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Solve the "full server" problem

Discussion in 'Suggestions & Ideas' started by LeButch, Apr 16, 2018.

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Mods: Rainbows
  1. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    When you look in the serverlist, most (good ping/in your region) servers are empty exept one capture the flag server that is full. What if half of the players on a full server will be moved to an other public server of the same gamemode if one is avaible?
    The players get chosen by the following criterias:
    - Clantag: Eigher all of the same tag get moved, or none of them
    - KDR: To keep ballance, the sum of the KDRs of the moved players should be nearly the same for every team.
    - Ping: People with higher pings get moved more likely, that motivates them to play more on servers in their region, but does not forbit them to play on other ones

    Why should new players in the game keep playing this game when they oftenly got no server to play on because they are eigher empty or totally full. And please think out of the perspective from "normal" players who can't connect to full servers.

    Sorry for my bad English, but I think you understand what I mean.
     
  2. Monkey_Feats

    Monkey_Feats Bison Rider Tester

    Messages:
    214
    People would hate that, I would. I'm assuming you mean migrating people at the end of a match. (if you don't, that's messed up)
    The way I see it is, servers are full because servers are full. If a server empties out people tend to follow suit, they don't want to play a small game, they want a big chaotic game.
    What we need is better bot's to populate servers to make it look busy ;)
    Funny name for a thread in KAG's current state XD
     
  3. Vamist

    Vamist THD Team THD Team Tester

    Messages:
    544
    What would be nice to see, is if a server crashes, push people to the next server. An example could be Offical CTF EU No.1 has 20 players on it, and the server suddenly crashes, it should move all the players to No.2. That and give server owners control of what server they should push people to go to if it does crash.
     
    Biurza likes this.
  4. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    Server flow is just a weird problem in general. Like you said, 20 players would really be better off in two 5v5 games. But then, when a game ends, a few people will leave, and then a server has just 7 or 8 people. People don't want to play 3v4 games so they go to another server or just leave. A full 20 player server keeps its momentum a lot better, because even if a sizeable fraction of the server bails after a game there are still enough players for a good match. This is why servers with at least 20 slots are always active while smaller servers die off.

    Also, because of the momentum thing (most people would rather just join the most active server for instant gratification instead of joining an empty server and waiting to get enough players) you might have noticed that official CTF EU stays alive even when most Europeans have gone to bed, because Americans join whatever server is active, and then you have a European server full of Americans.

    This is gonna be hard to fix, and your proposal doesn't sound like a small task to implement, not that I know that for sure.
     
  5. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    That's why I mean you should choose the people to move by the ping. People from other regions may be moved to a server in their region. That would fix two problems at once.
     
  6. EhRa

    EhRa Ooooooof Staff Alumni Donator
    1. KRPG

    Messages:
    810
    I think if the playerbase was much larger (something like 100-200 on at all times) then moving players around would be fine. But as the playerbase is very small (only a few full servers at the max), then I think this should not be implemented.
    What would be cool if you could have something similar to discord, where you can type channel names as #ontopic for example. Doing something similar in game could link the server, clickable, and allows the player to join that server. Could be good if people want to migrate to a new server, making the process more efficient. It could also help newer players if they knew how/where a population went if they devided to move.
     
    Magmus likes this.
  7. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    Specially because we have not enough players here we should move people around when necessary. Noone wants to join an empty server, so just take people from servers where noone can join and put them on empty servers.
     
  8. EhRa

    EhRa Ooooooof Staff Alumni Donator
    1. KRPG

    Messages:
    810
    Because we have so little players is the reason why we shouldn't be moving them. With that logic you are pretty much saying "You aren't allowed to play with your friends because one or two other people want to join the full server."

    Having full servers is on now way a bad things. Just wait for a spot to open and then you are in. What would be the best would be some kind of queue system, similar to battlefield 1.
     
    Magmus, bunnie and Pineapple like this.
  9. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    That's why I said if you have the same clan tag eigher all of you or noone of you should be moved. Look at this image and tell me that this is what you want to see if you open server browser!
    --- Double Post Merged, Apr 26, 2018, Original Post Date: Apr 26, 2018 ---
    Maybe the server you get moved on could have copied the map of the old one that you can continue playing the game.
     

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  10. Nogla

    Nogla Arsonist Official Server Admin

    Messages:
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    Just join an empty server and wait a few minutes, someone will join like 75% of the time.
     
  11. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

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    13
    I will not. I don't want to wait on empty servers and I am defently not the only one.
     
  12. Nogla

    Nogla Arsonist Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    18
    Then why complain if you aren't gonna bother with a solution.
     
  13. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    He's bothering to suggest a solution that doesn't involve some poor soul sitting around in an empty or near empty server struggling to seed it and wasting their time. Seeding is really not as easy as you make it sound. Sometimes you just can't seem to get more than like four people and then you realize you've been trying to get a game going for like half an hour or longer.
     
    Orso and LeButch like this.
  14. Nogla

    Nogla Arsonist Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    18
    I forget some people don't have time to sit around on a server for half an hour like i do ;-;
     
  15. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    Correct. Here I quote my solution which I think is the best way to solve this problem:
    - The map on the full server gets copied to an empty one
    - Half of the players (5 of each team) get moved to this server chosen by the following rules:
    -> People of the same clan tag get moved together
    -> The sum of the KDRs of all players from one team that get moved minus the sum of KDRs from the players getting moved from the other team should equal zero if possible (KDRs should not differ too much to make it fair)
    -> All stay in the same teams as they were before
    - This can not happen while a flag is stolen or up to 30 seconds after a flag is back in base

    Tell me what still speaks against this system and I tell you a solution!
     
  16. Magmus

    Magmus Ballista Bolt Thrower Mapping Moderator Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    50
    I don't think players would like to be moved from a full server to a 5x5 match, the point on joining a full server is to play with good amount of players, not just a bit on each side, most of the players will leave and join the original server, and if you block them from going back most of them will quit because they got "kicked for no reason from a full match"
    Its better to play on a full server than a 5x5 match, its more intense, more things to do, more fun.

    What would happen if you join a new-split server, watch it get full, you could get moved to a new 5x5 server. Them what if people leave because half of them don't want a 5x5 match and the other half dont want a 2x2 match because everyone else left.

    If the server is full you can always wait on tdm for like 5~10 ( maybe 20 on the worst case ) minutes when the match is over and join, as every time the game is over at least 2 players quit after a match. If the match starts taking too long to finish, people will leave in the mid and you can join.

    This system on my opinion will provide slots for everyone to play, but on empty servers, that no one wants.

    If you don't want to wait for a slot, just quit the game and do something else. Its easier than ruining the other 20 players fun.
     
  17. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    Yeah, that's what people do. This is part of why the player count is always so damn low. That's literally the problem he's talking about. Ideally, you would be able to play kag whenever you feel the whim. Instead, every time I think "I feel like playing KAG," what happens is I open the server list, see if there's a nice US CTF server active, if not, determine if I want to settle for a crappier server or sit around in an empty server for a while to maybe start a game, and if not, get disappointed and leave. This turns me away from KAG semi-frequently, and I'm an admin so it doesn't even matter to me if a server is full.

    You may not like his solution, because it's honestly got issues, but I'd rather people try to come up with a better solution rather than pretend there's not a problem.

    One thing people can do is watch the server list like a hawk (perhaps through this awesome chrome extension) even when not "in the mood" to play kag and join a low player count server when possible to get more games going. Like some kind of videogame volunteer.

    Edit: Also IMO 5v5 is the ideal size. Any smaller than that is kind of iffy, but a 20 person game is less fun for me.
     
  18. epsilon

    epsilon Assonist THD Team Forum Moderator Donator Tester
    1. Gather Oceania
    2. KAG World Cup 2018

    Messages:
    506
    Thanks for giving my extension a shoutout @Potatobird! I think our best bet would be a queue system but ofc that would take some time to make which the devs may not have. @LeButch youre trying to over complicate the solution. We don’t need to always allow players to play, instead we need to make it easier for players to play when servers are full without giving priority to people who spam refresh on the server list. Your best bet would be to pay a modder to make a prototype of your solution (if this stuff is even possible through modding). ::):
     
    Potatobird and Cruxiat like this.
  19. LeButch

    LeButch Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    13
    I have no idea of game developement. I am just curious about getting new people stick to the game when there are no good servers avaible to play on. What picture do we show people when they have just finished the really long but necessary tutorial and can not play online now. Maybe you like to play on full servers, but I think there are more people liking to play 5v5 more. In my opinion, you should start a vote about that. Ask the people if they like to play 10v10 more than 5v5.
    There must be a long-term solution for this if we want this community to grow. For a long time now, more and more bugs appered with no major changes in the game. It hast just stopped developing. I like the gameplay how it is right now, but there are major problems to be solved like this one here. So please solve it. Maybe you have a better idea than this system?
     
  20. epsilon

    epsilon Assonist THD Team Forum Moderator Donator Tester
    1. Gather Oceania
    2. KAG World Cup 2018

    Messages:
    506
    @LeButch have you thought about your solution from your own point of view? Imagine playing a fun 10v10 CTF match but then you're suddenly switched to another server for no apparent reason. Most people, most likely including you, would get annoyed, lose interest and leave to join the server you were previously on or just quit. I think we can safely say your solution will definitely not work and will do the opposite of what you want to achieve.

    I remember seeing another thread or two on the same idea which concluded that a queue system would be best. However, these threads died off since no one attempted to put their ideas into action. I'm not saying suggestions are pointless but there have been other threads (like this or this) which have made a prototype or drawn illustrations of how it would work. These ideas generally quickly made it into the game because of these prototypes.

    Since it would be pointless of me to insist that the queue system is one and only solution, I put some thought into other seemingly easier solutions:
    - A message could be posted in chat when a player tries to join a full server. This could alert players or admins that other people want to play and prompt someone to start vote kicks on any AFK people.
    - A message could be displayed when you try to join a full server which suggests other populated servers of the same game mode instead of just "Full server". This is similar to what 'Simple Join' does but no one ever uses that. ::D:
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2018
Mods: Rainbows