Completed Servers integration - united battle list and chat

[austen_pierce 1,948]

Server assignment and server switching causes confusion among players. Finding appropriate battles can be difficult.

My idea is to obfuscate the entire concept of a server as follows.

When a player logs into the game, all battles (on any underlying server) which fit your rank are shown, ordered by map name with the potential to re sort by maximum allowed rank in that battle. When a battle is joined, the player is silently transferred to the physical server where the actual battle is taking place. When the battle ends or the players leave, the player returns to this virtual battle list. This will allow players direct access to all battles of heir choosing.

Players can still choose between EN RU and other communities for language preferences, but the underlying server numbers should be hidden.

[SwiftSmoky 8,445]

United battles list

 

The game servers are pretty much completely separate, the only integration is in the friends list to see friends online in other servers. There is one more list we would like to be integrated this way - the battles list. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes battles in specific maps and has to move a few servers to find the kind of battle I like.

 

There is a whole lot of battles in the game and combining them all into one super long list might sound like a bad idea, but it's not really a big deal, and we also have a few ways to make it even more convenient.
And I think we should have separate lists, but not for each server, but for each group of servers based on language. (all EN listed together, all RU in another list...) And make the servers menu show only 4 options (EN, RU, DE, PL)

 

Why long battles list of all servers combined is not too much:

• Don't forget that only battles that fit the rank of the player are displayed, this cuts off a whole lot of battles from the list.
• Just look at all the EN or all the RU battles together, it's not THAT long, is it? I guess it depends on your rank, but to me having 5+ pages to scroll through isn't a problem at all, I prefer it over moving servers even if it was 10 pages.
• Players who are looking for battles to join, usually go to their favorite maps / formats, so they don't ever read through the whole list. They just scroll to where all the... say Sandbox CTF XP/BP battles are, and pick a battle with enough players in it and a place for them to join.
• Most players search for the most popular battles. Makes sense, right? So for most players it will be very very easy to just spot their favorite battles within the list, they will see their map name repeating over and over 20+ times in a row... So most players will have no complaints about long lists anyway.
• There are battle filters. Players can sort out their game mode which in the case of CP and TDM lovers will make a pretty short list anyway.
• PRO battles appear on the top for players with PRO pass, and on the bottom for the rest. This helps getting the preferred battles closer to the top of the list.
• Searching for a specific map is really not hard at all even in long lists since the battles are sorted in ascending order by names. It takes me about 3-5 seconds to find any not popular map in the longest battles lists I can find in the game. (in most loaded servers)
• People spend these few seconds on finding the not popular map they like in the first server they join anyway, then what takes most of the time is moving between servers, loading the game again with every server, and searching over and over again.
  

How could you make the search for battles even quicker and more convenient:

• Hotkeys in the battles list - simply click R and the game will scroll to (and maybe highlight for a second?) the battles that their name starts with R. I use it every time I search for a map in the maps list of the battle creation menu. (which btw works in browser but not downloadable client) Looking for Rio? Press R and you have it right before your eyes. Wanna play Highland? press H and there it is! Works like magic!
• I honestly believe that the hotkeys idea ^ is enough alone, but I'll go on with a few more ideas.
• More filters! I'm sure players would love to have a filter of formats. After all, most players play only one format most of the time. This together with the united battles list will solve problems that players wanted to solve in other ways, like the suggestion I've seen about creating a parkour server. Parkour battles are less common and making one list of all of them will be a very nice feature for parkourists.
  

 

Now I'm gonna go a little off topic into another suggestion, but it is related to this suggestion:

 

It's really nice to have everything united like that, but it does create another problem, maybe.
If you get to choose to join the EN server (have all the battles from all EN servers listed together, and it all appears as a single server in the servers menu) and you don't control the exact server you join, what's gonna happen to the chat? Keeping the chat separate for each server will be confusing if players only see "EN, RU, DE, PL" and not "EN1, EN2...". Players will try to chat with friends that seem to be in the same server, but won't see their messages. But uniting the chat might cause a great deal of spam. Players will send messages too fast to read. That's what I expect at least, but you could test it and see how it goes...

 

In case you decide to unite the chat and it does turn out to be overloaded with messages, I would suggest you implement chat rooms. This will spread the messages enough to make it readable and not spammy. I don't really have an opinion on what chat rooms you should have, because I don't use the chat often, only when I wanna ask random players' opinions on stuff...
Here's a list of options I have in mind:

• Chat rooms based on topics (general, clans, format battles, parkour, events...)
• Chat rooms based on number of participants (if there are too many players chatting together and messages are sent too fast to read, a new chat room will be opened and half of the players will be moved to it automatically, with an option to move between tabs manually to decide with your friends what chat room you wanna be in)
  

[Maf 32,338]

Planned

Started

Completed

 

Although Hazel says that based on the recent changes and what they have planned, this idea becomes less and less necessary. So it's likely that instead of server integration they will add features which will be a better alternative to just having one massive list of battles.

 

Also, joined server chat just seems like a bad idea, since even now on individual servers sometimes messages are sent too fast to follow the chat. Imagine what it will be like if all chats are merged into one?

[dilsharox 2,395]

Good idea

[Hex 11,522]

+1

[asifmehmood 1,576]

Woh planned :D

[A_R_A_K_E_L_Y_E_N 503]

Epic

[Cyborg 3,189]

Awesome. No more fuss finding good battles. 

[VaudeVille 1,428]

Great idea +1

[donaldo9000 1,342]

One word: Awesome

[austen_pierce 1,948]

Does Planned mean planned for TO or TX?

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

I propose to have a unified lobby,

• If you login to the game, you are in the unified lobby
• in which you see the battles from all servers
• You can select the chats you like to see from a checkbox menue
  [x]EN, [x]RU, [  ]PL, [  ]DE

 

find battles faster and easier

• You dont have to walk through 8 servers any more (EN1, EN2, RU1..5, DE1)
• you can (but don't have to) use filters
  • battle mode, max rank, min rank
  • pro mode filters (formats, some of the pro battle settings, ..)
  • my-favorite-maps (on/off)
    uses a list of all battle maps, where you can checkmark some as your favorites
    [x] sandbox, [x] Sandal, [x] Red Alert, [ ] Noise, ...
    You can then select if your favorite maps should be filtered [filter on favorite maps [on/off]]
     

Your Battles fill up faster

• If you create a battle, it is visible in the unfied lobby for all other players that are in the propper rank / filters
• you don't have to take care for the server any more. The system decides on which server the battle gets created. It is not important to the players, as they see all battles in the unified lobby.
   

Less server lags

• Players anyways see all battles in the unified lobby. As the players don't need to select the servers, the game can distribute the battles over the servers by itself. So the server load can be well balanced -> less servers are in overload -> players have less server lags.

 

Tanki could save costs

• by switching off at least one server completely due to better load balance distribution

[Adel 567]

 

 

I propose to have a unified lobby,

• If you login to the game, you are in the unified lobby
• in which you see the battles from all servers
• You can select the chats you like to see from a checkbox menue

  [x]EN, [x]RU, [  ]PL, [  ]DE

 

find battles faster and easier

• You dont have to walk through 8 servers any more (EN1, EN2, RU1..5, DE1)
• you can (but don't have to) use filters
  • battle mode, max rank, min rank
  • pro mode filters (formats, some of the pro battle settings, ..)
  • my-favorite-maps (on/off)

    uses a list of all battle maps, where you can checkmark some as your favorites

    [x] sandbox, [x] Sandal, [x] Red Alert, [ ] Noise, ...

    You can then select if your favorite maps should be filtered [filter on favorite maps [on/off]]

     

Your Battles fill up faster

• If you create a battle, it is visible in the unfied lobby for all other players that are in the propper rank / filters
• you don't have to take care for the server any more. The system decides on which server the battle gets created. It is not important to the players, as they see all battles in the unified lobby.

   

Less server lags

• Players anyways see all battles in the unified lobby. As the players don't need to select the servers, the game can distribute the battles over the servers by itself. So the server load can be well balanced -> less servers are in overload -> players have less server lags.

 

Tanki could save costs

• by switching off at least one server completely due to better load balance distribution

 

 

Topic merged.

[railguniz4noobz 2,394]

So did this topic just not exist for a week or...?

[SwiftSmoky 8,445]

So did this topic just not exist for a week or...?

It was in limbo.

 

 

 

 

btw, I think the part of having hotkeys to find maps by names is a great idea on it's own, don't you think it would be very convenient even with the not so big lists we have now?

[GLADIATOR440 61]

There can also be a universal server for people from any country.

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

I still think a unified lobby is way better.

 

My rank has 16 pages of available battles over all servers at this point in time. With the use of filters (see below) this would easily go down to 2..3 pages <- which is eaaaasy to handle for a player (why? ->  RU1 features me 4 pages as it is today, that's no problem)

 

Nice that Tanki plans something different.. but up to now the changes they made on battle creation, battle button, ...effects and serves mainly the newcomers in the game.

Matchmaking battles will serve highranks as well, but they come at a cost: you can not play with your friends.

 

It could give you the chat of your physical server only.

 

 

Filter proposal

 

 

• Community DE / EN / RU / PL
• DM/TDM/CTF/CP
• Format
• min rank / max rank
• no drops, no suppl. / only drops, no suppl / drops + suppl. + SCD / drops + suppl. - SCD
• list of my favorite maps

 

 

[Maf 32,338]

So did this topic just not exist for a week or...?

It was awaiting approval. I had a couple issues with some ideas and needed to get answers before I could approve them.

[Maf 32,338]

It's highly likely that once the Matchmaking system is released, the standard (non-pro) battle list will be gone and those battles will be available only via matchmaking, while the PRO battles will be unified into one big list. So this idea looks very promising now.

[Maf 32,338]

 

Topic merged

[D.a.n.t.e 475]

To have a unified list that is not miles and miles long we should have some options: (Custom Battles ready)

 

- 1 to 2 rank battles (list of battles of the same rank as yours and one higher rank or 1 lower rank, plus the battles your friends are in up to 6 rank ranges.)

- 3 to 4 rank battles (plus the battles your friends are in up to 6 rank ranges.)

- 5 to 6 rank battles

- Language options with check boxes or filters: RU, EN, DE, FR, PT, ES, IT (example: Sandbox CTF EN FR)

- Map size filters: Large, medium and small.

- Mode filters like today

- Format filters

[ZeusVinsi 84]

OMG This Is What We Need!!

[realbigred 101]

to save endless trawling through servers and battles to find a suitable battle type & rank range there should be a simple search function where you enter the battle type (DM / TDM / CTF / CP) and the max rank allowed (pick from  symbol list)

 

The system would then search and put up a list of suitable battles for you to choose from.

 

Even Tanki's devs should be able to  handle this one.

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

 

Topic merged

[Capable 4,614]

This is somewhat completed now right? Good Idea btw :P