Profile of Siphon X.

From the first post: 22 Apr, 2013 @ 10:33pm
https://steamcommunity.com/app/228200/discussions/0/810922320222874038/

And so on..

Maybe you're talking about this website. I'm talking about this game because game replays are not exclusive of this site

If you can't help, is better not to say anything, don't you think?

Not 100% sure what you are after. This thread explains what you can do to watch old replays. That said:

Aerafield is right, there is no chance you can watch this replay in a meaningful way as it is simply too old. In fact, it wouldn't work properly even for a replay that is older than about 3 months.

The replays basically only contain the player's commands to the different units. When the rules for these units changed in the meantime due to patches (and they did) the units will behave differently to how they did originally which will lead to totally nonsensical replays (typically, all units will gather in the base eventually and not do anything anymore).

In this specific case, I wouldn't be surprised if the replay wouldn't play at all, even with the –allowIncompatibleReplays switch. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the game outright crashes when then file names for the maps changed. You might circumvent that by renaming the files to what they were originally, but of course even if that prevents the crash, it still would lead to nonsensical replays .

Also, the website from which you got the replay files doesn't matter, those are simply the files that the game writes out.

...forgot to Quote...

For what it's worth, here are my two cents:

Whiteflash, I agree that the process as laid out in your post would be great to have implemented. Problem is that this would require a serious commitment from Relic in terms of money and personnel (i.e. money again) and frequent patch cycles (i.e. money). None of that is going to happen given where the game currently is in his life cycle.

Secondly, regarding the numbers (btw, newer numbers are here, I could get even newer numbers, but I don't think Vilshanka has settled yet): You know I like numbers, but I think it is actually a bit more complex than this.

I thought I could lay this out in a stringent argument, but there are a lot of points that are sort of interconnected to each other, so a list has to do:

• The term "competitive" is thrown around a lot, but I don't think it is clear what it means. I guess you want to say that the map would be fit to be used in a competitive environment. Still, not clear what that entails, really. Given that most tournaments are played as BO3 or up, any map would do, really, if you set up the faction/map pick rules properly.
  
  I guess tournament organizers pick maps based on what they hope gives them the most versatile matches, with most factions being able to compete with varied strategies so that matches are potentially more interesting to watch. and which have reasonable balanced starting points. Fair enough.
  
  Still, I'm not sure if I like A_Es approach of limiting the map-pool drastically is really my preferred option. If I look at older tournaments, that e.g. had Semoisky Winter in the pool: Sure, the map got picked only a few times, but each match was special because it was played on this rarely used map.
  
  
• Ok, assuming that "competitive" has something to do with "what you would use in a tournament environment", I don't think that this is what the majority of players actually want from a map. They want a map that they can have fun matches on. Now, that's obviously very subjective. For a lot of folks (particular the players that visit .org) this will mean that the map is "competitive" although views will differ on what that means. For others cosmetics, or certain layouts that are generally not considered competitive (Sittard Summer?) might be more attractive.
  
  The automatch map pool has to cater to different types of players. It might be that top 100 players veto different maps than people with rank 2000 and up. The latter might not play as often, but still probably spend about as much on the game as the others. If there is a map the top 100 player doesn't like, he might open a "what a crap map" thread on the forums. If the rank 2000 player doesn't find a map he enjoys he might simply leave the game completely (yeah, generalizations, I know, but I guess you get my point).
  
  So relic has to cater to different types of players. And that's not captured by simple statistics on vetoes.
  
  
• Regarding winter maps: As MB mentioned there is the whole skin issue. But even more than that: The game was marketed with the whole snow thing. A lot of work went into developing this (sidenote: Deep snow reads great: Snow fields that would slow down infantry, can be flattened by vehicles and are refreshed by blizzards! Too bad this doesn't go well with other aspects of the game (what if retreats wouldn't be slowed down?)). So, getting rid of cold tech in automatch could be viewed as bad for marketing, having basically no snow maps is worse. So I totally can understand why relic wants to keep at least a token number of snow maps in the automatch pool.
  
  
• Regarding using new maps: Well, the problem here is that I think everybody basically has to operate under this assumption that this is the last patch that this game will ever see. I'm not saying that it is, just that chances are it might be (actually, I had this impression already before DBP so I was surprised that we got the number of patches we got this year, including the announcements of more substantial patches later).
  
  This means a couple of things: We can't use a process that requires multiple iterations. And any change bears the risk that we might end up in a situation that is worse than what we have now. Now, where is the chance of screwing up higher:
  
  • Using maps that have been in the rotation for a while with known flaws and trying to improve them.
    
  • Using maps that have never been in the rotation.
    
  
  Whiteflash goes through great lengths when it comes to refining his maps and props for that. But you would have to do the same effort basically to every new map that is added.
  
  Again, not saying that no totally new maps should be added. But you have to be aware that the risk of doing that is (I think) is greater than reworking an old map. Sure, given enough iterations, in the long run you might be better of taking the risk with a map that has potential. But if you have basically just one shot to get it right?
  
  
• Regarding the process is being not transparent: Well, it was never explained really, but reading the post on these forums, it is pretty self explanatory how things are going down so far:
  
  • Sturmpanther made the thread about the summer map patch. It was clear that he would coordinate stuff. He specifically asked for feedback in the newly created subforum.
    
  • People created threads in these subforums with feedback. Eventually, a mapper (well, mostly Rosbone) picked up the task and started to implement the changes in several iterations while getting more feedback.
    
  • The three maps asked about in this vote are maps that are low in the statistics and did not get a rework. Two points on this:
    
    • You might question the sturmpanther's approach here to only include maps that are not worked on and not maps that rank lower but are worked on. Thing is, the idea is that the reworked versions hopefully end up being slightly better than the somewhat higher ranking ones that are not reworked. Problem is there would never be enough people that would objectively look at the reworked version before voting here. So, what do you do then?
      
    • Secondly, it is stated that this will not be the sole criterion to exclude maps. So why do this in the first place? Well, asking for feedback and community involvement is nice (again, one of these politics things) and it totally helps justifying your decisions later on.
      
    
    
  
  
  So, in essence: I'm not saying that the current process is perfect. But maybe you try to rethink your suggestions with these constraints:
  
  
  • Rework the map pool so that the game yields a higher player retention across most player profiles.
    
  • You have only one patch to do so.
    
  • Resources are sturmpanther and Rosbone (additionally the mappers whose maps are in the current pools for a rework of their maps; not that anybodies contribution would have been turned down, but seems like that is the yield this time around; also sorry if I forgot anybody working on this behind closed doors).
    
  • You have 2 months (which btw, have passed now).
    
  
  
  Go!
  
  

A quick correction: The numbers on the grenade usage were pulled from the replay files that I used from for the GCS2 meta post. Yossarian I think counted the games for the actual qualifiers, whereas I used the data for the qualifier as well as the wildcard tournaments (minus one game for which I had no replay).


The number of games per faction for the replays in question (as noted in the newspost) are: 145 (OH), 175 (SOV), 168 (OKW), 93 (USF) and 45 (UKF).

Hi Siphon, I would like to know if it is possible to add a statistic on grenade usage. How many grenade used during the game by each player. Do you think it is possible.

Gotta check how a grenade toss shows up in the replay file. I guess it would be possible to find those (well, at least how often the command was issued, as always it will be hard to impossible to find out if the grenade was cancelled...).

I'll have a look tomorrow.