SurfTimer Reworking

[unt0uch4bl3]

I'm reworking the surf timer now and I'm making this thread so you can discuss and suggest ideas.

This is what I have planned.

* There will be two map types, Linear and Staged. No surf timer on combat maps.
- The linear map type will have a simple start and end.
- The staged map type will have an X amount of checkpoints. To finish the map you do not need to go through all the checkpoints so shortcuts will be available

* There will be sections designated as bonuses.
- When you enter a bonus, your overall time for both map types will be canceled. So bonuses will NOT be able to be used as shortcuts.
- Bonuses will have their own timer and there will be a list for top surfers for a specific bonus, but not for each checkpoint.


* Surf Ranks will also be implemented
- Each map will be scaled by difficulty which will result in harder maps rewarding more points for their completion.
- Each checkpoint will probably give 1 point and upon completion, based on the number of checkpoints and difficulty of the map more points will be rewarded.
- Each bonus will probably give (a number higher than a regular checkpoint) for its completion.
- Based on your rank (top 1-10) for map records, you will receive more points, again based on the maps difficulty (However difficulty will not play a big role here because it is harder to reach rank #1 on an easier map than a harder one... Correct me if I'm wrong).


* Anti-cheating
- Members found abusing admin to get faster times will be penalized (from suspension to loss of admin)
- This will be a serious surf timer. Zero tolerance policy will be in affect regarding surf times and ranks.
- Admins will be bound by their admin duty to report any cheating (of other admins or other players if seen, aka snitching)
- Genuine problems with the surf timer that can be regarded to as cheating (or not) should be reported to me.


* Admin control of surf timer WILL BE LIMITED.
- Only a select few admins will have surf timer, and those that do will all have lower level surf timer admin than me and evolv.
- Surf timer admin is only needed to add new maps, it is not needed for anything else so there will not be tons of admins. 5 Max is what I'm foreseeing (which will include me, evolv)
- Lower leveled admins will be able to add the timer to a new map and this newly added timer will be pending approval by a full surf timer admin (me or evolv once again) until which it will not affect surf ranks, however you will be able to surf it and record times.
- Once a map's surf timer has been approved, lower leveled surf timer admins will not be able to change the approved positions. Lower leveled surf timer admins will also not be able to add new admins. The only thing lower leveled surf timer admins will be able to do is add surf timer to new maps until approval and remove player's surf times. Abuse of this will not happen because only a select few people will even have surf timer admin, so no one should worry about this.


* Things that will not be available that some may want
- !teleport will be available but not !restart. !teleport will only be available on staged maps, will have a cool down of 15 seconds and will not be able to be used during the first 30 seconds of the round.
- I realize that admins will be able to teleport themselves to the beginning of the map to restart it (which the anti cheat will not prevent) but this is not encouraged. Because whether there is a surf timer or not, teleporting out of a jail is cheating and count as abuse.


I'm going to try to make this surf timer as serious as I can, with not cheating abuse or anything so the surf times and surf ranks can reflect a person's skills accurately.

There also will be maps that are not surf timer friendly. For example surf_elements and any other map that does not require completion of all (or majority of the stages) or a map that does not have a specific end.

Discuss, Suggest, post possible issues with maps below. (Please explain the game play of the map because I haven't played every single one)

[T!cK]

This sounds really good, thanks for putting a lot of time an effort into this.

Will there be certain maps devoid of checkpoints and used just in a linear fashion. For example surf_bob is extremely boring to surf level by level but when used with a Linear style (ksf timer, as opposed to egi) it is immensely fun.

What will our attitude be towards surf timer pro's, such as Morning, habitat, demon ect ect.
I'm obviously assuming they will be treated as any other surfer?

I agree with you on no teleport whoring by admins, I only do it myself on surf_bob because there is no jail and it's a pain in the ass to keep killing myself.

[ryan s]

I think you should add an admin option to disable surf timer for certain people (like for me, I do not care for surf timer at all). That way if someone is no-clipping or teleporting, there won't be the chance of them getting in trouble.

[unt0uch4bl3]

Tick,

Checkpoints will be there only to give you points for reaching them (and record time taken to beat them), they will not dictate the overall timer. Once you leave the first checkpoint(start zone) your overall timer begins until you reach the very end. Even if your inside checkpoint 3, your overall timer is still ticking, but your checkpoint timer will be stopped and be ready for the next checkpoint.

Pro's: Everyone has a fair chance, no discrimination will occur.

Teleporting: Well yeah thats the beauty of having admin is having abilities that regular players don't have. They can't be abused but they must be used at the admin's discretion so it IS not cheating and it is not viewed as cheating

[unt0uch4bl3]

ryan, yes there will be a menu that will allow you to enable/disable the timer it self, hud timer and the amount of messages the timer spits out on ur screen, until you disconnect...

I'm hopping I can hook teleport/noclip commands so I can auto disable the timer for people that use these commands.

[ryan s]

Alright cool, because that would be my biggest quarrel with it :]

[aImZ]

i like these ideas;) i dotn get tho why we arent allowed to teleport...damages noone
the only thing i cant rly get friendly with is bonus getting an extra timer...i still think the timer should show how fast a map can be ended (meaning how fast jail can be activated) and not how fast someone can go through every single stage

[unt0uch4bl3]

Unfortunately I can't hook things activated through admin menus, so the whole anti cheat idea goes down the drain.

Aimz,
Teleporting leads to people having shorter times... You teleport your self to a further stage, finish the map and have a shorter time...

and total surf time should reflect the time it takes to surf through the stages. If you can use bonuses to complete the map its like using a detour and creates a whole different route. For example on maps like surf_lore, after a bonus you go directly to the end of the map.
As a result, regular stages are ignored and the surf time no longer reflects the amount of time it takes to surf "through the regular stages of the map" which is what it should do. Not all maps have bonuses so it would be unfair to make the surf time reflect different things in different maps.

My definition of total surf time = Time takes to surf through all the stages (through main route) not time to finish using additional routes the mapper added.

[aImZ]

@teleporting: i was talkin bout teleportign to spawn;) and not to an other stage

well you said it earlier: this is not a surf-timer server its a surf server...so why do u want to have the times it takes a regular way? i mean on lore everyone is doin bonus who is able to finish anyway...the timer would just makem surf normal - that wouldnt fit to being a surf server...u make some1 take a route if he wants a time and not just let him surf and watch how long it takes to finish...thats my reasonign with that...

[T!cK]

Yeah but making them do the levels at least stops people whoring it, the people who know it aren't so bad because they have respect for other players.
The guy who sits in spec, sees it and then farms the fuck out of it.

[unt0uch4bl3]

@aimz

Yeah its valid reasoning.

However if I don't separate them, there would be no reason to add bonus ranks.

... and I want bonus ranks because its a special stage that can be used for competition.

... and I want to add bonuses because then I can give players more points for completing a "harder" stage than the others.

So if I don't disable the overall timer if bonus is being surfed, then I'm not adding bonus ranks because they would be useless

Take ny_platinum for example, you can just whore the bonus instead of completing the map normally. But if your whoring bonus all the time, bonus is not a special stage any more and wouldn't even need a timer or wouldn't even need to exist as far as the timer is concerned.
So for ny_platinum, if I surfing and trying to get the fastest time, i'd want to surf it normally instead of whoring bonus... but thats just me.

I guess I'll think about it more. What does everyone else think about this? (I want to keep things separate)

[DigitalTerrorist]

Although I am not a time surfer, I think this is really good and am impressed, unt.

[aImZ]

@bonuses: when i said "fastest way to end the map" i meant the actual end...so only bonuses which are a shortcut to the end would count in there not bonuses like on platinum which make the map end different


but i like your idea with those bonus points too will there be points for killing like before as well?

[unt0uch4bl3]

Its just that you can't cater to every single map, I don't want some bonuses to do one thing, others another thing. So that's why I want to make them all separate. Its like my way of enforcing all checkpoints to be done but small non bonus shortcuts allowed like bob.


we'll still have the mani ranking system so we'll have two ranking systems I guesss if that is you mean by killing. So we'll have top surfer and top combat player.

The surf timer will run in the background as mmuch as possible so no one even notices the changes. By default it'll just show that ur timer started and the time it took you to finish the map. Then there will be a menu for u to enable disable messages etc

[Daniel]

Just want a bit of clarification. So you will not need to pass through all checkpoints to finish a map(like on bob), but then you would not receive points for that checkpoint, correct? So in order to get the fastest time on bob, you would need to use shortcuts and stuff, but if you wanted to help your rank and get all the points, you would have to go back and actually go through each checkpoint, right?

[unt0uch4bl3]

Reaching a checkpoint whenver for the first time will reward you with one point.

And going through all checkpoints is not rquired to get the fastest time.

Maps like torque and elements will not be surf timer friendly. Rather than slapping a linear surf timer on them, I think just not including a surf timer on those maps will be best

[Daniel]

Will there be a !pr like command? If so, would it be possible to have it saay something like your time on the map, and also like 5/5 checkpoints? So that way if its a map you can beat without all checkpoints(like bob), if you typed !pr you could see that oh, I have a time but I still need to go back and do all the checkpoints(meaning it would show as like 1:35, 8/11 checkpoints)

[unt0uch4bl3]

Yeah I'm probably gonna do something like that. That'll come at the very end

[chef. lack]

Untouchable you're a beast :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[unt0uch4bl3]

So I've decided that !teleport command will be available after all and already added it.

However, it will only be available on staged maps and will have a cool down of 15 seconds. You also cannot use it during the first 30 seconds of the round.

It will not be on linear maps because I don't people cheating by using it right before they tele to jail if they know they failed or while in jail. With staged maps, theres nothing to escape so it will not harm any one.

On some maps !teleport will be disabled. For example amplitude_encore. Even though it has stages, it has the mechanics of a linear map. (you fail = you have to wait in jail where u can be killed). Other maps may also have it disabled.

The only real problem this should cause is at the end of the round when every is in jail and a person teleports back to spawn. Most maps should send the player back to jail anyway, but on those maps that don't have that, it will be considered abuse (just like respawning when the map has obviously ended) so admins will take appropriate actions in such a case.

Feed back?
I need as much feedback as possible so I can make the surf timer that every is happy with and not forget some thing and keep having to re do it. So if you've been lazy, get off your ass and suggest.

[Daniel]

Just a thought, when the logic_timer fires teleing everyone to jail(at least I assume tahts how it works), is there a way to connect the !teleport command to the logic or whatever so that it can no longer be used? Or I suppose you could make it so that it is usable for like 4 or 5 minutes, and will not work after that.

[unt0uch4bl3]

no every map is different so you cannot detect automatically which logic timer it is.

[aImZ]

i like that u decided to add the teleport command, but: its not like all linear maps are kill-maps there are skill ones too. well most ofem are nojail or shortjail (like amplitudes (note:in your post u were meaning apex, encore has no stages;))) and i cant even think of one that is linear and givesu like 5 minutes of trying and than teleports everyone to jail. so my question is, if such a map exists, what u gonna do than?


for those maps that dotn teleport you back to jail...3 suggestions:
a) your idea with admins work
b)time will show which ones dont do that: disable !teleport on those (like u disabled respawn on combat maps)
c)(this is much work tho) time will show which ones dont do that: track down the timerthingy on those (or just watch how long the timer goes) and programm a disable after that time (much work, and i definetly dont want u to overwork on this, but i think it woukld work so im writing it)

[unt0uch4bl3]

Okay I kind of lost what you were saying half way through.

Basically !teleport command is only needed to get you back to start, right? Okay so on linear maps if you fail, you'll end up at the start. So the command is absolutely not needed, so it will not be included.

On staged maps it will be included because it would be the same as suicide + respawn without the wait time, and it cannot be abused to escape a jail because there won't be a jail to escape.
Only at the very end of the map, but using !teleport would be the same as respawning on such a map, and most maps are respawn friendly. So I don't think timing the end of the map is needed and it would be too much work for such a little thing.

I'm not sure about what you were saying "time will show which ones dont do that: disable !teleport on those (like u disabled respawn on combat maps)"... Do what exactly?

[.Eric]

Not all linear maps teleport you back start. Maps, like the amplitudes (excluding apex), teleport you to jail, where you have to wait until you get teleported.

[aImZ]

well allright ill shorten that now im sober: the part about linears was a theoretical question: is there a linear map which gives u 5 minutes time and than activates jail (like one all staged) and what will u do on that if it exists?


i ment: time will show which maps dont teleport those back who use !teleport after jail started

[T!cK]

Unless you can 100% be sure the command cannot be used after the jail trigger please do not include it, if you do it will be removed in a day.

It will just cause more problems, this will ONLY be abused except for rare circumstances, the majority of the server is not 'pro surfers with an adult mentality'. They are stinking little faggot non steam kids who will do anything to get a rise out of you.

It would be better for people to apply for access to the command, because I'm not 'taking action' on all the non steam kids who will have a field day with it.

[aImZ]

i like that idea: anyone can apply fo the !teleport command and if he abuses it he will just get it removed


ps: i just thought of a linear map that gives u some time and than teleports to jail: tronic

[unt0uch4bl3]

Fine that wouldn't be hard to add, but it wwoukd be such a pain adding and removing people iin general with so few surftimer admins

You know, I'm gonna add the way I'm doing it now and we'll see what happens. It takes a second to disable it

[Daniel]

Is there any way you could limit a person to only use it like 5 times a round or something?

[T!cK]

Fine that wouldn't be hard to add, but it wwoukd be such a pain adding and removing people iin general with so few surftimer admins

You know, I'm gonna add the way I'm doing it now and we'll see what happens. It takes a second to disable it


Of course, it may all work out.

And as for adding people to use it we could get them to apply on forums.

[aImZ]

and that would make more ppl use the dorum which is good in any way

[unt0uch4bl3]

Lol you guys always have a good excuse.
Well ill consider it. Is all the work adding people really worth it...
Because it would be pretty harmlesss ... I think
There are already big limitations upon that command. Unusable during the first 30 seconds, has a cool down time of 15 seconds..

[.Eric]

What if you just had the !teleport command disable when in jail?
shouldnt be to hard.
It would just be a third type of zone.

You would have the start zone, where the timer starts.
The end zone where the timer ends.
And the jail zone, where the !teleport command doesnt work.

[unt0uch4bl3]

What if you just had the !teleport command disable when in jail?
shouldnt be to hard.
It would just be a third type of zone.

You would have the start zone, where the timer starts.
The end zone where the timer ends.
And the jail zone, where the !teleport command doesnt work.

And a zone where every single stage begins... plus don't forget there are maps with multiple jails... just not worth it.

[T!cK]

Lol you guys always have a good excuse.
Well ill consider it. Is all the work adding people really worth it...
Because it would be pretty harmlesss ... I think
There are already big limitations upon that command. Unusable during the first 30 seconds, has a cool down time of 15 seconds..


It's just extra work for admins, and if you want I will take responsibility for adding new people. It won't be a lot of people just people who are real speed surfers.

[Explizit]

Wow, I think this is a much better and improved surf timer and im looking forward to it being done. Nice job untouchable :)

[unt0uch4bl3]

Finished adding bonuses - wow that was gay. Should have really left them out... who the duck gives a shit about these bonuses.

Next = ranks... then player control menus... and then a bunch of major tweaking and i think that will bring things to a close.

[.Eric]

yeah...what the duck, guys.

[evolv]

You are simply the best. Accept now I have to redo all the surf timer locations :x :evil: :twisted:

[unt0uch4bl3]

Got the math for the ranks basically finalized.

There will be a point system and points will be awarded as follows:

You will get points for completing checkpoints and the map itself. The amount of points you get all together will be based on the difficulty of the map. For a linear map you will get 50 points for completing a map with the hardest difficulty (level 5). For a staged map with the same difficulty, those points will be distributed throughout the checkpoints and the actual completion of the map. However the total amount for a staged map of that difficulty will be slightly less because it is easier to accumulate points (you don't have to beat the whole map at once to get points, you get points per checkpoint as you go along). Note: The amount of points for a staged map of the same difficulty will be greater than points for a linear map past stage 9 due to the parabolic formula. This will not be a problem because most maps don't 9 stages anyway.

You will also get points for holding a record. It is based on the your rank (1 to 10), the difficulty of the map and the total amount of ranked players for that map. (The amount of points received for a record will be around the number of total points you can get from the map.)

I'm not going to post the formulas for the calculations but I think the way points are awarded is fair. Basically the most rewarding records will be on the hardest maps, with many ranked players and obviously rank 1 will give give the most points.

Easy maps (level 1) with many ranked players will not give as many points as lets say level 5 with the same amount of ranked players simply because the surf timer encourages SKILL as well as speed. if you are speedy on easy maps, you also have to be speedy on hard maps to be the top ranked surfer.

Bonuses will also award points based on difficulty, but you will not get extra points for being top10 in a bonus.

So hopefully this point system will work out well. I guess we'll just have to see once everything is up and running.

[aImZ]

sounds good:)

[unt0uch4bl3]

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6899/graphlvl1.png
This is the distribution of points for Level 1 maps (easiest) based on your rank. (The amount of points for being ranked increases with map difficulty.) These are addition points given for record holders on top of the ~10 points you can receive for completing such a map.

The X axis is your rank (goes up to 10), the Y axis in the points you will receive and each set of points is the amount of total ranked players there are for this map.

As you can see the gap for point distribution is the greatest between ranks 1 and 2. This gap increases as the total amount of players ranked increases. There is more competition thus I think ranked 1 player should get much more points.

The total difference between rank 1 and 10 is about 2x the amount of points. The formula became kind of funky while i was trying to get that to work. I wish i payed attention more in calculus =/

Anyway, the basic structure is 1/x graph. Does anyone have any suggestions for a better point distribution.

[aImZ]

well nice thoughts, but just a theoretical thought here: when lets say 400 ppl (just any high number) are ranked on a map like akai and 1 or 2 are ranked on legendary...those on rank 1 and 2 on akai get more points than those on akai? i wouldnt like that...


i like how the points are spread over the ranks (for one particular map)

[unt0uch4bl3]

Well since we can't beat legendary lets pick a hypothetical map that is level 5 difficulty.

Rank 1 and 2 on akia (level 1) with 400 people ranked will get 44 and 35 points respectively.

Rank 1 and 2 on (level 5 map) with 5 people ranked will get 37 and 29 points respectively.

But remember, by beating a map with level 5 difficulty you will receive ~50 points, plus 37 on top for being ranked 1. Total points : 87

A level 1 map will give you ~10 points and rank 1 with 400 people will give you 44 points. Total : 54 points

so points for ranks will be about the same, but total points will have a large difference only because one map is very hard and the other is very easy.

"those on rank 1 and 2 on akai get more points than those on akai? i wouldnt like that..." which wouldn't you like?

[Phenom]

amazing, i cant wait to see it come into action. This will increase our server's player base TENFOLD :geek:

[aImZ]

""those on rank 1 and 2 on akai get more points than those on akai? i wouldnt like that..." which wouldn't you like?"
theres a mistake:D it should been legendary instead of the second akai^^

well i forgot those poitns for beating the map, thats allright for me then. so rank points depending on competition and completing points depending on skill, thats smart. since i dont know your formulas: is there no way a level 1 rank 1 (rankpoints + completingpoints) gives more points than a level 5 rank 1?

some other things:
1)if u beat the record u get thos ~40 poitns or whatever, so if some1 else beats it u lose them again right?
2)do u get those completing-points every time u beat the map or just when u beat it the first time? if u get them everytime there should be a huge difference between a easy map/level and a logn skill map ( i mean i would rather surf fruits a 100 times than legendary or whatever 1 time to go up in rank: my fear is that if those easy maps give to much points we have even more noobmaps on the server than we already have (and that is already to much))

[unt0uch4bl3]

"is there no way a level 1 rank 1 (rankpoints + completingpoints) gives more points than a level 5 rank 1? "

The points received for those two scenarios I posted above are as close as they are going to get. 87 to 54. These reward points are on one side of the extreme. The other side is very little ranked for lvl1 which will yield ~25 points total for everything and many people ranked for lvl 5 which will yield ~200+ points.


1) Yes you will get bumped down and your points will get lowered if someone else gets a higher record and points will increase as more people become ranked over time
2) points will get awarded only for the first time you beat the map/checkpoint/bonus

[aImZ]

allright than no further suggestion/complaints/questions:) looking forward to it being in action. nice work:)

[.Eric]

penis.

[Zentrix]

This is amazing! I cant come up with anything to add, seems flawless to me! :)

[Daniel]

Just one concern, say you finish first on a map and get the maximum number of points available, but then your time is beaten. Will you lose points since its no longer the number 1 time? Will everyone in the top lose points since they all moved down a level? This could potentially fuck people over and screw up the system it isn't addressed in some way, though I'm sure you have thought this through. Just making sure :P

[unt0uch4bl3]

Yeah don't worry. Everyone will get bumped down a rank and those that reach rank 11 will loose all of their points that they received from being in top 10.

One of the things that I do have to consider that is gay is that if someones time gets removed through admin plugin then I have to increase players points etc etc. So many little things to consider because of such a dynamic ranking system. You can't even imagine how many other things similar to that I had to consider regarding other aspects of the timer.

[Zentrix]

if someones time gets removed through admin plugin [....]
hopefully, this wouldnt be necessary!
btw: mindblowing.

[Daniel]

For the problem with times potentially being removed, you could just make it so if a time is removed, that person automatically loses like 100 points, because obviously something about it was cheated, and that could be the punishment. Might work better on a case to case basis actually though.

Also, the !toggletimer command is nice and I assume you will keep it in some form. What is the possibility of having something where you can toggle the timer on someone you are spectating. Its kind of a nice feature on, and it makes it interesting if you are watching someone making a run for the record.

[unt0uch4bl3]

Time removal through admin plugin is not mainly there to remove cheaters lol. Its for convenience because accidents do happen and so on.

I have given some thought to the spectator hud timer. So far its at the bottom of my list of things to do so I may add it.

So far guys you haven't really suggested anything I havnet thought of yet but I appreciate it anyway. We need more people active so they can post their input, not simply "its great blahblah". You spectater hud timer was in the right direction but we need more ideas flowing because after all this is your surf timer. I'm not doing this for me and once its fanilized, good luck getting me to change anything.

[Daniel]

Ohhhh one feature that would be nice is something like the !maplevels command, but it would not only tell you how many levels there are, but what tier difficulty, and how many points you will get for beating it. Another thing that would be cool but probably hard to do would be that if you typed rank or whatever, it would tell you your rank, and how many points you need to to pass the next person, so you wont have to type rank and then top. Also how many points the person behind you has would be cool. Though I dont think that if this is done top should be disabled or anything like that.

[.:Deadeye:.]

i got 1 quick question


even though you wont get points for top10 bonus, will there be a top10 for bonuses like a command to see the top times for the bonus

[unt0uch4bl3]

Daniel, ill implement some of the things you mentioned.

Yes there will be a top 10 command for bonuses. However since I don't want to give points for top10 ranked players in bonuses, is there something that we can do with the bonus ranks so its not just there as a useless piece of info. It seems that's what its turning out to do.


Also I may include 100% completion. Like x amount of maps out of total, x amount of bonuses out of total to add up to 100% so you can see your percent completion. Again this is probably gonna be useless so I don't want to add something useless.

Oh and I don't want to give points for top10 bonuses because we already have that for map completion. Don't need it to be more complicated)

[Phenom]

Im not sure if this was said previously (tl;dr), but it would be cool if there was an achievement list of maps "completed". Its a nice nifty way to keep track of your maps you have done, and the ones you havent yet beaten. Achievement points like the xbox 360? that would be sort of cool.

[unt0uch4bl3]

We already have ranks, don't need more achievement stuff lol.


But there will probably be a menu which shows which maps you have completed and the times u got and if you havnt completed them, what stage you got to.

[.:Deadeye:.]

Also I may include 100% completion. Like x amount of maps out of total, x amount of bonuses out of total to add up to 100% so you can see your percent completion.

This seems like a great addition to me i would love to be able to see how close i really am to completing all the surf maps/bonuses, however updating this when new maps were added may become a problem

[unt0uch4bl3]

Well the fucking timer lags the server pretty badly. I never say this but fuck my life. Put so many hours into that thing and gonna have to do some serious optimization whcih will include scrapping some major parts.

FUCK

[.Eric]

FUCK

[unt0uch4bl3]

Eric if you have nothing useful to post, please keep off this thread, spam is not needed.

For those who read this and are interested in the progress.

I figured another way to make this timer both more accurate and lagless. Though adding new maps will be done ONLY by me and no one else because no one would be able to.

So this is a good thing and a bad thing. the good thing is that I know how to add the zones properly because i wrote the damned thing. The bad thing is that it will take a LOOOONG time for me to do it, because i'm doing this by my self.

Future map additions will also require me to be active in css so whats going to happen is if i take a break again, you will all be without a timer for the time i'm gone. Better than nothing I think.