lol the current system is better? you have to pay for a extra software to have a chance. Its ridiculous. If they dont wanna fix this I really like the battlenet idea.

Battlenet is the nut low. ANYTHING is better than that.

even though im using sharky, i think it might need to be banned now. I tried playing without it and its impossible. Even if you sit 1st, second later you get set by sharky user. Thats because sharky sits new lobbies but doesnt scan it so well that if someone sits in a fraction of a second after new lobby was created, sharky still sits. That makes it almost impossible for nonsharky users to get a lobby. Thats after the lastest update. Before even though I had sharky, I was registering manually and was able to get lobby before sharky users did.

battlenet idea is still terrible. Sharky is ok as long as it gives nonusers a chance. I like it mainly because of the fact that i dont have to scan lobbies with my eyes and concentrate just on playing

i'm happy with sharky lately

current system = you pay a few 100s a year in cash to play better.

battlenet system = you get a 1-2% roi drop (maybe more if u suck) and much bigger variance coz of constantly playing regs until half the reg field drops down or moves to another site/game. it might be worth it for the best players, but even most of those will be playing a ton of negative ROI games due to high rake along the way. not to mention the HS lobbies will be a total cluster**** w all regs getting sat together at non-peak hours when it takes upwards of 5min to get a fish.

sharky sitting non-sharky users is total **** and needs to be fixed or banned imo but still way better than battlenet

agree

battlenet is maybe not the best idea but fair for all.

And if I read posts like this

it confirmed my mind about sharky. If I have the choice between to pay for a tool just to have a chance to play and anything else I choose the last.
Stars think about battlenet and if this is the chance to stop sharky hell yea welcome battlenet

i don't get how battlenet style HAS to be bad for us regs. at the moment the amount of rake that is paid equals x. they could easily adjust the rake per game, so that the total rake they are getting is equal to x again. if the money recreational players are contributing stays constant, which i can neither verify nor disprove, then the money that regs are winning would be the same as well.

Wow! Really? You really think they would do this? Stop smoking...



In other news:

Still waiting for an answer to the "sit second - take next empty lobby" idea....

I agree with this, but rake has to be lowered significantly for this system to work . Can we trust Stars to lower the rake appropriately.

i did not say they would do this, i was merely pointing out that it is possible.

again battlenet idea is just horrific for higher stakes. I think the last stake where it would work would be 30s, maybe even 60s. Above in the stakes the ratio
of regs and fish is so different and regulars would play such a high % of games vs other regulars which will make it hardly possibly to beat the rake. Or at least it will SIGNIFICANTLY lower the winrate.

So its understandable that guys who agree with battlenet dont play 60s and above ...

Sharky is a problem. It had good and bad versions. Current version isnt so great since it really sits other regs who register as quickly as possibly in the new lobby and they are still sat by sharky users even though they choose to sit free lobby and not nonsharky users. I guess card-paladin can tell you a lot about being sat by sharky users...

If stars want to get rid of this issue, just keep the current lobby system and get rid of sharky. Or give sharky developers a warning and tell them to change the script or the way it sits new lobbies

if sharky would not sit the manual reggers it would be no problem.

You have to remember chaos ad has always been anti Sharky because he tried to develop it but couldn't. So his opinion on it isn't to be trusted. If he had managed to get the job done, you can bet he wouldn't be against it.

My opinion on Sharky is also biased because I am affiliated with the product.

The difference between us on this issue is that I don't take every opportunity to support the product. I accept it has positives and negatives, whereas chaos ad is on a mission to get it banned and hates on it at every opportunity.

Regardless of the Sharky issue, battlenet style lobbies are a TERRIBLE idea.

As for Pokerstars lowering rake in a battlenet system. This is highly unlikely.

How does a recreational player tell who is a pro and whos not?

A lot of recreational players watch videos at training sites, know about sharkscope, read poker players blogs and so on. I've had plenty of people sit me and tell me they've seen my vids and just wanted a game against me. If this happens to a mediocre pro, I'm sure it happens to a lot of pros.

Ok that makes sense. I was worried that you were talking about these 2 or 3 stars pros who dont play husng regularly.

And please stop saying I try to get it banned, I´m not alone with this opinion but I understand that you are making money with that and so its a cool tool :-)
I can say its not good and if stars wont change the lobby and starts with battlenet so why not?

you wanna rip off a lot of players thats all, with battlenet you cant do this anymore.

@Cog Dissonance if you wanna discuss about this send me a PM :-)
But dont say anything negative here about me, if you dont knew me.

If this is your main argument then it can easily be resolved by adding some sort of a challenge feature where one opponent can challenge the other and they can accept (and players can turn off a challenge receiving button just like the chat if they don't want to accept any challenges).

Even cutting a winrate down to a quarter of even half might be better for the games because you could get constant action playing any amount of tables and a more competitive environment (better for games, not every person, but better for the games clearly).

Don't just dismiss different ideas than yours as inferior and that of low stakes people with no clue. Many of the favorable posts on the battlenet style take into consideration the makeup of the games with regs/fish.

--

On that note, I'm going to see if we can get some talk of rake going in this thread. This is a privileged thread that no other room is allowed to have that I got cleared with the admins before making, and if battlenet type stuff is being discussed (which I even support) there's no reason why the very relevant rake concerns cannot be discussed.

It's the holidays so we may not see progress on that topic for another few days or week yet, but hopefully baard can jump back in here and do a 180 on the no-rake policy given the circumstances and concerns.

This. Every time you disconnect when registered and the game starts you automatic sitout and lose a huge amount of chips. There is no reason why this should be more than like 1 second. 60 seconds in pointless. I think we need to speak up to get the time changed!

you can get constant action at any stake RIGHT NOW if you actually want to. there are people opensitting all stakes, all the time. you can just go ahead and sit them if you want a "competetive environment" for yourself. sharky didn't change anything about that, and battlenet would just force this on everyone - while it's clear almost no reg wants this, and if they do, they actually have the freedom do sit anyone they like (and this actually is easier with sharky), and get as much action as they want.

i'm pretty sure i can get about the same action at 500$s as i can at 15$s if i would just sit every person - but i choose not to do so. for those that "would profit" from a battle.net style of pairing you up with a random or w/e, they can play everyone randomly RIGHT NOW. there is literally NO gain from this for any reg, and rec players don't gain anything either, since they can join any game at any stake all the time for constant action.

It can't be 1 second, it'd mean it's practically impossible to play on mobile connections or far away from pokerstars servers as you'd constantly get unregged for having >1s ping.

But I agree it should be significantly lower time, maybe something like 10 seconds.

No you wouldnt, because you can never get a lobby with that slow ping.

I always have CMD running pinging stars while grinding so I know ASAP to swap over connections if I disconnect. I dont even bother trying Im getting consistant times over >.4 seconds and theres other regs online. The lobbies are rediculously laggy and it becomes a total crapshoot as to who you play.

I still believe 10 seconds is far too much. I think it would just be best if we can set our own times to be unregd, will save a lot of debate and let us actually start using this feature ASAP.

Yay, in the battlenet style, instant action doesn't come with the penalty of facing tougher players than other regulars are facing. The current system makes your games tougher if you want constant action.

+1