csebal-old

Join Date 01/2008

A plea to players out there - on behavior and good conduct

What to do and what not to do

I'm really not the kind that gets upset all too easily, but yesterday i had an opponent who simply went over the line for me. No, there will be no names mentioned. I only write this in hopes that by doing so i will encounter less people like that one.

I did write a big wall of text about what happened, but quite frankly noone - not even me - gives a sh!t, so lets just get past that and focus on what SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT HAPPEN IN A GAME.

Okay, lets start at the beginning. Game lobby:
- Read the game's title. If it says pings<150 and you have 600 ping to the guy hosting the game, then do yourself a favor and not waste your time and his by clicking ready instead of leave.

- Always check the game settings once you enter a game. Learned this the hard way myself, but its quite annoying if you leave because the game settings are not to your liking, and quite frankly.. its only yourself you can blame if that happens. Just click the game settings button and you will see them.

- Say hi, when you enter a game and generally be polite. I've seen plenty of people join the game, click ready and the next you can hear from them - and the first line is - RDY UP, GOGOGO. I always have to resist the urge to just kick these players.
First: greeting the others is the most basic act that any kind of good manners would require.
Second: writing all caps makes you look incredibly stupid, so better turn off the caps lock before they think you wrote it all caps intentionally
Third: this is not a horse race.. no need to rush things. Pleople might still be connecting, selecting their demigod, etc.. Not to mention, that it makes you look inpatient and arrogant.

- Although quite a few might disagree with me on this, but i will say it nonetheless. Unless its a 4v4 or 5v5, try not to select demigods that others already picked on your team. Many reasons really.. sure i try to be nice and allow people to play what they like best - are best with, but apart from that, i favor varied teams with no double / triple selections of the same demigod.

Once you are in the game:
- Keep being nice. Do not insult / criticize players even if you think you are right. Try to help them instead if you are feeling pro enough to be a judge of their play.

- Especially stay away from criticizing your team openly. Its a sure sign that a player on the other team indeed stinks: YOU.

- Never quit a game prematurely, unless your whole team did agree on giving up / its a real life issue. Quitting because YOU think you are losing is plain stupid. Quitting without the consent of your team leaves them hanging there with 1 less.

- Did i mention being nice? That includes your opponents as well. Be a good sport and do not spoil their victory neither should you humiliate them unnecessarily in their defeat.

A few practical tips from me gameplay wise:
- Watch out for what your teammates are doing, see where the action is and try to go and be of help if they are fighting someone. Not only do you increase the odds of your team's survival, but also increase the odds of killing their demigods by doing so.

- Learn when to upgrade the citadel properly and what to upgrade in it. Ever so often i find myself with newer players who would just go after any creep upgrade they can get their hands on. Do not do that. They just feed the enemy more XP and gold. Unless you absolutely know what you are doing, stick to gold and XP upgrades plus the first tower hp and tower damage upgrade. The rest of the money, spend on items / scolls of save them for later when you will have to upgrade the creeps.

- Learn the effectiveness of teleport and lock scrolls. There is nothing more annoying than locking a flag just when the enemy is about to capture it then going on your business to take a flag elsewhere. 45 seconds seem way too little, but keep in mind, that quite a few games end in well under 30 minutes.. its a lot if you have to wait it out, trust me. Also use teleports to get to troubled locations or safety quickly. Keep in mind, that you can cancel the teleport while it is being cast. So if you see an enemy harass a friendly player, you can start porting to the flag.. he will see the teleport marker appear and most likely retreat. Then you can cancel the casting by giving a move order. This way, you did force an enemy to break off attacking without even being there and also saved a scroll for later use. He might not eat this trick and continue chasing, in which case you just finish the teleport and chase him off yourself. The important lesson here is learning your options.

Final words:
I think i could go on as far as tactics go, but its not the point of this thread, plus its mostly subjective, based on my experience / knowledge. Take it as such.. advice from someone who hopefully knows what hes doing, but theres no guarantees

If my advice on behavior and good conduct will turn just a single soul to be a better player, then i will already be happy. Other than that, enjoy your games.

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drugfreeboy

I agree.

I can honestly say that I would be inclined to put resources on ways to make the in-game experience more socially pleasant.

We have some ideas for that but I'd love to hear other ideas.

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I have noticed greeting someone usually has them stay longer to wait for others.

But people are so impatient, it doesnt effect it much. People seem to ONLY want to be the last one joining and if they arn't that final spot, they quit. RARG.

But I agree overall

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One thing I always learn't to do as a new player in any game is accept the fact you are new. You WILL make mistakes, if someone tries to help you by informing you such, take it with a pinch of salt, accept the blame, move on and learn from it. If you know you've done something wrong, appologise, it hurts less in the long run.

If however you're on the other end of this, don't shout and insult someone, be polite and explain, don't insult and berrate someone who may be new. People are quite capable with some help or practice, of learning alot and becoming good players and possibly allies.

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Only if every players in Demigod are mature enough to understand this simple message. What I do find annoying is sometimes when you tell your fellow teammates a few tips then they get pissed off and start calling you names. But I do go overboard myself sometimes when my allies start feeding too much and do not listen to what I say. Greeting ppl is good way to some polite to players, it is something I always do.

Maybe we can filter out insulting word I think that would be good or we can simply add ignore/mute command.

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Pleople might still be connecting, selecting their demigod, etc.. Not to mention, that it makes you look inpatient and arrogant.

it would be useful if when someone is changing their demigod they could still remain in chat.

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Good post. I find that talking really helps a lot, crack a joke in the lobby or at the very least say hello.

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I myself love new players, even if they are the reason I lose.

Think about it, why get upset over one loss? The more new players there are, the better, because that means the game is becoming more and more popular, and when those players become better and more experienced, there will be a larger player pool of good players, which will ultimately lead to a more fun experience playing the game.

I feel as players who feel we are decent at the game, or like myself, one who played DotA since 03', and therefore I had a natural feel for this game (after starting 2-2, i think im now like 40-6) I enjoy teaching players the game, basic items that are good to start with, what each demigod can be good at, etc. Why flame the new player, when you can teach them to help make them better, sure at times they won't accept your advice, but there isn't much else you can do but move on and try to carry, no point in getting upset back.

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Great post but a little thing to add on the first two points :

First off I don't think 150 ms is any different from 250ms in this game if everyone has a good connection and PC, but that's from personal experience. Also often peoples pings take a while to settle (sometimes up to like 10 secs) so while it may say 400 it is probably going to go down.

Secondly Game Settings is really buggy! It often displays the settings from your last game, so if they look familliar it's a good idea to ask the host about the settings.

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The ones who start @600 and slowly go down to ~100 seem to spike when you get in game, I don't kick them but I do keep a list of the people who lag, and invariably they end up on it once the game starts stuttering horribly. My guess is its low bandwidth connections that do it, but I don't really know.

But yes 150 == 250 for most purposes, people should stop putting draconian ping limits on their games.

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I think it's on the host to convey that the game settings are different. I play a lot of games and the vast majority of ones I play are standard settings.

If you're still reading this frogboy, adding in a status alert that just indicates whether the game is on full default settings or not would facilitate things quite a bit. Nothing too cumbersome that would clutter up the screen, just a custom game icon or something that lights up when things are off.

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On ping: i know the difference between 250 and 150 is minimal, i've had great games where MY ping was 250ish against players from the US. Thing is.. i prefer to minimize the chances of running into a bad connetion and while a low ping is no guarantee that the guy will not have a horrible sim speed or upstream bandwidth, a good ping is usually an indication of a good connection and as such reduces the chances of running into network related troubles.

Most of the times i do not complain as long as they are below 200, despite my exceptation of them being below 150.

On people with initial high pings.. i also noticed that those guys are usually trouble. No idea what causes it, but again.. experience shows that 1 out of 2 times, if someone enters the game with a ping of 600 then they will keep spiking in game, even if they later normalize to ~100-150.

On game settings: not only do they display those from last game, but i do believe that they are set to those from last game. I hosted a game once with totally weird game settings.. it did feel odd, but i was like: "there can be nothing wrong with them, i didnt change anything". Nonetheless, i checked them before the next game and there were changes on several settings.

As for the custom game settings icon: i do find it a nice idea, although an even better one would be to list the non default game settings in chat when you join the game. Same way it is listed when the host changes something. This way everyone entering would notice instantly that the game settings are off, and they would also know how.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

- Especially stay away from criticizing your team openly. Its a sure sign that a player on the other team indeed stinks: YOU.

I'm sorry, but if you suck, or do something stupid, I will talk about it. And I will keep talking about it until you stop.

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Quoting csebal,

reply 11

I don't think it'd all fit in the chat box? There's quite a lot of settings.

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Talking Sh*t, getting emotional, and letting loose is a big part of the fun. I'm not here to be your friend, I'm here to kick *ss, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't come off as morally superior because you are 'casual'. Cuz believe me, casuals like you drive me just as bat crazy as competitive players must drive you.

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Quoting TheGuildfordStrangler,

reply 12

quoting post

- Especially stay away from criticizing your team openly. Its a sure sign that a player on the other team indeed stinks: YOU.

I'm sorry, but if you suck, or do something stupid, I will talk about it. And I will keep talking about it until you stop.

Yeah man because telling someone destructively to shut the fuck up and listen to you because you're the end all be all in this game is a great way to keep people in the community!

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Quoting TormakSaber,

reply 15

Yeah man because telling someone destructively to shut the fuck up and listen to you because you're the end all be all in this game is a great way to keep people in the community!

Look, if you get killed early I'm not going to complain about it, just ask you to be more careful. But if you do something stupid like continously pick fights with that UB that just killed you, I'm going to tell you to stop.

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I see no problem with that, but Guildford implies that you get no slack, and worse, no constructive criticism and combined with the rest of his posts...

Sorry, I just get a giant elitist/arrogant vibe from him and people like that really rub me wrong.

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Quoting TheGuildfordStrangler,

reply 12

I'm sorry, but if you suck, or do something stupid, I will talk about it. And I will keep talking about it until you stop.

Well.. as i said: giving advice to someone is fine. Telling them to stop doing what they are doing is advice in itself. Nothing wrong with that, even though a helpful explanation might help both of you on the long run and it actually takes less time and effort than having to keep telling the same guy to stop over and over again in all sorts of offensive ways. Making rude / degrading comments about the other player on your team.. thats what i have a problem with.

Criticizing someone publicly - that is: in front of the enemy - shows two things for me:
- you are a pathetic egoist and try to cast blame even before it would be certain you will be defeated. After all.. if your team loses, thats surely always the other's fault.
- you are way too easy to give up. If it wouldnt be the case, you wouldnt complain to the other team, but try to fill the gaps left by the weaker player on your side.
Then again, this is how i look at those who complain about their teammates. Others might have a different view.

Quoting IllegalDustbin,

reply 13

I don't think it'd all fit in the chat box? There's quite a lot of settings.

I'm talking about the same kind of display that happens if you change settings. If the host changes something, it is already displayed in the chat box. Showing the non-default settings upon joining the game would not take more than 4-5 lines typically.

Quoting Andianqz,

reply 14

So in your book, competitiveness equals being an ahole? Dude.. thats plain wrong.
- First mistake: you imply that im not a competitive player because im not playing 24/7. Wrong.. whenever i play, i play to win and i never give up ever, unless a defeat is 110% certain.
- Second mistake: Being a hardcore gamer and being a cool gamer are not mutually exclusive. If you do not respect your opponent then you will never be a really good player. Simple as this: Arrogance makes you believe your opponents are somehow inferior to you and will cause you to underestimate them. Once you learn to respect the other players, friends and foes, teammates and enemies alike.. you will not only get better at your game, but will also find out, that there is a world beyond the one you are confining yourself into.
- Third mistake: competitive players are not driving me nuts. Its the arrogant / rude ones i do not like.

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- Especially stay away from criticizing your team openly. Its a sure sign that a player on the other team indeed stinks: YOU.

And if it's the truth? It might hurt but somebody has to tell the bad players that they are learning resistant and ruin the game for their teammates.

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Quoting TormakSaber,

reply 17

I see no problem with that, but Guildford implies that you get no slack, and worse, no constructive criticism and combined with the rest of his posts...

Sorry, I just get a giant elitist/arrogant vibe from him and people like that really rub me wrong.

Play a game with me, and your opinion of me will change. Unless you're stupid. Then it won't.

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I'm sorry, but if you suck, or do something stupid, I will talk about it. And I will keep talking about it until you stop.

I find its much better to be nice about it. Give advice, instead of openly criticizing. If you're nice about it, they might take it on board, or they might not. However, if you're an ass about it, they are guaranteed to ignore you.

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- Say hi, when you enter a game and generally be polite. I've seen plenty of people join the game, click ready and the next you can hear from them - and the first line is - RDY UP, GOGOGO. I always have to resist the urge to just kick these players.

First: greeting the others is the most basic act that any kind of good manners would require.

Second: writing all caps makes you look incredibly stupid, so better turn off the caps lock before they think you wrote it all caps intentionally

Third: this is not a horse race.. no need to rush things. Pleople might still be connecting, selecting their demigod, etc.. Not to mention, that it makes you look inpatient and arrogant.

I more or less agree but this section bugs me. If we were in kindergarden and all held hands and sang silly songs, this would be fine. I see no need to chummy up before the game. This is not to say I don't, but saying everyone should is a bit arrogant imo. If someone doesn't want to say hi in the lobby, I don't care, as long as you play well.

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well, you don't have to say hi all the time, buit its still a good thing to do. It kinda starts the game off on a friendly/"good sport" note rather than a competitive "I'm gonna pwn you and if I don't its cuz my team is all noobs" mood.

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FB, it seems you already implemented one of the most important things so far into DG that has made the social experience MUCH better in the game. You did'nt know that? You guys fixed most the connection problems. . . I don't think it's any coinceidence that the amount of rudeness in the lobbies/games has gone down a lot lately.

As for ideas, seperating games in advance for different types of players: Specifically, a "Play Pen area", designated for new players, or good/nice players to help new players; then another area for players looking for a "fun" game with intermediate-good players; then one more area for the "In it for the Win" players. I'm not for segrigation in real life, but with DemiGod, seprrating the "Smack talking, For the Win, Lets kick a**" Players from the "Be nice, Act mature, just for fun" players would solve a LOT of static I see in the game. Keeping new players out of both areas, and giving them their own area to make them feel welcome and help them learn could help even more.

I can tell you, it can be SO intimidating seeing that list of games up there when you are new. All your thinking is "how bad will I suck, and how much verbal abuse will I get when I mess up". I would have clicked on a "Play Pen" or "Practice"area button in a second if I saw one when I first started out. Or I would have picked the fun/casual game area at the very least.

Fantum, I have a court order stating you must change your first name immediately! FuchsiaFantum has a nice ring to it. . .

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I agree with everything escept:

- Read the game's title. If it says pings<150 and you have 600 ping to the guy hosting the game, then do yourself a favor and not waste your time and his by clicking ready instead of leave.

Personally, I haven't found that high pings to be much of an issue in this game. Although, I think that 600 is a bit high... but I don't think I'd join a game where people were that pciky about ping.

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