State of Pub

[Poseidon]

just an update:

yesterday in my few hours of playing pub i saw two different players -publicly announce- in frustration that they couldnt tolerate the levis and were quitting pub, and then leave. one guy was "manly trousers" or something and forget other.

i myself routinely quit pub and go do something else in the game because at a certain point it just gets to be too much - otherwise i wouldnt be writing this post write now. it boggles the mind trying to imagine the potential population had pub been cured of the problems that have been plaguing it since its inception 22 years ago.

Counter-Strike 1.6 is the only other game with which I have competitive experience. Imagine if someone had infinite nuclear bombs that they could effortlessly detonate on half the map and completely disrupt the players trying to have a pub game; this would be the exact analogy to what a levi is doing in TW pub. the pubs of these games are kept with a relatively competitive focus for a reason: this is what most of the players want. TW is no different and its obvious by paying attention to the population flux in pub. we can do a lot better than we are doing now. it will benefit the population, and over time, TWL.

[Poseidon]

if this thread accomplishes nothing else it can at least serve as a space for documentation:

5.20.2021

- 9:00pm est. attachmode is on and pub is hopping 13v13
- 9:18pm est. attachmode ends, poseidon doesnt have enough $$ to rebuy
- 9:23pm est pub is now 6v6

of course this is early enough that the population might rebound, but like... is this really how we want things to be?

[Unlimited]

There are simply no terrs in pub, and those who do terr are horrible. It is what it is. Pub is more fun when attach mode is activated. It’s not rocket science. One solution is to obviously revamp pub so attach mode is permanent, or maybe extend attach mode for the remaining of the current pub game? make it more expensive, and it lasts the whole duration of the game.

Something needs to be done, pub is so much fun.. it’s super sad to see 15v15 games and within 10 minutes see it die because the terr is in la la land.

[Rab]

There are simply no terrs in pub, and those who do terr are horrible. It is what it is. Pub is more fun when attach mode is activated. It’s not rocket science. One solution is to obviously revamp pub so attach mode is permanent, or maybe extend attach mode for the remaining of the current pub game? make it more expensive, and it lasts the whole duration of the game.

Something needs to be done, pub is so much fun.. it’s super sad to see 15v15 games and within 10 minutes see it die because the terr is in la la land.

attachmode causes fewer terrs. if I'm terr and someone buys attachmode, people are attaching to various people instead of just to me, so my role is reduced, so I tend to change ship or just leave.

[Poseidon]

my proposal solves all of these problems and would improve the quality and consistency of pub.

id like to revise my CS analogy: TW pub is the equivalent of a nightmare version of counter strike where a single player can nuke players into oblivion and Esc+Q'ing, and instead of fixing the problem the devs create a gimmicky game using a system of money they called AWPbux and then force the players to participate by making it their only means of fighting all of the other gimmicky bullshit that is ruining their experience and that of the majority of the people who ever try to play it.

for me, this is spot on how TW pub feels, and i find it incredibly frustrating.

i know im a non stop crybaby so let me pause the whining to say lots of great and ingenious improvements have been made over the years with things like attach mode and the widened base. and my hate towards pubbux aside, its a wonderful addition to pub as a whole and everything biet does to maintain and expand the system of rounds and rewards and etc. adds a much needed sense of vitality to the place, so kudos.

When TW pub was originally created, they were designing greater than they knew - they had no conception of TW as an 8v8 or 5v5 competitive game. What ended up happening is this zone originally designed as a supremely casual place quickly became a hugely competitive environment on multiple levels and it wasnt long before its very existence came to rely mainly upon the competitive playerbase, as it has remained. There is still a clinging to a certain design philosophy that was created 22 years ago to cater to 12 year olds in a slapstick environment with little genuine competitive pulse. im not saying to throw this out the window, i value TW pub for how inclusive it is. im simply saying we can do better, for both pub and for the long-term health of TWL

[qan]

They say brevity is the soul of wit. Can you state what you'd like to propose in 1 short paragraph, ideally no more than 100 words? This respects your readers' time.

Hookecho worked hard to create a system to set up polls for our existing bot-based polling system. This might be a good test run. We don't yet have rules around how we'll use the polls. But it seems like if a substantial portion of the population agreed to your proposal, it'd be worth trying.

So, can you:
1. State your proposal in very brief terms (removing justifications for the time being), and
2. Get a few people to second/third the proposal? Have them reply to the thread after you've very concisely stated what you propose.

[Rab]

How to fix pub:
1. Remove levis
2. Make weasel big
3. Remove attachmode
4. Remove ball powerup
5. Ban freespirit
6. Get some staff in eu timezone
7. Remove super
8. Remove thor
9. Remove shield
10. Fix afkcheck
11. Make people who arent basing get off freq 0 and 1
12. Make roofturret duration and rebuy duration equal

[rothe]

How to fix pub:
1. Remove levis YES
2. Make weasel big NO
3. Remove attachmode NO
4. Remove ball powerup DONT CARE
5. Ban freespirit NO
6. Get some staff in eu timezone I GUESS
7. Remove super DONT CARE
8. Remove thor DONT CARE
9. Remove shield DONT CARE
10. Fix afkcheck YES
11. Make people who arent basing get off freq 0 and 1 YES, WHY DIDNT THIS HAPPEN YEARS AGO
12. Make roofturret duration and rebuy duration equal NOT ONLY YES BUT MAKE ROOF TURRET AUTO ACTIVATE IF MORE THAN 5 PEOPLE ARE ON ROOF

If not clear qan this is my 2nd to rab's proposal. Unless he needs to make one even longer lol.
With a few caveats of my own.

[Lizzo]

Funny how the low IQ suicide spiders who pew pew constantly and leave themselves at zero power gotta always complain about levs. Of course u gonna die! Get some creativity like Kanye . People just don't know how to handle a bbbw. Can't evolve so gotta complain. "You're killing my safe place cause I can't kill u" When levs are here pub pop way up. 9 out of 10 pure pub kills pub. Want proof? Look at failed pp weekend where attendance was 50%. Still not sure game has recovered yet. We don't want PP, we want NP. Same people that were butt hurt before now vocalizing their hate for levs, etc before they leave. Everyone knows that BS. They were already planning to log off to go masturbate in their parents basement and just tryin to cause mess. Want to increase the pop? Ban purepub. Well worth the expense of the "vets" who can't evolve enough to kill levs.

[Poseidon]

Brevity: copy and pasted directly from the email i sent you and other upper staff a few months ago.

THE PROPOSITION:
Pub votes on gamemode every 20 minutes or after the last game ends if past 20.
ATTACHMODE: yes/no; PUREPUB: yes/no

- Levis are warped to safe
- Terrs get an extra port to make them stronger (burst is already OP ie. too easy to green [reduce it a few %!], but ppl might complain if terr isnt buffed). (The idea of giving them one rep is interesting also). This is fine as a permanent change attachmode or no. This particular discrepancy between TWL and pub is fine.
- In Attachmode, the time needed to win decreases faster. It starts at 2:30, regardless of population, and every 2.5 minutes decreases by 15 seconds until after 20 minutes it freezes at 30 seconds. This is important to help stop the game from dragging as it so often does, this is one of the main complaints leveraged against attachmode and its entirely avoidable.
- ideas for !buy as follows:
!buy vote $50k - allows for one extra vote and may only be used once per vote
!buy exempt $250k - player may use levi regardless of game mode for 20 minutes.
!buy banpriv $100k - no players of private freqs allowed in flag room for 3 minutes (this might be the only option to actually end a game at times when people decide to flag on private freqs and the game becomes unwinnable for all)
!buy override (1/2/3/4) 500k - the player overrides any vote and after the game ends/before start of next game, it becomes one of the 4 game modes of their choice for the next 20 min block. only usable once a day - im aware people could abuse by sending $$ to alias but whatev.

im going to really the idea of brevity to heart and simply leave this copy and paste as is. if you require a tad more neat, concise, and official seeming proposal ill do it when im not feeling as overtaxed; this feels sufficient, and should take even a deeply engaged reader no more than 2-3 minutes to read.

[rothe]

See lizzo this is strange to me I never see you in pub playing alone normally you have 2-3 people protecting you on a priv freq vulching off the main freq's. Lets talk a moment about your gameplay. When you do enter base mid base or base you have people protecting you and you only they add nothing to protecting the flag they spend all their time guarding you which ruins any type of teamwork. Its funny as hell to watch but also ruins any type of base game.
Its strange lets talk a moment about reality when I enter the arena normally the team disparity grows till the teams are going on normally something like 8v2 and people just quit entering base and there are so many people in base and no one even tries to go in base anymore lmao while one team just sits in base and the other rambos off around the map acting like they don't know wtf is going on lol.
For some strange reason this is allowed to play out over and over almost every time I log in lol and this is just accepted as normal gameplay? Oh but pub isnt supposed to be competitive. What is pub supposed to be then?
A place for newbies to get spammed to death by ships they dont understand by older players they have no clue how to kill? Ohhhh right.. We should just tell new people ur ez and gut better.. lol... Yea much better way to "up the population"
I'm sure the steam reviews would love a ship like the levi constantly dropping bombs on them before they even got in base lol..
But going back to base
Lets just talk about the real problem. We are all some real pettay mother fuckers.. Cant we drop the shit and just play as team players once we hit pub is it just me but i forget half of you mostly cuz i hit my head so much secondly i when i join i join to just shoot at fkin space ships ffs and sometimes go and cap the flag. It honestly feels like some of you gets your shits and giggles out of trolling a 20+ year old game lmao and you honestly expect the community to grow?
When your asking vets to leave? Why after all these decades of play now we need the old players who have stuck with the game gone through the shit to leave to make way for... Wait what are the older players supposed to leave to make way for...? Shitter play styles? Right that makes sense..
If it makes sense logically I get it. If you don't need a bunch of people to guard you to even play the game I get it. If you don't need to use pubux to play the game I get that argument. All of those arguments are solid to the gameplay that has worked for decades.
Lobbing bombs while needing to be protected at all times and feeding of the base constantly in one ship and asking everyone else to adapt to your playstyle or leave nah..
I don't get that.

[Poseidon]

and setting my vitriolic nature aside for a moment i feel i should say i really do appreciate how open you are to proposed changes such as these, qan. feels a degree less stressful trying to feel heard by you than ive experienced in certain situations in the past, given i can get you to pay attention!

[qan]

Brevity: copy and pasted directly from the email i sent you and other upper staff a few months ago.
im going to really the idea of brevity to heart and simply leave this copy and paste as is. if you require a tad more neat, concise, and official seeming proposal ill do it when im not feeling as overtaxed; this feels sufficient, and should take even a deeply engaged reader no more than 2-3 minutes to read.

But it's also a list of comprehensive changes that will be very difficult to get a large group of people to agree to. Stick to single issues, namely the proposition at the top. Work on the rest slowly. I have seen probably more than 100 proposals of this kind over the years, and they are almost always doomed to failure by their architects because they aren't focused enough and can't get anyone to agree to follow their plan as a result. Once you do tighten up your proposal to a very focused change, consider posting it in a new thread. Then gather support from others. We're still trying to sort out a more democratic way to get changes through (again, heh), but we do have to set a bar to justify the time investment for setting up a poll and asking people to consider it. Development time is another consideration, though usually not a blocking issue if there's enough support.

[Poseidon]

yes i hear you; this one is a little too busy.

its worth metioning however that aside from me rambling about terr, every aspect of it is tied in together...

at any rate ill draft something better and make a new thread and see where it goes from there

[Lizzo]

I would rather be on pub freq. cause I want to win... for the $$$s. I only go priv freq because I have been warned about TKs. Thats why NP should be the norm, like what ive been saying. It is usually because some one like dogecoin intentionally getting TK'd, etc. and staff still aint banned him for some reason. every so often it happens because the freq I am on is 90% sharks (and 1 or two pew pew ships sitting in the center base hole), basically suiciding, so they gonna die to TKs cause glass jaw. Anyway, evryone gonna complain about different game styles and what they find fun. guess what, people just happen to be having fun when they are winning, and when they don't they go to the forum to complain and figure out which staff private parts to suck to make it to where they can win. These people are resigned to skill level being defined by how good aim is in a WB. the difference between you racists and me is I have fun regardless. I am only looking to pleasure willing staff when I am not allowed cause I get banned for some bs.