Yet another thread about ProGUI and how to attract more players

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, leopard said:

@Stockfish cheats according to Geriatrix

1 hour ago, Stockfish said:

I am pro

Well not to beat around the bush, and not to excuse geriatrix's behavior, stockfish is known to use progui. Apparently its up to you whether or not that counts as cheating. (I consider it cheating)

[Stockfish]

10 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Well not to beat around the bush, and not to excuse geriatrix's behavior, stockfish is known to use progui. Apparently its up to you whether or not that counts as cheating. (I consider it cheating)

Wether you consider that cheat or not is not my business. Progui is a public mod that many people use. Even some of the detractors of that mod. But it is funny that the only one judged by using it is me.

I dont even use the autotrain in mayority of games, you can see speccing me.

[Atrik]

19 minutes ago, Stockfish said:

I dont even use the autotrain in mayority of games, you can see speccing me.

You can prove that autotrain doesn't make a difference to thoses folks, they'll still have fun making tribal comments when you'll use it (As I did repetitively too). They probably jealous you because of your level. Most don't have any understanding of the game mechanics anyway (and especially not real_tabasco) so be assured that at least, while they'll have something to blame, they'll never be even close to grasp how are you 1k elo more then them.

[MarcusAureliu#s]

I dont think there is any empirical study that proves or disproves wether using pro gui gives an advantage, if it does not the question is though why  do people use it. I think the reason @Stockfish is mainly critisized for using it, is that his level is very high already, so it does not seem to be necessary, also it is not always transparent for opponents if the mod is beeing used for example in rated games. For @Atrik i just always assume he is using it so thats not an issue then  .  But as i have said before, establish rules before the game if u haven an issue with it, then there is no reason for all this drama, although this makes reading this forum more entertaining as i have to admit  

[alre]

48 minutes ago, MarcusAureliu#s said:

I dont think there is any empirical study that proves or disproves wether using pro gui gives an advantage, if it does not the question is though why  do people use it. I think the reason @Stockfish is mainly critisized for using it, is that his level is very high already, so it does not seem to be necessary, also it is not always transparent for opponents if the mod is beeing used for example in rated games. For @Atrik i just always assume he is using it so thats not an issue then  .  But as i have said before, establish rules before the game if u haven an issue with it, then there is no reason for all this drama, although this makes reading this forum more entertaining as i have to admit  

ProGui was never intended to give an advantage to people using it, the main reason for using ProGui is that it makes the game more enjoyable by providing less demanding ways to control production, which is the least fun part of the game to many people.

then it came the anti-ProGui sentiment and players accusing others of using ProGui to take an edge over the rest of them. it built so much distrust... even after the whole smurf drama, things managed to get worse.

[leopard]

2 hours ago, alre said:

ProGui is that it makes the game more enjoyable by providing less demanding ways to control production, which is the least fun part of the game to many people

this is what I wanted to say, you wrote perfect. but the RTS purists will disagree, they want people to suffer doing the boring and hard part, 

proGUI can bring more people to 0AD, because this is not 1990s or 2000s people want a lot of automation everywhere, other games focus on places where people get the rush; and also perfecting economy by spending months and years will demotivate normal people from playing game. 

Edited July 4 by leopard

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Stockfish said:

But it is funny that the only one judged by using it is me.

Nah, I judge everybody who uses it.

[guerringuerrin]

Sorry, I didn't realize there was a page 2 with a keep on topic

In fact, there is a THREAD made by Mentula where he made some of the most objective measurements possible regarding certain advantages of the mod in terms of boom speed. And this is without considering other aspects like the military and bla bla bla I just don't want to make it long because it has already been discussed extensively in many threads.
But I would like to point out that I find it regrettable that when this discussion arises, instead of having a respectful debate specifically focused on the issue at hand, direct attacks on the other person are used as a resource to discredit their argument. This type of resource is a classic known at least since Ancient Greece as an ad hominem fallacy, and I am sure that many of those present here, all intelligent and adult people, are perfectly aware of this.
In summary, what importance does the skill level of a player have in determining whether their argument is valid or not? In a 1v1 against all or most of those present here, I would surely lose, regardless of whether they are using the mod or not. Moreover, I would probably still lose even if I were using the mod and they were not!!! Does that make proGUI (for instance) more or less of a cheat? Of course not, and it is truly simple to realize that the interlocutors' skill at playing does not determine the validity of their arguments at all.
In any competitive environment, the sense of fairness is necessary. Even though there are only the same five of us here, it is evident that a competitive environment has been created. Even though we are not millions, it is not broadcast on social media, and there are no prizes, the environment is created, and therefore, the need for fairness will arise.
Honestly, my greatest wish is that we can resolve certain differences that seem irreconcilable and not continue to fuel toxicity, at least among those of us who I believe have the ability to realize how harmful this is for the community and have not developed such deep obsessions as to consider there is no way back, as for example, our friend here the main character of this thread Geriatrix/1min/-DonkeyKong/Cedric_O/Physic/Shift_Sierra?.
Nubs greetings to all

Edited July 4 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

But I would like to point out that I find it regrettable that when this discussion arises, instead of having a respectful debate specifically focused on the issue at hand

I wonder who started to mention progui in a off topic AGAIN. The same guy who come spec games, (but rarely plays any), yet every f*** time in the chat, start talking about progui.
No idea why he did make it a so important mission for himself to make sure that anybody who haven't heard about this mod is exposed to his comments on it first. As he even admitted it to me.

Just on the forum I can't count threads where he comes in a totally unrelated threads like this one and start making a comment containing always the two words : progui and cheat. Even if nobody takes the bait, he'll try again a few comments later.... O.P.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

I wonder who started to mention progui in a off topic AGAIN. The same guy who come spec games, (but rarely plays any), yet every f*** time in the chat, start talking about progui.
No idea why he did make it a so important mission for himself to make sure that anybody who haven't heard about this mod is exposed to his comments on it first. As he even admitted it to me.

Just on the forum I can't count threads where he comes in a totally unrelated threads like this one and start making a comment containing always the two words : progui and cheat. Even if nobody takes the bait, he'll try again a few comments later.... O.P.

Who are you talking about here? I'm a bit confused.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

I wonder who started to mention progui in a off topic AGAIN. The same guy who come spec games, (but rarely plays any), yet every f*** time in the chat, start talking about progui.
No idea why he did make it a so important mission for himself to make sure that anybody who haven't heard about this mod is exposed to his comments on it first. As he even admitted it to me.

Just on the forum I can't count threads where he comes in a totally unrelated threads like this one and start making a comment containing always the two words : progui and cheat. Even if nobody takes the bait, he'll try again a few comments later.... O.P.

1. I was clarifying a situation with regards to geriatrix
2. Is it so bad to tell players that this mod exists and how to tell when someone has this unfair advantage mod installed? If the mod isn't problematic nobody would be upset. I am not harrasing anyone, just letting people know how to tell when you and stock use it. Its crazy how mad you get at me for this.
3. Is ad hominem all you have? seriously?

You say I am a bad player and that I can't make any statements about the game because I have no game knowledge.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Is it so bad to tell players that this mod exists and how to tell when someone has this unfair advantage mod installed? If the mod isn't problematic nobody would be upset. I am not harrasing anyone, just letting people know how to tell when you and stock use it. Its crazy how mad you get at me for this.

Indeed, this is my greatest beef with the mod and its champions, which is the insistence on remaining clandestine and the reflexive anger at the notion of making it known to all players that you are using it. It should also be up to players to decide if they want to play a clean game or not, meaning if they want to play with players who insist on using the mod. 

[Atrik]

11 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Is ad hominem all you have? seriously?

Against people who will just give a answer to anything you say by making up a new lies, you should insult him for your own relief: It's impossible to think I try to hide progui, but you can still pretend so to new comers. Maybe you know and is scared that what leopard said could be true: if the game implemented a production features close to progui then the game would be more attractive to new players. In that case you'll be again proven wrong about something you was so sure about and just failed to listen to anything else but yourself.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

Against people who will just give a answer to anything you say by making up a new lies, you should insult him for your own relief: It's impossible to think I try to hide progui, but you can still pretend so to new comers.

Are you talking about Geriatrix here with the lies? I have never said you try to hide it, I just bring it up from time to time when I see others in observer chat saying what they heard about progui. Often they are superstitious about what other advantages you have.

lastly, since this is your only real point for progui, I’ll just say i seriously doubt massively changing the way economy functions to make the game easier is a way to attract new players.

Since you are interested, here are some things I bet would get new players interested: performance improvements, new civs, new units/content, lobby improvements, a ranked playlist and system for competitive play, steam support, and uhhhh a campaign.

also then you would have to think about the issues of player retention by making the game’s economy fundamentally shallow.

[Atrik]

40 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

then you would have to think about the issues of player retention by making the game’s economy fundamentally shallow.

What is shallow is to keep game economy and battle mechanics relying purely on cps bearing no decision making, not the reverse.

[MarcusAureliu#s]

I think there are some RTS games that do auto production, like Cossacks i believe ? Nevertheless AoE doesnt do it and is one of the the most popular RTS games. Still clear communication is sufficient. A witch hunt directed against pro gui users cant be the way forward.

Edited July 5 by MarcusAureliu#s

[Atrik]

30 minutes ago, Atrik said:

What is shallow is to keep game economy and battle mechanics relying purely on cps bearing no decision making, not the reverse.

@real_tabasco_sauce Funny that even for sniping, instead of fixing it with a obvious feature you try to add a arbitrary formula that will probably just induce more unpredictability (I could be wrong that it won't have any side effects, but still the idea itself already sounds a bit fuzzy to me).

So, for a nub like you the best version of the game would :
- Have units as dumb as possible
- Lowest means of control for users
- Randomized unit behaviors

So now it make sens to me that you hate progui that provides :
- Smarter production (adapts to resources, can resume after shortage...)
- More means control (graphically control over all production variable for user)
- Precise production output (matching user inputs)

I won't pretend the autotrain panel nailed the best production feature that could be but sure enough it's 100x more enjoyable then vanilla where there is frustrations of not being able to do a variety of things, and you need to figure out workarounds. Yet you'll pretend that because it's 'automation', it's like having a bot playing for you, while you actually have improved control over your production. It's also 100% graphical, so most players trying it, figure out how to use it immediately.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Atrik

Calling me a noob and putting random words in bold doesn't make what you have written convincing at all. Now you are also slandering a completely separate idea of mine you know nothing about. In the above you have written a lot of buzzwords but really conveyed nothing (like what the hell do you mean by randomized unit behaviors).

Edited July 5 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, MarcusAureliu#s said:

I think there are some RTS games that do auto production, like Cossacks i believe ? Nevertheless AoE doesnt do it and is one of the the most popular RTS games. Still clear communication is sufficient. A witch hunt directed against pro gui users cant be the way forward.

yeah there are also some where you don't have to use units to build buildings and ones where resources are just trickles that you capture. 0ad's style is just more complicated and its the first thing for new players to learn. I think more complicated games, with deep mechanics retain players better. I think this is why AOE2 is much better than AOE4.

[guerringuerrin]

It was not my intention to drop a bomb and cause this, and I believe my message somewhat provoked it. I have my opinion on automation, and it is already known by everyone.
But the differences in our criteria regarding automation are evident, and continuing to escalate the conversation in this manner is not going to produce any benefit for anyone. Can we stop this?

[Atrik]

12 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Calling me a noob and putting random words in bold doesn't make what you have written convincing at all.

Not the first time you dismiss what I say pretending it's not intelligible to you. I was able to predict (and be the first to be vocal about) some of the bad ideas you thrown in com mod, what did you do then? Been dismissive.

19 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

like what the hell do you mean by randomized unit behaviors

I can't predict what would be the consequences of making units acquire (and follow if out of range) targets that aren't the closest one. In your thread about it, you don't discuss any potential consequences other then what happens in your selected scenario. Witch makes me think you again didn't try to think it through.

As I already said there are already bugs when pressing halt in formations where some units will target entities that aren't the closest to them.
Instead of fixing sniping by suggesting a feature that user can control, you make range manager less precise, equivalent to adding a random imprecision/randomizing unit targeting.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Not the first time you dismiss what I say pretending it's not intelligible to you. I was able to predict (and be the first to be vocal about) some of the bad ideas you thrown in com mod, what did you do then? Been dismissive.

The only people not making mistakes are the people not trying anything. I'll admit bolts are op now, but the way forward isn't to restore 10 second pack times XD. I am working on the next steps to improve the situation.

[Atrik]

17 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

The only people not making mistakes are the people not trying anything.

The problem is that you dismiss what I say every time, saying it's intelligible and I make no sens because you don't understand.

@Norse_Harold can you rename this topic "Yet another useless thread and how to NOT attract more players" and close it please? Nothing interesting ever came out of these debates.

[alre]

I haven't been playing for a lot of time, so consider that when you read this:

23 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed, this is my greatest beef with the mod and its champions, which is the insistence on remaining clandestine and the reflexive anger at the notion of making it known to all players that you are using it. It should also be up to players to decide if they want to play a clean game or not, meaning if they want to play with players who insist on using the mod. 

I hate to see that @real_tabasco_sauce actions pass as liberally informing people of facts of interest. He's committed in a war against a part of this game's community and, unprovoked, he harasses players who he knows to use ProGui. I want now to make some points in order to ground what I said.

That I know of, there has never been an actual, true quarrel about some player stealing their rank with this mod, or trying to swindle a competition. I actually made the only claim of this kind in this forum, and everybody knows a quarrel like this would be settled easily. This is important: real_tabasco is not backing the protests of wronged players, he's fighting his own fight against people who have an idea of the game he dislikes.

He's not going in games Atrik's is in to generously inform players about the game and its mod, he's targeting another player and trying to put him in a bad light because he did something that was never disallowed: creating a mod from others that already existed and were widely accepted already.

If you agree with real_tabasco you may think now that Atrik crossed a line with ProGui, but the line was one real_tabasco traced only after the mod was already out. Of course there are many players who dislike the mod and would rather have it banned, but there is not the consensus for this. There are also good long-time players of this game who like the mod and don't want to stop using it. They don't agree with a ban and have reasons, even if you don't agree with their reasons.

I should remark now that I don't know the whole history of the discussions that came between @Atrik and real_tabasco, very little of it in fact, and it only happened once to me that - it was either him or his brother, can't remember - joined one of my games as a spectator, and warned the others about me and ProGui (btw I was host, wouldn't hide anything). It was just one time, I don't know if he would have insisted if I kept playing. Still, I feel offended that someone that wasn't even part of the match, tried to convince others that I was cheating them. He didn't manage though, they also stayed for a rematch.

Another time, I was trash-talked by a spectator who I can't remember, because of ProGui, and then I've also seen many other fights about ProGui in the lobby, none of them with any consideration for facts, same as most smurf accusations thrown around to raise flame and troll around.

If the community is ever to heal from this, it needs some positivity, it doesn't need real_tabasco's crusade.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

40 minutes ago, alre said:

He's committed in a war against a part of this game's community and, unprovoked, he harasses players who he knows to use ProGui.

How can you say I harass players if you haven't played in a long time??? I have done 0 harassment on anyone. There are many players that do harass the 2 progui users I have seen in multiplayer, with many many insults and unfounded assumptions about progui.

All I have done in the forums and in team chats is present arguments against progui or just show people how to spot when people are using it. If someone comes in and says I have no right to my opinions because I am a noob, I defend myself. its as simple as that.

40 minutes ago, alre said:

He's not going in games Atrik's is in to generously inform players about the game and its mod, he's targeting another player and trying to put him in a bad light because he did something that was never disallowed: creating a mod from others that already existed and were widely accepted already.

Again, if you haven't played in a long time, where is this idea that I am berating progui players in every game? I have played about 40 to 50 games in total this year and spectated about twice as many. Quite a few of those games were with atrik and I think only once did I have an argument with atrik, which was because he said I am a noob and can't have an opinion on the matter. For the most part its been smooth sailing despite our different opinions. Its really only been recently that @Atrik started insulting me as you can see in the forum threads, which surprised me.

lastly, it is against the multiplayer terms of use (item 8) to purposefully gain an unfair advantage in multiplayer. There is nothing wrong with the mod itself, its just morally wrong to use it in competitive play.

Now here is my final stance on the matter: Hosts have every right to refuse a player if they are known to use progui or other cheats like map reveal. Its all an honor system, so if hosts don't really care, its no big deal.

Edited July 6 by real_tabasco_sauce