2011-11-23 18:50
The latest release (R9) of the BF3 PC game server introduced, among other things, an unranked mode.
At the same time DICE locked down some settings for servers running in ranked mode.
The most prominent ones were:
- PunkBuster is forced active on a ranked server
- Game password is forced off on a ranked server
- Pre-Round player count is forced 4 or higher on a ranked server (default is 8, but can be lowered to 4)
- idle-kick is forced on on a ranked server
Most servers out there run in ranked mode, and there has been a fair bit of negative sentiment regarding the ranked server lock-down.
It seems to be centered around these three things:
- 4 players on a server needed to get out of pre-round
- When in pre-round, players cannot move
- Idle timeout will kick anyone who doesn't touch the mouse/keyboard within 5 minutes
These three in combination are perceived as too restrictive by people. Particularly smaller communities complain that it is much more difficult to populate their servers than it used to be.
Most communities that do not have a large number of members get a good game started on their server by "seeding"; that is, having players hang out on the server - sometimes being idle/away - with the intent of attracting other players. This works because other players are more likely to join a server with players on it than an empty server. Before R9, the server could be set to start the round with just 1 player, so the seeding players could move around on the server and play the game. With R9, the seeders can no longer move. A single person could also seed a server previously. With R9 it is ineffective; other players will learn to avoid servers with <4 players on them as they will also have to wait in pre-round.
Adding the the 5-minute idle kick means that having less than four people seed is not effective, as they will get kicked out of pre-round with regular intervals.
Seeding is positive from a community perspective. More people playing on the community's server equals a happy community. Seeding with idle players is however negative from a pubbing player's perspective. It means that there are servers with players on them, some of which are idle for a long time. To put it bluntly, players that are seeding while idle are false advertising for the server. Seeding is still done because it is one of the few means which communities have to attract players to their servers. There are more people who want to run BF3 servers than is justified by the player base. Therefore, communities use any methods at their disposal to affect other players' to choose to play on their servers.
DICE is not particularly fond of seeding-when-idling as a method of attracting players to servers. This is the main reason why the idle-kick was forced on.
DICE is not particularly fond of stats padding either. This is the main reason why the game password is forced off, and the pre-round requires 4 players.
However, the combination of all the restrictions at once is too restrictive. We will not lift the pre-round min player count restriction, but we will allow ranked servers to disable idle-kick in Server R10. There is certainly more that can be done to improve the game in this area, but I prefer not to make any promises which I cannot personally hold.
So there. I mentioned Server R10. It will be a small update. We'll post about it here once it is available.
At the same time DICE locked down some settings for servers running in ranked mode.
The most prominent ones were:
- PunkBuster is forced active on a ranked server
- Game password is forced off on a ranked server
- Pre-Round player count is forced 4 or higher on a ranked server (default is 8, but can be lowered to 4)
- idle-kick is forced on on a ranked server
Most servers out there run in ranked mode, and there has been a fair bit of negative sentiment regarding the ranked server lock-down.
It seems to be centered around these three things:
- 4 players on a server needed to get out of pre-round
- When in pre-round, players cannot move
- Idle timeout will kick anyone who doesn't touch the mouse/keyboard within 5 minutes
These three in combination are perceived as too restrictive by people. Particularly smaller communities complain that it is much more difficult to populate their servers than it used to be.
Most communities that do not have a large number of members get a good game started on their server by "seeding"; that is, having players hang out on the server - sometimes being idle/away - with the intent of attracting other players. This works because other players are more likely to join a server with players on it than an empty server. Before R9, the server could be set to start the round with just 1 player, so the seeding players could move around on the server and play the game. With R9, the seeders can no longer move. A single person could also seed a server previously. With R9 it is ineffective; other players will learn to avoid servers with <4 players on them as they will also have to wait in pre-round.
Adding the the 5-minute idle kick means that having less than four people seed is not effective, as they will get kicked out of pre-round with regular intervals.
Seeding is positive from a community perspective. More people playing on the community's server equals a happy community. Seeding with idle players is however negative from a pubbing player's perspective. It means that there are servers with players on them, some of which are idle for a long time. To put it bluntly, players that are seeding while idle are false advertising for the server. Seeding is still done because it is one of the few means which communities have to attract players to their servers. There are more people who want to run BF3 servers than is justified by the player base. Therefore, communities use any methods at their disposal to affect other players' to choose to play on their servers.
DICE is not particularly fond of seeding-when-idling as a method of attracting players to servers. This is the main reason why the idle-kick was forced on.
DICE is not particularly fond of stats padding either. This is the main reason why the game password is forced off, and the pre-round requires 4 players.
However, the combination of all the restrictions at once is too restrictive. We will not lift the pre-round min player count restriction, but we will allow ranked servers to disable idle-kick in Server R10. There is certainly more that can be done to improve the game in this area, but I prefer not to make any promises which I cannot personally hold.
So there. I mentioned Server R10. It will be a small update. We'll post about it here once it is available.
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