Imperium

"MS FINSTER MS FINSTER! NARWHALS DIDN'T GET PUNISHED FOR SLAYING ME AND NOW I WANT HIM TO GET INTO TROUBLE" - @CanadianBill

Thank you, RootyCat for your donation of 3.00 USD!
Your donation will be put to good use, and helps keep this community running.
 
Thanks for the support,
Syndicate Gamers Staff and Community
 

Again, trying to keep with the 2 buffs for every 1 nerf
 
Buffs:
Blademaster now has 80% bonus speed (up to 60% speed) during windwalk Bounty Hunter now has a base 10% crit chance, instead of starting at 0% Cannibal now heals 20 HP on hit, up from 15 Corpse Bomber now evades 16% (up from 14%) Death Bringer now degenerates enemies HP for 10 seconds (up from 5, see ya infected) Dread Knight now entangles for 3 seconds (up from 2.25) Judge of Dynamis now has 25% damage reduction (up from 20%) Frost Giant now bashes for 2 seconds on hit (up from 1 second) Grim Reaper now has 55% damage resistance (up from 50%) Keeper of the Grove ultimate now slows for up to 6 seconds (up from 4 seconds) Kil'Jaeden's knife is no longer visible to other players Shadespawn now only has to hit an enemy once to swap with them  
Nerfs:
Archimonde now has a 3 second cooldown on longjump at the start of a round Ravinick now reflects 19% of damage (down from 35%) and the damage caps at 35 (same as Rocky) Rocky can now only reflect up to 35 damage in a single hit Hand of God evasion has been reduced by 8% for all weapon types, forward slash damage has been reduced from 35 to 29 Infected now starts with 705 HP (down from 1185)  on round 1, 945 on round 2 (down from 1265), and has the full 1425 on round 3. Infected now has a base 15% speed (down from 20%) Lady Hederine now regenerates 46% of enemy HP on kill (down from 66%). Whiplash no longer prevents backpedaling. Whiplash now sets the cooldown for screenflash on weapon hit. Molotovs no longer trigger screenflash/screen shake

Thanks for standing up for Night Elves Sharpie!

Thanks for responding to the survey!
 
In an effort to be fully transparent, 4 surveys were removed.
2 Surveys were removed for not selecting "2" for the bogus question. 2 Surveys were removed for answering "ALL RACES" to both what should be nerfed and what should be buffed - this is obviously trolling or not reading.
 
First up - balance ratings.
 
Average balance rating for the last year: 3.32

 
Average balance as of today: 3.45

 
Change in balance. This is a comparison of the first question (balance over the last year) to the 2nd question (balance as of today). If they rated balance higher today, that means balance has "improved" in their eyes. If they rated lower for today, that means balance is "worse" in their eyes.
 

 
Unfun races. 2 users responded with 5 races between them (while everyone else properly put only 1), so there's 3 more races present than the total number of survey responses.
 

 
Number of races that need to be buffed

 
Number of races that need to be nerfed

 
Level requirement that new races should be placed at

 
Player opinion on having races playable only via ROTD (like Witch King)

 
What war3 staff should focus on. Each response was weighted (1 = lowest importance, 5 = highest importance).
Below, you can see the average of all responses.

 
 
FEEL FREE to comment on the data with your opinion - I encourage you to even. You may see something I do not.
 
My opinion on it:
BOTH BALANCE QUESTIONS have 84% of respondents saying balance is at least a 3 - approximately 50% in both questions say balance is a 4 or 5! This to me says that although everything isn't perfect - the majority of players think we are at least "average" or slightly above average in terms of balancing races.
 
CHANGE IN BALANCE: 82% of players think balance TODAY is the same or better than it has been over the last year.
 
UNFUN RACES: We got some work to do with Hederine, Infected, and Ravinick. I already altered Hederine's screen flash in an attempt to make it less aids (while simultaneously helping someone with epilepsy not have seizures from it). I intend to do more with Hederine to make it less frustrating (I'm open to opinions) - as well as figuring out what I can do to Infected. I know the problem with Ravinick is the reflect - it was greatly buffed when physical damage was changed a couple months ago on the server, so it will be toned down to a more appropriate level.
 
# OF RACES TO BUFF: The vast majority of players agree - there's a handful (or two handfuls) of weak races. As always, I'm open to suggestions on these. I already have some ideas for a couple.
 
# OF RACES TO NERF: The vast majority of players agree 1-5 races need to be nerfed. I think if we asked what those races are - we would find some large disagreement though. I think to some extent I would expect to see the big "unfun races" (from prior question) to appear on that list for most people - which will be addressed.
 
LEVEL REQUIREMENT FOR NEW RACES: I still internally disagree with this question to a large extent, but over 50% of players want races in the lower range. I think the correct play here (for me and the server) is to sprinkle in some low ones more frequently, instead of only doing high (or low) level races.
 
ROTD RACES / WITCH KING: At least 34% of players dislike Witch King - so that's an interesting fact. The server is pretty split on the idea of ROTD only races - 43% said they don't like them, but 57% said they do. However, 16% (from the 57% that like ROTD races) said we don't need more. I think this is a "do nothing" situation based on these responses.
 
FOCUS OF THE WAR3 STAFF: I am honestly surprised how Bug Fixing received almost all 4's and 5's. I've always had a strong focus on it - you can tell from my institution of the bug tracker (thanks to Klark for setting it up - of course) and the # of bugs I have cleared from it. If people keep posting bugs as much as they can, I will keep clearing them as I have time. Balance also received a high rating, which tells me most people aren't content with every race on the server (no surprise there - though). I was surprised to see how low Supporter Benefits and Expertise ranked. I guess the traditional trifecta (balance / bug fixing / new races) reign supreme yet again.
 
I chose not to do any aggregation of data for the last 2 questions because they largely were free response.
 
Here are some ideas from the free response that I see that stand out - feel free to comment on them as it is largely 1 or 2 people's opinion and I don't really intend to make changes based only on that:
Add more hidden races Need strong support races to offset the reliance on regen/leech to make races strong Supporter cosmetics - skins (I'll go ahead and say no to this), tags, bullet tracers Ignore Serif (lol) Anti Knife races are out of hand (Molecule, Khadgar, Night Elf namely) Shop menu is overpriced Don't let infected respawn Don't let "unfun" races be blocked from tomes (specifically mentions gimmicky knife races) More Rats maps More fun and interesting gimmick races Focus on balancing and bug fixing - don't need more races Kid Fearless uses scripts  
 
Again - feel free to add any thoughts below. Obviously I'm not perfect and neither is the server - but the goal is to get it as close as possible.

Please fill out the survey. Please do not attempt to circumvent the 1 response per person. Please enter legitimate, thought-out answers, as this is an attempt to better the server. Any assumed troll responses will be deleted - be serious and be careful if you want your results to be considered.
 
The survey will last the duration of the week. Feel free to spread it on the server to get more responses
 
https://goo.gl/forms/PW7ANqvR1kcATnjj1
 
SURVEY WILL BE OPEN FOR 1 WEEK! I anticipate analyzing the results on Feb 3/4.

Decided to make a spreadsheet for how well I do on a per map basis, took screenshots originally so I have two of them but I decided that was ineffective and this should prove my point regardless.
 
I'll also continue to update and add some notes. IE if I see a bunch of races that are strong against the race or anything of the nature.
 
 
It is in my personal opinion that Hederine is too good in close range encounters and absolute shit in long range encounters and that is a innate problem with how the race is currently balanced and looked at which leads to this outcry that people have. Even if nothing was changed in this aspect currently the only real fair way to balance the race without destroying it is to reduce the strength of the Whiplash ability or the passive Whip on Lash of Pain.
 
 
 Numbers 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SNafizuEGRB-oRg28pk9wJNGIzslfNfa1sIIgeZsXDI/edit?usp=sharing
*Edit, decided to add in TheHax's numbers from the last screenshot just because it was right there and accessible 
 
 

Hell froze over and after over 4 years Rust is not going to be 'early access' anymore. Big changes are the updates will be monthly (instead of weekly) and the cost is going up.
 
Check it out:  https://rust.facepunch.com/blog/leaving-early-access/

If you read it closely you can see it shows maxed and unmaxed.

It lists maxed and Unmaxed


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They are good.  But they are killable.  Look at their KD :/  This is not to say I can kill Lady Hederine.  I get wrecked by her a lot lol.  I just don't care cause it's fun.
 
But really, 50% of the time I'm on the server, it's people complaining about some race.  It's great!  Stop caring and just have fun.  If things are grossly out of whack, it'll get changed.  If it's bugged, Face/some other eng will get to it when they have free time.  I don't recall people complaining this much about so many races, it's great.

Removed overlay counters from all races. They have been replaced with something called HUD text. This not only should reduce lag when playing these races, but also in some cases they may provide more info than before. If you have any idea of other ways to use the HUD text (it is fairly versatile) please let me know. (other information, using different color, etc)
 
If the text is overly large (typically only a problem on resolutions >1080p) I suggest scaling your HUD down with the hud_scaling command. I believe it should reduce the size of the text with your HUD.
 
After the next restart (should happen automatically at night) the overlay images will no longer be downloaded when players join the server, reducing the download time.

40% is higher then normal but the catch is the player has to be standing still for 2 seconds and stay standing still to get that damage reduction. The delay stops players from stutter stepping to get the damage reduction. It is more about baiting stand offs then anything else and channeling your ultimate. 

scout/knife
 
Centaurian Bow ( 5 ranks ) A custom bow made for Yondu capable of turning anything into ash and penetrate any shield ( rank 1 for free ) ( Spawn with a scout ) ( Each rank gives 10 rounds in the first clip and 10 additional rounds in the magazine ) ( Each rank increases the chance of ignoring damage reduction and evasion chances by 20% ) ( if an enemy tries to pick up the scout it explodes dealing 5 damage per rank ) 
 
Holograph Belt ( 5 ranks ) Create a holographic image of yourself on both sides of you every time your stand still making it harder to target you ( when you stand still images of yourself will appear to the left and right of you ) ( while standing still you gain a damage reduction of 8% per rank ) ( 2s delay on damage reduction ) 
 
Grav Boots ( 5 ranks ) Control your jump height and your opponents ability to make you move ( each rank increases your jumping strength by 10% ) ( each rank decreases your fall damage by 20% ) ( each rank increases your immunity to forced movement effects by 20% ) ( knock up, knock back, pushes, pulls, slaps, and buries ).
 
Dampening Field ( 5 ranks ) ( ability 1 ) ( 10s duration ) ( 25s cd ) Reduce the powers of others around you with a dampening field you stole from Thanos ( 300 unit radius of effect ) ( remove all immunities from enemies within the range of your field and destroy any enemy created props, wards, and mines ) ( also reduce the healing and bonus damage enemies do ) ( each rank increases the reduction of healing and bonus damage enemies by 20% ) 
 
Ego Boost ( 5 ranks ) Move with a little more swagger and deal a little more damage when you kill an enemy ( each time you kill an enemy you gain a permanent damage boost and movement speed boost until the end of the map ) ( Each rank increases damage and movement speed bonus on kill by .20 per rank ) ( so +1% at Max ) ( each rank increases the bonus cap by 5% for movement speed and 3% for damage) ( Max 25%/15% bonus stats ) ( Head Shots double kill rewards money and % boost ) 
 
Whistling Dixie ( 5 ranks ) ( passive on kill ) Whistle while you work and keeping count of your enemies ( every time you kill an enemy gain a whistle counter ) ( Gain immunity to silences ) ( each rank makes you immune to silences by 20% ) ( each rank increases how many whistle counters you get per kill by 1 and max counter by 10 ) ( Max: Kill 5 Max: 50 counters ) 
 
Yaka Arrow ( ultimate ) ( true damage ) ( 40s cd ) ( does not work on Dark Templar/Shadow Assassin unless they are under your aura ) Stand still and begin to focus while whistling sending your Yaka Arrow out to murder your enemies. ( Begin channeling on activation and is canceled when you take damage or run out of charges ) ( Every rank gives you 1 whistle counter each round ) ( each rank increases how much damage an arrow hit does by 1 ) ( every second you channel you spend 1 charge and hit a random first enemy for true damage. Every second you channel after that you hit another target. Repeat this process and hit a new target each time. When there are no new targets you start back with the first enemy you hit and continue ) ( MAX: 5 free charges every round ) ( MAX: 5 damage per charge used ) ( True damage )  
 
 
 
 

Hooyah Fire Dogs! (I'm the top left)
 

After THOROUGH questioning of the 20 random players on the server tonight, I have made the following buffs:
 
Ravinick can no longer buy boots or belt Battlefield Pro now has 30% bonus speed (up from 20%) Donald Trump now has a 26% (up from 24%) chance to evade magic and physical damage and also has a 220 unit knockback radius (up from 160) Hand of God now deals 35 damage on forward slash (up from 25) and it has a 3 second cooldown (down from 4 seconds). The slash damage radius was increased from 250 units to 350 units. If he is on a 5 hit combo or greater, he gains 1% evade Master of GO ultimate now has a 25% chance of affirmative When affirmative, Master of GO gains 10% speed Master of Three now deals 3 bonus damage per hit (previously it said this was the case, but it was not the case) Master of War now generates ammo slightly faster and takes 12% of damage via armor. His ultimate values were also corrected for some minor bugs. Nature Wisp now begins regenerating after 2.5 seconds (down from 3.5). Ultimate now has a 18 second cooldown (down from 20) Takeno now has 50% bonus speed (up from 40%). His ultimate temporarily makes him 99% invis (up from 95%) Transient Entity now has a 1.3 second bash duration (up from 0.9) and now stores 25% of damage as leeched health (up from 20%) The players have spoken!

For those that don't know, there is an admin-only zombie skin on Zombie Escape that is some giant pillow thing. This skin broken in that it lies completely flat on the ground when you crouch, and it has a massive head hitbox compared to the normal zombie skins. However, the worst part is that admins are randomly forced into this skin, even when they use !zclass to specifically swap off of it. Regardless of the fact that the skin is broken, admins being forced into a giant, white target is INCREDIBLY annoying. If this skin could be removed entirely, I would be incredibly grateful, and I don't believe many admins would mourn the loss of being made into a giant, fucking target. If an admin zombie skin is required, please at least choose a model that doesn't contrast as much in comparison to other zombie models so that we aren't immediately targeted.
 
Picture of the skin for those that don't know what it looks like, here is it standing up and crouching: 

Moving to GOKZ 1.0
 
Following the release of GOKZ, a new climb plugin developed by the KZ Global team, I have decided to move forward with converting the server.
GOKZ has many new additions and many missing features as its still in development.
Some additions include:
3 Modes: Vanilla, KZTimer, SimpleKZ Each mode has its own set of records New Global API System for better record tracking Some missing features include:
Jumpstat records Ranking system Ex. [PRO] [SKILLED] [NEWB] The GOKZ Development team has relayed that they intend to implement these features in the future.
 
All current PRO and TP records from the last plugin have all been converted to the new plugin by me. If you feel that a record is missing or not correctly translated please let me know as there are thousands of records.
 
Server should be up and running soon.
 
More information about GOKZ here.
 
Good luck and get to climbing!

Recently, we ran with a Vanilla server for a couple of wipes. It has proven to be more popular than our previous modded configuration. I'm happy to say that, for now, Rust is purposely Vanilla! If you play on the server, I'm open to your suggestions and happy to answer questions. 

Thank you, darkfrywarrior for your donation of 20.00 USD!
Your donation will be put to good use, and helps keep this community running.
 
Thanks for the support,
Syndicate Gamers Staff and Community
 

The worst time of year!
 
My availability will be spotty between now and the end of January. After that, I will be largely unavailable for some time.
 
Server thoughts
I intend to add Black Market Dealer and another mystery race before I disappear Post all the bugs you can NOW! I'll likely go on a bug fixing bonanza before my leave I currently have no other changes planned between now when I return  
The server surviving my extended absence without sharp population drops hinges on a couple things:
Populate the server! If nobody is playing, nobody will join - it's that simple. The longer the server goes unpopulated, the harder it is to populate at a later date. If you are staff (or non-staff but motivated), please consider how you can contribute to the server during my extended absence. This doesn't necessarily have to be via coding!  
I went ahead and created a countdown timer until my availability returns to normal: http://www.webcountdown.net/?a=4KBMndJ

(Recommended companion song for this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKl6umkwKfU&t=0m30s)
 
Transfers are temporarily disabled and will be added back sometime towards the end of the event. Cash is now limited to $30k balance. Shopkeeper and Blackmarket Dealer are also limited to 30k, and their transfers do not give someone more than 30k. Staff cash is now always limited to 16k, even for War3 engineers. You should not have more than 30k after receiving cash from admins or staff members. When transfers return: If you transfer somebody excess cash, the transfer will be reduced so they only get 30k total. (e.g. both players have 16k, you transfer "all" to the other player, they will have 30k and you will have 2k leftover). Transfers are always limited to 16k max - even if you have 30k and they have 0k you can only transfer 16k. If you transfer cash to a player, you cannot transfer cash back to the same player for 5 rounds (keep in mind - transferring to player X who transfers to player Y because you transferred to Y too recently is circumventing the rules) Players are limited to 5 transfers in a map. You can no longer transfer cash from Default, New Game, Takeno, or Spymaster. These are all the races that spawn with cash - I don't believe I missed any. This is to further discourage people from "not playing the game".  
This was not brought on by my belief that anyone was explicitly breaking any rules. We have said before - if a player wishes to dump all their cash to a friend or friends, we aren't really trying to stop them. We are concerned, however, about stopping any potential future abuses and about players potentially circumventing cash restrictions previously put in place on Default and New Game, since they receive a lot of cash. We are largely trying to prevent future abuse in the system.
 
Also in the spirit of preventing future abuses, Takeno and Spymaster are now limited to keeping $5k cash when they change to other races. I've considered applying this restriction to all races, but haven't come to a conclusion on it yet.
 
I've also considered adding a sort of restriction to tomes/books - like a purchase cooldown before you can buy another. This seems like it'd be an inconvenience to those playing normally - so I'm not certain I want to go that route unless I can find a clean solution for it.
 
Nothing is final, and you may very well see even more changes coming.
 
If you ever have any questions about your actions or the actions of other players, I recommend you read this thread then consult with 1 (or more) War3 staff members if you still have questions.

Thank you, Battlemech7 for your donation of 20.00 USD!
Your donation will be put to good use, and helps keep this community running.
 
Thanks for the support,
Syndicate Gamers Staff and Community
 

sharp you know they are cc immune during ult now right
I still think 2 per team is fine...like most issues you just have to counter pick it and Seriff I know your not one to counter pick so maybe start?

Ok boys lemme list EVERYTHING, I thought was wrong with the movie. I'll probaby forget some things doe.
 
Here we go