Any reason why instagib is so popular?

I don't know if it's just me going on the wrong times, or what. But Xonotic, and most other Quake-Inspired F2P/Open-source shooters is filled with nothing but Instagib servers. Then I just end going to Quake Live at the end.

Any reasons why this type of game mode is such hugely popular?

One main aspect is that it is newbie- and casual-friendly:

• you easily get some frags
  
• match times are short
  
• no weapon combos to learn
  
• it´s a hell lot of a mess thus being unpredictable
  
• people like to do thousands of damage per hit
  
• no need for keybinds, or even any keyboard...
  

A friend of mine played some Nexuiz back in the days with me and we were total noobs at that time. He seemed to like minsta a lot more than vanilla gameplay because it seemed too hard to get kills in vanilla if you compare it to minsta.

My theory is that people are just too lazy or retarded to play a normal match. They can't kill anyone and they don't bother to learn how to play. On instagib servers however, anyone can frag.

Thank you for your charitable words...

Because it is better than vanilla in Xonotic.

... this topic is discussed here about x times ....

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My theory is that people are just too lazy or retarded to play a normal match. They can't kill anyone and they don't bother to learn how to play. On instagib servers however, anyone can frag.

Hmm, well I wonder what would happen if there was a mutator which tones down the twitcheyness a bit, do it would be like Halo speed or something. To be honest, Halo was my first (stretching it a bit) arena shooter. The slow paced "intensity" helped me out a bit to move on to Counter Strike, Urban Terror, then finally onto Quake Live multiplayer.

I have to say that I'm just an average player, who doesn't quite get the map weapons layout or tricky bunny hopping. Heck, I still do fine with the default controls setup (with exception with Q & E to switch weapons), yet I still manage to get 3rd or 2nd place in DM.

Maybe I'm just trying to say that some players didn't have the experience to work their way up from slow paced shooters to twitchy based. A mutator aimed towards to inexperienced twitchy players would really help them out...But it could also mean that you don't get that full exhilaration when flying like a bird when trick jumping. :/

I think the big issue is what gaming has become nowdays, when I started playing (starsiege tribes, and ut99/2004) I remember that most people, at least the ones I got to play with had the objective which was simply having a nice and fun match, results didn't matter at all.

For example it used to be when someone fragged you, you tried avoiding doing the same thing again, or if it was something amazing you said 'nice one' or maybe ':_)', nowdays, everyone cares only about the result, wins wins and more wins. If they get fragged or loose, they blame it on lag or on bad hardware (mouse is not working, low fps, etc).

As long as this instant gratification generation of people keep playing, simple gamemodes that don't have a very steep learning curve to get into are going to be popular.

Kammy, you can approach that problem with implementing proper objective-based gameplay. The overkill mod would be a good point to start with as it does a lot of things right in that department. But sadly big egos have prevented vanilla to profit from the overkill mod, instead they are battling each other.

Well, what did you expect.
There are so many problems with Xonotic... The whole thing is a mess of technical/theoretical crap.

@Matoro - tone down twitchiness? Why would you do that, you would create yet another modgame.
There is a server for beginners but its a joke mostly since you don't get enough players for a second server so its not enforced. A shame really. Singleplayer component exist to prepare players, but turns about, nobody gives a ****, so we are back at the beginning.

Its really a chicken and egg problem, if there were more people you would get tiered gameplay, from noob to pro.
It is becoming obvious that the game will not survive like this. There will have to be serious changes.

Learning of weapon combos can't be the cause, otherwise game modes like clan arena in Quake Live wouldn't be so popular*. The cause could be just that the vanilla gameplay requires more map knowledge, strategy and patience (spawn spots, timing- and picking up of items). Players today who join up a shooter game expect it to be a showcase of reflexes and accuracy, not a chessboard requiring brain power. If they were into strategy games they would go play league of legends instead.

*Why isn't clan arena popular in Xonotic? Because there's nobody trying to distribute it and new players have no idea how go for it in votable servers.

Now that some people have mentioned this, I have considered setting up a clan arena server, votable between normal clan arena, and the ra3 warmup gamemode:
-Everyone spawns with 200/200 and all weapons, but it's like dm, no teams and first to get to 50 frags wins.

Would a public clan arena server actually work out at all, or help bring more players to the game?

It's worth a try, I like clan arena very much but I seldomly play it as it is only played in pickups (and I'm recently less active in pickups in order to populate public servers).

The cause could be just that the vanilla gameplay requires more map knowledge, strategy and patience (spawn spots, timing- and picking up of items). Players today who join up a shooter game expect it to be a showcase of reflexes and accuracy, not a chessboard requiring brain power. If they were into strategy games they would go play league of legends instead.

-Everyone spawns with 200/200 and all weapons, but it's like dm, no teams and first to get to 50 frags wins.

FINALLY!!! At least someone's eyes opened and saw the truth!

Would a public clan arena server actually work out at all, or help bring more players to the game?

I don't think so, waiting in spectators while the rest of your team fights is boring. I really want to see a Key Hunt server with all weapons, 60 of all ammo, 100 hp and 100 armor at spawn.

...more map knowledge...

This could be partially solved by making map locations more memorable.


I actually think that the mode where players start with weapons and some armor should be the default and the current mode should be a mutator / arena.

The cause could be just that the vanilla gameplay requires more map knowledge, strategy and patience (spawn spots, timing- and picking up of items). Players today who join up a shooter game expect it to be a showcase of reflexes and accuracy, not a chessboard requiring brain power. If they were into strategy games they would go play league of legends instead.

-Everyone spawns with 200/200 and all weapons, but it's like dm, no teams and first to get to 50 frags wins.

FINALLY!!! At least someone's eyes opened and saw the truth!

Lol.

Would a public clan arena server actually work out at all, or help bring more players to the game?

I don't think so, waiting in spectators while the rest of your team fights is boring. I really want to see a Key Hunt server with all weapons, 60 of all ammo, 100 hp and 100 armor at spawn.

Clan arena works as a gate-way drug into TDM/CTF/Duel/FFA in both Quake live and in Warsow. I've also heard that many of the key people in Quake community as a whole actually got into these kinds of games thanks to Clan Arena for being accesible while teaching you to control the basic aspect of the game (that is: using different weapons in right situation, learning maps, position yourself well, listen to other players sound and such).

Honestly, I don't get why it wouldn't work. Waiting is usually between 30 sec to 1.5 minutes so it's not like you wait a lot. It will also reward learning more tricks since the better you get the lesser you have to wait, which gives the whole a very concrete value for learning in contrast to learning Duel first coming from COD then stuff get too abstract. We also have to note that we should not make it too easy either. Just because the introduction mode(s) have to be accesible doesnt mean they shouldnt be challanging since we don't want to attract all people, but people who would end up enjoying Xonotic for what it is, not for a easy mod that you can access through it.

...more map knowledge...

This could be partially solved by making map locations more memorable.

I thought that too in beginning, that learning maps actually was a problem that mappers should solve when designing their maps. I've turned my mind and after playing a lot of Warsow with settings set so I DON'T see any of the original texture of the map (in contrast to using picmip where you actually see the colors of the textures) and still I can navigate and learn maps at the same speed I would in other games where I actually see the colors of different spots on the map. Weapon placement, architecture and stuff like teleporters placed out along maps are actually more than enough of waypoints for navigating. Learning maps this way make you learn maps more effeciently since you don't have to first learn map then learn weapon placements (not that this particular problem was your point I pressume but it's a very tiny bonus you get from this).

I actually think that the mode where players start with weapons and some armor should be the default and the current mode should be a mutator / arena.

You have to understand that that is not a easy effort. A tiny change like that will force you to re-balance the whole game. The net effect is most-likely to change Xonotic considerbly (making it in terms of serious players: not Xonotic anymore) and I think that is just a stupid mistake.