[Mutator] Even Match (Onslaught team balancer)

[Cat1981England]

No settings have been changed for around a year now.

It could possibly be the map repeat rate throwing things a little. If people are playing their favourite maps more often and tend to be getting higher scores, i guess it could be exaggerating things

[Zon3r]

No settings have been changed for around a year now.

It could possibly be the map repeat rate throwing things a little. If people are playing their favourite maps more often and tend to be getting higher scores, i guess it could be exaggerating things

I wasn't paying attention it seems, had no idea it was lowered to 20. yeah, it may mess up things

[Zon3r]

well it's not working at all, something has to be done about it, now it's as if the default balancer is working, i made few screenshots about the "balancing" it does, i can post them if you want

[Cat1981England]

*If* matches are currently unbalanced and *if* the map repeat rate was causing this, it would still be affecting matches because it was only raised back up to 27 on the 8th and the pph data used by the balancer is from the last 31 days.

There's been 29 matches in the last 12 hours and only 9 have lasted less then 20 minutes. Perhaps when you took your screenshots people were just playing poorly?

Either way, try to not jump to conclusions.

[Pegasus]

Wololo .

[Wormbo]

Wololo .

Planted almost exactly 1.5 years ago: (I already wondered when someone would mention it)

Code: Select all

	if (UnrealPlayer(P) != None) {
		if (Rand(MaxInt) == 0 || P.Level.Month == 4 && P.Level.Day == 1 && Rand(10) == 0)
			MessageSwitch += 2; // *waves hand* these are not the droids you're looking for
		UnrealPlayer(P).ClientDelayedAnnouncement(default.TeamChangeAnnouncement[MessageSwitch], 5 + 10 * int(OptionalObject != None));
	}

Code translation: For one in 32768, or on April Fool's day 1 in 10, team change announcements, play an alternate sound by accessing a different index in the sound array.
The trick is, it is decided only locally. Nobody else will hear it at the same time as you. The sad part is that newer players don't even know the Age of Empires priest sound anymore.

[Pegasus]

Heh, and to think a pretty telling clue had already been planted a year ago, but nobody managed to associate it with what was going on ingame on April Fool's 2016... Course by the time I gave the mod's code a more proper look last autumn, I'd completely forgotten all about that myself. Anywho, well played, sir.

So, ready for some new dev adventures or still caught in the grip of a certain CCG ?

[Wormbo]

I don't think I ll come back to UT2004 anymore, unless there's something that actually brings me back. The only FPS game I played recently is Mass Effect (the first one, I still don't trust Origin enough to let it even near my PC), otherwise nothing action-ish is going on in my games life. Also, creating software for a living reduces the amount of code you write during your spare time pretty much to zero.

[Pegasus]

If it's lack of personal investment informing your decision to quit developing for the game, that's something I feel nobody could fault you for these days, given your history with the UT community and the body of work you'd be leaving behind. After all, one can only continue labouring on something for so long while (presumably) not deriving any personal benefit or satisfaction from it before eventually taking stock, reassessing things and deciding to stop. While understandable and inevitable for everyone in game modding, it's definitely also a sad turn of events, especially considering that at this point it's hard to even tell whom all that leaves behind as still actively, and competently, creating original UScript content for UT2004/ONS. I'm talking about people able to experiment and innovate in directions still very much unexplored in ONS, such as, say, movable objectives, objective-prioritized scoreboard rearrangement, infowar, bugging/tracking and comms jamming, composite vehicles, destroyable wheels, shield disruption, net-enabled KarmaThing/NetKActor equivalents for KBSJoint and KHinge, to list just a few of the concepts I've been looking into for years now personally.
Now, obviously the question of whether ongoing development for ONS should be regarded as foolhardy or still a worthwhile goal in these twilight days of UT is something best left up to each community member to decide on their own, but my message here to those few still concerned with the bigger picture is that yes, there does remain plenty of territory left to explore in ONS game design, should anyone possess the ability, knowledge and, most importantly, the desire to press on, disregarding the usual siren calls of simplistic n' derivative, arms race-oriented modding. I honestly can't say if that's the sort of challenge you might consider as the exceptional "something" that could bring you back with renewed interest or not nowadays. To my mind, however, that is the thrilling promise UT2004's ONS can still offer its modding community, and IMO it's definitely a cut above and beyond anything subsequent iterations in the UT franchise have been able to deliver on (so far, anyway), so that's where the destination continues to lie for me, however limited my own dev skillset may be and unlikely the odds I'll get there.
If modding no longer holds much (inspirational?) value for you, though, after sticking with it for over 15 years (!), that's something I absolutely can appreciate and respect, and I'd gladly still be among the first to line up to thank you for all your contributions to this game[type], as well as wish you an enjoyable, stress-free time with your subsequent projects. I'd also not mind admitting to some disheartened astonishment by the complete lack of reaction from this community, or any other, after two full days since your announcement of intending to hang up your UT modding hat, considering how much most ONS players, and beyond, have benefited from Wormbo's work over the past decade. While I'm more inclined to attribute this omission to the busy nature of this week, causing the post to fly below most people's radar, than to apathy or indifference - especially recalling how many CEONSS members and staff have in the past expressed their appreciation for the Worm - this turn of events has still managed to earn itself a trademarked Peg :/.

Oh, and,

[...]The only FPS game I played recently is Mass Effect (the first one, I still don't trust Origin enough to let it even near my PC)[...]

Speaking as someone with a severe distaste for any kinda publisher's DRM-infested platform being installed on my machines, I can't blame you one bit for keeping away from it (or Uplay or any other equivalent, Steam included), even if a game they released might be worth trying out. Besides, PC games getting cracked is just as reliable as entropic increase, both to legit purchasers and file sharers alike .

[EmanReleipS]

I don't think I ll come back to UT2004 anymore, unless there's something that actually brings me back. The only FPS game I played recently is Mass Effect (the first one, I still don't trust Origin enough to let it even near my PC), otherwise nothing action-ish is going on in my games life. Also, creating software for a living reduces the amount of code you write during your spare time pretty much to zero.

I'm sad to hear that, but after years of service for this community I think you have earned yourself your "retirement", with all the lounging on sofas with a cool drink while driving the mako over foreign planets that will hopefully entail.

Can we nubs still contact you on the forum and ask for advice/help or would you prefer we pester Gloupy instead?

When the fancy strikes you again, I'd love to play some matches with you on the server.