Poor sportsmanship

[Jace]

I've added a column about poor sportsmanship in UT. It's a bit on the large side so go take a read then feel free to comment here.

The item is at :- http://www.barrysworld.com/news/columns.asp?Author=34&Category=31

[This message has been edited by Jace (edited 27 July 2000).]

 

[natrat]

Stats whores are a pain inthe arse and they aren't limited to UT.

Since putting up local stats for the CS servers I run here in Holland, 50% of the chat in game is about those stats and who is highest etc etc. Luckily the stat package I use has a very reasonable and fair calculation of a players skill which is more than just their kill ratio, and suicides do not give them the advantage. But a few players have complained that teamplay has dropped since the stats were introduced, as the package does not specifically have any triggers to give points for good team play. If you want high stats, you will never sacrifice yourself for the good of the team, be that camping the bomb point until it explodes, or holding off by yourself 4 of the enemy while your mate plants the bomb.

The problem has also arised on the Freezetag server I run. On my freezetag server you start with only the machinegun and shotgun, but on some other servers you start with all the weapons. Apparently players using the servers where you start with all the weapons are getting ranked higher on www.theclq.com because they can get more kills as they don't have to hunt for weapons.

Despite non-stat hungry players requesting the limited starting weapon to make the game more interesting, the stat whores have demanded i enable all the weapons so they can keep up with players on another server who are ranked on yet another external stats site.

Needless to say I told them to get fucked. I'll choose exciting play any day over an external ranking site with very dodgy ranking policy and even dodgier security/anti-cheat protection.

natrat@barrysworld.com

 

[TedTheDog]

3-4 years ago, back in the days we were still the TS servers, we ran QWCTF Creeper server. 17 runes (I recall) and great fun. Then we made the mistake of logging all the stats and publishing them daily on our website and it made a huge difference to the game.
So, if you were having a bad day or one of the real hardcore players like Slick was beating your arse you'd either quit out or change teams, if you were worried about your stats. And lots of people worried about their stats. I was worried about mine, and even found myself quitting out when I was getting hammered.

Yup, game stats are an interesting diversion but their very nature gives them too much emphasis during the game itself.
We must remember that as we build our services here, its easy to forget and be taken in by the all the pretty numbers and lights.

 

[old.QorbeQ]

I have to agree fully with everything here.

The scoreboard in CS for example. Those kills/deaths listed there lead to people aiming to be top, rather than aiming to help the team out.

Whilst I can't deny that I do /like/ to be listed near the top rather than languishing at the bottom, it doesn't affect my gameplay.

I don't think that removing the kills/deaths from the scoreboard would be detrimental to CS, either for public or league games. The information serves no useful purpose to the game, other than possibly making you more wary if you see a certain name in your sights.

Some games you can't go that far (Q3-DM for example, the aim is frags) but externally ranking based on frags? Eh?

Perhaps the best ranking system for public FFA DM is to simply score people's finishing position relative to the number of people in the game (8 points for 1st place when 8 ppl are playing, etc, kinda-of-lie Athie's Q3 FFA league...).

Valve are working on persistent player information for HalfLife. All I can say is OMG, they'd betted get their ranking sorted properly otherwise some of the lowest form of gameplay will emerge...

 

[old.Scum]

Bah, ngStats is a pile of toss.

I am no longer registered with ngStats, because of the cheating and the way it makes some players behave in an immensely lame manner: spawn killing on servers running DM-Pyramid with 16 players; playing only on servers full of newbies; quitting when a decent player connects etc.

IMHO tournaments are the only valid way to compare players, as the conditions are generally well controlled. If you can't be bothered to attend a tournament, then you shouldn't get a rating.

ngStats is to UT what TV celebrity sellout Carol Vordermann is to health food - ie. no longer worthy of any respect.

Until somebody creates a game that provides the same level of controlled conditions and care to eliminate cheating as you would find at a LAN tournament, then any kind of rating system like ngStats is going to be bollox.

BTW: I've played against {TcP}Dromer in FFA game and he seemed average. Was a while ago and I can't remember if he was suiciding at that stage.

 

[old.Kez]

Bleh, stats annoy me!

that was kind of it, they're lame.

 

[old.Mig]

About the Stats, Imagine this situation:
-> CTF game (The mode I play)
-> team m8 with flag under attack
-> put youself at front of him so you take the deadly strike and your team continues with flag.
Conclusion:
1-Good team play.
2-Bad for your personal stas.
screw 2
=[SK]=Mig

 

[Mr Lee]

I remember when the scoreboard was removed from CS on some servers, but most ppl just moaned until they put it back, seemed they cared more about their individual score in a game that is fundamentedly based on teamplay.

Also regarding CLQ, I remember ppl appearing when I used to play AQ2 only for the maps where it was easiest to get maximum frags in the shortest time, then they left. I'm always suprised by how many ppl only seem to care about their own stats/score.

 

[old.[SS]hol]

Im in total agreement with Borg here, so I'll be kicking people for that to.

As for stats theres no doubt that the removal of them has an impact on players, for instance I was asked by a VOID player recently why the stats werent on on BW, thinking nothing more of it I sent a mail to DrChris asking the question (still no reply tho lol)

Just goes to show how much it affects ppls attitude.

-hol

 

[old.TheFury[Void]]

Well, as a member of Void I have to say that stats are just a pain in the arse. I turned off the use of stats a considerable amount of time ago. The reason - it just doesn't seem as fun with stats enabled. For a start you always get the prats who try to hunt you down to 'have-a-go' at a Voidster just because we are generally well skilled players. Then there are the dicks like the TcP dudes you mention who do nothing more than suicide in fornt of your very eyes. Very clever that. Then there are the ppl who think that a true DM game is 'fire a shot - then run away to find some health - come back fire another shot etc etc etc'. C'mon - if you want to pussy around like that then go play something like Jet Set Willy

DM is DM. All out battles with nowhere to run to. Isn't it suprising to see so few of these stat whore dicks playing Rocket Arena (whats that - no health powerups, suicides count as a death...).

And, on a final note - lets face it - however high up the stats board you are - Nailz would still kick your booty

TheFury[Void]

 

[old.Ian]

Oi!

Whats wrong with Jet Set Willy!

The pixel perfect jumps required honed my reflexes and made me the UT player I am today!

Which admittedly isn't something to brag about, but ....

 

[old.[DzR]Castor Troy]

Couldn't agree more, that has to be the lamest exploit ever in gaming. Just had to sign their guestbook too

Anyone who won't sacrafice themselves to defend the flag carrier in a ctf game really should go back to spamming asmd combos on public dm servers.

I remember a public game where i fired the Redeemer at my feet to kill three guys chasing our carrier, got all three and the blast blew our carrier from the keg o health on Face to just outside the entrance of our base

 

[old.[DKC]Quinn Dexter]

some one should come up with a stats progy that gives you more rating points for helping than for killng, the game would then get very good

 

[old.Katana_-[NL]-]

Hi whoever feels like reading this,

I had noticed that whenever I played against a good rated {TcP} I never got any Frag in save a few times. This did strike me as odd, so I went investigating and figured out they always had many more suicide per frag than most others and still went up in the ratings. hmmm...

Now the question that strikes me as odd:

Why did the guys at ngworldstats not think of this before? How much work is it to change one formula when the next quarterly stats start? The formula should encourage staying alive and discourage the suiciders.

This suiciding is a form of cheating and definately unsporting. However I have seen worse. I remember a certain guys who dominated the rankings last quarter who built his own server and set it to a 1 on 1 game. This guy played against against his second player who only stood still and respawned. This way he got godlikes, mega high efficiencies and good rating changes. If his rankings were in trouble he would play against his home made player and climb. The most loser part of this all was that he managed to get himself killed in the process of killing a stationary bot/player.

Anyway, Fragging is still a helluva lotta fun! But can you frag with da lag?

------------------
Katana_-[NL]-

 

[old.[DzR]Castor Troy]

A link to the article was posted in their guestbook and they have a halfassed explanation on their front page now.

I think they are admitting that some of them do it but they dont all want to be tarred with the one brush btw the readme file for UT patch 425 says 'suicide spamming bug fixed' is that this exploit or some other perhaps?

 

[old.choker]

as a member of TcP i must say i am pretty anoyed with this article. I must agree with the author that using suicides as a means of getting higher in the stats in pretty damn ass lame and unsporting for sure. But you just can't just go and accuse all TcP of the same tactics just because anax. I for one DO NOT have a key bound to the suicide and as far as i know , anax and dromer are the only ones that use it, and might i add to that that dromer DOES NOT infact use suicide alot.
For those of you running off now and checking my stats, yes i too have a fair share of suicides 2059 deaths - 700 suicides as we speak. but i've had that kind of figures even before i got interested in stats, most off them are rocketlaunger related and they are part of the way i play.
I will admit to the fact that very ocasionally i purpously use suicide, but compared to my normal suicides this is only a very small portion

now too adress some reactions

TheFury wrote

<quote>
Then there are the ppl who think that a true DM game is 'fire a shot - then run away to find some health - come back fire another shot etc etc etc'. C'mon - if you want to pussy around like that then go play something like Jet Set Willy
</quote>

I have to disagree with you on that DM is all about tactics getting health when its needed, at times running off can be preferable to getting yourself killed
If it's onslaught you want go play LMS or rocket arena (wich IS infact is played by several TcP members including myself)
I'll prolly have to agree with you on the Nailz part though


Katana

I agree they should change the way they calculate the ratings , if they do now one would be more pleased than me
Btw i do remember playing you a few times , and the way i remember it i didnt have to use suicides to get ahaid of you, fact of the matter is that generaly TcP players are more skilled then you are.

and that is a point that is missed. Even without lame ass antics undeniably TcP is a force to be reckoned with. We don't pretend to be the best of the best, and we are quite fully aware that some off us are probably overrated in the stats since a lot of Extremely skilled players like nailz ,the fury ,all [KEG] etc.. players are missing in the list. Still i would say we have a decent lineup off players that can keep up with the best of them. I personaly look forward to seeing how TcP will do on clanbase.

flames to /dev/null

 

[Jace]

This reply from TCP-Choker follows a mail I received today from TCP where the author attempts to justify suiciding as something a good DM player should do!

"fact of the matter is that generaly TcP players are more skilled then you are."

Nothing like an overinflated sense of one's own ability.

"and that is a point that is missed. Even without lame ass antics undeniably TcP is a force to be reckoned with."

If I had for one minute thought that TCP were a force to be reckoned with I would have said so. But you aren't. Even with lame tactics none of your players are anything special. What's a shame is that you aren't at all bothered on the impact that your fellow clan members have on your clan. You seem fine with them carrying on suiciding because it's not you personally that's doing it.

I hope you like other teams being supsicious of you all the time cause I certainly wouldn't trust a single one of you.

 

[old.choker]

jace have you ever seen anyone of us play ?

you say none of our players are anything special. though many great players get kicked by us everyday , including those in void or ncm i kinda lost count how many times i fragged necro a few days back.
And dont get me wrong here , I am far from the greatest player tcp has to offer
If you doubt our abilitys i am sure we could arange a little demonstration to make you change that opinion.

<quote>
What's a shame is that you aren't at all bothered on the impact that your fellow clan members have on your clan.
</quote>

like a made clear in my previous posting , i disaprove of anax way of playing. But nor i or anyone else for that matter am going to get him to give it up (for this quarter)

I am not really concerned about how it reflects on our clans reputation though. anax is but one of tcp's 10 or so players. most players who bother with a clans reputation will have seen more players play then anax and will acknowlage that not all TcP'ers play like anax does, borg is acting on ONE encounter with a TcP player and hear say..
I feel that this does not justify calling the entire TcP clan a bunch of untrustworthy lamers.

 

[old.Kez]

arf arf.
at the risk of standing on a few people's feet (read: TcP won't like me )....

You're lame, stop it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>jace have you ever seen anyone of us play ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>well, considering the article was written by Jace havig played a TcP, I'd assume so, foo'

 

[old.TheFury[Void]]

Oh dear its all sort of gone pear shaped. Fair enough the majority of the TcP dudes probably dont bind the suicide command.

That bit about "a force to be reckoned with"... I would hold back on saying that until you have won something

Oh and by all means pop along into IRC. I frequently see one of your players in our channel (and he or she is very curteous) but maybe you'd like to get a few of yer mates together and join #ut.void, #mmx or #haemmoraghe (can never spell that last one). Whilst in there you may like to challenge the corresponding clans to a "friendly" clan game...


Oh and final "Jerry Springer" style thought: This is no way to get other clans to respect you Maybe a simple, "yes some of our clan members use the suicide tactic, but not all of us" etc etc etc

 

[old.TheFury[Void]]

Didnt notice this bit:

"Extremely skilled players like nailz ,the fury ,all [KEG] etc.. players are missing in the list."

Well there is a simple reason why most of the Void players aren't in the list - because it gets plain boring and we have stopped logging stats... After all when yer Nailz and youve spent the last decade at the no1 spot for the quarterly's you would imagine that he gets a little fed up... You guys should see the fan mail he gets (I kid you not). Now how many ppl in the UT world get fan mail...

Oh and as for the stats in general... unless you havent noticed, until you get to the top 10 to 20 in the quarterlys the stats favour people who play a lot of games and have a high efficiency, not necessarily that you win the match. Read into that what you will.

 

[old.Kez]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TheFury[Void]:
... You guys should see the fan mail he gets (I kid you not). Now how many ppl in the UT world get fan mail...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>send some meh way

/me stares at his mailbox full of pr0n & bwutl mails

 

[old.Katana_-[NL]-]

&lt;Quote&gt;

I agree they should change the way they calculate the ratings , if they do now one would be more pleased than me
Btw i do remember playing you a few times , and the way i remember it i didnt have to use suicides to get ahaid of you, fact of the matter is that generaly TcP players are more skilled then you are.
&lt;/quote&gt;

{TcP}choker,

First of all I have to agree that I am not as skilled as many {TcP} players. You'll kick my ass any day. Don't misunderstand me, you guys rock and I enjoy playing the best players out there! I feel that I have had a good game if you kill me twice or even thrice for my one kill. I apologize for generalizing the whole of TcP which was not my intension. I was pointing out the fact that suiciding on purpose deprives others of getting their frag in.

{TcP}Dromer,

I met you last night on WANADOO HOLLAND =[DM]= SERVER #2 in 'pressure'. You are definately an impressive UT player. You said that i then had a chance to prove myself. I wasn't saying that i am a better player than you are ('cause I'm not!). As i mentioned to choker i was merely pointing out a fact. I was glad i got a few kills on you even though you managed 2 kills to my 1. I recognize a better player when i see one and i really love playing against them.

The ngworldstats in a fantastic service for all UT players and i must say that they go to great lengths in delivering a high quality ranking board. I do hope that they will make changes to the weight that suicides bear in the rankings. Happy Fragging!



------------------
Katana_-[NL]-

 

[old.Kez]

could you have possibly spammed your point across anymore?

 

[old.[DzR]Castor Troy]

I didn't quite catch that Katana, would you mind spamming it another few times

 

[old.[FBI]Agent_001]

To all of you.

Just play Instagib like I do, suisides don't mather, i'll frag you're ass anywayz.


[FBI]= Feared By Instagibbers.

 

[Jace]

"jace have you ever seen anyone of us play ?"

Did you actually bother reading my initial column update?

"you say none of our players are anything special. though many great players get kicked by us everyday , including those in void or ncm i kinda lost count how many times i fragged necro a few days back."

LOL, ooooooooo, so you fragged a few good players . . . scary! Grow up ffs. Are you honestly saying that you are better than these players because you beat them once or twice? I can only comment from my own personal experience and that remains unaltered no matter how much you try and brag about how good you think you are.

"If you doubt our abilitys i am sure we could arange a little demonstration to make you change that opinion."

You get more immature by the moment. Do you not understand that I wouldn't trust your clan any further than I could throw you?

 

[old.tcpAnaxares]

so listen: flakass bad cocksuck Anaxares suicider bends down to speak to you.

Stats are sucking and fucking bitch they don´t reflect skills. So why do you play stats?
I tell you my reason:
Every stats-playing dude on earth knows my name, most humply whispering it out while falling on their knees.
ha! I know, your not that one! You´d kick my ass if i wouldn´t keep on suiciding! Why not.. I´m by far not the best player BUT
before you get too high: Anaxares was Nr.1 before suiciding.
So continue tiring me, calling me using lame tactics.
Stats is a lame ranking-system so if you wanna have fair ranking, quit ´em.

Anaxares

-why hate where contempt suffices-

 

[old.QorbeQ]

Hmmm. To quote someone somewhere "I know all the words but still can't understand it"

Heh - I realise you're German though so I'll let you off.

So, your argument *for* such a blatantly feeble tactic is "I was top of the stats before I did it so it doesn't make any difference if I do it now..."

Hmmm. Excuse me if I don't bend humbly on my knees at your god-like feet...

 

[old.Katana_-[NL]-]

hmm...

I have great admiration and respect for very good UT DM players, but when you brag about it in the way you do Anaxares...

I guess you're making a lot of friends now...



------------------
Katana_-[NL]-