Why credit sharing is bad for gameplay

[Kaleo]

Hey you share-off-guys: If you don't understand it, if you don't like it, then just don't do it! But don't get on my nerves complaining about it...

Then stop getting on my neves with your complaining...

Here... Have a complimentary cup of STFU.

[Lakitu7]

The people who complain about Share ruining the game are the same people who have put the most time into creating and improving it in the first place. The argument that "if you don't like it, don't play there and it doesn't affect you" is not really valid, when people abuse the open source nature of the game to ruin the work that has been done by those who have contributed positive things. Yes, the complaining about what other people do and how other people play does not have a logical basis, but it is based on an emotional connection that those of us who have it are very justified in having. That argument also has a rather large flaw that you can't play on no-share servers if there are no no-share servers left. As we can see, the number of them is rather small, and more than half are managed by the same group of individuals.

[benmachine]

Plague:
First of all, I do have a right to complain, however you all have a right to ignore me

You cite the opinions of 'many of the top-tier players'... I'm not at all worried about the top-tier players. They can essentially ignore share as they generally don't need credits and can choose not to give any either. That's hardly the point. It's newbies that are hit hardest by the effects of credit sharing.

Also, lol at the notion of camping/complacency 'numbers'. Of course I can't statistically back up my argument, I have no idea how much less why you'd even begin gathering data for such an endeavour.

I'm also curious how you concluded that share is a 'minor game element'. Simple, sure, but the credit system is one of the most basic game mechanics in Tremulous and anything that changes the rewards and incentives for players could have a dramatic effect on the gameplay.

And, I'm not demanding that servers with share on turn it off. Simply reminding people that the option is there and that they should think about how it affects their game, and our game. Too many, I suspect, just accept share as part of Tremulous, when it isn't.

ThePyro: so your teammates have to work for their food. They become better players as a result and when it comes to rush time you're more likely to be able to rely on them to cover your arse when you're spending your frags on a kamikaze run. Also, your suggested idea almost discards any motivation for you to engage the enemy at all.

zybork: Your first bullet point is plain wrong, at least in the latter half. Teamwork = more kills = more credits. Share allows you to gain funds on the basis of nothing at all. Social skills = teamwork, too.
Your second is not a flaw. Aside from the fact that there are very few significant random elements in Tremulous, sometimes you are unlucky, and this allows for the kind of upsets and changes in fortune that make games interesting. Furthermore, even the most powerful classes in Tremulous will not leave you bankrupt after one unlucky run. You'll need to repeatedly fail to leave yourself penniless, and even then if you have any decent skill you'll be able to find some poor sucker to feed off.
The third is an attack on share, not a defence of it.

It's totally beyond me how you conclude that share combats killwhoring. It makes no logical sense whatsoever.
And why are you not afraid of losing your credits when share is on? Because they're not yours? If you beg in teamchat every time your wallet runs dry, you're more a burden than a benefit to your team. Unless you're making a net profit, in which case you do not need share to give you your confidence.

edit: I realise I'm reaching the tl;dr threshold. Sorry about that.

[_Equilibrium_]

When I still played on those share-off servers, I used to camp a lot - because I was afraif of losing my credits. So I ended camping, hoping for lucky kills. When I got killed, I grunted, oh no! Not again! Now I have to start all over again - camping for 10 minutes, hoping for dretch kills... Senseless!

Get up off your ass and go find the dretches yourself. Stop beign afraid of losing credits. You can always EARN more.

And just because share is on, doesn't mean people will have better teamwork. They will either follow/attack, or they wont. I myself never ask for creds/evos when I enter share servers even though it would probably help the team for me to be fully geared/evolved at the beginning. This is because I know I can earn creds/evos myself, especially if I don't camp. Also, people begging for creds/evos is annoying as hell, and I don't want to become just another annoyance.

[Lakitu7]

Yeah I can't remember the last time I joined a game late and didn't have enough credits for resonably equipment in less than a couple minutes. S1 classes are *easy* even in S3. Encouraging people to learn to use them effectively is the most important thing you can do.

As the guy in first place, it takes more skill to stay alive and dance around an enemy while you let your teammate get a kill than to chomp him and run away. I enjoy the challenge, when the game situation is right that I think the other guy CAN get the kill/points and WILL before someone shoots him.

[Eeeew Spiders]

I play on both share on and off servers....and to tell the truth..i don't see much of a difference.
You have evo/credit beggars on all of them, and those beggars should not determine if share is good or bad.

You have to agree that share does add to the social aspect of the game. It's nice to share, especially to the right ones, and it's nice to receive. So in this sense it's a positive element.
To confuse social aspects with teamplay however is wrong, like some of the share-on friends do.

Since you the OP address sharing in conjunction with not so good players (good players do well regardless of share on or off), share may help to lessen the feed just by a little bit, in that you give the beginner and feeding dretch or rifler something to turn himself into something bigger (like a mara, goon or tyrant) or less vulnerable (helmet + armour), which could give you a little bit more time before the opposing team turns s3.
I often give a semi-newbie the evo for a tyrant when the opposing team has not turned s3 yet, it makes us both happy.
As the beginner takes a second or minute longer to die, he will also have more time to learn and play with his/her current configuration, instead of dieing always in one-pounce or one-shot encounters.

But all in all i don't think that share makes all the difference in teamplay, feeding, camping, or match result. So why not have servers with different settings in this regards as we have now?
If all you want to say however that maybe more servers should try share-off, as there hardly are any share-off server, then maybe yes..the server fields should be balanced a bit better in that regards.

Btw...i think satgu has or had donate enabled, so it's not completely free of share.

For scrims and such..the leagues and teams should decide..and i thought the verdict on that already was share off.

[yetshi]

• Sharing off encourages feeding, because even a rifleman or a dretch will go out for kill, just to get revenues no matter the cost, therefore feeding the opponent team.
• Sharing off makes you camp. Nobody with common sense will go out as a rifleman when tyrants are waiting in front of your base. So you are just there, waiting for a foe to near so that you can shoot him.

so it will make you camp and feed at the same time?

Share = bad for the game

[blood2.0]

Generally i think that share is bad but in some cases its annoying that it doesn't exist. I hate when i have 2000 creds or 9 evolves and can't share or donate.  Maybe if you make over the limit of credits/evolves they should be automatically  be donated.  Another thing is when you are about to rush and you need 3 more credits to buy a chainsuit but your team can't give it to you. The most annoying thing about no share is that when you quit mid game you can't give your credits to your team.  these three reasons are why i play on share enabled servers.

[player1]

_Equilibrium_ and techhead nailed it. Anyone who gets in a game with _Equi_, and gets on his team, follow him! Watch his back, give him room to dance, try to keep up, if you can. He'll be killing the enemy, and raping their base. Whether anyone else on the team is capable or not. Nice cheap weapon, like a shotgun, killing goons, doing the dance, sweeping up the profits. That's how you play Tremulous. Not sitting in base whining for creds.

[rant]And, since my pal techhead brought it up: One Major Rant. Never, ever, ask for evos. It is bad form. I personally cannot stand people clamoring for /share and /donate and used to kick people regularly for even suggesting that I did not know what settings I wanted on my own server. "Unnamed player has been kicked. Duration: Permanent. STFU, whiny n00b!" Also, two other things that really twist my shorts are asking for more than one evo (what the hell is wrong with you? take what you're given with good grace or shut up and go kill something you lazy couch-potato) and joining a server and immediately demanding multiple evos (I've been here the whole time earning my hard-earned creds and you come in and DEMAND MULTIPLE EVOS? Go play Counter-Strike, GTFO, u lame-ass non-knowing n00b.[/rant]

If people want to play with /share and /donate on, that's up to the ops, the admins, and their constituency to decide. It is definitely raising a generation of whiny campers, make no mistake about that. I say that anecdotally, and can provide no evidence, but a quick scan through some chat logs would probably provide some representative quotes.

@_Equi_:



@zybork:


 
 

[Metsjeesus]

Metsjeesus: your logic seems incredibly specific. What about stages 1 and 2? What about lucis, shotguns, bigger teams, other tactics? You can't pretend that every skirmish ends the same way.

Point is, dretch can make 1-2 bites to human and die and if bigger alien kills that human, dretch gets evo anyway.  Repeat it 3-5 times and you got 2 big aliens there. Ok, humans get some money, problem is, they often die at same place, difference is they got some arm and bigger gun in hand.

I got to admit, if human teams(4-6 guys), aliens have like no chance - no matter if sharing is on or off. If 3 humans are teaming(no matter what stage), on share on servers they mostly create more money as they use, on share off servers they tend to loose money, because teamleader cant make any significant damage before he is dead and it ends with lack of firepower(because teamleader has no money to get a bigger gun).

Difference is not big, but sometimes enough. Giving to every teammate 30 $ wont change much, giving 300 to a specific guy will change more.  Its like a candy for teammates who act good and they will probably listen you or your teamleader.  /donate is like button what you use time to time, but only positive effect is, if you need 10$ to get a item from arm, its faster to wait a little then go and kill some aliens.

[[Kcorp]Noobius]

the good thing with sharing is when you keep rushing the enemy base, take out lots of structures while you A) get killed by camping enemies, B) lose all your creds in a very short period of time while the morons camp for no good reason, you can ask for more from the campers to keep pressure on the other team. i have to agree with benmachine tho', for the most part it's just campers asking for 9 evos or 1000 creds and then feeding the other team, maybe even throwing in a reac decon just for good measure (see, i've linked sharing with deconners ).

i think it can be argued in the same way that unlagged is killing gameplay so blaming most of the current problems on share or donate isn't a good thing.

all that being said i still enjoy the game, especially when some of the older players join and we have a good laugh (unlagged and/or share enabled or not ^^ ).

[Lava Croft]

Share and Donate kill Tremulous simply because it takes away any motivation to go out and make money/evo's yourself.

[_Equilibrium_]

Generally i think that share is bad but in some cases its annoying that it doesn't exist. I hate when i have 2000 creds or 9 evolves and can't share or donate.

That means it is time to either organize a rush, or go suicide luci/nade and take out some alien structures. I enjoy the latter, because a decent amount of the time you catch the aliens off guard and are able to destroy all the eggs while the rants and adv goons are camping outside you base. It's especially fun if you are a good luci jumper. As alien going rant to kill a couple turrets as a suicide is a noble cause, especially near SD.

[Blade]

Share and Donate kill Tremulous simply because it takes away any motivation to go out and make money/evo's yourself.

I'm afraid this might only be in your head. In these 10v10 public games, it's not possible to have a big enough single killwhore on the team to supply everybody with credits. At most, it would allow me to get a goon very quickly (possibly by pooling evos) and repay a couple other people so they can have goons too. The fact is, when people killwhore, they don't throw away their credits on the first white name person who asks. Consequently, that person, whether a whining retard or just somebody who doesn't have quite the best aim, gets to earn his credits the old fashioned way (the skilled player won't ask without reason to begin with).

I'd also say some of you might be confusing "more camping" with "less feeding." At a certain level, Trem becomes an extremely delicate and extremely fast game. If we are S1vS1 and I'm the only goon (and it's a relatively small game), I'm going to be bitching at my teammates not to be freekills (remember, your dying helps the enemy) while I get them some starting evos. There's no camping yet, the dretches are just holding back not making life harder for the whole alien team by equipping humans. Once we all get to be sizable aliens, the humans ideally have very little base and very little credits. They are going to be the ones camping like hell while we go for a quick victory. And if by chance one of the aliens dies during the base assault enough times to lose all their credits, another alien can resupply them.

Not to mention the fact that friendly players will always share pocket change. A great example that always happens is early in the game on the human team. I might take a dretch down to 15 while some other guy finishes off the dretch. This gives the dretch a basi, but neither human has enough for a shotgun and one human doesn't have enough for light armor. This almost always evokes teamwork. The donor will wait just outside the base screaming COME ON and waving his hands wildly while the recipient stands at the armory buying his crap. Then the two will go off and fight together.

Share is off. Humans with plenty of credits are tearing apart the alien team except for this damn goon who is laughing at them. They band together, kill the lone goon, and now all of the aliens are dretches.

Share is off. Goons with plenty of credits are tearing apart the alien team except for this damn shotgunner who is laughing at them. They band together, kill the lone shotgun, and now all the humans are naked freekills.

These victories are just as well deserved and fun to play out as with share. (Always, if you don't agree, share on is just one option).

You guys talk about camping and feeding and killwhoring, but your only reference is these massive public games (I personally don't like bigger than 6v6 because of map clutter and mass retardation). The fact is there is no feature or restriction that can force the morbidly unskilled community to play in the fashion of your visions. Trem is just a set of rules (physics, weapons, buildings, spawning, stages, victory conditions, hitboxes) which, like any other game, can never be mastered. Like any other game, the object is fun, and the fun is growing as a player by responding to and winning in all kinds of different situations (whether share on, share off, large game, small game, camping enemy, feeding team). It's fun with or without share - the people who talk about either config ruining the game just want to have an opinion for the sake of arguing over it. Who knows. It's remarkable how few opinions are ever changed in these damn topics.

[Lakitu7]

I'm afraid this might only be in your head. In these 10v10 public games, it's not possible to have a big enough single killwhore on the team to supply everybody with credits.

I don't know where you play, but I see this impossibility happen multiple times every day.

[daenyth]

How about a server option: after every map change, randomly set/unset share. Would make things interesting

[benmachine]

I've pretty much made all my points already, so I'm just going to complain about one thing:

the first white name person

It's a well known fact that a fellow named Jeremy will colour his name in the following ways over the course of his trem career:
1) First time playing
Jeremy (what are colours?)
2) OMG that's hwo you do it
^tJ^@e^lr^5e^mm^ly colours are awesome!!1
3) I don't need that many colours, and black sucks
^1J^4eremy
4) I'm a real pro, I'm too cool for all this childish nonsense
Jeremy

(fwiw I'm at stage 3)

Some white-names of whom you may have heard: Norfenstein, tjw, Timbo.
So please, please don't equate no colours with noobery. Sometimes, you couldn't possibly be more wrong

[zybork]

Hey you share-off-guys: If you don't understand it, if you don't like it, then just don't do it! But don't get on my nerves complaining about it...

Then stop getting on my neves with your complaining...

Here... Have a complimentary cup of STFU.

I don't think it was I who started a "why share off is bad for gameplay"-thread, so what's up?

Share and Donate kill Tremulous simply because it takes away any motivation to go out and make money/evo's yourself.

If this is a joke, I didn't get it.

...or maybe you are just wrong. But let's end this, because, trara!, I just decided to play a few games (on share-enabled servers of course) and let experience judge. The sentence:

- Nobody donates to campers.
- Nobody donates to suckers in general.
+ People who got stuck and had to suicide or where otherwise unlucky, you donate to them.
+ People you can work together with, you donate to them when you realize they could use some revenues, like:
+ If someone has 4 evos and needs only one to go tyrant, you donate to him.
- People who just consume your donated revenues and waste them get no more.
+ If somebody you know enters in the middle of a game, you donate to him to give him a "shortcut" to a better level.

But most important: Sharing is rarely used. Only when necessary, you share. Most of the time, I keep playing.

So, what's so bad about all that?

[Blade]

<snip>

Yeah, you read too far into my words. It was just a less boring way of saying that people don't share credits to players who can't make good on the investment.

[jit]

okay: this topic is useless. there is a command to disable and enable share. server owners/hosts might have realized that and said," hey i'll put share on." or on the contrary, some might have said," nah, share's dumb so lets turn it off." but the thing is: most servers have it on. no offence to benmachine cus his mod is pro w/e happened to it lol, but yea we should leave it to the server owners and hosts to deal with this "command" 

[Undeference]

but the thing is: most servers have it on.

of 225 servers queried
23 timed out
77 had g_allowshare in serverinfo: 13 disabled, 64 enabled
125 did not

If I make an assumption similar to yours with these statistics, I come up with:
64 servers have sharing enabled
138 servers have sharing disabled or unimplemented
Just as I'm not stupid enough to make that claim, I'm not insane enough to make yours.

[Checkpoint]

Well, I decided to come back to post in this thread. Here's some things I figured should be said. (sorry if they were already said)

~If you have to leave, what happens to your money? AFAIK, they don't automatically distribute, so if you can give them away to someone who needs them before you leave, both of you win. He gets the money he needs, and you got rid of your money so you can leave. With share off, your credits just disappear.
~If you join a game 30 minutes in, how can you get anywhere? You have a rifle against tyrants and advanced dragoons, or a dretch against bsuit or helmet + armor with mass driver, shotgun, saw, basically any weapon. You're at a disadvantage because you joined a game while everyone who was here has their best equipment/morphs. If share's on, you can get money so that you can help make an effort to kill the other team, but with share off, you'll likely be just someone who does nothing useful the entire game, and be reduced to camp because you never have the necessary funds to do things right.

Just something to think about.

[Undeference]

~If you have to leave, what happens to your money? AFAIK, they don't automatically distribute, so if you can give them away to someone who needs them before you leave, both of you win. He gets the money he needs, and you got rid of your money so you can leave. With share off, your credits just disappear.

When you disconnect, your credits and team are saved so if you reconnect later during that game, you can start from where you left off (this also ignores team balance).

~If you join a game 30 minutes in, how can you get anywhere? You have a rifle against tyrants and advanced dragoons, or a dretch against bsuit or helmet + armor with mass driver, shotgun, saw, basically any weapon. You're at a disadvantage because you joined a game while everyone who was here has their best equipment/morphs. If share's on, you can get money so that you can help make an effort to kill the other team, but with share off, you'll likely be just someone who does nothing useful the entire game, and be reduced to camp because you never have the necessary funds to do things right.

If you are a good player, you can still be pretty effective with a rifle or as a dretch. So what this argument refers to is the not-so-good players who are not effective with lower classes. But there is only one way for them to get effective as those classes, and that is not by their friends bailing them out whenever they need a little cash.

[_Equilibrium_]

~If you join a game 30 minutes in, how can you get anywhere? You have a rifle against tyrants and advanced dragoons, or a dretch against bsuit or helmet + armor with mass driver, shotgun, saw, basically any weapon. You're at a disadvantage because you joined a game while everyone who was here has their best equipment/morphs. If share's on, you can get money so that you can help make an effort to kill the other team, but with share off, you'll likely be just someone who does nothing useful the entire game, and be reduced to camp because you never have the necessary funds to do things right.

If you are a good player, you can still be pretty effective with a rifle or as a dretch. So what this argument refers to is the not-so-good players who are not effective with lower classes. But there is only one way for them to get effective as those classes, and that is not by their friends bailing them out whenever they need a little cash.

Well said undeference. go out with your teammates. Go support your team and you will earn creds/evos guarenteed. A rifle or dretch can help a lot as a distraction/extra damage/cleanup crew against enemies.

[jal]

4) I'm a real pro, I'm too cool for all this childish nonsense
Jeremy

(fwiw I'm at stage 3)

Hahahaha. I'm at stage 4. I've been at stage 4 since 6 or 7 years ago even. But removing the "I'm a real pro" part. I don't think it's about being pro, it's just about having made it too many times to care anymore

As for the topic. I don't think sharing is real bad. It has some bad side effects, but opposed to what you state, I think it makes humans less campish. At least that's my experience with it. I'd be in favor of limiting it so each player can only receive 200credits/1evo each death or something like that.

[==Troy==]

Well said undeference. go out with your teammates. Go support your team and you will earn creds/evos guarenteed. A rifle or dretch can help a lot as a distraction/extra damage/cleanup crew against enemies.

Don't forget that even an extra clip of rifle will bring down a tyrant from 400 hp to 250 (goon?) which will make the bsuit that is fighting it pretty much invincible, and will guarantee you some funds for helarm + shotty.

[Checkpoint]

~If you have to leave, what happens to your money? AFAIK, they don't automatically distribute, so if you can give them away to someone who needs them before you leave, both of you win. He gets the money he needs, and you got rid of your money so you can leave. With share off, your credits just disappear.

When you disconnect, your credits and team are saved so if you reconnect later during that game, you can start from where you left off (this also ignores team balance).

~If you join a game 30 minutes in, how can you get anywhere? You have a rifle against tyrants and advanced dragoons, or a dretch against bsuit or helmet + armor with mass driver, shotgun, saw, basically any weapon. You're at a disadvantage because you joined a game while everyone who was here has their best equipment/morphs. If share's on, you can get money so that you can help make an effort to kill the other team, but with share off, you'll likely be just someone who does nothing useful the entire game, and be reduced to camp because you never have the necessary funds to do things right.

If you are a good player, you can still be pretty effective with a rifle or as a dretch. So what this argument refers to is the not-so-good players who are not effective with lower classes. But there is only one way for them to get effective as those classes, and that is not by their friends bailing them out whenever they need a little cash.

Lol you win. Good points.

[techhead]

Should kick/bans redistribute the credits? Not like you want them coming back and reclaiming them...

[King]

I wouldn't mind trying a day of playing on no-share servers just to see how it would affect gameplay and how it would force oneself to diversify (<---- Word?) his/her strategies in order to play the game like they normally do.

On the note of camping, and it may have already been mentioned, but sharing alone does not always cause camping.  It could just be the raw fact that a new player experiencing the game for the first time realizes the base is where all the commotion is, and decides to learn off of other people.  I also think we should make an effort to actually teach newbies how to play, use chat, and later on strategize.  Sure, you'll get a few known players to camp around, but we're generalizing the entire community when we say "camping is bad." 

This isn't something that we can solve over night, so I think this discussion is valid and is bringing about some valid and iteresting points, however sly or subtle some posts may be.  >.>

G'day and I welcome all opinions,

King

[Nux]

I'd say I agree most with Eeeew Spiders (naturally ).

Points of interest:

*A player who is killing many enemies (and recieving many points) when share is off will have greater incentive to suicide so as not to 'waste' evos after reaching the 9evo/2000cred cap.

*A player who is killing many enemies (and recieving many points) with share on will give give evos away so as not to waste them. If he then starts dying more than he kills, those 'noobs' he shared to might not want to/know how to/be able to share the evos back. Afterall, they are 'noobs'.

*It helps the good player to have teammates who aren't so easily killed, so he might keep them high class by sharing or not 'kill stealing'.

*It doesn't help the good player to have teammates who block and tk, so he might keep them low class by not sharing or 'kill stealing'.

*Tactics can be more interesting without share.

*Gameplay can be more friendly with share.

*What ever advantage/disadvantage you have when share is on, chances are either the other team has it too or the problem doesn't go away when share is off.