Request: Unambiguous Community Rules

posted on April 12th, 2010, 7:13 am

Every patch has had imbalances (and the next will probably as well). Each patch, the community comes up with various community rules. Mostly the community rules are vague and confusing. That ambiguity leads to hard feelings, arguments and less fun for many. What I would like to see is a set of community rules that are unambiguous.  I'm not completely sure what that would look like either (i.e. perhaps X% of certain ships, X number of certain ships, etc), but if we are going to continue to have community rules, I think we are going to need to make good unambiguous rules so that no one appears to be just making stuff up.

posted on April 12th, 2010, 7:20 am

If the game is balanced, as I've been countlessly reassured it will be , then no community rules should be needed.. people should invest the time they'd spend making up these "community rules" into creating a "community patch" which will iron out the imbalances which break online.

posted on April 12th, 2010, 7:33 am

Heh - heard that before   (and trust me, I would love to see that)


But I'll also counter argument myself:

Completely unambiguous tends towards lack of creativity = less fun
vs
Ambiguous = arguments, misunderstandings = less fun

I just want people to have more fun

[Boggz]

posted on April 12th, 2010, 7:42 am

Last edited by Boggz on April 12th, 2010, 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

EDIT:  I posted this before you and I talked, Yandon.  I hit post but got ninja'd so it never posted.  Then we talked about it and I agree that with your assessment that: 

Completely unambiguous tends towards lack of creativity = less fun
vs
Ambiguous = arguments, misunderstandings = less fun





But but btut but btu btut btut ....

 We HAVE a set of non-ambiguous community rules.  We made a number of posts about it, I finally made what I thought was a list that we all talked about, and then Dom put it up on the guide.  ^-^


  Sometimes we can't make numbers like "X" number of Kvorts or "Y" number of Leahvals because it's subjective.  Then also people get into arguments about how many they had an when.

   "Vague and Confusing" sometimes it may be, but that's why we can talk about it in-game or beforehand and come up with something we can agree on.  :thumbsup:

   
   I vote NO on hardcaps even in community rules .  Just use good judgement.

posted on April 12th, 2010, 8:07 am

In all honesty, what are you prepared to do if someone starts IGNORING the rules?
"He's a bad man!  Don't play with him!"
Do you really want to be the harbinger of the fleet ops blacklist?


...If so, cool.

posted on April 12th, 2010, 8:30 am

So far people have complied.

  Only one or two have actually pushed those rules or broken them ... and we don't see them much anymore .

posted on April 12th, 2010, 9:53 am

There certainly needs to be a sticky thread "official FO 3.1.x rules". (Or, what would be easier a balancing patch just obeying that rules)

posted on April 12th, 2010, 11:33 am

as far as any official rules go, I feel that if the game allows you to do it, it should always be an option, if you want to go to that dark little corner.  And since nobody's interested in seeing those hard caps and such,  "Official FO 3.x Guidelines"  Is more appropriate.  (Let's face it, there are always going to be exceptions and circumstances, right?

(Note:  I don't personally advocate spamming, exploits, etc.)

posted on April 12th, 2010, 12:28 pm

Well, I propose a stickied list of things that are currently considered exploits etc. (including spamming)...
That would be a little more helpfull...

posted on April 12th, 2010, 2:42 pm

The only thing you really need to remember is to refrain from only building ships with Single Stage Energy Conduits and Autonomous AI passives to the exclusion of everything else.  And don't immediately tech up to B5 battlecruisers.  Those are the most glaring issues and it's not hard to remember.   The Romulans get some latitude because their entire fleet costs more than it should, and leahvals and frigates are they only ships they can start with realistically in a competitive match.

posted on April 12th, 2010, 3:21 pm

I actually think alot of this is in the etiquet section of the guide.  Maybe an expanded list should just be placed there?

[tom]

posted on April 12th, 2010, 4:07 pm

Last edited by tom on April 12th, 2010, 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sorry to spoil the fun again guys but do u actually think that something like this is gonna work? sure if there are 10 players or something, maybe. i thought the goal was to make the community (and the player base) bigger. here are my concerns:

1. i build 15 k'vorts and 5 K’beajQ and my opponent builds 10 k'vorts and 10 K’beajQ or whatever the number. the point is i win because i have more k'vorts. should i be banned for spamming? how many kvorts is spamming? if i put 2 or 3 K’beajQ into my kvort fleet is this still spamming or not?

2. without replays how can somebody tell if those community rules are in fact broken? without observers u can only see a game from your perspective.

3. where's the limit? will the community ban any 'thing' it doesnt like or think its OP. from time to time i encounter a strategy that is hard for me to defeat. usually it just takes time to figure things out and find a good counter strategy to it. wont some strats end up in 'banned' bracket b4 somebody can come up with a valid counter strat?

4. i dont think that exploit should be in the same row as something being OP. should strong units be put together with bugs like norway nuke coil (a few patches back).

5. i dont believe a competitive rts can have something like community rules. does FO aim to have any competitive player base?

6. what about players who are inactive on the forum? should i explain 'the rules' b4 every game with somebody new to me? what my argument should be? 'this is how we play' doesnt sound good. should i point every new player to those community rules and play with him when he's 'ready'?

just my .02

posted on April 12th, 2010, 4:22 pm

I think you're missing the point, Tom.

Spam isn't the problem, but the fact that there are known units that both the community and the devs have stated are out of balance and that Optec has said will be changed in the next patch.  Once they're balanced, go spam them to your heart's content!

Questions 2-5 can be answered by saying it's not that extreme.  There is no "Spam Police" .  In fact, as Boggz has mentioned, we don't want to put a cap on these ships.  Just don't queue up 10 Kvorts automatically, simply because because you'll know that you'll ace your opponent, as right now they dominate almost every vessel in FO and effectively have no counter.  No one is looking to enforce some draconian rule on it, just build some brels and kbeajq as well.  No one is looking to ban anyone.

Again, I'm sure the next patch will have better balancing of these ships, and then it's no problem.

[Boggz]

posted on April 12th, 2010, 4:28 pm

Last edited by Boggz on April 12th, 2010, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sorry to spoil the fun again guys but do u actually think that something like this is gonna work? sure if there are 10 players or something, maybe. i thought the goal was to make the community (and the player base) bigger. here are my few concerns:

  I feel that it does work .  For the most part there are no complaints about the community rules.  Mos new players fall into the rules pretty easily.

1. i build 15 k'vorts and 5 K’beajQ and my opponent builds 10 k'vorts and 10 K’beajQ or whatever the number. the point is i win because i have more k'vorts. should i be banned for spamming? how many kvorts is spamming? if i put 2 or 3 K’beajQ into my kvort fleet is this still spamming or not?

Again ... I think that a subjective set of numbers saying what's spam and what's not is not only impossible but misguided.  There's no way to set a static "YOU MAY HAVE ONLY "X" NUMBER OF KVORTS OR YOUR HEAD WILL EXPLODE" kind of limit, so a player is asked to use good judgement.  Now ... WHO creates the basis for good judgment has been called into question, but I feel that a person can read the community rules thread about just this topic (both in the forums and on the guide) and get a pretty good idea.
   
   A subjective number for how many you can have will spawn countless arguments and one of my favorite things:  people build far more of an OP unit and holding them "in reserve"  .  I remember people doing that in 3.0. with Griffins.  They'd only use 5, hit jammer all at once (reducing most small vessels to almost nothing), they'd die, and suddenly 5 more would jump into the fray and you'd hear "YEAH BUT I NEVER HAD 5 FIGHTING MORE THAN ONCE OMFG ROLFCOPTER".

2. without replays how can somebody tell if those community rules are in fact broken? without observers u can only see a game from your perspective.

But we have replays .  Oodles and oodles of Replays.  Thanks to yandonman we've got lots of examples of watching the imbalanced units tear things up.  Yandon has his own ideas on what's unbalanced, but in general he does a great job of pointing out where and when a unit is CLEARLY at an advantage.  Listen to his commentaries in certain matchups and you'll see.

3. where's the limit? will the community ban any 'thing' it doesnt like or think its OP. from time to time i encounter a strategy that is hard for me to defeat. usually it just takes time to figure things out and find a good counter strategy to it. wont some strats end up in 'banned' bracket b4 somebody can come up with a valid counter strat?

No one has been "banned" ... dunno where you're coming up with that.  There have been a few times when people willfully and maliciously exploit all the imbalances possible ON PURPOSE.  Those people also happen to generally not be very nice people anyway and end up being ignored and removed from games because they're not fun to play with.  Call that banning if you want, I call it getting your just desserts for being an asshole .

4. i dont think that exploit should be in the same row as something being OP. should strong units be put together with bugs like norway nuke coil (a few patches back).

Then you've never been kvort-spammed repeatedly .  A borderline exploit is not EXACTLY the same as a bug, you're right, but when it's existence and use destroy the fun and balanced nature of the game ... best thing you can do is come up with some soft rules about it's use if you ask me.

  That's why we don't play Mayson:  There are no "bugs", we just know (and have proof) that he's far too powerful to make even a remotely balanced game.

5. i dont believe a competitive rts can have something like community rules. does FO aim to have any competitive player base?

  But it DOES work .  95% of the time there's no problem and every just uses (remarkably) good judgement making a few of the OP units and branching out to others.  As far as I know, the community has taken the road of less competetive, more fun.  That's why ideas for record keeping have been shot down.

[tom]

posted on April 12th, 2010, 4:30 pm

Last edited by tom on April 12th, 2010, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No one is looking to enforce some draconian rule on it, just build some brels and kbeajq as well.

in a close game a player with more k'vorts wins. 'some' sound a little blur to me.

i guess i am missing the point again . im going back to my dark corner now

EDIT: ninja'd by boggz.
boggz bro, u took it to a level of seriousness i will never reach. i was talking more about an abstract concept of community rules in competitive rts not something i saw in game and i was exaggerating a bit too my examples were just to put it in FO enviroment.
now where was that corner of mine, i should never leave something i cant quickly find damnit