Thoughts on further PvP improvements.

[Ryme]

Okay. I don't need to be dismembered. I have read without skimming any part of that post. I like the idea of tournaments. I think it would definitely keep PvP fresh from week to week, and it would put some real incentive on people to want to win for reasons other than rank and leaderboarding.

It'd also be at least as much coding as what I've done thus far, with a lot more exceptions and such. Not a quick addition at all, but certainly a good one.

I'd also like to finalize the actual pvp plans first, as there's a number of unimplemented items and such that haven't even made it into the current scenario.

[TheK3vin]

So... what? Two weeks?

[Hannahmaus]

Two things I'd like: an "Attack again" link at the end-of-fight page, also a "Back" link that takes you back to wherever you are before. The second would be especially useful if you've come from the search-by-rank page, as TH seems to get a little distressed by attempts to follow links in another tab or window.

[Cristiona]

Since the game prevents you from attacking them, I don't think that's especially necessary.

[Olaf]

It does save a lot of clicks, though.

That is, if you're actually still attacking anyone anymore. :/

[Satan]

It also might be convenient to not have a list full of people you've already fought before. It'd save pageloads, too.

[Ryme]

But if it quadruples the load on the database, it's not saving the game anything. I haven't found an elegant way to query everyone you've fought twice to eliminate those candidates.

[Satan]

Me and Olaf discussed this as well, Ryme. My solution was to use a string to be parsed that would hold all pvp data on a per person registered basis. I.E., there'd be a list of entries like "charid:fought-won", strung together with commas. And then you'd make that single call for the player's row, and all the data you'd need would be there. The disadvantage is that, with that, you could get very long strings. But that data could all be wiped at once at rollover with set NULL where true, since you wouldn't need to save any of it day to day, so there wouldn't be any real issue dealing with storing. It can also be a bit cumbersome to write up code to work with it, but once you get it down, it's pretty easy. :/ Those rows would also serve as a list of everyone active in pvp, and you could just add/delete their rows as they became active/inactive.

[Satan]

Also, question. We've discovered that some of us (Wiliam, Hoka, Array) have some point differences between attacking and defending. Array initiating against Hoka, Array had 151 starting points, Hoka had 165. Array initiating against Wiliam, Array had 151 starting points, Wiliam had 165. Hoka initiating against Wiliam, Hoka had 151, Wiliam had 165. So it seems the attacker keeps getting set to 151, and the defender (when their rank is high like ours, anyways) is being set to 165. Bug or something else?

[neocamp22]

I'm seeing like 149 165, but I'm a bit lower in rank.

[Ryme]

Basically, we'd appreciate it if that system was changed.

It's not the system, it's a bug. You don't need the system changed, you need the bug fixed. I'll look into that.

Edited to add: simple typo; should be fixed.

[Corrupt Shadow]

Hey, Zel, ya gotta little egg on your face there.

[Ryme]

Nah, it's all good. If you assume I made a mistake instead of a bad design choice, it looks just as bad if you're wrong and I'm grumpy. I do appreciate the issue being called to my attention.

[Ryme]

Okay, if someone attacks you, it no longer goes to a message, and now just gets logged. You can see these logs through the Arena, on the scoreboard page.

I've still got to add some functionality, like the ability to sort by different fields and the ability to filter by different criteria (wins, losses, attacks, defends, probably). Also we're in a limbo where it's not giving you alerts at the moment, but I'll fix all that this weekend. Alerts will simply tell you how many times you've been attacked since the last time you checked.

[Ryme]

On the scoreboard, you can filter by all the things mentioned above, plus ties, which I hadn't considered at the time.

The main page and any page in the arena ought to alert you to recent attacks and changes in status. The first time there you'll probably get a big notice to reflect the last 2 days worth of defenses.

[Olaf]

Other player's name links in the attacker column of the scoreboard page all go to my profile.