SUGGESTIONS FOR VP4 ONLINE.

[microbiotic]

The addition if Six Reds Snooker, to have some shorter snooker matches.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-red_snooker

[vpeer]

The addition if Six Reds Snooker, to have some shorter snooker matches.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-red_snooker

Have that look at the Advanced game options.
For tournaments we don't have that yet but will in the future.

[ingmu]

private chat

The window is closed right after one of us click "X", but sometimes we chatted and left computer/VP4 for a while.
We are not sure if the last message is seen by another sometimes.

It would be better to have a notice message which shows "one of us closed the window" in the private chat, then another can close his window manually instead of just shut it down by the system. The last message could be lost.

[microbiotic]

The addition if Six Reds Snooker, to have some shorter snooker matches.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-red_snooker

Have that look at the Advanced game options.
For tournaments we don't have that yet but will in the future.

Thanks, didn't know that :)

[ingmu]

Statistics
After having played hundreds of racks and thousands of shots, it' close to impossible to see improvements from the stats. Playing two weeks in dead stroke won't change your shot making percentage by more than a fraction of a percent, and I assume that could be discouraging for some, and not very informative for others.
Suggestion: Make it possible to show stats in time invervals (e.g. last week, last month, last year, ...).
Also, at the time of writing this, there are 25 people that have a 100% money ball percentage on 9-ball, but almost all of those players didn't shoot more than 3 money balls. Not very meaningful if you ask me, and there will probably more 1 time only players filling up space in that list. Wouldn't it be better if the list only showed stats after a certain amount of games/shots have been made ?

I have the same suggestion(time interval) in Offline before.

Without improvements/time interval, the stats is just a meaningless number after you played for several months. It won't change anymore.
Yes it will change but you can't tell/observe how it changes at all.
In my opinion, it's so important that you can make last season/6 months as default in stats if you add this feature.


Highrun
funny idea: Chase for Highrun

HR area - a webpage which lists all HRs of games which do have meaningful HR, lists HRs of all time and last season.
HR challenge - like 14.1 in RL, everyone get 1 or several chances to make HR in an event or during specific time, like the first week of "new season" in stats.
HR award for every season.

[RTC-UK]

Below is purely & simply fun,
Certain posts at FB inspired my
'tongue in cheek' ideas.

1. The game needs a 'chalk your cue' button.
2. There should be a 'cloth key' to wipe pro-X shaft.
3. It needs a chair for sitting in when my opponent is at table.
4. What about a menu that links to HungryHouse.co.uk
5. A cheering sound each time I win.
6. The window doors at Beach House should open.
7. Candlelight should flicker at Loch Lomond.

[QBall70]

I recently switched my FOV from 30 to 45. This is a big change for me, but I'm getting used to it and now I'm starting to play fairly well. However, I then switched to snooker, and I'm having problems making any decent break. The FOV isn't working for me, so for snooker I have to reduce it back down to 30 or 35. It would be nice to be able to auto-switch to a different FOV when switching between pool and snooker. I know I can adjust it manually, but an automatic option would be nice. In fact, having 2 FOV settings and being able to switch between them with a hotkey would be better.

[ingmu]

Cue ball size

The size of CBs of snooker, pool, and carom are different. Right now the CB is fixed size from 1st person view if you have "Last Distance" on.
It's correct yet wrong. I have to "zoom out" in snooker and "zoom in" in carom, because that's how I saw in RL when I switched from pool to snooker/carom.

I assume it would be better if you consider the real size of CBs in Last Distance.

[AlytPool]

An option to save password would be nice, so we dont need to type it in vp4 online menu every time we connect.

[AlMightyBob]

Concerning stats. At the moment they don't take into account the table settings at the time of recording. If I run 50 balls in straight pool on a bar box with novice pockets versus 50 balls on a 9 footer with club pockets, the stats don't reflect that. I'm not sure splitting a stat into table categories is an ideal solution but it should be acknowledged somehow. Maybe you could hover over the stat and see a popup with further info, not unlike right clicking a game room in the lobby. You could have icons next to the stat to represent the table settings too.

Wolfpack's suggestions for ladders are great! There's a lot of cool stuff you could do to reward players for playing. Tiers would be very cool.

Quick question, what abuse are you referring to with a 'Leave after current game' checkbox? Are you saying someone could auto-leave then rejoin to try and influence the break? Surely that's preventable.

[Andreas Binz]

Challenge play:
Need a in game button to set me as spectator (not needed to go out and go in as spectator) and a button to set me as queuing.

[klingklang76]

Me and my fellow 3 cushion players would really, really like to see an in-game innings counter... I know it's been asked for a long time, but surely it can't be too hard to implement? That would mean a lot to 3c enthusiasts. Oh, btw: tha same would apply to any other carom game (free, 1c, 4ball...)

Thanks!

[Wolfpack]

Everyone can notice that challenge rooms are most popular and players mostly search for games in those rooms. There are probably few reasons for that:
-games are not long to play or wait (race to 1, especially 9ball)
-you can leave any time if you have to go (in between racks, average every 2-3 minutes)
-you don't have to ask anyone to play, most challenge rooms are open for everyone
-and most important it's fast and simple

Since current "9 ball open" ladders are not popular you should try with race to 1, or maybe race to 2, 9 ball ladders with small challenge fee (10-20V$). Idea would be to create format similar to challenge rooms but with ladders. Bad things about this would be:
-players complaining about luck factor
-quick way to lose V$ since your win success must be more than 75% to earn some V$ because vp4 takes 50%
-time to find and set the match can be longer than play time

Good things:
-ladders will be more dynamic, players will move up and down all the time because games are fast and short
-chances to win/lose the match are close to 50-50 even if ratings difference between players is >500. In long matches like race to 7, better player have a lot higher chance to win, longer the race > higher the chance for better players
-lag for break will be more significant. If player runouts from break, loser can't complain about luck too much since he lost the lag
-since launch of beta we only had long tournaments where you need to stay in game for few hours, even 9b ladder race to 7 can be played for over 1 hour, there was nothing fast with V$ involved
-will be interesting to see who can stay on top with this tricky, fast, luck involved format

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJLvJkrTJXY
This is just a video example of Quick play button I suggested before. Very easy and simple way to find the match and would be great addition to VP4.

[ingmu]

Everyone can notice that challenge rooms are most popular and players mostly search for games in those rooms. There are probably few reasons for that:

I don't think we should mix Challenge and Ladder. They were born to be two different systems.

Challenge is popular simply because it's "Challenge" (race to 1 just for quick play with 3~5 players while well players may prefer real-deal match more) and it was in VP3 for a long time. (ps. For WP, there was also challenge room for well players in VP3, it's usually named 2200+, which means rating.)
Ladder is not popular because it's new and "hidden", and it costs quite a lot V$ if you play as many as matches (multiple matches a day).
Also it has no monthly/seasonal award, no specific webpage, and the ranking rule is weird. If you can just set a room and play matches, why ladder?
Celeris have to make ladder more attractive.

Just a popped idea, why not let people match randomly?
Instead of asking a player, going to website, finding ladder page, sending proposal to a player, and wait 2 minutes for the room, people can have a button of "open for ladder match" in VP4.
Everyone in "open" status will be arranged randomly (or depending on ranking). In case of people are not in front of PC, you can add a confirm buttom before the match automatically starts. The only problem is it's quite a big modification.

Hours of tourny
Sometimes it's just because of DE(Double Elimination). DE is new, I like it, and people like to try it, but sometimes it's better to set 2 shorter SE tournys instead of 1 LONG DE tourny. DE can be used on big events, not most daily tournys.

[deraltefritz]

Recent Activity tab on a players profile page shows all previous matches of a player, which is a nice thing.
But when you play for half an hour in a challenge room, the last two pages are quite cluttered up by "1-0", "0-1" results.
So how about grouping certain "events" in the Recent Activity tab?

Instead of:
Dizzle has defeated deraltefritz in a match of 9-Ball, 1 - 0 March 21, 2014 12:17 am
deraltefritz has defeated Silvia in a match of 9-Ball, 1 - 0 March 21, 2014 12:14 am
deraltefritz has defeated Silvia in a match of 9-Ball, 1 - 0 March 21, 2014 12:11 am
...
it could be:
+ deraltefritz won X out of Y matches in a 9-ball challenge room March 21, 2014 12:17 am.

where the little "+" on the left would open up the detailed view as it is right now.

Similar for tournaments, instead of:
MorkaC has defeated deraltefritz in a match of One Pocket, 2 - 1, 0ne Pocket weekly, round 11
deraltefritz has defeated MorkaC in a match of One Pocket, 2 - 1, 0ne Pocket weekly, round 4
deraltefritz has defeated Mr. Bill in a match of One Pocket, 2 - 0, 0ne Pocket weekly, round 3
deraltefritz has defeated mojoicus in a match of One Pocket, 2 - 0, 0ne Pocket weekly, round 2
deraltefritz has defeated Silvia in a match of One Pocket, 0 - 0, 0ne Pocket weekly, round 1

it could be:
+ deraltefritz reached 2nd place in One Pocket weekly.

[Wolfpack]

Everyone can notice that challenge rooms are most popular and players mostly search for games in those rooms. There are probably few reasons for that:

I don't think we should mix Challenge and Ladder. They were born to be two different systems.

Nothing will be "mixed", challenge rooms will stay there and nothing will be removed, I was just talking about creating new 9 ball (or any other game) ladder with faster and shorter format which will make ladders more attractive and all those "good things" I mentioned in last post. With automatic match search engine this ladder would be perfect I'm sure. I'm not talking about how I feel, it's just experience I got from playing many other online multiplayer games.

[ingmu]

Ok, my misunderstanding. In the first days, I was wondering why there are only 5 kind of ladder games.
Indeed there can be more than one 9b ladder settings, yet the problem is still too less players/attraction.

[ingmu]

Login

On the website, you can't see many things if you didn't login. It's not friendly to new customers.
If you want to draw new players, you have to keep it OPEN.

ps. Also someone mentioned before, make VP4 Online remember passwords so you don't need to type them every time.

[dayveed]

Hey all,

-I thought it would be nice to have the choice to split tabs for chat (with columns), to read all in once, with the active one more highlighted (maybe a less darker background for the active tab).
we lose some useful space in the width with wide screens :)

-to have sound alert for ready rooms in tournaments (and whynot an email, when it's getting long)

-maximum points left on the table in snooker for lazy people like me

-maybe a slightly focused background. i only can play in an empty black room and can't bear any background (how is it for you all ? i wonder)

-i like the idea of a chalk hotkey/button

thankssss

[deraltefritz]

-to have sound alert for ready rooms in tournaments (and whynot an email, when it's getting long)

That's a very good suggestion. It sometimes does take up to an hour to wait on a match. You can't sit in front of the computer that long unless there's something else to do there.
So the repeating beep that comes up when it's your shot would be handy for when your next match is ready. An email notification would be even better, then you can even be outside the house (e.g. in the garden) and check your smartphone.

-maybe a slightly focused background. i only can play in an empty black room and can't bear any background (how is it for you all ? i wonder)

There was a question in some other sub-forum about that. The room backgrounds make me dizzy, so I also have them turned off. But sometimes they are helpful ( far distance point kick shot systems, etc.).
It would be nice if we could "dim" the background, or even use some custom made room backgrounds in some standard 3d graphics format.

-i like the idea of a chalk hotkey/button

A "snap fingers"/"stomp cue"/"hit chalk against cue"-sound hotkey would be nice to indicate a good shot. I think that'd be better than having "ns"/"s"/"gs"/... pop up, which then has to be answered with a "ty".
It spams the chat, and most of all distracts a bit from concentrating on the table. Especially when having to respond in games with shot clock.
Such an "applause" sound of course should only be heard once per shot (so that you cannot spam acoustically). Maybe the hotkey must be pressed while balls are still moving, and will then be heard during or right after the shot. That way it won't distract during preparation of the next shot.

[Romario11]

would be good if we could see a list if rooms while in a game... i realise it may be a little late in the day for this though!

[Olivsulan]

Enabling sound when replaying in slow motion, like in vp3.

[ingmu]

Overall rating

For those non-popular games, average rating for a player is quite less than popular games, because there are less players.
Top players may only get 1700+, while top 9b players get 2000+.
Even after several months from now, I think the problem will still be there. (just like VP3)

So it's like more (non-popular) types of games you played, lower rating you got.
Maybe you can do something different to overall rating, not just average all games' rating. (Or maybe you already did? I don't know)

Ex: make a weight of every game from top 10% or 20% players, then normalize and average ratings with weight

[Olivsulan]

Please remove those OUT OF SYNC message boxes, or add an option to get rid of them

[ingmu]

Watch Shots

I think few people would really download all shots and watch them. Even fewer would really rate them.
Because there isn't a complete system, after download and watch crappy shots, people tend to not watch anymore, or just watch those 4~5 stars rating shots. This is a vicious cycle, and a waste to this feature.

1. We can have a volunteer team of 10~20 players (judges), to rate shots first, and give them fair ratings.
To reduce the work, every shot needs only 6~10 rates from the judges, before it goes "online"(can be viewed by others).
We hope all shots can be rated and online in 2~3 days after uploaded by players.
Other players can still add their ratings after the shots went online like now. We just need a judge system before that.

2. We saw some shots with very short/non-completed descriptions.
We also need a new title/description for every shot from judges, because non-English players sometimes can't make the correct description, or people just didn't have time to make a good description during the match.

The goal is to let all shots have obvious titles/descriptions and fair ratings, to let people easy and like to watch.

3. Top 10 shots every month for lazy people, and for the video-less VP4 homepage.
Or we can make a real video for top shots and upload to the official VP4 YouTube channel.