ChasKi 15 #1 Posted February 6, 2011 Hi there, Firstly let me say thank you very much indeed for providing the server facilities on which I play pretty much exclusively, all my TF2. I am grateful to those donors and those others who fund the servers at their own expense, allowing me to play. I don't want to play elsewhere as there is a good community of regulars to the server that I enjoy playing with and my friends list is now full of them. That said, I can't help but feel there are a few areas on which could be improved to the benefit of everyone who frequently plays on the Lotus UK Stock Maps server and help get Lotus value for money,by keeping the server filled more frequently with real players. Voteskip: You can't skip a 40 minute map until the last five minutes, if the players on the server want to skip the map this ends up in players mass leaving the server. It would be far better if voteskip were able to be voted upon at any time during the game and required 60%+ to be passed. If players don't want to play a map, they don't want to play it, that doesn't mean it needs to be removed from the rotation, it's just better to give the players the choice. Autobalance and Scramble, autobalance is incredibly poor when there are not enough normal players and the server decides to add bots. The autobalance fills one team with real players and leaves the other team with only 1-2 real players, often resulting in situations where it's 1-2 vs 5-6, obviously this is unfair and boring and as a result people leave quickly, meaning a good balanced game doesn't get underway. Personally, I would far prefer it if autobalance was removed and players left to scramble the teams themselves. It happens frequently, but then gets messed around as autobalance starts interfering again. Lag/crashes: the server frequently lag spikes and crashes, restarting to badlands, which frequently causes players to leave en-mass and when there are lower numbers on the server can kill the game off entirely and render the server empty. This normally also changes the player count from 33 to 24, meaning even if most reconnect some are locked out from reconnecting due to lower numbers. Bots: most of the time on most maps the bots never leave the spawn, rendering them entirely useless. By not having BOT instead of a ping, it confuses casual players into thinking they're real players, leaving unbalanced games and preventing games from starting. It would be fantastic if the server administrators would consider addressing some of these issues as they do affect the enjoyment of playing on the server and can be incredibly frustrating and even detrimental to the success (use) of the server! I hope I don't seem ungrateful; I genuinely appreciate that you run the server for everyone! Cheers, Chaski (Tom) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mana 3,867 #2 Posted February 6, 2011 Voteskip: You're doing it wrong. The only reason voteskip was added was to make it possible to skip a map that is stuck. It ends the game immediately without waiting for the round to end. Use votemap instead. Autobalance: Bots should be autobalanced/scrambled. The only reason they aren't is because they are "donors". This will be fixed. Lag/Crashes: Stock UK Hasn't crashed/been restarted in 3 days as of this post. Also when it does crash it reverts to badwater. When it goes empty it reverts back to goldrush but never badlands. And it should not stop anyone from joining. It's always 33 players despite what you see when it's low on players. Bots: Which maps did you notice they don't move on? There could be some missing nav files. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasKi 15 #3 Posted February 7, 2011 Thanks for a quick reply! Voteskip: Awesome! Good to know. Autobalance: Thanks! Lag/Crashes: Have noticed that the last few days have been better, definitely. Bots: The only one I can remember off the top of my head is plr_pipeline, will update this post with others as I notice them tomorrow/following days! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DrkEagle 15 #4 Posted February 7, 2011 Ive noticed bots on Pipeline on stocks 3 staying in spawn too. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mana 3,867 #5 Posted February 8, 2011 Bots should now be autobalanced/autoscrambled. And I have made a new nav for pipeline. It's now uploaded to all Lotus TF2 servers and will take effect next time the map is loaded. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyp 9 #6 Posted February 9, 2011 Hey ChasKi, Thought I recognised your name. See you playing on UK stocks a lot. Seems like Mana's already covered your issues. Mana - As for the Bot problem, it seems like 90% of the time they're on they just idle in spawn? I'll take down more details next time I'm playing with bots so I can let you know which maps, etc. See you in there ChasKi Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasKi 15 #7 Posted February 10, 2011 Hey ChasKi, Thought I recognised your name. See you playing on UK stocks a lot. Seems like Mana's already covered your issues. Mana - As for the Bot problem, it seems like 90% of the time they're on they just idle in spawn? I'll take down more details next time I'm playing with bots so I can let you know which maps, etc. See you in there ChasKi Awesome, I recognise your name too Regards votemap, it doesn't actually do what I was hoping - it's just RTV, RTV doesn't have an effect on anything but the nextmap in the queue, I was hoping for a command that triggered a vote for a map, that then skipped the current one being played, or just a function like voteskip so that the current map being played doesn't have to be played all the way until the last five minutes as sometimes (especially on marmite maps like sawmill ctf) it can be really annoying when everyone decides they've had enough of a map after 15-20 mins yet there's no way to cut the map short. See you in game Jonnyp! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mana 3,867 #8 Posted February 23, 2011 Awesome, I recognise your name too Regards votemap, it doesn't actually do what I was hoping - it's just RTV, RTV doesn't have an effect on anything but the nextmap in the queue, I was hoping for a command that triggered a vote for a map, that then skipped the current one being played, or just a function like voteskip so that the current map being played doesn't have to be played all the way until the last five minutes as sometimes (especially on marmite maps like sawmill ctf) it can be really annoying when everyone decides they've had enough of a map after 15-20 mins yet there's no way to cut the map short. See you in game Jonnyp! No. Nothing is supposed to just STOP the game for everyone and skip to a new map. In TF2 votemap sets the nextmap so it changes on round end.However I do suppose this could be a problem on some CTF maps where the rounds could go on for a very long. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
I can break these cuffs 2 #9 Posted March 6, 2011 we got bots that are stuck in badwater too when the cart goes to 2nd point and the defense door closes the bots will be stuck at it even sometimes the engies would just build there and let the offense team win, it's really annoying for people who play defense since they can't get no help in a match that's like 8 vs 3. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasKi 15 #10 Posted March 8, 2011 we got bots that are stuck in badwater too when the cart goes to 2nd point and the defense door closes the bots will be stuck at it even sometimes the engies would just build there and let the offense team win, it's really annoying for people who play defense since they can't get no help in a match that's like 8 vs 3. bots on Junction don't work either, nor do they work on Egypt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasKi 15 #11 Posted March 14, 2011 bots on Junction don't work either, nor do they work on Egypt The server is alsol So laggy/crashy atm it's basically unplayable! :S EDIT: It's now literally unplayable! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mana 3,867 #12 Posted March 16, 2011 The server is alsol So laggy/crashy atm it's basically unplayable! :S EDIT: It's now literally unplayable! This: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IceSage 58 #13 Posted March 21, 2011 I was going to make my own suggestion on this, but considering this topic is already filled with the discussion of the bots... On several maps, (especially in arena) the bots will stand in their spawns, because they don't think they need to leave spawn. (Especially the snipers.) I was once going to suggest a way to clear the bots if a certain number of human players are on the server... mainly on arena. (In other maps, they're okay.) Basically, when there's a good amount of people, maybe like, 3 per team, (6 on server) there's really no need for the bots. Especially if they all stack on one team. I thought the bots were disabled at this number to begin with, but I guess not. (Or it sometimes doesn't work.) Kicking bots never work, they just end up rejoining. Perhaps let us kick the bots? *Shrug* It hasn't been much of a problem lately, but just tossing it out since I saw a thread complaining about crap. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
