Q for DEVS : Dynamic Siege Defender Spawn Times

[Elindor]

Ok, serious request - many people have brought this up as a good idea.


The proposition is that once under a certain population threshold, the defensive spawn timer would reduce itself from 30 seconds to a shorter duration.  The threshold of population and the new duration are up for debate, but the idea is a pretty solid solution imho.

  Is this possible?  Looking for info on this from Jacko/Mustikki/cmp/(Fips/Teeth?) etc...or anyone who can actually say if this is possible and/or something that could be considered.

This would drastically help low population siege.  Without something like this, small pop siege is imbalanced by nature, and deters people from coming there and creates a cyclical problem of low pop causing low pop.


And here's why that is important -  Siege suffers from a CRITICAL MASS issue.  Somehow its numbers on NA have gotten low over time and when it's low, most people who MIGHT play siege decide not to because no one is there...but if people are more attracted to low pop siege because of this change, then it will naturally grow and then the people who would play siege if it was more populated will come too.

[Teeth]

This would be fantastic, it is simply impossible to make siege maps that are balanced for both 15 vs 15 and 50 vs 50. I'd presume it is possible, just need someone to code it, which might prove difficult. It is a rough solution to the problem, but for sure a huge improvement over the current situation. Definitely deserves some dev time if you ask me.

[Jarold]

Paul or CMP could figure it out, most likely CMP with his WSE2. Maybe the respawn timer could increase every ten players and cap at 30 or whatever the default is.

5 vs 5 - 10 seconds
10 vs 10 - 20 seconds
15 vs 15 - 30 seconds

Maybe just a 7 second increase...

5 vs 5 - 10 seconds
10 vs 10 - 17 seconds
15 vs 15 - 24 seconds
20+ vs 20+ - 31 seconds

[Viriathus]

I had already remotely tought about this before. Very good idea.

[Jacko]

It is possible, no doubt. Many, many moons ago Ozin was exploring the subject, he had this in the works (it is an old known issue, been brought up countless of times over the years). Not sure what came out of it.

[Paul]

Oh well, dunno shit about this stuff but if I understand it correctly there is a 5s base respawn time and an extra respawn time that can be set by the scene maker. Default is 25s. So what I can do is making a periodic trigger(like every 10s) that checks the amount of active players and when below a threshold(like 60 players) reduces this extra spawn time.

So then the question is how this reduction should be done. One way would be like this:
#new extra time = old extra time * player count / player threshold, clamped at 0 and old extra time

With that a 0 player server would only have the basic 5s spawn time. When the default is 25s for extra time it would be 30s for 60 or more players. Only 30 players on the server would result in a (5s+30/60*25s=) 17.5s respawn time.

Any better suggestion for a formular?

[Teeth]

The extra respawn time cannot be set by the scene maker as of now by the way, unless stronghold flags are present according to Fips. Just in case that matters. As for the formula, I had 15-20s in mind as the lowest and 30s at 60 players, so to me that formula sounds good for 30 to 60. I think you should have a low cap though, otherwise at really low population attackers will experience defenders respawning way before they can even get close to the flag.

With 20 players defenders respawn in only 10s, that is too little if you ask me as most flags are at least a 30s walk for attackers even when they opened the quickest route. Ofcourse the defenders rarely spawn next to the flag either, but usually not that far away. That would overcorrect the problem and fuck attackers over at low pop.

[Paul]

I can set the lower bound at half of the extra time then which is 25s by default. So minimum spawn time on default extra time scenes would be (5s+ 25s/2=) 17.5s.

[Fips]

I can set the lower bound at half of the extra time then which is 25s by default. So minimum spawn time on default extra time scenes would be (5s+ 25s/2=) 17.5s.

Yeah, that's definitely a good start. When it's under 30 players 17.5 seconds should allow defense on most maps to be at the flag in like 30-40 seconds, which is just about the time attackers need to get there, at least when you have an average map in mind.

Also, i'd say for the rare case there are more than 100 players on siege, the formula should add some time for defense. 80-90 is the best when it comes to balance, more than that usually turns the castles into untakeable fortresses.

[Elindor]

Paul, it probably only needs to check at each round start....if you want to have it check every x seconds that is fine but it could be just as simple as every round start.

Also - don't need map makers to be able to set it - should be a mechanical thing that happens on the server side.

* Under 30 players (or 15 defenders) = 17 seconds spawn timer for defense?  That is definitely a good start....something we might have to tweak over time.  That might be all we need for now...unless we wanna drop it again at an even lower threshold, but not sure thats really necessary.

* Interesting thought Fips - HIGH pop is actually imbalanced in FAVOR of defense, you are right.  Maybe over 80 players and defense spawn timer jumps up a bit to like 36 seconds or something?

Thanks for the attention to this Paul and others - I cannot stress how much this would help siege in general especially NA2.
As I mentioned - NA2's low pop now is the reason for its low pop, which is a cyclical problem that this could help BREAK.
(And many that decide not to play siege do NOT go to battle instead...they go to other games)

THANKS!

[Fips]

Nah, 80-90 is the amount of players EU gets on prime time like always and balance is fine. Last weekend there were 120 players online (I had to kick spectators, lol. Haven't seen that happen in ages xd) and defense was always in favour. So yeah, more than 100 breaks the balance again.

Also, EU siege or battle would be just as favoured by this.

[Vermilion]

Sounds like a really good idea!

+1 to Paul/Urist for his formula

I think a periodic check is better than a check at the start of rounds... Especially when map changes and a few quit near the start (attackers already have a bigger advantage on first wave on siege).

[Elindor]

Periodic check is great if that is just as easy to implement.

Fips - being on EU you have more experience with high populations in siege lol   So I will defer to you on that upper thresholds.  100 sounds good.

[Elindor]

Paul - just curious if that wonderful exchange of ideas is resulting in you (or someone) working on code for that system to be implemented?

If so .... you are awesome 

[Vermilion]

Also (while we're talking about spawn times)

When you join siege if you're on the defenders side you have quite a long spawn time (after the count down finishes)

I presume this is the 25s thing you were talking about.

Away to reduce that for first spawn (or at least have an accurate spawn timer). It's very tedious