Feedback for script changes

[mellofax]

Please leave your (constructive) feedback for the script changes announced here below

 

[Olve]

I think the most important scripts to keep alive are the ones that massively aid in account management & war management.
To this I hope you prioritize a version of these:
- Resource Balancing script
- FarmGod or Ntoombs farm helpers.
- Mass Scavenging & Mass Scavenge unlock
- Fake/Nuke/Fang generator scripts (A good example here is Costache).
- Snipe Helper(s)
- Coord Grabber

 

[*stryker]

Please provide the list of what scripts will be hosted by Inno.

 

[DJ300]

Please start considering and allowing scripts you deem too overpowered or give explinations as to why they aren't being approved and why they are too overpowered Tryng to make players play the game the way you want them to play the game and not the way the playerbase decides or comes up with never works. have seen many games die or loose more players because of this.
I Personally know people who wrtie scripts now who have stopped and don't put in the effort now because the criteria is too subjective and less black and white on what can be allowed.
we need more clarity on top of this so script makers stop wasting there time to be told nope too broken and nothing else explained.

 

[Nova]

I think the most important scripts to keep alive are the ones that massively aid in account management & war management.
To this I hope you prioritize a version of these:
- Resource Balancing script
- FarmGod or Ntoombs farm helpers.
- Mass Scavenging & Mass Scavenge unlock
- Fake/Nuke/Fang generator scripts (A good example here is Costache).
- Snipe Helper(s)
- Coord Grabber

We will obviously keep the most used scripts. Scripts that doesn't work, or are duplicates of will not be transferred, keep in mind there are scripts that are more than 10 years old that are still considered approved even if no one has used them for ages.

Please provide the list of what scripts will be hosted by Inno.

There are around 450 approved scripts. There won't be an instant list of this, it is a massive job that will take months to finish. Everyone will be updated as soon as there's anything that has actually changed.

Please start considering and allowing scripts you deem too overpowered or give explinations as to why they aren't being approved and why they are too overpowered Tryng to make players play the game the way you want them to play the game and not the way the playerbase decides or comes up with never works. have seen many games die or loose more players because of this.
I Personally know people who wrtie scripts now who have stopped and don't put in the effort now because the criteria is too subjective and less black and white on what can be allowed.
we need more clarity on top of this so script makers stop wasting there time to be told nope too broken and nothing else explained.

We're not going to be approving any previously rejected scripts due to this, as the purpose is moving approved script to a different host.
The rules as well as the rules for approval of the scripts is quite clear, it's recommended to read those first, preferably before writing the scripts.

 

[DJ300]

We will obviously keep the most used scripts. Scripts that doesn't work, or are duplicates of will not be transferred, keep in mind there are scripts that are more than 10 years old that are still considered approved even if no one has used them for ages.

There are around 450 approved scripts. There won't be an instant list of this, it is a massive job that will take months to finish. Everyone will be updated as soon as there's anything that has actually changed.


We're not going to be approving any previously rejected scripts due to this, as the purpose is moving approved script to a different host.
The rules as well as the rules for approval of the scripts is quite clear, it's recommended to read those first, preferably before writing the scripts.

This is not clear, have seen scripts that would be seen as ok via said rules of approval be not allowed.
hense why multiple people i know who write scripts including costcache aren't going to anymore. clearly your wrong if multiple people who do it think this way. And then the explination as to why its not approved is inadequate to say the least. literally nothing explained as to why.
TBh your answer to the script rules are clear kind of shows everything, can you guys not take feedback? You just decide ah we have rules already they must be perfect.

 

[Nova]

This is not clear, have seen scripts that would be seen as ok via said rules of approval be not allowed.
hense why multiple people i know who write scripts including costcache aren't going to anymore. clearly your wrong if multiple people who do it think this way. And then the explination as to why its not approved is inadequate to say the least. literally nothing explained as to why.
TBh your answer to the script rules are clear kind of shows everything can you guys not take feedback?, just decide ah we have rules already they must be perfect.

We're actually specifically asking for feedback; that means good and bad alike.
But your feedback here is not really related to the topic that scripts will be moved to a different host.

And I'm sorry you feel that the answers to the rejection of scripts aren't clear, however after looking through a lot of both approved and rejected scripts, it's quite clear that some points in the approval rules, as well as the rules themselves are being neglected.
I personally think, as an example that rule 6.2 is very clear:

§6.2 Bots, tools, scripts and other means which provide automated actions or replicate and/or allow access to premium functionality are forbidden unless explicitly permitted.

Or this one from the approval rules:

Scripts can not send an attack on your behalf and may not be used to send troops automatically or with fewer clicks than usual

Yet, there are a multitude of rejected scripts that can't be approved due to these rules. And considering you mention overpowered scripts, this is also mentioned in the rules - in some cases we can't go into too much detail as we need to keep our systems safe and this can unfortunately lead to answers that might be seen as lacking.

 

[valtheran88]

Please leave your (constructive) feedback for the script changes announced here below

Asks for constructive feedback...produces thread for least productive change inno has made in a long while...sorry I can't provide any positive feedback regarding this change, except that instead of doing this move to implement to most popularly used scripts into the game itself like used to happen. So that the script becomes a feature, even if it's not the BEST version of the feature it would eliminate the use of the script.

 

[DJ300]

We're actually specifically asking for feedback; that means good and bad alike.
But your feedback here is not really related to the topic that scripts will be moved to a different host.

And I'm sorry you feel that the answers to the rejection of scripts aren't clear, however after looking through a lot of both approved and rejected scripts, it's quite clear that some points in the approval rules, as well as the rules themselves are being neglected.
I personally think, as an example that rule 6.2 is very clear:

§6.2 Bots, tools, scripts and other means which provide automated actions or replicate and/or allow access to premium functionality are forbidden unless explicitly permitted.

Or this one from the approval rules:

Scripts can not send an attack on your behalf and may not be used to send troops automatically or with fewer clicks than usual

Yet, there are a multitude of rejected scripts that can't be approved due to these rules. And considering you mention overpowered scripts, this is also mentioned in the rules - in some cases we can't go into too much detail as we need to keep our systems safe and this can unfortunately lead to answers that might be seen as lacking.

Ok so for one, I have seen Rules Fabricated and invoked that aren't even apart of the tribalwars rule set so for one you saying you have rules and they are clear is pointless. because this is tottaly not true ive seen otherwise for scripts ive asked people to make
if you want ill get you proof of this too being told things can't be allowed because of rules you don't even have written on your rules page.
Also, if you guys are updating how scripts are going to work in regards to where they are being hosted etc, wouldn't that mean you also would be maybe updating your rules in future regarding scripts i mean if you think about it logically and what would happen moving forward that seems plausable right? so i think my questions and feedback in regards to the rules is very prevelent here.

​

 

[PsychedelicNurse]

I was wondering; Will this or will this not impact King_enea's botting? Or is that unaffected by these changes?

 

[Eddy-Wan Kenobi]

"We will be using this opportunity to weed out the non working scripts and will selectively remove any duplicated (or almost identical) scripts."
"We intend to actively poll the community to help us choose the best scripts to keep where there are multiple scripts performing the same thing as a part of this process."

Sometimes seemingly almost identical scripts differ in little things that some players are fundamentally important.
If you just moved all the working allowed scripts, that's fine. But if you start removing similar scripts, that's wrong. Are you going to hold a poll to find out which script to delete? And what if I needed the script that got the least votes in the poll and was deleted and no other? You don't have enough space for all working scripts? In that case why did you need to move them to your servers?

 

[valtheran88]

"We will be using this opportunity to weed out the non working scripts and will selectively remove any duplicated (or almost identical) scripts."
"We intend to actively poll the community to help us choose the best scripts to keep where there are multiple scripts performing the same thing as a part of this process."

Sometimes seemingly almost identical scripts differ in little things that some players are fundamentally important.
If you just moved all the working allowed scripts, that's fine. But if you start removing similar scripts, that's wrong. Are you going to hold a poll to find out which script to delete? And what if I needed the script that got the least votes in the poll and was deleted and no other? You don't have enough space for all working scripts? In that case why did you need to move them to your servers?

Great point, depending on my needs I have 4 different ms time scripts I switch between based on my needs and pc I'm working off. Just as an example

 

[DJ300]

Great point, depending on my needs I have 4 different ms time scripts I switch between based on my needs and pc I'm working off. Just as an example

I agree any script thats similar with slight differences like these matter massively to people all should be included and braught over.

 

[SaveBank]

Personally I am a big fan of Innogames hosting the scripts. However for the execution of the transition and the day to day afterwards I have some thoughts in no specific order:

1. I like the idea of removing redundant/outdated scripts. However as others pointed out some scripts may seem identical at first but still have one or two features that the other one doesn't. In this case both scripts are used by the community and both should be kept. The idea of voting on it seems fine for this if instead of only keeping one script of each type maybe keep the top few.

2. Assuming the idea of not having multiple scripts do the same thing will be continued after the transition there are some other issues.
The first is with new scripts that try to replace or build on some older scripts. These scripts will be quite similar to the then existing scripts especially at the beginning when the scripts are still in the early stages without too many other features added. How will this issue be adressed?
If this issue is ignored I could see fewer scripts be written in areas that could need improvements but contain popular scripts.

3. The second issue is script complexity.
One thing to keep in mind as the script moderation team is that with this change scripts in the future will become more powerful by necessity since features that in the past could be found in 2-3 scripts now have to be bundled into one script to avoid having multiple similar scripts. If going through with this the team needs to be willing to allow these more powerful scripts and give motivated scripters the opportunity to create them.

4. Some of the current scripts are quite old and had years to perfect features/UI with live testing. With the horrendous testing enviroment scripters are given most scripters rely on truly testing their scripts once approved (in the past I tested my scripts after being approved as private but now we are only able to test while publicly approved) and while some bugs require fixes that necessitate having a script update approved most can be fixed on the fly since they only required changing logic which was allowed without an script update request. How will this be handled in the future? The change to allow logic fixes without an update approval was probably to lower the burden on the script moderation team.
Maybe allowing trusted (idk how to determine this) scripters to access and change their own scripts or implementing a streamlined process where scripters can create pull requests for their own scripts.

5. Dear god please give us an acceptable testing environment. If you don't want multiple similar scripts the existing scripts need to be complex and powerful which requires testing. Starting with multiple villages, some Premium Points, Account Manager and Premium Account with an higher speed can't be that hard to keep open (maybe with monthly or weekly wipes). The idea that you have to play for days just to get to the point where you can activate Account Manager just to get nobled on the beta server is a joke. Every dev at Innogames would quit within a week if they had to test their changes in these conditions. You are only pushing people to illegally test their scripts on live severs.

6. Some scripts currently require SDKs/libaries or otherwise calls to external webservers. These will probably also need to be hosted on the Innogames servers or removed entirely. Any plans on how to tackle this issue?

7. When hosting the scripts in one central place it should not be to hard to keep track of the number of times a script is used. Tracking and displaying this publicly could yield valuable information for players on which scripts they should use or try. This could also be used to phase out older scripts when a newer one comes along with more usage. (Maybe keep track of the total uses and the uses in the past month)

 

[metLmiketh3]

With Inno games hosting and controlling all scripts. Does Inno games ever plan to put scripts behind a paywall?

 

[Nova]

Asks for constructive feedback...produces thread for least productive change inno has made in a long while...sorry I can't provide any positive feedback regarding this change, except that instead of doing this move to implement to most popularly used scripts into the game itself like used to happen. So that the script becomes a feature, even if it's not the BEST version of the feature it would eliminate the use of the script.

One need not exclude the other, but one involves devs to implement changes to the game while the other is an attempt to get a better structure of the approved scripts. But I agree fully, the absolute best case scenario would be transferring all the advantages of the different scripts over to features in game instead, no doubt about that.

Ok so for one, I have seen Rules Fabricated and invoked that aren't even apart of the tribalwars rule set so for one you saying you have rules and they are clear is pointless. because this is tottaly not true ive seen otherwise for scripts ive asked people to make
if you want ill get you proof of this too being told things can't be allowed because of rules you don't even have written on your rules page.
Also, if you guys are updating how scripts are going to work in regards to where they are being hosted etc, wouldn't that mean you also would be maybe updating your rules in future regarding scripts i mean if you think about it logically and what would happen moving forward that seems plausable right? so i think my questions and feedback in regards to the rules is very prevelent here.

​

It’s difficult to figure out what submitted and then rejected script you are referring to; I’ve went over the last 40 rejections and can’t see anything that’s unclear. In fact, 6 of them were rejected because the author never got back, 4 were private scripts, 3 weren’t even scripts, 4 were old scripts being updated to rejected because the host had been dead for a long time, and 3 of them were not working on .net as they were specifically written for .nl. None of those 40 were rejected for non-existing rules, so feel free to send me some examples and I’ll have a look.
Regarding updating the rules, obviously we’ll need to update the approval rules once this migration is finished. But the rules are currently fully updated less than 2 months back so I don’t see much point in updating them again before this migration is at least halfway to be finished.

I was wondering; Will this or will this not impact King_enea's botting? Or is that unaffected by these changes?

That’s really hard to predict, but considering this is just a migration of scripts, I’m guessing it won’t have much effect on anyone’s alleged botting.

"We will be using this opportunity to weed out the non working scripts and will selectively remove any duplicated (or almost identical) scripts."
"We intend to actively poll the community to help us choose the best scripts to keep where there are multiple scripts performing the same thing as a part of this process."

Sometimes seemingly almost identical scripts differ in little things that some players are fundamentally important.
If you just moved all the working allowed scripts, that's fine. But if you start removing similar scripts, that's wrong. Are you going to hold a poll to find out which script to delete? And what if I needed the script that got the least votes in the poll and was deleted and no other? You don't have enough space for all working scripts? In that case why did you need to move them to your servers?

We’re not going to move scripts that are no longer used, no longer working or where there’s a better working version. And as you quoted, we intend to use polls to determine in case there is any doubt if something is worth migrating. It’s not about available space at all; if we have to migrate all scripts to be hosted on our own servers – why not make the best of it and at the same time make it easier for players to find the script they want, so we can offer nice, user friendly lists of the different scripts instead of a unstructured forum that’s hard to search , makes it difficult to compare and overall at this point is overcrowded (there are scripts way back from 2009) with a mix of scripts that work and those that doesn’t. Having 10 different versions would still be manageable if they are properly presented so it’s easier to choose.

Great point, depending on my needs I have 4 different ms time scripts I switch between based on my needs and pc I'm working off. Just as an example

I agree any script thats similar with slight differences like these matter massively to people all should be included and braught over.

If there’s need for these scripts, whether they matter massively or not, they will most likely be subjected to a poll before a decision is made. But I have to note that having your game rely that massively on player created scripts that may cease to work at any point seems like a recipe for disaster, but that’s just a personal reflection on the topic. The goal with this migration is not to rob players of the scripts they use and enjoy, it's about making it safer, easier and more user friendly for the entire community.

 

[Nova]

Personally I am a big fan of Innogames hosting the scripts. However for the execution of the transition and the day to day afterwards I have some thoughts in no specific order:

1. I like the idea of removing redundant/outdated scripts. However as others pointed out some scripts may seem identical at first but still have one or two features that the other one doesn't. In this case both scripts are used by the community and both should be kept. The idea of voting on it seems fine for this if instead of only keeping one script of each type maybe keep the top few.

2. Assuming the idea of not having multiple scripts do the same thing will be continued after the transition there are some other issues.
The first is with new scripts that try to replace or build on some older scripts. These scripts will be quite similar to the then existing scripts especially at the beginning when the scripts are still in the early stages without too many other features added. How will this issue be adressed?
If this issue is ignored I could see fewer scripts be written in areas that could need improvements but contain popular scripts.

3. The second issue is script complexity.
One thing to keep in mind as the script moderation team is that with this change scripts in the future will become more powerful by necessity since features that in the past could be found in 2-3 scripts now have to be bundled into one script to avoid having multiple similar scripts. If going through with this the team needs to be willing to allow these more powerful scripts and give motivated scripters the opportunity to create them.

4. Some of the current scripts are quite old and had years to perfect features/UI with live testing. With the horrendous testing enviroment scripters are given most scripters rely on truly testing their scripts once approved (in the past I tested my scripts after being approved as private but now we are only able to test while publicly approved) and while some bugs require fixes that necessitate having a script update approved most can be fixed on the fly since they only required changing logic which was allowed without an script update request. How will this be handled in the future? The change to allow logic fixes without an update approval was probably to lower the burden on the script moderation team.
Maybe allowing trusted (idk how to determine this) scripters to access and change their own scripts or implementing a streamlined process where scripters can create pull requests for their own scripts.

5. Dear god please give us an acceptable testing environment. If you don't want multiple similar scripts the existing scripts need to be complex and powerful which requires testing. Starting with multiple villages, some Premium Points, Account Manager and Premium Account with an higher speed can't be that hard to keep open (maybe with monthly or weekly wipes). The idea that you have to play for days just to get to the point where you can activate Account Manager just to get nobled on the beta server is a joke. Every dev at Innogames would quit within a week if they had to test their changes in these conditions. You are only pushing people to illegally test their scripts on live severs.

6. Some scripts currently require SDKs/libaries or otherwise calls to external webservers. These will probably also need to be hosted on the Innogames servers or removed entirely. Any plans on how to tackle this issue?

7. When hosting the scripts in one central place it should not be to hard to keep track of the number of times a script is used. Tracking and displaying this publicly could yield valuable information for players on which scripts they should use or try. This could also be used to phase out older scripts when a newer one comes along with more usage. (Maybe keep track of the total uses and the uses in the past month)

I'll just try to number the replies as it gets so messy if I break this up in smaller pieces.

1.
That is what we are aiming for, as long as a script is working and used, and has something that makes it special, we will try to keep it. Obviously it’s defeating the purpose of cleaning up among the ~450 approved scripts and make it more user friendly if we keep 35 nearly identical scripts with only minimal differences, but for things that are quite a personal matter of preference, like timing scripts, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to keep 5-10 of them.

2.
To be fair, it’s going to take its sweet time to get to that point. But clearly we need to make it possible for new scripts to be added, and improved versions too. So I guess that when a new script that is good/better and approved shows up, it will be included in the scripts hosted on the Innogames’ server. Then I think it’s wise to make perhaps an annual assessment and see if there are scripts no longer in use – but this is really hard to say as it’s going to take a while before we’re at that point. But the overall goal isn't having as many scripts as possible, it's more about having the best scripts presented in a better way so in the long run that will likely include removing outdated scripts once there are better options being used.

3.
Bundling the scripts generally is not something we will be doing for this migration. First step is simply to host the scripts on a secure host (I have to point out that this is a global requirement that will happen for all the different versions of Tribal Wars, not just here on International). What potentially might come after that is difficult to say before we’ve even started.

4.
I agree that this is something that will require consideration. But updating a script shouldn’t in itself be more more problematic than it already is. But I think the bigger problem is a finding a better testing environment that allows the scripters a fair chance of testing the scripts before finalizing the changes and updates. That’s certainly something we will have to look into to try to find a better solution, rather than having numerous updates to handle for smaller changes.

5.
I agree 100%, this isn’t reasonable at all and I’ll add it to my list of things to try to get sorted out.

6.
As long as we get it approved by InnoGames, they will also be hosted on our own server.

7.
This is something we already discussed and one of the reasons we think this, once it’s finished, will be an improvement that benefits everyone. I’m however not sure that the necessary tools are available, at least not yet – but it’s something that we otherwise will make a request for as it would be very nice to have these statistics.

 

[Nova]

With Inno games hosting and controlling all scripts. Does Inno games ever plan to put scripts behind a paywall?

It’s really hard to predict the future, especially with the time frame “ever”. So there’s not really an answer I can give you, ever is a long time and these types of decisions are not made on Community Manager level. Technically, scripts are already locked behind a paywall, as you need a Premium Account to get access to the Quick bar.

What I can do, is say that it’s nothing that has even been discussed for as long as I can remember (and that’s a looong time as I’ve been in the team for almost 15 years). I think it would be extremely problematic to lock something player created behind a paywall, especially considering how small changes in game can completely wreck a script with a single update.
So I honestly don’t see this happening “ever” but as my ability to with certainty see into the future is lacking, this is just an educated guess, not a promise.

 

[SaveBank]

Has there been any thought on if or how to include other markets in the polls or at least announce the change there aswell?
For example the .de servers have been allowing .net scripts for a while now and I would assume a lot of players have been using scripts from here aswell (mostly because the scripts here are allowed to be much more powerful than those on .de). Now since all of the scripts approved on .de are already hosted by InnoGames we didn't get the announcement about this change at all however the change on .net is still very important there.
Would be a shame if people got banned there after the migration is done just because they did not know that only scripts hosted by InnoGames are allowed.
And some additional information would be nice on how the polls are planned and if users from other servers that use .net scripts can participate.

Also any idea when can we expect the first polls on the scripts?

 

[mellofax]

Has there been any thought on if or how to include other markets in the polls or at least announce the change there aswell?
For example the .de servers have been allowing .net scripts for a while now and I would assume a lot of players have been using scripts from here aswell (mostly because the scripts here are
allowed to be much more powerful than those on .de). Now since all of the scripts approved on .de are already hosted by InnoGames we didn't get the announcement about this change at all however the change on .net is still very important there.

This is still very much a work in progress but this is a fine point, other markets do indeed take their scripts from international. This will of course have to be raised by each independent market.

Would be a shame if people got banned there after the migration is done just because they did not know that only scripts hosted by InnoGames are allowed.
And some additional information would be nice on how the polls are planned and if users from other servers that use .net scripts can participate.


Also any idea when can we expect the first polls on the scripts?

Our first steps will be to weed out the scripts that do not work in the first place. We can expect polls I would imagine within a month or so, its hard to be more precise at this time because its not a small task. We will keep everyone posted however.

Thank you so much for the feedback and questions!