FFA ladder advancement

[Ugrilainen]

Hey,

I am feeling a little nostalgic all of a sudden, going back to talk about FFA ladder, hell yeah!

FFArena

I keep hearing bad feedbacks about the ladder, in short :
- it does not work or not update statistics properly
- maps do not change
- desync
- no access to management
- anything else?

It is also expensive for w3arena to maintain.

I am trying to do something about it with General @FML|WorpeX and several people involved in a very tricky situation.

Onligamez old deal

When I came back in 2016 to fix the bot malfunctions, there were two bots running for FFA. One russian for Onligamez (Somethingwicked was admin there) and FFArena. This killed activity so we brokered a deal to merge both in one.

At that time our bot was working ok, because under lunaghost administration and my management. Now i dont have access to anything and lunaghost is dead.

The idea is. If our current bot is so terrible, why not let the Russians run it again? They had a way better system for the ladder with way less "loss bugs" and are good people to discuss with.

Their site : forum.onligamez.ru

So we are discussing with them and they are interested to start their bot back. Their ladder was on this page, inactive now of course :
http://stats.onligamez.ru/?st=3&top=

Onligamez new deal

They agreed to start it back and put a server not in Russia but in Western Europe. I'm overall very optimistic for a swift improvement of the situation.

You will have to deal with a ladder page in Russian but Im sure @FML|Renaud  could extract the datas somehow and make a page in English somewhere.

Since @SomethingWicked should be in the admin team, your requests for improvements (new maps, new seasons or else) shouldnt go unnoticed.

What we need to know

- Technical upgrades you want to see on this bot that were lacking on the current one (anonymousness for example or else)

- Would you pay for the bot fees? Should not be too much money (coming back for this one)

- Are you having a lot of desync on the bot currently? This should come from the different versions 1.26 and 1.28 (w3arena/Iccup vs the rest of the servers).

- Any objection to doing this move?

Waiting to hear from you. Speak now or don't complain after! 

[Valefort]

That is great news !

- Technical upgrades you want to see on this bot that were lacking on the current one (anonymousness for example or else)

Back to anonymousness please.

- - Would you pay for the bot fees? Should not be too much money (coming back for this one)

I don't mind putting in a little something to get a functional bot.

- Are you having a lot of desync on the bot currently? This should come from the different versions 1.26 and 1.28 (w3arena/Iccup vs the rest of the servers).

I didn't play a whole lot but they were not too frequent.

- Any objection to doing this move?

No objection at all from me ! I wish we'll be able to play from w3arena though (for the widescreen support) but it's not the end of the world if that can't be done.

[Airenikus]

Good idea. Let's bring ffa ladder back to life again!

- Technical upgrades you want to see on this bot that were lacking on the current one (anonymousness for example or else)

Anonymousness would be very good. Also I would love to see more RH maps.

- Would you pay for the bot fees? Should not be too much money (coming back for this one)

If not too much then yes.

- Are you having a lot of desync on the bot currently? This should come from the different versions 1.26 and 1.28 (w3arena/Iccup vs the rest of the servers).

Not really.

- Any objection to doing this move?

No.

[FML|HighTac]

- Technical upgrades you want to see on this bot that were lacking on the current one (anonymousness for example or else)

Anonymous matches would be great
Maybe two parallely hosted matches, one with random hero and one without
Possibility to report hackers and preteamers somewhere

- Would you pay for the bot fees? Should not be too much money (coming back for this one)

I'd be willing to put in a few Euros per month

- Are you having a lot of desync on the bot currently? This should come from the different versions 1.26 and 1.28 (w3arena/Iccup vs the rest of the servers).

surprisingly not so many. At least <5% of matches with desync

- Any objection to doing this move?

no, sounds great. thanks for your effort

[massmoretankz]

- Technical upgrades you want to see on this bot that were lacking on the current one (anonymousness for example or else)

Ugri I think in the current state the bot is far away from what this great community deserves. When I think of the bot I see it as a gateway to FML, simple as that.

It needs to provide a great service where people enjoy playing their ffa games cross-realm with low latency.
It needs to attract new people where they explore the great possibilities this game mode offers compare to plain old 1v1/RT.
And please don't come up with your own website. FFAMasters.net should become the one stop shop for all your FFA needs. Therefore I suggst to fully integrate it into our current website.
People can see the current ladder with stats of all players (just like Battle.net Ladder Page or w3arena).
Due to the auto saving functionality of the bot people can download all replays from the games played. This is to improve your game and report cheaters or rule breakers.

Thankfully, we have working bots with toom.io (noot, egel, accu etc.) that implement these functionalities.
These bots also save their replays and provide the maps in case you are missing any. Please see here
https://archive.toom.io/wc3/replays

I suggest you to talk to niels on discord about the setup.

- Would you pay for the bot fees? Should not be too much money (coming back for this one)

I am willing to pay for it if the whole concept is profound and sustainable

I look forward to hear your feedback on this.

Cheers,
mmt

[IWANTWC4]

I agree with basically everything people are saying.


Only thing I'll add.  Is I nominate massmoretankz to be one of the people in charge of the ladder.   He seems to be good with this kind of stuff and loves to watch FFAs.

[Joggel]

Anonymous would be great.

There are a lot of leavers on the current bot.
Don't know if these are bots or real players.
Maybe there is something to block players who often leave in first 2 minutes of a game.

I dont have problems with desync at all and i would pay something for a good bot

[aarnikratti]

Sounds great.
I want:
* Anonymousness
* Good statistics
* Random hero maps as well as standard hero maps

It needs to provide a great service where people enjoy playing their ffa games cross-realm with low latency.
It needs to attract new people where they explore the great possibilities this game mode offers compare to plain old 1v1/RT.
And please don't come up with your own website. FFAMasters.net should become the one stop shop for all your FFA needs. Therefore I suggst to fully integrate it into our current website.
People can see the current ladder with stats of all players (just like Battle.net Ladder Page or w3arena).
Due to the auto saving functionality of the bot people can download all replays from the games played. This is to improve your game and report cheaters or rule breakers.

100% agreed with massmoretankz here.

And when it comes to funding, I am sure that FML Patreon donaters would agree to put some of the patreon money for this.

[jAod]

Deleted all RDM heroes Maps pls )



ty <3

[ZsSuperCumulo]

The current bot is fine as it is. The ping is fine, no desyncs for most players, the level of opponents is ok for 6 or 8 ways and knowing who you are facing (not being annonymus) are some of positive features of this bot system.

Having a ladder is a good idea, but what we have now works just as much: people join and play games, the only time it seems empty is at night EST, but in general lines people play the game just fine.

Now if another group of people feel it's mandatory to update the bot system, we should at least keep some of the good aspects of this bot system.

Perhaps the one thing I would like to see differently is the addition of the newer maps. I mean, the current maps from the bot have been rotating since the begining. We need more of the recent maps submitted as well as less rdm hero maps.

Bottom line, minimum changes please, and thanks again for keeping ffa alive with ur efforts.

[ObserveAndLearn]

- anonymous please
- good statistics - most important for activity.
- i'm willing to pay a good amount but one-off instead of constantly paying over the months. i hope they don't rip us off xD
- i used to get desynced around the 30 minute mark every game just a month ago. Now doesn't happen at all

ps : massmoretankz for president.

[FML|Mog]

Agreed with what most have said. Most important aspects are good statistics, playable ping, and anonymous.

I personally don't like random hero games as much, but I understand many players do. Maybe like a 70/30 mix would work? Please definitely not 50/50...

Also, map rotation. It would be great if we could include a lot of the maps we have been using in FML from the map making contest. Also, I think if people see these maps bein played it could encourage people to make new ffa maps too which keeps this old game fresh.

Finally, my biggest concern is navigating a Russian site. I'm already bad at navigating the interwebs, and I worry with no stats access in English it will deter people from competing. I mean, for me, the ladder statistics are the big draw, so if it's too hard to get to the statistics site or understand the ladder rankings because they are all in Russian....well it seems like it could be a problem. Hopefully there is a solution to this that we could figure out.

Thanks for the update and overall I'm very excited to have a working ffa ladder again :)

[Ugrilainen]

And please don't come up with your own website. FFAMasters.net should become the one stop shop for all your FFA needs. Therefore I suggst to fully integrate it into our current website.

I do not intend to run a site or even run the ladder, Im too busy nowadays. Thats why I suggested that @FML|Renaud can integrate the stats somewhere here or elsewhere, whatever you guys like.

People can see the current ladder with stats of all players (just like Battle.net Ladder Page or w3arena).
Due to the auto saving functionality of the bot people can download all replays from the games played. This is to improve your game and report cheaters or rule breakers.

I will add replay downloading to the list of the specifications

Thankfully, we have working bots with toom.io (noot, egel, accu etc.) that implement these functionalities.
These bots also save their replays and provide the maps in case you are missing any. Please see here
https://archive.toom.io/wc3/replays

I suggest you to talk to niels on discord about the setup.

Of course I know niels, the bots and everything about those  My questions are about the ladder, I am dealing with the rest.

[Ugrilainen]

Also, map rotation. It would be great if we could include a lot of the maps we have been using in FML from the map making contest. Also, I think if people see these maps bein played it could encourage people to make new ffa maps too which keeps this old game fresh.

Just give me the top 3 contest maps (in due time) and we will add them up.

Finally, my biggest concern is navigating a Russian site. I'm already bad at navigating the interwebs, and I worry with no stats access in English it will deter people from competing. I mean, for me, the ladder statistics are the big draw, so if it's too hard to get to the statistics site or understand the ladder rankings because they are all in Russian....well it seems like it could be a problem. Hopefully there is a solution to this that we could figure out.

Thats why I suggested a data integration here. Im sure Renaud can do it, he did it before.

[ZsSuperCumulo]

Also, map rotation. It would be great if we could include a lot of the maps we have been using in FML from the map making contest. Also, I think if people see these maps bein played it could encourage people to make new ffa maps too which keeps this old game fresh.

Just give me the top 3 contest maps (in due time) and we will add them up.

Finally, my biggest concern is navigating a Russian site. I'm already bad at navigating the interwebs, and I worry with no stats access in English it will deter people from competing. I mean, for me, the ladder statistics are the big draw, so if it's too hard to get to the statistics site or understand the ladder rankings because they are all in Russian....well it seems like it could be a problem. Hopefully there is a solution to this that we could figure out.

Thats why I suggested a data integration here. Im sure Renaud can do it, he did it before.

Equalrium as substitute of Market Square

Dragon Islands as substitute for Pinball Crux (Crucible)

Meson de la Taberna as subs of Monsoon

GreenVille Woods as subs of Crazy Dumb Meadows

Neon City as subs ( or compannion) of Silverpine Woods

Freezing Fields as subs of Cold Plains

Purity should stay


I also created two more maps that we could integrate.