What makes a bad TTT server? - Garry's Mod

Obviously things like bad or negligent staff members and loading screen music are on this list, but in your opinion, what makes a TTT server bad? If applicable, what actions could be taken to improve it?

[QUOTE=dx9er;52481320]Minecraft, but that'd filter out 90% of the TTT servers.[/QUOTE] I have Minecraft on my server. As soon as people vote for it, it stays on for about 50 more rounds

I actually enjoy minecraft maps compared to most others. They're (mostly) really well thought out and don't rely on CS:S textures like most others.

I mean j wouldn't address as bad but generic servers where you play for points and that's all. You need things that people are always gonna be competitive in order to receive things?. No pay to win tings

lack of votemap/maps having a set map rotation is gonna get boring eventually paid admin/mod spot (just a bad, bad idea)

I used to run TPS TTT and I can pretty much list a whole lot of things: - People being able to purchase T rounds over and over and over and over and over again. - Shit ton of custom models that will take a year's worth of points to get just one - Lack of active staff on the server - Jetpacks. They are always overpowered and a fucking nuisance. - Lack of a reasonable punishment system for people that RDM frequently - Lack of a variety of tools/weapons for Traitors/Detectives In my opinion, a good TTT server should focus their monetization towards cosmetics rather than gameplay advantages.

[QUOTE=TpsTheHunter;52488124] - Jetpacks. They are always overpowered and a fucking nuisance.[/QUOTE] Are you referring to the PointShop jump packs or actual jetpacks?

[QUOTE=WitheredPyre;52488336]Are you referring to the PointShop jump packs or actual jetpacks?[/QUOTE] Both sound like awful ideas.

I think balance in a a TTT server is actually deceptively important to gameplay due to the wide variety of items and weapons that can potentially be in the game. So something people may look over could be balance, a lack of balance could will make a TTT server objectively bad. Some other things : -Rules that are too harsh on accidents (it is still a game, after all ) -Allowing too much mic spam or allowing too little mic usage -Donators/Admins being objectively stronger ( whether it be stats, items, boosters etc) -Endround/Load in music you can't kill -Lack of customization Ik some were already said but fuck you in saying it too

Countless weapons which kill instantly after a single hit.

the only punishment should be a permaban when it's obvious someone is intentionally trying to piss people off or ruin someone else's fun. there's no reason to ban someone who's intentionally being an asshole for 3 days, just for them to come back later and grief again. if they actually care about the server, they'll find a way to contact you also, there shouldn't be any arbitrary slay bullshit for """rdm""" when someone kills accidentally kills an innocent, or gets tricked by the traitor there are so many idiots that can't understand what an accident is. slaying is a waste of time and doesn't do shit just let people play, and ban people who are intentionally being assholes it sounds simple to do, and it IS simple to do so many servers just have arbitrary punishments that don't serve any purpose other than existing for the sake of existing

A bad TTT server has: -24/7 Minecraft Maps -Small map rotation -Anime Skins (Ok, it could be a good server but at this point I just hate them) -Shop perks that allow advantages -Long load times -Strict RDM rules -Lack of admin discretion -Lack of admins -T weapons that give T's advantages without some cons -D weapons that give D's advantages without some cons. -Donator perks other than a title (i.E vote ban, kick, stats etc.) -Long list of unnecessary rules of the "Philosophy" of RDM. -Slay for damaging someone while flying in a prop. (This pisses me off. Isn't this the point of ghosting in a prop??) Ill probably think of more as I relive my 1k hours of TTT. But those are the ones that seriously tick me off and yet everyone seems to have.

There's a couple of things that I absolutely hate about most TTT servers I've tried. Ruins the gamemode completely, but it seems to be the norm for servers. The most annoying thing is.. the ruleset. I don't mind servers having some rules here and there to make it an overall better experience obviously.. but for some reason people insist on having rules that completely change the gamemode for the worse. Examples: - You're only allowed to shoot someone if you witness them doing something traitorous. Great, now I can't use logic or detective skills or anything to kill someone because that'd be RDM! - Traitors aren't allowed to trick innocents/detectives into killing each other. For some reason. Even though that's like.. the point of the gamemode. - If you happen to kill an innocent (while not being T obviously) because you were "100%" sure they were a traitor, you'll still get punished for it. Basically rule #1 but you get fucked for accidents - Can't camp. Sure, if it's in some incredibly bullshitty position I get it. But why punish people for doing what they're supposed to, surviving? Just because it's by running down the clock? - Not identifying bodies is traitorous, and if don't do it as innocent/detective you'll get punished. You can pull off some great mindgames on traitors by not doing it. Again, preventing the use of legitimate tactics. And so on and so on... It's a game about deception and trickery. Let it be like that instead of adding so many dumb rules that just turns the game into a deathmatch, but with randomly selected people who gets slightly stronger weapons. [editline]23rd July 2017[/editline] Oh yeah and then there's a bunch of other stuff that isn't rule-related but just shitty design: -24/7 one specific map, or a voting system that really just ends up cycling between the same two maps. -No use of ghost props. It's all good fun and gives people something else to use to their advantage. Or to avoid. -Overload of fucking T/D weapons/equipment. I don't want to see 50 different things where half is useless and half is fucking broken. Just add a few, good ones and try to balance them. -Donator perks. Do I even need to say why? -Being able to buy T/D rounds. Again, do I need to say why? -Admins/users with voteslay/kick powers slaying or kicking that one last guy alive because they think he's "too slow". Round timer exists for a reason. Lower it/complain to the owner if you're too impatient -T/D weapons that one-shot or similar function. Knife is an exception imo because it requires you to be close and only has one use but I've seen servers with silenced one-shot snipers and revolvers that insta-kill traitors if you hit them. It's just generally awful weapon design.

[QUOTE=.apex;52498809]holy fuck that's a lot of words[/QUOTE] I agree with most of your points on this. I don't agree with the body stuff, it's pretty suspicious when you hear gunshots and then see a guy run past a body. With donator perks it really varies. On my server you gain extra XP, extra money and get free stuff for logging in every day. People who pay for VIP earn stuff faster than normal users, but I never intend for my server to be pay to win. [editline]23rd July 2017[/editline] Also who the fuck disables prop possession, we've had some great laughs on my server with that

[QUOTE=meharryp;52499340]I agree with most of your points on this. I don't agree with the body stuff, it's pretty suspicious when you hear gunshots and then see a guy run past a body. With donator perks it really varies. On my server you gain extra XP, extra money and get free stuff for logging in every day. People who pay for VIP earn stuff faster than normal users, but I never intend for my server to be pay to win. [editline]23rd July 2017[/editline] Also who the fuck disables prop possession, we've had some great laughs on my server with that[/QUOTE] Becoust laughin violates rule 345a1

[QUOTE=meharryp;52499340]I agree with most of your points on this. I don't agree with the body stuff, it's pretty suspicious when you hear gunshots and then see a guy run past a body. [/QUOTE] Yeah that's fair enough, I mean when you get punished by the admins for doing it. As in, you get punished because you made someone lose karma/get themselves killed for killing you (an innocent) because of what you did. Yeah it's alright if you decide to kill someone for not checking bodies, but it shouldn't be something you'd end up being slayed/kicked/banned for not doing. [editline]24th July 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=meharryp;52499340] Also who the fuck disables prop possession, we've had some great laughs on my server with that[/QUOTE] I know right? It's so much fun but I guess too many people whine about taking 2 hp damage because they couldn't dodge the flying watermelon

CSS is completely dead in gmod, and there are very few TTT maps that don't use CSS textures. I made the decision to change over to minecraft only maps (because they dont use css) a few years ago when my pop was down and we have rebounded since.

[QUOTE=CupCakeR;52489683]Countless weapons which kill instantly after a single hit.[/QUOTE] I remember getting banned for hacking on one of those servers because the dipshit owner thought it'd be a good idea to even give smgs (cs:go guns) instant headshot kills with very high accuracy. Makes me wonder if people even bother testing something before adding it. [QUOTE=ZachPL;52502571]CSS is completely dead in gmod, and there are very few TTT maps that don't use CSS textures. I made the decision to change over to minecraft only maps (because they dont use css) a few years ago when my pop was down and we have rebounded since.[/QUOTE] what do you mean CS:S is dead? It's very easy to get the CS:S content yourself without buying the game by using steamcmd even. It actually kinda makes me wonder why robotboy doesn't just ship the content with gmod. But otherwise you can still put up a very easy guide on your forums of how to get the css content using steamcmd.

I think a TTT server starts to be bad when Custom chat, pointshop, skins, 191234 downloads, lots of annoying huds and people with 1 dollar spam microphones

I am sure you won't even read this, but in my experience these are HUGE turn offs for me on TTT. In fact, it's why I plan to start my own TTT server at some point. -ANY models other than default models. Seriously. It just looks bad. -Poor map rotation. I do not want to play 67th or Minecraft all day. It's one of the gamemodes where a proper map variation is really important and adds to the fun. -Ridiculous RDM rules. Knock the crap off. Killing on suspicion used to be PART of TTT. Now everytime someone dies, you have to deal with RDM reports and other nonsense. If I suspect you're a traitor, based off pretty conclusive (but albeit irregular evidence) and I kill you and you're a traitor, it's NOT rdm. Stop reporting me. Seriously. I may start my own server and remove the RDM rule entirely, tighten up karma restrictions and experiment with that at some point. -Really anything other than mostly vanilla. I don't want to wait an hour to join your server.

Most poor TTT servers usually have: -24/7 minecraft maps -tiny map rotation -ridiculous amount of skins (anime or not) -long load times -overzealous rdm rules -donator perks that give advantages -overpowered weapons -abusive admins and so on

[QUOTE=TheCloak;52519901]I am sure you won't even read this, but in my experience these are HUGE turn offs for me on TTT. In fact, it's why I plan to start my own TTT server at some point. -ANY models other than default models. Seriously. It just looks bad. -Poor map rotation. I do not want to play 67th or Minecraft all day. It's one of the gamemodes where a proper map variation is really important and adds to the fun. -Ridiculous RDM rules. Knock the crap off. Killing on suspicion used to be PART of TTT. Now everytime someone dies, you have to deal with RDM reports and other nonsense. If I suspect you're a traitor, based off pretty conclusive (but albeit irregular evidence) and I kill you and you're a traitor, it's NOT rdm. Stop reporting me. Seriously. I may start my own server and remove the RDM rule entirely, tighten up karma restrictions and experiment with that at some point. -Really anything other than mostly vanilla. I don't want to wait an hour to join your server.[/QUOTE] Poor map rotation seems to be an active growing thing for some reason, everyone wanting Minecraft 24/7 and such. But the whole stuff based on killing on suspicion is what strikes me as being in communities for years where this was a rule. Why should you kill on suspicion? About if someone randomly suspect's someone and they did nothing? I mean a lot of servers have too many model's, less than 20 is sufficient for players to grind for. Nice to hear people's opinions on this though!

[QUOTE=Impitt;52523376]Poor map rotation seems to be an active growing thing for some reason, everyone wanting Minecraft 24/7 and such. But the whole stuff based on killing on suspicion is what strikes me as being in communities for years where this was a rule. Why should you kill on suspicion? About if someone randomly suspect's someone and they did nothing? I mean a lot of servers have too many model's, less than 20 is sufficient for players to grind for. Nice to hear people's opinions on this though![/QUOTE] Killing on suspicion gives players a lot more gameplay freedom. In my opinion, it's the way the game was meant to be played.

It's sort of ruining the point of the game if you can only kill someone when they shoot you first.

Stopping people from killing on suspicion stops people from thinking about what they have to do to actually win the game, to worrying about whether an admin is going to be riding their ass or not. If your players have to think a lot about whether they're violating the rules or not IMO that's very bad design. That's what the Karma system is for anyways. You can tweak its numbers pretty easily too, the server I'm working on is raising your maximum banked karma, and making it so you lose and gain a little more per kills. Basically the goal is to give people a bit of breathing room to do what they think they must while still having RDMers shuffled out pretty quickly. One other idea to try as well is having the Karma penalty lessened based on someone's karma. Right now, if you defend yourself from like a 600 karma RDMer you get penalized fully, which sucks. So perhaps if you kill a 900 karma player, you only take 95% of the penalty, 80% for an 800 karma player, and so-on, increasing in intensity. The only time admins should really care about killings are if people are abusing prop-killing to get around the Karma system, or if someone is like specifically targeting one player every chance they get, basically being a massive dick. Otherwise your game mechanics should cover most cases.

As a TTT admin, I just want to interject on the whole killing on suspicion thing. To be honest, I think it is a very situational issue. If, for example, I see someone come out of a tunnel where a trap, such as a SLAM, has been laid, and I go in there to see no one else is there or has had any way of leaving because of the SLAM, I am going to kill the person who just came out as it was clearly them who laid the SLAM. On the other hand, I have seen people killed on suspicion for very little things, including but not limited to, looking in the general direction of a T trap when it has gone off, following someone with a gun in your hand (don't we all have guns in our hands?), and even something as simple as standing still (player had gone to the toilet and was RDMed on the suspicion that they were in a T menu). So like I said, I think it depends on the situation. If your suspicion is pretty solid, like with my SLAM example, I'd say you are right to shoot as it is more than likely them, and I would personally count that as having evidence. But in the case of some suspicion kills, they do get a little ridiculous, and these suspicion kills are why a lot of servers don't allow killing on suspicion.

I'm glad my server has nearly none of these things. (Disabled prop possession, too many trolls with it blocking doors and killing T's with them, and small donator commands, vote slay and kick, simply because the server can't be staffed 24/7 and people rarely donate unless they get something half decent in return, I know it's not the best method but at least they can't really abuse with just those 2)