I regret to inform you that I will be disabling the competition from Training Lobby after trophies are given out for this round.
Almost every round since its inception, there has been a major cheating investigation in the Training Round, some people have gotten away with it, and others have not. Participation has also waned considerably since its inception.
This does not mean the competition will be disabled permanently, but I will be disabling it for the time being. I'm hoping everyone can reconsider their actions and understand that we work very hard to keep the rounds clean, and it's simply becoming too much work for us to manage in addition to the Comp Lobby investigations (which are surprisingly less frequent).
Many of you who have won trophies in the Training competition or come close should strongly consider playing in Comp Lobby, the competition is more consistent there and the mod team is better equipped to handle issues there since competition is treated more seriously. You're all good enough to play there as well.
There is no current timetable for its return, but I will be disabling it after the round ends.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding, I am sorry it has come to this. I honestly liked the round and encouraging people to try new setups, but there have been a lot of problems associated with it so we need to give it a rest for now.
this has already been tried as "gold," "silver," and "bronze." it did nothing but split the community and actually created the sense of elitism people might see in competitive lobby.
training had a competition before the latest implementation, back in 2011 (iirc) and no one complained when the admin took it down back then. the only reason people are fighting against the removal of the training competition is for easy trophies.
Well, the reason that the mod team is spread so thin is because they're all global moderators. Have mods specialize in areas with 2 or 3 globals.
Like training reports, training cheating, training forums, competitive reports, competitive cheating, competitive forums, everywhere else reports, cheating, and forums, and then your 2-3 globals which do everything. This way, you have your representation, you have specialized areas, and only the globals might have an excuse to not be as active as the specialized mods.
Huehuehue I wouldn't admin this site if I had a gun pointed to my head.
But a panel of players who regularly voice their concerns on forums with legit points = a group that admin can consult regularly for advice on changes to the site structure?
A SEPARATE mod team for each lobby (whether there are 2 or 3 lobbies) that is REPRESENTATIVE of each lobby. Someone who only plays in Training heading Training reports. Someone who only plays in comp heading up comp reports. The type of report made and strategies used in the two lobbies are extremely different and need mods who are 100% familiar with those plays to mod them. Right now, it's like like having a Russian as President heading a Government of French people in Spain - not representative nor appropriate and mod-player relations are non-existent. People wanna see a name they recognise on their mod team - as a training player, I'd say I've only heard of maybe half of the current mod team as a lot of them are from comp. I think more representative teams are needed.
It's not one big problem, it's many small problems combined. Mod team is one of them. It seems like admin is waiting for a solution to a big problem that doesn't exist.
Small problems: Ineffective/unsatisfactory moderation team. Issues with cheating in Training Lobby. Issues with cheating and/or honest meta in Comp lobby. Issues with people not moving from Training -> Comp
Small solutions: Reshuffle the entire mod team and assess all mods/applications fully Tighter controls on and harsher punishments for cheating. Honest meta becomes an offence under 'OGI' EITHER make Training more skills-development based or Comp more approachable and 'warm'. While the game stays the same, the environment it's played in is hugely different in the two lobbies. Either Comp needs to be less intense, or Training needs to be more intense.
Also, consider this: instead of Training/Comp etc, it would make more sense to have 'Beginner', 'Intermediate' and 'Expert' - maybe even a 'Veteran' for hardcore EM gamers. I think the issue is many players don't have a 'home' - they're no longer at 'training' level (too basic) but are not ready for comp LOBBY (rather than competitive play). Beginner = noobs/newbies/less than 2k(?) points. Intermediate = 2k points and up. Maybe a cap on points allowed to play in there to prevent really 'expert' players trying to trophy in 'easy' games? Expert = 50k+ points. All games are competitive.
deletedover 10 years
competition should just be kept to the competition lobby. us newbs in training are too dumb. when people finally feel comfortable (which is hard because people in comp lobby get mad if you make any mistakes. people can also get fos'd for lurking, but they're actually trying to learn.)
also when i do the occasional game in comp lobby, i hear about all these new mechanics i NEVER learned in the training lobby. you've got to just wait, and once you feel comfortable and confident, then you make the move.
comp is awful though and training is awful. sandbox is pro lyfe.
deletedover 10 years
That's just it--they want to stay in training. There's no way you can force people to migrate to comp.
bronto, you may not have believed you got taken advantage of but i'm about 99% sure you did. whether it was something as small as a misstep that let mafia blitz or you got tricked into outting or some dumb *** like that.
theres no *** sense in saying that competitive players aren't going to take every single edge they can in a game to win.
there will be more people willing to dive into training comp than comp; you gradually move up. yes, there will be people that will stay in training, but if you want the community for your comp to grow then training comp is a step in that direction.
if that is what you ultimately want, then more resources/proper staffing will eventually need to follow
Here's 1 solution bring back training comp without trophy's. make it more of a leader bored maybe top 3 still pick the comped setups for next round. make so the only lobby you can get trophy's is comp lobby again. make it more of a training comp instead of a for trophys/glory thing.
As for moderation i do feel the systems needs to revamp a bit. there is no such thing as too much moderation for this site. but there is such thing as too little witch at this point there might be.
I have played comp on other accounts and i have not had an enjoyable experience despite winning plenty of games there. this is why i have chosen to play in training.
leave comp to the extremely competitive players I just want to play to have fun leader-boards are fine. No need for a prize( trophy) to be attached.
As much as merging the two lobbies would be a good idea, in all honestly, it probably won't happen. Competitive lobby has been built specifically to hold our competitions. It hasn't really been much of a problem until fairly recently when we got attacked by ABC. It's served its purpose, even if I hate to admit it, and it will continue to do so.
That being said, I would most definitely support merging the two lobbies, but as I said, this most likely won't happen because lol. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", unfortunately.
People have different learning curves for this site, merging the lobbies would turn away most training lobby players from this site, along with most newcomers. very few comp players have the patience to help newcomers, and the newcomers who have bad experiences will leave.
Merging the lobbies also creates the problem that it would be easier for banned users or GTing alts to join competitions and throw/cheat. it would provide a more hostile environment along with creating more problems with cheating.
no double work MORE (many more) people in Comp 1 competition
everybody has a competition, mods don't need double the work and Training people will be forced to learn.
(Still, just re-putting comp into Training lobby is better)
You really are just making excuses (like you're supposed to do) to protect your mod team and comp lobby. There is no REAL reason to take the comp off Training Lobby. And if it's only for cheaters, you know you can find 100000000 more possible mods in training.
guyfawkes, what you're arguing is that training lobby and competitive lobby should be looked at equally, except, competitive lobby is just that, a lobby for competition. if one of the two lobbies were going to be restructured, it would be the training lobby.
Mods don't need double the work when if people want to compete for a trophy, they should do so in comp lobby. Training is meant for new players. Comp is meant for experienced players.
Why did the numbers of people playing in Comp go down when Training round was first brought in?
Comp quality players play in the Training round for promise of easier-to-get trophies.
@trolleyz; I didn't get taken advantage of by the Comp players. I wanted to learn how to thrive in their environment and play competitively, so I played there. I got my butt kicked the first round I ran (30-55 or something like that), but got 7th the 2nd round. You've got to be willing to dive in to learn.
No, I took down Training Round because there has been a cheating investigation almost every round and people have been throwing for and against each other because of the trophies.
deletedover 10 years
The problem is that training lobby doesn't like comp lobby because they're not welcome there, so they created their own round system in training lobby and became happy. Cheating in the round system created more work for the comp lobby mods, so the comp lobby admin decided to take away the training lobby round because he isn't happy that training lobby people don't want to go to comp lobby.
