TWEL and Future Dueling Leagues (2v2, 3v3, 4v4?)

[Mythril]

Just want to say thanks to everyone who participated this year and each of the past 3 seasons that I’ve ran. Every season I’m skeptical that I’ll even get anyone to qualify as I feel I’m starting from scratch trying to build this thing. So I do take pride in reviving a league that was kind of underground and somewhat irrelevant into a league where thousands of duels take place every season. With the loss of activity in elim (still no idea how we let that happen), it’s been my main goal on this game to preserve some aspects of solo play in the now team-based dominated Trench Wars. Also, my apologies for such a long season this year, I was basically running the ship alone and have never been busier with irl responsibilities. If I could have hyped it up more and kept things more on schedule I would have.

Tons of thanks to all staff members who help me execute in-game and with dev work every season – Qan, Milosh, Major Crisis, Shadowmere, Raizin, Wicket <ER>, Markmrw, Beasty, M_M God, others I can’t remember right now. Aka the most helpful yet somehow most hated. Porkjet (the real MVP) even pulled out the porkcam for me Sunday, thanks to him. Wirah (mefod) was a fucking godsend to me this season, donating $250 (he wanted to donate A LOT more) to make things more interesting and really we all should be thanking the guy. You have no idea what he’s been doing behind the scenes for the future of this game. Subscribe to the fuckin’ Trench Wars newsletter so you can stay alert about subspace while functioning as a working adult on your email. Also thanks to Heaven for donating $125 of his own gambling earnings to the cause.

Here’s the important part: TWDT and TWEL just ended and TWL feels like it ended 2 weeks ago, so where do we go from here? We need to maintain the current playerbase above all else until Method creates the platform for a re-launch. I plan on resetting the TWEL ladder very soon so there’s much more time to qualify. But I do feel like the game needs something completely new to spark interest. Is there any interest in a 2v2 league? Maybe a new TWLish type league that’s 3v3 or 4v4 would be awesome. A 6v6 basing league with a completely new map and less time-wasting shit like spawning 800 feet below base? Spawn the mf’ers right below flag room man, we just wanna watch FR battles.

Ogron and I have hosted these non-TWL leagues for years now without being on staff and it’s time for more people to step up to create leagues and events that we all can enjoy. There’s no question that TWDT is now the heart of the zone as it incorporates all the players, but we can’t just play the same shit over and over for the next 20 years. We’ve seen where that’s taken us. Every year we sit around thinking: when's the next TWDT? When is TWL coming back? Players PM me 'TWEL soon?'. We don't need more season 45's of TWL, we need more innovation, imagination and creativity. I think there's serious room for really engaging new leagues.

[Crescent Seal]

+1 thread and huge props to ogron/mythril/others for hosting the non-twl leagues

i think a 2vs2 league would be great for this zone and the perfect filler after twdt/twel. people should have interest in wb/jav/spider 2vs2ing. allow.

[Markmrw]

Great job hosting this year Mythril, thank you

Thank you to all that played and a big thank you to Wirah and Heaven for donating their hard earned cash!

[Pressure]

We need to maintain the current playerbase above all else until Method creates the platform for a re-launch.

Please elaborate on this. I'll participate in any other league you start but I want to know more about this re-launch.

[ogron]

Ogron and I have hosted these non-TWL leagues for years now without being on staff and it’s time for more people to step up to create leagues and events that we all can enjoy. There’s no question that TWDT is now the heart of the zone as it incorporates all the players, but we can’t just play the same shit over and over for the next 20 years. We’ve seen where that’s taken us. Every year we sit around thinking: when's the next TWDT? When is TWL coming back? Players PM me 'TWEL soon?'. We don't need more season 45's of TWL, we need more innovation, imagination and creativity. I think there's serious room for really engaging new leagues.

Agreed, and appreciate the work you've done in TWEL. Markmrw and Wirah, among others, have stepped up as well recently. Like Mythril, I am done running TWDT, and 4 straight seasons over the past few years is my absolute limit. I did not want to run this one at all, but the game was in such bad shape during TWL I felt I had no choice.

I think if there is to be a league, it should be after the Superbowl in February. We've just played TWL, TWDT, and TWEL in the span of a 3-4 months and could use a break, and Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up.

A 6v6 basing league with a completely new map and less time-wasting shit like spawning 800 feet below base? Spawn the mf’ers right below flag room man, we just wanna watch FR battles.

As for basing, it is, in my opinion, the best league and most spectator-friendly, although it certainly does have issues. I agree that you want to spend the majority of a game watching/playing FR battles, and that overlong crams are brutal to watch, and not fun. If you don't have two elite sharks vs. a good team, you simply can't get in, even if your spiders are better.

In terms of map changes, I consider the FlagRoom pretty sacrosanct and I think its layout is amazing, I wouldn't change a thing. The mid-base/lower-base/spawn could definitely change or go completely, it's mostly junk and unimportant.

There is also the issue of terriers, which need re-balancing. I tried to implement some changes S20 but Dudgeon players stopped it.

Burst are completely broken in 2 ways:

1) Repped bursts are fucking retarded. Why do they still do full damage? Especially when they are on 16 different locations on 16 different screens, meaning your sharks are accidentally repping it into your terr and costing you the game without even knowing it. It makes no sense.

2) The rate of granting bursts is random and uneven. Over many games you'll average about 1 repel per minute, but the distribution varies wildly in independent games. I played a final against someone who he hid and didn't fire a single bullet for the first 20 minutes of the game, but finished with 66 kills getting like 70 bursts in 37 minutes, while I fired like 600 bullets and just wasn't getting anywhere near enough bursts and ended up with less kills -- it makes no sense.

Conversely, I played a quarter-final against Fierce last TWLB and they played out of their minds against us, and we won like 20-11. We were getting shit-stomped in the flagroom, but i just kept getting burst after burst after burst, I think I fired like 4 bursts in the span of 5 seconds 1v8 and I completely wiped their team in a horrible losing position... it makes no sense. I just mashed a button over and over and was rewarded for no reason and destroyed an entire team (kills moral too) and the game's final score was not representative at all of how mediocre our team played and how well they played.

Everyone was congratulating me after the game and it was ridiculous, I didn't do anything special, I'm not sure everyone realizes what an outsize effect the random distribution of bursts and portals has one games, some games I get nothing then am blamed for not 'doing enough' when I simply wasn't given any tools to work with.

The ration of distribution needs to be flat, and should be set at around 1 per minute, or something similar. Probably the same for ports.

[ogron]

Sharks also shouldn't be able to get shrap after bombing a wall as they hit it with their ship, with the bomb hidden behind their ship as they hit the wall and producing a piece of shrap you can't dodge. It's stupid and cheap. The terr needs a fair chance (1-2s) to see a mine/bomb and adjust their position, there's enough crap to assess already.

There is also the very rare instance of a sharks single rep, repping a bomb into a wall, and the single rep that repped the mine, RE-REPs the shrapnel, despite the shark only repping 1x, and on top of that it REMOVES the proximity detector where shrap within x distance disappears before killing you if you're too close. This happened to me in round 2 of the TWLB Finals, where I hid behind the top bar to avoid the shrap line, and the initial rep re-repped the shrap into me while removing the prox detector, and it was the unluckiest/dumbest thing I've ever seen.

There's honestly so much more I'd love to do with basing, you could easily build the core of the game out into its own complete game, but I lack the programming skills necessary. If anyone out there was interested in something like that, hit me up in game (Ogron).

You could do so much cool stuff, like an underspider immune to reps that come from above the flagbar so your over sucking isn't completely ruining your domination of under (enemy sharks repping on top of the flag causing you to lose under blows) or a shark with a special ability where your repels disintegrate bursts so slow bursts don't annoy your team, or cram-breaking abilities that keep the action centered on the flagroom, to name a few.

[Mythril]

Please elaborate on this. I'll participate in any other league you start but I want to know more about this re-launch.

I don't want to put words in Mef's mouth, but the basic idea is since he came back 7ish months ago, he's been inspired to help revive the game. He owns a successful business irl so he's noticed the incredible amount of mistakes that we've made from the start. For example, we're the only game in history that doesn't try and gather as much information as possible from the users to keep them engaged and coming back outside of the zone. He's been working on smaller-scale stuff like the newsletter, fixing forum layouts and now working on the new website (for free, nobody is paying this guy, but he's working his ass off), and doing busy work on staff. He's made himself extremely accessible in-game if you want to PM him for more info on the re-launch, it's best that I don't go into it here. Honestly we need to make a chat where players can help chime in and communicate about the future of the game instead of 3 people throwing random ideas at the wall on a forum thread.

But a re-launch is so far down the line that it's most important we keep the current playerbase active. Look at the retirement threads. Those are nothing compared to the people who are going to quit logging on unconsciously. So new leagues are needed. In-game I've received the most interest in a 2v2 league and I'm all for it. It's just going to take a lot of brainstorming to actually figure out how to structure and implement it. I also need to contact qan/milosh and see if it's even possible right now. The good news is there's already a competent bot set up for it. A linked website is another thing entirely though.

[Pressure]

Make a small arena that resembles a flag room with bricks and marginally increase the Spider thrust speed and rotation speed where Spiders can attach to one another and initiate a 3v3 trial league.

[forwards]

how do you participate?

[Crescent Seal]

? this ever happenin...hurry the fuk up losin interest by the second

[forwards]

cres fresh