The Issues with CTF in general

Ok there's only so many posts I can reply to at once, so I will get to the rest as soon as I can!

I'm not putting spoilers on this first response because I think it's something multiple people are going to ask about:

Not going to happen for quite a few reasons, but I'll be brief because everyone's already sick of me talking after my initial post!
1. This thread wasn't designed purely for me to gain some credit with the staff. If anything, I've probably offended some of them, meaning the opposite is true. It would undermine my argument if I were to apply for moderator in the wake of this post, as people could quite easily say I was doing it purely to increase my chances of successfully obtaining the rank. I want to make sure this thread is purely as intended: to call out the problems CTF is facing, and hopefully come up with some solutions to them
2. I don't fit the requirements for the job, for example I don't use teamspeak (and I don't intend to for that matter either)
3. This has been discussed in skype before, and the majority of people find me too irresponsible and outspoken to ever be considered for the role, and I happen to agree with them

Spoiler: Response to Creux

I get what you're saying, and yeah I did actually consider this when I wrote the post. However I decided to include it anyway because I thought it was important that if I was going to call out the problems facing the server, I needed to call the ones I saw with the staff as well. They can make the decision to change how they conduct themselves as much as they can work to reduce server lag, and so I needed to point it out so they could see what was happening and hopefully make that change. It doesn't exactly help solve the issues raised, as I'm pretty sure I've annoyed quite a few members of staff by posting this, but at the very least now they're in the open. That means that hopefully they can be corrected as much as any of the other problems I've talked about.

Spoiler: Response to mh__

I think we've already explained this in the TC chat yesterday, but you're welcome to discuss it with me further privately. I kinda want this thread to be about the issues I've raised rather than this disclaimer, which was made to stop the post being taken down without a good reason anyway. I'm not mounting any legal challenges, I just want my post not to be removed without good reason.

In response to to the first paragraph, that really depends on how toxic you believe ant859 to have been. Also whilst you might like toxicity, not everyone else does. Most people consider it to be negative, and so I'll treat it as a problem.
in response to the second, the good news is the committee are recruiting more moderators so hopefully that will be addressed in the near future.

Well I'd argue if they have enough money to offer prizes for contests like: https://www.brawl.com/threads/28886/ Then they should have enough money spare to hire coders, or money to allow the existing coders to update certain gamemodes. If the "bad" updates were tested in the match server first, this wouldn't have happened at all, as they'd have realised the problems with the changes before making them public. It's also a matter of common sense to check the effects of any update before they role it out publically.

Then that's a matter for the community to address - be more openly critical of ideas before they're made public (In a constructive manner. Provided they get listened to, this should work to everyones advantage. I expect some are scared to be openly vocal in case their post is removed for being too critical instead of constructive.

Different people get affected different amounts. I'd argue however irrespective of whether you believe it lagged more back then or now, I think that they were both unacceptable and need to be fixed. The CTF servers state they can support 50 people, but in reality 35 people seems about the maximum before the game becomes very laggy, and even in cases unplayable. I understand that there are limits brawl's funding, but there has to be a way to reduce the lag without causing a financial upset.

Responding to the first paragraph, I'd agree there are extreme cases where you could argue that it's not enough for simply 1 strike. However, in the case of skarm, I don't think having an alt on another team really qualifies as serious enough for more than one skype.

Responding to the second paragraph, firstly no it wasn't me being targeted, but I felt given the circumstances it would be better for them to remain anonymous. Secondly, these weren't the only screenshots I received of this event, but I decided to include these ones specifically because they were the easiest to see. When the screenshots were taken, the timing wasn't the best and the chat was fading. That made it quite hard to be able to see in some circumstances. The other reason was the post was already extremely long, and I didn't want to make it any longer than necessary. There are more screenshots, and whilst I've lost them under the pile of evidence I've used for this post, I'm sure you can get the rest off @gamren

Disclaimer dealt with already.
This is mostly down to personal opinion as to how much you believe each side is to blame. The way I see it, the staff are unecessarily removing posts when they could just edit them to remove flame. On the other hand the players shouldn't be making insulting threads in the first place. I think they're both to blame so I treated it as such, I never actually stated which I thought to be more important (as far as I'm aware, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Spoiler: Response to GengarSleep_

Doesn't matter, he was on the team at the time this happened, and so he was still subject to team rules.

Spoiler: Response to Admiral_Munson

Dealt with.

Given now we can hardly reach above 50 or 60 at peak times, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say it's vastly shrunk. You're comparing it to a different gamemode rather than the same gamemode at different points. There was no doubt it's less popular now than it once was

Sounds like it is, but that might be due to nostalgia clouding my vision or alternatively the different circumstances. There are definitely toxic people now, as there was then, and I think any toxic people in chat is more than there should be!

True, and to argue with that I'd point to the fact brawl spent all that money on CTF in the first place. Why would they spend so much money on CTF if they didn't think it was worth doing? It's true that circumstances do change over time, and that CTF might not be seen as profitable now, but did back then. In that case I revert to what I said above- if Brawl has enough money to spend on prizes for competitions which they don't even have to host anyway, why can't they spend money on coding the games they play as a priority! It's why we're all here on a day to day basis. There's also the possibility updating CTF could make it mor popular which results in a higher profitability.

I hope they read this and take it forward, but that's up to the staff at the end of the day. Let's hope they listen.

Right now there's a fairly large pile of evidence suggesting the mods are ignoring a lot of what the community is saying. I'm not saying that the moderators should be expected to come up with decent reworks all on their own- that is realistically what the server ideas section is meant to help with. Like I said in the original post, there are over 880 threads in that section, full to the brim with ideas to help the staff come up with a improvements to make to CTF. Not all of them are going to be any good, but it doesn't take much to read something and make their mind up whether its a good idea. If they still can't handle that, then a bigger mod team to bring together ideas, reducing the average workload will help. Given that there are going to be more moderators soon (with mod applications open) I hope this will make it easier for the future. With that said maybe I was hasty about how I phrased "work harder" as it's probably not the best solution I've given. With that said, getting the staff to listen better to community criticism would go ways to solve this problem.

Knockback doesn't increase player damage, just increases the time it takes to kill a player. It's only knockback 1 so the distance isn't really enough for a good headstart if they plan on running. The only real benefit I can see is if you get knocked off a cliff, which would cause fall damage (not necessarily a lot given it's only knockback 1). Other than that it just draws out the inevitable death of the necro, and makes it more annoying to kill the thing! I don't really see being annoyed by a game as beneficial!

Exactly. Unfortunately it's the situation we're in right now. Maybe we can come up with a solution to this for the future? Until then it'll need moderator cooperation for any solution to be effective

No prob

 

Spoiler: Response to AdamLovesBarca_

Here you've brought up quite a few good points where I've missed stuff. I didn't mention skarm having three strikes on MCPVP exactly because they were removed. Brawl and MCPVP aren't the same thing, and they should have counted for nothing once brawl took over and decided to remove them. Skarm shouldn't have been treated any differently from any other player as a result, and yet he still was. Now it's fair enough if you think skarm shouldn't have been allowed back on teams, everyone has their own opinion. However given the fact he was he should have been treated like any other player, and the fact is he wasn't. The fact is some of the people that I've talked about on the thread (whom I won't mention) I think deserved everything they got. With that said there are limits, and we can't just go about unjustly treating everyone. If we're going to punish someone, we need a reasonable explanation behind it, irrespective of whether we like the person or not!
As for the second part, yes it was actually only a part of what I received (and there was also a good amount that wasn't even taken as evidence as well, so I'd stand by my point in this situation. I've already explained this in another post, but I've lost the rest of the number of screenshots that actually were given to me due to having so much to put into the post, but if you were interested I'm sure asking someone else about it will lead you on a trail to where the screenshots are! I don't know the incident personally myself, and I was going off the information people have told me for this particular example, and so there may well be inconsistencies. I felt it was necessary to put in irrespective because of the evidence I did receive and the numerous people who believed it was necessary to compare.
As for the double striking, I don't actually approve in either case simply because it counteracts the whole point of a 3 strike system. However in North's and Chxmot's case I'd argue it was more serious than Skarm simply having an alt on another team. For that reason I'd say if anyone were to be getting 2 strikes for a single incident, they seem better candidates

Spoiler: Response to Lumpi456

Absolutely, that's part of what this thread is about. I want people to start talking about the potential solutions that can be potentially implemented to help solve the problems I've addressed. Getting people talking about it is the first step in making a legitimate change

Spoiler: Response to Boomdrone

This isn't the place to be talking about the Presidential campaigns, this has been the only thread I've written on brawl that I want people to fully take seriously and contribute to in order for us to actually make a change for the better. Off topic is a much better place for this

Spoiler: Response to GengarSleep_

This sounds like one of these "he said one thing she said another" type of standoffs. I've said earlier in a response to adam that I don't actually know of this incident fully personally, and the information for this has been given by numerous other people. I added it because I felt it was necessary. I don't have the primary knowledge to argue whether he was on TTT or not, but I will say it doesn't actually matter whether he was or not. The fact is he was still treated differently in the situation to others and so we need to take that into account. I believed he was in TTT from what others have told me, and it strengthened the argument given he was part of a team lead by one of the committee. Even if you're right the point still stands, but nevertheless thank you for bringing this to my attention!

 

OK, doesn't change much. They're still offering prizes now. Yes they're coupons for the brawl shop rather than things like Ipads, it doesn't change the fact that they're still going to be losing money because of it. This is because players winning these prizes won't have to pay for these benefits in the future. That coupon money is lost potential revenue for brawl, and the high number of contests mean that can add up. Not everyone winning the contest would have spent money otherwise, but some of them likely would have. These have been continuing those contests despite being EULA compliant. Brawl also had vast reserves of money to pay for the gamemodes like CTF from mcpvp in the first place which I also doubt have run out yet. The Ipad thing is but one example, there are many others. If they've run out of money, then obviously another coder is impossible, and that's when another method is necessary. There are coders that still work for brawl, and so brawl will just have to be more sparing and efficient with the use of these coders, or rework finances, which I expect they're having to do anyway given the EULA compliancy.
As for the match server testing, at the very least with that method you wouldn't have to roll out the changes instantaneously and get a certain idea of the community position on it before making it public. Like you said, any change is going to upset some people, but at least you can gauge the overall opinion better with testing before going fully public.

It's not, but at the very least if they do remove an insulting thread which does raise some important points they should listen to that. Again, just personal opinion about who's to blame. My post was to raise the problems with CTF, not to start a debate about who's more to blame for it. I'd rather solve the problems than play the blame game.