SVS 2003 settings this reset + more

[hallucination]

[size="2"][size="2"][size="2"]

The SVS weekend event/test run brought up many interesting factors, including:[/size][/size]



Lower bty start and less than perfect ships encouraged team play via team greening.

Larger freqsizes encouraged more team play and swarming.

Fewer greens meant people fought over those available.



Anything that emphasizes team play in Chaos is good.



The settings changes we made to SVS while I ran the zone in the early 2000s did not affect game play in a huge way. Chaos-bot was created to try and deal with the occasional low population scenarios of too few greens, and too many people on a single freq chasing out all the other people.



Here are the other changes to SVS CD settings [and my assessment of the play impact]:

--wb rot at 290 to match league [almost negligible]

--all ships at 18 thrust (to match league) except wb (19) and jav (17) [minor but good releveling of ship strength]

--burst dmg at 350 instead of the insane 515 (appeared that only one person noticed that the bursts were super powerful with the SVS settings) [affected tunnel rats most]

--bullets -- exact damage + 212 dmg at lvl3 bullets (matching league) -- (some ppl noticed this) [major change, but one that is critical to allow league players meaningful practice in Chaos]

--lower % of 'luck' greens: super, warp, engine shutdown [the greens we had consistent, major complaints about]

--repel speed and time to match league (4200 v 5000; 295 v 225) [minor but does affect things, again to allow league players prac]

--rocket speed to match league (4500 v 5000) [intermediate effect, again to allow league players to prac][/size]

[size="2"]--single rabbit flag w/upgrades



Things retained from 2011 settings:

--the shark -- the SVS shark was designed by marketing people (not Jeff/Rod) and not user tested *at all*. It killed the spider. If the spider needs to be stronger, let's address that rather than replacing it.



Greens & Freqsizes:

Even though Chaos-Bot was extremely successful at raising the population when first deployed in 1999, it was designed for a higher overall population. My observations over the weekend have lead me to slightly rethink the speed with which larger freqs appear and the green distribution pattern. I've run some tests on some revised settings for Chaos-Bot to change the freqsizes and green settings (in fact, with a new algorithm to calc some of the settings), and will deploy them for this Reset and continue to observe how they play out in the all the extremely variable circumstances possible in the zone. Please give feedback (e.g. "too few greens w/6 ppl playing"; "greens too tightly spaced around the center w/8 ppl"; "I came in and there was a 4 person freq turreting and chasing everyone out"; etc.)



Bonuses:

I agree with many people here (the 'no bonus' sentiment) -- I do not like bonuses that materially affect game play -- i.e. buying toys in the middle of fighting. Expect to see this continue to be changed or eliminated in the future. For this Reset, we'll go ahead with the previously announced trial of the new bonus prices, and the restriction to only redeem bonuses when in safe.[/size]

[size="2"][url="http://forums.ssgn.net/topic/25652-prospective-changes-to-the-bonus-system/page__view__findpost__p__274386"]http://forums.ssgn.n...post__p__274386[/url][/size]



[size="2"]Please keep in mind that nothing here, or in life, is permanent. Constructive feedback welcome.[/size]



[size="2"]--hallu[/size]



[size="2"]Edit: good suggestion from Nightwasp to rename FullShip bonus to FullStatus[/size]

[Jenn_B]

The greens are terrible, Hallu! I was gonna play some after work but there was only 10 greens right in the center.. I am all for SVS but it was impossible to green my 30 bounty with KyoMan_ over 100 terrier bulleting me.. <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> I quit after only 5 minutes <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Nude For Satan]

I would like to see green proliferation increase as population decreases. With less ships around you don't have the sizeable freq helping you green up by either greening or protecting you as you are greening. This is pretty much what Samgunn suggested after the 1998 weekend and I do think he is on a winner with the idea.

[hallucination]

[quote name='Nude For Satan' timestamp='1303364670' post='274806']

I would like to see green proliferation increase as population decreases. [/quote]

Just to be clear, this is exactly what Chaos-Bot has been doing since 1999 to counteract problematic low population scenarios with SVS settings. It's a question of degree, not a question of something new. The fact is that there are many MORE greens at low population levels than with SVS CD settings...



[quote name='Jenn_B']

...it was impossible to green my 30 bounty with KyoMan_ over 100 terrier bulleting me..[/quote]

[quote name='Nude For Satan' timestamp='1303364670' post='274806']

With less ships around you don't have the sizeable freq helping you green up by either greening or protecting you as you are greening.

[/quote]

Thanks to both of you for the feedback -- and to others that have been giving constructive feedback in the zone. I consider these settings to be in a test mode, so let's have fun working them out. I was able to green up a full ship in about 1 minute with 1-2 people in. Escaping Kyo to do so is another matter -- yikes!



Yes I agree that at very low populations greening could be easier. The original Chaos zone game design was never for those low numbers of people -- 2 people is a duel and needs to start on a more even footing to avoid the scenario Jenn experienced -- but Chaos is not a duel arena. On the other side there are abuse scenarios if greening is too easy.



Also, please keep in mind that if you choose to go to a solo freq when there are several people playing, you will lose the key advantage of team greening. These settings are really about encouraging more team play. You have the option of going solo, but you'll have to green for a while when you die -- that's the same as it always was in SVS.



I think I need to add start bty as a variable to the population settings for Chaos-Bot -- keep greens low-ish, but in very low populations, give people a head start. E.g. start with 75 bty up to 3 people; 50 start for up to 6 people; then to 30 bty after that. This will of course require testing and may not work as desired and a different course of action will be needed.



--hallu

[Caerbannog]

Oh, quite leagueish. I'll let the league people know their ships are about the same in pub now.



Wb should be pretty much a carbon copy sans item costs and multi bullet cost. And of course items max amounts.



The other ships will rotate slower if they're 230 vs. league's base 270? or so. But that'll just make the players feel super nimble when they get to league, woohoo <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[hallucination]

I've upgraded Chaos-Bot to also adjust start bty and attach bty along with freqsize and other green settings. Probably on the generous side now, but we'll see via actual usage.



Bot will announce settings as it changes them. Feedback plz.



Reminder: if you have a slow ship as a neg, don't forget about afterburners!



Wb is identical to league. Yes most ships still have SVS CD 230 rotation, but everything else matches league. I've actually meant to try the 260 base rot as I don't think it would affect things very much, and then league players could prac with the exact same ship specs. As I said though X and AW costs are higher, and will remain so -- I think it brings diversity into play and forces the player to make more strategic decisions (i.e. leaving X and/or AW on all the time is not a strategy)



--hallu

[Ethylene!]

[quote name='hallucination' timestamp='1303401292' post='274817']

I've upgraded Chaos-Bot to also adjust start bty and attach bty along with freqsize and other green settings. Probably on the generous side now, but we'll see via actual usage.



Bot will announce settings as it changes them. Feedback plz.



Reminder: if you have a slow ship as a neg, don't forget about afterburners!



Wb is identical to league. Yes most ships still have SVS CD 230 rotation, but everything else matches league. I've actually meant to try the 260 base rot as I don't think it would affect things very much, and then league players could prac with the exact same ship specs. As I said though X and AW costs are higher, and will remain so -- I think it brings diversity into play and forces the player to make more strategic decisions (i.e. leaving X and/or AW on all the time is not a strategy)



--hallu

[/quote]



Horrific settings and you wonder why no one plays. Amazingly bad decision.



Concentrating the greens in one small area and then giving a ship with the flag a weapons upgrade is so unbalanced it's not funny. A low bounty ship has to stay in the center to get greens but there are players with high bounty and weapons upgrades there to pounce on you. If you try to get away all you do is fly into black space and have no opportunity to green your ship unless you come back into the little area with greens. I don't mind having only a few green, but they need to be spread out.



Also, the league settings suck and I really find it amazing that hallu finally bent over for the league players.I suggest you put in the 1998 SVS settings that just about everyone liked and stop trying to fiddle with things. The makers of this game knew what they were doing, and so far any sysop that has come along and tried to change things "for the better" has failed.

[Capt ARGH!]

1) greening sucks ass.



as it stands today the lack of greens and the fact that they are in the centre of the map means:



( a ) flying outside the centre has no advantage apart from escape. and is not fun.

( b ) i find myself greening more than playing to get my ship up to speed



(see next post for an improvement idea)



2) if youre going to keep this -only use bonus in safe- thing you have to make safes quicker to get to, i can't be bothered to navigate to safe just to use bonus tuneup because my ship spawns with low values. so i end up not using bonuses at all.







i suggest that you revert the bonus system or make safes easier



the ONLY problem with making safes easier to get to is it seems to annoy all the Gad haters. if you forget the likes of Gad there really is no problem with an easier safe zone here and there.

[Capt ARGH!]

ok so i had a 1 on 1 with samgun.



we were forced into this tiny square at the centre of the map because that's where the greens were. really not fun. there was no point going out of that area because the other player would just stay there and get the advantage of greens. we may as well have been in a duel box.



here's an idea for improving the greens situation, which is to me, fucking annoying as is.





ok we all know that bags and bags of greens isnt ideal and has its own issues. also the LACK of greens leads to some interesting game play, ie: aim at the green, not the opponent - he will fly into the green and you will have hit him. i love that idea and its the same kind of fun you get in quake or whatever when you aim your RPG at the health pack.



i propose a re-think of the greens and what they offer, these measures would, for me, make the game more fun:-



what we do is start off all the ships loaded

with everything maxed: max energy, recharge, thrust, speed, turn.

and all the upgrades: maxed out bouncing bullets and bombs (with prox), stealth, cloak (if youre a spider), X and anti.



and if possible WITHOUT all items. just a random few...

.. now i know this part is probably NOT possible so instead what we do is:

start with 200 bty.

= fully maxed out ships.



ok bear with me



next thing we do is take out all damage/downgrades so our ships will always have max energy etc.



we also take out all upgrading greens, eg thrust, prox, max energy etc etc, these are now redundant.



what we are left with is JUST THE GOOD STUFF, reps, bursts, full charges, etc and of course the other fun random stuff like shutdown and warp.



this means that we CAN have fewer greens and those greens will all be WORTH picking up/fighting for.





the only downside to this idea as i see it is players respawning instead of greening. so if there was a way of having a maxed out ship WITHOUT maxed out specials (reps, rockets etc etc), that would be ideal. i think you CAN do that because you had something similar when you won the flag game:



say you had a big bty like 300+ and you won the flag game, your ship would fill up with items right? well all except bricks..



couldnt we do something like that on spawn, like an automatic 'flag game win' so you would have all your items re-populated apprt from item X-Y and Z?.







if that is not possible then we would have to think of a way to reward players for not respawning. (or punish for respawning - easier to implement but no fun!)





oh and a PS low density of greens over a wide area would be more fun, then low density in a small area, for me and i suspect most others.

[hallucination]

General update:



As a preface, and in case it wasn't clear, the reason why I chose SVS 2003 settings is that they, along with Chaos-Bot enhancements, were a very successful set of small changes to SVS 1998. These changes were made because of observed problems with the SVS 1998 settings and also to strengthen Chaos' connection with League play -- both zones being the foundation of SVS play, it is important to have a similarity of settings so that players may learn in Chaos and advance to League, but also so that League players can easily come to Chaos to practice their skills or try new things. Also, it appears that some people have the misconception that settings haven't been changing since the inception of the game. Lastly, I am committed to keeping Chaos true to it's roots which included a significant luck factor, but I am also for trying things out in an experimental fashion, observing the result, and making changes based on actual data -- hence the Chaos-Bot change yesterday to try and alleviate some of the low pop scenario problems -- I would be very surprised to not see more tweaks and refinements to the current settings and Chaos-Bot behavior.



[quote name='Capt ARGH!' timestamp='1303472162' post='274834']i suggest that you revert the bonus system or make safes easier

[/quote]

I was wondering when someone would bring up the 'safes are now too hard to get to for something as simple as a FullStatus bonus' <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



I was thinking of differentiating bonuses so that non-toy ones are usable any time. The non-toy list would be:

FullStatus, antiwarp, xradar, and tuneup (does anybody really use this?). Being able to grab a burst or other toy out of thin air while under attack is not a good idea.



[quote name='Capt ARGH!' timestamp='1303474338' post='274835']

ok so i had a 1 on 1 with samgun.

[/quote]

This has been proposed and talked about before. My biggest problem with it is that this would no longer be "Chaos" but DZA... FullStatus bonus is what you're asking for basically.

There are big problems for Chaos game design with very low populations (1-3 ppl) - there is no way around the fact that it IS a duel -- a two way or three way.



Please note that Chaos-Bot is now affecting start bty -- you start with 75 or 65 bty in these situations -- that's a LOT and you should have a pretty strong ship. If not, you can 1) roll the dice again by recycling to another ship 2) green some 3) use FullStatus to get a full ship.



Green amounts and distribution I expect to change -- thx for your feedback. In general, what I'd like as a format is: greens too many/not enough @ # of players; or greens too tight/too spread out @ # of players.



Several players have mentioned the flag with upgrades as being problematic at very low pops. I agree -- it's too big an advantage at those very low pops. FYI it was included now because it was a part of SVS 2003. There are several possible solutions for this, but I might just remove it for now.



--hallu

[Capt ARGH!]

1) im asking for fullstatus + no downgrades + the removal of redundant greens + a low density of greens covering most of the area of the map.



= much more fun. its pretty obvious to me and something we should try out. what harm can it do.





2) there is no way around the fact that it IS a duel true but i'd rather not be forced into a tiny square, which is what is happening right now, a total yawn-fest.



3) Please note that Chaos-Bot is now affecting start bty -- you start with 75 or 65 bty in these situations -- that's a LOT and you should have a pretty strong ship. If not, you can 1) roll the dice again by recycling to another ship 2) green some 3) use FullStatus to get a full ship.



i choose 'green some' = i'm stuck in a tiny area



i choose fullstatus = i have to piss about getting to a safe.



im a player that likes to USE items. for me it's more fun that way, some players might think its more fun to collect items and never use them. i dont. so again i'm forced into a tiny greening area. i want to use the whole map. or at least more than a tiny box.

[samgunn]

Well i would like as close to svs 1998 setting as possible, but i know that is not possible.



Greens need to be more spread out, though keeping them bunched keeps all the players bunch on small pop witch makes finding someone to kill faster, though they are a little to bunched at the moment.



faster to get into safes are a must, i play most from work and when i have to do something it has to be done then, witch now means letting my ship drift, would much prefer being able to fly it into a safe and park. i know some people will complain about people running to safe but so what, chase em till they hide i say.



Samgunn

[hallucination]

I've changed bonuses so that non-toy bonuses are accessible at any time, as I mentioned above -- so use FullStatus any time to get a fully outfitted ship (without extra toys). !help bonus has the details.



Also, thanks to those that pointed out Prox was not being given with the FullStatus bonus. Via that feedback I was able to track down a long standing bug in Merv core and fix it, so FullStatus should work 100% correctly now. If not, or if you find any other anomalies, let me know. Thx.



--hallu

[samgunn]

Ok have been playing with the new setting.



Bot changing things as pop changes seams to be working nice.



But the rest of the setting are shit, game feels like the only way to get a kill is wait for someone to over shoot, apart from checking in to see if things have changed I'm not playing anymore this reset. I vote for svs 1998 with the bot changing start bounty and greens to handle low pop.



Samgunn

[PsyOps]

I vote 98 with dynamic freq/green settings.

No Bonuses.

[Ethylene!]

[quote name='PsyOps' timestamp='1303543540' post='274847']

I vote 98 with dynamic freq/green settings.

No Bonuses.

[/quote]



Seems like everyone is, and has been, saying this and I agree as well, 1998 settings with dynamic greens and no bonuses. I wonder when someone will listen?

[Nude For Satan]

Here are the other changes to SVS CD settings [and my assessment of the play impact]:

--wb rot at 290 to match league [almost negligible]

--all ships at 18 thrust (to match league) except wb (19) and jav (17) [minor but good releveling of ship strength]

--burst dmg at 350 instead of the insane 515 (appeared that only one person noticed that the bursts were super powerful with the SVS settings) [affected tunnel rats most]

--bullets -- exact damage + 212 dmg at lvl3 bullets (matching league) -- (some ppl noticed this) [major change, but one that is critical to allow league players meaningful practice in Chaos]

--lower % of 'luck' greens: super, warp, engine shutdown [the greens we had consistent, major complaints about]

--repel speed and time to match league (4200 v 5000; 295 v 225) [minor but does affect things, again to allow league players prac]

--rocket speed to match league (4500 v 5000) [intermediate effect, again to allow league players to prac]

--single rabbit flag w/upgrades



I'm gonna ask cos I'm friggin' confused: All this stuff above, are they new ideas for changes on top of 2003 settings, or are they just changes already inherent IN 2003 settings. Also how do they differ from what we have been calling "2011 settings"?

[hallucination]

[quote name='Nude For Satan' timestamp='1303622819' post='274863']

I'm gonna ask cos I'm friggin' confused: All this stuff above, are they new ideas for changes on top of 2003 settings, or are they just changes already inherent IN 2003 settings. Also how do they differ from what we have been calling "2011 settings"?

[/quote]

That was the ship changes from 1998 to 2003 (likely by 2002, and maybe by 2001). Let me make this clear: Ship settings have not changed since 2003 -- those are the same ship settings that people have been playing for almost 10 years and are playing today.



I think it illustrative that the settings have not changed and yet certain people jump to all kinds of wild conclusions about all the "terrible" changes to those settings when the fact is those settings have not changed in in close to 10 yrs.



--hallu

[Ethylene!]

[quote name='hallucination' timestamp='1303623597' post='274864']

[quote name='Nude For Satan' timestamp='1303622819' post='274863']

I'm gonna ask cos I'm friggin' confused: All this stuff above, are they new ideas for changes on top of 2003 settings, or are they just changes already inherent IN 2003 settings. Also how do they differ from what we have been calling "2011 settings"?

[/quote]

That was the ship changes from 1998 to 2003 (likely by 2002, and maybe by 2001). Let me make this clear: Ship settings have not changed since 2003 -- those are the same ship settings that people have been playing for almost 10 years and are playing today.



I think it illustrative that the settings have not changed and yet certain people jump to all kinds of wild conclusions about all the "terrible" changes to those settings when the fact is those settings have not changed in in close to 10 yrs.



--hallu

[/quote]



What about the changes made to ship settings to make them match league settings? Are those the same as 2011 settings and 2003 settings?

[Capt ARGH!]

hallu the greens are still not spread out enough for low-pop play. the minimum setting should be at least 3X what it is now IMO.