There are worse game types that people can join without realizing than modded ones

Uber's so worried about what people will think of modded games, but the fact of the matter is that there are far worse types of games that people can make than modded games, most of which will show without needing to adjust filters.

Example: Instant planet collisions between a large planet and a small planet where the player who knows of this can spawn away from the smaller planet and let some unknowing random get crushed by the other planet. Instantly. This certainly isn't fun for randoms.

2nd Example: Games where the host inflates his economy and makes the other guy have almost none. Probably even more upsetting for randoms than the first one.

In both of these the noobs won't be able to see what's going on until they've already spawned and are much worse than what a mod is likely to do.

So, I have to ask

Why is Uber so adamant about not letting people see mods without a filter when there are much worse things that noobs can get themselves into without changing filters that are also harder to spot?

Not entirely true, a mod can do quiiiite bit of stuff, really.

I want mods too, but I wouldn't say that those examples are "much worse" than a mod can pull off. Though at least it's equal.

Frankly I'd Add "Metal Planet King of the Hill" to the list as well.

The catch is that we still want mods to be properly labeled, we just don't want them hidden behind a setting. Once you account for the Label it easy to avoid mods if your not interested unlike the examples given above where it's can be tough to know without experiencing it, at which point it's too late.

Mike

The PA Stats ladder is a joke and has soured me on all mods. I don't even know where to begin with what is wrong with it, and yet no one says anything presumably so as to not offend the modder. And people are asking Uber to add this ridiculous piece of code into their game. Thank god they have the sense to decline and make their own.

I am EXTREMELY wary of mods. I will only use a mod after people have been using it for years and it has become standard.


P.S. Examples of what is wrong with the ladder: it sometimes reports wins as losses, and the modders know this and admit there is nothing they can do about it than go in and manually edit the stats. Or it adds dozens of games to your record out of the blue -- games that you haven't even played. It's a joke and no one says anything about it. I am glad Uber are wary of mods and are protecting us from them.

These bugs happen very rarely. I have not seen those recently. Typically the data is wrong for a game but the winner and loser are correct.

It is far preferable to have a slightly bugged MM to no MM whatsoever.

What about the fact that the ladder reports that me and all my clan mates have played dozens of games which we have not played? The ladder reports that I have played 56 2v2 games since the reset, while it would be a stretch to say that I have played 15. What the hell is up with that?

So it sounds like there's a bug. Instead of getting angry at people that have spent hundreds of hours programming a free toy for you, why not help them out? Either write some code or at least give a better description of where the issue is happening. You keep calling it a bug in the PA Stats ladder, but I don't think you really know what that is. PA Stats is basically just pastats.com. The ladder that you are probably talking about only loads data from PA Stats and tries to make sense of it. Have you worked out which one is actually causing your problem?

Even if you do find that there is an error, you have no right to act like this about it. These people (there are several) have put a lot of time into making this and their work has become the foundation for an entire community. If you have a problem with some part of it, either politely point it out or make something better yourself. It isn't ok to just complain about PA Stats/PA Stats ladder and their creators.

You might also benefit from learning the basic technology behind PA Stats and the inherent limitations that come with using a client-side mod to do what they have done. The issues with PA Stats and the ladder are not trivial to solve and in some cases can't be fixed perfectly without more being done on Uber's side.

Also I'd like to state that for me, the ladder is working perfectly... So I'm not sure what is causing the problem icy...?

ERROR ERROR, DOES NOT COMPUTE, ERROR

I only say it's worse, because if a filter didn't filter mods by default but mods were labeled in orange like they currently do, then its much clearer marked, yet there is no label you can check to watch out for "is this game rigged via vanilla mechanics?".

That being said, I would advocate mods being listed by default since they are well labeled anyway, and for things like planet collision and economy slider to be in the notes for lobbies somewhere.

See that's what I am talking about. People trash Uber for the tiniest mistake or bug, but OH NOES GOD FORBID ANYONE SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT MODDERS regardless of the fact that official game developers have been responsible for 99.999999999% of the fun I've ever had with games while modders have been responsible for 0.000000001 or whatever. I am just pointing at the elephant in the room, and that elephant is called "lack of seriousness and professionalism on the modders' part" -- which is why they are not professionals.

Typical modder attitude. Because coding is fun for you, it has to be fun for everyone else too. But it doesn't work that way. Coding a game is the exact opposite to playing a game, and I didn't get into games in order to make them any more than I got into movies in order to direct them. I am just pointing out that the ladder is a joke and everyone is pretending that it isn't. And I did this in order to explain my generally negative view of modding and modders (and I have a similar view of open source software, by the way: most of my experiences with open source software have been negative).

I mean, the very logic in the OP is flawed. "Because some official game options are worse than mods, we should make mods appear officially sanctioned too", instead of "some official game options are even worse than mods, so let's fix the officially available game options".

Hate me all you want guys, but what I am saying is obvious to everyone who's not fully immersed into the mod culture. Every single one of my now 20+ clan members hates the PA Stats ladder, they just don't give enough of a crap to come here and complain about it (and I only bothered to do so because the opportunity presented itself in this thread). As with everything else, we are patiently waiting for Uber to step in and fix things when they find the time.

It's situational.

It's not all mods are worse or better.

Some things people can do to the lobby are worse than some mods, and some mods are worse than lobby settings.

This could EASILY be mitigated by having official mod manager and officially hosted mods. Have a Verified Mods badge or something to show server mods that are authentic and balanced.

Pro tip: If you find a bug, don't be an *** about it. Report it calmy like normal people do instead of ranting and posting pseudo-essays that add absolutely nothing to the troubleshooting.

I don't think we can have "Verified" balance mods when the entire idea behind some mods is that the official balance is unbalanced. The most I think we could have is a sort of upvoting/downvoting system.

The only thing that a "verified" mod would mean is that it's not some trick mod that'll give one player an advantage somehow.


It's essentialy a "this player isn't using this mod to cheat."

Because people could, somehow, create a mod that gives them an advantage and name it "Realm Community Balance Mod" to trick people into playing their game. How would they get an advantage? Who knows, but trolls and cheaters always find a way.

Okay fair enough. Sounds like a considerable amount of work for Uber, though... unless they offload it to trusted community members as with e.g. the forum moderation.

+1 for more official Mod support. Maybe a Mod rating would help to spot bad mods. People who are skeptical could just download the mods with very high ratings if we had a Mod Manager ingame.



Also PAStats is for free, not like the game itself. Considering that PAStats has to be checked with every update from Uber, these guys do a great job. But as long as it is only icycalm and his clan who have a problem with PAStats, no one has to worry. Just google him.

That's why you get community members to moderate and such.

In the theory if that might happen I might become one such person. I am also the creator of PA Stats that you so hate ( but still use or used a lot it seems).
Sorry, you can't get away from my horrible unprofessional behavior that offers you software for free.

I don't know anything at all about bugs that would cause games to pop out of nowhere.
I have also not seen any report at all like this. If you tell me details I'll look into it.
About wins and losses that were mixed up: I think there is a bug for 2vs2 games or the like, or maybe in combination with one team has shared resources and the other has not. I've not seen enough samples to actually tell what is wrong and I never really intended to capture win/loss for 2vs2 at all. It just sorta happened as a byproduct.
Simply put I do not care much about 2vs2 and thus never fixed the bugs. I never wanted to handle 2vs2 in the first place. If you want a properly working 2vs2 ladder I recommend you write it yourself.
If you notice bugs in the 1vs1 system however I'll try to fix them asap, cause that was what I do care about

If you behave like that nothing will have even a chance to improve at all. I am quite willing to fix bugs, but I can't fix bugs nobody reports to me.
Anyway I don't hate you for not liking PA Stats. It's a free mod you can use or not. I don't really care anymore about a few haters

EDIT:

My own income comes from professional software development btw. But you can't expect me to put 8h a day into a mod nobody pays me for.

The ladder is actually not part of PA Stats directly, I don't know where that 56 is displayed. That may a be a bug you have to report to @Illmaren to get fixed.
PA Stats itself, the project I work on, lists your games directly here: http://pastats.com/player?player=63675&listpage=1
If I did not misscount you played 45 games since the ladder reset. Not all of them were 2vs2 though, maybe the ladder page made mistakes in determining what is a 2vs2 game.

Partly i must say "Thank You" without your Posts @icycalm i would have never found the bug that appears on my site.

Nexttime use please my E-Mail Address support@pastats.tk like all other people...

Edit;/ Ah forget to say it. You got 12, 2on2 Games
Before you ask...just because you got now only 12 Games means nothing to your Rating...the Rating was calculated correctly...