Different wind for some of the jumpers online?

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » 10 Mar 2007, 02:14

I'm sure most of us have at some point found ourselves in the masses of people with mediocre distances in horrible wind, while one or two guys jump the hill down. "How did he do that", we say to ourselves or maybe even on the chat. It's easy to dismiss this by saying that it's just talent and a bit of luck, but I don't think that it's true.

The reason for why I'm making this claim, is that there has been a couple of occasions where has the wind has become much better for me during a jump and I've achieved lengths far greater than others in the competitions. After these jumps, other respectable players, who are much better than me, ask me how I could jump so far in such horrid conditions. And I know that these players whouldn't say that the wind was bad if they actually had the same conditions as me, so I believe that I jumped in better condition then them even though we jumped at the same time (I never wait at the start).

Let it be known that I don't know anything about coding, but I still have a theory that Jussi may confirm or dismiss. Could it be that everybody starts with the same wind (e.g. tailwind 2ms), but what happens during the green light and during the jump is random (e.g. for some the wind remains at 2ms from behind, while others get better wind and some get worse)?

Edit: Fixed some typos.

Vid · Post by **Vid** » 10 Mar 2007, 03:01

I think it is something like this with the wind, yes. I saw it happen with me also. That's OK with me, because it's kind of similar to real (un)fair conditions on real ski jumping competitions, but of course not to that degree that we sometimes get in here.

On some hills, like USA for instance, front or back wind is suh a difference that even the quality of a jump doesn't matter very much... if you get good wind, you'll be high ranked for sure.

I would suggest some kind of a wind window (for instance +/-2.0 in one direction) in some future version, but as I said, I like that we are not all jumping in same conditions, it gets the competition closer to reality for me. Hell, if we want same fair conditions, let's jump in vacuum

Audun · Post by **Audun** » 10 Mar 2007, 16:21

In the end I think everyone gets almost the same amount of good/bad wind, but I'm agree that it sometimes are a bit to much different wind in hills.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » 14 Mar 2007, 02:04

In real ski jumping there is also difference in wind, but I don't think that counts as an argument for diversed wind conditions in this game. If they could control the conditions in real life, then they would. That's not possible, but in this game it is. The most natural change would be to make the wind change equally for everyone, but there is another option that I would actually prefer. I would love it if the wind was static. By this I mean that it's random how it starts out, but after that it shouldn't change at all throughout the jump. This wouldn't be realistic at all, but at least we wouldn't have to wait for those who often wait out the entire 15 seconds in hope for better conditions.

Henning · Post by **Henning** » 14 Mar 2007, 11:45

Well that's just a fact of luck ;>
I like it to, because it's just more realistic and that's what makes DSJ so famous I think.
So just leave as it is. ^^

Torsten · Post by **Torsten** » 14 Mar 2007, 15:53

Henning wrote:Well that's just a fact of luck ;>
I like it to, because it's just more realistic and that's what makes DSJ so famous I think.
So just leave as it is. ^^

FULL AGREE!
In the end, good and bad luck will be nearly the same for alle jumpers and with this randomly changing wind not always the same players will win each competition

That's more realistic and more fun for everyone, isn't it?!

Audun · Post by **Audun** » 14 Mar 2007, 17:35

Don't think that static wind is such a good idea...

And I'm agree that it's realistic with different wind for all, but in my oppinion it is to much different... I think that the wind should be in a "corridor", so like it won't increase/decrease more then 1 m/s from what it startet out as... Then it still would be depending on wind, but it won't happen that a jump get totally messed up because of the wind.

Grufugl · Post by **Grufugl** » 14 Mar 2007, 17:36

Thomas wrote:The most natural change would be to make the wind change equally for everyone, but there is another option that I would actually prefer. I would love it if the wind was static.

In my opinion the element of luck in addition to skill actually adds to a game and makes it more exiting. This is some of the charm with many real life games too.

With static wind there would also be fewer record jumps , since the best condition for long jumps is increasing wind in to the hill.

philipez · Post by **philipez** » 14 Mar 2007, 18:35

i like the idea of changing wind too, but as vid wrote, i also would prefer some kind of wind window. i'm not that long online (hence not much experience), but i think if there is nearly no wind at all, than the wind sometimes changes the direction up to 180°, and that makes too much difference.

@ jussi: maybe you can explain what it is with the wind about.

1. has every jumper the same wind at the start, and then it changes randomly?
2. has a jumper who had "good" wind on the first jump a bigger or smaller chance of having "good" wind in the second jump?
3. is the wind for jumpers who are close together in a competition (placed 1 to 5 for example) more likely the same, than with other jumpers?

hope you have time to answer, jussi.

philipez

Post by **Jussi Koskela** » 14 Mar 2007, 19:05

philipez wrote: 1. has every jumper the same wind at the start, and then it changes randomly?
2. has a jumper who had "good" wind on the first jump a bigger or smaller chance of having "good" wind in the second jump?
3. is the wind for jumpers who are close together in a competition (placed 1 to 5 for example) more likely the same, than with other jumpers?

1. The initial wind conditions are pretty similar for those players who according to the ski jumping rules would be jumping one after another (just like in reality). After the initialization the wind is updated randomly.
2. Chances for a good or a bad wind are equal for everybody on each round.
3. Yes, see 1.

philipez · Post by **philipez** » 14 Mar 2007, 22:42

thx jussi

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » 14 Mar 2007, 23:46

The static wind suggestion wasn't made as if I actually wanted to keep the wind exactly the same during the entire jump, but because it kills two birds with one stone. It doesn't really matter if one stone, two stones, or a machinegun is used, but I would very much like to see these two "birds" dead:

1) Unequal wind conditions
2) Unnecessary waiting for other players

A couple of arguments

1) I realize that some people think that slight randomness in the conditions adds to the experience to the game with an element of realism and bigger "luck factor". But what about the part that is taken away? I'm talking about the basis for comparison. When someone gets in a jump far greater than the other players, then it's more fun to congratulate him/her instead of thinking to oneself "He was just lucky with the wind". And when the table is turned around, and I am the one with the long jump, then I would like to think that my performance was the best as opposed to thinking "I was just lucky, Vid, Jani, Audun, Kafka and many others would have destroyed me if they had the same wind".

2) I have a lot of fun playing DSJ online. Part of this fun is chatting with other players, but if I'm having a conversation with someone else, is it fair that the two of us make 20+ other players wait while we talk? Maybe they just want to get on with jumping, and this can get frustrating, especially when you first have to wait 15 seconds for the last jumper to get finished, and then another 15 seconds while the timer runs.
Two things could be done here. The first is to lower the "green light timer" to 10 seconds, like in real life. For the "lobby timer", why not just set it to 5-10 seconds and remove the Ready-button? If the waiting time is the same between every jump, then you're spared the frustration of seeing that one guy who never manages to press the Ready-button and keeps us waiting after every jump. If the fixed timer is set to 10 seconds, then it might not mean that much overall in terms of waiting time, but it is a psychological aspect that I believe will make the game more enjoyable for a lot of players.
Also as suggested earlier, one option could be to make it enough that 90 % of the players have set their status to "Ready". I'm guessing that this suggestion would not require a change in the client.

Btw, this thread started out as a query, but has since become solely about suggestions. Please consider moving the thread to the proper forum section.

Grufugl · Post by **Grufugl** » 15 Mar 2007, 01:20

Thomas wrote:2) Unnecessary waiting for other players

<snip>

Also as suggested earlier, one option could be to make it enough that 90 % of the players have set their status to "Ready". I'm guessing that this suggestion would not require a change in the client.

I too find the unnecessary waiting really annoying, and I agree something should be done. I think your 90%-suggestion is good.

Henning · Post by **Henning** » 15 Mar 2007, 11:25

Agree with Tomas in the fact to set the waiting time back to 10 seconds and that's just again a little step more to realiscm

Know the problem with these lurkers who are never pressin' the ready-button and sometimes also never jump.

Don't know if it's there aim to disturb the other players but something should be done against it.

Kicking them not always works, cause those who haven't skandaninavian letters on their keyboard can't agree kicking this person...

Post by **Jussi Koskela** » 15 Mar 2007, 11:46

Henning wrote:Agree with Tomas in the fact to set the waiting time back to 10 seconds and that's just again a little step more to realiscm

Know the problem with these lurkers who are never pressin' the ready-button and sometimes also never jump.

Don't know if it's there aim to disturb the other players but something should be done against it.

Kicking them not always works, cause those who haven't skandaninavian letters on their keyboard can't agree kicking this person...

If I remember correctly, the 15 seconds starting light is still as official as the 10 seconds one even though it's not commonly used right now. I'll have to consider changing to 10 seconds mode.

And it's possible to kick players even with special characters in their names (if the first letter is not a special character) by typing the first letter and then autocompleting the name by pressing the Tab button.