No, this is not a rant against the game. And no, I don't consider myself an expert player who's been tragically thwarted by the official stats. I'm an average player and freely admit it.
Rather, I'm amused by so many people quoting the official stats as if they have any significance. I've even noticed people judging posters by their win/loss record, as if that record carries some great weight. As many have pointed out, the stat tracking system is bugged right now. Host disconnects don't count, etc.
But even if the stat tracking weren't bugged, the stats wouldn't be that useful in terms of judging someone's skill. Why?
1. If you play with PUGs as opposed to premades, you'll have more relatively losses. Doesn't matter how good you are, you will lose if your teammates are uncoordinated or are not good. You have a higher chance of someone just flaking out with a PUG.
2. If you are a creative player and are willing to try new builds and strategies, you'll have more losses. Part of the price of experimenting is willing to take the risk of more losses as you try unconventional strategies.
3. If you like high quality games and play mostly premade vs. premade, you'll have more losses. You will be fighting highly coordinated team games where everyone is on vent. People are likely to split up teams so the teams are evenly matched, so your win/loss record will break closer to 50/50.
Anyway, my advice: just forget about the stats . The only way you can tell how good someone is to play against or with them. If you want a high win %, just play with some folks in Vent and beat up on PUGs. You will not only face PUGs, but probably PUGs who are mostly newbies. Most experienced players can sense when they're facing a premade in the lobby (there are tell-tale signs), and will likely leave before the game starts. Consequently, premades who face randoms often end up playing new players who don't know any better and have no idea that they're about to hit by a truck. But trust me, winning like that really isn't that fun compared to a close, even match, even if you end up losing it.
I never claimed I was great at this game, but I am better than average. And never did I say that my 95% was accurate to my ranking in demigod players. I'm suprised at how out-of-contexts everyone took my first statement, when it was actually in SUPPORT of the OP's claim. I said the 95% didn't matter.
Let me say that again for everyone too dense to read.
I said the 95% was not a true reflection, it was in SUPPORT of the OP's overall claim. The only point that post was making was that I believe you could have a high % without a team.
I give advice to anyone who asks for it. I don't claim it's the best advice, just from my expereinces which seem to work for me. People may want to join a game where their chance of survival is near 90%, but lets face it, thats not how you get better at this game. Facing premades should be a good thing, as you can see teamwork stratgies that work and don't. It's a great learning expereince that should be capitalized for what its worth.
Back when I played Lunia if anyone knows what game that is, there are people of a certain standard that you can and cannot beat. You don't learn from playing people below your level, you learn from playing at or above you. Playing the ones that can REALLY knock you down though, thats where you see amazing things.
I can't tell if you're arguing for or against my point. However, Lithuania and Argentina and the Dream Team all had roughly the same amount of training together. We're talking about individual skill vs team communication, and it's apparent that team communication is more important when it's a TEAM game.
You CAN, but doesn't mean that on average it's true. I'm willing to bet the OP was speaking in general terms. "Refuting" a generally made point by pointing out anecdotal irregularities is not really a refute. Therefore, it sounded like you were pointlessly blasting the OP needlessly.
I may not have needed say he was just crying but generally when I hear the word premade, thats about whats going to happen. Heres some cats if i hurt his feelings, although I thought this was the internets.
Heh, it's not about feelings or what not, it's about constructive criticism. Getting all up in arms just cuz you hear "premade" does not help make the thread or game any better. Why argue for the sake of argument when we're all trying to make the community better?
It's a massive advantage over people not using it. Are you disputing this?
What does adapting to change have anything to do with using vent?
Oh please.
Look, vent is a powerful tool. It greatly increases the ease and amount of communication. When both sides are using it it elevates the level of play. Bad thing? No. But only when both sides use it. When only one side is using it they are at a great advantage. It's a third party tool. People playing the game online should not be mandated to use it in order to not be crushed by those who do. It's like an optional mod or game mode that everyone should have to agree to. Tell your opponents.
Argueing I find exposes the reason's for issues that exist today. It often fascinates me, it's just who I am. I wasn't all up in arms trust me.
By that logic, good players only should be a game mode. Maybe win % to even join? Seriously man, that makes no sense at all. Your refusal to accept new methods of communication is your own fault. Teamspeak dates back to the days of Tribes and DaoC. At this point, theres no reason to not voice communicate unless you're 8. From what I've seen here today, I should give a life history bio, and announce all the friends I have before I can press the start button. FFS, it takes LONG enough to start a game without doing any of that, yet alone, most people don't give a damn.
Part of the purpose of custom games is to allow people to pick who they play with, so yes, there are going to be people playing there who know each other.
Automatching is another matter, and it can be quite unfair to others when people game the system to get paired up with people they know (not only the opponents, but the people who get stuck with the "dud" games left in the wake of people trying to get paired up).
It's understandable that people will want to play with friends, but try and be considerate of the other players as well. We do want to get team automatching implemented in the future, but until then, it makes for a better experience overall if premade teams stick to customs.
It's not part of the game, and it's not being used by a majority of the players. There's no reason TO use it when others are not unless you're looking to gain an advantage.
Which you are. I liken it to a corked bat. A 3rd party enhancement. If both teams agree to play with them though I don't see any problems with that.
Again I'll reiterate - if both sides are using it, that's great. If not, turn it off.
Interesting factoid is that Heroes of Newerth seems to be coming with voice chat built in. Now in cases like that no one has any excuse.
"Just so you know, we're on vent" doesn't appear to take very long to type. Wait 5-10 seconds for a reaction, then ready up and start the game. A massive crippling slowdown, I know, but I'm sure you can handle it.
Its not that he is refusing to use Vent. Its just unreasonable for say a PUG to all get Vent on and talking to each other before every custom game. Games which have built in VoIP are one thing, but when its not built in its not reasonable to expect every team to be able to use it every time. There is a very good reason for many people to not use VoIP - it takes a substantial amount of time/effor to get 4 or 5 unassociated people talking to each other before every game. You complain about games taking too long to start, well just imagine if PUGs tried to set up Vent every time.
Premades already have a substantial advantage over PUGs. They shouldnt use another huge advantage.
I am for your point, it was the example that 12 players on paper, who are individually amazing play poorly as a team in a team game (of course they have lost even more if they had F1reb4llzroxX playing as Torchbearer on their side). The same goes for the English national football (soccer for my american cousins) team
People talking is not a corked bat sir, your refusal to "get with the times" is just silly. You expect people to lower their standard of gameplay to accomadate you. Sorry bud, but thats not going to happen. It's a given that people will and can use voice chat, its been a given for years. Again, why do I need to go out of MY way to accomdate people who won't use the automatching feature that is given to them for that very reason of randomizing teams?
Why are these people not using auto-team matchups? That's the real question here. We can use whatever voicecom we want, becuase the option is available to you as well. Talking has never, and will never be considered an unfair advantage. You are not prohibited to use it. When I come home from work, I get on vent to just talk, what game we are going to play has nothing to do with it. You people see it as jsut a tool for gaming, and obviously don't use it.
Most people go on vent to socialize, not to one up you.
Online multiplayer games must use 3rd party programs is "the times" now? When did "can" become "must"?
Your standards are artificially inflated by 3rd party enhancements.
Personally going from Dota to this game I lost the banlist functionality that I had used for years. Did I break down? No, I just adapted to life without it. As you should adapt to playing without vent against random teams who aren't (and can't practically) use it.
Against other people using voice chat, maybe. Against people who aren't? I'd say that's pretty low.
I'll repeat - Because skirmish and pantheons are matching uneven matchups, AIs, non-Conquest game mode, random maps, and not keeping track of statistics? It's not the solution right now.
If there was arranged team, you'd be using that, right?
You're arguing for argument-sake now. IV fully agrees with you on your point about people using voice chat. He's not arguing with you about you going out of your way to accomodate people.
All he's saying is that it is a clear advantage for one team to use voice when the other team is not using voice. That is indisputable. He's also saying that it would be good sportsmanship of the team that is using voice to let the other team not using voice know that fact.
I'm not argueing just to argue, i'm just pointing out the things wrong in what hes saying. Every gamer I have met in the last 3 years has used voice com, regardless of the game. Thats just the standard today. For him to expect me to log out of my social vent just to accomidate the other team is ridiculous at best.
Trust me, if they CARE enough to not play premades/people with vent (omg), they will ask or look it up themselves. They don't need me spelling it out to every player that joins the game.
The reason that many games have standard VoIP is because they are launched with standard MP features that allow appropriate matchmaking. That means that premades are playing premades and PUGs are playing PUGs. And there are plentiful mechanisms for setting up those two situations. Right now, DG is in a state where you do not have the machanisms for appropriate matchmaking. That means that we as the players have to do what we can to rectify the situation until SD/GPG gets things squared away. Until things get added, its unfair for premades to take advantage of the lack of appropriate matchmaking by always using VoIP.
As people have already pointed out, your automatching thing is a poor suggestion.
Automatching does not work well right now. First off, as is well documented, premades play together in automatching all the time. This not only means that you are going to encounter just as many premades with VoIP as in Custom Games (so you havent even solved the problem), but you are also going to be playing more AIs from when premades goof things up by quitting before the game starts.
Using 3rd Party programs to gain an indisuptable advantage is often considered an unfair advantage. Thats why they get you banned in many online games.
There is no practical mechanism for PUGs to all get together on VoIP even if they all had it, or for PUGs to only play PUGs. Thats the bottom line. If there was a practical method of this happening, then it would be completely reasonable for Premades to always use VoIP. To put it bluntly, the problem isnt VI not being with the times, its that DG is not with the times in terms of MP features. Until DG catches up (and SD supports their games well, so it shouldnt take that long), you have to acknowledge that some things are a bit rudimentary and not take advantage of things if you are a premade.
Voicechat as third party was out in the starcraft days, it's not the common ventrilo users fault stardock hasn't implemented it as a feature for those without.
Why would premades be using such a broken feature? These are the people you should be complaining about, as they ARE the ones looking for an easy game.
The first game company to ban somone for using ventrilo would go down in history as the worst business decision ever. Stardock rep's, PLEASE clarify that voicecom is not considered a cheat. Third party apps ussualy means CHEATS, BOTS, ETC. ie: Physical Game Alterations that INTERFACE with the game in the application itself.
There are some chances people would be willing to get on vent with you, most people don't ask though. Again, I feel in no way that im "taking advantage" of people by being on a social voice com. I could just as easily skype in or talk on the phone to somone while I play. If proficient efforts were made to get these people onto a standardized voice channel such as skype (which is free), than you might be suprised what exactly would happen.
This is so...I don't know what to say.
I'd hope the default assumption is that people don't have third party enhancements running. You should notify people if that is not the case.
Seriously? Where has everyone been? How do yall function without a core group of people in any game? Do you go through life completely alone? Communities have been established since the dawn of gaming. The next thing I know were going to start calling brothers hackers for putting their PC's next to eachother. Where do yall draw the line?
Seriously, you might be living under a rock as far as gaming times go. And please dont' refer to vent as a "third party enhancement", because its not. It's a voice communication tool. It does not interface into the game, therefore, it has nothing to do with the "first party"
By just...PLAYING. None of my real life friends play this game anymore (all driven away by shoddy connection issues and bad recordkeeping).
I was top 20 in 3v3 Random Team in Warcraft 3 back in the day. I just enjoyed playing with random people. There's a much different skillset needed than the people who top the arranged team brackets.
Sure I'll have plenty of friends to play with if I went and played TF2 but not so with Demigod. So I just join games and play. That you *can't* play without people you know says something.
3rd party program? Check
Enhances gameplay through improved communication? Check
Sounds right to me.
And you're afraid to admit that you might be a minority wishing people to conform to your way? From the looks of it, it's your preference of playing with constant random people that leads you to this justification that everyone should conform to your standards of what you consider to be fair. Ok, so your real life friends don't play. Make some new ones, it's not that hard. If you're impressive at playing people will often seek YOU.
No gaming company has ever considered ventrilo to be a third party application that interfaces with the game, you would be going against that standard.
Anyone who thinks stats are worthless probably has a very weak record and is a noObz0r.
Maybe it's you who erroneously think you are the majority because "everyone you know" uses vent? The reliable way would be to take a poll of the people actually playing the game to see how many are using external VoIP applications while playing Demigod. The results would be informative, at the least.
Kinda like how few people would consider alcohol a dangerous drug. It's too popular now....
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