Declined Dustbowl instant respawn

SkialLife

SkialLife

Uncharitable Spy
Contributor
Suggestion is to revert Respawn times and match time lengths to defaults on Community Servers . (Specifically 24/7 Dustbowl US)

I.E: Remove the respawn timers and increase match length (Default Settings)

Reason: I remember when they added the Red Team 20 second respawn timer to try and balance gameplay . this wasn't a bad idea 7~8 years ago or so when it was added considering how competitive Skial was back then and how overpowered many weapons/classes were (Beggars Bazooka pre-nerf etc) but this actually isn't a classic/vanilla thing and Red team is very nerfed at this point , and the matches are too short.

at least wanted to bring discussion on this and possibly a poll
 
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@Blkz @Bottiger

I just joined the fragmaster server a few minutes ago to see whats up . I was assigned to Blue team and we were on the last stage and pushing to cap . recorded a small video the end of the battle

(Check the match wins too 39Blue/28Red)

 
SkialLife said:
Oh you're Zeo I've seen you in the server a lot yeah thanks for your input .

and yes the respawn time is brutal for red if blue is setup and has teleporters rolling troops into the battle much quicker than red is respawning , which is more often than not usually.

but I'm not sure where you're getting the idea its impossible for blue to win if its instant respawn considering I win on blue on fragmasters quite often (instant respawn both sides), just relies on good engis/medics/attackers etc and cohesive team work from everyone. but yeah Blue is overall harder on fragmasters, and in turn more rewarding for victory. red is hard too though usually .

either way thanks for your feedback! see you in our server later.
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Well, impossible was a little bit of an exaggeration but the balance would surely be skewed towards Red team winning. I am also speaking as someone who managed a Dustbowl server for a good few years and I can say that most players do not generally like instant respawn.

I get your point though and I think your suggestion should of been reducing the respawn time just by a few seconds and not make it instant.

If the respawn time was instant I could almost keep the third map from getting capped almost by myself in most situations as a demo on a good day.
 
Yeah I suppose so since blue does have a respawn time as well and if you're working actively to take out their teleporters it can still be hard to attack.

Fragmasters just spoiled me, that server is way more intense and fast paced but skial is fine too.
 
I posted a while ago to revert back to vanilla. For all the reasons Bottiger said. I guess there's always going to be people on both sides, and it looks like you changed back to instant recently.
A good compromise would be insta respawn for blue and maybe 3-7 secs for red.
I definitely prefer vanilla respawns, but I don't want to complain too much, I really like the dustbowl server so I can deal with whatever.
 
I have been a regular player here for years and I think donated to both this and Fragmasters for the last 5 years continuously.

I do so to keep the community alive but I rarely play in Beginners / Fragmasters because of the settings most specifically instant respawn. I am disappointed that Skial dustbowl is setup that way now and as it makes what was a more competitive server just a another rush and die server, part of the strategy at instant respawn is a decision between staying alive and looking for ammo / health or just dying knowing you will be back fragging again in a second. I don't like that mode as much and I remember having instant here before. Not enough differentiation as the choices for well run servers were heavily modded servers, instant respawn or super competitive (before the different modes).

My request is to please switch back to the way it was before. The servers were almost always full and only donator priv let me get in then so I can't believe it is to get more players. I know no matter what you setup someone will bitch but having a different setup (mostly stock) is part of the appeal for skial, that and well run servers that work.
 
@Bottiger

well the respawn times seem to have been changed , but the match lengths haven't so that doesn't give blue enough time to attack.
 
this dude has been at it for over 3 weeks, talk about commitment
honestly someone hire this man
 
These changes are really just ruining the server. It was fun, balanced and nobody was bothered by the way it was. Why change what isn't broken? Changing the respawn timers in general will only make all of the current causal players, who are on the server daily angry.. Most of my friends, who play there daily all donate for this server alone. We do not agree with these changes and honestly hate them lol.

Just change them back to what they were. The 20 second respawn timer on Red was completely fine, fair, and balanced game play. This allowed the map to progress to Stage 3, with a little bit of team coordination, and voice chat. This allows it to be more causal and appeals to people to continue to return for the community and the voice chat and the fun game play. You can win on Blue, and you do win on Red. Almost everyday the score line is 50 blue victorys and 50 red. Balanced, fun, and fair.

This change makes it turn into a respawn suicide tryhard shit fest. The only way to win is to focus on the game completely, ignore any kind of fun interaction with the community. Removes any reason for a lot of people to even continue to play on this server.

Honestly it wasn't broken before, so why even change it to begin with..

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I was on the server today for 5 or 6 hours, so I got to see the progression from "regular" spawn times, to instant, to "vanilla" spawn times.

With instant spawns, even having a *CHANCE* at winning on BLU requires 2 engineers, 2-3 medics, competent pockets for each of the medics, and an entire full-team push. This playstyle is extremely jarring and completely removes skilled play from RED. I found myself playing several rounds as suicide pyro on RED stage 1, and I had a blast just running at the enemy and trapping them in spawn for the entire round because they couldn't even advance an uber to the point.

During the instant spawn period, we made it to stage 2 a grand total of 3 times and stage 3 once (which that was a complete stomp and only took BLU about 3 minutes to cap both A and B). I know that the majority of players prefer stages 2 and 3 due to how frequently stage 1 gets played (as it is the starting stage). Getting stuck on stage 1 for several hours without seeing stage 2 or 3 is *not* fun.

During the vanilla spawn rates, it got noticeably easier for BLU to cap stage 1. It still required a whole team effort, but it was manageable. That being said, BLU was never able to cap stage 2 in the 90 minutes I played with vanilla respawns. At one point we let them cap one round by all hiding in spawn so that we could play stage 3, but with only 5 minutes to attempt stage 3, BLU didn't even contest the control point.

When I joined the sever, BLU had a higher cap rate than RED. When I left the server, the score was something like 100 RED and 80 BLU. If that number doesn't explain the whole story, I don't know what does.

The regular spawn times do lead to steam rolls sometimes as all of RED can be wiped out, but that basically just means that the better players are being rewarded for getting frags and staggering RED. However, I think that the increased spawn times for a 32 person server are a *MUST* for any kind of skilled gameplay on RED to take place.

I was going to re-up my donator for the full year today, but I decided not to until I see the direction we will be going for the spawn times on this server.
 
I been playing regularly on the dustbowl server and came to express how instant respawns

I took a quick look at SkialLife's arguments (who appears to be the only one who wanted this change) and his arguments are pretty much "well, other servers do". As a counter to that, go play on those other servers then? From what I've seen, the skial server doesn't need to make this change as it's usually always full during prime time. It can take upwards of 20 min to get in at times. I don't have as much info as the admins on server health but I would say anecdotally, these factors indicate it's a thriving server.

The above also assumes that instant respawn = good but really, that's a matter of opinion. You have multiple people here, myself included, who feel instant respawn is a negative since dustbowl is already red focused. From what I've seen it's pretty fair with the previous vanilla respawn times, where the skill of the teams was the main factor on victory. Now it's just stage 1 over and over again since blue can't push it. I would say most people on dustbowl don't enjoy stage 1 as much as stage 2 and 3 which is hard to come by now

SkialLife also mentions some stuff about intensity of games. Again, subjective - but clearly, there are people who enjoyed playing on the vanilla respawns given the high popularity of the server.


It's literally this one guy who is vocal about instant respawns so it seems there's a higher demand for instant respawns....but that's only because the rest of the regulars didn't see anything wrong with the vanilla respawns to express it lol.
 
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Honestly, I don't see the need for instaspawns or that fast of a respawn all the regulars that play on the server never have had an issue with it so I don't see why the need for a change. It was balanced before and should stay that way with the current spawns its very lopsided towards red now. Don't fix what's not broken honestly I donate to the server because I liked how it was and very disappointed the way its headed. The server was very popular the way it was and I hope it goes back to way it was
 
Someone or something messed with the respawn times and round times on the 24/7 32 player dustbowl server. I'm not having as fun on the server as I did before the changes happened. I'm here to add my voice to those who want the server reverted to how it was before.

30 minutes on a single round is not fun. The last point is not fun for blu.
 
I actually like the changes you have made. I'm a long time player and I have always loved instant respawn. I always thought that respawn times in this server were far too long allowing for the opposite team to massacre the entire team while you wait for respawn. I like the switch to instant respawn but would be ok with leaving it at 5 seconds respawn on each side. The round times do need to be adjusted to maybe be 30 minutes max? Anyways, I've enjoyed the decrease in respawn times as I believe it has made it more competitive but it will also create an influx of new players. Players who like to be competitive and enjoy the craziness of Team Fortress 2.
 
Death by Snu Snu said:
I actually like the changes you have made. I'm a long time player and I have always loved instant respawn. I always thought that respawn times in this server were far too long allowing for the opposite team to massacre the entire team while you wait for respawn. I like the switch to instant respawn but would be ok with leaving it at 5 seconds respawn on each side. The round times do need to be adjusted to maybe be 30 minutes max? Anyways, I've enjoyed the decrease in respawn times as I believe it has made it more competitive but it will also create an influx of new players. Players who like to be competitive and enjoy the craziness of Team Fortress 2.
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guess thats why the server has been half dead or just those who were on, were complaining about how shit it is now? Server needs to go back to normal, how it was before you changed anything.
 
[Mar] Old Beardo said:
guess thats why the server has been half dead or just those who were on, were complaining about how shit it is now? Server needs to go back to normal, how it was before you changed anything.
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It happens to both sides all of the time. It's the concept of how this game is. I was just expressing my opinion about how I believe it improves the difficulty of the game and that I'm having a lot more fun now. It's nothing personal.
 
I'm also against the new faster respawn times for red. It has made it almost impossible for blu to reach stage 3 without a big imbalance in skill. Dustbowl isn't fun when we're playing mostly on stage 1 and occasionally 2. It's why I would play on skial instead of other servers that do have instant respawn. With this change, there's no consistently filled community dustbowl server with balanced respawn times we can play on. Perhaps a poll would help evaluate whether this is a change that people who play on the server actually support, because as far as I can tell most of the people I play with are not enjoying the change, and this thread should be further evidence of that. At the very least, the optimal solution might be a compromise like 15 seconds - it wouldn't hurt to try that.
 
Science said:
I posted a while ago to revert back to vanilla. For all the reasons Bottiger said. I guess there's always going to be people on both sides, and it looks like you changed back to instant recently.
A good compromise would be insta respawn for blue and maybe 3-7 secs for red.
I definitely prefer vanilla respawns, but I don't want to complain too much, I really like the dustbowl server so I can deal with whatever.
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Death by Snu Snu said:
I actually like the changes you have made. I'm a long time player and I have always loved instant respawn. I always thought that respawn times in this server were far too long allowing for the opposite team to massacre the entire team while you wait for respawn. I like the switch to instant respawn but would be ok with leaving it at 5 seconds respawn on each side.
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It is already changed to 10 seconds max for red with 90 seconds of extra round time and people are still complaining and having trouble beating the 2nd stage.

Red win rate is 60%.

SkialLife said:
@Blkz @Bottiger
(Check the match wins too 39Blue/28Red)
Click to expand...

Blue is supposed to have more wins than that if there's a 50% chance for red to win all 3 rounds. Each mini round counts as a win on the scoreboard.

sunfalcon said:
I been playing regularly on the dustbowl server and came to express how instant respawns

I took a quick look at SkialLife's arguments (who appears to be the only one who wanted this change) and his arguments are pretty much "well, other servers do". As a counter to that, go play on those other servers then? From what I've seen, the skial server doesn't need to make this change as it's usually always full during prime time. It can take upwards of 20 min to get in at times. I don't have as much info as the admins on server health but I would say anecdotally, these factors indicate it's a thriving server.

The above also assumes that instant respawn = good but really, that's a matter of opinion. You have multiple people here, myself included, who feel instant respawn is a negative since dustbowl is already red focused. From what I've seen it's pretty fair with the previous vanilla respawn times, where the skill of the teams was the main factor on victory. Now it's just stage 1 over and over again since blue can't push it. I would say most people on dustbowl don't enjoy stage 1 as much as stage 2 and 3 which is hard to come by now

SkialLife also mentions some stuff about intensity of games. Again, subjective - but clearly, there are people who enjoyed playing on the vanilla respawns given the high popularity of the server.


It's literally this one guy who is vocal about instant respawns so it seems there's a higher demand for instant respawns....but that's only because the rest of the regulars didn't see anything wrong with the vanilla respawns to express it lol.
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The reason why I tried it is because, 20 seconds really is a long time and I can understand why some people really hate it. But the unfortunate fact is due to poor map design, the blue respawn gets too far away and red respawn gets closer which makes the dreaded 20 second respawn time the only way to balance the map.

But somehow it works for fragmasters since their server is filled 20 hours a day compared to our which is only full 12 hours a day?

I don't really know if instant respawn is the reason for their success but I think it was worth a try. Wouldn't you want the server to be populated for more than 12 hours a day?

http://fragmasters.gameme.com/tf3
http://stats.skial.com/#server/100
 
Bottiger said:
It is already changed to 10 seconds max for red with 90 seconds of extra round time and people are still complaining and having trouble beating the 2nd stage.

Red win rate is 60%.



Blue is supposed to have more wins than that if there's a 50% chance for red to win all 3 rounds. Each mini round counts as a win on the scoreboard.



The reason why I tried it is because, 20 seconds really is a long time and I can understand why some people really hate it. But the unfortunate fact is due to poor map design, the blue respawn gets too far away and red respawn gets closer which makes the dreaded 20 second respawn time the only way to balance the map.

But somehow it works for fragmasters since their server is filled 20 hours a day compared to our which is only full 12 hours a day?

I don't really know if instant respawn is the reason for their success but I think it was worth a try. Wouldn't you want the server to be populated for more than 12 hours a day?

http://fragmasters.gameme.com/tf3
http://stats.skial.com/#server/100
Click to expand...
Bottiger said:
It is already changed to 10 seconds max for red with 90 seconds of extra round time and people are still complaining and having trouble beating the 2nd stage.

Red win rate is 60%.



Blue is supposed to have more wins than that if there's a 50% chance for red to win all 3 rounds. Each mini round counts as a win on the scoreboard.



The reason why I tried it is because, 20 seconds really is a long time and I can understand why some people really hate it. But the unfortunate fact is due to poor map design, the blue respawn gets too far away and red respawn gets closer which makes the dreaded 20 second respawn time the only way to balance the map.

But somehow it works for fragmasters since their server is filled 20 hours a day compared to our which is only full 12 hours a day?

I don't really know if instant respawn is the reason for their success but I think it was worth a try. Wouldn't you want the server to be populated for more than 12 hours a day?

http://fragmasters.gameme.com/tf3
http://stats.skial.com/#server/100
Click to expand...

Some people hate it, but most people like the longer spawn timers to keep the server more realistic for causal play to keep maps moving, and to allow BLU to win. The variety, the casual play, and being able to carry a fun conversation while still making progress to win as BLU is some of the best perks of playing on this server.

I'm sorry fragmasters has a better UK or EU community right now for there dustbowl servers, but changing a server that is popular and played a lot doesn't fix this issue. This comes down to advertising the server to those who are online at those times. Most people in the USA go to sleep, or work during the day. 12 hours of active is booming for a US server for 32 players.
 
Bottiger said:
It is already changed to 10 seconds max for red with 90 seconds of extra round time and people are still complaining and having trouble beating the 2nd stage.

Red win rate is 60%.



Blue is supposed to have more wins than that if there's a 50% chance for red to win all 3 rounds. Each mini round counts as a win on the scoreboard.



The reason why I tried it is because, 20 seconds really is a long time and I can understand why some people really hate it. But the unfortunate fact is due to poor map design, the blue respawn gets too far away and red respawn gets closer which makes the dreaded 20 second respawn time the only way to balance the map.

But somehow it works for fragmasters since their server is filled 20 hours a day compared to our which is only full 12 hours a day?

I don't really know if instant respawn is the reason for their success but I think it was worth a try. Wouldn't you want the server to be populated for more than 12 hours a day?

http://fragmasters.gameme.com/tf3
http://stats.skial.com/#server/100
Click to expand...


So I've learned some of Fragmasters dustbowl functionality and here it is:

#1: the biggest difference currently is they use a stock 10 minutes start of the round timer with +20 minutes when a point is captured . the round timers do not carry over to each map , its always 10 minutes start , +20 when a point is capped .

#2: their donation system is different as well , I don't agree with some of these of course but...
  • Reserve Slot
  • Fire arrows for huntsman/crossbow
  • Immunity against team swap
  • Extra ammo# / barrel rounds
  • !swapme for swapping teams
  • Health boost for kill & assist
  • !unusual Effects
  • Extra jarates/stunballs
  • !robot for robot skin
  • Immunity from high ping kicker
  • Coloured chat
  • Immunity against player votes
  • !kson & !kstreak - Killstreak Effects

#3: they don't use an auto-balance system.

they also have a much tighter competitive community compared to skial dustbowl community.

I guess the one thing we should try is the 10 minute start +20 minutes capture individually for each map round timer.

if all else fails we can always just revert it back to how it was originally of course.

but as of right now the biggest issue is definitely the round timers carrying over to each map and not being long enough for blue to have enough time to attack.
 
Bottiger said:
But somehow it works for fragmasters since their server is filled 20 hours a day compared to our which is only full 12 hours a day?
Click to expand...
I think that's more to do with location, being UK based it provides playable pings to East coast US and the EU, serving more time zones than Skial dustbowl.
 
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