VanillaGaming

WELL, I was unsure at first but I was told to post some of my ideas here, SO.

Now, I know the entire point of Vanilla Gaming is to have default settings on the servers, but any chance we can go from Vanilla to Vanilla Swirl? Vanilla Swirl is just a little term I made up, basically meaning a few options changed on the server to make the settings better than they are. My idea is this:

• No Crits (As well as no CTF crit boost)
• No Random Damage (Not necessary or as important as the other bullet points)
• Class Limits: 3 of each (Except Sniper and Spy, which is two of those since people complain about having tons of those anyway)
• Vote Kick (For when admins aren’t on and we need to get rid of some hackers or griefers before they make people rage out of the server and ruin the whole game)

I also want to suggest changing the server to having a rotation, so we’re not stuck playing Dustbowl, Goldrush, Badwater, and sometimes Granary 24/7. A rotation list I thought up of was this (Feel free to change around if you wish):

• koth_nucleus
• cp_dustbowl
• pl_goldrush
• ctf_turbine
• cp_badlands
• cp_gravelpit
• tc_hydro
• koth_viaduct
• pl_badwater
• cp_granary
• ctf_well
• cp_steel
• koth_sawmill
• cp_yukon
• cp_well

And now, for the long list of reasons for these suggestions. The argument for (random) crits is pretty basic, nobody enjoys being hit from halfway across the map by Heavy crits and dying instantly. People also don’t like jumping around the corner and having a crit rocket kill them and three of their teammates. Sure, it may seem great on your side, but if I had a choice of giving up my crits in exchange that I don’t get hit by any in return, I’m willing to make that deal. I don’t think a person needs random crits anyway, they should be able to play the game fine without them.

And nobody can make a rebuttal saying “they balance the game”. Random crits and balance do not go hand-in-hand with one another. A bad player is having a tough time, you say? Needs a crit to help him out? Want to know how we can balance that situation out? Not with crits, but just by the player getting better. The idea of giving a bad player a crutch because he’s bad just so he doesn’t have to deal with playing against people who are good is ludicrous. It would be like in a football game where someone is tackling another person too much and is just a really good player, in order to balance that out, the referee gives an opposing teammate a boxing glove so he can knock him out.

And etc, etc, etc, crits arguments. Server 2 was the first server I played on for VG and I personally loved the nocrits. They were much more relaxing than when I turned a corner and got hit in the face by a crit revolver shot (That was not an Ambassador headshot). Random damage is just a bonus thing that some servers have that would be a nice touch, if we were to have nocrits.

Now for class limits. Today, I even saw some of the regulars dicking around and having seven snipers or tons of battle Medics and I really disapprove of this type of attitude. I think we should be encouraging people to join the server because it has good games with fun people, and fun as in they’re funny and fun to play with. Not fun as in “lets grief the enemy team ha ha ha THIS IS SO MUCH FUNNIER THAN THE TIME THEY DID THIS ON YOUTUBE”. Since this is the community’s only server, it’s very annoying how I want to play the game and I can’t because half my team is being a bunch of idiots and spamming a utility class and causing us to lose three rounds in 5 minutes. In-game, I don’t see a reason to have three or more of each class for any reason. Heck, I, myself, don’t see a reason to ever have more than two, or sometimes one, of a class, but that’s just me. I mean, nobody wants to play against 6 Pyros or Demomen, right?

What’s that? We should just counter their spam with a spam class of our own? Why should we do that when we could have just avoided the whole situation by having limits? It’s one thing if the team needs a Medic or Engineer, then all you need is one or two people to man up and say “I’LL GO AS THIS CLASS”. It’s another thing when the entire enemy team is spamming Heavy, and now we need 7+ people to give up a class they want to play in exchange to counter the enemy team with spamming Snipers and Spies or something. That’s not a fun or memorable game and those are reasons why I leave servers.

Finally, vote kicking. Hackers and griefers seem to adore the VG server (maybe it’s because it’s not on pure 2? I don’t know, but don’t change that! I love my fancy skins that make my game look purdy!). I’ve seen a bunch of instances, such as a few speedhackers on Harvest, Engineer griefers on Gravel Pit, and a Pyro using the airblast glitch/exploit/whatever it is on Gold Rush. There have even been times when an admin was on the server and they did nothing about it until much later. However, “much later”, the hacker/griefer stops or leaves the server and our previous game was already ruined. VoteKick would be nice so we could put a stop to things like that ASAP. That, or having more admins, or more admins and VoteKick.

As for the rotation idea, I figure it might be worth a shot. I like rotation a bit better because I’m typically guarenteed to play Turbine or Badlands or something at some point during the day, however, whenever I join the VG server, it seems to be stuck on a loop of Gold Rush, Dustbowl, Badwater, and one last map that’s different each day (Badlands, Granary, and Gravel Pit are the top three maps played in that slot). I mean, since the server is frequented 85% by pubbers, it’s natural that they pick the popular maps, like Badwater and Dustbowl. However, it would still be great if we could play a map other than that during the day. The list I made isn’t perfect. It might be better to have a couple of maps removed so the list isn’t too long, and maybe have a majority’s vote on the forum to see what maps should be taken off (Like Hydro or something). The only thing I’m certain of is that we should avoid these four maps at all costs:
Hoodoo • Egypt • Junction • Pipeline
And maybe avoid putting Arena in there, maybe. I mean, I like Arena, but I know most people hate it, sooooo!

BUT YEAH, those are my ideas. Too long, didn’t read people, just read the bullet points at the top.

I don’t normally respond to these things as Farmer beats me too it, but since I saw this first I’ll toss my opinion into the mix :) I should warn in advance, I’m shooting a lot of this down (with a crit rocket I might add), but these are just my feelings on it all.

I’ll never understand the hate toward crits. Everybody has the chance to get a crit. Sure it’s horrible if you get killed across the map by a spam crit rocket or something, but there’s nothing to say you won’t do the same thing when you respawn (that’s right, you’ll only be dead for what, 15 seconds or so at most). In a game of arena then yes, the crits can be pretty horrible but otherwise they don’t really spoil things.

As for it being a crutch, I don’t think you can really lean on something that’s random (or at least, governed by a degree of variable chance). You can’t walk out of spawn and say right, my team really needs a good crit near the cart, I’ll just saunter over here and fire off a couple. I find I’m often unlucky enough to fire a crit when I want to rocket jump. Never ends well that (really messy… takes a while to clean up).

Class limits are something I really can’t stand, much like the smell of cooked apples or pesky door to door salesmen (I digress)… The problem with class limits are that they look at pure numbers. X number of soldiers, Y number of spies etc. But they don’t factor in player skill. If I join your team I’m sure as hell not going to be as useful to the team as an engie when I could be knifing the crap out of them as a spy.

This game is all about fun and to me, fun means having freedom of choice to play how you want. Not having every single team shoe horned into some “satisfactory” mould. For me, the memorable matches are the ones that are different. The mass engi build on the roof in badwater, the ubered spy charging into spawn on the second level of gold rush. It’s funny, it’s a laugh. Plus, there’s nothing worse than horrible players getting the classes that can make a difference. It’s painful watching failspies run around without disguises trying to ambassador everything in the head, or a sniper missing every freakin’ shot.

There’s a hell of a lot of bad teams waiting for you to join them in this game and with class limits you’re powerless at times to even make a difference if you’re not in there right at the start. A medic on a horrible soldier is about as useful as a one legged man at an arse-kicking contest… you’re just not going to get shit done.

As for the map list… while I don’t have a lot of TF2 hours recently, I share your pain. It’s a bit boring when it stays on a few set maps, Farmer would have to confirm this, but if I remember correctly it’s been configured as such to keep as many people in as possible (since we just got a new IP), while allowing it to break out of the “popular maps” with the right vote. No doubt at some point changes might be made. But no one had better take away my hoodoo :) I like that map and it’s rare enough as it is!

Vote kicks are dicey. They had those in America’s Army and there was a huuuuuggggeeee amount of abuse there. Most people don’t give a damn and if they see something pop up on the screen with the word kick, they’re hitting the yes button even if they don’t know why a dudes getting kicked. I’ve seen kick votes several times in this game, and 3 of those times I was on the receiving end of a kick because some poor heavy didn’t like having a knife shoved into his jugular… It’s good when it’s used for the right reasons, and on our server maybe it would be, I’ll be interested to see what other people think about it.

Hum… i totally agree with Flatliner from the Crits to the vote kick.

But just to add something:
Maps are fine but you guys should think about getting rid of KOTH’s cuz in my opinion( n i am pretty sure that i am not the only one who thinks that) KOTH is the worst TF2 has to offer and also it empty’s servers really damn fast.
CTF should also b removed its too old for this.
But also keep in mind that we are going to get new maps in less than a week. ^^

Well you are new to the server so ill explain a couple things.

A few months ago we had a no crit server. It did real well for a week to two and then never filled. We asked many people of the community and the feedback was that they did not want a no crit server (thats why we had 2 servers).

A server rotation is server suicide. We have enough trouble filling it as is. It is unfortunate because I love all maps in this game. We have the vote set up for all maps and you cannot play the same map in the next three maps.

As far as class limits we are not that serious of a community. We play to fuck off and have fun with our friends.

There is an admin online or in the sever 95% of the time so if something is going on one of them can be messaged.

Some changes will be made to the server in time but I would not count on any of these changes,

While I agree with most of what Infy said and would love to see these changes implemented, I can see where Farmer’s coming from regarding traffic. If no crits in fact did decrease traffic, and that is the most important factor in a server’s success, then I understand Farmer’s point and agree with him.

I don’t know if it was the nocrits. I played on that server months before I ever started frequenting VG. Based on what I’ve learned, it might have been more of a “It’s hard for us to keep two servers filled” rather than “This server is not being filled because it’s nocrit”. If VG2 was an exact copy of VG1, the same thing probably would have happened.

Server 2 was no crits. People who wanted no crits promised to fill it and never did.

We are keeping crits end of story.

Can we atleast get revote back though? I mean if it’s a bit of a hassle then go ahead and leave it off, but it’s kind of annoying going to switch weapons or classes right as the vote pops up :))

I am not sure how to with the new mod we are using. I will have to check it out.

Not sure if my input is really desired, but just my two cents’ worth:

VG is not and does not aspire to be a pro team. It’s not a place to go to have super serious TF2. It’s a place for people to relax and have fun. There are times when you hit tab at the start of a round and you know the teams are stacked (or at least that happens to me). It’s frustrating, but it’s going to happen. When it’s really bad you have no choice but to die quickly or rtv, but when it’s a little before that, it’s nice to know you’ll still get a few kills in there because you won a few dice rolls. Yeah, crit rockets, but also damage spread can overcome a slight disadvantage sometimes. There’s a reason it’s in there.

So you say it’s better just to “get better,” but the only way to get better is to play a ton. And the people who are better than you are already playing a lot, so you have to play even more. And maybe you don’t have time for that. So those people just, what, don’t get to play? I think it’s nice to have little differences in skill smoothed out a bit by randomness for the sake of inclusion.

rodya said:

Well put rodya. I agree.