02-18-2021, 04:42 AM
When I wrote my thread last summer, my vision of Agf was a self-regulating server that would hinder teaming as well as cheap solo techniques (virus-farming, portal-feeding, etc.) to make a balanced server that would be fun for everyone. I also wanted to make the server more inviting to serious players and not just coin/power farmers. Of all of the servers in Agma, Agf definitely has the lowest correlation between skill and mass, somewhere between a strong negative at worst and a weak positive at best. Features such as virus-farming and portal-feeding make it way too easy for teams to dominate, even after they are killed. On the first night of the improved server, anti-teaming was removed and the portal mass was decreased, and to this day, these are the only changes that have been made.
When Sora offered the moderator role to Démone, Light, and me, I was slightly hesitant. I have heard players suggest in-game moderation in the past, and I was originally not open to it because of its inherent inconsistency. However, I accepted Sora's offer because I saw moderation as a temporary necessity as the server transitioned into the server that I envisioned in my thread, at which point moderation would no longer be necessary as the server would be able to regulate itself. More than 7 months have passed and Agf is still in a bad state, and during those 7 months, I began to rethink my role as a moderator.
I originally imagined freezing teamers to have a similar effect as an electrical shock, a simple way to warn new players that teaming was not allowed. However, when a mod froze a teamer for the first time, he continued to team, during and after being frozen. He got a 1-day ban from Sora, but continued teaming again as soon as he came back. The other mods and I laughed it off as just one idiot who did not learn his lesson, but we quickly learned that he was actually one of several idiots. I would sometimes freeze teamers until they got eaten and continue freezing them as soon as they spawned to prevent them from playing. I would freeze them for a few minutes, but they would continue teaming again the second I stopped, so I would freeze them for another few minutes. This would sometimes make up over a consecutive hour, but they somehow never get the message. The stupidity of the majority of teamers is something that I will never be smart enough to understand.
As the months went on, I made many changes to my style of moderating. I can still remember that day during the summer when you got mad me for freezing a team that indirectly helped a player that you were about to defeat, defeat you. Ever since then, I have tried to avoid freezing teams if it would disrupt nearby solo battles, especially when the solo players are good enough to fight the teams themselves. I have many times witnessed a team getting frozen and a larger nearby player splitting and eating the team along with the player that was getting teamed on. It is especially frustrating when a frozen team gets eaten by a regular teamer who just happened to not be teaming at the moment. Transferring mass from a team to an external player does not really solve the problem of teaming, the stolen mass should go back to its rightful owner. At some point, I stopped freezing teamers unless they were small enough for me to punish them as discreetly as possible. However, even when they were small, they would occasionally spawn in someone's line of fire and collect that player's mass once they got frozen. At some point, I stopped freezing teams altogether. I just wanted to play the game! Moderating became too much of a burden for me, and besides, I am a skilled enough player to beat most teams by myself.
However, I still freeze teams under certain circumstances. When there are few players on with the top 2 players splitrunning with large amounts of mass, it is nearly impossible to beat them, and this is largely due to not the teamers themselves, but the other players. When the player count is small and a team is dominating, inexperienced solo players will try to farm virus mass in a corner of the map, but do not know how to farm properly, so they just keep creating more and more viruses without being big enough to actually eat them. Agf has an extremely low maximum virus count, so the server's entire supply of viruses soon becomes stashed in a corner of the map and new viruses stop spawning. If one is lucky enough to find a virus to use to fight the team, it usually gets broken by an oblivious player that eats it for mass. I think that moderation is a necessary evil until the server gets fixed completely. I do not think that the goal should be to remove moderators, but rather to make them obsolete.
When Sora offered the moderator role to Démone, Light, and me, I was slightly hesitant. I have heard players suggest in-game moderation in the past, and I was originally not open to it because of its inherent inconsistency. However, I accepted Sora's offer because I saw moderation as a temporary necessity as the server transitioned into the server that I envisioned in my thread, at which point moderation would no longer be necessary as the server would be able to regulate itself. More than 7 months have passed and Agf is still in a bad state, and during those 7 months, I began to rethink my role as a moderator.
I originally imagined freezing teamers to have a similar effect as an electrical shock, a simple way to warn new players that teaming was not allowed. However, when a mod froze a teamer for the first time, he continued to team, during and after being frozen. He got a 1-day ban from Sora, but continued teaming again as soon as he came back. The other mods and I laughed it off as just one idiot who did not learn his lesson, but we quickly learned that he was actually one of several idiots. I would sometimes freeze teamers until they got eaten and continue freezing them as soon as they spawned to prevent them from playing. I would freeze them for a few minutes, but they would continue teaming again the second I stopped, so I would freeze them for another few minutes. This would sometimes make up over a consecutive hour, but they somehow never get the message. The stupidity of the majority of teamers is something that I will never be smart enough to understand.
As the months went on, I made many changes to my style of moderating. I can still remember that day during the summer when you got mad me for freezing a team that indirectly helped a player that you were about to defeat, defeat you. Ever since then, I have tried to avoid freezing teams if it would disrupt nearby solo battles, especially when the solo players are good enough to fight the teams themselves. I have many times witnessed a team getting frozen and a larger nearby player splitting and eating the team along with the player that was getting teamed on. It is especially frustrating when a frozen team gets eaten by a regular teamer who just happened to not be teaming at the moment. Transferring mass from a team to an external player does not really solve the problem of teaming, the stolen mass should go back to its rightful owner. At some point, I stopped freezing teamers unless they were small enough for me to punish them as discreetly as possible. However, even when they were small, they would occasionally spawn in someone's line of fire and collect that player's mass once they got frozen. At some point, I stopped freezing teams altogether. I just wanted to play the game! Moderating became too much of a burden for me, and besides, I am a skilled enough player to beat most teams by myself.
However, I still freeze teams under certain circumstances. When there are few players on with the top 2 players splitrunning with large amounts of mass, it is nearly impossible to beat them, and this is largely due to not the teamers themselves, but the other players. When the player count is small and a team is dominating, inexperienced solo players will try to farm virus mass in a corner of the map, but do not know how to farm properly, so they just keep creating more and more viruses without being big enough to actually eat them. Agf has an extremely low maximum virus count, so the server's entire supply of viruses soon becomes stashed in a corner of the map and new viruses stop spawning. If one is lucky enough to find a virus to use to fight the team, it usually gets broken by an oblivious player that eats it for mass. I think that moderation is a necessary evil until the server gets fixed completely. I do not think that the goal should be to remove moderators, but rather to make them obsolete.
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