Epicmafia

Deleting Competitive Lobby

over 10 years

First off, for those of you that do not know me, I am a player from the competitive lobby. I am posting this here because I already know what the competitive players will say, and I think the only way lucid or the mods will do anything is if they see the approval of training lobby because as it is you guys are indeed the ground that EpicMafia stands on.

Even though I say I am from Competitive, I really do think that by saying that it is like poison, because the current train of thought in training lobby is that all or most players there are rude jerks that are mean to everyone in and out of game, and I'm sure that you all have tested that theory already and seen it be true with your own eyes. I won't be arguing whether or not you're right; however, while I do think we have our share of nice and mean people it doesn't feel that much more than other lobbies. Rather, it's more like training lobby players feel it's more because they're looking out for it. Or maybe I'm just used to it. Regardless, that's not what this is about.

This will be a /really big thread/. You have been warned.

You might have noticed that the admins want to return training lobby to what it was meant to be: a "transition" lobby that trained players for competitive play. Back in EM 2.0, when there was only one lobby, competitive play dominated the site. There were barely any ranked games at all, it was competitive and unranked. Ranked games were only used to test setups, as far as I remember. When multiple lobbies were introduced, there were 3 "competitive" lobbies and sandbox, and people just moved up in points trying to get up to the "better" lobbies. After a while we realized the site didn't have enough people for this so we simplified it to two lobbies: competitive and training.

Now we are here and it is very clear that training has evolved into something completely different. It is. Quite simply, a place to play ranked games, and rather than be full of new players, it has it's own vets and all. It has become very independent from the other lobbies. This isn't a bad thing in itself, as if that's what the site wants and it gets more traffic to the site in the future, then there's nothing wrong with that. Training, or rather, red hearts, have gained popularity now and are something lots of players enjoy in simple setups where there is not that much need to concentrate on scumhunting. Simply put: there's a lot of players that have opted out for a middle ground between unranked games and competitive play, playing "relaxed" games that don't have the chaos from unranked but that don't need to be invested in with time/effort. And sure, that's great! I enjoy playing red heart games ever so often too, and in comp lobby we even made "gallis hunter" legal in weekends, which is actually a rather fun setup.

The problem however is that the only way for people to get to competitive lobby is through points and therefore training. There is no shortage of players in competitive yet, but the lobby is not growing as it should and maybe in 5 years it will die out by itself, who knows. Lots of competitive players are upset because training's attitude towards competitive lobby will inherently deter the newer players from joining. After all, if the people they play with hate competitive so much, it is only natural to be scared of competitive play. I'm not saying everyone should like to play competitively: there are many of you, I'm sure, who decided not to join the training competition, or at least not play a lot of gold heart games. At the same time, there are a few who must have tried it out and maybe some who enjoyed it, and yet you remained in training lobby because that is the community you like and associate with.

I just think that this us vs them between comp and training lobbies really needs to be put a stop to, and there seems to be no way to do so. Because training is the lobby you start in, this will definitely mean that competitive will always be "dying out" (in quotes because I really doubt it will actually die any time soon, but the feeling that new players aren't coming will remain), which is why competitive is so concerned.

And the solution to this is to completely kill competitive lobby. I really mean it: outright delete it. To compensate, the training competition would be brought back (I don't think any of you would have a problem with that since it was fine before) and, if possible, a point requirement would be placed for joining the competition instead.

You might be thinking: isn't that the same as having two lobbies, just that, well, in the same one, since competitive players will migrate to the training competition most likely? Well, yes and no. It is true that most competitive players will move to training afterwards (which would likely be renamed into main lobby or something) but they are indeed a small number compared to training players, so training would vastly outnumber competitive. Furthermore, the competition would have players from both lobbies, basically meaning that it would eliminate the us vs them attitude because it would no longer be two communities but just one. People would play gold hearts if they want to, or they could just stick to playing red hearts. But the focus wouldn't be in either one, it would be more or less balanced.

There's some of you that outright just do not want players from competitive playing in your games because of many reasons, whether it be gold or red, but trust me, you don't have to pass a mean test to get to comp, most of us do not care at all, just like you, in red hearts and unranked games. The only reason we care is for our so very precious trophies (lol, quite silly right) but it's because man, it's literally 10 straight days of playing epicmafia for hours to play all your 5 hearts. If something happens after investing so much time it's natural to get frustrated. But you guys didn't have a problem with your own competition, and it would be under the same circumstances. I think a few moderators have reported there's actually more harassment reports in training, it's just that since those people are from your community you've learned to deal with them while you naturally prefer to stay out of trouble with us, which I guess is understandable.

Anyway, basically what the proposed change would do is:

Red hearts are exactly the same, with the rare comp player (who can already play with you guys if he wanted) maybe playing more often in those red hearts with you, but not having the pressure of the competition and therefore be like a completely different person at all (trust me, we /really/ don't care about red hearts nearly as much, probably we take them even less seriously than you). Basically, at worst, nothing happens differently . At best, you get to meet some new friends you otherwise might have not.

The competition is back. Woo. Now with a point requirement, however. You guys don't have to join it and can ignore the gold hearts. Maybe it's a worse competition than before because of us (really wouldn't be so IMO) but this isn't a valid complain because there's no competition in training now so nothing would be ruined. I guess the gold heart games could clutter the lobby, but this could be fixed with a filter for gold/red as an option. So at best you get a fun new competition, at worst you have to ignore a few games in the lobby

Those are for the current players: however, for the new players it would be like this: They are automatically exposed to players from "both lobbies" via the red hearts, so there will be people who like gold hearts and who don't playing with them, and they might learn some nice strategies from them even before they move to gold heart setups. In fact, it could be quite common for people that play in competitions to help new players out. At best, it would completely eliminate the community split and fix the influx of players back to normal and help in teaching the newbies the ropes. At worst, all players would still dislike gold heart games even in training lobby and the competition will eventually die off (which isn't really a problem for you guys anyway).

All this talk about point caps to force players into comp won't change anything at all but make them quit. Why would the 10k players from training be forced to play in a lobby they don't want with a lot of people they don't know? Comp lobby should be deleted instead so it is comp that has to migrate to training, because most comp lobby players not only are already familiar with training so the transition is easier, but the lobby is smaller so it is the way it should happen. Bringing back the competition is the smoothest way for this to happen nicely, with minimal possible damage. I don't think I missed anything that could go wrong but if any of you think I did feel free to post it in this thread. Really though, at worst this would be the same for you bad for us, at best good for everyone, so I don't see why training would be that much opposed to it. I sincerely believe that if we all work together you'll see that some of us (sadly not all, but surely a lot) aren't that bad. Hey, unless they really are super old, they were training before too!

I don't think anyone will read all of that sadly but it's a good way to organize my thoughts at least

Jupiter

over 10 years

Alright, cool

thebrontosaurus

over 10 years

I'd rather go to lucid with where we're at before he makes the changes Bumpers proposed. I'm also going to be incredibly busy this week so I don't want to wait too long.

So far it looks like this is the most widely popular solution though.

Jupiter

over 10 years

Are you sure we shouldn't give it a little more time to see the general consensus or anything

thebrontosaurus

over 10 years

Damn. Let's see what lucid says since it all comes down to him basically.

Clair

over 10 years

bronto what i mean is this has been like 3 years in the making

thebrontosaurus

over 10 years

Connor says

i cant believe it took this long and i cant believe how easily the previous naysayers are eating out of steven's/bronto's hands

A lot of it is how it's presented and explained imo. Steven's OP is great and describes it very well.

There's also no confirmation yet, I've got to get back to work, but I'll be writing lucid later tonight.

Clair

over 10 years

i cant believe it took this long and i cant believe how easily the previous naysayers are eating out of steven's/bronto's hands

thebrontosaurus

over 10 years

At the very least, this move would encourage people to try new things and make things move faster.

thebrontosaurus

over 10 years

Uprizzle says

I don't know how peacefully the communities will mesh together if the lobbies are merged, which is the main reason why I don't think this is a great idea. From the point of view of each side you're either making training players play with serious and hostile players or making comp players play with newer player who may not know what they're doing. So it could end up being detrimental to both sides in the end. Of course, I don't want to see that happen, but that's the most likely thing to happen in my opinion.

Nah chances are both communities would carve out their own niches within the one lobby. They're honestly really not that different. We're all players on the same site, there shouldn't be all this hostility.

Uprizzle

over 10 years

I don't know how peacefully the communities will mesh together if the lobbies are merged, which is the main reason why I don't think this is a great idea. From the point of view of each side you're either making training players play with serious and hostile players or making comp players play with newer player who may not know what they're doing. So it could end up being detrimental to both sides in the end. Of course, I don't want to see that happen, but that's the most likely thing to happen in my opinion.

deletedover 10 years

EmmerrLouise says

+ nuke comp after the move.

If competitive lobby really is going to be deleted, I look forward to it. Once more training veterans and competition loyalist start playing with each other, it will end the stereotypes we have against each other and finally unify the community.

Unifying the community means we can work TOGETHER to make changes that will benefit the site and everyone as a whole, rather then make changes that benefit one group of players over another.

TweIve

over 10 years

Thought I'd have complaints when I read the thread title but I don't.

/signed

TweIve

over 10 years

dustmote says

One thing that a lot of us Training Lobby veterans stick in the T lobby for is that we aren't interested in running for trophies. I mean, if you don't use your full allotment of gold hearts every day on very involved games, then you have no chance at winning the competition. In the comp lobby right now, it seems like there aren't many red heart games going on, and the way that a lot of us play, we just want to pick up a game or two now and again, rather than go on this hardcore streak all the time. That's a major reason that I don't play comp. If there were more players playing cool setups that weren't hardcore hate-you-for-eternity-for-screwing-up-my-run competition players, then I would play the comp lobby much more often.

I haven't ran for a trophy in 20 or so rounds, but I've played 10-20 games every round since my last run. When someone blasts their top at you it's either because they're frustrated with the games result (In which case ignore them, everyone makes mistakes) or you made a mechanics error and blew autowin. In the event of the latter, don't be too worried, I got a message from a friend (Who's a comp vet) complaining about another comp vet blowing autowin twice in one game. Happens to the best of us. ^_^

tl;dr comp games are only as serious as you make them. A lot of the time there aren't any runners in the game anyway.

EmmerrLouise

over 10 years

You get 'rude' people everywhere - it is the interweb after all. Being rude is certainly not a comp lobby-exclusive thing; happens in training just as often (I think it'd be surprising if a player had never been 'rude' during their time on EM - we've all done it imo).

Any animosity or negativity in comp comes purely because the gaming is more intense and serious; folks spend more time and energy on games so it's easy to get emotional or angry over them when they aren't going so well (or indeed if a "noob" might be frustrating someone). It's not the individuals' being rude but it comes with the competitive atmosphere of the lobby. 'Rudeness' will still exist in training but it's not about that - it's about the treatment of those from each lobby - kinda like a gang culture. Training hates on comp, comp hates on training.

I think the goal of the merge is to remove these barriers so everyone is in the same lobby and this 'gang'-esque aspect of EM is removed. Rudeness/aggression/frustration certainly won't disappear (as I said, it's the internet), but some of the animosity relating to the 'lobby you come from' may cease to exist.

deletedover 10 years

drama in em 2 was caused by lack of mods. all drama after em 2 was caused by mods doing a bad job.

deletedover 10 years

the problems back then were because there were no mods. i don't remember exactly why multiple lobbies were made, i think it was because some frustrated vets that were tired of 'noobs' ruining their trophy runs. i dont know if people would still care about that, the competition is a lot more laid back than it used to be for the most part but you can't please everyone and if anything there would be a point requirement for joining competitive games to keep trolls from registering and throwing against runners anyway.

deletedover 10 years

I'm fairly new, but i've heard that before the competitive/training lobby there was a main lobby system which was just one lobby and I believe there were certain problems that arose during that time that led to the creation of the dual lobby system. It just seems like an endless cycle where people aren't really happy with any system that's established. It might be a swift and quick solution to our current problem but I'm a bit weary about the long term impact it'll have on the site. I apologize for my lack of knowledge on the subject but around a year down the line people might begin complaining again and ask for the mods to just make another lobby for the "rude people" in their lobby.

deletedover 10 years

I have a dream

Steven

over 10 years

Happens once a month or so

deletedover 10 years

stevens having himself a typing tizzy

Steven

over 10 years

There will be people complaining from both sides as it happens, but those who really think about it know that it won't be a huge deal negatively but could be one positively for all.

I believe something as simple as doing all the changes except changing Training's name at first, and holding a poll for everyone to vote on the new name, would decrease a lot of the complaints because the players will see it as more of the deletion of comp lobby rather than the deletion of both and making of a new one, which some could be scared of when thinking of it that way.

Steven

over 10 years

TheVigil says

if this is the case i don't see why any training players should be against this as it changes nothing for our lobby except old Comp players will join us.

If anyone should have a problem with it its Comp players.

Training players could be against because of how it sounds: I mean, merging with competitive lobby, the supposed source of all rudeness and lack of fun? Doesn't sound too good. That is why I spent so much time explaining what really it will be like, which is, like you say, something that changes virtually nothing for you guys, but potentially fixes the fundamental problem in competitive and training rejecting each other as well as the flow of players /both/ ways.

There are some people who won't want to play serious gold heart games, for them it will be literally the same, but others might get curious and become the influx of players that competitive currently needs, especially when the people playing gold won't be all new faces anymore, but a lot of possibly familiar ones which will possibly help with the mean/rude thing (whether a myth or not). It is also why I prefer calling it the deletion of comp over a merge

There will be lots of people complaining from comp at first, but these are going to be (mostly) our share of jerks who really shouldn't represent competitive, in my opinion. Most people will recognize that even for comp, it is not a huge change either. More training players playing with them is really it, and even if some of our meaner people complain about ruined games and whatnot (especially at first) this attitude should die out as they accept the change and the communities assimilate each other. There will be some that will whine about the "glory" days o competitive at first, but most of us realize that this change is so much for the better, and instead of joining in to complain will try to educate the newer players so as to fix the problem.

qwertas

over 10 years

tl;dr 2 but that's chill.

EmmerrLouise

over 10 years

tl;dr comp comes to us, we don't go to them, and all games are played in one big main lobby with a filter to sort red/gold/unranked games & point requirements for comp.

+ nuke comp after the move.

mrlsu

over 10 years

TL;DR