@sainserow said in Make modded games visible and ranked:
It's not a problem. It's different opinions that lead to on/off checkbox. There is no problem with having different preferences to how play the game.
The problem is people not being aware the modded games are being hosted (as mentioned in my post). People still choose whether or not they join the modded games (based on their preferences of how to play the game).
FAF doesn't have a huge number of games or players
So we shouldn't make it worse by forcing the players who don't want to play mods to use black magic to determine which mods are on. Especially when there are multiple of them.
I'm not saying we should use black magic. As mentioned in my post, I'm saying we either show the mods being used alongside each hosted game, or have a filter that you check to hide modded games. That's not black magic.
People's choice of whether to join a modded game or not isn't impacted (since the client would still show what mods are active)
It's not. Client UI is buggy and the only way to do it for sure is use the filter. It's the case with many survival maps when you're using list game settings in client. The only hint to figure out is looking for "survival" keyword, but there is no guarantee that a modded game will game one.
Even if the client UI showing what mods are active is bugged in some rare cases (I've yet to join a game which the client shows as having no mods active that has mods) I fail to see how that prevents changing to having an option, mentioned in my post, that you check to hide modded games.
The goal you are trying to achieve is exactly community fragmentation. If the more modded games will be hosted, the same amount of players will be sprayed among them. For the same reason why if 33% games were FAF, 33% games were FAF Develop and 33% games were FAF beta balance it would spread the small pool of players in a bunch of semi-empty lobbies that will take hours to fill.
You seem to be operating on the false premise it's a zero sum game where people will play FAF, and just choose whether to play modded or not. My point (as mentioned in my post) is that by making it incredibly hard to host modded games outside of your friend group, you lead to people leaving FAF. Hence fewer games.
In addition, by having modded games visible to people so they can join if they decide they want to, you decrease wait times for games, meaning more FAF games on average.