-2010, 11:44 PM

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad61/z239z/altitude2010-06-0515-04-03-712.png
http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad61/z239z/altitude2010-06-0519-31-32-328.png

Let me explain the whole story.

Radium = I <3 Ladder
Woken = I <3 Ladder
YorK = I <3 Ladder

We made a lot of spaces.

Woken was vote kicking people under that name. Now I got banned because rye must have thought it was me. It really wasn't.

I also have a pic of Nipple vote kicking me. So please ban him.

Remove my ban please, because there is no proof it was me. And if you can find the screen shot, I can proof It was radium or woken.

Thanks and sorry for the misunderstanding

Flight 666

06-06-2010, 12:06 AM

Ok,
I got banned today too/

Santana KLF player goes AFK, but he not set up as spector, then how the other team can sit as usual...
he was flying in circles for like 5 minutes
The only option was try to kick him -.- i know its worng
Tomorrowz is my only full free day, pls

pls, i have like 500 ladder games,
at least 24 hours.

York

06-06-2010, 12:14 AM

Well here's how it breaks down.

You did something wrong, you voted to kick a player. Although you meant good, it was wrong.

I didn't do anything at all lol

DMCM

06-06-2010, 12:37 AM

I got banned today too, but i deserved it.

And as long as people play random map and half the maps in the pool are terrible I will continue refusing to play. Just pick a map, it's not hard.

York

06-06-2010, 12:40 AM

Clapon

06-06-2010, 03:42 AM

Just to clarify york did vote kick unlike he is saying so the ban is legit :D

Kuja900

06-06-2010, 04:08 AM

I got banned today too, but i deserved it.

And as long as people play random map and half the maps in the pool are terrible I will continue refusing to play. Just pick a map, it's not hard.

We really need to get some dialog going about the map pool, imo maps should be tested by the community before jammed into the ladder server so we wont have to deal like things like underpark's choppynesss. Also putting in Bowser's Castle was just wtf lol.

Kuja900

06-06-2010, 04:10 AM

Evan20000

06-06-2010, 04:19 AM

Well here's how it breaks down.

You did something wrong, you voted to kick a player. Although you meant good, it was wrong.

I didn't do anything at all lol

Holier then thou really doesn't suit you. Go back to interwebs tough guy.

elxir

06-06-2010, 04:38 AM

bowser's castle is epic and actually a pretty good map

underpark is a great map but like kuja said the choppy play makes it annoying

planepark is a great map and as kuja also said if you have a good whale that bottom path leads to nowhere but a respawn

Kuja900

06-06-2010, 05:07 AM

underpark is a great map but like kuja said the choppy play makes it annoying

Forgot to mention besides the choppyness, I do quite enjoy Underpark. The art is good, layout is interesting and it fits my play style quite nicely. It's a real shame it has this problem but sadly not fit to be played competitively until that problem is fixed.

altitudegame

Thứ Sáu, 7 tháng 4, 2017

Introducing: The Altitude Ladder page 2

Không có nhận xét nào:

Đăng nhận xét