Official Thread for the Main Server Issues for the VSP Servers

[Zeke Aileron™ 56]

I've been meaning to make this thread in a while and never got around to it since I've been busy with irl issues, so anyways this thread is going to go on about how and what the current problems of the servers are, the list isn't going to be accurate since i know there alot more problems that i haven't been able to experience in the server and as well outside, so here is the current ones that i know:

1. The 3 US servers are currently broken and won't let any player join.
2. VSP Funbox DR map autodownloader is broken forcing the player(s) to download the map(s) from an outside source if they don't previously have the map installed.
3. Starlight Glimmer, Zecora, Vinyl Scratch, and Braeburn rage mechanics is currently broken as in being unplayable.
4. Spike's Flamethrower is unusable and his R rage is currently broken.
5. EU and JP servers are currently running on an older version of TF2 considering the game has been updated a lot recently with the Jungle Inferno Update and the new update that fixes the main grasp of the Competitive mode and Pyro weapons re-balancing.
6. A lot of the Bosses still have Random Criticals when they shouldn't have any to begin with.
7. Spy Bosses still doing 325+ damage from simple knife stabs that are not back-stab related.
8. Spellbook item still able to pick up ammo and having virtually no downsides.
9. Classes getting HP max nerfs on certain weapons when they shouldn't especially for a mode that has Bosses that are technically supposed to One shot a Mercenary with less than 202 HP regardless that isn't a Spy boss.
10. Pinkie Pie and Braeburn are not the only ones that are breaking the Super Jump timer.
11. Lack of Admins that have interest in the game-mode besides the ones that still get on when the servers are on/active,(PS: i'm one of the Seapony admins that still comes onto the servers when they're up)
12. A lot of the weapons are still under-balanced in the game mode, same with the Bosses.

If there is any that I've missed that isn't on the list, please list them in a fashion that is understandable and obvious to players that have actually spent enough time in the game mode to know what's happening, Anyways there's also a poll that is going to see if People are actually interested in seeing VSP servers coming back.

 

It's not necessary but if you use STEAM then you can also use this in your profile name to show that you are wanting to support VSP as well: #BringBackVSP

Edited April 4 by Zeke Aileron™

[BensPortal 10]

13. Hale Range 

[Athena 0]

10 minutes ago, BensPortal said:

13. Hale Range 

13. Hale Range + Extreme Lag Compensation Range

[ThunderRunner 70]

14. Non-donors should have fun too instead of being kicked out for one impatient donor and half of the bosses being unpickable.

15. Fix outdated plugins (e.g Rainbow Dash matrix attack being old and stuckable, overheal on all bosses)

[Eloquent Pyro 1]

16: Minion bosses do not work properly. Wearing any cosmetics causes you to be spawned as invisible and rooted to the spot (but still able to attack).

17. Discord can disguise as someone after a kill if the player is fast enough.

 

Even if we only get fixes to make the game mode playable after new patches and no more real content I'm fine with it. I just really enjoyed the mode for some reason.

Edited April 4 by Eloquent Pyro

[Mike Dragon 6]

It is sad to see VSP in such a state of disrepair. :( I haven barely touched TF2 ever since the Meet Your Match update (God, how I hate those changes) and haven't played it in about a year. Recently I have been thinking about coming back to enjoy some matches of VSP (only thing that actually still draws my attention back to TF2) but but it saddens me to see it's all so broken.

 

By the way, I don't know if it counts, but the ability Flutterbat has to backstab someone while still invisible when coming out of a cloak is obnoxiously absurd. I always hated that. Consider that your number 18.

Edited April 4 by Mike Dragon

[Demi-Fiend 0]

This was a very fun server to go, no friendlies, somewhat good moderation.

I think there was a problem with the telegoombas too with some teleport bosses, but that was long time ago when i played this.

[Athena 0]

Well, good news for you telegoombas where pretty much dead as in it was not a death sentence anymore. The goomba had a damage reduction of 70-80ish~% once the boss teleported and got the goomba.

[Mi$$ Perfect 0]

If the list gets too big I would be afraid of the servers never coming back lol and remain "under construction" for eternity. I'm glad there is at least interest to bring them back. I'm not adding anything to the list because I usually just shrugged most of the smaller issues off as long as it was somewhat playable and I didn't get disconnected for no reason. Ponies is what got me into TF2 to begin with and the pony servers are my favorite ones to play on. I totally support vsp coming back and would even welcome the emergence of any new pony servers that were similar to the ones that used to exist around 2011-2012 that completely died and disappeared a long time ago. 

[kimos 5]

Eu and japan server Stucks while parsing game info on any computer i did try 

[Zero 22]

I would really like to see the server that I spent such long time into it being active once more

 

[Spooky 0]

My feedback on what to change for the server would be to:
1. Remove Goomba Stomps for both players and bosses.
2. Remove overly large maps such as CP_Crevice or with easily abusable death pits like CP_2fortdesk + Dovashy boss.

3. Tweak the bosses more frequently. The server had issues with quantity > quality. Some hales just got completely left behind when the main focus was always new hales. Tweaking the few that we have would be better to make the game last longer in it's longevity if the revival is to go through.

4. Tweak classes to be more on a level playing field. Some classes where just not good enough to use unless lols, such as Heavy. At the very least increase his move speed slightly to be at the same level of Soldiers.

I hope my feedback is helpfull.

[The_Mr_Kumar 276]

18. Revive Rarity's rage back to 10 seconds of invincibility.  Or, revamp the rage similar to to Christian Brutal Sniper's where the mercs rush in towards her out of being enamored.

19. Remove the Five Night's at Pinkie's Hale.

20. Turn the "Spellbook" mage into a 10th Mercenary class or get rid of it entirely.  Should the latter decision be carried out, in the spirit of Halloween this can be reactivated up until the Scream Fortress event ends.

21. Remove particle effects & arena "disco mode" dedicated to each Hale (especially the Princess Celestia Hale boss)

22. Perhaps a take on the Mann vs. Machine game mode called "Ponies vs. Parasprites"

[Mena 10]

It would be nice to see the Servers alive again since that was the only reason i used to play TF2 in the first place.. Alot of stuff have been mentioned alredy above so the only thing i can add is checking a few weapons which broke as well that you balanced in the past. Like the Manmelter which i talked about once. And yea , reworking and fixing Hales and all of the other stuff. i would suggest reworking hales like spike and pinkie pie as example. People usually never used him at all because he was just simply trash compared to everything else etc. and pinkie pie had quite the history as well where im still surprised that she just got ignored for most of the part. Sure they removed crits and said stuff like "dont Reload mid air or else you will get banned" but in the end the entire Ability is useless unless you stand exactly right in front of someone and even then you just get one hit from that and honestly, might as well just hit them without that if you are there alredy, right? (she is basically just a Pink Braeburn without crits but clones lmao) but bleh, i dont know if its really gonna come back. its been like idk.. a year? almost?

[Sidney 1]

Mix here,

In my personal opinion, the biggest problem is that the current (and previous) owners lost a lot of passion (or were simply unable to work on the server due to complications or event in their lives) to really continue working and improving on the servers. Without a dedicated team, this task will simply fall flat again and again. I for one have always enjoyed moderating servers and building up communities, and I'm sure many of you have that same feeling for this old, but nostalgic servers.

These lists are great and I do encourage everyone to not give up hope quite yet, with enough support and dedication these servers can be revived back to their glory days. I have had plenty of rebalance lists, ideas and whatnot for not only improving the current system of weapons, bosses, maps and mechanics but also donation system, music, and interface the servers have.

In the end of the day, this all comes down to if A.) Video is willing to gather up a team to help rebuild the server or B.) ownership is transferred over to someone that has the time to.

[Mena 10]

That was somthing we actually picked up a few months ago but yknow.. Nobody gave a shit. A new start by switching the ownership is probably a really good idea but yeaaaa.. What is the chance of that happening, lets be honest here

5 minutes ago, Sidney said:

Mix here,

In my personal opinion, the biggest problem is that the current (and previous) owners lost a lot of passion (or were simply unable to work on the server due to complications or event in their lives) to really continue working and improving on the servers. Without a dedicated team, this task will simply fall flat again and again. I for one have always enjoyed moderating servers and building up communities, and I'm sure many of you have that same feeling for this old, but nostalgic servers.

These lists are great and I do encourage everyone to not give up hope quite yet, with enough support and dedication these servers can be revived back to their glory days. I have had plenty of rebalance lists, ideas and whatnot for not only improving the current system of weapons, bosses, maps and mechanics but also donation system, music, and interface the servers have.

In the end of the day, this all comes down to if A.) Video is willing to gather up a team to help rebuild the server or B.) ownership is transferred over to someone that has the time to.

That was somthing we actually picked up a few months ago but yknow.. Nobody gave a shit. A new start by switching the ownership is probably a really good idea but yeaaaa.. What is the chance of that happening, lets be honest here. You dont even hear anything from those guys from the top either at all. do they still exist? Are they alive? Are they even aware that we are talking about it. Probably, but from how speech and response is working for the past 2 years now here its kinda eeeh. Gathering up a team would also not even take much time. There are quite a few people in this community who would be up for the task if i remember right. In the end we can talk about what we COULD do or what MIGHT be possible but if they actually dont DO and ACT it doesnt matter. And if its due to IRL whatever, give it up to someone else or atleast SAY SOMTHING. jeez

[Scootabooty 0]

Not sure what meaningful input I should add to the current topic, other than I would love to be able to play on these servers again! I took quite a bit of break from tf2 at one moment in my life, and when I got back into and started playing with other friends who remembered the server we were disappointed to see we couldn't play. So, I simply just give my support in a simple post, and keep on watching like I usual do, just wanted my statement to be seen.

[Taoru 24]

First off, I'd like anyone that posts in here to keep things civil and easily readable, that means not putting unnecessary pictures into a post or throwing around insults, easiest way to get taken seriously.

Second off, it really is sad seeing the servers in a state like this, being a former staff member that still would like to play on there from time to time it's definitely a shame to look at, though they were in no way perfect, it was still one of the easiest modes to relax and talk in, given things were moderated well.

Things i would like to add to the suggestions are:

 

- Revised/Revisited rules, mostly because about each and every staff member enforced things differently, which more often than not lead to problems in terms of friendliness, sprays or behavior in general

 - A more kept up to date list of staff members to contact in case any problems arise

 - On that note, any way of looking up what each weapon does without having to equip it and let someone inspect you 

 

Lastly, I implore people to simply spread the thread/poll to get as much input as possible, mainly since it's still worth a shot considering how many people still seem to have interest in bringing it back.

[Mena 10]

spreading the poll is a good idea but keep in mind that the big majority doesnt really care anymore considering how much wasted time we alredy had in the past. I assume that right now we probably only have the regulars. Still worth a shot tho i guess

Edited April 6 by Mena

[Spyro-Kun 1]

Okay, one, you left out a few problems:

1. The addition of the new weapons with give the players an unfair advantage

a. The Jetpack gives pyro a free rocket jump away from hale with no health cost

b. The dragons fury deals an insane about of DPS

c. The second banana basically gives hoovies a free sandvich with the cooldown of a chocolate bar.

1a. My fixes to the problems:

Jetpack drains 8 health per second and marks Pyro for death when deployed, this way Pyros cant just take it out and run away whenever they want to

Dragons fury mini crits burning targets but has a -65% damage penalty and a -75% repressurization rate when you miss

Hot Hand: +120 damage bonus, Third consecutive hit in a row always crits, no random critical hits (No melee crit boost) (Cannot use secondary)

Second banana, can only be eaten twice in one game then thats it.

And Two: As i stated before, Rainy just doesn't care anymore. She has left the server and she isn't coming back. The only way we can truly bring this back is if we band together, take what server assets we can and create a replica of it. The problem with Rainy is, she could never trust anyone else to help her run the server. She ran it and coded it all by herself. Despite the fact that there are many talented coders in the community. If the server config files run basic c++ then it shouldn't be hard to fix some of the problems. But if the community ran the server as a community like all those other popular servers do, then VSP would still be running smoothly. If VSP had a team of owners, a team of coders, and a team of active admins and mods then it would run for as long as MLP runs (Which is currently on season 8)

[Aurotzel 470]

On 4/11/2018 at 1:35 PM, Spyro-Kun said:

-snip-

I don't really see how any of these weapons are overpowered and why you'd want them nerfed. The last thing the server needs is more random weapon changes that completely change the weapons.

Jetpack: You only have 2 charges vs a Flare Gun being spammable for mobility, its much slower to pull out and execute, and is much less reliable in general on top of not actually being a weapon that does damage. The Jetpack basically trades off ease of use for self damage and less damage done. If anything I think its a bit weak.

Dragon's Fury: The Dragon's Fury's airblast is already awful, and I wouldn't recommend nerfing it any more. I can't really see how you think it does too much damage when stock has a damage buff on it plus its a lot easier to aim. If anything you're still trading airblast for damage, which is fine. Leave it as is.

Banana: The trade off is that it heals teammates for garbage for how fast it regens. You'd use the Sandvich is a situation where you need to heal teammates a lot, like pocket heavy, Banana is for solo heavy without a lot of teammates, and the Dalokohs is if you want overheal with a slightly faster regen than the Banana. I just can't see how it would be seen as overpowered at all, even as is I'd probably use the Sandvich over it because I heal teammates as a heavy as often as I can.

Not really gonna bother with the Hot Hand because its a gimmick weapon and I could care less about how good it is. People'll use it if they can slap, regardless of how bad it is, no reason to really fix what's not broken.

[Spyro-Kun 1]

18 hours ago, Aurotzel said:

I don't really see how any of these weapons are overpowered and why you'd want them nerfed. The last thing the server needs is more random weapon changes that completely change the weapons.

Jetpack: You only have 2 charges vs a Flare Gun being spammable for mobility, its much slower to pull out and execute, and is much less reliable in general on top of not actually being a weapon that does damage. The Jetpack basically trades off ease of use for self damage and less damage done. If anything I think its a bit weak.

Dragon's Fury: The Dragon's Fury's airblast is already awful, and I wouldn't recommend nerfing it any more. I can't really see how you think it does too much damage when stock has a damage buff on it plus its a lot easier to aim. If anything you're still trading airblast for damage, which is fine. Leave it as is.

Banana: The trade off is that it heals teammates for garbage for how fast it regens. You'd use the Sandvich is a situation where you need to heal teammates a lot, like pocket heavy, Banana is for solo heavy without a lot of teammates, and the Dalokohs is if you want overheal with a slightly faster regen than the Banana. I just can't see how it would be seen as overpowered at all, even as is I'd probably use the Sandvich over it because I heal teammates as a heavy as often as I can.

Not really gonna bother with the Hot Hand because its a gimmick weapon and I could care less about how good it is. People'll use it if they can slap, regardless of how bad it is, no reason to really fix what's not broken.

So with this logic, why don't we go ahead and bring back stock sticky/rocket jumper because you trade damage for mobility and there's nothing wrong with sticky jumping/rocket jumping for away from the hale over and over for virtually no cost. And while we're at it bring back stock BFB because you lose boost from double jumping and there is totally nothing wrong with outrunning the hale dealing 3000 damage. Jetpacking away from the hale should have some kind of COST some kind of RISK. The deploy time means nothing if you airblast the hale then get the jetpack out and fly away especially with the degreaser.

I agree i was overzealous with the banna change but i thought you could only eat a sandvich once and that was it on this server...? I read it somewhere.....nvm forget it.

 

Do not underestimate the dragons fury. It deals  a stupid amount of damage especially with crits. My change just made it so that you can still deal a good amount of damage but you get penalized harder if you miss. Although doing some research it appears you literally cannot do that because no such stat exists. So I think it should deal mini crits on burning players but have a 35% damage penalty.

 

I never said the hot hand was OP, i just gave it a buff so that you get rewarded for managing to slap the hale 3 times in a row without dying in one hit.

[BensPortal 10]

4 hours ago, Spyro-Kun said:

Jetpacking away from the hale should have some kind of COST some kind of RISK. The deploy time means nothing if you airblast the hale then get the jetpack out and fly away especially with the degreaser.

 

The risk is the deploy time and recharge, The Flare Gun is already better than it why nerf the Thruster.
 

Auro's post about how they are show that they're fine as they are currently 

[Aurotzel 470]

4 hours ago, Spyro-Kun said:

-snip-

The big difference between the Jumpers and the Jetpack is that the Jetpack is on a cooldown. A long 15 second cooldown per jump, up to 2 jumps total. That's against 4 rockets that can clear an entire map and reload before you have any chance of dying. The BFB is a problem because its a passive speed increase on an already hard to track down class, I agree it's nerfed for a good reason. I still don't see how the Jetpack needs any sort of nerfing, keep in mind this is coming from someone who mains soldier, the mobility tied to the Jetpack is very low by comparison, and nerfing it is complete overkill. It literally takes 2 super jumps max to chase the Pyro. While that might seem annoying, chasing a good soldier can be so much worse in comparison on maps with abundant health packs.

To clarify on the Sandvich, it only was a one time use with the Killing Gloves of Boxing, and that wasn't even technically intended. It had an attribute that turned ammo into health, so whenever it regened, it would give you a measly amount of health that wasn't even noticeable, and the regen would restart. The Dalokohs wasn't initially affected because it wasn't tied to a cooldown. Later on the attribute for ammo turning into health was removed from the game and hasn't existed since, so the sandvich can be used as much as you want now. As it stands every rechargeable for Heavy regens, and I'm not even sure if you can cap it easily.

Thing is that like I said in my post, the Stock Flamethrower has a damage bonus and a damage bonus while being healed, so I find it odd that you want to nerf the damage of the harder to aim Flamethrower still. Its less reliable on top of having a very inconsistent airblast. It might do a lot of damage, but I still consider that a trade off. Id hate to have the more skilled weapons nerfed into the floor and everyone keep using the stock Flamethrower because I wouldn't touch Pyro personally in that state. I probably won't change your mind here, it's just odd to me that people think it's overpowered, especially with how much the hitbox got nerfed an update or so ago.

I never claimed you said the Hot Hand was overpowered, all I said is that its a waste of resources to probably bother with. I could care less at what happens to it as long as it stays fun to slap people.

[Zeke Aileron™ 56]

4 hours ago, Spyro-Kun said:

-snip-

The Dragon's fury is fine considering it has poor knock-back on hit especially with crits and it's air-blast is awful enough already, why nerf it beyond it being already being semi bad.
Jet-pack is fine the way it is, you're already losing damage by equipping it for an escape function which is one penalty, the other penalty is it having a bad Holster and re-holster time along with almost no knock-back considering you only have 2 charges for it compared to the amount of flares you can pump out and can refill it as well, similar to Soldier being able to jump away and able to reload quicker and refill ammo faster than the jet-pack.

Also the weapon stats are being handled on a different thread.