Roy 10,832 / 0 Report Post Posted December 7, 2018 Hi everyone, As many of you know, CS:GO has went F2P and while there is frustration from this in general, this also opens up a chance of community servers receiving more new players, etc. However, I really don't believe this change is enough to help community servers and I say that because of the current state of the in-game server browser. Here is a project that I made to address general concerns to Valve regarding community servers: I am going to quote my specific idea for the in-game server browser: Quote This is something still on my to-do list. I've been talking to others about this as well. I did a couple requests with the Steam Master Server for CS:GO. As of right now, there is a 20,000 max servers cap on the Steam Master Server. When trying to pull all CS:GO community servers from the list, it exceeds 20,000. Therefore, I decided to do two separate queries, one which included all empty servers and the other which included all non-empty servers. I concluded ~19,000 empty servers and ~2,000 non-empty servers. This totals to around ~21,000 servers and I performed these requests a few months ago. Since them the amount of community servers has probably only grown. The in-game server browser has a cap of 4,000 - 5,000 servers. Therefore, if you think about it, a normal player only gets to see 4-5K servers out of the 21K total servers. With that said, a majority of the servers are empty. The in-game server browser also sorts by ping. If you think about it, a lot of major companies spin up hundreds of CS:GO servers in certain locations that stay empty. If the player is near this location, they would only see mostly empty servers (in-game server browser sorts by latency, so go figure). In my opinion, this is pretty bad for the player to see and probably results in them exiting the server browser and going to match-making if they haven't played a community server before. What I'm going to propose to Valve is to have things setup similar to how Garry's Mod is. A rating system. The higher your rate is, the more further down your server shows. The lower your server rating is, the higher the server shows on the list. Basically, the server browser should sort by the server's rating ascending. Therefore, the lower the rating is, the better. I'm pulling this code from the JavaScript file the Garry's Mod in-game server browser uses and this is how they determine the server's rating: data.recommended = data.ping; if ( data.players == 0 ) data.recommended += 100; // Server is empty if ( data.players == data.maxplayers ) data.recommended += 75; // Server is full if ( data.pass ) data.recommended += 300; // If we can't join it, don't put it to the top // The first few bunches of players reduce the impact of the server's ping on the ranking a little if ( data.players >= 16 ) data.recommended -= 40; if ( data.players >= 32 ) data.recommended -= 20; if ( data.players >= 64 ) data.recommended -= 10; As you can see, the rating starts off with the client's ping to the server (remember, the higher the rating is, the worse). If the server is empty, it adds +100, if the server is full it adds +75, and if the server has a password, it adds +300 (servers with a password definitely should show up at the very bottom of the list). With that said, if the server has 16 or above clients, it SUBTRACTS 40. If the server has 32 or above clients, it subtracts 20. And finally, if the server has 64 or above clients, it subtracts 10. Though, 64 or over player limit is useless in CS:GO since the maximum players can only be 65 (limited by the client/server). I believe this system would work best for CS:GO. With that said, empty servers should also be showing up in the server browser slower than servers with at least one player. This is also how it is in Garry's Mod. If my server is empty, it usually takes 30+ seconds to show up in the server. However, if it has a player, it normally shows up within 10 - 20 seconds depending on the location of the server (servers closest to you normally show the fastest). I guarantee if the server browser was fixed, all servers with at least one player would start gaining more players because players will actually be able to find them in the server browser. With that said, it would be nice for Valve to actually address the suggestions and issues I addressed in the Reddit threads I linked in the original post. I will be recommending this to Valve and may even make a Reddit post if I get no attention from them. Thanks. I've made a PHP script that requests information from the Valve/Steam Master Server for CS:GO. This counts all the CS:GO community servers. However, since there is a cap of 20,000 servers on the Master Server and there are more than 20,000 community servers, I had to perform two calls (one requesting all empty servers and the other requesting all non-empty servers and then I add both results). As writing this post now, here are the results of my script: Total Count - 21641 Empty Count - 18144 Non-empty Count - 3497 There is a total of 21,641 community servers. 18,144 servers are empty while 3,497 servers have at least one player. Only 16% of community servers have at least one player and this is during prime time on a Friday after F2P was implemented. In my opinion, these numbers and ratios are terrible. This isn't including password-protected servers as well. You can also check my statistics website for CS:GO here regarding community server population. With that said, the in-game server browser is capped to one minute of pulling servers from the Master Server until it stops. This typically results in 4000 - 5000 servers being displayed in the in-game server browser. Therefore, clients don't even see 1/4 of the servers in the in-game server browser. Let alone, an average of 16% of those servers are non-empty depending on your location. These are very bad numbers in my opinion. My suggestion would be to completely filter out empty and password-protected servers via the Steam Master Server by default which I believe can be achieved by adding \empty\1\password\0 to the Master Server filter (more information). However, there are concerns regarding this. For example, if a server crashes, it would show as empty and not show up in the server browser until someone joins back. If these servers are filtered on a Master Server level, this will allow all servers to be seen by default since there are less than 4000 - 5000 non-empty servers at a time normally. Personally, I feel the server owner or admins should be playing on their server(s). If the server is popular enough to have people adding the server to their favorites, if the server crashes, it will probably get at least one player back into the server via the favorites tab. Otherwise, admins and above should join the server after the server crash. Though, this is just my opinion. If a lot of work went into this by Valve, they could probably add a cool-down for when the server crashes to still show on the server browser even while empty. Another idea I had was to load ALL servers the Master Server pulls but pull non-empty servers FIRST and put them at the top of the server browser by default (this would be neater if the GMod-like rating system I suggested was implemented). The point of this thread is to gain feedback from others on the ideas suggested above and/or their own ideas for the server browser. The game going F2P has made me more motivated because it can result in more new players to our servers. However, I really don't think it will help much unless if the server browser gets cleaned up. If the server browser got cleaned up, I truthfully believe community servers would see a spark in population just like how things went in late 2014 when I addressed a big issue regarding the server browser to Valve and they ended up fixing it. It wouldn't hurt if Valve made the server browser a bit more noticeable as well though I've sent an email to Valve earlier today with these suggestions, but I didn't put much effort into the email since my requests via email and Reddit have been ignored in the past even though I put a lot of effort into them (i.e. Reddit thread #1 and #2 that hit #1 on the /r/GlobalOffensive sub-Reddit, but resulted in no replies by Valve). I do however, plan to make another big Reddit thread in the near future with focus on a rebuilt in-game server browser. Please let me know what you all think! I plan to gather more statistics soon (e.g. how many servers are password-protected and so on). Thank you for reading. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy 10,832 / 0 Report Post Posted December 7, 2018 And yes, I know I am crazy for even trying to get Valve to change anything community server-related considering Valve has only hurt community servers in the last few years (especially the servers that obeyed their guidelines unfortunately). However, as long as I'm in GFL and active, I'm going to try to push Valve to provide better support for community servers Thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
positive 210 / 4,563 Report Post Posted December 8, 2018 · Hidden Hidden RIP ZM EU ;-;7 Share this post Link to post
Roy 10,832 / 0 Report Post Posted December 8, 2018 59 minutes ago, positive said: RIP ZM EU ;-;7 It would definitely come back if the server browser was ever improved Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy 10,832 / 0 Report Post Posted December 9, 2018 I've tried querying the Master Server with the filters \appid\730\password\0, \appid\730\password\1, and \appid\730\nor\1\white\1\password\0 and it appears the password filter is just non-existent or not working anymore. So I couldn't get the amount of CS:GO password-protected servers for now. I will adjust my script to do a for loop and detect if the server has a password or not. I've also made a Youtube video of my current in-game server browser and as you can see, there are many password-protected servers along with empty servers: Thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skittlez 721 / 11,279 Report Post Posted December 9, 2018 Edited December 9, 2018 by Skittlez · Hidden Hidden To start I just want to clarify that I completely agree with you. The CS:GO in-game server browser is truly a disappointment. At times I struggle to find servers that I know are online, for example, the minigames server. In CS:GO if you open the browser and type "GFL" and refresh you'd hope to see all of our CS servers. Unfortunately, that's not the case. With no filters on my search, the only servers that came up were our ZE server and some random Russian ZM server: Our 1v1 server does not have GFL as a tag so it would make sense as to why that server wouldn't show up. However, minigames does have the tag and still doesn't show up: This is rather disappointing and could explain why the minigames server isn't doing as well as it could be. Now, if there is a reason that it's not showing up for me then please let me know. Also, the server doesn't show up when you change the tag from GFL to GFLClan either. On 12/7/2018 at 6:27 PM, Roy said: What I'm going to propose to Valve is to have things setup similar to how Garry's Mod is. A rating system. The higher your rate is, the more further down your server shows. The lower your server rating is, the higher the server shows on the list. Basically, the server browser should sort by the server's rating ascending. Therefore, the lower the rating is, the better. I'm pulling this code from the JavaScript file the Garry's Mod in-game server browser uses and this is how they determine the server's rating: data.recommended = data.ping; if ( data.players == 0 ) data.recommended += 100; // Server is empty if ( data.players == data.maxplayers ) data.recommended += 75; // Server is full if ( data.pass ) data.recommended += 300; // If we can't join it, don't put it to the top // The first few bunches of players reduce the impact of the server's ping on the ranking a little if ( data.players >= 16 ) data.recommended -= 40; if ( data.players >= 32 ) data.recommended -= 20; if ( data.players >= 64 ) data.recommended -= 10; I really like this idea and think it would work also very well with CS:GO. However, my only fear is that CS:GO servers that are full would be lowered in the server browser. For example, all Zombie Escape server are listed as shown: Assuming we list these servers using the GMod server rating method they would appear as shown: Unless I've done my calculations wrong our server would drop 4 places just because I have a good ping and it's full. And for the second server, it dropped 8 places because its max player is set to 61 and I have a bad ping. I believe the rating system works very well in GMod. I also believe it'd work really well in CS:GO, however, there are many things that should be addressed. On 12/7/2018 at 6:27 PM, Roy said: Personally, I feel the server owner or admins should be playing on their server(s). If the server is popular enough to have people adding the server to their favorites, if the server crashes, it will probably get at least one player back into the server via the favorites tab. Otherwise, admins and above should join the server after the server crash. Though, this is just my opinion. Well, for servers that typically don't have a lot of people on them (GMod Deathrun) it's not always likely for the owner to be online. When I was tired of purge I'd always go onto another server like deathrun, H&S, or prop hunt. Typically these servers had 0 players and when I'd join someone else would join and then randoms would begin to fill the server. At times, Maskiee and I would get on and end up with 20+ players just from us joining. With that said, more popular GMod servers, like SuperiorServers DarkRP, are abusing the server browser rating feature by adding AFK accounts to increase their rating. As you can see below, they only have around 84 players in the server while the browser says they have 116. While I was on the server it went from 70-90 pretty sporadically. My fear is that something like this will happen in CS:GO. Valve clearly doesn't seem to be taking any action on these servers and I foresee the same in CS:GO. On 12/7/2018 at 6:27 PM, Roy said: The game going F2P has made me more motivated because it can result in more new players to our servers. However, I really don't think it will help much unless if the server browser gets cleaned up. If the server browser got cleaned up, I truthfully believe community servers would see a spark in population I 100% agree with this, the new update (should) increase community server population. Mainly because these new players wouldn't start off with prime matchmaking and may look to community servers as an alternative. Not many people get on CS:GO and go into a casual match to warm up. Many go into 128-tick community servers instead. With this new battle royale I see a lot of potential for (hopefully) 64 or 32 player servers. If they don't release an official version I'm sure someone can make a mod for it. As you mentioned in your video the browser is hidden and I personally don't see any reason why it shouldn't be added to the main menu or more clearly in the 'Play' section. I really hope your emails and Reddit posts are noticed by Valve and spark a change in the community side of CS:GO. Edited December 9, 2018 by Skittlez Share this post Link to post
rapperdan 2,323 / 0 Report Post Posted December 17, 2018 Edited December 17, 2018 by rapperdan - Edit Reason: had to use spoiler embed things where making stuff to big :L · Hidden Hidden On 12/9/2018 at 4:07 PM, Skittlez said: Our 1v1 server does not have GFL as a tag so it would make sense as to why that server wouldn't show up. However, minigames does have the tag and still doesn't show up: it has the brackets needed now so it should show up <3 thanks for saying something where I never did we could use a flashy server name ★ /s the tags and name should be updated thanks @virusking <3 new tag should be as followed new name [GFLClan.com] 1v1 Arena 128 tick |!WS|!KNIFE|!GLOVES along with adding the tags that needed to be added as there was well none. anyways it's a pinging issue because well that tag is there and has been for awhile as shown here anyways if you search 1v1 it shows up so have this I suppose a few ideas given by the one and only @skell my boi <3 also idk if this may help at all for later expansions but this is what one of our players for 1v1's favorites looks like and to avoid any possible confusion I will show how the if you have already pinged the server you using 1v1 as the search you could condense your filter and type gfl from there it will pop up as shown anyways should have the name of the community in the front :L [GFLClan] 1v1 Arena | Dallas | 128 tick [GFL] 1v1 Arena | Dallas | 128 tick after taking a breif shower and staying fresh I believe this option might be the best. [GFL] 1v1 Arena | Dallas | 128 tick | ws | f2p the idea is putting the free to play at the end to avoid anyone who bought the game and is gonna start cheating from the gecko while obtaining the word of mouth aspect that we have a free to play server and ws inbefore that and all these are based off of priority of importance maybe switch up the 128 tick and Dallas but other then that should be gucci the concept behind this is to get the csgo to filter things and see what get's cut off at a point as I do believe something is getting cut by the search engine it's self seeing as how the gflclan thing is not getting flagged. Edited December 17, 2018 by rapperdan had to use spoiler embed things where making stuff to big :L The best server in GFL better then MilkMans TTT server will ever be Share this post Link to post Achievements 3