Quote from WyzDM

The prep, I believe there's too much idle time between matches.

Then terminate them.


TERMINATE



In other case, I'm okay with GH. Of course, Chaos has a slight advantage over Order here, but hey, you can turtle here. Pull a fatty here and you'll have a win served in a sliver platter.

Quote from ShadowGeneralChaos

mmhh...well, your right ^_^

I may not be though, still waiting on other players opinions. Don't understand why everyone believes this is for my voice shouting over everyone else. It's not. Unless there is enough support or reason for something it will not be done, period.

IMO, I would ban castle and Grasshills.
Ban the two extreme maps and its all good; that's what I think anyways.

on my old rts game when pros played they used the most balanced map for all the factions if you want it balanced I would suggest then only using one map ,ice ,seems to be the most balanced

Quote from funnyfingers

on my old rts game when pros played they used the most balanced map for all the factions if you want it balanced I would suggest then only using one map ,ice ,seems to be the most balanced

This is an interesting proposition. I was against this as maps right now do not have enough differences between them other than size and color, but I may be open to it if there are arguments for extremes in other maps.

I'm an Order player, and I personally have no problem on Grass Hills against chaos. I know many are frustrated with the distance, but I hope this will soon pass will better macro techniques. Anti-chaos meta really needs to become more developed in other players, not just myself.

The extreme I do recognize is castle, and shorter stages in OvO. It's pretty much archidon lives, you win. Archidon dies, you lose. It boils to very simple micro/macro that 1 flub or even luck swing on a tick before the next can decide the game. Very infuriating.

So topics I'd like considered here that are recognized to be controversial-

* pausing
* game-time
* stalling
* lag/slow game speed, ping, delay, etc
* game maps/size factors in OvC OvO and CvV
* sets and/or group size challenges.

but again when they played it was just common knowledge, it was if you didnt use these certain maps you where a noob lol there where no rules other then that if it wasn't a certain proish way it was noobish like DM for instance would be called a noobs game^^ classic in my old rts game would be considered pro, that one of the reason why I don't like dm,i think its noobish^^ but this isn't my old game^^

Quote from funnyfingers

on my old rts game when pros played they used the most balanced map for all the factions if you want it balanced I would suggest then only using one map ,ice ,seems to be the most balanced

I see. I am in favor of this suggestion.

Quote from funnyfingers

but again when they played it was just common knowledge, it was if you didnt use these certain maps you where a noob lol there where no rules other then that if it wasn't a certain proish way it was noobish like DM for instance would be called a noobs game^^ classic in my old rts game would be considered pro, that one of the reason why I don't like dm,i think its noobish^^ but this isn't my old game^^

If DM was a noob game... Then why aren't you on the top 100? Aren't you a so called pro on this game?

late to the party on this thread, so ill try to play catchup, going off wyzdm's list of topics. apologize for the length, but this stuff always intrigues me, so i want to hit each topic:

pausing - i am definitely in favor of allowing pausing. i basically feel like the details wyzdm mentioned, like how long you can pause etc, *should* not be an issue. not to suggest they aren't - but i would hope people would bring some level of maturity to these clan battles, or other clans will simply refuse to play them. anyway, some guidelines still may be needed, but i would suggest making them loose, assuming the large majority of people pause in good faith, not to abuse - until experience proves otherwise! anyway, id go with maybe 5m max pause per game, 10m per prep. going past this is a forfeit of the game/set/all sets, as appropriate. also i suppose excessive pausing would need to be restricted, maybe max of 3 times/game, 5 times/prep? obvious if people hit these limits regularly it would be ridiculous... but i think these limits are reasonable for the sake of having a limit someone can point to in the case when people abuse the system. i would envision an "extended rules" type section at the bottom where all these details 95% of people don't care about can find a home...

game time - i think 15m is probably a bit too short, i would be ok with more like 20m. deciding who won could be difficult, tower control does not imply map control, people go on the offensive and retreat to regroup all the time... so if there isn't a simple metric for who is winning, you pretty much have to call non-obvious cases a draw, which does not accomplish much. maybe a 20m draw forces the next game to be on holloween or swamp? or maybe castle is only used to settle draws? :) or maybe we just let games end in a draw if need be, and sets could still end at 3 games regardless.

- stalling - what do you mean? just extending a game that is clearly over? i think the rules are not the place to solve this. its up to veteran clan members to get their members in line. i have noticed one or two of the SoS guys never surrender, and plan to discuss with them in hopes they will at least do so in clan events - people need to respect the time of others. if its not clear to you its over and you carry it on a bit too long, thats ok, but forcing a statue kill every game is getting ridiculous, especially given the caliber of players in these events - its not complete idiots playing here. i think clan leaders can respectfully let the other side know when certain people are making a habit of stalling, and leave it to the guys on the other side to take care of it. this is still a new thing, it will take some time for the community to develop the desired sense of gamesmanship...

lag/slow speed - hopefully this is another that can be resolved by clan leadership. if you want to have a respectable clan, you bring people who are reasonably mature who dont lag badly or OOS or anything like that. i recognize the clan i am in has some problems with the lag part :) its being worked on... anyway, i suppose any time a 2:1 is in play (2 real seconds per game second) or there is excessive delay (half second or more consistently), either party should be able to cancel the match, and both players can restart SE/close windows/whatever and try again. if someone can't get to the point where they can participate without excessive technical issues, they should have to be replaced. cancelling of the match should have to occur fairly early in the game - is 2m enough? it wouldn't be fair to let people cancel at the end after they already lost... maybe 3m? i dont know.

game map/size - i think maps should be allowed or not, not broken down by matchup. there is too much subjectivity in what matchups have an advantage where, and it varies by skill level of the players. at the map level, if there is a clear case not to play it at all, i think that could justify not allowing a map (except through mutual agreement), but i don't think a map being fair sometimes and not others is a strong enough argument. i measured the size of the maps once, in terms of crawler-seconds from end to end
castle - 16s
swamp/holloween - 19s
desert - 22s
ice/forest/gates - 27s
green hills - i forget but huge, like 36s

there has been a question of desert being the same size as swamp/holloween, so i wanted to test it myself. i just want to point out those maps are, in my opinion, substantially different because the placement of walls on swamp/holloween is not really sufficient to protect the second layer of gold, while desert allows the wall to be placed past the miners on the far side of the farthest gold patches... which is a pretty big difference.

anyway, i agree with wyzdm and others about removing castle. i thought the point about the game coming down to mechanics, any misclick or small error could decide the game, was a very good one. to me, there are 3 major elements to the quality of a player's game - micro, macro, and strategy (army composition, response to enemy army composition, etc). i think the fair maps strike a reasonable balance between the 3. IMO castle is pretty clearly a micro map, and starting strategy i guess, but those have such a heavy role, with a disproportionately large number of games being decided so early. i think that unbalance is cause for exclusion, but i also thinking allowing a player to strike 2 maps is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable way to solve this problem. also, the order v chaos advantage seems unbalanced to me.

i also think GH is a little unreasonable, by very similar logic. the early game and micro definitely matters in getting the center, that is true for all maps - but games drag on forever on that map, over emphasizing the late game, it just doesn't seem balanced to me. the defensive gimmicks that can pass on GH more than anywhere else also make me not a fan for clan events, which are supposed to be the most "serious" or "professional" of all games. there also seem to be order v chaos imbalances. i personally don't see the order disadvantage that many others do - which is to be expected, i haven't gotten to play much order - but it seems to me the late game favors order while they lose the initiative advantage in the early game. to me, those reasonably offset each other - but i think a lot of people would disagree about the late game favoring order. anyway with so many people seeing order v chaos issues, regardless of what they are, i think its a decently imbalanced map. but again, striking 2 seems acceptable to me - i always strike GH and castle and probably always will.

sets/group sizes - i think 2 or 3 people per team should be the group sizes. when there are 4 or more people, i am in favor of splitting into group A and group B (and C and D, hopefully someday!) - otherwise, it just takes too long. today, it seems preps overly favor clans that are strong at the top, rather than those with a lot of quality players. i am not really a fan of this, although its hard to devise any system where this is not the case. when 5 guys show, only the top 3 affecting the outcome doesn't seem like the right way to do it, to me. a big part of the value of clan events is making clans more attractive to the user base - so these events should be as inclusive as possible.

i originally proposed (in one of the several sos/tz prep chats) having group B be just for fun, not count towards the win. this was partly to allow group B players to double as group A backups, and partly because i thought there was a more established system than there was, and didn't want to suggest too drastic of a change. anyway now that i realize everyone is in the process of figuring this all out now, i think it would be better to have group B count, too. the more we can include people other than the top few, the better! however, losing those people as group A backups would suck - maybe they can get pulled from group B after any set and don't compete their group B sets once pulled into group A? anyone have any better idea? i don't think the # of people in each group, particularly group B, should have to match. what is wrong with a 2v3? i don't see a problem.

i think most people favor going by sets to determine the outcome, not games - meaning if the team with more sets lost more games than they won, they still win. for example, in a 3v3, if one team wins 5 sets 2-1, and the other wins 4 sets 2-0, the first team's record is 10-13. does the team who won more sets, or more games, win? i am not sure either answer is clearly the way to go, but i personally feel sets are better, as a set better indicates which player is better. however, in the event of an even number of sets (as is the case in 2v2, or, if allowed, 2v3 - or even in a 3v3 where the last set cannot be completed by either side), i vote for game count to be the first tie breaker. i am personally ok with draws as the final outcome - if you guys don't want draws, i think a final set or game where winner takes all would be fine.

anyway, by whatever method a single group match is decided, you still have the complication of dealing with 2 groups, if people decide to allow that and have ample members show up. i would vote to still count all sets in the total, recognizing that group B may not play out completely if people leave and groups shift.

actually, i think the whole issue of substitution should be discussed, wyzdm, id add that to the list. can anyone sub any time? do they have to show up on time and be designated a backup? recently a player left and the outcome of the game was decided by the final set, where wyzdm ended up being the sub. without regulation (and im not suggesting they would do this), TZ could have someone leave any time wyzdm couldnt make the start, and have him sub in, which is a pretty big advantage. any clan can do it, just one obvious example... i think in the spirit of getting things going, people should be able to sub without penalty, but we should consider what the "right" way is to do it. some people will want no subs, you forfeit if you leave. that is probably too harsh to get things going, and maybe even down the line, with this being a relatively casual game. maybe some system can be devised, but i cant really think of a good one, hopefully someone has a good idea?

Finally, someone who's gonna take time and settle some points.

I actually made points against pausing, only because it's a real momentum killer and it shouldn't be necessary in a match. Yes, emergencies come up, but that's not something of a regular habit, and if you're having to pause frequently anyway you should fix that first. This is what's behind our issue with substitution, as having pausing allowed with no match time constraints keep events going later and later. For something as small as a 3v3, they should be done in about an hour and 1/2, yet on average it takes at least twice that.

Here's an example of a game that had happened during our prep Friday: http://www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay4103372&version=1.84

That's my own clan member, yet I don't believe something like that is excusable. That lasted almost several minutes, and no action was happening. It slows down the progress of completing the war.

Having a time limit for a match would be in hopes of keeping things moving. It stops 1/2 - hour long matches and stalls. I also agree there's more to matches than just map control, but there should be something in place for this. Matches over 15 minutes lose the replay ability, which we use more commonly for forum and YouTube match records. If the game is still active and alive, with offensive play on both sides, it's well worth it to continue, but how do we justify that?

Stalling is just a matter of respect. As you said, it's really sportsmanship. Maybe it doesn't require a rule against it, but it should be recognized and pointed out.

About lag and having ping delay, I'm really talking about it when it's excessive and removes any fundamental gameplay. I think this could just be left up to clan leaders to handle, but players with superior connections should have priority in events.

The map argument is good regarding wall and turret placement- it's very unforgiving for castle/h'ween/swamp. Should we ban those 3 and keep games to the 5 other maps?

I know everyone thinks 3v3 is large enough for wars, but that's only because they're taking longer than they should (see my above points). I want to see 4v4s and eventually 5v5s. Someday maybe.

Now regarding substitution, right now it's pretty much with anyone, as long as both teams have equal amount of participating players at one time. For things like preps, I'd like to see the starting players be the same as the ending players. It's more professional and keeps things straight, as you could use subs for better players arriving late or to recover from having losses. I know that's not happening now, but it's a respect issue.

What I really meant by sets, is if we should organize preps by number of sets to win as opposed to number of participants. For instance, have best 3/5 or 5/9 instead of 2v2 or 3v3, etc, where each player can only participate in so many number of sets? I'd rather keep the equal number system, but with how often players drop in/out this may be better. I think it's just a matter of getting players in the groove and holding them accountable for signing up from start to finish. When that happens, results will be much better.

Like you said, I don't see any order disadvantage on GH. I mean, it's there if you try the exact macro and technique you would on a small sized map, but obviously that's not what's best. Your point on how it pushes late game is very true, as my deathmatch game with hayan was held to almost 16 minutes. It was still an exciting match, the size just made it difficult to carry over from my side to his and close it after capturing the tower (which was a very active fight). I think the map size can reward defensive play more than other maps, but I'm not sure if it's to an extreme. If the player with tower and map control macros accordingly, you can power down a player from his second row of gold mid game and from there close it out. It only takes a little more time.

Quote from _Ai_

I see. I am in favor of this suggestion.



If DM was a noob game... Then why aren't you on the top 100? Aren't you a so called pro on this game?

I was a noob on the other game as well :P it just im soo used to may old game that I don't play DM because it was considered noobish on my old game, and as I said this isn't my old game^^ if you read it ;)

Quote from go0176

how do you order people, how do you keep it fair so leaders cannot manipulate matchups, where they pair their guys in games with slight advantages, and pair top guys on the other team with guys they would cream - that sort of stuff. i think there should also be room for multiple "official" formats, with similar rule sets. anyway, one possible angle here is to have clans maintain an ordered list of prep-qualified users, with anyone else falling at the bottom (which would hopefully be rare), from top to bottom - and run pairings off that list. it just creates the drama of ordering your members, which may not be ideal in some cases, I'm not sure if you guys already do something like this?

I think anyone accepted into a clan should be able to participate, but this again is why the starting players should be the ending players. I don't believe substitution is not appropriate for this matter, at the least in preps (the big wars).

Quote from go0176

one thing that is clear is whatever the system of pairing is - even in a round robin format - we need to clean it up. way too much time is spent figuring out which guy plays who first, even when everyone has to play everyone, the most simple possible case.

As everyone has equal opportunity by playing every opposing member, getting the first battle should be easy. And you're right, lately it isn't clean. My clan will soon be using a mumble server in hopes that having audible commands will rush this process, but as a clan leader I just point out players to pair up. As long as each side players every member on the opposite team, it doesn't matter who starts. I usually just PM someone and get right down to business. If everyone else did this, it would go much faster. I'm always the first one done because I stay on task to work to finish. Once we move into this kind of system, the problem should go away.

Quote from go0176

on the maps, i want to clarify that i wasn't suggesting banning holloween and swamp. i was just pointing out that those two should not be lumped with desert because of the significant difference in the wall placement. its also just large enough to allow micro mistakes to be compensated for, it seems to me. anyway, i had a 2nd post that was extremely short, it got taken down and i got a warning for it or something, what i said was one other reason to consider striking GH is for time considerations. most of our matches will be between guys of similar caliber (hopefully, if we do it right), and GH seems to take forever without a big gap between the two players. to try to get these events to be more streamlined time wise, i vote to strike GH at least for the time being. if we get our shit together and can execute these events rapidly, i think it could be reconsidered.

That's a fair point about GH. But swamp and desert are start-game recoverable? Those maps always boil down to who can keep their archidon alive (for me anyway, and I'm 2.5k). I don't think it's very friendly for micro mistakes at all. For anyone playing at high caliber, matches are decided within the first minute.

I think I'd be comfortable with a desert, ice, forest, and gates map list.

Quote from go0176

one last comment on the set format - the biggest issue with a set format is lots of people play 2 games while lots others play 3. the 3 game guys usually have longer first and second matches, too - this often results (both theoretically and from the experience with our preps) in long sets taking double or even more than double the time of normal sets (not even really quick ones). for this reason, i think we should at least consider the possibility of capping sets at 2 games and simply calling those sets draws. from a time management standpoint, its far superior, even though clearly we would all rather play that game 3. there is also the benefit in that format of the set winner also being the game winner (the team who wins more sets has to win more games), which would eliminate a possible discussion point there...

I don't think this is a big deal, and that makes it hella hard to win, as now you must go 2-0. When I said things were taking too long, I'm referring to the idle time before matches, and between games, not the times games are taking!

Quote from go0176

quickly on pausing, i probably have an abnormal viewpoint for this community - as a husband and father of two kids under the age of 2. i can almost never guarantee i won't be interrupted, even though in practice, its rare. i've played 3 or 4 preps and about a dozen matches with you guys - i think you guys would agree there haven't been issues on my end delaying these games through pausing, stalling, lagging, or whatever - but still, its very hard for me to commit to no pausing. anyway, im sure my situation is not the norm for SE but still, i think we want to make these things inclusive. as long as people act in good faith, i don't think its a problem. i think its vital to the success of these events for clan leaders and mature members to take an active role in streamlining the process, bringing the right level of gamesmanship to the situation. having been there with you in many of these, i totally understand where you are coming from with these concerns - its been fairly brutal, the time delays - but i think we need to try to address these outside of the rules first, and then address within the rules if it proves necessary. anyway i do totally agree excessive pausing (both # of times and length of time) cant be part of the system, if it turns into a chronic problem, i agree there will need to be restrictions or a pausing ban.

Perhaps pausing should be a selective rule, meaning it can be allowed, but as long as it's agreed by both clans and for the occasion.

Quote from go0176

final comment, there is a lot unresolved, but i think if we ban maps, the striking process needs to be reviewed.

Of course- the current striking rule is 2, as all maps are allowed. if we were to strike the smallest 3 with gh (meaning the 4 maps desert, ice, gates, forest), only 1 strike would be sufficient for a best of 3 (if best of 5, say for tourney, no strike). However, DSR would say that a winner of one map cannot return to it in the same set. This means if the first game is on desert, I win, and my opponent then beats me on gates, I can not take him back to desert unless he says it's ok.


Certainly a chunk to take in, but the more organized and prepared the smoother things will be run, along with keeping it fair, professional and competitive.

when i said its large enough to tolerate some micro mistakes, i was still talking about desert. sorry that was unclear! i feel like with the ovc matchup, a lot of order players would not be happy striking swamp and holloween. i think some variation in map size would be valuable. i guess we could just play the same map over and over like people do in some other games, but i do think map size plays into strategy and allowing more variation or complexity in strategy selection is a good thing. i personally (even as a pure chaos player) would prefer not to strike swamp/holloween, but am fine with whatever. however, it sort of seems pointless to allow striking when all you have is forest, ice, gates and desert - basically, it lets people strike desert, and thats all - with just desert/forest/ice/gates, that essentially would let the winner pick the map, unless he wanted desert. its kind of weird to have a striking rule with so many maps being the same. i guess if the point is to move things to ice size, thats fine, however i would sort of prefer to leave some variation. i would definitely support swamp through forest with no striking, too. im not sure about the rule to not replay the same map - this again kind of discriminates against desert - given the other maps all have identical alternate choices. if you apply the rule to a map size, i think that would make a little more sense, and would add an interesting aspect to the matches (forcing games on all 3 map sizes in the event of a 3 game set). i am a big fan of desert just because it seems to be a happy medium between short map fans and long map fans, and also allows defensive strategies with the wall positioning in a relatively small map setting - seems to have a little bit of everything for everyone.

i am totally fine with 3 game sets, was just sort of throwing that 2 game set idea out there. when discussing the possibility of large events (over 3 people), i think a round robin is clearly not viable - and i prefer your suggestion to have everyone play say, 2 sets each (regardless of number of participants), over having 2 game sets to allow more sets to be played. the question comes back to how to set up the matches. i think the round robin case is the easy case (although subs throw in a bit of a wrench), but i think we should try to support larger formats. one of those days i think we might have both had 5 members on, and at least 4, would have been nice to let those other 2-4 guys participate - i know one of the guys on our side, in particular, was a little bummed.

i generally agree with your on your stance with substitutions, in the ideal case, where things are more organized and clans get practice doing these events right. however, i don't think its the way to start, im trying to remember, i think one of our preps was played to completion with all the same members finishing - but im pretty sure it was just the one of several. i suppose assigning those players losses is a way to get them to consider if they can stay - but until there is a finite time limit people can expect on the whole event, that is a little difficult. if there is concern about shuffling of players of widely varying skill, maybe only players ranked lower or say 50-100 points higher can sub for someone? or maybe there could be a single sub designated at the start per clan? i guess it would be hard for two clans to designate a sub, otherwise they would hopefully both play (although that is not the case in the present format). maybe subs are only allowed if the event exceeds 30m per set and there is still a set to start? for example, in a 3v3, that would allow 1h30m to have the final sets started. obviously the numbers can be tweaked but i think that would be a happy medium many could get behind - its not somebody's fault they can't stay the extra hour when these things are still highly inefficient, or even when a couple sets end up taking extraordinarily long and throw off the rotation. one other random time management option is if two people are at say 25m or 30m already with a 3rd game to play, they have to play that 3rd game after their other sets - then the guys getting stuck late are the ones who are taking a while (not that there is anything wrong with it, although i recognize it sort of breaks the flow of a set).

with respect to pausing, the problem with clans having to agree is there has to be a default in the event of disagreement - and then it really doesnt require clan agreement anymore. kind of a catch 22, unless you cancel if there is a pausing disagreement, which is a little ridiculous. i think most people here posted their desire to allow pausing. i also think its pretty clear both you and i would support a more rigorous competition format than most, so we will probably each have points we need to give up. also, this can always be an iterative process, getting more formal over time, as it does in just about any other game. so im not suggesting we can never get there, but at least initially i think we need to allow a looser format on a range of issues. to me, that includes everything from pausing to subs to map selection - i was hesitant to even push for a GH ban because i dont want a rule set that feels restrictive to other players. but for time considerations, i think it just makes too much sense to keep it out. i personally would have no issue banning the swamp/holloween maps, i totally get your point on the early mistakes and all, but i worry others would like to see them in, i think we need to start inclusive and as people get used to it, we can have more detailed, experience-driven discussions on these finer points. in the mean time, i think we just need to focus on getting time management down, improve organization/communication to allow these to happen regularly, and to agree upon a broader format that allows more than 3 players to be included in events. if you don't mind, i'd sort of like to focus on that issue next, because i think that has a bigger effect on the events than these details we are discussing. we should at least have a proposal for friday's tz/sos prep in case 4+ people show up on each side.

I'm going to agree with most of chaos0176's points, however I would like to review the map system.

Tiny, Castle
Short, Hallow, Swamp
Short-Medium, Desert
Medium, Gates, Ice, Forest
Long, Grass Hills

We currently have two strikes. So this tells me a player can viably strike a long map and a tiny map. The thing is, all three small maps are of similar size and only two can be striked so an OvC will end on a small map if Chaos won the first game. You can also not strike a medium map, because there are three of them. I have a suggestion, ban Castle (GH provides variety, although time restrictions. I always strike it and Castle though, lol.) and give one strike, putting one map at each section.

Short, Hallow
SM, Desert
M, Forest
Long, GH

Or something like that.

ho! I did some digging thought you guys might wana see this :} http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?48949-OFFICIAL-CLAN-RULES!!!