How to Fix Online

[Naklsonofnakkl]

Okay, after playing enough For Glory over the past year I believe I have come with a sure-fire way to fix a majority of the issues that plague online.

Lag issues:

• Implement a reporting option

If there is a system in place where people can report constant laggers, eventually they can be placed in Tier B where they will stay for a minimum of one month (enough time to fix their internet issues) before being moved back to Tier A.

• Offer Region Locking

Most online games offer either the option to select what 'regions' they want to find opponents in, or are automatically forced to play with people based on their country (USA vs USA, Europe vs Europe, etc.). While it might limit the amount of people you can possibly play against, it also cuts out the probability that you will be connected with someone who realistically can't have a ping decent enough to play a timing intensive fighting game. I prefer the option of being able to select regions, since it still gives people the option to choose to play possibly laggy games.

• Ping testing

This one is less practical, but before the match begins, do a standard ping test, if the packets sent fail more than 70% of the time or take more than 120ms then kick both users out of the match and back to the lobby.

Hostile Players:

• Better Reporting System

Similar to how some MOBA's handle hostile players, when a player receives enough reports they are placed in Tier B for a minimum of three months. The reporting system would have two options: Rude Playstyle and Rude Name. The replay system would be updated to support player names that can be toggled off for those who want to use them for commentating videos.

• Limit Name Characters

While having a fun and creative name is what makes smash great, it isn't all that necessary online. Limit the length of player names to three characters. This is enough for initials but not enough to insult or talk trash to one another. If that isn't acceptable then make it so the opposing team isn't allowed to see your custom name and instead just see's 'Player #'

Gameplay:

• No Double Trouble

In almost all competitive fighting games, when it is 2 v 2 there is no option for choosing two of the same characters. The reason for this is simple; it ruins the balance and creates an unfun match for the opponent. Nothing is more boring than versing two of the same characters. Most people have at least encountered the Double or Double salty picks. Banning that ability would make matches far more enjoyable.

• More Tournament Variants

We recently got Tournament mode, But it would be nice to see some minor alterations added to tournament mode. One of which could be adding more features for what characters are allowed to be chosen. Creating an 'N64 Character Tournament' or 'Swords Only' would be a neat addition.

Tier System Explained:

• Tier A

This would be a tier for those of the best internet and best sportsmanship. Basically all players would start in this tier and only be moved if they receive enough infractions against them.

• Tier B

This would be the tier for those who have had too many infractions against them or have poor internet connections. It would be a horrid slime pit that would make most of Smash almost unbearably unplayable to the point that most would probably just not bother until they were placed back into Tier A.

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Granted at the end of the day Nintendo will most likely never implement anything that will change the game this much, or punish other players harshly for being complete asshats. It is just an idealistic list of implementations that would improve my Smash experience and give me more reason to continue bothering to play online amid all the horrid lag and poor sportsmanship.

Anyway, if you guys have any other suggestions or idea's, or have anything to say about my list, just leave a reply and let's see what would be the best way to improve the game.

 

[1FC0]

Lag issues:

• Implement a reporting option

If there is a system in place where people can report constant laggers, eventually they can be placed in Tier B where they will stay for a minimum of one month (enough time to fix their internet issues) before being moved back to Tier A.

Thsi might get abused by sore losers as a method for taking revenge on good players so I am against this.

• Offer Region Locking

Most online games offer either the option to select what 'regions' they want to find opponents in, or are automatically forced to play with people based on their country (USA vs USA, Europe vs Europe, etc.). While it might limit the amount of people you can possibly play against, it also cuts out the probability that you will be connected with someone who realistically can't have a ping decent enough to play a timing intensive fighting game. I prefer the option of being able to select regions, since it still gives people the option to choose to play possibly laggy games.

People with crappy connections will have crappy connections no matter how close that you are so this is not ideal either.

• Ping testing

This one is less practical, but before the match begins, do a standard ping test, if the packets sent fail more than 70% of the time or take more than 120ms then kick both users out of the match and back to the lobby.

Looking at Ping would be great. Even better would be to let people have an option to select how much higher than their ping the opponents ping may be. That way people are not forced to play laggy games unless they deserve it by creating lag themselves.
The disadvantage would be that players can start lagging mid game.

Hostile Players:

• Better Reporting System

Similar to how some MOBA's handle hostile players, when a player receives enough reports they are placed in Tier B for a minimum of three months. The reporting system would have two options: Rude Playstyle and Rude Name. The replay system would be updated to support player names that can be toggled off for those who want to use them for commentating videos.

If a "rude play style" offend you then you probably need to grow up. People should not have the roght to determine how other people should play.

• Limit Name Characters

While having a fun and creative name is what makes smash great, it isn't all that necessary online. Limit the length of player names to three characters. This is enough for initials but not enough to insult or talk trash to one another. If that isn't acceptable then make it so the opposing team isn't allowed to see your custom name and instead just see's 'Player #'

This one is very bad IMO because even with three characters you can insult people and besides that having a recognizable name is fun and three characters make it far less recognizable.

Also people should not be prohibited from communicating. Personally I would even prefer a chat system to talk after or before the game. But then again, I am not a 4-year old child who is afraid of meeting big scary people online who say meanyweeny things and make me cry =(

Gameplay:

• No Double Trouble

In almost all competitive fighting games, when it is 2 v 2 there is no option for choosing two of the same characters. The reason for this is simple; it ruins the balance and creates an unfun match for the opponent. Nothing is more boring than versing two of the same characters. Most people have at least encountered the Double or Double salty picks. Banning that ability would make matches far more enjoyable.

This should not be banned just because you find it annoying.

• More Tournament Variants

We recently got Tournament mode, But it would be nice to see some minor alterations added to tournament mode. One of which could be adding more features for what characters are allowed to be chosen. Creating an 'N64 Character Tournament' or 'Swords Only' would be a neat addition.

Making it available to 3DS users would be an even better improvement.

 

[Lag Chan]

All I want is an actual ranking system and region options like Mario Kart 8.
Actual ranking would mean more consistent matches, getting people of your skill level and keeping out the spammers and people way out of your league.
Even just a simple "Local" and "Worldwide" option like in MK8 would stop me from getting paired up with West Coast Americans and Japanese players all the time.

 

[Naklsonofnakkl]

Thsi might get abused by sore losers as a method for taking revenge on good players so I am against this.

True, but that is the same for any reporting system. At the moment, you can report players but we have no idea what that even means. Giving it some purpose might be nice, especially if you set the amount of reports needed to enforce anything high enough. When reporting laggers, it would be more for 'knowingly lagging' such as the game only getting laggy when you are off the ledge or when the opponent is suddenly down in points. The only annoying problem is that the replay system doesn't show the game ever lags, so the only way to enforce that would be to getting the raw data dump from the game in question, which I can imagine isn't something Nintendo wants to waste time dealing with.

People with crappy connections will have crappy connections no matter how close that you are so this is not ideal either. Looking at Ping would be great. Even better would be to let people have an option to select how much higher than their ping the opponents ping may be. That way people are not forced to play laggy games unless they deserve it by creating lag themselves. The disadvantage would be that players can start lagging mid game.

That isn't necessarily true, being able to select a region does at least give you the chance to limit the amount of possible laggy games you will play by ensuring you don't put yourself at risk for playing against opponents outside your country (which most casual players internet can't handle well). The ping option is a bit harder to implement simply because chances are most people will not have decent enough pings. Though at least it would be easy to implement (game does a ping test during the ready waiting room). If they started lagging mid game, **** happens, but at least you didn't start the match with the game taking 30 seconds to count down from 5.

If a "rude play style" offend you then you probably need to grow up. People should not have the roght to determine how other people should play.

I am just throwing it out there for people who complain about how certain people play. I have seen games where players will just get a kill and then run the entire match, it isn't necessarily rude, but it does damper the fun a bit, so there might be those who complain. In terms of reporting them, I figured that it would take a pretty good deal of requests to even have Nintendo consider the problem something needing to be taken care of. (like at least 30+ reports in a week).

This one is very bad IMO because even with three characters you can insult people and besides that having a recognizable name is fun and three characters make it far less recognizable. Also people should not be prohibited from communicating. Personally I would even prefer a chat system to talk after or before the game. But then again, I am not a 4-year old child who is afraid of meeting big scary people online who say meanyweeny things and make me cry =(

I will argue this fact. Chat does not need to exist in Smash, and in fact, it does make the game less fun. It is annoying sitting there waiting for someone to click ready while they constantly switch between 'LEAVE ***' and 'SALTY BRO?'. I am not offended by anything they say, I just don't want to sit there for 40 seconds hoping to play another round of Smash and ultimately waiting while someone just constantly tries to be 'clever' and insult me only to leave before the time is up. My idea was either to remove the ability to make long enough names to insult people (three letters is really hard to make insulting, given that there is a prohibited word list existing), or removing the ability for the opponent to see your custom name (which means you can still have fun playing with your cool name, but your opponent, who doesn't care about your name, can't see it). I think Mario Kart 8 has it right in terms of online chatting, you can select from pre-determined responses but never 'truly' communicate. Giving people the option to have a voice always, without doubt, creates a toxic environment that spoils the fun. Also, Smash (like most Nintendo games) is targeted towards children as well as adults, so yea, there are 4-10 year old kids who probably don't need to endure being insulted because they are learning a game and wanted to test their skills online by a 20 something year old loser who can't enjoy life without trying to put down others.

All I want is an actual ranking system and region options like Mario Kart 8.
Actual ranking would mean more consistent matches, getting people of your skill level and keeping out the spammers and people way out of your league.
Even just a simple "Local" and "Worldwide" option like in MK8 would stop me from getting paired up with West Coast Americans and Japanese players all the time.

I fully agree with you on that, Mario Kart 8 had such a better online system that it is confusing how Smash didn't just borrow that itself.

 

[1FC0]

I still think no one should be able to report for play style. If someone wants to run then he should be able to do that and if it really is that degenerate than Nintendo should fix it by nerfing the startegy, like they did for example with spamming with the stale move system. Especially in FG, which is meant to cater to competitive people, all possible strategies should be considered fair game and people should be allowed to use the play style that they consider optimal no matter how hated it is.
In a good competitive game all boring strategies are ineffective.

Besides for boring play styles people can use the block function so there is no need to report innocent people just because they do not play in a way that you do not like.