Declined An assortment of suggestions

[Sud]

As a prefix, I know nothing of the inner workings of skial

Web front end:

- stats.skial.com does not appear to be allowing players to search by name or steamID. Regardless of whether you enter data in these fields, the textbox next tabbing through always ends the search with searching for recent chat in all servers. To search a player I'm having to bring up a random player's results and then paste my steam ID in the url ( https://stats.skial.com/#player/tf/13851019 ).

AFK Manager

- Suggest maximum of 2 AFKs per team.

- AFK players should be assigned a stock loadout upon death (this is both to lessen the load on the team if the player was using jumpers/demoknight/other screw around loadouts, and to disincentivize people using AFK manager to level stranges.

- Suggest making the AFK tag a different color or add other distinguishing feature that tells it apart from a player putting AFK in their name.

- Suggest toning down the AFK bot's esp of what's coming up on a flank. They literally snap 180 to face you just as you're about to backstab them, and flanking as scout pyro or whatever is painful because of this.

Voting, votemenu, and map selection:

- Suggest !nominate not put !votemenu on cooldown.

- Suggest at map half time a string of text appears "Want to play a specific map? !nominate it now!" (helps with player retention going onto the next map).

- Suggest vote to disable random crits threshhold lowered to 40%, vote to enable raised to 60%.

Housekeeping:

- Suggest that if a player's microphone is transmitting an excessive amount (80ish%) of the time, that they receive a temporary system gag. This would offer a layer of protection against music players, mic spammers, and verbal diarrhea.

Mechanics:

- Query into why sandvich can be swapped away from while eating? Does this do something important behind the scenes or prevent an exploit?

Autobalance:

- I've seen a lot of oddities with the autobalance system. In two rounds of koth king, the team got autobalanced for domination imbalance. Then it got autobalanced for what I imagine was a score imbalance. Then I personally was slain and tossed on the other team.

Been seeing a bunch of balances where fresh off a balance one team still has average scores of double the other team. I'm sure the algorithm is deeper than simply score, but you can usually clearly predict the beatdown that'll ensue.

- Ideally what I think would be best is to compare the strength of the teams by the contributing members (positive KA:D), while trying to keep the classes of these players evened out (so a scramble doesn't put all the power on one team and the meds on another with nothing to heal).

- Suggest that during the absolute worst rolls certain weapons that sandbag their class (the jumpers, the wee booties, huntsman, brass beast, etc.) be temporarily disabled until the gameplay regulates itself.

 

[Maddo]

- Suggest vote to disable random crits threshhold lowered to 40%, vote to enable raised to 60%.

Hardly fair and balanced... What brought you to these figures instead of say 10% vs 90%?

 

[Jermaphobe]

- stats.skial.com does not appear to be allowing players to search by name or steamID. Regardless of whether you enter data in these fields, the textbox next tabbing through always ends the search with searching for recent chat in all servers. To search a player I'm having to bring up a random player's results and then paste my steam ID in the url

Skial Stats works just fine for me and I'll bet almost everyone else here. You're probably doing something wrong or are not clarifying exactly what your own issue is with it.

Housekeeping:

- Suggest that if a player's microphone is transmitting an excessive amount (80ish%) of the time, that they receive a temporary system gag. This would offer a layer of protection against music players, mic spammers, and verbal diarrhea.

We have a rule for mic spam already.

Autobalance:

Then I personally was slain and tossed on the other team.

It autobalances whomever is performing the worst, so you can look at it as "Git Gud"

Mechanics:

- Query into why sandvich can be swapped away from while eating? Does this do something important behind the scenes or prevent an exploit?

Completely harmless, A lot of communities allow this for some reason, why Skial does it in particular is beyond me.

 

[Sud]

Hardly fair and balanced... What brought you to these figures instead of say 10% vs 90%?

Crits are one of those things that can absolutely win or lose a game, and even if a significant minority doesn't want them, then keeping gameplay clean should be the priority. Currently the threshhold to turn them off is 60%.

Skial Stats works just fine for me and I'll bet almost everyone else here. You're probably doing something wrong or are not clarifying exactly what your own issue is with it.

Here's what I'm experiencing:

https://imgur.com/a/iAs3IHd

My browser is set to desktop mode, and you can see there isn't a go button till you reach the end, in which it interprets as "you must want to search chats"

It autobalances whomever is performing the worst, so you can look at it as "Git Gud"

I was #1 the first round. I was #1 the second round. #1 the third round. #1 at the time of the slay. And not a little #1, double the next highest teammate #1. My gudness level I feel was adequate, well as far as it can get as an engineer on koth

Completely harmless, A lot of communities allow this for some reason, why Skial does it in particular is beyond me.

 

[Maddo]

Crits are one of those things that can absolutely win or lose a game, and even if a significant minority doesn't want them, then keeping gameplay clean should be the priority. Currently the threshhold to turn them off is 60%.

Voting in any form stops making sense when a minority win.

 

[Zeo]

Crits are one of those things that can absolutely win or lose a game, and even if a significant minority doesn't want them, then keeping gameplay clean should be the priority. Currently the threshhold to turn them off is 60%.



Here's what I'm experiencing:

https://imgur.com/a/iAs3IHd

My browser is set to desktop mode, and you can see there isn't a go button till you reach the end, in which it interprets as "you must want to search chats"

I was #1 the first round. I was #1 the second round. #1 the third round. #1 at the time of the slay. And not a little #1, double the next highest teammate #1. My gudness level I feel was adequate, well as far as it can get as an engineer on koth

Crits have been a thing since the game released. Most players like crits. What makes or breaks a game is the team.

When you’re on mobile just press the return button. If you’re on desktop press enter.

 

[Sud]

Crits have been a thing since the game released. Most players like crits.

I have to disagree on this one, as I play on the casual vanilla servers and can only think of one instance of where they're on.

When you’re on mobile just press the return button. If you’re on desktop press enter.

That's the issue in that the enter key (go on a mobile keyboard) is replaced by next until it hits the end of the textbox chain (which is the "search chat" field,) and it takes it that you want to actually search chat.

 

[doxed]

It autobalances whomever is performing the worst, so you can look at it as "Git Gud"

That’s patently false. I’ve been swapped countless times where I’m stuck on one side for multiple rounds because teams are garbage and I’ve got more kills and dominations than the next three folks on my team. Whatever the underlying method to scramble/balance is, this ain’t it.

 

[OrphAnne]

That's the issue in that the enter key (go on a mobile keyboard) is replaced by next until it hits the end of the textbox chain (which is the "search chat" field,) and it takes it that you want to actually search chat.

You should look into your browser settings. Try returning it to default settings. I have no issue searching for sud in the name field and getting a list pulled up. I do not tab through each text field. My return key turns into a "Go" key, not a "Next" key.


And, if you are put out by the autobalance feature, you can spend 20k credits and get autobalance immunity in the !shop.

 

[Jermaphobe]

That’s patently false. I’ve been swapped countless times where I’m stuck on one side for multiple rounds because teams are garbage and I’ve got more kills and dominations than the next three folks on my team. Whatever the underlying method to scramble/balance is, this ain’t it.

All I can say is Git Gud

 

[Bottiger]

stats.skial.com does not appear to be allowing players to search by name or steamID. Regardless of whether you enter data in these fields,

I would suggest using a different mobile browser like firefox. I will see if it can be fixed, but trying to make the website work on every browser is a huge waste of time and it works perfectly fine on desktop browsers.

AFK Manager

There is already a limit on the number of AFK players. They are there to help fill the server and limiting it to 2 will lead to servers filling up slower. When people join the server and only see 2 people running around, they are going to just leave instead of stay. Enforcing such a small limit will lead to frequent autobalances as well.

Say for example it is 6v7 and both teams already have 2 afk players on them each. If a 3rd person on the 6 player team goes afk and is moved to spectate, it will trigger an autobalance.

There's also no way to change the color of the name in the GUI. Not sure why you think we need to add more ways to tell if a player is AFK or not. It is simple just looking at the name.

If an afk spy turned around 180 degrees to shoot you it is because you already made yourself known by backstabbing someone or they were not shooting you. They do not automatically see through disguises. And afk bots are extremely bad and easy to kill. We already got a lot of complaints from people saying they are too easy.

Suggest !nominate not put !votemenu on cooldown.

It doesn't.

Suggest at map half time a string of text appears "Want to play a specific map? !nominate it now!" (helps with player retention going onto the next map).

I don't think this is needed. If people are leaving because they don't know they can nominate a map, it is because the map cycle has bad maps. It also leads the everyone spamming nominations which is what happens on servers like saxton hale.

Suggest vote to disable random crits threshhold lowered to 40%, vote to enable raised to 60%.

This is totally weird and just reeks of bias, not to mention it is not supported by the plugin. If the majority of the server wants random crits, they should have it. Forcing 60% to turn it on while only requiring 40% to turn it off smells like uncle dane brainwashing.

Suggest that if a player's microphone is transmitting an excessive amount (80ish%) of the time, that they receive a temporary system gag. This would offer a layer of protection against music players, mic spammers, and verbal diarrhea.

This can be filed away as nice to have but not high priority. How exactly long as "an excessive amount"? Why can this not be solved with a personal mute or a votemute?

Query into why sandvich can be swapped away from while eating? Does this do something important behind the scenes or prevent an exploit?

Because that's the way the game worked for a long time? People were used to the game working this way. Why not simply not switch weapons while eating?

I've seen a lot of oddities with the autobalance system. In two rounds of koth king, the team got autobalanced for domination imbalance. Then it got autobalanced for what I imagine was a score imbalance. Then I personally was slain and tossed on the other team.

It is important to distinguish the difference between a scramble and autobalance. A domination imbalance only causes a scramble which only happens at the beginning or end of a round. An autobalance only makes sure both teams have an equal number of players. There's nothing unusual about an autobalance happening immediately after a scramble.

Been seeing a bunch of balances where fresh off a balance one team still has average scores of double the other team. I'm sure the algorithm is deeper than simply score, but you can usually clearly predict the beatdown that'll ensue.

Score is meaningless, it only measures how long you've been playing and nothing about the skill of the player.

Ideally what I think would be best is to compare the strength of the teams by the contributing members (positive KA:D), while trying to keep the classes of these players evened out (so a scramble doesn't put all the power on one team and the meds on another with nothing to heal).

Every player already has a skill rating assigned to them which is more useful than kd. If you only use KD, support classes like engineer and medic would never be highly rated. However new players won't have an accurate skill rating and people's performance can vary widely depending on the map and class they play, or even the team they are with. So you can still have bad matchups. But this is the best that can be done.

Suggest that during the absolute worst rolls certain weapons that sandbag their class (the jumpers, the wee booties, huntsman, brass beast, etc.) be temporarily disabled until the gameplay regulates itself.

I'm sorry but are you seriously suggesting to disable or change people's weapons if their team is losing?

I don't even know what to say about that.

 

[Sud]

thanks for taking the time to answer these!

I would suggest using a different mobile browser like firefox.

I'm using chrome, but it probably is the browser. I can check on firefox.

There is already a limit on the number of AFK players. They are there to help fill the server and limiting it to 2 will lead to servers filling up slower. When people join the server and only see 2 people running around, they are going to just leave instead of stay. Enforcing such a small limit will lead to frequent autobalances as well.

On the flipside, it is a drag when there are 5 afks on your team after the late night ragequit. This might be an issue with small community servers, but you're Skial. There are only two places you can go to play bot free TF2 and you've got the

It is simple just looking at the name.

If an afk spy turned around 180 degrees to shoot you it is because you already made yourself known by backstabbing someone or they were not shooting you. They do not automatically see through disguises. And afk bots are extremely bad and easy to kill. We already got a lot of complaints from people saying they are too easy.

Here's the chain of events. Bot demo has stickied up the first point of badwater and is staring toward at blu spawn. I walk by disguised as and notice bot demo, who I think is a random player. At no point has bot demo acknowledged my presence or looked at me. I walk up square to bot demo's back, and milliseconds before I left click it snaps 180 degrees to face me and dets. I've also specced them and they track players through walls, the most obvious the heavies. I actually thought one was a cheater as it didn't have an AFK tag in its name except I specced one that did and it was identical.

Sadly, the bots are better than a lot of players, and their ESP shuts down a lot of flank classes like scouts.

It doesn't.


I don't think this is needed. If people are leaving because they don't know they can nominate a map, it is because the map cycle has bad maps. It also leads the everyone spamming nominations which is what happens on servers like saxton hale.

Not sure about the environment on hale, on the stock map servers though nominate is very productive, especially when you combo breaker a breadspace/altitude vote which will see half the server jet into a vote with breadspace vs a beloved classic map that wins by a landslide and everyone stays. But definitely I can see how that would be a shitstorm on death run or something with a million maps.

This is totally weird and just reeks of bias, not to mention it is not supported by the plugin. If the majority of the server wants random crits, they should have it. Forcing 60% to turn it on while only requiring 40% to turn it off smells like uncle dane brainwashing.

Nah I avoid Daneland for a reason. Here's the thing with random crits. When you are playing above average the game expects you to take fights two, three, four at a time or more. I could have a fistfull of centipedes, and I could not count on their legs how many times I just threw 4 guys off our cart only to have a 5th jump in with a random crit to end me, as the cart dumps in and my team respawn waves into humiliation.

Crits are the bias. No matter how much Valve might say you crit more when you damage more, it's no match for that baseline 2% chance per person. When crits are on, 33-50% of my deaths are to them, and my ratio of crit kill to crit death is roughly 1:5.

Granted though this probably isn't that huge an issue, as crits are usually disabled on the stock maps I play on, it's usually an anomaly for them to be on.

This can be filed away as nice to have but not high priority. How exactly long as "an excessive amount"? Why can this not be solved with a personal mute or a votemute?

I'd say a solid example is 95% open mic for 5 minutes. That is almost always someone mic/musicspamming.

Sure I could mute them personally and usually do. But this just encourages me to voice_enable 0 and miss out on possible voice interactions. I don't like using votemute or votekick, as people can take it the wrong way and start trying to vote me instead. To add to the detracting factors, this is eating up your bandwith with garbage data rebroadcasting edgy steve's japanese gospel rock, and having to help new people find the mute options. As a new player or new to skial, would you want to stay if when you hopped in a server you were met with a wall of noise?

It is important to distinguish the difference between a scramble and autobalance. A domination imbalance only causes a scramble which only happens at the beginning or end of a round. An autobalance only makes sure both teams have an equal number of players. There's nothing unusual about an autobalance happening immediately after a scramble.


Score is meaningless, it only measures how long you've been playing and nothing about the skill of the player.

Gotcha.

Every player already has a skill rating assigned to them which is more useful than kd. If you only use KD, support classes like engineer and medic would never be highly rated. However new players won't have an accurate skill rating and people's performance can vary widely depending on the map and class they play, or even the team they are with. So you can still have bad matchups. But this is the best that can be done.

Oh that's really cool, is there a way we can see our skill rating? Or do you want it to be a hidden elo thing?

I'm sorry but are you seriously suggesting to disable or change people's weapons if their team is losing?

I don't even know what to say about that.

This is only a doomsday suggestion, but if there is absolutely no quality of gameplay going on and it can be traced to a heavy portion of one team sandbagging, what would be the harm of putting away the toys for 10 minutes.

You can loosely compare it to a Hale friendlying. In both situations there is an expectation of gameplay, it is not happening, and everyone is getting dragged along for the long boring ride.

Much as people wish they were, they're not Jerma985 nor are their antics witty or new.