Button Cheating Update

[scotch]

Previously, we looked at button cheating for Soldier, and whether it should be disallowed or prevented, and how to handle existing runs.

I've taken all of the feedback in and can definitely understand the opposing viewpoints, especially towards the particular discrepancies and scale of punishing button cheating for Soldier. As a result, narrowing down the focus of the punishment seems necessary. While policing and monitoring for potential perpetrators may seem like an arduous task, keep in mind that similar rules are in place (alt accounts and freeze-glitching), and are successful in their execution.

With all of that said, button cheating to save meaningful time as Soldier is now punishable.

• This rule will be applicable to World Record and Top Time map and course runs, where having another player shoot buttons saves time.
• Cases of cheating which are in doubt will be reviewed carefully, potentially drawing in the wider community for assistance with the final decision.
• Attempting to disrupt players by shooting buttons repeatedly will be punished with similar severity.

Following this, one World Record run and multiple Top Times were deleted, and the main rules thread has been updated.

Moving on, Demoman button cheating is a widely exploited and often necessary part of completing maps. While these runs will typically occur on Soldier maps, and therefore be less valued and competitive, it does force players to recruit their fellow jumpers to shoot buttons, in order to effectively run these maps.

I would like to offer a solution for this, by allowing Demoman players to "shoot" buttons in a similar manner as Soldier, allowing maps to be completed without assistance. This will look something like, switching to your melee and left clicking to "shoot" buttons with 0.625s (the same speed as the shotgun) between each attempt. Maps like Shiver (which features a button currently inaccessible for Demoman) can be exempt from this.

Let me know your opinion on this, and any potential exploits or factors that need to be considered and whether you would like this implemented in a Tempus server near you!

[kiddeR]

to be clear, demoman will not be punished for button cheating normally, correct? this shotgun thing will be a bonus for those who don't want to cheat/can't cheat because no one's online?

[Klowwd]

I like this idea but I'm also worried about what kidder said. IMO demo button cheating shouldn't be punishable because this method wasn't possible in the past

[Zike]

I would like to offer a solution for this, by allowing Demoman players to "shoot" buttons in a similar manner as Soldier, allowing maps to be completed without assistance. This will look something like, switching to your melee and left clicking to "shoot" buttons with 0.625s (the same speed as the shotgun) between each attempt. Maps like Shiver (which features a button currently inaccessible for Demoman) can be exempt from this.

That's all fine and dandy imo and will definitely help those that struggle to recruit people especially on the maps where you need more than 1 person to actually shoot the buttons, however there will still be a lot of cases where traditional button cheating will still be meaningfully faster than this pseudo shotgun. For example, on beef there are 3 buttons that need to be shot for demo. The first two are those to open the course doors for c2 and c3. First of all the time it takes to just switch to your pseudo shotgun and then back to stickies will probably be close to a second or two which means a lot on a 53 second map. Also, you lose even more time as there is a telehop strat for entering c2. Moving to the third button on the third jump of c3 you would lose a small amount of time due to weapon switching once again. Optimally you will try and get above the hole that opens up as fast as possible so you can immediately start shooting stickies to they can be armed to detonate when you land. With this added delay of weapon switching you will likely be slow to start shooting your stickies and may need to wait a bit on the ground before your stickies are armed to detonate. This in total costs quite a bit of time on such a short map, and as a result would make it incredibly difficult if not impossible to beat the current map record. This is true for other maps as well such as the obvious beefmas. The point is normal button cheating definitely needs to stay unless you want to wipe a lot of times, but I don't think that's really fair to people who've put in a lot of time when there was no alternative. This is especially true for those that weren't the ones to button cheat first on the map. The only way to get the wr was to button cheat.

Maps like Shiver (which features a button currently inaccessible for Demoman) can be exempt from this.

I'm not 100% sure if you mean that for select maps like shiver this pseudo shotgun will not be enabled, but it is still possible to button cheat with someone else shooting the button. Or alternatively that these select maps like shiver will have a rule change to where button cheating at all is no longer allowed and the offending times will be wiped. In the case of the former I think the pseudo shotgun should just be allowed. In the case of the latter that seems really unfair especially given your policies on similar issues relating to wiping times in the past. So obviously I'm someone that really cares about shiver, and I'll stick with it as its your example. First of all that seems really unfair because of the fact the button cheat has been a part of that wr since early to mid 2016 when soup first did it to take the record from me. At the time I believe wr was about a 3:10-3:15 and with the button cheat soup lowered it to a 3:06. From this point on him and I traded the wr a couple times with button cheat and then I just kept improving my own time. For over 2 years this was 100% acceptable with no negative penalty and I put easily at least 100 hours into this map with button cheating. I don't see why all of a sudden all of my effort should be negated because of this sudden desire to change the rules. It's not even like I started this button cheating on this map. However, if you don't think that just my opinion matters any more on this map than anyone else's ok fine. The issue I have with this though is for the past two years you've been extremely against wiping times to update things on tempus. As far back as 2016 I can remember times where I asked for something to be fixed and you declined as you did not want to wipe times. For example, drought b6 was zoned incorrectly when it was added ages ago. The end zone for the bonus is about half way through the jump instead of at the clearly marked end zone with a control point. When I first mentioned this to you you said you would look into it and ultimately decided you did not want to wipe the about 10 completions on the bonus just to fix it. At the time half these people were long dead or would've 100% been ok with the change, yet you still did not want to as that would have meant wiping times people put effort into (a lot less effort than I've put into shiver). Similar policies can be observed with the treatment of new versions of maps. There have been many maps that were added and the creator came back at a later point releasing an update to the map. These updates were always deemed to minor to warrant having both versions on tempus, but the new version would never be added to replace the old version. The maps are slightly different so times would need to be wiped but it was never actually done. Even in cases where there would not have been much controversy around updating them. I'm pretty sure the new version of cube has very little in terms of game play changes with the biggest thing being less buttons which is good for both classes. Despite this the old version of cube is still the one on tempus. The point I'm trying to get at is that this would make it ok to wipe maps like shiver which were fine for years, but not ok to change things that definitely have a strong case for changing. If you're going to do one why not do the other. The updating maps thing is a bit more controversial but fixing broken bonuses or bad end zones really isn't or at least not on the same level. I don't think that times on these maps should be wiped when there were much stronger cases for wiping far more inconsequential times in the past. 

[scotch]

To clarify, this wouldn't mean punishing demoman players who button cheat, but simply provide an avenue for easily hitting buttons without help. I'm aware that its not a flawless solution in terms of matching the effectiveness of button cheating, but will definitely make it possible to compete on a vast majority of maps. Clearly this has become an acceptable part of completing maps as demo, and is not something to be punished unless a large majority of the community wants it.

Furthermore, if you are aware of maps that have a newer (and better) version and would be inconsequential to update, in terms of zoning and level data as well as run integrity, please let me know.

Hopefully that clears it up.

[VAVLIE]

Does that also include button bonuses where pretty much all the times are already cheated?

Edit: yeah was talking for soldier

[scotch]

I'll assume you mean for Soldier, in which case the rule is aimed specifically at course and map runs.

I don't think too many people care about bonuses, and certain bonuses would have more cheated runs than non-cheated runs.

[nick]

give demo a glock

[Simontf2]

give demo a glock

Agree completely

[Consition]

I would like to offer a solution for this, by allowing Demoman players to "shoot" buttons in a similar manner as Soldier, allowing maps to be completed without assistance. This will look something like, switching to your melee and left clicking to "shoot" buttons with 0.625s (the same speed as the shotgun) between each attempt.

This sounds like a very good idea though it may look ridiculous. I would love to see it a tempus server near me though.

[Ladyboog]

I would like to offer a solution for this, by allowing Demoman players to "shoot" buttons in a similar manner as Soldier, allowing maps to be completed without assistance. This will look something like, switching to your melee and left clicking to "shoot" buttons with 0.625s (the same speed as the shotgun) between each attempt.

And with that, the second information revolution officially began.

[reero]

fuck yes demo gets a glock