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Annihilation Priority Queue

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Murgatron, Dec 23, 2018.

Annihilation - Priority Queue
  1. Murgatron Retired Staff

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    日本語訳

    [IMG]

    Hello everyone!

    Today we are happy to announce that the Annihilation Priority Queue system has gone live! Major thanks to Skillerfox3 for taking on this project with myself and to all the staff who gave their time for testing.

    Shotbow has always prided itself on providing gameplay that is not pay-to-win and we hope that this new addition to Annihilation will make games more fun and fair for all. We will be closely monitoring the community's reaction to the Priority Queue and making tweaks as needed, so please don't hesitate to post feedback below!

    How does it work?
    The Priority Queue is designed to ensure a fair and balanced game for all players whilst rewarding those who support Shotbow directly with a premium rank. When joining a game of Annihilation, you will be asked to join a team. The Priority Queue permits an imbalance of 4 players of the highest team compared to the lowest team. For example:

    Red - 6 players
    Blue - 6 players
    Green - 6 players
    Yellow - 6 players

    In this example all teams are balanced. Red could support 10 players before hitting the limit, so the numbers would look like this:

    Red - 10 players
    Blue - 6 players
    Green - 6 players
    Yellow - 6 players

    The difference is always between the highest and lowest team, so even in the example below no-one can join Red, as the difference between the highest (Red) and lowest (Yellow) is 4.

    Red - 10 players
    Blue - 9 players
    Green - 8 players
    Yellow - 6 players

    Grace period
    Whether it's your cat knocking over your modem or your game crashing out of the blue, suddenly leaving a game can be really frustrating. We developed the Priority Queue to save a space for you in your team 90 seconds after you disconnect. If you rejoin within that timeframe, you will be re-added back into the game as if nothing happened at all. If not, you will be held in the lobby until the team numbers are balanced again to permit you back in.

    If you have already played for a team (say Red) but are sent back to the lobby because of an imbalance of numbers, you will NOT be able to queue or join another team.

    If you leave your team during the voting phase, you will not be granted a grace period and will have to re-queue.

    Phase 3 onwards
    From phase 3 and onwards, as it has always been, players will NOT be able to join a team. However, when you are already queued for a team before phase 3 started, you still will be able to join your team when a space opens up. If you leave the server while queued you will not be able to join back.

    Dead Teams
    Dead teams are not taken into account when checking for imbalances. This means other teams can still be joined once a team dies. For example, take this scenario:

    Red - 10 players (+2 queued)
    Blue - 10 players (+2 queued)
    Green - 10 players (+2 queued)
    Yellow - 5 players

    If Yellow is taken out, the Priority Queue will permit the queued players from red, blue and green to join. If there are players still queued for a dead team, they are still able to join once the numbers are balanced.

    Priorities
    There are 4 types of priorities in the queue system. The following example will show the different priorities what the queue will be ordered in:
    • Premium rejoining > Premium > Non-premium rejoining > Non-premium
    Warning
    Abusing the Priority Queue by usage of alts is bannable and we will take these offenses extremely seriously.

    Final Words
    Currently, there is no support for groups or parties - this may come at a later time. We've been working hard to make the Priority Queue a reality for a while now, and we hope you are as excited as we are to see this going live. Again feel free to leave feedback below.

    With love from the Annihilation Team :heart:
    _Swipe, Kelestami, Kamuy1337 and 14 others like this.

  2. skillerfox3 Retired Staff

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    Took a while to make, but its definitely worth it!
    _Swipe, Kelestami, Dinohoot8 and 5 others like this.
  3. AndyTheHomeless Regular Member

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    This is great, and prevents the bull**** imbalance caused by premiums stacking one team to ridiculous ratios against teams without premiums. Good to see Shotbow cares for it's non paying player base, really sets it from large companies such as Valve and EA!
    Mohawk2 likes this.
  4. Navarr Councilor

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    1,333,433xp
    I'm very excited to see this launch. I think the lack of this feature was driving a large portion of our playerbase away. Team stacking has always made the game worse for everyone involved.

    It makes the game unfun for those being stacked against, and it removes the challenge for those doing the stacking - making the game boring quicker.

    My wish is that the Anni community shows us this was the missing feature by playing a lot. :)
  5. Reita Media Creator

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    1,153,767xp
    I think that this system is a wonderful response. However, players who are out of the game are continuing and eventually returning as before.

    We propose to use the system at 8 vs 8 and return the missing player.

    Do not put it back to the lobby.
  6. Mohawk2 Mini Builder

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    I haven't played anni in a while, and I have not tested the update yet, but this looks great! I might come back to anni since I know that there will no longer be a team that's twice the size of every other team!
    Edit: I just played two games and in both of them there was an epic battle between the two last teams, which my team unfortunately lost and got second both times. However, unlike before, where one team would just steamroll the other 3 teams, it always felt like every team at least had a chance. I really love this update.
    skillerfox3 likes this.
  7. Dude_thats_Rude Gold

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    gracias
  8. GuigaWei Platinum

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    Glad to see this implemented! Happy to also see positive changes between original and final version. Used to be 5 players permitted and 60 seconds grace period on leaving. Really shows that the dev team cares about feedback when they made these few changes just to be sure this system is successful! I look forward to hearing how this impacts Annihilation in 2019 and whether this changes anything in terms of gameplay.
    skillerfox3 and Fluffoon like this.
  9. Mysterious_Seven Platinum

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    *injects self with adrenaline I.V.*
    *Goes into Cardiac Arrest*
  10. Mysterious_Seven Platinum

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    My best translation.
    "This update is a wonderful solution. However, people who leave the game are reentering the queue and getting added to the end of the queue. You should use the 8v8 system to automatically pull people back into the team. Do not automatically pull people back into the game from the lobby."
    Reita likes this.
  11. Reita Media Creator

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    I appreciate the wonderful translation.
    Mysterious_Seven and Meme_MC like this.
  12. MuffinMinister Platinum

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    Thing is that Shotbow is a server platform for a game, instead of a developer creating games, Shotbow's aim is not neccesarily profit, EA's and valvE's is.

    And from a perspective of inherent characteristics, valvE and EA have no incentive to make an effort to appease to non-paying customers, since they gain nothing from doing it.

    I don't play Anni anymore, but its nice to see this change regardless. gj skillerfox
    Kelestami, Dinohoot8 and Fluffoon like this.
  13. Bboyan Emerald

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    Server crash -> 90sec -> Can't join
  14. Oilarratxo Regular Member

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    Really interesting update, I hope this brings old players back to playing and we can enjoy a crowded anni game again. Team stacking and hackers are the two big problems for annihilation imo.
  15. Dinohoot8 Platinum

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    Hope the lag will be fixed too
  16. skillerfox3 Retired Staff

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    Rolling the priority queue unfortunately also brought some performance issues. We've been working hard to fight these over the past week. Servers should be more stable now.
  17. Dinohoot8 Platinum

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    484,663xp


    Ok thanks! Just thought I would mention it. Haven't been on in the server in a long time XP
    Mysterious_Seven likes this.
  18. Kelestami Platinum

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    I've been checking back here every couple months to see if something like this rolled out.
    While I don't like necroing threads, I think it's important for you guys to know that even after a month of release, people like me are trickling back into anni after realizing it's balanced and playable again. Thank you for patching this issue; I've had a few fun games already and appreciate the work.
    Mohawk2, Fluffoon, Murgatron and 2 others like this.
  19. connor564 Platinum

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    Sucks that this didn't really fix stacking...
  20. Murgatron Retired Staff

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    There will always be ways that teams can become stacked. However this system has addressed one of the most prolific ways teams could be stacked and I think that has helped the gamemode tremendously over the past few months.
    Mysterious_Seven likes this.

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