Gameplay Changes To The Stock Maps 4 Server

[Zephyr 14]

Mana,

First off, I'd like to thank you for fixing the frequent crashes on the Stock Maps 4 server. The server hasn't crashed while I've been playing for more than a week.

However, a new slate of changes have been introduced, and I'd like to add my two cents if it makes a difference.

No more soundboards

Personally, I don't care much either way about this. Sometimes, they were funny, and sometimes they were severely abused.

Horse on the payload maps

It looks really out of place, but it doesn't alter gameplay substantially. I don't like it, but I can live with it.

Medics starting with partial ubercharges

Please remove this. This changes the balance of the game. The primary reason that I chose this server in the first place is because it was plain, unadulterated TF2 that used no mods affecting gameplay. I asked others what they thought about the ubercharge change, and the responses were universally negative. Please change this back to normal.

[Xod 1]

I back Zephyr on all this.

The HLSS and Horse I really don't care about, but the noob Medic pre-charge has to go.

I donate to play on a stock server with no crappy mods and fun individuals.

[DAR 0]

I have been a regular on Lotus 4 for a few months now, but I just now registered so that I could post on this one topic. Hopefully that should tell you how important this is to me. The mods have got to go. I used to main as medic and the partial ubercharge at the beginning of the round is very stupid. Even if I never ever played as medic before, I would have the sense to know that it is a bad idea. As for the horse, that as well is stupid. I can't even see it, and all I have is a gigantic flashing red error sign in place of the cart. I think messing with the cart has caused some additional problems. Not even 20 mins ago, we were playing on Blu team on Hoodoo. The setup was skipped and the gates never opened. To make things worse, the cart moved by itself and couldn't be stopped by Red. Needless to say, we won without even leaving the starting point. Also, I have been getting lag that isn't ping related when the cart is being pushed. Now to talk about the final insult. I will admit up front, I use HLSS but I do not spam it at all. In fact, I most always play a short clip when we win or lose or if someone requests me to do so. I will even stop if someone asks me to. If you don't believe me, ask Xod and Zephyr. The best way to regulate mic spam is to make votemuting accessible to everyone. That way, people whose presence is appreciated can play clips while people who spam can be muted.

I was considering donating to what has been my favorite server, but now you can count that out. I really want Lotus 4 to continue to be my favorite server, but at the rate things have gone, that will change. And even if the new mods were OK, why do they have to be on our server? Lotus 4 is one of the most popular and populated servers. Other regulars who haven't registered also dislike the new settings, and I feel that since I have just now registered, it is my duty to speak for them as well. So this is my simple request: restore Lotus to how it was not even a week ago.

By the way, thank you for fixing the server crashes.

[Skitzapath 1]

Yep, I totally agree. Some of the soundboards on TF2 were simply funny and great, and most of the time the people who used them used it sparingly enough and never abused it.

The horse isn't a huge thing, but I would prefer the cart too.

PLEASE get rid of partial uber on medics. That is BAD. That is just awful on every level.

Like others, I picked the Lotus server because it was just TF2. No mods, no custom maps, just a simple server. This makes me think twice about going back.

[Lowndez 1]

I agree with what DAR said. Bring back the soundboards, anyone who spams them can be votemuted and if you don't like soundboards at all just mute the person using them. The horse isn't a big deal, though the cart winning on its own on hoodoo earlier was ridiculous. The medic ubercharge shouldn't be there because on setup maps it doesn't make a huge difference but on something like granary it completely messes with the first rush for the middle point.

[Sazabi 1]

I've been playing on Stocks 4 for almost my entire time playing on Lotus, this is seriously not making me happy in my pants.

Horse for Cart: While funny for a little while it became a eyesore and a distraction.

Half Uber start: What? Why? This just gives the team witht he most medics a instant advantage outside of simply having more medics you can be fully charged on Granary before even arriving at the middle point now.

HLSS: This was amazing why is this gone. There is nothing better then listening to Take on Me with your team as you assault the first point on Steel, or listening to the Pokemon theme as you barrage the enemy charging into your guns on Goldrush. Those who abused can be vote-muted or vote kicked if they start getting around it.

Also I have something to add, the name changing. I joined the server yesterday all jolly and happy only to see the first thing that happens when I select my Targe and bottle demo preparing to dive into the maelstrom of battle is this. "Sazabi has changed his name to Brutus the Demo" My first reaction is... "What?" So I head into Steam to see whats up and use that to see if it will change my name back. No dice, so I switch classes you know thinking "Hey names Brutus the Demo might as hell GO HEAVY!" It changes straight to Brutus the Heavy. So after a few class changes I hit the name change limit and it goes back to Sazabi, as soon as I die like like and spawn once more like we all do it changes back to "Brutus the" and what ever class I was following, and wouldn't stop till I left the server. Luckily it wasn't a problem again when I joined a few hours later.

[Mana 3,867]

Sound from file was meant to be disabled many months ago when I removed the plugin which muted people if they played a sound for over 4 seconds. It was recently brought to my attention that I missed a few serves.

That has been corrected now.

Horse is temporary.

The ubercharge on spawn for the losing team was recently adjusted (by about 100% increase). Maybe a little bit too much. I'll probably bring it back to what it was. So only if a team is losing REALLY bad will they get a slight ubercharge bonus (helps against spawn camping).

[DAR 0]

Sound from file was meant to be disabled many months ago when I removed the plugin which muted people if they played a sound for over 4 seconds. It was recently brought to my attention that I missed a few serves.

That has been corrected now.

Horse is temporary.

The ubercharge on spawn for the losing team was recently adjusted (by about 100% increase). Maybe a little bit too much. I'll probably bring it back to what it was. So only if a team is losing REALLY bad will they get a slight ubercharge bonus (helps against spawn camping).

Wait so the removal of HLSS was intentional? It is still enabled in other servers.

[jeffro53081 1]

Horse is temporary.

I don't mind the horse. But I'm curious, what would you replace the horse with? I think we should push around a VW Beetle. That would be awesome.

I do not agree with the increased ubercharge, at least how it stands now.

[Victoreem the V of doom 30]

always liked the adviser pod

[Brokkoly 11]

noo, not our beloved horsey

[Mana 3,867]

noo, not our beloved horsey

Horse is permanent on the main Chicago servers. Temporary on all the other servers.

Initially it was going to be "Horse Weekend" but I got a bunch of messages over Steam about how it's awesome so I'm keeping it for a week or three everywhere.

Wait so the removal of HLSS was intentional? It is still enabled in other servers.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/2529/

Voice from file was supposed to be disabled on all Lotus servers starting end of May 2009. But I missed some (or overwrote the config later by accident). This has now been rectified.

[Dranearian 3]

I have not played in a few weeks, Busy with work among other things.

When I played TF2, I played on Lotus stock 4, 100% of the time, (80% of the time when the server crashes were happening, which is part of why I have not played in a few weeks, good to see that is finally solved).

Xod pointed this "feature" out to me, and I have only one thing to really say. This thing has got to go. It is the most broken ass-backwards "fix" I have ever seen to a problem that doesn't exist 95% of the time. I have never seen, on stock 4, a team that is getting beaten so badly that this fix even needs to be thought of, much less implemented.

The fact of the matter is: Lotus Stock 4 is a community server. While there are occasionally pubbers around, the majority of the players are people you see day-in and day-out. Being a community server, we take it upon ourselves to police our own problems. Either Votemaps, Votebalances, or people just straight up switching teams anytime it gets lopsided is how we do this. We do not need artificial intelligence trying to balance it for us. Why on earth would I possibly care about balance, much less the community of the server, if something stupid is going to try and balance it for me (which doesn't even work due to the fact that its an imbalanced balance solution).

In short: Get rid of it please.

[Xod 1]

The ubercharge on spawn for the losing team was recently adjusted (by about 100% increase). Maybe a little bit too much. I'll probably bring it back to what it was. So only if a team is losing REALLY bad will they get a slight ubercharge bonus (helps against spawn camping).

Spawn camping has never been a regular issue on stock 4 like I have seen it on other servers in the Lotus pool (ie.Dustbowl and Goldrush). There is a pretty good core of people that play on 4 who will switch if shit is getting really bad.

I firmly believe this should be removed. If you insist on leaving this, I would like to know the algorithm of this script and how it works. My experiences with it last night were way over the top. I don't believe there is any script out there that can effectively determine how badly a team is losing between all the different playstyles of PL, CP, A&D, and CTF.

Please remove this Mana or find a way for the donators to better police this themselves. It might be needed on other servers in your pool, but I can assure you that it has no place here.

[Mana 3,867]

I have not played in a few weeks, Busy with work among other things.

When I played TF2, I played on Lotus stock 4, 100% of the time, (80% of the time when the server crashes were happening, which is part of why I have not played in a few weeks, good to see that is finally solved).

Xod pointed this "feature" out to me, and I have only one thing to really say. This thing has got to go. It is the most broken ass-backwards "fix" I have ever seen to a problem that doesn't exist 95% of the time. I have never seen, on stock 4, a team that is getting beaten so badly that this fix even needs to be thought of, much less implemented.

The fact of the matter is: Lotus Stock 4 is a community server. While there are occasionally pubbers around, the majority of the players are people you see day-in and day-out. Being a community server, we take it upon ourselves to police our own problems. Either Votemaps, Votebalances, or people just straight up switching teams anytime it gets lopsided is how we do this. We do not need artificial intelligence trying to balance it for us. Why on earth would I possibly care about balance, much less the community of the server, if something stupid is going to try and balance it for me (which doesn't even work due to the fact that its an imbalanced balance solution).

In short: Get rid of it please.

Spawn camping has never been a regular issue on stock 4 like I have seen it on other servers in the Lotus pool (ie.Dustbowl and Goldrush). There is a pretty good core of people that play on 4 who will switch if shit is getting really bad.

I firmly believe this should be removed. If you insist on leaving this, I would like to know the algorithm of this script and how it works. My experiences with it last night were way over the top. I don't believe there is any script out there that can effectively determine how badly a team is losing between all the different playstyles of PL, CP, A&D, and CTF.

Please remove this Mana or find a way for the donators to better police this themselves. It might be needed on other servers in your pool, but I can assure you that it has no place here.

I reverted it to what it was a month ago for Stock #4. That's a 100% decrease in the "algorithm". It should take effect in a few map changes or after a server restart.

So right now it will be the current team score difference in percentage (so long as its higher than 50%) divided by 2 = starting ubercharge percentage for losing team's medics.

Currently the score difference in percentage was added as an uber, there was no divider.

Judging by my previous data, you will see this happening VERY rarely* (The whole reason why I increased it in the first place ).

*Seriously rarely, I did not see many log entries on all of the east coast servers combined when it was running with this setting.

[+Henry Spencer 117]

It still feels unneccessary for anywhere but Stock 2 and the 24/7 servers. I don't really want to hop in and play well, only to be punished for doing good by being repeatedly raped by an endless stream of ubercharges.

[Brokkoly 11]

Stocks 2? Aw, there's never a balance problem there

[Oww My Nose 19]

18 vs 5? teams are fine

[Zephyr 14]

Thanks for responding so quickly, Mana!

[Spartan_0214 18]

Heh. We had bigger problems when the regulars frequented Stocks 1. Unfortunately, shortly after Lorax left the server descended into what Stocks 2 is today. Somehow, Lorax would balance out the teams by having half the team go sneaky fingers Heavy.

[phantom 29]

Heh. We had bigger problems when the regulars frequented Stocks 1. Unfortunately, shortly after Lorax left the server descended into what Stocks 2 is today. Somehow, Lorax would balance out the teams by having half the team go sneaky fingers Heavy.

lorax played stock2.

stock2 is never really stacked, considering the majority of the 'stackers' are terribad. 75% of the wins on stock2 are cause the other team has 6+ spies or 4+ dodo scouts double jumping into sentries on badwater

[Brokkoly 11]

I don't know, on stocks 2 it gets to where everyone will go targelander or huntsman sniper... and still win

[phantom 29]

I don't know, on stocks 2 it gets to where everyone will go targelander or huntsman sniper... and still win

its pretty rare that its actually stacked. people are just bad and love to complain cause its easier to blame someone else than it is to accept that youre a failure

as ive said before it doesnt take much for them to win cause the majority of the 'stackers' are not even that good.

but when their 6 scout offense fails on badwater, hey teams are stacked.

7 spies on gorge and we lost? TEAMS ARE STACKED

[Brokkoly 11]

6 scout offense fails on badwater, hey teams are stacked.7 spies on gorge and we lost? TEAMS ARE STACKED

Well teams must be stacked then, I mean, it would take extremely skilled people to repel a 7 spy attack

[Zephyr 14]

Horse is permanent on the main Chicago servers. Temporary on all the other servers.

Judging by the new homepage art... I'm guessing that the horse isn't temporary.