60min auto-shuttle on classic server discussion

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

Making this cause someone here wanted to move this discussion to a thread. Not sure how to link the exact post.

I hate the 60 minute shuttle call they added. I thought it sounded like a good idea, before it was added. I didn't think very hard about it.

After dealing with it ingame, over and over again, it sucks. If you don't want the shuttle called, it's just a nuisance that impedes you from doing your work. In the occasion you do want the shuttle called, it's alright, but there's other ways of ending the round without having to twiddle your thumbs for 60 minutes until an auto-call triggers. If it gets that bad then you can ask an admin, right?

[Mikeistaken]

Classic rounds already have a standard that was set by the players beforehand to call at 60 around 60 minutes, usually handled by the AI. The only case I could see where it isn't called at around 60 minutes is where the AI is dead and people forgot, or if all of command is dead and the AI is dead, and usually if command is dead then a call is going to happen from lack of alive players.

TLDR: if 60 minutes shuttle calls where removed, the players would likely still call at 60 minutes like they were doing before. If you want to extend the round you can always recall

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

Classic rounds already have a standard that was set by the players beforehand to call at 60 around 60 minutes, usually handled by the AI. The only case I could see where it isn't called at around 60 minutes is where the AI is dead and people forgot, or if all of command is dead and the AI is dead, and usually if command is dead then a call is going to happen from lack of alive players.

TLDR: if 60 minutes shuttle calls where removed, the players would likely still call at 60 minutes like they were doing before. If you want to extend the round you can always recall

So if they removed the 60/90/145 ETC minute autocall, people would still call the shuttle, in case of emergencies, and everything would be good. Right?

What downside is there to removing it?

[UrsulaMejor]

My initial thoughts here went as follows.

This is classic, you can get killed by an antagonist at any time, with no escalation. There's no way back into the round.

This is good, the classic experience demands the paranoia and stakes this drives.

Let's say you die 10 minutes in. There's 10 people on board and you're one of them. The traitor's objective was to kill you and then escape alive, so they play it safe (the classic playstyle from my youth; do your objectives and try to get away with them!)

Nobody else perceives any issue demanding the shuttle call. You now have 90 minutes to wait (80 + 10 minute transit) to wait before your next round. You might as well log off and come back later, right?

There are now 9 people in the server. Less people now want to join, because there's less people on the server. Let's say the traitor kills a second person at minute 20. That person has 80 minutes to wait until the next round.



I just felt like faster paced rounds lend themselves better to the murder and be murdered classic traitor mindset than the 90 minute ones

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

So argument #1 is "people will still call the shuttle out of habit 60 minutes into the round"

And argument #2 is "if you die, you have to wait 90 minutes until the round ends, because nobody will call the shuttle if there's fatalities"

That seems contradictory.

I should also mention there's also hardly 10 players during some points of the day. The less players, the less demand there is for a shuttle, rounds are usually way slower because once you get below 10 players a lot of the time people won't kill, or there's just not an antagonist.

On the other hand when there ARE a lot of players, there's plenty of opportunity for those players to call the shuttle when they need it.

So on either side, it's redundant. If it was added, to stop people from leaving the server out of boredom, why are there even less average players than before? As a regular player, why is it less fun for me to play the game?

I'm curious, actually. From a firsthand experience, is there anybody who likes this change? As in, from people who have played classic in the past few days, and not just during the high playercount hours. It's excruciating when you wanna kill some time but there's less than 3 people online.

[UrsulaMejor]

If it was added, to stop people from leaving the server out of boredom, why are there even less average players than before?

Change was made on october 3rd.
https://goonhub.com/players

The data is pretty noisy, but we're well within the limits of there having basically been no change at all.

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

Change was made on october 3rd.
https://goonhub.com/players

The data is pretty noisy, but we're well within the limits of there having basically been no change at all.

Sorry, I should've said "why does it feel like there's even less average players than before". But even if I didn't have pinpoint accuracy there and I was kinda speaking out of my ass, if there's been essentially no change in server popularity, and the 60 minute autocall was intended to help with server popularity, then it still didn't really do it's job, did it?

Either way I'm still, again, more interested in hearing from people who frequently play on classic. I guess they just don't use the forums.

[crunchwarp]

Hi, I’ve played a good amount of low pop rounds lately. I think it’s overall a good change. When classic rounds were consistently going to 90+ minutes a few months ago it was just too much. An hour should be the standard length of time

I do think maybe people could try for recall votes more often if they wanted to. I know there are some classic players who like TEG-maxing, and apparently that setup can take 2+ hours. So it’s possible this change has messed with them a little

But the 90 minute rounds all the time were just too much. When minute 45 rolled around and nothing had happened and the round was only half over, I would always feel like I wanted to cryo.

I do think no matter what you do there will be some rounds that will feel too short and some that will feel too long. But, as a default, I think this is better more often than 90 was

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

Hi, I’ve played a good amount of low pop rounds lately. I think it’s overall a good change. When classic rounds were consistently going to 90+ minutes a few months ago it was just too much. An hour should be the standard length of time

I do think maybe people could try for recall votes more often if they wanted to. I know there are some classic players who like TEG-maxing, and apparently that setup can take 2+ hours. So it’s possible this change has messed with them a little

But the 90 minute rounds all the time were just too much. When minute 45 rolled around and nothing had happened and the round was only half over, I would always feel like I wanted to cryo.

I do think no matter what you do there will be some rounds that will feel too short and some that will feel too long. But, as a default, I think this is better more often than 90 was

I still strongly stick with the belief that making long rounds more interesting should be the direction the devs went in, rather than ruining it for people who want to work on things that take long rounds. Increasing midrolls is one of them, already brought up in the discussion that took place before this thread.

I'm not the guy who kept dragging on rounds for a TEG that didn't make any power until minute 120 but I still used to favor making high end engine setups, that's nearly completely impossible nowadays. 
On Neon, especially. I went through hell trying to do that and I only got 10MW max. Terrible map for engines

[Angel]

As i've stated on the other thread, I do kinda regret supporting the 60 minute shifts, honestly giving players more ways to rejoin the round when they die (classic respawns?!?!? eh thats probably a horrible idea) would be better than lowering the shift time, as the data shows it seems there was no real change to the amount of players with shorter shifts, so maybe a different approach could work?
Since the main point it seems is dying early in a long round will cause pop to drop as no ways to rejoin (yeah that makes sense, and i fully agree), more ways for dead folk to get back in the round would be more interesting.
I've always arguemented the game, both classic and RP, needs more antags in general and midrolls, now one could argue "yeah but its super low pop, wouldn't extra antags cause the round to go really bad?" but i've seen many times when antags decides to fight each other and what not, or just overall leading the round in a more interesting and fun way that otherwise wouldn't happen without those midrolls.

Also, more midrolls would ensure more chaos, thus making the round not drag out as long, and thus make the dead people stay dead for a shorter amount of time, in a more natural way than an auto shuttle at the 60 minutes mark.

[Kotomata]

i think 60min autocall is fine but it's not a significant enough change to really impact player retention/make low-pop rounds more enjoyable