Veteran players murder public games and make players leave

[Kassius]

I logged in yesterday, I saw a reasonably well-balanced game, 7v6 going on, between lots of pure pubbers, no names there. I joined to make it 7-7. Within 5 minutes, no exaggeration, the arena had emptied to the point I was the only person left in apart from an AFK terrier on the other team. I had killed everyone on the other team multiple times, they couldn't get in the Flag room, so the other team quit. Then my team quit because they got bored with no-one to shoot.

I've tried priv-freq often, it has similar results, but I need to not shoot terriers and other base-bound ships otherwise the same thing happens.

There must be something that veteran players can do in public that helps, not hinders the game. Either divide them away entirely, into a sub-area of the map for veterans to dick around in, or enforce balanced teams with ?usage queries on players rather than pure numbers. Perhaps pubbux penalties on killing base-specific ships like Terrs and Sharks who are new to the game via ?usage queries..

Otherwise when no-one will join an elim game, when there's 35 ppl speccing a 3v3 TWDD match, there's nothing else to do. Do I esc+q for the good of the game? Or join the IRC chat in the TWDD arena?

[Rab]

This has overlap with what everyone's sick of hearing me say... if players are on your team and not actively contributing to the flag game then you're at a huge disadvantage. Think of it like playing a BD a man down.

Veterans, in addition to being good players, do actually contribute to the flag game. So a team with a higher proportion of veterans has a better chance of having a full team contributing to the flag game. Veterans also create a team composition of 1 terr 2 sharks and some spiders among their fighter ships.

Examples of players who you don't want on your team:
FreeSpirit - puts a port in FR then leaves base. Enjoys to port in at the last second to capture the flag. Some argue he should be free to do that if that's what he enjoys. I argue it puts the team at a disadvantage because he's not contributing to the flag game. There's also a kicker with him being in terr some people attach to him - effectively splitting the team up. So it's not really 1 player not contributing, he pulls other players away from contributing too.
Nuke the Yanks - an example of a player who always plays levi. Some argue he should be free to do that if that's what he enjoys. I argue it puts the team at a disadvantage because he's not contributing to the flag game. Playing 7v8 feels shit so it's not surprising people leave.

Actions I recommend:
1. Lock FreeSpirit out of terr. Alternatively netban him.
2. Permanently enable RabPurePub (no levis on freq 0/1). Stops people playing lev which contributes nothing to the flag game. Stops people accidentally attaching to LT terrs because they'll be on priv freqs instead.
3. Encourage team composition of 1 terr 2 sharks x fighters. Terr: limit of 1 per team. bot message $420 reward for switching to terr when your team has <1 terr. Sharks: bot message $420 reward for switching to shark when your team has <2 sharks and team size >= 6. Rewards limited to once per 30 mins.
4. Stop deaths counting towards !afkcheck resets. It's very frustrating trying to remove an afk player only for someone to shoot them while you're typing.
5. Enable permanent blueout. Often the "afk" people are engaged in cancer chat so they're typing more than playing - sometimes they're only in a ship to avoid !stfu. !stfu wouldn't be needed with permanent blueout so can be removed. Write on the map at spawn: "type //<message> to chat with your team in yellow text".
6. Spawn everyone in the default spawn area so they have to attach to get to base. To stop them duelling in spawn draw a wall down the middle of the map, 0=left, 1=right. Don't spawn people anywhere else, even in small games. Remove the concept of game size entirely. Write on the map at spawn: "pgup/pgdn + f7 to attach to your terrier". Players having to attach immediately puts them near to each other, players interact, work together, more fun, everyone wins. Players spawning in different places and not attaching is why pub has no feeling of teamwork.

[Kassius]

Guess how many were left in pub after that Killothon.

[Jessup]

I always try and help when i pub by jumping on teams less balanced.. On another note, I'd like staff to warn or ban steadman for constantly ruining pub matches by team killing. He does it every time he is in pub and I report it and nothing is done..

[LF]

Im typically online during "peak" times so if any of you notice anything blatant going on detrimental towards the game in pub...afks/teamkillers/cancer chat/etc feel free to just send me a beep and I'll do what I can. I pretty consistently go through the F2 menu and afkchallenge anybody I see that isn't moving to try to keep the teams even.

Can't really force people to base though, nor can we force people to base twd style. "Veterans" should by now which players they can rely on and those they cant. Plenty of people sit in jav and just lob blind strays into base and could care less who's on the other side of the shot. It could be argued they contribute nothing as well. I won't touch on the levs, I've always hated levs. Now theres 2-3 of them that sit in mid and wait for beginning round warp only to end the basing game in the first 5 seconds. Its lame and stupid.

I still think the biggest problem is the chat. This even happened tonight over a period of about 15 seconds....

newplayer: (TW-WelcomeBot) (Public 0): <newb1234> [UNITED STATES]
<name removed>> ez faggot newb1234 fuck you
newb1234 left arena

Once I get the powers that be to let me come down on people like this hopefully we can create a healthier playing environment for our players.

[Platinum]

Is this OP's realization that HE/SHE is the problem? Or is this a veiled complaint that there are not enough newbs to slaughter?

Hoping that the "good" players can stop measuring their skill level by how many people they can vulch / pick off in their WB or how many pew pews that they can spray while calling people "ez trash". After 20 years you'd think that people would measure their skill set by their ability to lead and develop people.

To answer OP... The reason that you feel empowered enough to post this garbage is because there wasn't a good player on altruistic enough to the general interest of the game to bitch slap you and keep you from slaughtering newbs.

[Roger Rabbit]

Make the game more engaging and it would be less fun to kill pub games. I take it as a challenge personally

[olde]

Follow the popular other games lead. Change pub up once a week. Different objectives, game modes. Different skins, like really change it up. Its been the same objective for 20 fkn years. Look at cod/fornite Constantly changing it up. Keeping it exciting sub space is so fkn boring. I never thought I'd lose interest in the game. But here I log thinking its going to be fun and after 10mins I say to my self this game is dead and boring. Nothing to play and the few ppl that do play are so fkn toxic. I get more enjoyment out of just logging off and thinking to myself its gonna be funny when All that is left is the 35 toxic nerds vsing each other. Look at twd its fkn trash. Not even enough players to start 3-5 fun looking sqds. Even the vets quiting this boring ass game.

The biggest problem with this game is its not welcoming, its way to "clicky" if your not in one of the 3 little clicks you get treated like trash and never added into the games. And you can't be like that with such a small population of players. You have to associate with the midiocore players, the new players. Game is so divided its the players that are killing the game. Who wants to log on a game to not be added or get ignored.. the only conversation half the zone gives out is trolling....

just look at the people on your squad history. And think about why none of them log on anymore, should enough of an example right there.

And if thats not enough think about all the players over the last 5 years who returned to the game, because emails and people reaching out on social media. That logged on a few times. They were excited to come back, logged on seen the toxic this zone has become and were treated like garbage, not added to games and never logged back on.

"Begged players to come back to the game just to trash talk them and bench them" good idea TW

Change or die, because right now this game sucks, like really change or just pull the plug......

[Poseidon]

didnt read this thread but kassius’s complaint is fkn balls

the reality is when ur rly good u inspire other players and its gr8 for the game.

as the current #1 pub star and as someone who has been p much non stop pubbing on various aliases over the past few months i can assure u ur concerns are misguided

in fact, ill enter the game w say only 3-4 ppl per freq playing and very quickly ppl will start hopping in and the game appears to be build much quicker than it would otherwise. a competitive aura is created and ppl want to hop in and join.

however, if im not careful to switch freqs to make sure the game stays balanced it can be bad, so good players ought take on this reaponsibility.

what kills pub ALMOST EVERY TIME is when attachmode ends, esp now that biet put a delay and u have to wait to buy it again. pay attention and ull see, its overwhelmingly obvious and id say 80% of the games suffer when attachmode ends or outright die completely

there are many issues i wish i could fix w pub but kassius’s qualm certainly isnt one of then

[Poseidon]

and hey, kassius, ill tell u “something” u can do to help pub:

stop using that scrub ship WB

[qan]

I was the one who added the !buy delay. (It's been removed, as it's not a great solution.)

The issue is that there needs to be compromise between attach mode on all the time vs classic, standard TW. Attach mode is starting to become the replacement. It's fun, but it also significantly lowers your ability to transfer skills to basing in any other arena. And it removes a lot of the nuance to the game, in my opinion.

Some people have asked for the ability to cancel attach mode as can be done with !lolnope. Most people like it but there are some who really don't. Have to keep that in mind.

[Poseidon]

Its becoming the replacement because its overall more enjoyable for the most people.
perhaps if you removed levis and TKing javs from the game, normal mode would be tolerable. The bar separating roof from FR in the halloween map is a good start. in fact that map was better in many ways - a lot of the people actually trying to flag seemed to echo this sentiment.

and from where i stand, ur assessment is bass ackwards.
there are two aspects to the competitive basing game: Macro & Micro, like starcraft

- Micro is straight technical ability, timing of shots, movement, 1-tick rotating, etc.
- Macro is the strategical aspect.

Pub does not teach players the Macro game, it is only good for practicing Micro.
Somebody can play pub for 20 years and be the most technically skilled pilot, yet still if you put them in a TWLB game they would be clueless. It matters not if they were playing attach mode or playing normal mode for these 20 years; compared to TWLB, pub has almost no nuance as relates to the macro game - it's simply too chaotic and too inconsistent.

Attachmode, however, is far better for practicing and learning the technical side of the game, as there is continuous action, many more bullets/bombs fired, more dodging, less waiting, less being tilted by TKrs and levs, etc. and beyond being bettr practice, it seems most people simply find its intensity more FUN... hence, usually more populated during attachmode. And since the Micro game is all pub is good for, i find myself having to completely reverse your conclusion and assert instead that normal mode significantly lowers your ability to transfer skills to basing in any other arena

Ive noticed a lot of the people who dont like attachmode happen to be pubbers who want to make pubbux and hate how long and competitive attachmode games are... theyd rather the game end in 3 min so they get the $$$. bogus.

its quite rare there are two terrs of equal enough skill that the games dont end this fast... another knock against classic TW.

[Poseidon]

while im at it STFU mode is no bueno

encourages people to sit AFK on pub freq to type, unbalancing the game

[qan]

Pub isn't actually "about" anything, except perhaps the flag game. But participation in that is entirely optional, so it's only a sort of ambition encouraged by various design choices.

Arguments proceeding from an interpretation of the meaning of pub don't really make much sense unless everyone accepts the interpretation first.

[Vehicle]

After playing an otherwise fun pub game for an hour I have decided that fuck levis and this game is trash. I don't know how I ever played pub before. Imagine if you're a new player and 1/3 of your deaths during an intense basing game are due to blue bombs outside of your control. The ship is antithetical to the point of the game. So fucking dumb.

Charge 10,000 pubbux per minute to play levi. That might make it a somewhat playable game. Until then, I'd rather sit on bench in ?go twbd.