New Changing Payload Servers to 40 player is a mistake

[Sam Alt-Man]

I searched the forum but don't see discussion on the recent change. Changing the PL server to allow up to 40 players (plus VIP if any) is a mistake. The rounds already feel different. Areas of the map that were already prone to being unbalanced toward RED or BLU now feel unplayable at times. 32 was already a stretch beyond how the game was designed, but usually works. This takes it way beyond what these maps can handle. I'd vote we change it back.

 

[Jeffel]

This is just false. We've never had a lot of admin coverage on the payload servers and they were doing fine before. Valve servers have 0 admins.

Apologies for the double post. But, time has progressed, and by your own evidence and my own witness, things have clearly changed to cause some difference in the population. Without a stronger admin presence, unfortunately you only have community reports and population stats to go by. I'm happy to start a new thread or conversation to continue on that direction so as not to soil the waters of the clear message the community is sending on preferring 32 players in this one.

 

[Strudels]

There are people that drive others away and either toe the line of getting muted or have had their mutes lifted for dog knows what reason and overall ends up facilitating a toxic environment. Also payload us notoriously never has admins playing, not that they should be there to ban people, but to at least have some influence to foster a better environment :) Imagine if everyone felt comfortable hopping on the server no matter who else is on, then filling up early and staying full later would be easier

 

[Bottiger]

I'm sorry but we have never been a community where we have an admin to babysit the server 24/7. It has never been the case and will never be the case.

It's just not possible as there are not enough applicants that can be trusted, and the more admins you have, the more complaints about admin abuse there are.

We have other servers that are doing better than payload that somehow does not have an issue of moderation and have even more players to potentially babysit.

Just because this is your main personal grievance does not mean this is the main problem with the server.

 

[Strudels]

Oh I'm not grieving, personally I mute and play. Just offering some information for you. If you don't believe feedback then what's the point. Gather data and work with it.

 

[Bottiger]

When you have a large audience in the hundreds, everyone is going to have a different opinion on what the main problems are. No offense, but most people will be wrong because they only think about what they want.

I did gather evidence and with the fact that another community just went from 0 to having players by switching to 40 slots shows that perhaps more people prefer more slots. And then I recorded the servers gaining more players. If it was as unpopular as everyone here made it out to be, it should cause a player loss, not a player gain.

But people here decided to ignore the evidence and argue that they are donating.

 

[Jeffel]

I'm sorry but we have never been a community where we have an admin to babysit the server 24/7. It has never been the case and will never be the case.

It's just not possible as there are not enough applicants that can be trusted, and the more admins you have, the more complaints about admin abuse there are.

We have other servers that are doing better than payload that somehow does not have an issue of moderation and have even more players to potentially babysit.

Just because this is your main personal grievance does not mean this is the main problem with the server.

When you have a large audience in the hundreds, everyone is going to have a different opinion on what the main problems are. No offense, but most people will be wrong because they only think about what they want.

I did gather evidence and with the fact that another community just went from 0 to having players by switching to 40 slots shows that perhaps more people prefer more slots. And then I recorded the servers gaining more players. If it was as unpopular as everyone here made it out to be, it should cause a player loss, not a player gain.

But people here decided to ignore the evidence and argue that they are donating.

Please do not confuse my request for a representative voice and presence as a request for babysitting. Just asking for stable rules that are consistently applied and a regular presence and voice who understands the community that plays on these servers and can represent us and can recognize rage-baiting and other nonsense that's bringing things down. Decisions need to be firmer and come from a source that the community recognizes with consistency. It is very challenging to do that, I understand. It's not just punishment, it's also just community growth and having a voice when sudden changes like this appear and we feel misunderstood or unrecognized, which is often where claims of admin abuse or missing communication can come from.

I edited a prior post late, so, perhaps you missed my other pieces of constructive suggestion and possible sources of false flag population inflation. Again, I would be very curious on the recorded information showing returning players and community growth versus merely a % increase in population stability. I have not noticed consistent new names due to the new slots, but rather a slurry of whomever happens to click. But I don't collect the information or have access to records as an admin may. I'll re-quote my suggestions and offerings of support below:

If we want to talk gimmicks instead of community curation:

Something I believe may be happening is a sort of "search engine optimization" (SEO) problem. The server browser allows folks to sort by players. If they sort by that, a higher count often appears higher if the server contains that many players. It doesn't sort by total slots, though. So with 40 being a bigger number, it appears higher in a way I imagine many users may be using the server browser. If that's the case, well, sorry -- that's a bad thing to optimize for because it ruins the game most of us are seeking to play as proof by the receipts Puuro provided about the Turbine+EU server (bigger number =/= longer life). Find a different way to defeat the evil server browser/valve being shit at supporting community servers than this gimmick.

I haven't done a search, but what happened to the betting plugin? That was a great feature that caused folks to focus on gameplay, want to stick around, and caused conversation topics that didn't suck. These are the types of gimmicks that should be added that make it worth playing on your servers. Fun cushions around the vanilla-ish TF2 that we all love. These grow people's interest in returning to a fun place to play and talk. I'm a dev and community builder myself, and would be happy to talk or get some designers together to figure things out that could be done if engineer or management power is something you need help with.

Also, please listen to the calls of my EU friends as well or I suspect the issue will cannibalize them away and be even less likely to fill the US server sooner when they move over.

It may be that there's an appetite to try something like 40 player servers and that other observed community found a sudden niche. How large that niche is, is yet to be seen. I'd encourage capitalizing on it if there's space! But at the cost of abandoning the consistent players that are trying to keep your 32 player Payload servers healthy and happy? I think not.

 

[Calculon]

32 players gg
40 players bg

 

[thlaspi]

But people here decided to ignore the evidence and argue that they are donating.

Mentioning donating is not even any argument. In my case at least it's just a response for the change and how the feedback from the community is handled.
Of course you might well be on your way to gather more donators who enjoy those new & improved 40 slot servers.
But I dunno, maybe you don't really need that info. Like why ppl donate or decide not to. Or why ppl choose to play here and not somewhere else.
If you were interested, surely you'd ask (a survey of some kind).

 

[Bottiger]

If you were interested, surely you'd ask (a survey of some kind).

There is no point in asking because only the people that have something to complain about, actually interact with these forums.

Look at all the people replying to this thread and notice how the vast majority all have like 1-10 posts.

There's an easy way to see how many people actually like the changes. Just look at whether or not there's more players on the server after the change. It's that simple.

 

[thlaspi]

There is no point in asking because only the people that have something to complain about, actually interact with these forums.

Look at all the people replying to this thread and notice how the vast majority all have like 1-10 posts.

There's an easy way to see how many people actually like the changes. Just look at whether or not there's more players on the server after the change. It's that simple.

Ah, my bad. Didn't realize reports = complaints.

I don't know why the post count is so important. I bet most of those with <10 posts have hundreds of hours in the servers.
But like, who cares.

Well yeah, maybe this is what we complainers deserve. Let's hope that those who now populate 40+ servers never find their way here.

 

[flange_the_eternal]

bump
40 players still sucks

 

[flange_the_eternal]

There is no point in asking because only the people that have something to complain about, actually interact with these forums.

Look at all the people replying to this thread and notice how the vast majority all have like 1-10 posts.

There's an easy way to see how many people actually like the changes. Just look at whether or not there's more players on the server after the change. It's that simple.

Completely irrelevant argument as the server was always full back when it was 32 and will always be full even if you raise it to 50 players.

The core point is that there was a very solid and consistent playerbase built upon the old 32 player server that now have had their community experience upturned, and feel completely alienated by the lack of compassion about it. And even though we still make up a large portion of the 40 players that actively play, there is a united opinion that the newer 40 player experience is objectively unfun compared to how it used to be.

 

[flange_the_eternal]

and another thing, the 1-10 post point is just.... ???? Didn't it occur to you that people specifically got involved very recently to show how much this was being an issue?

 

[Bottiger]

Completely irrelevant argument as the server was always full back when it was 32

False. The server has been taking longer to fill up, sometimes even sitting at 0 up to 8 pm est and emptying out earlier at night for anyone paying attention.

and another thing, the 1-10 post point is just.... ???? Didn't it occur to you that people specifically got involved very recently to show how much this was being an issue?

How does this disprove my point? People that prefer 40 slots over 32 aren't going to be here voting.

 

[Eriknaitor]

False. The server has been taking longer to fill up, sometimes even sitting at 0 up to 8 pm est and emptying out earlier at night for anyone paying attention.

It takes longer to fill because people have jobs, and regulars attract regulars, but it stays filled for a longer time. This was back when we had 32 slots, and there was an Oprah's Petrol Station copycat made by EU regulars "stealing" ~20 players every weekend for around 2 hours.

Compared to US

How does this disprove my point? People that prefer 40 slots over 32 aren't going to be here voting.

Let's be real, people mostly join the forums to appeal a ban or to power trip on jannie activities. There are 62,025 users at the moment of this post, and in general, you only see the same 10 people reporting every single soul—some suggesting Deathrun maps, others reacting to every post, and the rest fighting their demons and creating drama in the profile posts.

 

[Bottiger]

It takes longer to fill because people have jobs

So after 5+ years, everyone on the server suddenly got jobs in the past few months?

but it stays filled for a longer time

No it is emptying out earlier and earlier at night.

Let's be real, people mostly join the forums to appeal a ban or to power trip on jannie activities.

And how does this disprove my point that the vast majority of people voting are only going to be people who hate 40 slots?

 

[Bottiger]

It takes longer to fill because people have jobs, and regulars attract regulars, but it stays filled for a longer time. This was back when we had 32 slots, and there was an Oprah's Petrol Station copycat made by EU regulars "stealing" ~20 players every weekend for around 2 hours.

Compared to US

Compare this to what it was in September.

 

[Eriknaitor]

So after 5+ years, everyone on the server suddenly got jobs in the past few months?

I don't know about US, I've been talking about EU all the time, and as far as I know most of EU regulars have been regulars for around 1/2 years at most. Also I can't talk about a whole group.

And how does this disprove my point that the vast majority of people voting are only going to be people who hate 40 slots?

My point is that forums, at least for EU, are irrelevant unless there's a need to report a cheater. In fact, ever since EU jannies were denied admin applications, Payload EU reports have been practically nonexistent. So, there's really no reason to visit the forums—I wouldn't be surprised if more than one person hasn’t even noticed this thread.

 

[Eriknaitor]

Compare this to what it was in September.

Yeah, people going back to Casual since bots got removed in July

 

[Bottiger]

My point is that forums, at least for EU, are irrelevant unless there's a need to report a cheater.

So you are basically saying the same thing I am.

That a poll on the forums would be useless and not representative of the overall population.

Why bother repeating the same point I just made?