Cambios que necesita mapeadores / Suggestions and changes that mapeadores need

Yo después de un trimestre violador voy a tener ahora dos semanas con “tiempo”. Me acabo de formatear el ordenador y la verdad es que va mejor que antes, no va a 60FPS ni de coña, pero al menos puedo medio jugar. Cuando jugaba antes empezaba a notarme molesto dentro del servidor debido a que tengo lag (ahora se le suma un ratón medio pocho que tengo que cambiar y un internet de mierda) y el hecho de no ver una mierda con tanta gente me frustraba. Hace tiempo que no entro al foro, por eso no sé si habéis hecho algo sobre esto, ¿pero no se podría activar un poco de transparencia a las skins de los usuarios? Yo es que en serio, no veo un carajo.

Morell and I have been thinking about ways to improve the main issues outlined here. Good ideas usually solve an intersection of issues, rather than just one very specific thing, so they feel more natural. Being aware of the changes will be good for Mapeadores as a whole, and perhaps spark discussion and creativity elsewhere. These are the few ideas that have been developed (but are not yet fully set up on the server):

• Scale based fall damage: Instead of completely removing fall damage upon getting VIP, a middle ground solution would involve simply dealing less damage the higher the VIP level. This has been implemented on Mapeadores’ branch of the zombie plugin, so the discussion now should be ‘How much should we scale fall damage on each VIP level, if at all?’. The fun part of this idea is that it can be used for Prey too, and could produce interesting gameplay mechanics. For A/B testing damage scales, simple ‘fun’ events in large maps could be run, so we test different values and try to find what we agree is best. This will also help us find a challenging set of damage scales that will keep gameplay fresher.

• Nominavoting: One underlying problem throughout the thread has been the ‘Tryhard vs. Relaxed’ distinction of maps. Players have grown tired from tryhard maps, in part because they tend to be played a lot in certain time spans. The way the nomination system works plays a role in this: people that want tryhard maps have more maps they might want to play than there active nominations. As a result, certain votes include only tryhard maps, giving no sense of alternative to those that dislike these maps. To solve this, Morell has reimplemented the nominations module so that certain maps require a few nominations to go through. This means that a tryhard map will be equally nominate-able, but interested players will need to a) agree on the map to nominate and b) leave space for non tryhard-maps to appear in the vote. The result should be more appealing to both groups. Since this will also ensure that tryhard maps are far more selectively chosen, the number of extends MAY be changed to 3. Ask Morell about that. I’d agree with it.

• Playermodels & Leading: One of the most common complaints has been about playermodels. I already went over why focusing on models is not a good idea because of download time, Valve’s possible upcoming restrictions and the likes, while noting that this seemed a very ‘Supporter-centric’ issue. However, a good balance can be found by giving Leaders (using Mapeadores’ Leader plugin, in which players vote for a leader to tell them what to do) a custom, unique playermodel. This should encourage leading in general, potentially making new players interested in playing well while also providing pleasing aesthetic changes.

Besides this, HP regeneration on supporters will probably be lowered. Also, Morell has been looking at the alternatives for trying to improve performance, but that is not something he can jump on directly because costs are involved.

We should discuss both the damage scales for fall damage and the votes needed for nominating certain maps from this point onwards. Bear in mind that those changes are experimental so we might be missing something and you can help us spot it. I don’t think these sorts of changes have been made elsewhere, so this falls into uncharted territories. Feedback is appreciated.

I am doing some work atm so I’ll try to focus on the most important stuff. -The new leading feature and the skins was a great idea and I even used it as a “beacon” so admins didn’t need to beacon someone to follow, increasing the way that mapeadores does not rely on admins. -Scaling fall damage could be interesting but we’d need to test it as you said. -The nominations is something I personally don’t know how I fell about. There was something similar on PSE where people needed to expend 1000 points to nominate and login to do so (play 60 mins in 1 session), which led to only randoms maps being voted (no nominations). Furthermore I could explain after I get done.

Hi Envi, I believe the Scale based fall damage suggestion is a great opportunity to change how people play the game as opposed to a flat removal after 50 hours. I think this is something that will need to be fine tuned through testing.

Nominavoting as a suggestion does give more opportunity and is more fair towards both sets of people who want to play try hard maps or play casual maps so I would be in favor of giving a shout at least. I do think however what Altek says above is something that needs to be watched to avoid some of the pitfalls that have happened on other servers. I think the suggested 3 map extends would be a beneficial change to the server to allow one or two additional attempts on a map should people wish to continue playing on the map.

With regards to Playermodels & Leading generally speaking as someone who is voted as the leader regularly, I don’t get to experience the leader skin outside of people gawking at me for being Santa Claus and blocking my vision on 90% of maps. The leader skin is a nice incentive for people to aspire to be in a leading position and does uniquely help identify a leader. I do think additional alternatives such as the !mark command to be a toggle on/off feature as opposed for limited to marking for a set amount of time would be just as beneficial for leaders being “noticeable”. The “!mark” command is less intrusive and annoying compared to “!beacon” command and generates less lag overall when trying to lead during excessive defense points which dip the servers performance.

All of the suggestions are very positive and I think with a bit of adjustments and fine tuning it could help to improve the player experience on the server.

• Unorth

I forgot to mention this, but a nearby-player hider was tested a few weeks ago. It was a bit too expensive on the performance side of things, so it had to be taken out. Once the upgrade/change tests are done, it could be brought back so you are able to see what you have a clearer window of vision at all times. This is similar to what other servers seem to do, but our solution simulated the clipping of ‘close enough’ players to avoid any major ‘popping’ effect (which feels odd and is pretty ugly).

The nominavotes system should not produce those problems because it just requires certain maps be nominated ‘more than once’ (that is, a map might require 5% of the server to nominate it for it to appear). With the server full, a 5% will mean that 3 players have to nominate it, which is hardly a problem.

Not trying to move anything from your idea envi but I was thinking how to avoid a stalemate of no nominated maps and came with the following idea. -So there are 5 spots for nominated maps, so we could arrange it like so: -Instead of a “3 nominations for the map to appear” we could have a % nomination, so the most nominated map would be on top, 2nd most after that so on and so on, which means if only 3 people nominate 3 different maps we still get them in the vote list and if 20 people nominate map x and 15 nominate map y we would get 4-map x 5-map y, etc. -People wouldn’t know how many people nominated a map, so if a group wanted a map they would have to nominate it at least 31 times for it to be #1. -This also counters the tryhard/casual problem since anyone can vote any map to be nominated, but you need to beat the nominations for the map in 5th place to get in the vote list.

This may be a bit confusing at first but I could explain any doubt in particular.

Hi, There is a couple of operational suggestions that I would have to tackle some of the daily problems people question which I believe can be easily addressed.

Email Server: Almost a daily occurrence is people questioning why they have not received there registration emails when registering on the site. For the last few months asking people to register using a Gmail address or using the Steam API login feature has been the go to response. What is the actual issue with this? If its a dodgy domain resolver in the SMTP server this can be resolved rather quickly.

VIP Thread: People are dedicating between 50-1000 hours achieving the different ranks of VIP on the server. Often times they spend a day or two waiting to release the registration email hasn’t work before contacting in game admins to then spend between 1 - 10 days waiting on the VIP Thread list being updated manually. Currently we only have one person updating this list. Is this a process that can be automated? If not, can the plugin be altered in some way to grant VIP automatically to users who have achieved the various ranks of VIP? I know Morell that you are busy and I do not wish to point the finger that you should be updating the list manually more often. That is not the point I wish to highlight. I just think its unfair to expect people who you’ve roped into the server, is a potential regular who could be a positive net gain to the community but to push them away due to the wait times associated with obtaining vip. I know it makes sense to do people in bulk, but is that optimal for the retention of individual players?

Change Log: This used to be done. I haven’t seen one in ages. Previously a forum post notifying the players of changes to the server. Be it addition of maps, removal of maps, editing of maps. Certain maps have had significant changes made to the map which have negatively impacted its playability on the server outside of the intended mappers design be it directly or indirectly. There has been zero notification or justification to the community as to why these changes have occurred. A poll or a question before its made might be a good idea to gauge the communities reaction?

In addition over the last few months we have had a number of plugins added with a number of commands added over time. the “Leader” functionality via !ld which has not just !hold but !mark commands is an example of changes that are not documented. You have to be online at the time the plugin is added for anyone to even realize the plugin has been added. The !blame command was added recently. I don’t think anyone even knows how to enable it or use it apart from the 5 min it was enabled.

People hear about changes made by the off chance that someone talked to the person who made the change and they catch an “oh btw, this map or plugin is changed/added”. A direct channel to publicly announce changes or functionality that has been introduced would also attract and encourage people to make more than 5 forum posts to request a different tier of VIP. As it stands there is very little ZE community interaction via the forums.

Examples: Artic Escape: Box added which removed a defense point from the map. Majority of people played the map and raced to get to said defense point. Map is no longer played due to lack of engagement.

Atix Helicopter: The Ladder raised, currently no opportunity for zombies to infect humans. Map empties the server and encourages afking.

Mako Reactor: Bahumuts health increased, Sephiroths Health increased (accidentally) , Teleport on pipe removed allowing for zombies to jump down on players from above once the core trigger is activated. I can understand increasing the difficulty of the map in terms of health, making faster lasers on Sephiroth, Adding Gravity boss ability to the boss. The Trigger which is killing all the casual/new players however I think does more damage towards the play-ability of the map. Yes people do flock to Mapeadores when Mako comes on but everyone who is not a try hard Mako reactor fan leaves the server as they do not understand how to get down the ladder section quickly.

Random: This was removed from the server recently without any notification. Why?

I don’t think anything above raised here is anything too ground breaking but would make a massive difference to the community.

Regards, Unorth

UN

Unorth:

Change Log: This used to be done. I haven’t seen one in ages. Previously a forum post notifying the players of changes to the server. Be it addition of maps, removal of maps, editing of maps. Certain maps have had significant changes made to the map which have negatively impacted its playability on the server outside of the intended mappers design be it directly or indirectly. There has been zero notification or justification to the community as to why these changes have occurred. A poll or a question before its made might be a good idea to gauge the communities reaction?

In addition over the last few months we have had a number of plugins added with a number of commands added over time. the “Leader” functionality via !ld which has not just !hold but !mark commands is an example of changes that are not documented. You have to be online at the time the plugin is added for anyone to even realize the plugin has been added. The !blame command was added recently. I don’t think anyone even knows how to enable it or use it apart from the 5 min it was enabled.

People hear about changes made by the off chance that someone talked to the person who made the change and they catch an “oh btw, this map or plugin is changed/added”. A direct channel to publicly announce changes or functionality that has been introduced would also attract and encourage people to make more than 5 forum posts to request a different tier of VIP. As it stands there is very little ZE community interaction via the forums.

/t/what-is-the-color-of-diamond-skin/18004 WIP

Se podria quitar el sonido de cambio a automatico de la Glock y la Famas, hay mucho spam y llega a ser horrible.

A new skin for leader since santa skin is removed when someone becomes a leader

Astornauta:

Se podria quitar el sonido de cambio a automatico de la Glock y la Famas, hay mucho spam y llega a ser horrible.

Ohhh yeah…

Maybe a stupid suggestion, as I never experienced one. But from what I’ve heard, a mapping contest can spice things up, new maps always help! Though, I know there were in the past, so maybe they stopped for a reason and this suggestion is stupid.

EDIT: And also, maybe some people are right, it is the community. Many regulars just wait till one of the try-hard maps is on, instead of playing and nominating/voting it on it themselves.

Me and others do this, but if one day we don’t, most of you would never play again because those maps will never/barely get voted by random/new people.

If you just wait till the maps you want are played, its more about the map than the community.

I’m not talking absolute or targeting anyone, I may see it in a wrong perspective myself. But if you think I’m seeing it wrong, be honest if you really think that way.

Also, people are way to picky sometimes… Either its overplayed, bad, boring or to long, never satisfied. (maps)

Hello, another suggestion with the upcoming new server would be changing/cleaning/tidying up the forums. Its kinda hard for new ppl to know what to do and others have problem with their emails. Maybe a button switching from Spanish to English and some forum threads cleaning as well

Buenas chicos y chicas, bueno, viendo la inminente llegada del nuevo servidor (que todos esperamos que vaya mucho mejor que el actual), pienso que antes de lanzarse se debería tomar las siguientes medidas antes de lanzar el servidor; pienso que lo principal, sería estar más atentos al servidor ya que se siente abandonado y algo des-actualizado , esto va tanto para los admins (yo íncluido) y los root. Por otra parte, habría que asegurarse realizar eventos con más frecuencia como antaño, tener los últimos mapas con más rapidez … Pero esto no queda ahí, creo que el servidor necesita también un buen lavado de cara, actualizar el sistema de vip (creo que ya está algo desfasado), cambiar las skins (de vez en cuando), poner una tienda in-game en la que se puedan comprar skins, tags, sonidos o lo que sea con créditos-monedas, vamos añadir nuevas cosas, sobre todo con el paso del tiempo, estas cosas se agradecen bastante, a parte si el nuevo servidor va bien se podrían añadir las granadas de toda la vida (las que queman a los zombies) eso de que los zombies salgan volando para arriba no mola.

En definitiva creo que lo más importante es que estemos más atentos del servidor y que se actualice con mucha más frecuencia, el server tal y como está ahora, en mi opinión está obsoleto y se necesitan grandes cambios, sé que requiere más trabajo pero hay gente que confía en esta comunidad (ya sea gente que dona, que pase tiempo jugando en nuestra comunidad, que proponga cambios…) y que mejor que devolverles el favor con actualizaciones más a menudo, y no que el servidor siga igual que siempre con cambios mínimos.

Como algo secundario, creo que se podría cambiar la web, se que va bien como está, pero un cambio de imagen no le vendría nada mal.

Antes de terminar quiero agradecer a la gente que ha gastado parte de su tiempo en proponer cambios en este post, espero que sean considerados; por otra parte animo a los que no han escrito todavía a que lo hagan para hacer de esta comunidad algo mejor.

Gracias por vuestro tiempo, un saludo, de vuestro compañero y amigo Cisneros. Viva Mapeadores!!!

I repeat everyone wants/need new skins for supporter. Just 1 or 2 its easy to upload and it wont affect the server it does not take that much. Everyone has been waiting forever and its easy to upload i hope u guys consider this im speaking in everyone name’s. This update of new skins will make everyone back to play and having fun and that is what matter at the end of the day. Gracias

IT

itsrip:

I repeat everyone wants/need new skins for supporter. Just 1 or 2 its easy to upload and it wont affect the server it does not take that much. Everyone has been waiting forever and its easy to upload i hope u guys consider this im speaking in everyone name’s. This update of new skins will make everyone back to play and having fun and that is what matter at the end of the day. Gracias

Mapeadores has maintained low poly count player models in an effort to reduce download speeds and reduce performance related issues for players on lower end specification machines. This is an active conversation between the servers management. If/When models are made available ontop of the current 9 custom skins available at the moment an update will be provided.

Since there has been talking about wich skins here is an option server wont be affected by it doesnt take much just delete another skin for it (some skins are bugged anyways) http://gamebanana.com/skins/144181

IT

itsrip:

Since there has been talking about wich skins here is an option server wont be affected by it doesnt take much just delete another skin for it (some skins are bugged anyways) http://gamebanana.com/skins/144181

The problem Rip, is that this skin does not match with the Zombie thematic and Mapeadores is looking for zombie/postapocaliptic thematic. But if things changes +1 The skin looks good and we should add some Female skins.