arma
Settler
Posts: 20
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Post by arma on Mar 28, 2006 7:42:54 GMT -5
Hi. Havn't posted since I was banned for "disgusting pornographic" pic. Which was a dude in a white tiger suit, showing some chest. Dunno what country the mods are from but suggest never come to Australia. Dudes here walk around not just showing little chest, but no shirt all the time. While I'm whinging, good way to kill a forum is overmoderate it like this. Anyway, I'm TheReflectingGod, formerly Marilyn_Manson but name was cursed (first day died precisely turn 4 on a standard map 8 player cton, I kid u not, turn 4), formerly AU_Armageddon but every dude mistook me for some C3 player. Posting this last cos couple months ladder games always available. Last weeks, ladder games numbers dropping off and open games hardly ever there. i.e. checked in 20+ times a day last 3 days, saw 2 ladder games open in all that time. No games to play, will post some observations. Ladder Pros: Short list, but it counts. *No-one really quits, and the players are generally decent and make for a fun game. That's it. It's great. But that's it. Ladder Cons: Huge list. 1) Rank is meaningless. I mean, seriously, it's utterly totally beyond repair meaningless. If it reflects anything at all, that is that it shows who has no life outside of Civ4. For everyone who ONLY plays a lot. Like 3 games a week, forget it. I have like 3 games Sunday and make rank 14. Then game Tuesday night I am rank 83, jump back up to 40, then login Thursday and I am 132. If I actually take like heaven forbid half a week off game, I come back ranked in the 200s. 2)So what do you have? Win/loss. Obviously meaningless. This is due mostly to teamers and the like, but basically the whole setup. Whether players suck, or whether they rule, almost everyone has 40-60% ratios. Comparing players and their win/loss vs your experience of their skill, you quickly realise it tells you NOTHING and is meaningless. Mine was 75 for a while, but teamers quickly saw it dump to 60 like everyone else. No doubt on its way 50% by 150th game or so. 3) Both of these problems are ultra exxagerated by sheer level of non-reporting that goes on. I let about 10 slide before I started chasing it up. Pain or what, screeny first, but wait hours, login, find their e-mail, they practically never respond, write report. Wait another 2 days for action, all so they can get a 2 day ban. BIG DEAL. I actually bothered to report about 6 people before I CBF anymore. At least another 20 non-reported wins racked up. Win a couple ctons same day and its BS to keep track of who's reported what and for what game when. The rules with this just don't work. So most of the good people who win most of their games end up with skewed percentages 10-20% lower than they should be, helping average out with this 40-60 problem. While crappy players tend to be the ones less likely to report their losses, skewing their ratios higher than they should be. Reporting should be required before leaving game or within 15 mins max, and non-reporting should thus have like a 2 week ban. People play the game for hours, but justify not spending another 1 minute to report everyone. 4)360 degrees of Civ. Seriously, this one is bad. - You start Civ4 playing random tossers in the gallery. A lot of cursing idiots, minimal skills around, quitting and whining rampant. - Then you start playing ladder, good games, noone quitting, Civ lookin great. - Then you get good and start playing teamers with goods. Most of these guys mistake their ranks for their thingyes and long since forgot that their stats are meaningless, this is a game, everyone should have fun. So you are back to where you started, insane levels of whining and excuses. Quitting, even in the pre-game room. Quitting early like general gallery cos they can see likely path whole game will play out on terrain and civs alone, so why bother playing. Quitting early is like 50/50 chance of occurring in teamers, even worse than gallery. Community too small so no accountability. I have seen people quit first turns of 5v5 teamers cos they think they are so good they can make workers on front line and leave when it doesn't pay off without even trying to recover. Game over, 5 reports, everyone plays with em again next game like they didn't just screw 9 people out of a fun game cos they are selfish. Many similiar examples. 20 minute pauses to whine about team selection. 30 minute pauses to fight over skill comparison of subs. Really lame stuff. 5) Variety. It's cton Inland Sea or Teamer where your odds of winning are truly set at 50/50 before you even enter the room. That's it. Other maps EXTREMELY rare to see. Host em and all leave most of the time, demanding Inland Sea. No unusual settings. Civ4 has many maps but Wheel is the only common exception, which plays largely like Inland Sea. No Shimo style FFA games with diplomacy ever (awesomely fun way of playing popular in RTS games). No unusual settings. Nope, Cton (Mostly Ancient) or Teamer (Mostly Ren) or bust. So what happens when a game with hundreds of map to settings to rules variations gets reduced to only 2 types? It gets old fast. Like AoK - all goods play Arabia or bust. 20 maps but nope, they perfected their strats on Arabia, and their meaningless ratings indicate their thingy size, so hence no risks to their formula permitted, even if it might be more fun... cos it cant' cost how can losing be fun eh When faced with all this monotony, on top of ill-conceived pointless stat system, rampant non-reporting unless you play only goods, where you get all the whining and attitude instead, when faced with all this, what happens? Dun take Einstein to connect the dots. Ladder games will have a short-term appeal to most players and inevitably die off. Even small games like Battlecry and SWGB lasted a full year before dying down online, so hopefully that's not what's happening now and this i just a slump in available ladder games, but given that the set-up of stats won't change, if the ladder players don't open themselves up to some more variety, and get off high horses about rank - cutting out the 20 minute whine fests, and remember this is a game and should be fun first and foremost, then ladder games will die out much sooner than they needed too. Just an opinion.
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Post by Avogadro on Mar 28, 2006 8:00:43 GMT -5
ATM it is cton inland and teamers. In 6 months it will be something else. The ladder has always followed trends, it is nothing new.
The number of games in lobby are indicative of the connectivity issues. It is our hope that a good patch will remedy the situation.
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Post by Puff the magic Dragon on Mar 28, 2006 9:40:09 GMT -5
Hi. Havn't posted since I was banned for "disgusting pornographic" pic. Which was a dude in a white tiger suit, showing some chest. Dunno what country the mods are from but suggest never come to Australia. Dudes here walk around not just showing little chest, but no shirt all the time. While I'm whinging, good way to kill a forum is overmoderate it like this. Anyway, I'm TheReflectingGod, formerly Marilyn_Manson but name was cursed (first day died precisely turn 4 on a standard map 8 player cton, I kid u not, turn 4), formerly AU_Armageddon but every dude mistook me for some C3 player. Posting this last cos couple months ladder games always available. Last weeks, ladder games numbers dropping off and open games hardly ever there. i.e. checked in 20+ times a day last 3 days, saw 2 ladder games open in all that time. No games to play, will post some observations. Ladder Pros: Short list, but it counts. *No-one really quits, and the players are generally decent and make for a fun game. That's it. It's great. But that's it. Ladder Cons: Huge list. 1) Rank is meaningless. I mean, seriously, it's utterly totally beyond repair meaningless. If it reflects anything at all, that is that it shows who has no life outside of Civ4. For everyone who ONLY plays a lot. Like 3 games a week, forget it. I have like 3 games Sunday and make rank 14. Then game Tuesday night I am rank 83, jump back up to 40, then login Thursday and I am 132. If I actually take like heaven forbid half a week off game, I come back ranked in the 200s. 2)So what do you have? Win/loss. Obviously meaningless. This is due mostly to teamers and the like, but basically the whole setup. Whether players suck, or whether they rule, almost everyone has 40-60% ratios. Comparing players and their win/loss vs your experience of their skill, you quickly realise it tells you NOTHING and is meaningless. Mine was 75 for a while, but teamers quickly saw it dump to 60 like everyone else. No doubt on its way 50% by 150th game or so. 3) Both of these problems are ultra exxagerated by sheer level of non-reporting that goes on. I let about 10 slide before I started chasing it up. Pain or what, screeny first, but wait hours, login, find their e-mail, they practically never respond, write report. Wait another 2 days for action, all so they can get a 2 day ban. BIG DEAL. I actually bothered to report about 6 people before I CBF anymore. At least another 20 non-reported wins racked up. Win a couple ctons same day and its BS to keep track of who's reported what and for what game when. The rules with this just don't work. So most of the good people who win most of their games end up with skewed percentages 10-20% lower than they should be, helping average out with this 40-60 problem. While crappy players tend to be the ones less likely to report their losses, skewing their ratios higher than they should be. Reporting should be required before leaving game or within 15 mins max, and non-reporting should thus have like a 2 week ban. People play the game for hours, but justify not spending another 1 minute to report everyone. 4)360 degrees of Civ. Seriously, this one is bad. - You start Civ4 playing random tossers in the gallery. A lot of cursing idiots, minimal skills around, quitting and whining rampant. - Then you start playing ladder, good games, noone quitting, Civ lookin great. - Then you get good and start playing teamers with goods. Most of these guys mistake their ranks for their thingyes and long since forgot that their stats are meaningless, this is a game, everyone should have fun. So you are back to where you started, insane levels of whining and excuses. Quitting, even in the pre-game room. Quitting early like general gallery cos they can see likely path whole game will play out on terrain and civs alone, so why bother playing. Quitting early is like 50/50 chance of occurring in teamers, even worse than gallery. Community too small so no accountability. I have seen people quit first turns of 5v5 teamers cos they think they are so good they can make workers on front line and leave when it doesn't pay off without even trying to recover. Game over, 5 reports, everyone plays with em again next game like they didn't just screw 9 people out of a fun game cos they are selfish. Many similiar examples. 20 minute pauses to whine about team selection. 30 minute pauses to fight over skill comparison of subs. Really lame stuff. 5) Variety. It's cton Inland Sea or Teamer where your odds of winning are truly set at 50/50 before you even enter the room. That's it. Other maps EXTREMELY rare to see. Host em and all leave most of the time, demanding Inland Sea. No unusual settings. Civ4 has many maps but Wheel is the only common exception, which plays largely like Inland Sea. No Shimo style FFA games with diplomacy ever (awesomely fun way of playing popular in RTS games). No unusual settings. Nope, Cton (Mostly Ancient) or Teamer (Mostly Ren) or bust. So what happens when a game with hundreds of map to settings to rules variations gets reduced to only 2 types? It gets old fast. Like AoK - all goods play Arabia or bust. 20 maps but nope, they perfected their strats on Arabia, and their meaningless ratings indicate their thingy size, so hence no risks to their formula permitted, even if it might be more fun... cos it cant' cost how can losing be fun eh When faced with all this monotony, on top of ill-conceived pointless stat system, rampant non-reporting unless you play only goods, where you get all the whining and attitude instead, when faced with all this, what happens? Dun take Einstein to connect the dots. Ladder games will have a short-term appeal to most players and inevitably die off. Even small games like Battlecry and SWGB lasted a full year before dying down online, so hopefully that's not what's happening now and this i just a slump in available ladder games, but given that the set-up of stats won't change, if the ladder players don't open themselves up to some more variety, and get off high horses about rank - cutting out the 20 minute whine fests, and remember this is a game and should be fun first and foremost, then ladder games will die out much sooner than they needed too. Just an opinion. For the record I was the one who killed him turn 4. Don't let that turn you from ladder bud it has happened to us all. Although I agree that the Cases format is kinda dull in rank method. I would suggest an alternative to cases to remedy this. ;D There are many great alternative ladder formats out there.
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Post by whiplash on Mar 28, 2006 9:42:12 GMT -5
I know little about CIV4 so maybe I have no business posting here. On the C3C ladder much interest and activity were sparked by user created mods. C3C has a very user-friendly GUI editor for scenario creation. This is lacking in CIV4 as mods are only possible by programming or file edits. At least that's my understanding.
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Post by Puff the magic Dragon on Mar 28, 2006 10:09:18 GMT -5
I know little about CIV4 so maybe I have no business posting here. On the C3C ladder much interest and activity were sparked by user created mods. C3C has a very user-friendly GUI editor for scenario creation. This is lacking in CIV4 as mods are only possible by programming or file edits. At least that's my understanding. I agree whip its not very user friendly and takes allot of patients.
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Post by donaldkipper on Mar 28, 2006 10:14:05 GMT -5
Although I agree that the Cases format is kinda dull in rank method. I would suggest an alternative to cases to remedy this. ;D There are many great alternative ladder formats out there. The Cases format is not the problem. It doesnt matter how you rank people, if weak players can beat strong players with relative ease, ranks will not count for much. Team games and ctons guarantee weaker players will beat stronger players with a reasonable frequency. If you have a pure 1v1 ladder you will get pretty accurate rankings their - assuming a game of skill, not luck. A big problem with 'chess style' systems is endlessly playing weak players to boost score. At least with cases you have to beat the players at the top to get to the top.
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Post by Puff the magic Dragon on Mar 28, 2006 11:27:01 GMT -5
Although I agree that the Cases format is kinda dull in rank method. I would suggest an alternative to cases to remedy this. ;D There are many great alternative ladder formats out there. The Cases format is not the problem. It doesn't matter how you rank people, if weak players can beat strong players with relative ease, ranks will not count for much. Team games and ctons guarantee weaker players will beat stronger players with a reasonable frequency. If you have a pure 1v1 ladder you will get pretty accurate rankings their - assuming a game of skill, not luck. A big problem with 'chess style' systems is endlessly playing weak players to boost score. At least with cases you have to beat the players at the top to get to the top. To a certain degree that is correct but Team players is also a skill. Some players can win teamers much easier and ingenuous and are strong that way. Some players only play for themselves and are weak players when it comes to teamers. But it still isn't fitting of the cases format regardless. They have for mats that will specifically ask you what you played and with whom and are very accurate with rank. Example if your reporting it will have a screen pop up that will ask 1 vs 1 or teamer if you press teamer it will have a set of choices 2 v2 3 v3 ect. then u place the teams and report the loss. Accurate to a T. it will give a skill ratting set by the admin for teamer wins and 1 v 1 wins. Their are many different formats that better fit the community as a whole.
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Post by Lestat on Mar 28, 2006 11:42:53 GMT -5
I dont like pre-defined map as inland, whell, ring etc... Peps say that pangea is resoures unbalanced but all maps mentioned above is resorsc balanced or unbalanced like pangea. Only difference is that pangea is 100% random and u dont know enemie postion. I will try to host pangea. Also before two week i stared hosting reny or random era cton and i saw many host now hosting reny cton game, now are teamers out of time maybe. Peps lets try to play pangea ...
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Post by Elledge on Mar 28, 2006 15:11:25 GMT -5
I agree that as far as I can tell rank is pretty meaningless; I win a game, go up 50 ranks, log on the next day and I'm back down 30 ranks. Win a game, go up 40, lose a game, go down 2, log on the next day and I'm down 60. You can argue that it's fair, certainly, but at the same time it clearly doesn't represent skill very well except for maybe the very very top tier (I'm not a 20th place player some days, a 50th place player some days and a 150th place player other days), so what on earth does it represent?
On the merits of a chess-like system where your rating gain/loss is proportional to the difference between you and the opponent: I think it has problems, but would be an improvement. Although a person could inflate his rank to a degree if he were very persistent about playing only very low-ranked, beatable players, it would:
A) Take a long time. Civ games are not quick and if you are winning 3 rating points a game versus a really bad player you are not going up fast.
B) Be obviously detectable. You can game the current ladder too if nobody catches you; it has to be self-policing.
C) Be meaningless if you can't play a real game for the fear of losing 100 rating points to people who play at their rating level.
My 2c. I don't expect anything to change though so it's probably all academic : - ) People who like the rank system as it is can enjoy it. It's pretty much a moot point if you really don't care either way and you just want to play good games of civ (<---).
(I don't really care about non-reporting much, either - I've had one or two non-reports and I don't feel like I really have any motivation to chase them down, so I don't. As long as someone stays through the game, I'm happy, and they can do whatever their conscience permits as far as I'm concerned.)
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Post by tommynt on Mar 28, 2006 15:15:30 GMT -5
everything these guys stating is old and proven to be wrong.
Rank means maybe not too much, but in top 10 are usually only players who deserve their spot - win% and skill rating are kinda good indicators about skillz.
If u dont like special game settings host settings you like and see if other people like your settings aswell - if they dont u r a lonly idiot in that case.
everything else is just bullcrap from a guy who hardly plays and have no clue - there s just one thing - very few guys play - but I blame more civ4 and the superpoor suport as the ladder for that.
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Craigbob
Settler
Hey, guess what. Later.
Posts: 95
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Post by Craigbob on Mar 28, 2006 15:48:57 GMT -5
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Post by Lestat on Mar 28, 2006 16:37:04 GMT -5
PFF THE BIRDY DRAGON DONT POST OUR MATTER (COSA NOSTRA) IN CIV3VET FORUM. Save your money SR you will lose it. I suppose that everyone that disagrees with you view is a "pessimistic refusenik naysayer"? You been hanging out with SPM to long... you are starting to label folks that dont agree with your views (well I guess you allways did this). Can I call you spm Jr. ? Oh and dont bet on a new unified ladder being formed..thats just your wishfull thinking more than anything. It might be best if you just dont gamble period SR...thinking you should keep your day job. Steam Steammy the more i look at things as far as the big picture the more I'm starting to agree with ya brother. heres something else posted from civ4players forum. Re: Ladder dying? Pros & Cons of Ladder « Reply #9 Today at 3:15pm » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- everything these guys stating is old and proven to be wrong. Rank means maybe not too much, but in top 10 are usually only players who deserve their spot - win% and skill rating are kinda good indicators about skillz. If u don't like special game settings host settings you like and see if other people like your settings aswell - if they dont u r a lonly idiot in that case. everything else is just bullcrap from a guy who hardly plays and have no clue - there s just one thing - very few guys play - but I blame more civ4 and the superpoor suport as the ladder for that. This stuff is everywhere from the cases ladder format to personal admin inabilities. Dunno if I completely agree that the admins of civ3&4players are incapable of admining. IMHO like I've stated many times it's about their Egos more thatn anything but apparently steam you guys may not just have civ3vets but civ4 vets soon too. I strongly suggest we as a ladder consider changing from cases to another ladder format personally. Got a few posts on different people through the ladder about it.
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Post by Lestat on Mar 28, 2006 16:42:44 GMT -5
Admins after u read text above delete all post, it is provocation from civ3vets ladder.
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Post by notagoodname on Mar 28, 2006 18:25:09 GMT -5
The ladder isn't dying off - it's Civ4 multiplayer as a whole that is. I logged on last night and saw <10 people in the lobby and the game list less than half a page full. I think people are simply fed up with Firaxis, the retire bug is a game stopper that should have been a quick patch by firaxis. The data bug that causes the game to never connect to any games after a bad connection should have been in a quick fix. There is a bug that people have just noticed that causes Civ4 to flood their connection, that should be fixed. As it is a game of Civ4 with newbies who don't know the work around for these issues is unplayable. Because of this Civ4 is not getting any new players and it is losing old ones. Likewise the number of ladder players in the lobby is shrinking. We are competing to be the best at a dying game.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Mar 28, 2006 19:52:17 GMT -5
Admins after u read text above delete all post, it is provocation from civ3vets ladder. I'll post in my misguided peers forums but not here. Civ4 is not dying, it's growing very fast as a matter of fact. Despite the problems we have now while waiting for the patch, we have 938 members as of today, and average 500 match per day. Hardly a ladder that is dying. Yes I agree that Cases is not the best system in the world but it is free and provides the players and admins good tools to enjoy Civ4. As to the non-report issue, our system does work, but every player has to use it or it won't work, the admins are dedicated to enforcing the non-reports, but it is not a quick process and we can only get rid of repeat offenders if you the players report them. There will always be people that disagree with the Admins actions, you can never make everyone happy, but we do strive to satify the majority of this community as best we can. The ladder will always evolve to meet the needs of the players, it's the players that decide what games are played and what are not, trends will come and go. And C4P will be what ever you make it. Us admins are just here to provide a free and fair framework to do that within. Happy Civing. CS
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Post by Elledge on Mar 28, 2006 20:53:16 GMT -5
The ladder isn't dying off - it's Civ4 multiplayer as a whole that is. I logged on last night and saw <10 people in the lobby and the game list less than half a page full. I think people are simply fed up with Firaxis, the retire bug is a game stopper that should have been a quick patch by firaxis. The data bug that causes the game to never connect to any games after a bad connection should have been in a quick fix. There is a bug that people have just noticed that causes Civ4 to flood their connection, that should be fixed. As it is a game of Civ4 with newbies who don't know the work around for these issues is unplayable. Because of this Civ4 is not getting any new players and it is losing old ones. Likewise the number of ladder players in the lobby is shrinking. We are competing to be the best at a dying game. It does seem extremely unprofessional that these literally game-breaking issues still exist. Almost -nobody- new would be successfully playing games if it weren't for helpful people in the lobby who answer questions about how to fix peer and data bugs on connect. nuts, I program for a living. The data cache bug has got to be about ten lines of code which someone could find in an afternoon, patch, test, and upload for distribution. And for god's sake, put a notice up before the lobby screen that says "You seem to be behind a firewall. Civ 4 needs port 2056 UDP open to establish multiplayer connections. You can visit this site to see how to forward ports on your firewall." It's not like these are content patches or big design issues; these are little bugfixes for major issues. Waiting months for them is inexplicable. It's embarassing that they haven't fixed this stuff three months ago, and it's going to be sad if it means that the C4 multiplayer community stays small and veteran because of it.
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arma
Settler
Posts: 20
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Post by arma on Mar 28, 2006 21:23:53 GMT -5
Well it dun matter if it's old to you. For those like me who didn't play C3 online and dun see it on this forum here, it's new and after 30 checks to see 2 ladder games, it seemed it deserved to be said.
Rest is not wrong lol. I am a guy who never plays? Aye. I play maybe 10 games a week. Maybe 3 of them have been ladder if I am lucky. An insane 20-25 hours a week on a game. Talk about making my point for me lol.
And have no clue? It is true I have only been playing about 6 weeks, I dun even figured all the units yet, learned yesterday that skirm was an archer unit, though it is apparent from my gaming I am still already punching into top 20 players here in terms of real skill and would definately leap into top 10 by merely mashing keys at end turn like the rest of ya lol, and changing sets or learning hotkeys will help when I get to them, and once I figure what GPs will give what when.
Tommynt, you seem okay guy, I have even defended you against BS accusations of cheating cos you are good lol, but you prolly took offence cos you have done some hard core whinging in game yourself. I remember you and red arguin over sub and other things in other games. I'm not tryin to attack in that part so much as just tryin to say that there are enough problems given the bad ranking, bad peers, etc. without good players adding to the negative experiences side of Civ4 by screaming at each other for 20 minutes over points that don't count for much, when everyone wants to play and have fun.
BTW no prob regarding that turn 4 kill seriously. Was annoying only cos it was one hour setup for a 10 second game and 6 turns was fastest possible I could make a first warrior with that start. Mostly joke cos it was first day of name, and first time that happened, and I am superstitious!
If you say ladder dying more cos of bad peers and tech than these other things, then I say prolly good point. All that matters to me here is ladder games getting noticeably harder to find and I wanted to talk about why and see if we cant do things to help stop that. Ladder games represent my most fun games for the most part, also the worst experiences as well for reasons above, but those aside, typically more fun more often than general games. SP dun do it for me so if ladder died, I would uninstall Civ and grab Oblivion or try Galactic Civ2 or something else. I am lovin it though so hope muchly it don't die.
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Post by DrShot on Mar 28, 2006 21:52:26 GMT -5
Ladder Dying? Nope.
Puff: you do not need to quote an entire (massive) post just to make an often simple reply.
Rank: Rank is there for people that enjoy it.
Top Ten: FoP Frequency of Play for the most part. on any given day I find many that would not (ever) be there on another system.
Stats: I reset them. No big deal then, eh?
Patches: FFS what is up with this? how long has it been? One patch, thats a great thing, thanks gang. Take the money and run me thinks... too much trouble to create a patch that fixes a few SIMPLE problems... Of course it is too much to expect, lets wait till we get a patch for everything and release it. Hmm, lets call it Civ 4 Expan$ion more money Yehaw.
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Post by Avogadro on Mar 28, 2006 23:27:06 GMT -5
Take the money and run is not good business. Offered a quality product consistently is what makes consumers come back to fill your pockets That is what is making it all so frustrating, Anyone know the latest sales figures? To ignore the patches necessairy to all these people will not make them rich. It will plunge the company even further into financial despair because people will stop buying from them.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Mar 28, 2006 23:36:00 GMT -5
Believe me the patch is coming, teh delay is only the added over head of Take2, if a english only patch could be released it would have been out ages ago, but Take2 realizes that it has markets world wide, and the patch must be localized and in a professional manner as well, that takes time as well. I wish the patch was out yesterday as well, but it's still better to have a patch with no bugs found especially since this is the last patch before the XP.
CS
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