Changes to Trench Wars and my concerns and opinions

[Crumb Bum]

I never really kept track, but I've been playing in TW since at least 2005 based on my oldest known alias. There has been a lot of change over the years. I remember when TW had enough players to populate multiple public arenas. For a long time I played mostly in the purepub arena, which, if I remember correctly, was the less popular of the two. That may have just been because the non-purepub arena was the default arena you'd join when you logged in to the game. I'll talk about that a bit later.

Eventually, I ended up spending most of my time in the default, non-purepub arena. I have a lot of fond memories of flying or gunning for LT turrets, hunting LT turrets, turret wars, figuring out new and effective bomb lines and line bombing strategies, and playing with quirks and new features. One time I managed to get a 100 kill streak while roofing in a Javelin. One time I actually convinced 2 of my brothers and 2 of my friends to be gunners in shrapped up Javelins on a Jav turret during lan parties (suprisingly effective). Has anyone ever bought super and full shrap in a shark and just slowly shot the maximum number of bombs at a rock just to watch the shrapnel shower it produces?

It certainly is a bummer how the player base has dwindled. I commend the volunteer staff for adding new features over the years which has definitely helped keep the game interesting, but I still lament things about Trench Wars that have been lost just because there aren't that many players anymore. Those things are what I'd like to address, as well as give my respectful opinion of some of the more recent changes and features.

I guess I'll have to start with the newest change, which is the new map. I feel like it has made roofing pointless, especially in a javelin. I've read through some of the forums, and the handful of players on here seem to think that this was a good change, but I disagree. I don't believe that roofers ruin basing, in fact in my experience, a roofer can be a valuable member of a basing team. They can deliver critical blows to the opposing team. Often multiple members of the opposing team would leave flagroom to hunt me as a roofer, allowing my team flag saves when they may not have otherwise been able to achieve them. I felt like this was a somewhat novel approach to what would otherwise be just cut and dry basing. I would also mention that it is a complete blast participating in impromptu roof wars. My opinions here may be in the minority, but I guarantee you that there are many players who might agree with me and who aren't represented here on the forums, or really even in game. This brings me to the next thing I wanted to mention.

Community voting functions. For some reason, there are a lot of players who don't speak up about things. They don't chat much. They don't come here on the forums. They also don't vote. I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen team shuffle votes pass 1:1 or 0:1 or 1:2 when there are lots of active players. I don't think I've ever seen more than 3 people vote to mute someone using that new function, even when the arena is seemingly at peak attendance. I don't know what causes this. It's possible lots of them don't speak english. Maybe they have text turned off? Maybe the commands are not intuitive enough for them, so they don't bother learning or using them? That last one is, in my opinion, a big one. It's just my experience, but I've interacted with no small number of players who I know have been playing for years and don't even know about things like the !buy menu or even how to send commands to the bot, despite the fact that it is clearly displayed how to use them in the chat frequently. I'm just not a fan of how certain things can be controlled by as few as a single player just because other players didn't vote on something for whatever reason.

In general, I just feel like the freedom and variety of activities in the public arena are continuing to shrink because of a loudly represented set of voices. It just seems more and more like pub is getting pushed in the direction of purely TWLD style basing. Don't think so? In the last several months I have been verbally harassed in PMs and in general chat almost every time I play by people who are angry because they don't like the ship I chose or the way I play it, even when I'm just basing. Just earlier this evening I was harassed by another player for over in hour in PMs because he didn't like how I was piloting a Terrier, despite the fact that I was basing. It is not uncommon at all to see players raging in team chat over the ship composition of their team, demanding that other players change their ship. It feels a lot to me like a lot of people whose voices would seem to represent the player base would rather that you just get rid of any ship other than Terrier, Spider, and Shark. You might as well just plug all the holes in flagroom, as well. They generally aren't used in TWLD, based on my limited experience, which is what a lot of voices seem to want.

I felt like I had to write all this text after reading through forums a bit and not finding any other like-minded opinions. At the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do. I wonder though, if it would be possible to make changes that would increase the engagement of the players who don't vote or participate in discussions. Maybe there is some way to make doing so more intuitive or even compulsory? Coupled with that, I think a lot of players on both sides would enjoy some way to make seperate TWLD style battle arenas more common and available, pleasing those who wish for it and allowing more freedom to be restored to the public arena. At the moment, I think you'd have a hard time getting enough players to change arena to consistently have full teams, but I don't think that's caused by a lack of desire to leave pub and join other arenas, I think there are factors that are creating hurdles for players to engage.

[BIET]

Thank you for showing us your opinion the matter of pub changes. As someone who has also spent quite a bit of time roaming around in the public areas it's great to read the experiences of others. Especially when it comes to ships and play styles that differ from my own. Let me share my side of the argument and see if we can either agree on something or get to the essence of what makes either side so enjoyable.

I guess I'll have to start with the newest change, which is the new map. I feel like it has made roofing pointless, especially in a javelin. I've read through some of the forums, and the handful of players on here seem to think that this was a good change, but I disagree. I don't believe that roofers ruin basing, in fact in my experience, a roofer can be a valuable member of a basing team. They can deliver critical blows to the opposing team. Often multiple members of the opposing team would leave flagroom to hunt me as a roofer, allowing my team flag saves when they may not have otherwise been able to achieve them. I felt like this was a somewhat novel approach to what would otherwise be just cut and dry basing. I would also mention that it is a complete blast participating in impromptu roof wars. My opinions here may be in the minority, but I guarantee you that there are many players who might agree with me and who aren't represented here on the forums, or really even in game. This brings me to the next thing I wanted to mention.

When it comes to roofing I don't agree with your assessment of it being pointless after the changes. The effectiveness of roofing has taken a hit for sure, since the shots you can hit are only towards the sides of the inside of the flag room. These sides however are the places where the biggest part of the teams will be, especially with more players in base. It reduces the amount of accidental TKs too. The old roof was also set up to give the biggest advantage to the players on the roof, and not the other way round, like you might expect. This made roofing being regarded as one of the lamest activities you could do in pub by a large portion of the player base. Yes, it is nice to have places that are more "new player friendly" than others, but I personally would like to exclude the roof from that list. Roofing thrives when basing thrives, but roofing actively draws players out of the flag room and towards the roof, which destroys both. We'd want a balance somewhere in between and that was what I tried to achieve with the most recent changes.

Note that the above only applies to the normal roof size. The extended roof size, and its holes, could use some optimizing at the very least. It's too restrictive from both sides, while the new normal roof gives more freedom.

In general, I just feel like the freedom and variety of activities in the public arena are continuing to shrink because of a loudly represented set of voices. It just seems more and more like pub is getting pushed in the direction of purely TWLD style basing. Don't think so? In the last several months I have been verbally harassed in PMs and in general chat almost every time I play by people who are angry because they don't like the ship I chose or the way I play it, even when I'm just basing. Just earlier this evening I was harassed by another player for over in hour in PMs because he didn't like how I was piloting a Terrier, despite the fact that I was basing. It is not uncommon at all to see players raging in team chat over the ship composition of their team, demanding that other players change their ship. It feels a lot to me like a lot of people whose voices would seem to represent the player base would rather that you just get rid of any ship other than Terrier, Spider, and Shark. You might as well just plug all the holes in flagroom, as well. They generally aren't used in TWLD, based on my limited experience, which is what a lot of voices seem to want.

This is unfortunately something that has been a problem for decades, and recently more than ever due to everyone being forced to play in the same arena. Other players will never fully agree with the way you are playing the game, and sometimes they will voice this in a very unfriendly way. If it's just a couple of players you should consider using ?ignore or add them to ignore.txt (you can make a txt file in the main continuum directory and add names, one on each line, to it to ignore them permanently without having to use ?ignore each time you log in). If death threats or suicide is encouraged you can send screenshots of the chat via ?help or ?cheater. And if you suspect someone to harass you across multiple accounts, you should also inform staff, as that would be considered evading ignore, and is a bannable offense.

As for pub moving towards a (competitive) basing style, that could be explained by a higher percentage of (competitive) basers coming to pub due to a lack of base/TWBD matches. There are however plenty of other things to do in pub besides basing, although you might have to change to a private freq if you want to satisfy other players.

I felt like I had to write all this text after reading through forums a bit and not finding any other like-minded opinions. At the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do. I wonder though, if it would be possible to make changes that would increase the engagement of the players who don't vote or participate in discussions. Maybe there is some way to make doing so more intuitive or even compulsory? Coupled with that, I think a lot of players on both sides would enjoy some way to make seperate TWLD style battle arenas more common and available, pleasing those who wish for it and allowing more freedom to be restored to the public arena. At the moment, I think you'd have a hard time getting enough players to change arena to consistently have full teams, but I don't think that's caused by a lack of desire to leave pub and join other arenas, I think there are factors that are creating hurdles for players to engage.

These forums are indeed a poor way to gather feedback that represents most of the players, especially for pub. That's a big reason why the recent changes weren't shared, but with a select few. I tried my best to gather and convert as many feedback from all sources and create a map that is generally better for all. As a single person it does come down to just my interpretation, which is inherently biased as I'm playing pub my own way, but it's not that different from any other game out there. It generally comes down to not having enough time to get a discussion going on every single change before implementation, and play testing is just impossible with the amount of players and resources we have.

Splitting up pub into multiple arena is also not an option with the current player base, and TWD arenas or ?go base are still there for those who need it. Using the freqs 0 and 1, or any other set of freqs, as the main basing freqs could be a solution to keep everyone happy, but I'm afraid it would separate pub too much and kill it that way. That said, if you think otherwise, please share how you would solve certain problems found, or add new features filling a void, in pub and maybe we can add that to the next update.

[Rab]

ignore.txt causes more problems than it solves, you really shouldn't be suggesting it.

[Jessup]

Good input Crumb Bum. It is nice to see someone take the time to express their feelings about how they feel the game is going without being a troll. I agree roofing should not be considered anti basing because it has its place and purpose. There are a few shots you can still shoot thru and use but it is much less effective. I personally would like to see one or two holes open up when large base is initiated on the roof AND the bottom of main base in mid section. As it is now levs and LT's get even MORE protection on roof and are still able to reign terror thru proximity wall damage.

There have been a few things over the years I wasn't a fan of that have been implemented ( !buy bank's and one giant pub and teamkill penalties for repped bombs) but either way we all can adapt to what we have before us.

Also sorry you get trolled in game , sadly many people here are very rude and even sadder is many of the worst offenders in this regard are long time players which has hurt the zone very much. I have a good list of perm ignored players.

As far as the commands go. The BIGGEST flaw in Continuum is this archaic command system. If we could ever get a mouse integrated drop down menu this game could be ready for a new mass marketing campaign but the logistics and lack of ownership keeps us from doing this.

[Crumb Bum]

When it comes to roofing I don't agree with your assessment of it being pointless after the changes.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, and I'll take that as a challenge to find more effective ways to revise a roofing play style. I still think it is very restrictive, especially with certain map sizes which it seems you mentioned. I used to cycle through 7 bomb lines on the roof in addition to freestyle hole-shooting and now most of the time it seems like there are only 2. Maybe I'll find some more; to be honest I haven't spent a lot of time trying since the map change.

That said, if you think otherwise, please share how you would solve certain problems found, or add new features filling a void, in pub and maybe we can add that to the next update.

I don't know much about the inner workings of the game, or coding or scripting in general, so I'm not sure how helpful I can be. I do have one "what if" idea that I think addresses some of the issues that I think exist with player engagement and command formats. What if the default arena was a very strict basing arena with a small population limit? 5 vs 5 or something like that? If the arena is not full than players enter it by default, but get automatically bumped to the public arena for any of the behaviors that the more aggressive players dislike (idling, poor performance, limit of ship choice, etc.), thus attempting to make participation somewhat compulsory without overly-dividing the player base between arenas? Basing fanatics could compete with each other on how long they could stay in the "premiere" basing arena as poorly performing players get bumped to pub or voted out. "Premiere" basing arena stats could be compiled for bragging rights. I do think that this type of two-arena setup could be maintained during peak hours, but obviously a lot of the time there isn't even 10 players active. Maybe the "premiere" basing arena acting as the default arena could be "turned off" if there aren't enough total active players in all arenas? Edit: some sort of queue function would probably be necessary as well.

I'd also like to say that I didn't talk about the harassment from other players to complain about harassment. It really doesn't bother me that much. I really just mentioned it to underscore how I feel that there are loud proponents of changing pub to be a certain thing. I would also mention that it was also not my intent to insinuate that anyone who thinks pub should move towards a more TWLD style basing arena is a jerk who harasses people. I understand that as much as I miss how things used to be, there are lots of players who are not able to compete in non-pub basing arenas due to low player population and feel the same nostalgic sting that I feel.

As far as the commands go. The BIGGEST flaw in Continuum is this archaic command system. If we could ever get a mouse integrated drop down menu this game could be ready for a new mass marketing campaign but the logistics and lack of ownership keeps us from doing this.

I really agree with this, and I understand that this is probably a well-known issue that has no current hope of being fixed.

[Lizzo]

Yeah a lot of changes cater to very few vocal people who don't particularly care about growing player base, but preserving their safe space where they kill some one and then say ez and troll. For example, pure pub weekend, complete failure btw. Why not have a weekend where I can buy purepub for any ship? Or test drive some of the ideas by those who are different.

[Rab]

There might be a case for multiple arenas. Default arena the same as it is now. New arena with levs, weasels, javs disabled - and stfu always on - and auto afk checking - designed for those who actually want to base 'properly'.

[Lizzo]

Have a nice game with yourself, the guy with 30 aliases, and 2 other pokemon players

[Crumb Bum]

Look, I'm gonna be honest with everyone here. I'm an asshole. Every Friday I get drunk as hell and talk shit and play in pub. OK. Some of this shit is getting ridiculous. I got muted for an hour by 3 people who hate me when 25 people were playing and some asshole mod spawnkilled me at least a couple dozen times while I was waiting for my stupid fucking mute to expire. His name was PureOwnage and he is a cunt. I'm really not willing to be reasonable about this shit as I broke no rules and was muted by a tiny minority during peak hours of game play. More people PM'd me apologizing for the mute than actual players who muted me because they hate me because I Lancaster Guard Lizzo when she plays and they are too fucking shitty to beat a lanc and a levi despite both of them playing on EZ mode not attaching or LT or anything

This shit is ridiculous and I'm not really willing to keep playing while being abused by such a small percentage of the population for no reason other than they hate me. This motherfucker PureOwnage who is supposed to be a staff member hunted me down and spawn killed me over a dozen times after I was muted by a majority of 3 players when there was over 20 players present. This is abuse. I'm tired of this shit. Again, more people PM'd me saying they were sorry that I got muted than actual people who voted to mute me. I didn't break any rules. There are just toxic motherfucker who play this game, both on staff and not on staff, who treat other players like shit.

Do you want me to quit? I will. I'll never come back to this game. And that will be your fault staff members for letting this shit happen. I might have my own problems but I don't need all these cunts hating on me for bullshit reasons. I have enough bullshit to deal with in real life, and I absolutely will not put up with you abusive staff members who are newbs compared to me giving me shit for no reason.

Do you really want to know why playerbase is low? Do you really wonder why that shit is happening? I broke no rules, got silenced by 3 assholes in an arena full of 25 people, and then spawnkilled by a motherfucking staffer.

Get your shit in order. I'm tired of being respectful here. This is not OK. Please don't pretend like player population is an issue beyond your control when you let pieces of shit mute people based on a 3/25 vote and then let staff members kill you in spawn for the next fucking hour. This shit is more than ridiculous and I'm tired of it.

[Crumb Bum]

I am putting this shit out here right now. Any of you motherfucking staffers who think you are the shit and think that just because you've played a few years think you are fucking tough, I challenge you. Fucking duel me. I will destroy you. I have been playing TW and Continuum for longer than you have and you are fucking peasants compared to me. I own the retail version of the game. I will destroy you in any arena, Trench Wars, Extreme Games, Chaos, any format. You think you are the shit and you know what is best for the community? Put your money where your mouth is bitches. I've been playing this shit for decades and I am more than confident in my ability to destroy your little egos. That goes for all of you. Give me 24 hours notice and I will shame you in front of anybody watching. I have had about enough abuse from little cunts and I'm ready to embarrass anyone here who wants to fucking come at me.

[Jessup]

You can join Paladen Crumb. LEt's slap the trolls.

[rothe]

Normally I stfu on these types of things but I must say golf clap my friend golf clap. The pure ego of my way or the high way. The tone of your msg that its everyone else and has nothing to do with you bravo. Biet comes back and says thank you for the feedback right away i'm guessing you had a bad night and this is your reaction? Did the pendium swing back enough to get these types of reactions out of players who wont post on their main handles? I'm guessing so. Is that a good thing? I don't know. We all clearly agree its something new after all this time.

[BIET]

OK, that took a bad turn. I get that you wrote this on a Friday, which you mentioned is your time to be at peak asshole performance, but this is quite the 180 from wanting to contribute something to the zone/community to basically wanting to hurt it. But for what reason? Because 3 players abused a system which was meant to give some control to the players to mute for a single hour? Or was it the staff member who spawn killed you while you couldn't defend yourself? I think not. You left out quite a bit of information to make yourself seem "entitled" to better treatment. Let me fill the gaps by using an "example".

So yesterday I happened to notice a certain player drifting around spawn and the safe zone, while on a public freq, making teams uneven. That player wasn't AFK and was talking quite a bit in public chat. After ignoring a request to change to a private freq or spec, I finally set the freq from them, after which they could continue to talk and not influence the game of others. One issue remained, since they were in play, the STFU that was bought after the player was set to their own freq had no effect on them. Technically this isn't a violation of any rule, but it's frowned upon. The last resort other players have to not having to hear said player while playing is to use their right to !votemute.

So there's a couple of things to note. First is the lack of play while being in a ship on a public freq, and second is talking in public chat (with STFU active). On their own these two points aren't covered by any specific rule, but together they border on abusing the system which could lead to a zone ban. Being immune to both !afkcheck and STFU is an issue since that leaves other players with very little options to ignore. Being AFK on a public freq is just poor form, and it's so easy to change freqs.

Speaking of talking. This player wasn't particularly interested in the opinion of others, but rather wanted to explain to everyone how they were (far) superior in any way and that others better conform to their standard or be disregarded. Sounds like your typical angry, drunk person. So I don't think it unreasonable to then not want to read what they were saying while actually playing the game. Spec chat seems like the perfect place for such a story I would think. And while you have the right to free speech, others should also have the right to ignore you, and that's just one of the most difficult matters in this game at the moment as there's just not that many ways to ignore.

Let's get back to the issue you're actually sharing. If your experience was even slightly similar to the example above, the votemute was used in the right way, hate or no hate. You mentioned not breaking any rules quite a bit, but for a votemute there's no requirement of breaking rules. You're free to dislike the feature and propose other ways to keep some order in pub chat, preferably in a way that we can use.

Now the spawn killing. You mentioned waiting for your silence to expire which, if you were doing this by not playing is a ban-able offense, isn't any reason why someone else shouldn't be allowed to (spawn)kill you. Maybe it was done in a particularly unfair way, but that's not what I'm getting from your description. We do advice players, including staff members, to basically try to DC players who are (seemingly) AFK by killing them repeatedly. This is mostly used when the !afkcheck isn't working.

Mentioning the amount of players who voted for your mute out of the players who were playing is also kind of short sighted IMO. Generally only a small portion will vote, as some will be neutral, already have you ignored, or havent been in play for long enough. The actual numbers were 5 in favor and 2 against BTW, making it one of the votemutes with the highest participation.

Do you really want to know why playerbase is low? Do you really wonder why that shit is happening? I broke no rules, got silenced by 3 assholes in an arena full of 25 people, and then spawnkilled by a motherfucking staffer.

If there was a correlation between the two, it would be because some players with no morals nor sense of how free speech works were allowed to poison the zone/game for too long.

I am putting this shit out here right now. Any of you motherfucking staffers who think you are the shit and think that just because you've played a few years think you are fucking tough, I challenge you. Fucking duel me. I will destroy you. I have been playing TW and Continuum for longer than you have and you are fucking peasants compared to me. I own the retail version of the game. I will destroy you in any arena, Trench Wars, Extreme Games, Chaos, any format. You think you are the shit and you know what is best for the community? Put your money where your mouth is bitches. I've been playing this shit for decades and I am more than confident in my ability to destroy your little egos. That goes for all of you. Give me 24 hours notice and I will shame you in front of anybody watching. I have had about enough abuse from little cunts and I'm ready to embarrass anyone here who wants to fucking come at me.

Alright, I think I'm the shit (not really) because I'm actually spending a lot of time into this zone to improve it. This goes for everyone on staff. I'll be happy to duel you, not because I need or want to proof myself, but because I enjoy dueling. Just being good at the game isn't the only way to get respect, your behavior is a big part of it too, and on that part you are currently failing.

And to be honest, if we were to lose someone who isn't interested in playing, helping others, being nice to others, or obeying basic rules, I don't think we will miss much if they were gone.

[Lizzo]

Everyone already seen all of the squad SPAWNSTIC and the poke squad hunt levis and get owned by 1 person in spawn defending levis. I peed my seat cause I laugh so hard.

[eevee12]

I broke no rules, got silenced by 3 assholes in an arena full of 25 people, and then spawnkilled by a motherfucking staffer.