Attitudes. And also x4 Stuff.

[Mark392]

BAHA! MY BAD! Uhhhhhhh... Well, if Melvin is the elephant in the room, you're definitely the howler monkey! my brother, I look forward to our upcoming Forte's! No matter what, you always seek me out in my home when I have a new one, well played my brother! (I don't have anything jovially devilish to say for you since you never make fun of me about Wyndham like "RonTheTurtleTurdMuffin") IT IS ON!

[melvin]

I'm on you mark and your atypical iowan sneakiness.

[Entropy]

Y'all should just be more like me. Play Jeds on his home level and make him change home levels. Mega Nysa? Not anymore. Some other level? Nope. Wrath x4? "You make me not want this as my home level anymore." /trololol

[melvin]

DO NOT FOLLOW HIS INSTRUCTIONS, ONE ENTROPY IS ENOUGH!

[LotharBot]

I think people coming from a background of IDL, or from other game communities, might be confused by how we handle conflict. Other communities often use a philosophy of "punitive justice" -- when someone does something wrong, you punish them, with the hope that they'll stop doing the wrong thing because they don't like being punished. If that's what you're expecting, you might be confused when you see a mean match comment and don't see us handing out punishment, leading to questions like "how many warnings have you given Jediluke?"

Here on DCL, our philosophy is "restorative justice" -- when someone does something wrong, you encourage them to fix the problem and you give them the opportunity and the resources to do it. 99% of the time, that approach works. Someone complains that another person made an inappropriate comment, or that they weren't giving reasonable effort in a match, or whatever, and we have them work it out among themselves and only get involved if they either can't come to agreement or they need something specific from us (like setting a match to "practice", allowing them to replay it and submit a new, more legit score, or removing a comment they decided was in poor taste). We only resort to punishment in cases where the problem is severe (even then, most of our suspensions have been self-imposed -- bahamut, Drakona, and Jediluke all decided their own fates), or when people refuse to try to fix the problem after they've been told that it's a problem.

It's no secret that Jediluke has had a lot of conflicts with a lot of people. It's also obvious to anyone paying attention that he's improved both in terms of how frequently he starts problems, and in terms of how he resolves them. Case in point, 2 days after this kerfuffle started, he and SoulJah played another pair of games and were very respectful in their comments. I don't know what they said to each other privately, but as far as I can tell it's been dealt with, so I have no reason to hand out warnings or try to follow up in any way.

Nobody has a "permanent record" here. There is no three strikes rule. No, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around provoking fights and then give a token effort to fix it. But it means that if you actually are solving your own problems, we'll give you an awful lot of leeway to do so. We're not going to keep making something a problem; once it's no longer a problem, it's forgotten and we can go back to playing Descent.

[bahamut]

Hear, hear!! Well said

[Drakona]

Regarding x4 and luck, I think it's more complex than it looks. I remember long ago reading a piece of humor about a new pilot joining an anarchy game with Kiln in it, that ran something like this -- "I came into the room and saw a fight going on, and as I got set up to join it, I got clipped by a stray fusion shot! Ah well, it happens. Respawned, found the room again, got clipped by another stray fusion shot. Man. I'm having a bad day. I tried another angle this time, came in from a different side and . . . AGAIN? How lucky can a guy GET???"

Which I think rather sums up my attitude toward luck and x4.

A lot of the shots you take in an x4 game are gambles, sure. They aren't blind gambles, though. They're poker gambles based on information and timing and such. Shots where the odds are good. And when you get right down to it -- pretty much every shot you take in any game is like that. I mean, when you're in a dogfight, do you *really* know which of your shots is going to hit? Sometimes? Yeah, sometimes I know my smart missiles are going to hit too. But most of the time, the shots are gambles. Not blind ones, they're based on guesses and past performance and tendencies and such -- but they ARE gambles. Some aren't even that -- they're intended to herd pilots into other shots or cover escapes. The missile game is no different.

In fact, I think a direct smart hit is a harder shot to make than a direct fusion hit. The projectile is much smaller. In fact, it's difficult enough that I generally don't go for direct hits. Don't get me wrong -- I'll place my shots to maximize the possibility of a direct hit -- but what the shots are FOR is information, for moving my opponent around, for mutual support with the other missiles and my primary fire.

The fact that the blobs home doesn't make them easy to hit with either -- just possible to use around corners. A skilled pilot won't get hit by the blobs, not trivially, not even in extremely close quarters. The blobs come out really slow, so you don't have to miss by much for a shot to be useless. They *do* give you a bit of hang time and area denial, which is unique! But not easy to use. It won't be effective against someone unless a lot of things go wrong. And I say the process of making those things go wrong is called playing the game.

I don't find the x4 game to be heavily tilted in favor of missile skills over primaries. Great kills involve the skillful use of both, and a lot of it. The most extreme case I know, wrath x4, I'd say is about 60% missile skills. I know because if you took the primaries out, it would SERIOUSLY SUCK by comparison to what it is now. Because even with abundant missiles, if I can't get to the guns, I feel seriously gimped. Compare that to shakers where if you took the guns out, you would hardly even notice.

In fact, I think fights where both pilots come in fully loaded, in an environment that's designed for interesting use of missiles . . . I think those fights are interesting and full featured in a unique way. They resolve super fast if someone makes a mistake, but if no one does, it's a long struggle as the available missiles diminish and you work with your guns and where you were able to force someone to go when you had missiles and what you held in reserve. Eventually someone gains the upper hand and the other escapes. It can be epic.

Don't talk to me about how the game was meant to be played. Pyros carry 5 smarts and 10 homers! And when they fight with all of them, you get an intense and interesting and evolving struggle where serious skills with all weapons matter!

No, that's tongue in cheek. I do think that such reasoning is flawed. They carry 5 megas too. But I will say for sure that what we know about what makes for a good level and a good loadout and a good game is all stuff WE discovered and/or made up in the several years after the game was published. Games to 20 by 2 are something WE did. Minerva and Nysa and Vamped and Logic . . . we did. I think it's a process that hasn't stopped, and figuring out how to play this game best is something we are still doing. I am absolutely dead serious when I say that the center of the game is socially defined. The respect of your peers is the only thing that matters.

The high missile game doesn't have a lot of respect right now. I think that's because it's poorly understood, but maybe I say that too much. Maybe it is people intelligently rejecting it. I know some pilots who definitely do that. Others intelligently accept it. What the community thinks of it will change over time. It's a recent invention -- The game where Jeds and I discovered it was less than now. For a long time, people watched us and were like, "Are you guys serious? You're not serious. You're kidding us with this, right?" Once it became clear we weren't kidding, a lot of folks checked it out, out of curiosity. Some liked it. Most didn't. Meh. It is what it is.

I do think it isn't well understood, though. It isn't just lots of missiles in any old level. It's very specific. Put a lot of missiles in Take2, and you won't get it. Put a lot of missiles in Neptune, and you don't get it. Athena doesn't have it, no matter how many missiles you put there. It's . . . hard to describe, but very mental, very fast paced, very centered on dodging and information processing and reacting correctly and quickly to overwhelming assaults. I used to call it "smart ratting" but that's Take2. I call it "Missile boxing" these days, as in "lots of missiles in a tiny box", but of course, it isn't present in Killbox, so . . . I dunno. x4 gives the impression that it's lots of missiles in any level, which definitely isn't true.

I do think the game gets an unfair stigma owing to how missiles behaved under D1x. When they were frame dependent, when they didn't even perform the same every time they came in -- I think you could make a reasonable case that they made the game worse. With those things fixed, I really do think they're super fun to dance with. The classic levels with 1-2 of each missile -- I think that was appropriate back in the day, but is excessively light nowadays. 5-10 of each seems more reasonable to me in the current meta.

I do think the luck factor isn't as high as it might appear, and while there are subgames where it's lower, there's a unique skill factor that counterbalances that. I think a lot of what an observer sees as luck is more like, I was in a position to take a lot more good shots than you were, and eventually one paid off. When Jeds or I get a kill that's actually luck, we'll generally call it, and it's once or twice a game at most. Which IMO isn't really more than in other genres.

There are genres where the luck factor is lower of course, but that isn't the only thing to think about. One or two kills per game in x4 can be blind luck, so even a totally new pilot playing me there might get a kill or two on me. Accidents happen, you know? Not every game, not even most games, but they happen. By contrast, if I play a totally new pilot in Blubird, they're going to get 0. In a game to as many kills as you like. Zero luck factor is present. In fact, the longer we play, the more secure my position is.

However, if I'm playing a top bronze pilot, it flips. In Ascend x4, they're probably not going to do better than 5 kills, even if they're lucky. But in blubird, some of them will reliably get 8 or 9! What's up with that? Is blubird the luckier game?

No, it's less lucky. But it's also easier to be good at.

Blubird is a more limited game, and once you get really skilled at dogfighting, there is only "so much" better than you I can get. Great piloting is all about making better decisions faster -- in a dogfight or in x4. But there's only so much pressure I can apply in a dogfight. If you're fast, if you're smart about distances, I can only throw so much at you. That's why long dogfights between skilled pilots in largish spaces turn into endurance contests, waiting for someone to make a mistake. The space limits how much pressure you can bring! A tiny dogfighting level has a higher pressure ceiling, but a game where I can bring tons of missiles to bear in a tiny space has an even higher ceiling. Ascend x4 lets me make better use of my brutal ability to apply and react to pressure -- a harder skill to acquire IMO, and a clearer mark of a top pilot.

Which brings me to what I really love about the game. Wrath x4 is the pinnacle of the x4 genre, even if it isn't where I'm best, and it represents intense pace pressure. The most intense I know. Playing on an off day will cost you 10 kills, because you have to be SHARP. You have to stay sharp in the face of brutal hits and unavoidable runs. You can fall behind very fast, and the experience of surviving a very skilled assault, dodging all the missiles, not putting yourself somewhere where you'll die in the followup, not running into the trap smart through an exit, maintaining the presence of mind to dodge the lasers too, AND returning enough fire to get the assault to stop before you drown in it -- this is awesome. It's an experience unparalleled in all of gaming IMO, and why I love it so much. An incredible full mind workout, and the fact that it's high adrenaline and super fun sure doesn't hurt.

I love that. Maximum speed, maximum heat, you can put more pressure on each other than in any other subgame. And the moves you do to survive! AWESOMENESS!

My only quarrel with the style is that a necessary consequence of this is there's no time to think. No time to learn. It's execute and go go go from the start to the finish, which makes it a less cerebral game than straight logic. We are measuring only your speed, not your endurance as well. We are measuring "flash of insight" creativity, not "thoughtfully attacking a problem" creativity. And the fact that you're always moving means you don't get *any* of that intense struggle over position and distance that you do in Forte, which I also love. There's no space control because all of space is always blowing up. Surviving on the move like that is awesome, but space control is a thing too, and it's absent. In Wrath x4, there are times when I think to change strategy or pace, but there isn't a lot of lurking and waiting out and thinking things through. There isn't a lot of, "Well, he's in this strong spot and isn't leaving it, what can I creatively do to weaken his position?" And while there *is* a lot of deception, you have to react to it with snap decisions -- which is simultaneously awesome and limiting in a speed chess sort of way. There isn't a lot of gathering your wits and rallying your will. It needs to be gathered and rallied from the start, and all you do throughout the game is tax it.

Is it incomplete? Yeah, in the sense that there are skills I don't use. The flip side is that there are skills I *don't* get to see in other contexts. I will never pressure someone to play x4, because I think it takes a few games to learn, not everyone eventually likes it, and trying to learn under fire is going to give an unfairly skewed result. And plus, given the marginal popularity, it's not something you really have to know. But the flip side of that is that I have extra respect for pilots who are able to compete there, even if they don't make it a main game or anything. It's a cool thing to be able to do, and I take it seriously.

I do think I get the best complete sense of who someone is as a pilot in Logic. That's where my most serious contests take place, where I can try a LOT of different things to break someone down, not *just* being faster and more used to a heavy missile assault. I think there are more styles and paces and such viable in Logic than anywhere else, so there's that. But I see even that as an evolution of the game. Pilots returning with a 1999 mindset definitely see Logic as . . . missile boxey.

[Drakona]

With respect to insults and attitudes and such --

There are sort of two standards in play. There's a minimum standard -- don't be a problem -- and a maximum standard -- be excellent and make the community a better place.

Don't be a problem means don't actually hurt people. Don't harass them, don't make them angry, don't suck the fun out of, don't make them want to leave. If someone has buttons, don't press them. Don't distract us from playing by stirring up drama. We want minimum drama.

It's when someone falls below this standard that we step in, and while it's pretty subjective, usually the approach of -- "Hey, you caused a problem with this comment, go resolve it" -- usually that works just fine. We're very much into fix it and forget it. And I mean, when you've got a lot of egos in tight quarters under intense pressure, there are gonna be problems. So nobody really escapes having to deal with this. Even me. Which is why the forget it part is important.

Does Jeds fall afoul of that? Yeah. Probably more than anyone else, though not nearly as much as he used to. But the thing is, he's really good about fixing it, and with the exception of this Moh thing . . . I don't know any pilots who have a serious problem with him. Could be people just aren't telling me, but I can't do much in that case. If you seriously think he's a problem, and it's one you can't resolve just by telling him you think what he's doing isn't cool . . . you need to tell one of the other admins. There are 3 of us. Precisely so that two can override and correct the third.

Is Jeds an example of the standard of excellence? I'd actually say that when it comes to courage in facing challenges and a sense of fair play, he is, and I have a lot of respect for that. With how he talks before, during, and after games? Nooooooooooooooooo.... and he'd be the first to tell you that. He's just a player, guys.

The thing is, I'm really hesitant to put pressure on people as an admin to evolve toward excellence. As a player, yeah, but I feel that as an admin, the most I can reasonably do is not permit them to be problems. Excellence is defined by the community, and it doesn't always look the way I expect it to. I would not have originally said Morfod's antics were excellent, but I sure think they are now. And I think Jeds' antics are excellent, too -- those of us who play him regularly often insist on having the mic on, precisely because the banter is hilarious and motivating and fun and delicious. Not everyone thinks that, but I do not want to crush something awesome. Hence why I am very, very slow to act unless something is clearly and obviously a problem.

I did, once upon a time, have a list of guidelines that I thought were the direction of excellence in commentary. "Never diminish victory," "Vocally respect awesomeness," and "Don't be silent if something is a problem" were on the list. Recent events make me think, "Never criticize style" should go on it. It's certainly on it for me personally, now. But it's a list I never published. Sometimes I think I should, but I am hesitant to.

See, I am with Mark392 on the uber-clean end of competitors. And while it's easy to say that's better, I know what it is like to not *really* be making trouble, but to have someone with stricter standards than you be making the rules . . . it sucks. I think the Jedilukes and Melvins and Merls and Morfods of the world make it an awesomer place, and I seriously do not want to put any unnecessary pressure on them to change. If they're actually and seriously making people have less fun, I will, but . . . if it's risen to that level recently, I haven't been aware.

[Drakona]

With respect to Moh -- it's possible we overreacted, though I don't think we did. We did our best to have the least involved person make the decision, and we're public about what goes down and why. Nothing we do is permanent or beyond criticism.

The thing with Moh is that . . . last time we had this conversation he made it pretty clear he didn't care what we thought about his behavior. And I mean, saying Jeds is over the line too is a reasonable discussion to have, but fundamentally a separate issue. If we say you are, you need to try to reign it in. When you say you don't care, and keep doing it. . . that's when I'm going to stop you.

Moh . . . you're not banned. You're not even banned from the forum. We like you. We want you here. Well -- I do anyway. We don't even want to leave the match comment ban in place forever and cause hard feelings that way. As a general rule, if you find yourself on the wrong side of ladder enforcement, convincing us you'll handle the problem will generally get the enforcement dropped. We just want there to not be problems. Enforcement inherently generates drama, so we'd always prefer to fix, forget and move on.

[Drakona]

Also, I clearly overreacted to SJ's initial comment. I'm glad we are having this conversation, but I'm also sorry for making a mess. I will try to avoid doing that in the future.