pacov pacov

Ok. SD - you seriously need to bring back skirmish or modify pantheon... please?

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Ok. SD - you seriously need to bring back skirmish or modify pantheon... please?

from Demigod Forums

Frogboy - you can ignore the rest of this thread if you want to, but simply do the following.  Play pantheon on either side for the rest of the week (until Sunday).  I trust you'll notice something. 

I know I probably can't have what I want here because of low population, but please, take a look at my games since Nov 1 http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/games/player/28414/.  All of these games have been mismatched games... as in 100% of my games in pantheon have either been completely in my favor or completely against.  Its the automatch system... I completely recognize that some people enjoy playing against AI.  I don't really.  Even for experience.  But I'm finding that the more I have to wait for pantheon games due to people just quiting at the load screen, the more I'm willing to play whatever I can.  So long as there is a low population and a light/dark system that refuses to mix light/dark, we will have problems.  If you don't agree that the population is low, please play pantheon on either side for the rest of the week.  I think its safe to say that I'm a pretty die hard DG fan here.  But as of today, I can't really play with my team anymore, I often can't enjoy a "balanced" game because many don't want to balance, and I can't even get a pantheon game in.  Any chance SOMETHING could be done for the likes of pacov?  It is not a "hard core competitive game" any more.  That died, IMO, when "premades" all became jerks. 

Here's my other post on bringing back skirmish mode http://forums.demigodthegame.com/367329. 

demigod
17,901 views 51 replies
Reply #26 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24
Other than simply not allowing AI players in pantheon games, all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.

The big flaw of the pantheon was the unforeseen consequence of people dropping when they saw they were going up against players they didn't want to play against and that has had cascading consequences.  
End of Frogboy's quote
No, that's not the main problem. The main problem is, that the auto matching system is making a 3v1 when 3 of one side is in the queue and 1 of the other side.

Or a 3v0 when no one is there on the other side...

Reply #27 from Demigod Forums Top

I've said this before and I still beleive that Pantheon would be better if in the case of 3 vs 1 in queue the game would set up a 1 vs 1 and let the other two play against AIs. That ensures that if there are players on both sides the game is balanced. For a good player, 3 vs 1 means auto drop which frustrates everyone and delays everyone from getting into a game. Pantheon should never do 3 vs 1. 3 vs 0 is ok, so is 1 vs 1 but never 3 vs 1.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #28 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Zygwen, reply 27
I've said this before and I still beleive that Pantheon would be better if in the case of 3 vs 1 in queue the game would set up a 1 vs 1 and let the other two play against AIs. That ensures that if there are players on both sides the game is balanced. For a good player, 3 vs 1 means auto drop which frustrates everyone and delays everyone from getting into a game. Pantheon should never do 3 vs 1. 3 vs 0 is ok, so is 1 vs 1 but never 3 vs 1.
End of Zygwen's quote
True. It would be fine for me if the system worked liked that. But, the /noAI switch should be finally implemented so that people can still chose whether or not they want to fight against AI only.

Reply #29 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24

SD - we all seem to agree that some sort of change should occur. 


If you are willing to help us out, can you help us understand what sort of change would be cheap for you to make?  I get you are running a business, but if it doesn't cost you a dime to help us out, then why don't you?  If it does cost you something, then can you slip it in with an update or just explain that you can't make enhancements for us?  I'd understand, but I really hate hoping that we might get some fixes if you already know there's a 0 % chance of that and you just aren't telling us.



Other than simply not allowing AI players in pantheon games, all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.

The big flaw of the pantheon was the unforeseen consequence of people dropping when they saw they were going up against players they didn't want to play against and that has had cascading consequences.  
End of Frogboy's quote

 

Thank you for responding, Froger.

Reply #30 from Demigod Forums Top

I would like to know why my post was removed... I was only suggesting something.

Nothing offending was in.

Or is it mentioning another game name from a different company and asking for its feature to be in DG prohibited?

I hope this is an error as I always wanted demigod to be a better game and spent a lot of my time in beta doing testing with cari-elf.

And being post erased is kinda insulting to me if not for a good reason...

Anyway if I broke any rules, I would like to know it for it not to happen again of course.

Reply #31 from Demigod Forums Top
@wagnard - don't know what post you're referring too but that's really not SD's way. most likely there was a screw up in the forum and it didn't get saved/posted. watch: i believe regulas should have been implemented with dual wielding weapons, i mean c'mon, with had that since Goldeneye on the N64!!!!!! also, any member of the forum with a support banner is a ninny! yeah i said it, ninny. i'd guess def a forum issue as this should all be spaced out nicely rather then a block of text.
Reply #32 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24

The big flaw of the pantheon was the unforeseen consequence of people dropping when they saw they were going up against players they didn't want to play against and that has had cascading consequences.  
End of Frogboy's quote

I don't think I agree that is the biggest reason to people not getting into games. It is a problem though nevertheless. The Dark/Light side problem still remains the biggest issue as I can tell.

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24


Other than simply not allowing AI players in pantheon games, all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.
End of Frogboy's quote

Would it really be expensive to implement Skirmish again? I mean it should "be" somewhere right? Shouldn't it just be to add it and remove the pantheon option? :)

Reply #33 from Demigod Forums Top

Would it really be expensive to implement Skirmish again? I mean it should "be" somewhere right? Shouldn't it just be to add it and remove the pantheon option?
End of quote

I'd think just re-enabling skirmish would be easy, but the population is really low.  Remember, they dropped it in the first place to have the community less segmented and because it wasn't being utilized all that much. 

I don't think just removing pantheon is going to be a viable option... it pretty much would break the pantheon website (or at least no data would be populated, which would look unprofessional IMO on their main website).  And that would require a web developer to make some changes, etc.

If Frogboy says its too expensive, then the best we can do is make suggestions that might not be all that costly... but apparently everything we've suggested already is far too costly.  If we really don't have any options or have to get really minimalistic, I'd say just turn skimirsh back on.  People would still probably make nuisances of themselves, but those of us that want to use a viable auto-match system could.  But, again, Frogboy wanted to turn it off in the 1st place.  Not sure he'll want to turn it back on.

Anyway - thanks for chiming in here, Brad.  Much appreciated. 

Reply #34 from Demigod Forums Top

I would think that just re-enabling skirmish will split queues to at least some extent, and evena  slight dip will increase the AI frustration that players claim turns them off on it in the first place.

Reply #35 from Demigod Forums Top

or you could do what 95% of the demigod population did, wise up, realise all the lies, and play another game? i did long long ago and have had very few problems on my other games, yes, it's LoL and soon MW2 and dragon age ill get tomorrow, omg omg omg.

 

Its funny reading your OP Pacov, now whos left to defend SD and GPG?

Reply #36 from Demigod Forums Top

you realized that pantheon creates crap games all the time?! well done!!! i wrote that in the forums ages ago. as i did for the community shrink. but all i ever heared was "stfu troll", "thats not true", "its just your sight", "its because of people like you...". now, its just sad that i was right ALL ALONG!

nice gameplay if you come to that, but the developers failed hardcore to maake this game fun!

Reply #37 from Demigod Forums Top

when they asked to deactivate skirmish we had the chance to say: no! not skirmish! its pantheon that should be deactivated. i guess now its too late.

Reply #38 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Derog, reply 37
when they asked to deactivate skirmish we had the chance to say: no! not skirmish! its pantheon that should be deactivated. i guess now its too late.
End of Derog's quote
Replace "we" with "I" in that sentence, because I said exactly that back then.

Reply #39 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting -Ryanheart-, reply 35
or you could do what 95% of the demigod population did, wise up, realise all the lies, and play another game? i did long long ago and have had very few problems on my other games, yes, it's LoL and soon MW2 and dragon age ill get tomorrow, omg omg omg.

Its funny reading your OP Pacov, now whos left to defend SD and GPG?
End of -Ryanheart-'s quote

Always be someone, Ryan.  Pretty soon I'll start lobbying for single player content.  I really wish demigod wasn't fun when things work right.  :(

Reply #40 from Demigod Forums Top

That died, IMO, when "premades" all became jerks.
End of quote

 

I think having a competitive game died since all but the die hardest of fans stopped playing.... I don't play anymore, still waiting for the patches and fixes before I even try.

Reply #41 from Demigod Forums Top

If Frogboy says its too expensive, then the best we can do is make suggestions that might not be all that costly...
End of quote

Ah, it seems that DG has pretty much been abandoned by developers/SD/GPG-whoever, ANY suggestion will be too costly I bet, so far we've seen all suggestions pretty much ingnored anyway.

Reply #42 from Demigod Forums Top

I understand that noone wants to put money into a game, which is almost dead... this game took the wrong way right from the beginning and was going down all the time. sad, but I´d say that its to late now :( It could have been a far greater experience and could have been a great game for many years in competitive multiplayer... gpg and stardock just failed; badly.

Reply #43 from Demigod Forums Top

The game is actually far from dead and I'm pretty confident will generate revenue for quite some time.  Take for instance this post from 2 days ago (nov 4)  from SD_rosco P http://forums.demigodthegame.com/368048/page/1/#replies:

The number of people who play the single player, but have never even logged into the multiplayer is amazingly high.  People are still buying the crap out of the game, but most are only connecting to our servers to download updates.  And it's not like they try the multiplayer and get turned off by it, it's that they never log into the multiplayer part of the game at all.
End of quote

So, its not like there's no money to be made with the game as is.  The business decision is how much money do I put into this game outside of scheduled versions (1.1, 1.2, 1.3).  I don't mean this next statement as a shot at SD, but its fairly evident that other projects have a much higher priority than improving demigod.  Its reasonable to assume that, while the game will continue to receive updates over time, they won't come quickly.  They will eventually be made (at least through 1.3).  The painful part to me is that Demigod could have been a AAA game in my opinion.  It could have been a game that I'd still be playing in 2 years.  But the features that have been added have slowly been removing my ability to play the game and bugs aren't getting weeded out at a rapid pace.  So, I'm glad this game has been a commercial success or at least it sounds like it has been.  I'm glad to see SD adapting and offering the new Dg's as DLC (these 2 are free, btw) which could open up potential revenue for DG if they want to go that route.  Anyway - I really hope we see some changes for the better whenever 1.2 goes live. 

Reply #44 from Demigod Forums Top

Other than simply not allowing AI players in pantheon games, all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.

The big flaw of the pantheon was the unforeseen consequence of people dropping when they saw they were going up against players they didn't want to play against and that has had cascading consequences.  

I definitely want no AI in Pantheon/Skirmish. Which should help with the issue of people dropping. If I see Luath, Rothart or any AI name I will drop before the game starts. Games with AI in just are not fun and we all know I'm not the only one that feels this way.

I would have thought bringing back skirmish and either closing pantheon or making pantheon only run for a few days each month would be fairly cheap to do and that is what I want.

It used to be possible to get a few good games of Pantheon in without AI as long as it was at busier time of day as in evening, but lately even when there are 11 people in the queue the system takes a long time to start a game and most times it will be unbalanced or there will be AI. It will even try make a 8 player game with AI in which no one likes and therefore everyone quits. It seems to me the system is trying to make a 5v5 if it can which is too ambitous to work out and leads to all these failed matches. Even without AI a 4v4 is too much as it will normally lag due to connections not being up to it.

If there are not many players I would be happy with 1v1 on crucible or 2v2 on cataract as long as there is no AI instead of the system making us wait hoping to make a 4v4 which never happens.

Reply #45 from Demigod Forums Top

There's no need to show who one is going to play against in pantheon. This would reduce early quitting.
One of the biggest problems I have is that it takes forever to get a game sometimes. Often I get set up with 1-2 aussie players, which as you might or might not know have around 350-400ms pings to EU players. This was like a 3v3 game. The system could have made a 1v1 and a 2v2 here, which would have worked better in this case.

Reply #46 from Demigod Forums Top

There's no need to show who one is going to play against in pantheon. This would reduce early quitting.
End of quote

Making any change will require a developer, in this case, a developer from SD to be assigned as that involves the overlay.  As this change was suggested before Frogboy commented this:

all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.
End of quote

its safe to assume that we won't be seeing pantheon tweaks unless SD determines its worth the time and money.  Disappointing, but I guess that's how it is.  Also, keep in mind that they may have designed the overlay to work in all MP modes (custom/panth)... it logically must not be as simple as commenting out a line to disable the overlay in panth. 

Reply #47 from Demigod Forums Top

Some of the decisions made in the past with respect to Pantheon and skirmish suggest the devs had their heads in the sand.

One feature isn't very popular so let's remove another feature? People quit Pantheon early because they don't want to play certain people?

Why not address the real, GLARINGLY obvious issues, like AI in Pantheon games or uneven teams? Thats why people quit early.

We might as well face it, the horse bolted a long time ago - custom game is the only way to play Demigod anymore.

Reply #48 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting obscenitor, reply 38



Quoting Derog,
reply 37
when they asked to deactivate skirmish we had the chance to say: no! not skirmish! its pantheon that should be deactivated. i guess now its too late.Replace "we" with "I" in that sentence, because I said exactly that back then.

End of obscenitor's quote

Ditto I said same thing

Reply #49 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting GnomeChomp, reply 47


We might as well face it, the horse bolted a long time ago - custom game is the only way to play Demigod anymore.
End of GnomeChomp's quote

Nope Horse is still here and playing:digichet:

Reply #50 from Demigod Forums Top

Skirmish isn't coming back. It was barely used.

We will continue to look at ways to improve Pantheon over time.