Sticking to tried and true wads

[Watermelon]

I think I've made this complaint in the past, but it's still going on and I figured I'd bring it up again so people can discuss this.


My favorite thing about FNF was when we'd play simple wads that were enjoyable. We'd do stuff like Dynamite DM or some other really fun deathmatch mod that was pure adrenaline pumping awesomeness. For some reason, FNF drifted from this idea (or at least started deviating hugely in the past year) and has been adding in additional wads that (at least in my opinion) end up ruining the experience, or adding in a map pack that just destroys the flow.


The biggest booms in FNF are when straight forward deathmatch packs are picked. There is NOTHING WRONG with doing the same wad and settings again in another week. IMO adding on a 'wad' to make each FNF different has cost a lot of FNF's their enjoyability by adding some element that ruins it (IMO).


I ended up stop attending FNF because I got extremely frustrated with the amount of crap wads (IMO) that keep getting added. However, I heard dynamite DM was offered last night, so I thought "I'm going to be there." I set time on my calendar to even attend because I wanted the old days of FNF with massive killing. It was just what I wanted, pure dynamite DM. Sadly after the map changed, some sub-par map pack was added. Guess what happened? People just started leaving. Why do you guys have to add things that kill FNF? Is it so hard to just stick with tried/tested/true wads? You don't have to pick it week in and week out, but all these weird wads end up causing people to leave. FNF ended up slowly degrading. It would boom on dynamite DM, dip in players on the other wads, and cycled slowly downwards until no players were left.


Do you guys plan on doing this for the rest of the FNF's life? Honest answer please.

[Combinebobnt]

Sounds like you just didn't like afts

[HeavenWraith]

It's AFTS deathmatch you're complaining about? That's quite weird, because I remember AFTS working splendidly in FNFs a lot of times. Perhaps the server maplist should've been polished more, possibly emitting cramped maps or something.

[Hypnotoad]

Wasn't AFTSDM the wad that managed to get 64 players in a server one time at FNF? Either way, AFTS has been a staple of FNF since its release.

[Combinebobnt]

http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3271 Yep it was, the same exact wad combo used on the fnf water is complaining about

[ZZYZX]

Sadly after the map changed, some sub-par map pack was added. Guess what happened? People just started leaving.

What. Did they change map WAD midgame? Then this is the problem, not the mappack that they added.

[Kara Kurt]

Op is right actually. It would be cool to keep a certain amount of wads. If yesterday's FNF (LMS) had something classic I would've played but it wasn't the case, hence why I didn't like it.

[TerminusEst13]

Yesterday's FNF had a good turnout, so...

[Kara Kurt]

My problem was Samsara to be honnest.

[TerminusEst13]

Then I really don't know what to tell you, mate.

It brings a good turnout and made for some very successful events, not to mention seems to be popular in other communities as well.

[Watermelon]

If AFTS did good then I'm glad it did. It might have been the flow.
When I was in the FNF server, it was booming on Dynamite DM, and then for some reason there were people just leaving. The flow didn't work right.
Since AFTS worked out good, maybe it was the wad's changing between one another that people didn't like.


For some discussion since Blue brings up a great point:

<+Catastrophe>: Water__ if u have probs with stuff hosted in fnf why dont u suggest stuff

Is it possible for the FNF team to go through and find all the wads that did the best? Just go through the best ones so that FNF gets huge and stays huge for a long amount of time. I think by this point, all the good wads have been played.

In addition, is there any rule where FNF cannot use something it's done in the past?
I figure if it's tried/tested/true, why not go with that?
Is there anything wrong with doing the most popular 8 settings every so often?



Now I would like to stand corrected since there have been much worse FNF's. There was this Jurassic Park one and some really weird things thrown in on the side. Sometimes theres LMS on big maps (I like LMS a lot, but FNF sounds like it should be a generally fraggy map, not Counter Strike like).

It's AFTS deathmatch you're complaining about? That's quite weird, because I remember AFTS working splendidly in FNFs a lot of times. Perhaps the server maplist should've been polished more, possibly emitting cramped maps or something.

This is also another interesting point. I think the maps chosen may not be well suited. There was a Dynamite DM map that people just hated and there was mass complaining. I like the map but I can see why people would get pissed off because the only two ssg's are fairly well hidden, which made that map a bad pick.


There have been times in the past (a while ago) where FNF would let ridiculous wads get in like a troll CTF map pack (I forget what, it was some grief CTF map pack) which indicated that some of the FNF team might not actually be checking what maps out of apathy/laziness/not caring.
EDIT: It was Jupiterian CTF


As a last note, the only one who has tried to rectify the issues was Combinebobnt. I'm pretty happy he went out of his way to come and talk to me, but none of the other FNF staff did. Is Bob the only one who runs this?

[ARGENTVM]

It's AFTS deathmatch you're complaining about? That's quite weird, because I remember AFTS working splendidly in FNFs a lot of times. Perhaps the server maplist should've been polished more, possibly emitting cramped maps or something.

This is also another interesting point. I think the maps chosen may not be well suited. There was a Dynamite DM map that people just hated and there was mass complaining. I like the map but I can see why people would get pissed off because the only two ssg's are fairly well hidden, which made that map a bad pick.

As a last note, the only one who has tried to rectify the issues was Combinebobnt. I'm pretty happy he went out of his way to come and talk to me, but none of the other FNF staff did. Is Bob the only one who runs this?

From watching the demo of that night, some of the AFTS maps did seem cramped to an extent with the weapon placement somewhat unforgiving if you got a bad spawn, though I didn't see too much complaining (unless most of it took place in IRC channels that I wasn't paying attention to). It might be worth having a double take on map lists, though some AFTS maps would cope well with more players (though I can't be entirely sure about spawn weapons). It's possible that some aspects of this could have been overlooked when the maplist was originally drafted.

It may have been better to have more of the smaller AFTS maps at the beginning of the maplist when fewer players were around since the maps are better suited for smaller Deathmatches as I'm not sure if a random maplist would have helped.

[Watermelon]

I just got a really good idea (I hope ) from your post, but I need community input.

What if a feature was added where maps could be randomized from a pool based on player count? Ex: Small maps could have a player cap upon where they are not picked, and large maps could have a lower player threshold that is required for them to be picked.

[Combinebobnt]

Code it for us

[Marcaek]

No, bob is not the only one who runs this. It's just that if we're discussing points elsewhere there's no point in retreading what other people have said in public. I don't know what you were getting at bringing up that joke ctf pack, considering how long ago it was?

[jwaffe]

What if a feature was added where maps could be randomized from a pool based on player count? Ex: Small maps could have a player cap upon where they are not picked, and large maps could have a lower player threshold that is required for them to be picked.

Sort of off topic but I think that's a really great idea and I would definitely use something like that in my servers.

[President People]

I just got a really good idea (I hope ) from your post, but I need community input.

What if a feature was added where maps could be randomized from a pool based on player count? Ex: Small maps could have a player cap upon where they are not picked, and large maps could have a lower player threshold that is required for them to be picked.

I think that'd be really neat to have. Would the thresholds be customizable by the host? How many size categories will there be (Or would they also be defined by the server host)?