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You are reading the opening statement of an absolute egomaniac, which is to say - an honest man, and as such, one for whom diplomacy and politicking does not come easy nor natural. Im once again investing my holy and precious time into this endeavor in hopes that I'll have better luck than before (see: https://tinyurl.com/427v4nur). It appears as if now may be the hour. Its well worth it for me as both subspace and TW are near and dear to my heart, so I do pray you can bear with me - this is a wonderful game, and they don't make em like they used to. Lets try to keep it alive.
First i'd like to congratulate everyone for both enduring and ridding the zone of the Pookedone experience. I find myself thrilled by the co-incidence that my return marks his departure. I read a bit about his various sorceries and shenanigans as regards pub, and as I told BIET yesterday, I'd have probably had an aneurysm had I been active during his tenure.
I haven't played since 2021. During this year -- prob sometime after my 13th consecutive win as a rando borrow, I became bored of dominating these TWBD noobs and shifted my focus to pub. I was finding it so much a greater challenge and exhilaration that I ceased playing TWBD entirely for ~6mo, playing pub most every day and often for hours at a time, on a plethora of aliases (tho the regulars always knew it was Poseidon). I'd generally log on ~3 - 4:00pst, where there might be a handful of people playing; this meant if I wanted to get a pub game started, I needed to take matters into my own hands. And nearly always, with a little TLC, the game would build around me - typically achieving a solid hour or two of consistent, maybe 10v10, glorious, unconstrained, attachmode pub (given we had enuff pubbux).
It generally went like this: first, buy attachmode. This was crucial. Trying to get a real competitive pub game going without attachmode? A fool's errand. (Even if there was some mechanic to keep terrs in play -- tis a far inferior, sluggish, jilted, unpopular game mode, as was proven time and time again, day in and day out). Then I would flit between freqs every few minutes, joining the losing team, striving to maintain balance such that folks didn't lose interest due to lop-sidedness. Once the game had established itself to maybe 8v8 it became easier to maintain - that is, until some wiseguy gremlins took it upon themselves to hop into a leviterr and, with the touch of a finger, blast pub into ruin. There was consolation to be found in !buy purepub, but then it became a battle of who has more Pubbux to cancel or maintain. An horrendous state of affairs. If noone was able to cancel the levi this often spelt doom for the actual flagroom battle that most everyone else was invested in. At risk of (re)(re)stating the obvious: when ur in the throes of what would often become a seriously competitive and fast-paced game of pub and some dolt outside the base can push tab once and blow the entire game sky high, people lose interest.
I shudder to imagine the hoards of potential players driven away by this most unfortunate game mechanic. People enjoyed the competition that was happening regularly, and one could often see players who seemed as if they were making a real and consistent effort at improving in order to get a leg up on their competitors. I saw much potential in pub eventually becoming an actual gateway for new players into competitive basing. It seemed all that was needed were a few small tweaks, a little patience, and most importantly, Devs who were actually invested in nurturing the competition (ie. the population). And I still believe even with the state of things that great strides can be made in this direction, despite the unfortunate apathy and disregard held by most of the competitive population.
It is of course impossible for one to be fully aware of how far they may or may not be caught in the clutches of their own confirmation bias, but fk me if this wasn't all pretty goddamned obvious, and I was bearing witness daily. An immense sample size. And as I had limited pubbux, often if I wanted to play that meant dealing with the machinations of traditional pub. It rarely amounted to much, and the divide in player engagement between the various modes was clear as night. Sometimes a half-decent traditional pub game would get itself going if the levis weren't too bad and we were blessed with decent terrs, but this was far and away the exception.
There's been a fork in the road for a long while now: cater to a small but vocal minority of pub traditionalists clinging to the nostalgia of a by-gone era ... or foster a more competitive pub environment and more active population. I was saddened to return back to this zone and see that the traditionalists had seemingly won, and pub on life support. Beware the gatekeepers of traditional pub. People such as mystic_pizza, whom I view as the epitome of this slight but very loud minority of which I speak and of which we must overcome. These people would rather see pub die a slow and needless death than to endorse any changes to traditional settings, and they aren't shy about making this known.
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so having said my piece, I want to address a few changes that could perhaps be made to balance a re-designed pub. These are just off the cuff ideas and moreso an acknowledgement that tweaks need to be made:
- Terr: if attachmode is the norm, terr needs compensation. The basic movement mechanics need be kept the same for those practicing competitive play, though perhaps different bullet settings could be okay, even just a slightly more rapid-fire, fast-moving, and less energy-expensive version of the current L1 bullets. I propose trying this: terr gets 3 portals, one mine, and one rep, on top of still being the only ship to carry more than one attachee. I feel this could open up a lot of fun strategic options for players, particularly in using portal to combo repping the enemy into a mine. At any rate, giving this ship more portals seems like a decent idea.
- Lev/weas: whatevers going on in Devastation seems to be a good start. I was informed there was a period of time where TW pub changed the levi settings, but I wasn't around and Im not sure how well it went over. But unless other steps are being made to nurture competition it is prob difficult to get a good sense of how well new settings may or may not work. What I do feel is that there is immense potential in creating novel ship settings here that would integrate marvelously with a competitive pub experience. Hopefully someone will channel their inner genius and bring us to the promised land.
- Reign in attachmode, as games can sometimes drag on too long. An improved system for the incrementally lowered flagtime could help. Also limit attachability to following ships: Jav, Spid, devastation-Levi, Terr, Lanc. Such that WB, Weas, & Shark are never attachable.
and of course if the zone decided to go with a competitive pub experience, a basic and very generalized mmr system could be integrated...
ok im all written out and very hungry, let me know what you think!
Love,
Poseidon
First i'd like to congratulate everyone for both enduring and ridding the zone of the Pookedone experience. I find myself thrilled by the co-incidence that my return marks his departure. I read a bit about his various sorceries and shenanigans as regards pub, and as I told BIET yesterday, I'd have probably had an aneurysm had I been active during his tenure.
I haven't played since 2021. During this year -- prob sometime after my 13th consecutive win as a rando borrow, I became bored of dominating these TWBD noobs and shifted my focus to pub. I was finding it so much a greater challenge and exhilaration that I ceased playing TWBD entirely for ~6mo, playing pub most every day and often for hours at a time, on a plethora of aliases (tho the regulars always knew it was Poseidon). I'd generally log on ~3 - 4:00pst, where there might be a handful of people playing; this meant if I wanted to get a pub game started, I needed to take matters into my own hands. And nearly always, with a little TLC, the game would build around me - typically achieving a solid hour or two of consistent, maybe 10v10, glorious, unconstrained, attachmode pub (given we had enuff pubbux).
It generally went like this: first, buy attachmode. This was crucial. Trying to get a real competitive pub game going without attachmode? A fool's errand. (Even if there was some mechanic to keep terrs in play -- tis a far inferior, sluggish, jilted, unpopular game mode, as was proven time and time again, day in and day out). Then I would flit between freqs every few minutes, joining the losing team, striving to maintain balance such that folks didn't lose interest due to lop-sidedness. Once the game had established itself to maybe 8v8 it became easier to maintain - that is, until some wiseguy gremlins took it upon themselves to hop into a leviterr and, with the touch of a finger, blast pub into ruin. There was consolation to be found in !buy purepub, but then it became a battle of who has more Pubbux to cancel or maintain. An horrendous state of affairs. If noone was able to cancel the levi this often spelt doom for the actual flagroom battle that most everyone else was invested in. At risk of (re)(re)stating the obvious: when ur in the throes of what would often become a seriously competitive and fast-paced game of pub and some dolt outside the base can push tab once and blow the entire game sky high, people lose interest.
I shudder to imagine the hoards of potential players driven away by this most unfortunate game mechanic. People enjoyed the competition that was happening regularly, and one could often see players who seemed as if they were making a real and consistent effort at improving in order to get a leg up on their competitors. I saw much potential in pub eventually becoming an actual gateway for new players into competitive basing. It seemed all that was needed were a few small tweaks, a little patience, and most importantly, Devs who were actually invested in nurturing the competition (ie. the population). And I still believe even with the state of things that great strides can be made in this direction, despite the unfortunate apathy and disregard held by most of the competitive population.
It is of course impossible for one to be fully aware of how far they may or may not be caught in the clutches of their own confirmation bias, but fk me if this wasn't all pretty goddamned obvious, and I was bearing witness daily. An immense sample size. And as I had limited pubbux, often if I wanted to play that meant dealing with the machinations of traditional pub. It rarely amounted to much, and the divide in player engagement between the various modes was clear as night. Sometimes a half-decent traditional pub game would get itself going if the levis weren't too bad and we were blessed with decent terrs, but this was far and away the exception.
There's been a fork in the road for a long while now: cater to a small but vocal minority of pub traditionalists clinging to the nostalgia of a by-gone era ... or foster a more competitive pub environment and more active population. I was saddened to return back to this zone and see that the traditionalists had seemingly won, and pub on life support. Beware the gatekeepers of traditional pub. People such as mystic_pizza, whom I view as the epitome of this slight but very loud minority of which I speak and of which we must overcome. These people would rather see pub die a slow and needless death than to endorse any changes to traditional settings, and they aren't shy about making this known.
--------------
so having said my piece, I want to address a few changes that could perhaps be made to balance a re-designed pub. These are just off the cuff ideas and moreso an acknowledgement that tweaks need to be made:
- Terr: if attachmode is the norm, terr needs compensation. The basic movement mechanics need be kept the same for those practicing competitive play, though perhaps different bullet settings could be okay, even just a slightly more rapid-fire, fast-moving, and less energy-expensive version of the current L1 bullets. I propose trying this: terr gets 3 portals, one mine, and one rep, on top of still being the only ship to carry more than one attachee. I feel this could open up a lot of fun strategic options for players, particularly in using portal to combo repping the enemy into a mine. At any rate, giving this ship more portals seems like a decent idea.
- Lev/weas: whatevers going on in Devastation seems to be a good start. I was informed there was a period of time where TW pub changed the levi settings, but I wasn't around and Im not sure how well it went over. But unless other steps are being made to nurture competition it is prob difficult to get a good sense of how well new settings may or may not work. What I do feel is that there is immense potential in creating novel ship settings here that would integrate marvelously with a competitive pub experience. Hopefully someone will channel their inner genius and bring us to the promised land.
- Reign in attachmode, as games can sometimes drag on too long. An improved system for the incrementally lowered flagtime could help. Also limit attachability to following ships: Jav, Spid, devastation-Levi, Terr, Lanc. Such that WB, Weas, & Shark are never attachable.
and of course if the zone decided to go with a competitive pub experience, a basic and very generalized mmr system could be integrated...
ok im all written out and very hungry, let me know what you think!
Love,
Poseidon
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