I'm glad that you can read.

As I said before, this is to help staff with the lag/delay reports (From what I was able to test), and this isn't directed towards anyone in particular, just anyone in general who might be:

1. Lagging excessively in spar matches

2. Using programs or something else to make themselves delay, giving them an advantage against the majority.

3. Live in the US, but delay, and/or are constantly changing flags.

4. Live internationally and use their flag as an excuse to disrupt their connections even more than what everyone else around their area has.  

 

Hmmm I appreciate the fact you took time to help admins out with spar...but lag is a wavey topic and probably isnt the best topic to start with...but I think if your truly adamant on tryna help the admins moderate better then you should release guides to other aspects of spar too...also add videos so they canvisually see it so iit'll be better for them to understand rather than a chunk of text...  

I think the whole argument boils down to people not enjoying sparring delay (understandable), getting frustrated by delay (understandable), not being able to avoid delayers because many of them are queuing all around the clock (understandable), and wanting to impose certain punishments against them for things that they can't necessarily control (not understandable)

I feel bad for anyone who would want to delay or any of these people you're claiming "force" their delay, because it's going to severely cap how good they can be at spar, it's going to make them get less overall wins because the spars will be so long, and it's going to be so much more unenjoyable than sparring without delay  

Posted by Kuz

Hmmm I appreciate the fact you took time to help admins out with spar...but lag is a wavey topic and probably isnt the best topic to start with...but I think if your truly adamant on tryna help the admins moderate better then you should release guides to other aspects of spar too...also add videos so they canvisually see it so iit'll be better for them to understand rather than a chunk of text...

Unless staff give me some sort of free pass to casually let me spar in the arena like that.

Otherwise, I'd have to get a group of people for guild house spar sessions.

Posted by Thallen

I feel bad for anyone who would want to delay or any of these people you're claiming "force" their delay, because it's going to severely cap how good you can be at spar, it's going to make you get less overall wins because your spars will be so long, and it's going to be so much more unenjoyable than sparring without delay

Yeah, it's super unenjoyable, but people still do it. A lot of people don't care about becoming good or living by some code of honor, they just care about being better than most by using any method at their disposal.  

Posted by Thallen

I think the whole argument boils down to people not enjoying sparring delay (understandable), getting frustrated by delay (understandable), not being able to avoid delayers because many of them are queuing all around the clock (understandable), and wanting to impose certain punishments against them for things that they can't necessarily control (not understandable)

I feel bad for anyone who would want to delay or any of these people you're claiming "force" their delay, because it's going to severely cap how good they can be at spar, it's going to make them get less overall wins because the spars will be so long, and it's going to be so much more unenjoyable than sparring without delay

My issue isn't the delayers it's the fact the game issues won't ever be fixed. There are some serious fundamental issues with how Graal works and those issues won't be fixed anytime soon.

It's nearly impossible to determine people who force lag/delay to exploit the games issues (people are good at it, some people are not). So this whole witch hunt is pointless.  

I think one of the major steps in stopping people from delaying themselves is to stop allowing them to think that it's such this significant advantage. I can name a lot of really bad delayers. I find people like Jimbo and Volkan to be just awful. It's frustrating to spar against, but everyone can develop a level of skill in areas like reading your opponent and predicting where they'll go next.

Those people (who do have "exaggerated" delay) are not experienced enough to understand that they are limiting themselves in the long run. However, people will continue to complain about it because it's not fun to spar against. When we complain, they immediately recognize they can't get that sort of reaction from people when they aren't delaying. So, they see it as an advantage.

People get frustrated at losing because no one wants to lose. People get frustrated at delay because it slows down spars and makes them much less enjoyable. When you lose to a delayer and you complain, they will 100% of the time perceive it as you complaining just because you lost. So, you're literally just feeding into that false idea of theirs that delay is some superpower or unbeatable advantage, when in reality it's stopping them from even having the option of a superior reaction time, comboing people, etc. (the actual fun things in sparring)

It's this stupid cycle of:

• Be a bad sparrer
• See people get frustrated by delayers
• Assume their frustration comes from it being a major advantage instead of major annoyance
• Delay yourself to get assumed advantage
• Transform yourself as a sparrer for the sake of annoying the rest of the community while never actually reaping any major advantage

If people would just not complain about it so much, it could be:

• Be a bad sparrer
• See no one around you complaining and making excuses
• Recognize that there are good sparrers who don't delay, and it's not just because they don't delay
• Recognize that there are good sparrers who do delay, and it's not just because they do delay
• Gradually improve by mimicking everyone else's behavior
• Never even consider delaying yourself because the inherent advantage of it is no more (and arguably less) than not delaying

 

Posted by Thallen

I think one of the major steps in stopping people from delaying themselves is to stop allowing them to think that it's such this significant advantage. I can name a lot of really bad delayers. I find people like Jimbo and Volkan to be just awful. It's frustrating to spar against, but everyone can develop a level of skill in areas like reading your opponent and predicting where they'll go next.

Those people (who do have "exaggerated" delay) are not experienced enough to understand that they are limiting themselves in the long run. However, people will continue to complain about it because it's not fun to spar against. When we complain, they immediately recognize they can't get that sort of frustration from people when they aren't delaying. So, they see it as an advantage.

People get frustrated at losing because no one wants to lose. People get frustrated at delay because it slows down spars and makes them much less enjoyable. When you lose to a delayer and you complain, they will 100% of the time perceive it as you complaining just because you lost. So, you're literally just feeding into that false idea of theirs that delay is some superpower or unbeatable advantage, when in reality it's stopping them from even having the option of superior reaction time, comboing people, etc.

It's this stupid cycle of:

• Be a bad sparrer
• See people get frustrated by delayers
• Assume their frustration comes from it being a major advantage instead of major annoyance
• Delay yourself to get assumed advantage
• Accidentally cripple yourself as a sparrer for the sake of annoying the rest of the community
• Now you're bad forever and everyone is annoyed when sparring you

If people would just not complain about it so much, it could be:

• Be a bad sparrer
• See no one around you complaining and making excuses
• Recognize that there are good sparrers who do not delay, and it's not just because they don't delay
• Recognize that there are good sparrers who do delay, and it's not just because they do delay
• Gradually improve by mimicking everyone else's behavior
• Never even consider delaying yourself because the inherent advantage of it is no more (and arguably less) than not delaying

Delay can create an 'advantage' though because it defeats the whole premise of sparring by definition. Imagine playing counterstrike or some FPS shooter game (or any game really) but you can't actually aim at the person, you have to effectively aim to predict where they will be a couple seconds later (and talking about how inconsistent it is from one player to another). When that happens it becomes something else than the intended purpose of the competition/game. It also takes away from the competition from being consistent strategy player to player.

A good handful of people will say "Just get better at predicting" and the others will claim they lost because "Delay/Lag" but at the end of the day it's the games fault for not delivering the experience and fixing the serious bugs (primarily because they don't have a head dev/guidance where they want the game to go) and that probably will never unfortunately change with this game.

It's not the players fault, it's that Graal as a game has some serious issues. This argument has been going on for 10+ years and nothing has been fixed to make the experience more precise and accurate.  

Yes, delay on Graal makes the skill ceiling much lower. It's like throwing RNG into sparring. When you take it from being a showing of reaction time and juking and instead make it about prediction, both sides become severely limited. This advantages the lesser-skilled player and disadvantages the higher-skilled player.

That's why I'm asking why anyone would ever want to do it. It's going to make you better vs. good sparrers (at first), but it's going to make all those spars vs. worse players slower and boring as hell. It's literally torturing yourself. I don't know why anyone would want that when they could just invest the time in improving and become as good as the best sparrers.

The only reason you would ever want to do is because you suck at sparring. Sucking at sparring can be easily fixed by means other than settling for delaying, but no one cares about actually getting better because everyone continues to feed into this idea that delayers are unbeatable. So, the advantage of delaying is that you might beat better sparrers a bit more often when you're new at sparring. The disadvantages are not having nearly as much fun, never truly testing your reaction time and mechanics, rarely getting respect from the community, etc. I'm pretty sure the only reason anyone would ever want to do it is because people exaggerate the advantage.

People are going to forever say that players like Sarah and Abood are only good because they delay, and that's going to spawn people who intentionally delay themselves for a condition that I bet neither of them wish they even had.  

Posted by Thallen

Yes, delay on Graal makes the skill ceiling much lower. It's like throwing RNG into sparring. When you take it from being a showing of reaction time and juking and instead make it about prediction, both sides become severely limited. This advantages the lesser-skilled player and disadvantages the higher-skilled player.

That's why I'm asking why anyone would ever want to do it. It's going to make you better vs. good sparrers, but it's going to make all those spars vs. worse players slower and boring as hell. It's literally torturing yourself. I don't know why anyone would want that when they could just invest the time in improving and become as good as the best sparrers.

The only reason you would ever want to do is because you suck at sparring. Sucking at sparring can be easily fixed by means other than settling for delaying, but no one cares about actually getting better because everyone continues to feed into this idea that delayers are unbeatable.

In an alternate reality lets say Graal fixed its serious issues and sparring was consistent and actually true to the definition of sparring (when you swing at a player you actually see them get hit without delay) would you say that would improve the competition/sparring as a whole?

I'll tell you from an outside perspective the big turn off right away is how inaccurate the experience is player to player which actually ruins Graal from being taken serious from a high demand competition level... but this limitation/issue from a technical standpoint could be fixed but would require obviously a lot of work (which is why it won't happen with this game)  

Posted by James205

In an alternate reality lets say Graal fixed its serious issues and sparring was consistent and actually true to the definition of sparring (when you swing at a player you actually see them get hit without delay) would you say that would improve the competition/sparring as a whole?

Yes, but I don't think it's a realistic expectation at all. If it ever did, I think people like Sarah and Abood would get considerably better. I think the worst delayers would get considerably worse. That's just how I see delay, as something that sucks you to the middle ground and forces you to spar a boring style.  

Posted by Thallen

Yes, but I don't think it's a realistic expectation at all. If it ever did, I think people like Sarah and Abood would get considerably better. I think the worst delayers would get considerably worse. That's just how I see delay, as something that sucks you to the middle ground and forces you to spar a boring style.

For Graal it's absolutely not realistic at all which is why I indicated alternate reality/universe. The fact is sparring on graal is wildly inconsistent and for years the people who do spar have tried to do the best with what has been given which has become some weird evolved hybrid of 'sparring' to try to deal with it (which is primarily just understood with the overall niche type group of sparrers). A lot of the mechanisms are fighting against the games flaws vs skill when it comes to delay/lag issues. The thing that sucks though with the current state it won't ever be taken serious on a high level ever unless the flaws are fixed. With the current group of sparrers we can all give reasons to deal with the issues/delay/lag but that can only go so far.

The age old debates on delay will keep going but the real problem has always been the game itself and the flaws associated with it. And from an outside player standpoint it's an absolutely understandable reason to be turned off by sparring/graal because of the obvious flaws.

As for the delay comment you mentioned that will also always be speculation (players who would be better) because other players would also get considerably better and some would get worse if the issues were fixed. The fact is none of us can really know that which is just another part of the old debates.

Don't hate the delayers, hate the game flaws  

Kind of BS since I am from Philippines and I don't force lag and I still skip lag or whatever but the person I see is moving smoothly, I have an Advantage but that doesn't change the fact I suck at spar.  

Posted by Asaiki

I have an Advantage but that doesn't change the fact I suck at spar.

It all depends if you know how to use it, timing hits and whatnot. If you skip consistently without delay, then it's not an advantage.  

Posted by Kosiris

that's pretty radical lol. I'm worried that Milo is actually considering this; if what you listed as intentional lagging was true then a lot of people would be punished. not all people have steady or reliable connections & above all that connections are complicated and there are many factors that contribute to latency fluctuations.

I mentioned taking it into consideration but not acting on it. Although what most of it may not be true, cross referencing with the other suggestions or opinions players make would give me a good idea of a better way to spot players delaying intentionally. We do have ways to view ping and such even though it may not tell us if a player is intentionally delaying, we would know if a player is lagging severely and act on it.