Vacations are always over too fast.
Ever wondered why games don’t tend to be released in the Spring or Summer? Besides the Winter being better for retail, the other thing, at least in software that I’m beginning to see is that it’s harder to get updates out quickly because that’s when people tend to go on vacation. So it’s definitely been a slog getting updates out the door these past few weeks.
It’s just as well because as games evolve, the needs of the game community change. Here are some of the things that have risen high on the list of things to add into Demigod in future updates:
1. I’d like to see a randomize teams in custom games. That is, players press a button and when the game starts, the teams are mixed up. There is definitely a growing issue about “pre-mades” vs. “random”. We will have to talk to Gas Powered Games to see what can be done without blowing up the budget but I think this is an issue that is needed.
2. I also think that clans/groups are probably going to need to be moved up ahead of mod support. Currently v1.2 is looking at modding as a major focus. But I’m curious to hear what you guys think about this because I think modding, as important as it is, may not be as important as making it easier for groups to play together. The pre-made issue wouldn’t be so obnoxious if it were pre-mades vs. pre-mades. Again, the trick here is to do this without blowing up the budget.
3. More demigods. This is a topic that comes up on every call with Gas Powered Games. Right now, they’re focusing on finishing up the demo but getting some sort of pipeline of new demigods is something we think is critical.
4. The freaking stats. While this would probably be #1 on my personal list, I’m painfully aware that I’m in the minority on this. Nevertheless, abusing my position here a bit I assigned part of our software group to get in there and nail down the stupid stats. I’ve come to understand that the situation is a lot harder than it would seem (at least intuitively). But not to be a bastard, I don’t really care if it’s “complicated”. If I win, it better bloody show up on my record. 90% of people probably don’t care but I personally think the 10% who do care are crucial to the game’s long term on-line viability.
Now, this is by no means a complete list. Replays, Rematches, and lots of other things are on the list for a v1.2 which we are negotiating with GPG. But these are the kinds of things that I think are pretty crucial in my opinion.
yeah, ofc having one more "option" is always good
this option itself isnt the best, if you do a 5 v5 or 4 v4 you REALlY expect all of them to like random teams?
I'm really curious if the rating system for this game is supposed to function the same way but simply doesn't because there's so few high ranked players fighting each other and everyone is stuck in the middle or if all the premades got together and fought each other, inflating each others' points, if a lone wolf pub stomping team could still climb their way up by sheer quantity of games.
I think the priorities should be:
1) team matching - for the obvious premade v. pug issue
2) matching - right now, the matching system does a poor job matching equal skilled players against each other
3) stats - hard to accurately match when stats are fubared
All three of these are intertwined and fixing one without the other three does not get you anywhere.
Speaking for myself, it has nothing to do with Pantheon or Skirmish. It would be very rare that I would play either because I don't like playing modes other than Conquest.
I've seen your games up, and I don't join because I know you already have an advantage by having teammates that you can coordinate with while I'll be stuck with people who may or may not have just bought the game - that is not an appealing position to be in. Like you said, stats are worthless - it's easy to chalk up a 97% win ratio by playing with friends against a bunch of people who don't know better when they join a game with a stacked team. The win ratio isn't what keeps me from joining - the disadvantage is what does it.
You're acting like it's "either or" with the random teams option and matchmaking - it isn't. We can have both, and there are plenty of people in the community who want both. Like you said, it can't be difficult to implement, so I can't imagine it having any appreciable impact on the other features we all want.
Even with a good matchmaking scheme, I would rather play random teams games to keep the experience fresh every game - new people, new perspectives, new challenges. This worked GREAT in Dawn of War.
Like I said, your win ratio isn't what's scaring them off - seeing that they're playing against a team who is intimately acquainted with each other's styles is what is scaring them off. The first thing I do when I join a game is check pantheon to see what players were on the host's team for the last couple dozen or so games. If I see the same players on the host's team and don't see any familiar faces on my team, I leave.
Judging from the number of people who have voiced support both on the boards and in games, yes, absolutely. That would be the only game mode I would play if it were implemented.
This DoK. I would only play random teams (if implemented) or "announced" premades (with friends).
Thats kinda hard to swallow. I've ran this on two different machines and experienced equal abbort boxes, error codes, and just suddenly locking up on both of em. I have a friendslist of around 30 people, and I don't know of a single one of them that has no crashes or lockups, and we all have pretty different machines and configurations. Some do have it less than others, to a point where it does become virtually non intrusive, except for when it does happen of course. It's hard to immagine that the problem is with a single bug racting to a specific factor all of these computers have in common.
I will say that the crashes/lockups/etc only happen after duration playing for most of the people I play with, or talk to about it. That is, it rarely just locks up on your first game or two. But a string of several games seems to increase the odds of this happening. I have one friend who can't host 5v5s because it crashes out every 2-3 games, where as others can host without problem but still suffer from random crashes and abort codes.
I've also observed on atleast 3 occasions where a match just hangs at the screen, and as it turns out, someone had an abort code and as soon as they accepted it, they d/ced from the match and the rest continued. I've only known it to be related to the abort code for 3 occasions because on those 3, it was someone on my friendslist who had the abort box pop up.
It's just hard to immagine a common factor for all the scenarios that cause a crash or lockup. My old machine was completely different from this one, barring one thing, a Windows OS. I ran XP on the old one, and Vista on the new, but both are comrised of completely different hardware and no similar software except for Pidgin and Firefox (so far). No drivers are the same, completely different chipsets and vid cards (ati from nvidia), etc. It's hard to immagine that as many people are having this problem have any more similar a setup to mine, than I did to my old computer.
You know a lot more about it than I do, not disputing that or trying to challenge you. It's just, as I'm sure you know, the marketing and development teams and their PRs have become so ready to deny any potential faults or problems and try to shuck responsibility. And they often try to pass that onto the consumers, blaming configurations, or certain incompatabilities, or whatever else. And its probably true a lot of the time, just like it may be here. But what kinda machines are you (the development community in general) testing these games on? I mean my new system is a pretty typical setup, one you would ecpect to be at the forefront of upper mid ranged gaming systems. I really am curious to know what type and how many machines are tested on in the QA time of a PC game. I've always wanted the chance to ask a developer what he/she considered the typical setup to be, just because so many games are so bug ridden, and a lot of them fall back on those compatability issues. It's a natural process of the development cycle, I understand that. And I know its harder to account for that on PCs than the other media forms since they are a static system of the same components.
My two pcs are so different in hardware/software setup that its just hard to fathom that one incompatability bug is able to cause this kind of stability issues. I'm also curious to know if your statement about most people not crashing is an assumption or fact based off of data (And if its data, hopefuly not just the small bank of test computers that apparantly don't crash for ya'll or GPG). I talk about this in the game lobbies quite often, and I've never had anyone, anyone at all, say that they don't crash or don't have issues with the game.
Anyway if ya'll open a thread or something asking people to post dxdiag, info, and 'what was going on stories' or such about systems, but only systems that are crashing, would that help you (GPG) pinpoint the problem?
Oh, also, several people I used to play with were more stable, as in rarely crashing, but the last patch made them start having a lot of crashes, especially when trying to host. Just a little more info from what I've experienced, incase it intrigues or gives any insight (doubtful, and I know you've heard elswhere most likely, but it does add more to the specific configuration bug to think about).
Stats funnily enough come out way ahead for me as well. Followed a close second by getting a definitive answer on the TB fire, autofire bug/feature.
Clan and modding support are way down the list for me as I firmly believe, that unless it is done very well, it will ditract from the general experience.
If you're playing against the same people, as in your friends, it won't matter what machine you play on you're still going to see the crashes if the person causing the crashes isn't you. I have experienced no crashes myself, however I have crashed to the Desktop once. Doesn't make sense? The host of the game crashed, and this 'paid it forward' and crashed everyone else. One person's issue literally appeared 5 times bigger because we all thought we had something wrong - turns out it was only one of us.
fuck man lol, everything you write is tl;dr, try spacing it out atleast before you go and post 300 words of opinionated blah blah for us to read.
This coming from someone who's only relationship with punctuation lies in staring at it longingly from across a crowded room.
Quoting Tsumerius, reply 22 I don't think Randomizing teams would really impact the problem of premade vs random pugs. The fact is, I want to play this game with my friends, and I'm sure a lot of others do to. Some want to farm randoms for stats, some just want to play.I see how the line of thought would be that a host can randomize teams to keep several people from joining the game and stacking one side with friends. But, the issue with that is that most people who are on 'premades' (That just means they play with friends apparantly) hose their own games. And since their whole objective is to play with their friends, they arn't going to use that randomize button. If they wanted to, they could divide up on the teams already. So I don't really see this option as having any true effect on the issue.Some alternatives to consider, that might also be easier (or harder) fixes:A clone of the current lobby code, creating a new lobby for Ranked games, creating 3 divisions. Pantheon, Ranked, Custom (unranked/stats unaffliated with Ranked/pantheon) An option in 'Game Options' to make games unranked. This would allow 'randoms' or 'pugs' to only join games which don't hurt their stats. I would have no problem doing that if it meant me and my friends could play games. It would also add some great functionality, practicing for clans or hardcore buddies, etc. Its prob the best substitute for a whole new lobby or clan support (including its on lobby).
I'd like to see this implemented. I want to have the option of playing games that don’t “count”. I’m one of those who plays with friends almost exclusively. My reasons for doing so are twofold: 1 - In all community oriented games, I like playing with my friends more than playing with people I don’t know. We get the same jokes and can talk about “That one game where….” ( This can be done in the game lobby and during game independent of whose team I’m on. Random teams are fine. ) 2 - I don’t mind losing because the opposing team plays really well. I do mind losing because someone on my team plays poorly. ( 90% of the time, randoms play more poorly than my friends. Random teams are not fine. ) Additionally, there are other considerations to make this idea worthwhile. I’d love to be able to try out wacky builds, or help out those new to the game by showing them the ropes. I’m not going to do this in a ranked match unless I’m darn sure ahead of time I’m going to win. I’m a competitive person when ranking is involved. If the match doesn’t count, I’m much more laid back. As to the topic of priorities, I think mods need to take a back seat to incorporating the things that other games in the genre already do… Team auto matching, stats that work, removing exploits (DGs seem balanced very well otherwise), and friend/buddy communication. Why these items, not counting the issue of exploits, weren’t in at release is a mystery to me as they seem to be near universally present in other games. I feel DG needs to play catch up before it starts innovating new features like modding, bonus maps, bonus DGs, etc. -- Tukulis
I'd like to see this implemented. I want to have the option of playing games that don’t “count”. I’m one of those who plays with friends almost exclusively. My reasons for doing so are twofold:
1 - In all community oriented games, I like playing with my friends more than playing with people I don’t know. We get the same jokes and can talk about “That one game where….” ( This can be done in the game lobby and during game independent of whose team I’m on. Random teams are fine. )
2 - I don’t mind losing because the opposing team plays really well. I do mind losing because someone on my team plays poorly. ( 90% of the time, randoms play more poorly than my friends. Random teams are not fine. )
Additionally, there are other considerations to make this idea worthwhile. I’d love to be able to try out wacky builds, or help out those new to the game by showing them the ropes. I’m not going to do this in a ranked match unless I’m darn sure ahead of time I’m going to win. I’m a competitive person when ranking is involved. If the match doesn’t count, I’m much more laid back.
As to the topic of priorities, I think mods need to take a back seat to incorporating the things that other games in the genre already do… Team auto matching, stats that work, removing exploits (DGs seem balanced very well otherwise), and friend/buddy communication. Why these items, not counting the issue of exploits, weren’t in at release is a mystery to me as they seem to be near universally present in other games.
I feel DG needs to play catch up before it starts innovating new features like modding, bonus maps, bonus DGs, etc.
-- Tukulis
ppl is not alone in the world
i never play alone its not fun
AT LEAST i play with one friend and i want to be in team with him
Your first point is NOT an issue. Oh add the feature if you want, but not on some pretense that there is an issue with premades.
Your solution to that problem lies in problem #4. Correct stat tracking, more robust stat tracking, and a proper ladder system that ranks people depending on the ranks of the other individuals they won or lost against, not just based on wins and losses. And create an easy to see, in game lobby mechanic to see the relative "skill" of opponents so that people can decide if they want to play against perceptually better people.
Seriously, just color code people relative to the user (ie, a much higher ranked player is red, much lower is grey, even rank is yellow, etc). Address the issue (that is, lack of information present for people to decide if the game is likely to be too challenging for their tastes) - do not create a work around.
It could be very likely that a crash could cause other crashes. But that still seems to imply a chain of issues. The original bug/whatever that causes the original crash, and then to the issue with netcode that would pass it on to others. But its not "one person's issue" when it affects everyone connected to that person (as you say). That means it really is a big issue, that affects multiple players even if it originates with only one of them.
+1 for alt tab issues
and +20 for pathing and bugs. like auto attack issues.
Could we just make special abilities a stack, and direct abilities refresh it? So if you give someone an attack command, and then tell them to fireball, they push the fireball on the stack, then pop it after it is cast, and go back to attacking.
Then if you give a direct command, like 'move over there' it whipes the stack and puts that as the new default behavior.
Would make the game a lot easier to control. Just a quick thought.
How about 100% modding, since GPG isn't going to support this game post-launch. Just throw the game to the community if you're only going to care about making SupCom 2.
As much as I want mod support very much, remember that we're not so much talking about clans here but just groups of friends. For example, I tend to play Demigod with at least one or two other friends and I play the game often with them. That is more what the premade issue is about at the moment than clans.
As for modding supporting premade fixes and etc, while that can eventually happen, it really is something that GPG/Stardock need to nail as otherwise the process of having modders fix it will lead to a rather split community until some kind of uniform implementation is put forth. Plus, focusing on the current pressing issues will probably get those resolved faster rather than working on modding which I'd presume (unless GPG did a very, very nice job of coding this game) will take longer to implement than most of the aforementioned fixes and of course you have to factor in modders' own dev times and the amount of time it takes the community to accept those changes.
The only problem I see with random placement on teams after game start is griefing and rage quits.
If a player from a premade doesn't get on the same team as their buddies they may feed their friends on the other team or simply end game and start a new one until they get on the same team.
Pantheon or skirmish already does the random placement to some extent but still has it's issues.
I know I am
Anyway, I rarely crash in game. It is a ALT-TAB issue that I solve with playing in a "window" which is mildly annoying. Any-who, The Torch Bearer Fire Auto Attack bug? Is it really a bug? Do u not want Fire TBs to run and shoot? Whats the deal? Its very easy to find posts in the forums about it. Why doesn't anyone say anything ? I will continue to kill kittens till this is discussed....
ETA on the newpatch?
I know you are dooing your best and are stressed but I would really like to know when we can expect it
But that will be an OPTION. Premades won't turn that option on... it's no sense doing this in premade/friends game. I hope there will be some new column in main lobby (games list) to see who have this option on/off before go into specific lobby.
Also fix the trying to run away and the dg keeps turning back around to smack a creep or dg.
And stats...
Fix the darn bugs before going to implement new features....
Sorry for the edit forgot 1 last one achievements at least every dg has several achievements that don't complete or complete when you haven't done anything toward that achievement. This has been broken since release. Achievements are broken in multiplayer and single player. This should be fairly simple to have this system working as designed. As far as I am aware they are just counters....
Is it possible to implement a windowed mode or something so we can minimize the window or something, instead of alt-tabbing out?
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