Why do players entering the game start in pub?

[ogron]

It's 2019, we're trying to get multiple leagues going, why are we still launching the game and ending up in pub?

Pub is absolute garbage, and hasn't been good in 10+ years.

It should send people to whatever is popping. It should be some sort of algorithm or formula, where if the formula isn't met, move onto the next step:


1- Over 30 people in TWLD, TWLJ, or TWLB... start there.
2- Over 30 people in TWDT-D, TWDT-J, or TWDT-J... start there.
3- Over 30 people in TSLD, TSLJ, or TSLB... start there.
4- Over 30 people in ?go duel... start there.
5- Over 50 people in elim... start there.
6- Over 30 people in ?go base... start there.
7- Over 30 people in ?go wbduel... start there.
8- Over 30 people in ?go javduel... start there.
9- Over 40 people in elim... start there.
10- Over 30 people in hockey... start there.
11- Over 30 people in tourny... start there.
12- Over 20 people in elim... start there.
13- Over 20 people in TWDD, TWJD, or TWBD... start there.
14- Over 20 people in any arena... start there.
15- None of those conditions are met... start in pub.

[Banks]

While I do agree that new players starting in pub is a flawed system, and there should be an alternative, I don't think that throwing them into another arena that has people is necessarily good either.

I do, however, think that elim is perfect for new players. It gets them brought into the real community, into a semi-competitive environment, and shows them the community better than people talking religion in pub. They can meet players there, and eventually learn how to bout with people better than they are.

Why would this be good?
Well, what is the most popular game genre on the market? Battle Royale.
Elim is the closest thing we have that has similarities to that game genre, and I believe it would cater to new players better than them mindlessly flying around in pub.

I really do think, with a few tweaks here and there that this can work, and eventually help build the population up again.

[Rab]

Is this even possible? Has anyone seen it done anywhere in ss before?

[Banks]

I don't think so. But I do think it is something worth trying out.

[PH]

pub is the only playable thing left in this dung heap

most of us have grown up and don't want to watch the same names from ten years ago use cowardice and lag and "lag" to collect more internet medals

and pushing new players toward a battle royale mode just because a bunch of 10 year olds love fortnite is the most "how do you do, fellow kids" move you could possibly make

anyone who actually wants to play free battle royale garbage is already playing it elsewhere

let pub be pub

[Falconeer]

It's 2019, we're trying to get multiple leagues going, why are we still launching the game and ending up in pub?

Pub is absolute garbage, and hasn't been good in 10+ years.

It should send people to whatever is popping. It should be some sort of algorithm or formula, where if the formula isn't met, move onto the next step:


1- Over 30 people in TWLD, TWLJ, or TWLB... start there.
2- Over 30 people in TWDT-D, TWDT-J, or TWDT-J... start there.
3- Over 30 people in TSLD, TSLJ, or TSLB... start there.
4- Over 30 people in ?go duel... start there.
5- Over 50 people in elim... start there.
6- Over 30 people in ?go base... start there.
7- Over 30 people in ?go wbduel... start there.
8- Over 30 people in ?go javduel... start there.
9- Over 40 people in elim... start there.
10- Over 30 people in hockey... start there.
11- Over 30 people in tourny... start there.
12- Over 20 people in elim... start there.
13- Over 20 people in TWDD, TWJD, or TWBD... start there.
14- Over 20 people in any arena... start there.
15- None of those conditions are met... start in pub.

You wouldn't recruit them anyway, you'd bench them in base, and nobody who plays pub likes elim or the other game modes, they would just quit the zone, which might be beneficial to EG or another zone. So I guess listen to Ogron this time.

[Dabram]

i dunno man, this game is old and so are the players who play it..

w/e we do, i don't think we'll get a whole bunch of new people really sticking around.

new people don't enter a game for the first time just to watch other people play and/or having no clue how to get in on the action. WIth zero ideas of the mechanics combined with at first not even being welcome to do anything other than play in pub, they'll be gone within seconds.

However i hardly ever play pub myself, it's a really strange place to be in. It isn't competitive and mostly filled with people who play idiotic or annoying just because they enjoy being an annoyance..? I'm kinda glad I can skip that arena myself or I just turn of chats...

The problem with this game is that we're heavily limited by map-size... this just sucks, because it means you need tons of sub-arenas (which is complicating to new people, can take months before someone tells you there are actually fun arenas to play in..)

more logical (for 10 years ago)
enter in 'pub': pub map has:
- a free-for-all/practise basing-map - this is were you can just shoot around, play some flag-games. (so like pub, but a lot smaller) (1/4 map)
- current elim-map (with votes for wb or jav from 5-10 deaths, get rid of the rest). (duel arena perhaps a bit more boxy, no need for prac area, so base tight to the duel-box) (1/2 map)
- 4 dueling arenas (make em squares like in ?go duel) (1/4 map)
If you want to play elim you have to pm robo ref.
if you want to duel, pm bot
if you don't do anything, you'll just be in the free-for-all arena (which is were new players enter for first time).

would be best if there was room for ?go base in pub too, but there's just no room.

[Grasps]

I experimented with some friends on my Steam this last x-mas break, took a couple dudes I play with on the regular that I knew wouldn't unfriend me after exposing them to this game and having them see how much time I've invested into it.

One friend was 16, quite a youngin. My other, slightly older than me at 35. After spending the the time to help them make an account and get them into trenchwars, we ended up in pub obviously. The results? They hated it. It was incredibly overwhelming. Trying to explain all the commands, the ships, the controls while at the same time being spammed with spawnkills was intense.

When I asked them why they hated it, they said it was just too much going on, wayyyy too much. They didn't have time to find a ship to enjoy, they would die near immediately thanks to Qan's ingenious idea of placing spawns outside FR. Before players would spawn down low, spread out and have time to figure out their surroundings, their ship and how it works. Now it's immediate death/explosions, walls of green text and players with names like PussyFarts talking about Trump politics. Both of my friends hated pub, truly, after our time, they said they'd never go back to play this game if it was pub only.

However, after frustrating them in pub for about 40 minutes trying to show them the ships and all that. I was able to get them into ?go elim. They immediately understood the concept. We waited our turn in spec and I was able to get them in to the game with little issues other than the couple times they had to enter using !late. The results were muchhh better. Both of them loved their time in elim, it was easy for them to understand, it wasn't an overwhelming spawnfest and the intention of the arena was easily understood. Enter, vote, play, kill and try to win. They both agreed that pub was straight up awful but playing in elim was fun. The sad part is when we relaunched on steam, new players never got a chance to play elim. What a wasted opportunity it was placing new players into pub.

Honestly, if pub was like it was now when I first started, I know for a fact I would not of stuck around. Back in my day, pub was what I made of it. It didn't force me into one direction. It didn't flood me with information, frustrate me with spawnkills and never scored players after a set amount of time (end of round) on how many people they killed, who the best was ect. No, the pacing of old pub was more fluid. I had times where I was in heated fights and others where I could just fly around mindlessly. As it is now, it's too clusterfucked visually and in terms of gameplay. Simply put, it's not fun or inviting.

Pub should not represent our zone as it stands. But seriously, we lost our chances at gaining new blood so it's probably not worth doing anything about it now. All I know is 2 people, with large gabs in age, who never played this game before, both hated pub and the experience from it made it so they never wanted to comeback I am sure of it. In fact, neither have logged in since our time even after having fun in elim. I think the horrible first impression of pub stuck and has kept them back from wanting to return and I can't blame them.

PS: If you are suspicious that I may be fabricating this since I along with others have been asking for elim to be the first arena for TW, i'd be more than happy to set you up for a chat Qan or whoever on steam if you need to verify their experience. Just fyi.

[Falconeer]

i dunno man, this game is old and so are the players who play it..

w/e we do, i don't think we'll get a whole bunch of new people really sticking around.

new people don't enter a game for the first time just to watch other people play and/or having no clue how to get in on the action. WIth zero ideas of the mechanics combined with at first not even being welcome to do anything other than play in pub, they'll be gone within seconds.

However i hardly ever play pub myself, it's a really strange place to be in. It isn't competitive and mostly filled with people who play idiotic or annoying just because they enjoy being an annoyance..? I'm kinda glad I can skip that arena myself or I just turn of chats...

The problem with this game is that we're heavily limited by map-size... this just sucks, because it means you need tons of sub-arenas (which is complicating to new people, can take months before someone tells you there are actually fun arenas to play in..)

more logical (for 10 years ago)
enter in 'pub': pub map has:
- a free-for-all/practise basing-map - this is were you can just shoot around, play some flag-games. (so like pub, but a lot smaller) (1/4 map)
- current elim-map (with votes for wb or jav from 5-10 deaths, get rid of the rest). (duel arena perhaps a bit more boxy, no need for prac area, so base tight to the duel-box) (1/2 map)
- 4 dueling arenas (make em squares like in ?go duel) (1/4 map)
If you want to play elim you have to pm robo ref.
if you want to duel, pm bot
if you don't do anything, you'll just be in the free-for-all arena (which is were new players enter for first time).

would be best if there was room for ?go base in pub too, but there's just no room.

You're not limited by map size exactly. You realistically don't need such a big elim arena, it just promotes running and searching for 2 minutes to find someone. The elim map size could be decreased 20-40% and still feel the same while probably becoming even more engaging.

What you're actually limited by is the subgame server. If you were on AS3 you could run multiple flags, basing games, and elim all in one arena, and a skilled mapper could easily get that to fit too, pretty sure I could do it.

[Falconeer]

I experimented with some friends on my Steam this last x-mas break, took a couple dudes I play with on the regular that I knew wouldn't unfriend me after exposing them to this game and having them see how much time I've invested into it.

One friend was 16, quite a youngin. My other, slightly older than me at 35. After spending the the time to help them make an account and get them into trenchwars, we ended up in pub obviously. The results? They hated it. It was incredibly overwhelming. Trying to explain all the commands, the ships, the controls while at the same time being spammed with spawnkills was intense.

When I asked them why they hated it, they said it was just too much going on, wayyyy too much. They didn't have time to find a ship to enjoy, they would die near immediately thanks to Qan's ingenious idea of placing spawns outside FR. Before players would spawn down low, spread out and have time to figure out their surroundings, their ship and how it works. Now it's immediate death/explosions, walls of green text and players with names like PussyFarts talking about Trump politics. Both of my friends hated pub, truly, after our time, they said they'd never go back to play this game if it was pub only.

However, after frustrating them in pub for about 40 minutes trying to show them the ships and all that. I was able to get them into ?go elim. They immediately understood the concept. We waited our turn in spec and I was able to get them in to the game with little issues other than the couple times they had to enter using !late. The results were muchhh better. Both of them loved their time in elim, it was easy for them to understand, it wasn't an overwhelming spawnfest and the intention of the arena was easily understood. Enter, vote, play, kill and try to win. They both agreed that pub was straight up awful but playing in elim was fun. The sad part is when we relaunched on steam, new players never got a chance to play elim. What a wasted opportunity it was placing new players into pub.

Honestly, if pub was like it was now when I first started, I know for a fact I would not of stuck around. Back in my day, pub was what I made of it. It didn't force me into one direction. It didn't flood me with information, frustrate me with spawnkills and never scored players after a set amount of time (end of round) on how many people they killed, who the best was ect. No, the pacing of old pub was more fluid. I had times where I was in heated fights and others where I could just fly around mindlessly. As it is now, it's too clusterfucked visually and in terms of gameplay. Simply put, it's not fun or inviting.

Pub should not represent our zone as it stands. But seriously, we lost our chances at gaining new blood so it's probably not worth doing anything about it now. All I know is 2 people, with large gabs in age, who never played this game before, both hated pub and the experience from it made it so they never wanted to comeback I am sure of it. In fact, neither have logged in since our time even after having fun in elim. I think the horrible first impression of pub stuck and has kept them back from wanting to return and I can't blame them.

I play pub and I was laughing at some things in there, one being how spawns work.

It's incredibly easy to set it up so the player doesn't spawn near other players, and to even provide ghosting so their ship can't be damaged or even kill players until they start moving to limit spawn killing. Though I think this is mostly doable on guess what... AS3 again.

I keep telling staff to work on their AS3 server and make the move to a new biller... the TW shut downs and biller shut downs are only going to become more frequent and eventually someday Priitk will stop hosting altogether so you better be prepared for that day sooner rather than later.