Posting in a G.I. Jonesy thread.

I wonder how many +'s total have been reaped from me creating this meme

First time for me to try it, I was in no rush.

;]

Here's a plus for ya anyway :0

thx qt3.14

wrong forum

Nah, it's the right one. He pretty much accurately describes Quake Live, now and then.

- add skill rating and make sure it's based solely on statistics rather than skill

Wait, what?

In his world probably there is a way to "rate skill" in some way other than statistics and ql team is obviously refusing to do so

This is just an impossible task. Sure, you can get better stats, but everyone can just be better a second and far worst the other. No software will ever be able to properly evaluate skills. And mindgames can't be evaluated as well and the end result just isn't good enough data.

I'd recommend you guys just use stats as complementary data, but it will never be ideal.

No software will ever be able to properly evaluate skills.

yeah i know this, maybe my irony was too subtle or just bad.

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Yeah random is always better

you sure ur not murican?

Random shuffles exist in QL. I suggest you try them.

As for this...

There are definitely better ways than using an algorithm of a 5th grade math exercise.

Do you really think Elo is that bad? Or is it only for algorithm used with the other gametypes?

Elo is good for 1vs1 gamews, bad to evaluate players in team-based games.

Indeed. It also isn't used to evaluate players in team-based games on QL. I wanted to know if OP's hatred was only towards the non-duel-gametypes skill estimation system.

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You didn't exclude duel's skill estimation system from your claim. It's not a case of bad reading comprehension, it's a case of you thinking people can read your mind.

As for random shuffle, I'm surprised you tried and liked it. My experiences with it were aweful. This is what I wanted you to experiment when I suggested you to try it.

the flaw doesn't lie in the system that's used to calculate the actual skill rating number, but rather what data goes into the calculation

Interesting. I thought you would criticize the "system" which consist in adding/subtracting skillrating depending on how good you did. Because this system is terrible for very good and very bad players (relative to who they play with). I'm surprised that you blame the data (score and time) instead. Are you a proponent of using only win/loss to evaluate one's skill?

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don't bother with him, he basically works for id. He is incapable of being impartial and always defends id even when they are wrong.

Yes, which is why I said their system is terrible. Because this is the correct way to defend them. Thanks for clarifying things, anon.

- everyone loves PowerPoint presentations, so make sure other players look like one

oh snap

Sweet butthurt!

it's actually quite satisfying to see that some people hate this game more than i ever have. it means there are people even more illogical than me:D

lol. I came from tribes and you guys have no idea how good you have it. There is certainly (a lot of) room for improvement and things that could have been done/managed better, but you aren't really in a position to complain like this, and nothing you mentioned would have changed anything significant about the game's current state.

stats for starters would have changed everything, but nice troll post

reading comprehension fail, when you revert the op's title it will make more sense to you hopefully

- everyone loves PowerPoint presentations, so make sure other players look like one
^ I lol'd here.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and defend id's choice of implementing those 'new game modes no one wants' ( and no, I didn't want them either ).

All anyone did on QL forums was rant about the lack of capturestrike/defrag/threewave/CPMA and how QL hasn't modernized. So you can't really blame the developers for wanting to try something new out. For all any of us knew, the inclusion of domination could have exposed QL to an entire new audience of casuals. So you can't blame them for trying.
As for the blood/occult references... I'm on your side, I miss them. But I don't think this is a decision the devteam made. I was always under the impression the constraints that were placed on them by the ESRB were arbitrary and not flexible within the scope of the project.
As for stats, prior to QL, people were already poorly implementing other stat systems here and there. They were just more easily bypassed.
I don't agree with everything happening in QL at the moment. But not many people are making constructive criticism of it.
However, I will join you in foaming at the mouth about:
Warpers, bad servers, lack of anticheat, weird netcode artifacts... etc

Warp, I've said warp was the single worst thing in QL since the closed beta.
I'd rather play vs some cheat on lol50lg than a warper, as at least you can hit a cheat and even if you're doomed overall have a far better gaming experience and feel you have a chance of getting somewhere. (or play a bit +back and win)

Don't come to Australia then.
We have a combination of servers that seem to fluctuate between semi-decent and utterly unbearable and some of the worst telecommunications infrastructure in the world.
There's been a slow but steady exodus of decent players over the last 12 months, which is partly because of how bad the game feels. Which in turn has killed our league level scene.
People just got tired of losing to garbage warpers in competitions.
Some players who don't animate as properly 'warping' are nigh on unhittable.
id's inability to make some attempt at fixing this, for whatever reason, made me decide to cancel my subscription. I've been a paid supporter of Quake for years, but I can no longer take competitive play seriously on these servers, against many now-notorious Australian warpers.

Some players who don't animate as properly 'warping' are nigh on unhittable.

We tend to call it 'micro warp' here. player animation overall looks ok but spectate and netgraph looks messy.
Often enabling some negative timenudge yourself makes it quite pronounced to watch. (as in as you play, they will finally appear very jittery when other players are smooth still)

or simply they just seem to sidestep a lot quicker than anyone else somehow, considering walking movement is fixed speed.

:(

Yeah, we use that term here too.
It's caused by upstream packet loss, most likely caused by ping jitter. The server is discarding every 2nd/3rd or so packet because it arrived way too late to be properly put in sequence. This won't show up as a red bar on the lagometer, but can be seen by the numbers jumping all over the place, way outside the normal range.
That's why if you use TN-20, you'll see them warp properly, because there isn't enough packet info to properly perform interpolation on their position if the built in lag is reduced.
This is also relevant to sponge's response that they have no intention to fix that maxpackets issue. Which is fucking garbage. Of course it has an effect on gameplay, turn on timenudge and you'll see for yourself.
Also, FYI, this is not just an issue if you use timenudge... this just shows a little more accurately how poorly the server is doing at properly interpolating their position. Obviously the server is receiving less than 40 snaps per second's worth of position info. ( edit: or at least not the correct packets to produce a smooth 40hz worth, or w/e I have no access to servers or source code. )
And their rationale for not reigning in the netcode's tolerance overall is probably the vast number of peasant users who play on wireless/third world connections. You could probably remedy this by lowering the threshold within which the server will interpolate positions without proper information. Over a certain amount of consistent packetloss you receive a 'rubber band effect', where the server rejects your client's position because it hasn't validated properly. They should lower that threshold somewhat... also raise server fps to at least 60.
Any move towards a more solid netcode is a move away from a 'balanced' one where everyone can play on a wide range of connection qualities.
Obviously id is restricted by real world constraints such as 'server/infrastructure cost', the 'democratic' approach, not wanting to alienate players... I can understand all those... but not fixing a demonstrable bug that fucks with gameplay is just shit., and the excuse was shit too. Can't demonstrate that it affects gameplay? Look for yourself.
Bla bla bla.

ALSO PLZ ALLOW /players TO SHOW PACKETLOSS/JITTER STATISTICS. this way we can at least point out the worst offenders.

red on netraph is always your own packet loss.

only your own client knows it's sent a packet that was lost, the server doesn't know about it, because it was lost, so it can't update the other spectating player's netraphs about it.

#40 covers the rest of how I'd reply already really.

Yes. Agreed 100%
But doesn't your own local netgraph only show downstream packet loss? Like if you're seeing red lines on your lagometer you'll see other players warping.
Doesn't that just show that your client has missed a packet sent by the server and not the other way around?

I'm pretty sure it's both,
it must be ACKing your sent ping containing packets or you wouldn't have a ping to graph.

SyncError told me on irc that they have no intentions of addressing the warp issues.

Yeah, I know, I've brought it up relatively regularly for years :(

It is very difficult to address without screwing over the warper somewhat, but imo frankly that is how it should be.
Their not having a decent connection should absolutely not negatively effect multiple other players.

As it stands now, though the warper MIGHT have problems aiming depending on whats causing the warp, that is either a non issue for them, or is vastly helped by the backwards reconciliation. Also it's much easier for the warper to adjust play style to accommodate (eg, rely less on critical rails, spam more, +back more etc).

So they tend overall to be left with advantages, while (except in duel) multiple other users get a crappy experience.

id is hiring a network code guru atm for other projects, QL NEEDs to steal him to work on this some as a side project :(

There are SO MANY issues with rego being inconsistent also.
If you want solid LG and are under 30 ping, use IPFW or another 3rd party network driver to add latency to push your ping between 35-45, look how much easier hitscan and dodging hitscan becomes lmao.
I used to do this sometimes, but now I may as well exploit the advantages of having 13 ping. ( highly overrated mind you, doesn't help you hit warpers/hitscan in general, actually makes it harder sometimes. )

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1: not going to happen - piracy, stat hacking, generally against the point of the whole QL system. They're quite picky about the host's security.

2. Not really no. arQon (of CPMA) basically did the backwards reconcilliation in QL while contracting for them. Though I don't understand why in QL they capped it at 80ms. Maybe Weird does?

They also either haven't used XERP, or it's not console visible.

As for warsaw, I don't think they fixed warp, and QL can't take code from open source projects any more than they can from commercial ones, they have to write everything in house, or license it (via id's legal dept. of doom).


Trying to satisfy everyone only usually works short term, warpers, hit reg issues (mostly from warp/lag) just ends up killing the game slowly as players leave left right and centre as they're sick of people taking little to no damage when almost certainly hit.

2. Can't go too in depth atm, at work doing a product release. But XERP is basically the opposite of QL's system. xerp extrapolates where it predicts the other player to be to match your ping, so that when you shoot you'll be aiming at the correctly extrapolated position for your aim. Any warpiness in xerp results from the client not being able to properly extrapolate to that time distance based on what information it currently has from the server. I could be wrong about that though, but that's my understanding.
QL's netcode uses backwards reconciliation, which checks to see if you were aiming at the correct location for where the player was on the server minus your ping. ( short explanation )

So, long story short, as per some arguments I remember a couple of years ago now, what we probably need is xerp.

As for warsaw, I don't think they fixed warp, and QL can't take code from open source projects any more than they can from commercial ones, they have to write everything in house, or license it (via id's legal dept. of doom).

That depends on the Open Source licence used. But with Warsow's GPL, don't expect anything.

I think the issue with addressing warpers is that they would have to revamp the "netcode" completely.
I think alot of the problems stems from both the client and serverside and would require a shit ton of work before it is even close to everyones standards.

A bit too much for a two man team no? :)

Step four - don't put the game on steam

Being a non browser based game increases the likelihood of steam happening about 9000%

Well, the likelihood of that happening is still about 0.01%
Whether or not QL gets on steam has nothing to do with it being a browser game or not, and nothing to do with the developer's opinions.
IIRC Sync stated it was an issue with Zenimax not wanting to release their financial information to Valve. Or maybe that was Paypal, but I think it's a similar reason.

That was paypal.

Well, but they have no problem with having Rage, Doom 3, Skyrim etc. on Steam, what's the diference between these games and QL in that regard?

It was a browser game.

Oh look the thread can now be a loop.

So the problem was that it used to be a browser game, or that they didn't want to release their financial information to Valve? The former might be understandable, but with the latter I have no idea, why it would be a problem with QL and wasn't a problem with other games.

The finance thing was entirely about paypal. Nothing to do with steam.

ql is never going on steam
http://67.227.255.239/forum/showthread.php?t=732475

smart guy.

With a re-release that changes the name (lets say QL 2.0), that is advertised, changes the business model, isn't as restrictive on paying members, actually improves the game beyond a 1999 copycat that still falls short to it, adds 5 year requested features and content, and is featured on the steam front page, then it has a chance.

Then again even all that would be less than what cs:go is, which is a new game that's actually appealing and with friends playing it.

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The comparison is cs 1.6 to cs:go. Should have worded that better.

In the end the thing is we all know 2009-2013 QL is Q3 with very little improvement and some shortcomings, whereas cs:go is a new game and it is not dated in every aspect. Doing a side to side images comparison would be quite funny.

Expecting 2014 QL 2.0 to be a huge success (hundreds of thousands of unique active players a month) if the game still is extremely similar to a 1999 game, without any major graphics update and features expected in a current release, is simply naive especially considering this game used to be 100% free and still no one played it. Heck 2013 and current QL has a launcher, menus and layout that's almost geocities like and is unbelievably amateur, the demos section for example.

i subscribed for 2 years to a premium account which ended around a year ago but now when i look at the options available, the only real draw for me is extended match history and even that's a slight. it's okay being able to play any map but the problem is that the majority of players are free users and they are where the games are. there's no value in the options to subscribe as they currently stand. maybe consider making awards, stats, match history... all those things come with a sub and reintroduce the full basic package (all gamemodes, maps and voting) to free users.

even better if you were to include elo and ladders. i think anyone who had the slightest competitive intentions with the game would subscribe to that :(

The free package might offer too much, but taking things away isn't generally a good move. Just look at the reaction from removing map voting. Unless it's done as part of some very big change, I don't think they are desperate enough to do something like that.

you forgot Step four

-sucessfully fuck up a 14yo game that had pretty much everything it has now, around 2003 with mods, to make a browser game experience and go back to the non browser launcher.