battles

rad · Post by **rad** » 18 Dec 2004, 15:39

I came online again recently and noticed how battles have changed... both the levels and the battle times are much shorter. I'm not saying the level quality has deteriorated (zebra's levels are awesome f.ex.), just that most battles consist of performing a single trick (bounce usually) and finishing in 15secs or something.

Is this caused by kuskis demand for fast battle levs? Or is it lazyness of level makers :F What is your opinion?

Btw are there any stats for average battle length, average winning time etc available?

Juski · Post by **Juski** » 18 Dec 2004, 17:12

The new sort of levels is probely because the bigger need of battles and therefor battle levmakers usually hurry up, many levels making time is under 5 mins. And if the maker wants to have any caracter at the lev at all, he has to do one thing specioal and that one thing often results in being the only thing in lev.

Thanks to chazz and insguy to stil make hiquality long levels.

insane guy · Post by **insane guy** » 18 Dec 2004, 17:21

rad wrote: Or is it lazyness of level makers :F What is your opinion?

in my case: yes!

Juski · Post by **Juski** » 18 Dec 2004, 17:23

insane guy wrote:
rad wrote: Or is it lazyness of level makers :F What is your opinion?
in my case: yes!

Juski wrote:Thanks to chazz and insguy to stil make hiquality long levels.

Hmmm... i think your wrong, maybe you are alzy but you still make long levs and so.

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 18 Dec 2004, 19:08

rad wrote:I came online again recently and noticed how battles have changed... both the levels and the battle times are much shorter. I'm not saying the level quality has deteriorated (zebra's levels are awesome f.ex.), just that most battles consist of performing a single trick (bounce usually) and finishing in 15secs or something.

Is this caused by kuskis demand for fast battle levs? Or is it lazyness of level makers :F What is your opinion?

Btw are there any stats for average battle length, average winning time etc available?

Well, at first, thanks for praising my levs.

At least I try to keep high quality up all the time. I seldom make a battle lev quickly, because it's not so funny to play if there is no grass and if it's not fully tested. Some designers say that a level is best if you don't plan any styles there. I don't think so, instead, if you don't plan any styles in your lev, it's usually kinda boring to drive it because there is no funn

And about the thing that battles have become faster. It's simply because players have become so much better. Nowadays at least I can usually see the right style almost immidiately, so the battle duration doesn't have to be so long and the winning times are no longer so bad.

I think battle levs have to be short. If you put a long lev to battle, let's say about one minute, there are much less ppl who play it. The shorter the lev, the more players will play it. Battles should be just funny way to spend your spare time, not the ultimate hÃ¶yling process. So my opinion is that let's spare the longer levs for the cups.

And yes, there are statistics about battles and average winning time:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/battles.html

You can see there that the average winning time of a battle during last 2 years have been 21.60.

rad · Post by **rad** » 18 Dec 2004, 19:37

zebra wrote: Well, at first, thanks for praising my levs.

I have no problem giving credit where it's due :D

zebra wrote: At least I try to keep high quality up all the time. I seldom make a battle lev quickly, because it's not so funny to play if there is no grass and if it's not fully tested. Some designers say that a level is best if you don't plan any styles there. I don't think so, instead, if you don't plan any styles in your lev, it's usually kinda boring to drive it because there is no funn

Hey zebra, I don't think battle levs are the best place to tinker with grass, afaik few people play battles with grass on :D

With the rest of that paragraph I disagree. There can be a lot of fun in levs where the styles are not obviously set up by the maker. Oh, and one thing I hate - hoyled up times in battle levels >:| ALL BALLE MAKERS, PLEASE DON'T DO THAT! One base time made when checking level finishability is enough.

zebra wrote: And about the thing that battles have become faster. It's simply because players have become so much better. Nowadays at least I can usually see the right style almost immidiately, so the battle duration doesn't have to be so long and the winning times are no longer so bad.

Hmm could be they are better, but maybe you're doing the old players an injustice ^^. It not like kuskis now finish in 15secs a lev that took dz 40secs to finish 2 years ago.

zebra wrote: I think battle levs have to be short. If you put a long lev to battle, let's say about one minute, there are much less ppl who play it. The shorter the lev, the more players will play it. Battles should be just funny way to spend your spare time, not the ultimate hÃ¶yling process. So my opinion is that let's spare the longer levs for the cups.

Agreed. But 30-50secs (which I consider ideal ballelev playtime, depending on difficulty) still isn't too long. Surely, the line between short/long levs is not clearcut.. and that's why I created this thread to discuss it :P

zebra wrote: And yes, there are statistics about battles and average winning time:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/battles.html

Cool, thanks.

Juski · Post by **Juski** » 18 Dec 2004, 19:51

rad wrote: Agreed. But 30-50secs (which I consider ideal ballelev playtime, depending on difficulty) still isn't too long. Surely, the line between short/long levs is not clearcut.. and that's why I created this thread to discuss it :P

Freefall?? :PPP

But its not the time to finish the lev that has reuced greatly, its the time to find the faster styles that has reduced greatly.

J-sim · Post by **J-sim** » 19 Dec 2004, 22:51

the most obvious reason for this is that the battle duration has been decresing steadily over the last couple of years. and this is of course because the amount of battles per day has increased A LOT. therefore the battlehosters have been steadily pushed to make the battles shorter and shorter in playing time -> shorter and shorter levs, ez logics. i mean 2years ago many battles were 20+mins and it was no problem cos the next battle might not come untill another 5hours. today the levmakers are almost queing to get a battle started and ppl almost get angry if you put a battle to more than 20mins... and ppl are kind of conservative when it comes to battles, they gotta get what they are used to getting from #battle. before it would be odd to start a battle with a under 10sec lev and today its almost the norm at some nights.

ELMA PRO · Post by **ELMA PRO** » 20 Dec 2004, 02:49

people who are making levels for a level pack (not a cup of course) could test them in #battle, and get feedback. 2 pro's- good quality level --level maker could change if some parts are annoying

rad · Post by **rad** » 20 Dec 2004, 11:41

J-sim wrote:the most obvious reason for this is that the battle duration has been decresing steadily over the last couple of years. and this is of course because the amount of battles per day has increased A LOT. therefore the battlehosters have been steadily pushed to make the battles shorter and shorter in playing time -> shorter and shorter levs, ez logics. i mean 2years ago many battles were 20+mins and it was no problem cos the next battle might not come untill another 5hours. today the levmakers are almost queing to get a battle started and ppl almost get angry if you put a battle to more than 20mins... and ppl are kind of conservative when it comes to battles, they gotta get what they are used to getting from #battle. before it would be odd to start a battle with a under 10sec lev and today its almost the norm at some nights.

Well ye i agree with what you said, except the conclusion you seem to be making. It is not some divine rule or 'ez logic' that battles have to be short, if this trend is not wanted by kuskis, then putting name to it and talking about it (fex by creating a lauta thread) could influence lev makers to start making a bit longer battles (like 30sec finish time). Of course maybe people don't want that and I'm the only one, I can live with that. In fact judging by the response here people are fine with ~10s levs.

So this thread, despite it being moved away from Advertising, was kinda made to advertise battles and longer battles in particular ;O

Juski · Post by **Juski** » 20 Dec 2004, 12:03

I would love longer battles levs, but i who am one of the biggest battle level maker, cant do longer levels because i suck at making in them.
I need a very goo didea before starting to make a lvevel in that case

magicman · Post by **magicman** » 20 Dec 2004, 15:05

i think battle levs should be around 25 seconds atleast. wich im trying to do also. sometimes when i create a battle and see it's only like 19secs long i can add some meanless part :}

keep on btl0r

J-sim · Post by **J-sim** » 20 Dec 2004, 21:05

well I'm not saying its some 100% rule what I was talking about rad, just that it's a tendancy (I also exagerated a bit maybe). but i agree with your opinion about levs being too short. I'm usually not picky at all with what levs im gonna play on #battle (I just need my fix

) but I find my self giving up on a battle much more often if its a under 10-15sec lev... and i think the reason for this is that i see battling primarily as style finding and the ability to drive a good time fast (skills), and of course detailed stylefinding is part of this too. BUT playing a 5sec lev 10-15mins is just quite boring hoyling...

Antz · Post by **Antz** » 21 Dec 2004, 15:51

i don't really know why i make such short levels most of the time. i suppose it's because i spend much time on the short ones already, so making a long one would take twice as long. maybe it's also because it's harder for me to do a long level i personally like.

Juble · Post by **Juble** » 7 Mar 2005, 10:20

Lately Ive been kinda annoyed by what people put as battle levels, and what is worse that they fight with each other to put up the lowest quality levels I have ever seen.

What happened to putting normal levels up, coz very few people make them

(whats with all these 10sec levs huh?).

does anyone else agree?

dz · Post by dz » 7 Mar 2005, 10:34

Yeah may be, but on the other hand, battle levels imo should be not too complicated so you don't have to spend half the time thinking where are all the apples and the flower... I personally prefer somewhat small-areaed but complicated battle levels. You know where the stuff are, you just have to find out how to get them fast.

insane guy · Post by **insane guy** » 7 Mar 2005, 15:57

Juble wrote:Lately Ive been kinda annoyed by what people put as battle levels, and what is worse that they fight with each other to put up the lowest quality levels I have ever seen.

What happened to putting normal levels up, coz very few people make them (whats with all these 10sec levs huh?).

does anyone else agree?

exactly!!!!!!!

Juski · Post by **Juski** » 7 Mar 2005, 16:48

If it was possible we could have some staff working 24hours in the battle chan, were you sent the levels to them. And they decided in what oreder the levels should be played.

8-ball · Post by **8-ball** » 7 Mar 2005, 16:49

at least i am adding grass and pictures/textures to all my battle levs and they mostly have many styles

Pertti · Post by **Pertti** » 7 Mar 2005, 18:10

I have been making battle levs for some time. the comments I've had have been mostly neutral, and most of positive comments I've got are from those shorter levs (like under 20 secs). of course I try to make levs that people like, so its a dilemma.

I try to make as many styles as its possible to make, without making the level look stupid or so. I dont like to put grass in battle levs, but in cruising there must be grass.

dz · Post by dz » 7 Mar 2005, 19:30

For me personally, a true battle level doesn't need grass... even mopobattles didn't have grass... the idea of battle levels is playability, while outlook means absolutely zero.

MP · Post by MP » 7 Mar 2005, 20:08

mopobattles started to have grass once abula quite the levmaking job. Outlook means for me always when I play a lev. I don't require that battle lev looks should be fixed to perfect but a decent look is so easy to make so why not do it. Also I don't think you should have complete picture of the level after the first tries you make. If the playing time is 15min or over you have easily time to find the apples and such. Ideal lenght is somewhere between 30-50sec. As many here have said about the sucky battlelevs, I agree completely

Chazz · Post by **Chazz** » 8 Mar 2005, 12:59

hmm... yeah iÂ´ve noticed that too... I prefer longer levs myself, maybe 30-1:30 sec rides, but always when doing levs like that ppl starts
to complain "bah bah too long lev... too hard... somebody plz make short hÃ¶yl"... who the hell wants to balle 3 sec ride for 10 mins????
maybe badder players that they could also get ballewins... but I
donÂ´t give a flying fuck about winning markku and other proÂ´s in
short lev, but winning proÂ´s in longer lev, thatÂ´s always nice!!! then you can call it a win...

p.s. if just ppl wants longer levs... iÂ´ll make

Cheers; Chazz

J-sim · Post by **J-sim** » 8 Mar 2005, 17:30

It's all veezays fault

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 8 Mar 2005, 20:12

I think the real reason is the amount of battles: For example in january there were totally 1419 battles. That means 46 in a day, which means 32 minutes between battles on average. So the significance of each level has fallen and no-one bothers anymore to play them - especially the longer ones which Markku wins anyway. And everybody knows you'll get more points by winning a shorter level because there is more players. Maybe we should invent a new counting system.

Don't blame the levs themselves - I think their level has risen in the past months.

If you don't know what I'm talking about when I mentioned counting system, check http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/battles.html

yoosef · Post by **yoosef** » 9 Mar 2005, 01:25

i agree 100% with juble.

Crazy · Post by **Crazy** » 9 Mar 2005, 09:08

Grass levs are nice for the eyes indeed. Though I rarely see grass cuz I've been playing when low quality or wth it's called. That means neether grass nor any other picks. Max smooth though levs look quite booring, yes. I guess that I should buy a new computer, ,would be fun to see the grass once again.

dunno if I got this any further.. Sum up. Of course people wants to see grass and pics in levs. But I guess that requires quite a job from the levmakers since there is always ppl asking for battles. I guess you want to satisfy them and makes..

dames. gotta edit: lesson now -->

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