merlinus12 Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 (edited) TL;DR version: the !rtd function on this map has become unbalanced. Could we try removing it? I've been playing/admining on the 24/7 Dustbowl server for a while, and have noted a lot of... ambivalence toward the !rtd function. In short, a considerable number (i.e. the majority) of games seem to be resolved by use of the !rtd function by the blue team (attackers) who will roll in mass hoping for godmode, toxic or (for certain classes) crits. My far the most common request players make of me as an admin is to "turn off !rtd" (which, obviously, is beyond my abilities). Most of my RL friends - who once loved this server due to its ping and consistently full teams - have migrated to others once they tired of the !rtd spam. In capture-style play, the three rolls previously mentioned seem to have a disproportionate advantage for blue. Godmode in particular is fairly devastating since it makes a player immune not only to damage but also to all forms of knockback - thus making capturing the point laughably easy in many cases. While these rolls are also useful to the defenders (toxic players sitting at the garage door of the spawn point has become a very common occurance), the simple ability of a heavy, soldier, pyro or demo to sit on point completely immune to any effects is a clear advantage to the side that needs to capture points. UPDATE FOR CLARITY: I am NOT saying that !rtd is bad or entirely detrimental. Its a fun mechanic in general. I think my ideal solution would be a slight modification of the !rtd mechanics (particularly godmode and toxic) for capture/defend maps, not getting rid of the mod altogether. Edited March 18, 2011 by merlinus12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 !rtd is what helps the server become fun. It will NEVER be removed, and we all like it. I dont see why you dont. /thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cisco Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 rtd has always been a reason why I stay away from certain servers. To me it involves less skill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 rtd has always been a reason why I stay away from certain servers. To me it involves less skill. Less skill? Who needs skill in TF2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 l4d2bob - If you like it, that's fine. However, you don't seem to actually respond to anything I said, so I'll ignore it. Counted the number of games decided by !rtd in an evening of play - out of 20 rounds, 9 were won by blue using godmode. Others were not "decided" by godmode (i.e. a godmoded player didn't stand on the point to win the match) but were significantly affected by godmode (e.g. sentries were taken out, significant losses inflicted in a way that led to a win). I'm sure that !rtd is just a fun addition to many other games - I enjoy some of the zany effects and the occasional change of pace. But when entire strategies revolve around an entire team using !rtd at a calculated moment in the expectation that 1-2 will get godmode... that cheapens the game and, more importantly for a LOT of players, makes it less fun. If the implementation of rtd was a little different, I think it wouldn't be a problem - remove godmode from the roll option and its really a non-issue. Toxic and crits can be easily countered. Heck, if godmode permitted knockback it wouldn't be so bad. At least then the defenders would have some defense other than to kamikaze onto the point in the hope that one of them survives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skanky Tank Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 RTD is what makes the HG servers unique. All of our TF2 servers run it. Even the trade server. In CS:S Jailbreak, we have !pd (Prison Dice) which allows the terrorists to sometimes roll big, like a pistol w/silencer, or they can get sentenced to the electric chair. The CT's never complain, and the CT's don't even have a !pd feature of some sort. In all of our TF2 servers, each team has that. So don't complain. You just get shitty rolls, or your team is full of bots. Deal with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 RTD is what makes the HG servers unique. All of our TF2 servers run it. Even the trade server.In CS:S Jailbreak, we have !pd (Prison Dice) which allows the terrorists to sometimes roll big, like a pistol w/silencer, or they can get sentenced to the electric chair. The CT's never complain, and the CT's don't even have a !pd feature of some sort. In all of our TF2 servers, each team has that. So don't complain. You just get shitty rolls, or your team is full of bots. Deal with it. Skanky, I love you. canada_rule! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEE SUPER GERMAN! Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 No I actually agree. I REALLY hate the rtd system. I can't count the number of times where the balance of the gameplay was just fucked over by rtd, it's really annoying as balls. Hell, the only server I can stand it on is Pipeline, and that's because it's not an attack-defend map. But hey, it's probably because I can actually play the game without relying on getting toxic and standing next to a door. Also, I think that we should remove bots as well. Yeah there might be times where the server is not populated, but nothing makes me instantly leave and blacklist a server more than fake player counts, and I KNOW I'm not the only one who hates it. I think it's making it slightly harder to recruit TF2 players who are a little more serious about playing the game. tl;dr Make at least SOME servers without bots and rtd and I'll be happy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The_Monkey Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 No I actually agree. I REALLY hate the rtd system. I can't count the number of times where the balance of the gameplay was just fucked over by rtd, it's really annoying as balls. Hell, the only server I can stand it on is Pipeline, and that's because it's not an attack-defend map. But hey, it's probably because I can actually play the game without relying on getting toxic and standing next to a door. Also, I think that we should remove bots as well. Yeah there might be times where the server is not populated, but nothing makes me instantly leave and blacklist a server more than fake player counts, and I KNOW I'm not the only one who hates it. I think it's making it slightly harder to recruit TF2 players who are a little more serious about playing the game. tl;dr Make at least SOME servers without bots and rtd and I'll be happy Last time I checked you were the TF2 division leader... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shizzle Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I agree with you. RTD sometimes can be the shit that hitS the fan. l4d2bob - If you like it, that's fine. However, you don't seem to actually respond to anything I said, so I'll ignore it. Counted the number of games decided by !rtd in an evening of play - out of 20 rounds, 9 were won by blue using godmode. Others were not "decided" by godmode (i.e. a godmoded player didn't stand on the point to win the match) but were significantly affected by godmode (e.g. sentries were taken out, significant losses inflicted in a way that led to a win). I'm sure that !rtd is just a fun addition to many other games - I enjoy some of the zany effects and the occasional change of pace. But when entire strategies revolve around an entire team using !rtd at a calculated moment in the expectation that 1-2 will get godmode... that cheapens the game and, more importantly for a LOT of players, makes it less fun. If the implementation of rtd was a little different, I think it wouldn't be a problem - remove godmode from the roll option and its really a non-issue. Toxic and crits can be easily countered. Heck, if godmode permitted knockback it wouldn't be so bad. At least then the defenders would have some defense other than to kamikaze onto the point in the hope that one of them survives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 Maybe a fair solution - since there clearly are some people who like !rtd - is either to remove one or two of the effects causing the biggest problems (godmode and toxic) or have some servers with it and some without. To our dissenters - this isn't a "black and white" issue. It is entirely reasonable (and likely) that some people will like !rtd and some won't. I think its a fun mechanic on some servers (like pipeline, granary and 2Fort), and without godmode and toxic its fine on dustbowl, gravelpit and other attack/defend style maps. Heck, if we could just MOVE someone with godmode, it wouldn't be any more unbalanced than uber. Why not find some way to please both groups? What is it that you like about !rtd? Is there a way to modify it (such as taking out or toning down godmode) that would keep the parts you like but make the rest of us happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skanky Tank Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Talk to Cr(+)ssair? He does basically all of our scripting and he probably wrote the script for rtd. Yes, there is a chance that in the future, there could be a less rage-evoking version of rtd, but that means revising the current version which could take some time. However, it could be a good idea to see if there is a way to possibly vote to turn off rtd for a round or two, or possibly have each player set their own !rtd preferences like whether they want it ON, or OFF. Just a suggestion really. but I'm not the one to go to for these kind of things haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Talk to Cr(+)ssair?He does basically all of our scripting and he probably wrote the script for rtd. Yes, there is a chance that in the future, there could be a less rage-evoking version of rtd, but that means revising the current version which could take some time. However, it could be a good idea to see if there is a way to possibly vote to turn off rtd for a round or two, or possibly have each player set their own !rtd preferences like whether they want it ON, or OFF. Just a suggestion really. but I'm not the one to go to for these kind of things haha I've seen some servers with noclip on rtd. Be glad we dont have that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 noclip would be pretty painful, I'll admit... Now that I know how !rtd is managed, I'll shoot Crosshair a message seeing what the possibilities are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The_Monkey Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Talk to Cr(+)ssair?He does basically all of our scripting and he probably wrote the script for rtd. Yes, there is a chance that in the future, there could be a less rage-evoking version of rtd, but that means revising the current version which could take some time. However, it could be a good idea to see if there is a way to possibly vote to turn off rtd for a round or two, or possibly have each player set their own !rtd preferences like whether they want it ON, or OFF. Just a suggestion really. but I'm not the one to go to for these kind of things haha Crosshair didn't create our RTD for TF2. Please do not bug him about this. This thread is being monitored. Just keep discussing the issue please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Crosshair didn't create our RTD for TF2. Please do not bug him about this. This thread is being monitored. Just keep discussing the issue please. Wait if he didn't did you guys just download the mod? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) Personally I love our dice mod and want to keep it I know there's regulars that think the same. Since this is a community I think we shall have a vote over removing RTD completely or godmode and toxic from the competitive servers. As for the bot system I know they can be annoying but they do help keep players. Edited March 19, 2011 by Dirty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScubaSteve Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 The fact of the matter is that dicemod is widely popular, may not seem like that in your eyes but it is, i had this discussion with some randoms in our servers once, and they said they come back to the server because of it. Me personally i dont like it and i never use it lol. but hey our servers are populated so there must be something right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 My summary of the thread so far: - Most of us like at least some parts of !rtd - Some !rtd options are unbalanced in certain modes of play, causing teams to form whole strategies depending upon them. - Godmode is problematic on Capture/Defend maps because attackers can cap points with it (completing the irreversible "win" condition of the round). It provides a much smaller benefit to defenders. Furthermore, there is no counter to it other than to jump onto the point and hope the godmoded player is too incompetent to kill you at point blank range. ----- POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: ----------- Alter "godmode" so that godmoded players can be pushed, but not damaged ----------- Remove godmode from the !rtd options on capture/defend style maps ----------- Disable !rtd on capture/defend style maps - Toxic presents a problem on some maps because a toxic player can stand outside of the spawn point, killing any who try to exit while remaining being immune to attack ----- POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS ----------- Change toxic such that it doesn't pass through hard barriers such as walls ----------- Remove toxic from the !rtd options on these maps I did not contact Crosshair, and will not. Thanks for letting me know not to bug him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Remove godmode from the !rtd options on capture/defend style maps Pyros can air blast godmode players Change toxic such that it doesn't pass through hard barriers such as walls If possible it will take some coding I could change the death radius for toxic kills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I didn't realize pyros could airblast them... I knew the sentries and rockets wouldn't affect them in any way. A solution that allowed normal forms of "blast" damage (explosions of various kinds) to affect a godmoded player would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l4d2bob Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I didn't realize pyros could airblast them... I knew the sentries and rockets wouldn't affect them in any way. A solution that allowed normal forms of "blast" damage (explosions of various kinds) to affect a godmoded player would be great. I think admins MIGHT consider that, but its unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinus12 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 I think that would be a way to preserve the uniqueness of the HG servers - something very worth preserving - while making these servers a more balanced and thus fun for everybody. I remember hearing that this thread was being monitored. Any word on what would and wouldn't be feasible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n1ckkkkk Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 RTD should not be removed from all servers Although we need a couple of servers vanilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HEZEKIAH Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Ya I'm not a fan of RTD. For me, I like vanilla, if i'm in serious mode. But if i'm just screwing around I would seek out RTD servers. Hence my second run in with HG before my membership. So I overall agree with Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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