Getting Geno-Junkies on Methadon

[asciimonster]

Hi all,

I start this thread partly out of a sense of frustration, partly because I can imagine a lot of people out there are equally frustrated.

I play a lot on Boxy Wars (as most of us do looking at the listserver) it's elegantly simple and refined. I see the need for a geno flag to be present. It's a great weapon especially when things are close. I can also see somebody trying it out just for fun. But there are people who use it over and over and over again.

At one time I counted twelve geno hits over a three minute period. I don't know about you, but that takes all the fun out of the game. I don't mind loosing, but I'm not playing to wear out the "i" key on my keyboard. This totally fits the definition of a junkie: Somebody who is only interested in their next fix even when it is to the detriment of others. The incessant repetition in actions of these people is also a clue.

You could put lest geno flags in. Here are some suggestions for amending the situation:
- Do not add the geno flag all of the time. If the geno flag is not in play all of the time you have time to recover.
- Count a geno hit as just one hit and not the amount of people of the other team. This way if you use geno you do not get great stats as a bonus.
- If people like geno so much, let's make Geno World where every flag is geno and let them play there.
- Lower the automated poll acceptance level from 50% to 35 or maybe 25%. Most people don't vote anyway (IMHO most of them probably don't know how) and try getting the geno-junkies team members to vote yes... In short, you will never, ever reach 50%

feeling a little less annoyed already,
Asciimonster

P.S. Couldn't boxy do with an automated flag reset?

[A Meteorite]

That's some great feedback there! Love to see it as I barely get any.

At one time I counted twelve geno hits over a three minute period. I don't know about you, but that takes all the fun out of the game. I don't mind loosing, but I'm not playing to wear out the "i" key on my keyboard. This totally fits the definition of a junkie: Somebody who is only interested in their next fix even when it is to the detriment of others. The incessant repetition in actions of these people is also a clue.

Yes, it can be quite annoying (I could probably name a half dozen Boxy War regulars that are geno junkies ). I'm looking at several solutions to help improve CTF and lessen the geno.

You could put lest geno flags in. Here are some suggestions for amending the situation:

Actually, there is only one geno flag in the map.

- Do not add the geno flag all of the time. If the geno flag is not in play all of the time you have time to recover.

Hmmm, sounds good. Do you mean only spawn the flag like 5mins every 10mins or something? Or maybe count how long it's been since a CTF and then base whether or not it spawns then? This may be possible with some plugin sorcery, but an obvious solution to this idea isn't coming to me.

- Count a geno hit as just one hit and not the amount of people of the other team. This way if you use geno you do not get great stats as a bonus.

That's been suggested, but it wouldn't be easily implementable and there would be some drawbacks to it as well (the plugin could minus the score after it tracked a kill with the geno flag, but only everyone else would see the effect of that person's score going down - not the person himself).

- If people like geno so much, let's make Geno World where every flag is geno and let them play there.

I did host a Geno World map for some time (not a Boxy War variant, a totally new map), but it wasn't very popular.

- Lower the automated poll acceptance level from 50% to 35 or maybe 25%. Most people don't vote anyway (IMHO most of them probably don't know how) and try getting the geno-junkies team members to vote yes... In short, you will never, ever reach 50%

Vote for what? Flag reset? Kill the geno junkie?

P.S. Couldn't boxy do with an automated flag reset?

Yeah, I have one, but my plugins don't seem to be working right now. I guess I deserve it when BZFS has a memory leak and is using 160MB+ memory as of now (I really should set-up a nightly auto-restart for Boxy War and find out what's leaking).

Thanks for posting! I also hope to work with the Boxy War community as well to bring some improvements (the last batch of improvements were about 3 months ago). I have some on the back burner now, but I want to do a little more before I revise the server.

[L4m3r]

Write a plugin that only makes the geno shot work a given percentage of the time. Combined with a shot limit that would make geno more fun to use, but less fun to hog out.

[Sky King]

Well, my two cents have been pretty consistent, but I will repeat them here... I don't think geno works at all on Boxy.

The geno flag breaks pretty much all the cast-in-stone rules that Chris and Tim have laid down about what can and can't be done in BZ. Geno was allowed with the idea that it could add an interesting element to servers that have tight-knit teams, like a league server where the same players always play together.

But like most flags... no matter what the intended purpose, it proliferates many servers, and now Geno is a common addition on FFA and CTF servers.

The other day, I was on boxy for two hours, and no one on either team even touched the geno flag the entire time. Oh my goodness, it was so much fun... a lot of shooting, a lot of one-on-one duels, a lot of cap attempts... it was the most fun I have had on BZ in a long time. Then, of course, one of the 5 or 6 "geno regulars" logged in and the whole atmosphere changed... The game became about protecting and avoiding geno and stopped being about combining sniping and infitrating to capture the enemy flag. In other words, it stopped being the essence of BZ and became something else.

The only purpose that geno serves on a "loose alliance" server like Boxy is to allow experienced geno users to quickly run up massive point totals. It can take an hour to get to +100 without geno, and 3-4 minutes to get to +100 with geno.

Some argue that it's an "equalizer" that allows the weaker team to turn the tables. That sounds great when you read it, but in practice, that never happens. the dominant team usually controls the middle, and the weaker team cannot spare 2-4 extra players to just linger around the middle waiting in line for geno.

Geno is usually only picked up by very experienced players, who either wait in the center for a newbie to jump in, or they infiltrate the enemy base so they can camp on the enemy spawn zone, assuring them 3 genos that no one can do anything about. If you like the spirit of competition, if you like the challenge of going up against tough players and battling it out, then what's the fun of either of these geno tactics? They just suck the very fun of BZ right out of the game.

I think the magic of Boxy is that it combines elements of CTF and FFA in a way that most servers don't. It's not random chaos like badger or mofo, but it's not tactically intensive like lasermania. It's the middle ground where you can simply "play BZ". But most days on Boxy, there are two separate wars going on... there's 20 people playing BZ, and then 2-3 people playing geno war... and sadly, the 20 BZ players are nothing more than the "points pile" for the few people who are playing geno.

I won't candy coat it. To me, geno almost ruins Boxy. It takes the individual duel out of it; It takes the rugby-like sense of camaraderie and fairness out of it; It takes the focus even farther off of CTF than it already is; It's another way that experienced players have a huge advantage over newbies; And it provides a way for a dominant team to remain dominant.

I'd love to see it go. My recommendations are, in order:

1. Above all things: Just get rid of it. Replace it with something else... maybe a shot-counted SB?
2. If you can't live without it, balance it... make a player think long and hard about deciding to pick it up by adding some negative downside to it.
   
   Examples that could be done without a plugin:
   • Surround it by very neagtive flags. Surround it with Obese or Blindness that you can't get rid of for 10 seconds, or until you get a kill;
   • Make the geno reload time huge... like 10 seconds;
   Examples that would require a plugin:
   • If you get killed while carrying it, then YOUR whole team dies;
   • If you shoot all 3 rounds and don't get a kill, your team dies.
3. Develop a plugin that removes the points for geno. It's still there to use if needed for a tactical advantage, but, you don't get any points for it. Better yet, have it subtract the enemy kills from your score so there's a cost to use it--It's there if you need it, but if you don't absolutely need it, then leave it alone.

But far above 2 or 3, my choice is 1... just get rid of it. How about a test, we just take the geno out for a week, and see what people think? I know there are 2 or 3 regulars that will stop coming, but I also know there's a lot of people (me included) that would play even more if it was gone.

[dango]

genocide shot reload needs a plugin...
I agree, the genocide flag in boxy war doesn't really add to the game. When people have genocide everyone's yelling "get the genocide!", "Don't get killed by the genocide!", "I'm sorry, I got hit by genocide", "WHY THE HECK DID YOU GET HIT BY A GENOCIDE?!? :foam:", and "kill the genocide!" No one really cares about the CTF part with genocide. The bad flag thing might be an improvement, but I think it shouldn't be included.

[meeba]

don't surround it with bad flags. simply have one flag on top of the middle section at a time. one-third of the time, it is genocide. the other two-thirds of the time, it is a random bad flag.

[BinarySpike]

I'm only gonna say this once, not press it at all... I am warning you! if you remove Genocide, Boxy War's intended crowd will change drastically. (I know why too but I don't wanna sound like an arrogent know-it-all)

Make the geno reload time huge... like 10 seconds;

Well that is impossible on 2.0.4... *as far as I know*
I just recently started using 2.0.8 (and it dissapoints me... it crashes much more often than 2.0.4 did... at least I don't have TCP port problems anymore...)

Develop a plugin that removes the points for geno.

As far as I know... plugins can't change score completely in 2.0.8 and that it will be fully supported in 2.2.x

the genocide flag in boxy war doesn't really add to the game.

I believe someone said...

When people have genocide ... "get the genocide!", "Don't get killed by the genocide!", "I'm sorry, I got hit by genocide", "WHY THE HECK DID YOU GET HIT BY A GENOCIDE?!? :foam:", and "kill the genocide!"

Isn't that something added? People going crazy?


When I was designing Boxy War, I was gonna make it for a friend and his friend, they were spending the night, So I wasn't targetting the normal BZ crowds, I was targetting 12-15 year old guys... "GET THE GENOCIDE" is something 12-15 year old guys like to say

and, 14-25 year old guys are the most likely to get on drugs... per-asciimonter's post...
(I didn't really appreciate the comparison )

P.S. Sorry for the misspelled words... Firefox doesn't alert me when I misspell a word... and there is no spell checker...

[asciimonster]

It's not that I'm against geno or geno-junkies. It's just that the rules should always discourage abuse/misuse of the options in the game.

I once saw this comment by somebody on the team with the junkie (recapped in my own words, but this was the bottom line):
"Ok. This is getting silly again. I'm outta here."
... and left. So also for the team with the geno-junkie this is not a good thing. This falls under the cathegory, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing".

And yes, I suggested the voting limits to be lowered, because now the votes are rarely met (sorry for the confusion). When a vote succeeds it's usually a flag reset, because people see the point in that, but when it is about kicking somebody off, a large portion of people couldn't be bothered. There has to be a viable way for the group to kick somebody off for being a pest.

P.S. I come from a town where a rusde overstament is considdered an asset when it is an accurate description of the problem. So if I hurt somebody, I appologise.

[asciimonster]

Ok. Here's another thing I've noticed: When there is geno in play, nobody is interested in capturing the flag, whereas it is the most important thing in bzflag (heck, it's even in the title).

I know it sounds strange comparing geno with cap, but it's not. Both a geno hit and a flag capture have the same negative effect: Your position is reset, you flag is taken from you and you are likely to get creamed several times when you try to respawn.

But cap has one big advantage: You do not get a kill deducted from your account. Therefore people tend to see it as a sort of "benign geno". Also since geno happens so often, having you flag stolen isn't a major event anymore... That alarm followed by that laughter? Oh it happens sometimes. Just like you have to press "i" for no apparent reason.

Compare that with e.g. hepcat, where you, when holding the enemies flag, are always being killed with extreme prejudice. As it should

So I still stand by my opinion that geno is a bad idea implemented badly.

P.S. Seeing that I am the only one posting in this thread, and I do not want to be a whiner, this will be the last thing I'll say about this topic. Scouts honor.

[A Vicious Muffin]

Meteorite has done something to combat this. There are now only two shots per every time you get geno. This is good, but could still be annyoing...

[A Meteorite]

P.S. Seeing that I am the only one posting in this thread, and I do not want to be a whiner, this will be the last thing I'll say about this topic. Scouts honor.

Actually, I love to hear your feedback! There's a lot of controversy for geno in Boxy War so don't feel bad posting.

I'll see if I can round up some Boxy War pros soon and get this geno issue figured out...

[A Vicious Muffin]

P.S. Seeing that I am the only one posting in this thread, and I do not want to be a whiner, this will be the last thing I'll say about this topic. Scouts honor.

Actually, I love to hear your feedback! There's a lot of controversy for geno in Boxy War so don't feel bad posting.

I'll see if I can round up some Boxy War pros soon and get this geno issue figured out...

Pros? Could you name a few for me?

[rolling_blunder]

ok, asciimonster and sky king did a really good job of laying out many of the problems with the geno flag on Boxy (and of geno in general).

but here are a few more to think upon:

- Geno ruins strategy. one of the coolest things that happens on Boxy is that the map develops in interesting ways: L tanks covering certain areas with sniper fire, CL tanks moving in to take them out, a GM tank holding them back, a ST gunning for the GM, someone sneaking over to get the SW, bases getting infiltrated, infiltrators getting cleared out... all this and more, developing simultaneously. all of this makes the map interesting, and a good player is watching it all happen, talking to teammates, and making the next plan of attack accordingly. but Geno just resets it, and all that complexity goes back to zero. Cap does this too, but not nearly so often, and it has a reason behind doing it.

- Geno lessens team play. getting your flag capped is a failure of teamwork, but getting killed by Geno is just a failure of one random person.

- Geno ruins the challenge of CTF by making capping stupid easy at random times. a Geno-assisted flag cap is unstoppable and takes no skill. (obvious example: someone grabs your flag, and you're about to waste them... then a newb on your side is hit with Geno. well, you just signed up for 3 or 4 deaths, maybe more: the Geno, followed by an unstoppable flag cap, followed by the same newb dropping off of your base into the same geno carrier, maybe twice... and now they own the middle, and are waiting for the next geno... )

- Geno pits a top player on one team against the worst player on the other, and makes the entire team pay for it. newbs should be able to come in and feel their way around, without somebody lurking just to get 10+ points for preying upon them.

- Geno encourages hating of newbs. BZF is a hard and intimidating game, and experienced players should be helpful or at least understanding towards newbies. but Geno brings out the worst in teammates.

- let's face it: Geno violates basic rules of game design. one of them is that whether you live or die should, as much as possible, be based on your actions.. dying randomly all the time is not fun; it's a bad system, just poor design. bzf has plenty of randomness without this.

- lastly, Geno make my scores look even lamer than they already do! why? because i refuse to use it, always have... yet i can't avoid dying over and over from it, while some Geno junkie is at +100...

So you get the idea. i hate it. i got sick of complaining about it though and so i've quit Boxy entirely. just too annoying. i do miss it though.

there it is. thanks for listening...

rb

[RexFlex]

Normally I give the presence of geno flags on maps a fair amount of latitude, but on boxy it has become ridiculous. I now refuse to play on boxy. The map has other balancing issues, but all of them pale in comparison to the geno.

With geno, boxy gets a 3/10 for playability. It could get 4 extra points just by removing that one flag.

As a matter of principle, boxy is no longer a map that I will play on as long as the flag is there.

[the_j0k3r]

i know this seems weird coming from me, but i agree that something needs to be done about geno, and would be fine with getting rid of it.

but my only problem with it, is that for me a large part of the fun in boxy comes from the wacky rebounds in the center, and the great duels you can have with people when cirulating around the geno flag with 00, trying to kill your opponent using all your rebound tricks and stuff.

to me, without geno the center would be a ghost place where no one goes, even with sb to replace it, people would not go for it, they just might pick it up if they were passing through. so it is for that reason, i would probably prefer it if geno was modified in some way, for example like sky king said, if you get killed while holding it, your team dies.

p.s i am totally gunning for an mq flag up the top on boxy. that would be awesome

[optic delusion]

Replace Geno with superbullet. Case Closed.

[A Vicious Muffin]

In my opinion, we could switch it out with a wg with 2 or 3 jumps. Nothing like mofo wg's however.

[optic delusion]

Wings would be almost useless with all those lasers. I think we tried that, didn't we A_Meteorite?

[A Meteorite]

Wings would be almost useless with all those lasers. I think we tried that, didn't we A_Meteorite?

No, I never tried wings, but I know they'd be near absolutely useless (either that or really super annoying). It wouldn't keep with the balanced weapons we have now, in my honest opinion...

[rolling_blunder]

ok, i've got it, a solution to the Geno replacement issue!

first, add 3 platforms above the center structure. they should be ones that you can jump through from below, like the platforms in the bases. their heights should be staggered just below the levels on the bases, so that someone on the platforms could not be sniped directly by a laser on a base or corner structure.

then, replace the Geno with several GM flags.

thus, you will have a GM-sniping tower, allowing the team who controls it to rule the playfield from above with 2 or 3 GM tanks.

but it will have vulnerabilities as well:
- the lower platforms could be sniped from the corner structures by a jumper
- other aerial work (for instance, dropping off a base and lasering on the way down)
- ST sneaking up the tower or dropping onto it
- SW getting underneath and clearing out the whole damn thing
- the edges of platforms would be vulnerable to GM
- a GM could climb a base to shoot down onto the top platform

this solution would add new strategies and goals, and make the center even more of a strategic goal, but without being totally overpowering.

what do you think?

[that exploding tank]

I think that rolling_blunder has it right. GM is very hard to use in Boxy because there really is no easily accessible high platform to use it from, and it is very easy to get lasered from on the ground. Creating a GM tower would solve this by creating a high platform but making it vunerable. I like it.