uta idea 2

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fu2

fu2

New Member
May 2, 2003
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Was unable to post my comment in torps thread where i wanted to , some nice ideas there.



Save uta... Well this has been a busey topic, with some good ideas to keep active people interested and busey. Some of what i have read is true , that people dont have time for uta matchs ( the 3 hour epics ) and this has led to the decline in active players and the 6v4 match turn outs.
Playing the same clans over and over was also mentioned so why not go for the open shedual ladder, any clan can play any clan, when ever they like because match servers have pug bot assighned ( no admins needed hehe ) this removes the troublesome booking system of trying to arrange a war. I have mentioned this before in an old thread and Xrated has hinted along simillar stuff, rules could be thought about if the general concept could get some peoples support.

Pug's do well and the 7 map ( 1 hour ) goes down well , CTF wars were only ever ( 1 hour ) , i dont know about T DM but i guess ( 1 hour ).The point i am getting to is the 2-3 hour games in uta are just to darn long and are the main reason people dont have time to play. ( This is why i havent been uta active for along time ) i can play 1 hour matchs in other games.

So 7-10 maps could make it more viable for many in-active players or the ones who leave half way into a game because of time ( might improve the 5v3's to 6v6 ). The open shedual with a maximum amount of players in a clan could help to re generate a fast active league to reflect the games pace of ut .

I know some will maybe not like changeing what they have done for the last 10 years , could this be trialed in the same way cups would have played like a side runner where if clans play these matchs they can be Quick Match ranked in an extra colum on the existing ladder. Tbh you could do all sorts with points and multplyers , even different ones from what we have now so %'s are smaller for lower placed clans when beaten by a top ones.

Rank | Clan | (Click for Details) | Points | Won | Drawn | Lost | Streak | Last Result Played | Quick match

Idea #2 was a good one, for an active players point of view ( trying to stay on topic here ) I would prefer to play normal uta wars 1 hour. I dont mind 1.5 hour max for a close hard fort game , maybe this aproach would bring some players back to activeness and then lead on to the open shedual part or more players for cups etc. If people are just wanting to play more games fix the league before you start trying to add more ladders/cups . Smaller matchs could make more people active , this could lead to more clans or to just more then 4 mini matchs a month ( open shedual ). Greater detail could be constructed if people can understand what i trying to explain.
 
To be honest in the last months/years in all wars I played I never had the problem that someone of my team or the other team had to leave midgame. Wars start at 20gmt usually and I dont really know what plans people might have after 22gmt on a weekday except going to sleep maybe.
The bigger problem are forfeits which wont be solved by shorter wars imo. As soon as the match has started with 6v6 it usually stays like that. I dont think Im speaking for myself only when saying that the close 3 hour wars are the most enjoyable ones (thats y I dont think anybody would just go to sleep at a score of 5-5 in a thrilling game).
Short wars might even lead to the opposite coz people cba missing a good movie/sports, etc. for 1 hour of UT. Of course there might be people like u who prefer short wars but that wont keep the league alive at all or get many people to play who dont play by now (how many people are there that play pugs regularly but dont participate in league games?).

About the open schedule idea. That would be the end of uta imo. As long as clans are "forced" to play matches they try to get a team. As soon as that stops u will just have loads of clans that cba playing (just look at insta with its open schedule). There is no advantage if everyone can challenge any other clan as well tbh, speaking for Mi5 I doubt there are more than 3 clans that like to play us. I dont think the scheduling itself is the problem, the bigger problem is that clans have only few active players so it is hard to find days where everyone can play. So basically small clans will just lead to forfeits instead of more activity.Thats also the point y I think Champs idea wont work.
Only way to improve the situation might be reducing team size in matches to 5v5 but tbh AS is more fun 6v6 so just keep it that way and be happy with every game being played.
 
Stylefish said:
To be honest in the last months/years in all wars I played I never had the problem that someone of my team or the other team had to leave midgame. Wars start at 20gmt usually and I dont really know what plans people might have after 22gmt on a weekday except going to sleep maybe.
The bigger problem are forfeits which wont be solved by shorter wars imo. As soon as the match has started with 6v6 it usually stays like that. I dont think Im speaking for myself only when saying that the close 3 hour wars are the most enjoyable ones (thats y I dont think anybody would just go to sleep at a score of 5-5 in a thrilling game).
Short wars might even lead to the opposite coz people cba missing a good movie/sports, etc. for 1 hour of UT. Of course there might be people like u who prefer short wars but that wont keep the league alive at all or get many people to play who dont play by now (how many people are there that play pugs regularly but dont participate in league games?).

About the open schedule idea. That would be the end of uta imo. As long as clans are "forced" to play matches they try to get a team. As soon as that stops u will just have loads of clans that cba playing (just look at insta with its open schedule). There is no advantage if everyone can challenge any other clan as well tbh, speaking for Mi5 I doubt there are more than 3 clans that like to play us. I dont think the scheduling itself is the problem, the bigger problem is that clans have only few active players so it is hard to find days where everyone can play. So basically small clans will just lead to forfeits instead of more activity.Thats also the point y I think Champs idea wont work.
Only way to improve the situation might be reducing team size in matches to 5v5 but tbh AS is more fun 6v6 so just keep it that way and be happy with every game being played.
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i totaly agree
 
-ban- said:
i totaly agree
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i agree too, thats why i proposed the auto schedule idea. But i think the idea of slightly shorter wars could be an option. maybe when scheduling clans could agree on how many maps? not sure if this would cause problems though. u could have a rule that if both can't agree , it's just played at normal 14, but if both clans agree when scheduling u could choose 10 or 12 maybe.
 
The thing is though stylefish, that we're not just talking about 8-6/7-7 score wars taking that long.

Wars don't have to be close to be long at all, for example coh - das, score was 8-3 and it took well over 2 hours. How fucking boring is that?

A 8-6/7-7 match is fun, cause it is close not cause it takes over 3 hours. Pugs that end with 4-3 score are just as much fun, yet take an hour and a half or maybe at little more at most.

8-3 matches are fun, but not if they take 2 hours+, I don't mind losing, but if the score is in obvious favour for one clan, its useless to prolong the game for another hour, rather have it 4-2 or 4-1 and be done with it while it's still enjoyable.

People might go with the bullshit argument that there's no time for comebacks anymore if we reduce the amount of maps, but we see comebacks in pugs on daily basis so...

Anyway just my thoughts, I've been playing less and less wars cause they take very long and I usually cba to spent an entire evening on it, the times I played a 8-6 can be counted on a single hand, the times I played nearly 2 hours can't cause it seems all wars take about that much time.
 
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I also see matches that take 40 minutes.

The fact is it's about the match itself that makes it boring: You can play a really fun and exciting war and anyone who loves the game is going to want it to take longer. Personally I like the 1.5-2 hour wars and I'm playing in USA at 3pm mostly which isn't incredibly convenient. However the game is as it is and I enjoy it that way, no reason to go changing things. If you can't play for 2 hours just join a clan with enough active players to sub you when you need to leave. As Stylefish said, I'm not going to get out of work early or miss footy or something else for a one hour war, I'd rather just continue on with my day.
 
I also agree with Stylefish.

Raft^ said:
People might go with the bullshit argument that there's no time for comebacks anymore if we reduce the amount of maps, but we see comebacks in pugs on daily basis so...

Anyway just my thoughts, I've been playing less and less wars cause they take very long and I usually cba to spent an entire evening on it, the times I played a 8-6 can be counted on a single hand, the times I played nearly 2 hours can't cause it seems all wars take about that much time.
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Pugs aren't even close to as much fun as league matches can be with 6-8, 7-7, 8-6 scores. There are hardly any tactics at all in pugs and those that are used are always simple ones, that's why it's more common to see comebacks in pugs. While in some league matches you can really work as a team and come up with some awesome tactics and you will see some clans are better on certain maps than others. Another thing I feel while playing pugs are that they are little too short for my taste (if its a fun pug that is), I often feel like oh... it's already over :\ and then you have to wait 1-2 hours to get people to sign, someone to captain and then finally when it starts you realize it's a shit pug because someone doesn't show or whatever. I'd prefer playing to 5 at least in pugs.

Most matches are around 2 hours, like you said. I doubt most people would mind playing the occassional 3 hour war if it's a great match. It's only 4 matches/month anyway. Just start matches earlier so it won't get so late imo.
 
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Changeing the amount of maps played should be the starting block. I did say that it could lead to an open shedual ,that would depend on players becomeing active , could this not atleast be tested for 1 or 2 months to see if it has an impact.

When the league was very active most matchs had all the skill and tactics to generate 3 hour wars in their relevant divisions and yes we all loved it , but since the decline in players as you say most wars are now 2 hours. So you have adjusted to these shorter wars and should be able to manage a drop to 10 maps still maintaining the average 1.5 hour war. This gives you a time slot easyer to manage in the day to day personal life we all have ( well some of us ) . More have left than have stayed and yes the current format will suit most still playing, this is logical , to get more players to play again , improving the size of the league. More players = more skill/tacs this will stop you haveing to play the same 4 clans over and over like it is atm . Sqaud sizes could be reduced no need for a 20 man/woman sqaud now days either and some players could form sister clans that can share any 2 players towards their sister clans war if needed or to just to let friends play together every now and again even though they in differnt clans Eg: AAK could be 2 clans now but sisters 2*10 man sqauds generateing another clan that can share players as explained above but ultimately play each other once every 2 months just another idea that is all these are.

Adding new maps was a once an idea ( dungeon ) that eventualy caught on and now i see 5 others added since then , proveing that change is posotive :)

Maybe play offs could stay 14 just to keep something there of the orriginal format.
 
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eh... Is it really a big difference if you play 1.5h wars or 2h wars? What's so important with that half hour?
 
well i'm really against shortening the duration of a match. It's like some1 else allready said, what are you gonna do on a Sunday night at 21:30 - 22:00 gmt?

Also i think that your idea with the 'sister clans' wouldn't work out great, unless you indeed make the matches shorter, so the people who want to play more actually can. But i also think too few people would be interested, so only about 2 new clans would rise, which imo wouldn't help much.
 
Pug is nothing like league match. stop arguing that as if it's true. The reason why people join a clan is either for the competition and solid tactics, or because they want to play with a group of friends, have a lot of fun on TS and get together and play with the same people. Most clans I can think of off the top of my head (dzz, mi5, NAC, DFP, old FFS clan, FDC, DoG) are clans formed by groups of people who have been playing together for years and enjoy playing with one another. Clans like DFP NAC and DoG dont even care if they win or lose, they just enjoy getting together every Sunday for an enjoyable war. That's what UTA is all about and PUG comes nowhere close to that whatsoever.
 
My reference to the pug is about the duration only. Ofcourse it can't be compared teamplay wise etc. but that's not what my post was about in the first place...

Also I'd like to adress something which is not taken into account at the moment.

There are various division 2 clans that forfeit their playoff games to prevent ending up in division 1, this is for a reason.

In every division the differences between top and bottom clans are quite big, making matches already a bit less attractive to play as you can predict the outcome quite easily. Take das - coh or das - mi5 as example.

What makes it worse is that in these matches, the topclans can afford to slack/try new tactics/ fuck about, with their victory being hardly at risk. In the worst case das might take a couple of maps, which is no big deal as they can easily overcome this. Matches like these are played often, but are not interesting for either of the clans.

For example, our last results vs mi5 are 3 forfeits, and vs coh a forfeit and a 8-3 loss. People can't be arsed to show for these matches, not because they can't stand losing, which is part of the game. But because the loss is dragged out over a huge amount of time, while it's clear after 30-60 minutes that it is actually lost, yet having to play for another 30-60 mins.
Ofcourse we start hoping for the best, but if we get no maps or just the ones where its obvious they slack our moral and intrest pretty much go out of the window. This also goes the opposite way. In div2 we had some 8-0 wins, which are just as boring as 8-0 losses and after leading with 4/5 to 0 I actually prefer my opponent to forfeit rather than playing another 30 minutes at least.

Currently this league has such few clans that these differences are found in any of the divisions.
To make matches a bit more interesting in general for the bottomranked clans, they should be a bit more fast paced. If you do manage to win some maps and you only need, let's say 5-6 to win, instead of the 8 that you wont get in the first place, these matches would become much MORE fun than as they are now.

Also, I don't see why people are so negative when it comes to reducing the amount of maps, because this mainly affects matches where the difference between clans is big, unlike when the difference is not big.
4-3 pugs can take 1,5-2 hours, das - coh took 1,5h to reach a score of 4-3. So if you're playing a close war you still will get to play your 2 hours if we reduce it to first to 5-6 wins for example.

However, matches where the difference is huge will be done faster so the loss won't be dragged out over 1-1,5 hours but problably 30-60 tops, making it better and less boring for either side imo, especially when you do get some maps cause with less maps being played you can't afford to slack as much as now.
People don't like to play 4-0 imbalanced pugs, but it seems you all enjoy 8-0 time wasting matches, cause they do take a whole lot longer than a 4-0 loss. Sure I get that playing in a team with friends (so to speak) is nice, having a chat can be nice and all, but the match itself is utterly boring, which is fact.

*Edit, I'd also like to start earlier as micke said. 19 - 19.30 gmt would be very nice for me but it might be a tad early for UK peeps.
 
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Of course 8-0 wars aint fun for anyone. But tbh playing best of 10 maps would just be a difference of maybe 10-15minutes, however in the good games u would lose about 45mins of nice, close maps. Thats not really a fair trade. The problem is not the amount of maps in that case, its more the fact that the gap between the top 4 clans and the rest seems to be huge so the 5th in div1 always has a boring month. However, this wont be solved by shorter games. If ur bored winning in div2 u could try playing 5vs6, if ur bored losing u can just forfeit and ask the other team for a fun match best of 10 or whatever u like, maybe 6vs5 as well.
 
Well Stylefish we have to face the facts. In the current league the amount of 8-0's and forfeits outnumber the amount of close wars by a far. Thus making these rather dull and useless wars a bit more attractive should have priority over the few amount of good wars there are.

You say that you think the difference will be 10-15 mins, I do not agree. I think making it best out of 9 would nearly half the length of a war when the difference between the clans is really big.

On the other hand, losing 45 minutes in a 3 hour war means that you still get to play 2 hours and 15 mins, which comes down to just losing a quarter of a match. How is that not a fair trade?

It is a shared problem of having a big gap between top and bottom clans in every div, as you said, and having rather long matches. Do not forget that there is loads of additional time, warmup - having to wait 1 min before every map starts and being in the 'score screen' for about a minute aswell on every single map and so on.

Playing 5v6 and forfeiting and playing a funwar instead... well ye great ideas but if you dont play serious matches than why would anyone bother with being in the league anyway?

I think the system we always used is outdated for the league as it is today, hence the many forfeits and lack of intrest. Making matches shorter might not entirely fix this, because mi5 will still beat das easily due the difference in skill, but it would be a step into the good direction. Take the das - coh war as an example. If it were first to 5, our 4-3 midscore woulda been very close and we woulda had a serious chance of winning it.
 
I see your point raft, but if i look at myself, I can't remember the last time i didnt have fun playing a war. This includes a war vs aut where they were just praccing launches on their bridge defense :P
 
If it's to 5 then you can always lame matches by picking maps that have a great chance ending a tie, like: asthenos, guardia, riverbedAL, overlord and you'll have a close but boring match.

If was thinking if we could add a forfeit command so you can play a match serious from start but if it's really uneven you could forfeit but then I realized that it isn't fair to the other team who maybe has taken time to practice, taking time off whatever they have going in their lives and then the other team just quits on them in the middle of the match. Btw what really is a waste of time is waiting until 20gmt and having planned to play a match and then the other teams don't show and haven't said a word. No, imo just leave it as it is. Get a sub if you don't want to play more than 5-10 maps or what Stylefish said.
 
To be honest, a 8-0 win/lose would be just as boring as a 5-0 or whatever win/lose.

I can see your point entirely, but in the case of Mi5's last 2 matches, they've been ones which could have swung either way vs CoH & FDC. In both games, we started off bad and regained the lead, in a shorter match we would have lost already!

We came back from 2-5 down vs FDC to win 8-5, if it was first to 5 look at what the result would have been, the fact that its first to 8 makes the games more exciting (when they're close)
 
Raft^ said:
Well Stylefish we have to face the facts. In the current league the amount of 8-0's and forfeits outnumber the amount of close wars by a far. Thus making these rather dull and useless wars a bit more attractive should have priority over the few amount of good wars there are.

You say that you think the difference will be 10-15 mins, I do not agree. I think making it best out of 9 would nearly half the length of a war when the difference between the clans is really big.

On the other hand, losing 45 minutes in a 3 hour war means that you still get to play 2 hours and 15 mins, which comes down to just losing a quarter of a match. How is that not a fair trade?

It is a shared problem of having a big gap between top and bottom clans in every div, as you said, and having rather long matches. Do not forget that there is loads of additional time, warmup - having to wait 1 min before every map starts and being in the 'score screen' for about a minute aswell on every single map and so on.

Playing 5v6 and forfeiting and playing a funwar instead... well ye great ideas but if you dont play serious matches than why would anyone bother with being in the league anyway?

I think the system we always used is outdated for the league as it is today, hence the many forfeits and lack of intrest. Making matches shorter might not entirely fix this, because mi5 will still beat das easily due the difference in skill, but it would be a step into the good direction. Take the das - coh war as an example. If it were first to 5, our 4-3 midscore woulda been very close and we woulda had a serious chance of winning it.
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Changing map limit wouldnt do anything about the forfeits. I doubt anyone would say that they would love to be raped 6-0 suddenly when they used to forfeit the boring matches. So u would just shorten those matchtes that are being played.

When I said 15minutes for 2 maps I was aware that u have to wait the time until map starts etc. However, 8-0 wars usually last about 1 hour, that would be about 45mins to 6-0 avarage.

Tbh the time for serious matches is over for some years already. Its more about having fun by now and not about winning, esp. when u talk about matches u would lose 0-8 anyway. Still better to have a close funwar that a boring 0-8 slaughter imo.

Of course the less maps u play the more luck counts which would make the results a bit closer but the result should reflect the skills of both teams imo.
 
Meteor said:
Its a slightly different UT era. The divisions are all closer together now. The questions demand a solution.

http://forums.utassault.net/showthread.php?t=96489

http://forums.utassault.net/showthread.php?t=96274

The challenge is to master them.
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yeah , over the years i have seen this league improve and improve its system ,probably one of the biggest improvements being the auth system. and the league system we have now is really good imo, but i think we can still improve it even more.
 
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