Weasel Nerf'd

[CloudHelmut]

I like the idea of making the weasel more sniper like, that's why this part of your post:
"take away multifire and bullet duration+speed"
seems out of place Fluffz. Unless you mean by sniper sits on top of his target,fires, then recloaks. Why not give it a good fast single line fire bullet a la WB but slower ship speed with cloaking.

Otherwise he's more like a sapper, a guy who sacrifices himself to make a hole in the line.

[Theif of Time]

Upper Staff will always do what they believe to be in the best intentions of the zone and its players.

This is a case of popularity and what the masses want

To me, this seems a contradiction. Upper staff have all the say of it yet its what the masses want? I don't recall being asked and I'd thought I was part of the masses. I know that upperstaff will always do things with the best intentions... but thats not necesarily popular or what (all) the masses may want. I personally have heard a few people saying they liked the changes, more saying they would live with it and a few wtf's (and 1 I'm quitting tw this sucks)

The use of the previous cloaker settings was related to the abnormal number of javs because of the X-Radar ability

I'll concede they were related but its hardly such that jav is the only choice against the weasel (although it is oddly one of the best, better than terr imho), the fact that jav seems good at holding base, trick shots etc. is a greater motivation to pick jav.
Is it not true that a team confounded by spiders lining will mostly change to javs and bomb into flagroom? (incidentally causing tks with the less experienced javs)

So arguably gunships (spiders/wbs/lanc's) using the particular strategy of lining is a greater or equal cause to a weasel presence. It also depends on the weasel, a particularly successful or hated player in weasel will cause more people to hunt them.

and the lack of basing function and because of the annoying and overpowered use of the previous settings.

Well i suppose we'll never agree on the annoying and overpowered bit, although I do think that Spidermages argument has merit in that weasels do indeed have a decent basing function.
Kontrolz> I hate how they added another basing ship
(regarding weasels) (Not entirely accurate quote, but that was the sentiment)
I would have to agree that the levi does not overly affect basing, but it is damn annoying sometimes.

Fluffz: With effort I could take out an unattentive terrier (usually a typekill, its lame but sometimes the only way to get base), or if they are so very good at defending (which usually means your team is crap at attacking and basing is stagnant anyway, some teams could defend the holes and still hold off a prolonged assault but they are not many, if any, if ever seen in pub) A double rocket (1 to get in, 1 to kill them) has about a 50/50 chance of killing the terrier, and more like 80/20 chance of killing a (nonshark) ship of my choice. But rockets cost.

Kolar:
I had a thought about the overall aim of the weasel. Considering that a levi is supposed to be like a rocket launcher, a wb a rifleman, lanc shotgun etc. and weasel is supposed to be a Saboteur/assassin (I'm going with the saboteur aspect)
Perhaps the weasel could get low powered EMP bombs. I realise this would be a problem as imo even red bombs would be too powerful, all I'm talking about is something to blast at an enemy with, to emp them at about 1/2 health (enough so that wb/lanc couldn't fire but terrier, jav and spider, imo the ships that should be best against weasel, can) It would be useful in the disruption tactic of weasel playing, and for hit+run attacks, and also cram breaking in base (although thats more of a minus than a plus for this idea, but some may not think so)

[Sumpson]

The Weasel changed? it's still as small isn't it? :turned:

[Fluffz]

i played it for like an hour yesterday, just thrust shoting. its a tiny wb with multifire that can enter the base any time. cloaking just makes it weaker. how is this supposed to make anything more stable? <_<

[Cops]

Nvm

[Kolar]

To me, this seems a contradiction. Upper staff have all the say of it yet its what the masses want? I don't recall being asked and I'd thought I was part of the masses. I know that upperstaff will always do things with the best intentions... but thats not necesarily popular or what (all) the masses may want. I personally have heard a few people saying they liked the changes, more saying they would live with it and a few wtf's (and 1 I'm quitting tw this sucks)

You're a small part of it Theif and you and others had a chance to discuss changes and balancing issues on here and other threads before the change. This is not a democracy but you're allowed to voice your opinion even if on the surface it does not count for much but this isn't a system where the uppers are handing out questionar sheets or doing polls, you have to get involved and asurt your opinion. I know there were no polls or anything but the public players do not have a strong presence on this forum or at all so it would have been a waste of time to do that here. also, knowing the strong resentment from the publics about the use of weasel or people changing them for anti-basing purposes should have motovated you and others to voice your opinion. Almost all of the proponents (people who hate Tone) of the weasel have decided not to continue to talk on here or addess anyone else on the other side and infact (if you wanna go 2 pages back) have done nothing but shit talk or blame people on this thread without giving logical reasons as to what this change does for publics or giving any new settings besides older ones. You can disagree with a change but questioning staff's motives is idiotic. It is not a contridiction. Upper Staff will do what is in their intrest: running a gaming server and making it more popular (until someone stops paying for it) and that's where staff and player intrest mesh. If you disagree with the change that's fine but don't question staff's intentions on this issue.

I'll concede they were related but its hardly such that jav is the only choice against the weasel (although it is oddly one of the best, better than terr imho), the fact that jav seems good at holding base, trick shots etc. is a greater motivation to pick jav.

Yes, it has moved some people over to using the jav more. I've suggested on another thread about making some additional changes to pubbots so that players can still use ?cheater but Guanobot and DoCkBot and publicbots would report repetitive TKing, inform the person about what tking is on the first tk ect.. (new players..), green engine shut down and energy depletion for less severe team killing. People will even with this continue to team kill so it is an addition to the policy and ?cheater system only not a replacment for mods.

Is it not true that a team confounded by spiders lining will mostly change to javs and bomb into flagroom? (incidentally causing tks with the less experienced javs)

That's one tactic for destorying a line Yes but is does not work well with a limited number of spiders which is normal for any publics.

Less expienced jav players are not good at hitting direct shots into the flag room from mid. This problem has been around for a while and needs a solution like the one I've provided. During all settings it has been a problem so something like the weasel would have to influence the players.

So arguably gunships (spiders/wbs/lanc's) using the particular strategy of lining is a greater or equal cause to a weasel presence. It also depends on the weasel, a particularly successful or hated player in weasel will cause more people to hunt them.

I rarely see lining, even in pure publics but whatever. The people holding the flag are basing and using the publics for their intented use. The idea here ToT is that we've changed a ship that has at times interfered with basing and allowed the publics to go stagnant because of this change. If you would not agree that the 2nd weasel settings did anything negitive to the entire public system then would you at least agree that we have a problem in non pure publics under any settings? We're not about to change the dynamics of the game to allow weasel to remain usable or viable if that means futher changing publics or other ship settings. LTing, tking javs and the weasel are all different topics and ones that I do not see effecting each other.

I would have to agree that the levi does not overly affect basing, but it is damn annoying sometimes.

Yeah i'm no fan of levi terriers either. It is fun to hunt them down with a WB or two sometimes.

Perhaps the weasel could get low powered EMP bombs. I realise this would be a problem as imo even red bombs would be too powerful, all I'm talking about is something to blast at an enemy with, to emp them at about...

Not a bad idea, it would be useful for cram breaking. Maybe lower the bullet damage with this, but keep the speed ect.. and lower the rate of energy loss for cloaking by a bit.

[Cops]

nazi

[Theif of Time]

No need to resort to childish name calling Cops.

On second thought, a weasel with a low powered EMP could lead to 2 things: weasel/jav combinations and weasel teaming (several simultaneous bombs)

How about we make a list of suggested tweakings/changes to weasel that could potentially balance it, then take to twdev to test? (would be nowhere near like pub play but relative strengths could be approximated)

[Kolar]

Cops is my brother... he's just being a jerk to me for some reason :turned:. Sounds like a good idea Theif. Getting some ideas down like new settings and something that outlines the intented basing function of the ship.

1:Support bomber:
low/almost no damage EMP bomb -faster then a shark bomb, Lanc bullets, same rotation, slower speed.

2:Addition to Current settings:
Addition to the current settings with slower speed, reverting the size, slower draining for cloak and stealth, slower rotation, and same weapons. The idea of this would be to bring it back into the assasian class but balancing it for basing use.

Right now I think it has no use at all and never really did. Yeah it can't interfere with basing but we've solved that by making the ship, unintentionally, into a suicide bomber. It's hard to tell from the comparatively small amount of time with these settings how much that will effect the publics. The drain imo still serves it purpose well.

[Theif of Time]

probably being a jerk cos... thats what brothers are for.
Would anyone reading this happen to know if level 2 bombs can be set to lower damage than level 1 bombs?

[SpiderMage]

Cops is my brother... he's just being a jerk to me for some reason :turned:. Sounds like a good idea Theif. Getting some ideas down like new settings and something that outlines the intented basing function of the ship.

1:Support bomber:
low/almost no damage EMP bomb -faster then a shark bomb, Lanc bullets, same rotation, slower speed.

2:Addition to Current settings:
Addition to the current settings with slower speed, reverting the size, slower draining for cloak and stealth, slower rotation, and same weapons. The idea of this would be to bring it back into the assasian class but balancing it for basing use.

Right now I think it has no use at all and never really did. Yeah it can't interfere with basing but we've solved that by making the ship, unintentionally, into a suicide bomber. It's hard to tell from the comparatively small amount of time with these settings how much that will effect the publics. The drain imo still serves it purpose well.

How in the world can it be an assassin with Lanc bullets and little to no damage EMP bombs? Assassins are supposed to be able to kill with one hit on their own, not be some little knat that will maybe kill this guy if his energy is low enough.

[CloudHelmut]

Spidermage, I think Kolar's 1) was suggesting making the weasel a support bomber instead of an assassin. I personally would prefer a little tweak of the shark to make it a support bomber. And the jav is already a support bomber really.

Kolar, your number 2) point doesn't sound bad. Though I would prefer a single line faster bullet for my assassin. If you are going to slow rotation and ship speed, the weasel should be more sure of his shot not getting dodged.

BTW, I might be the only poster here who plays pretty much exclusively in pub. And hey, it's my one year usage anniversary in 3 days. Time flies when you are playing a 2D top down space shooter. Heh.

[SaucyKing]

dont have to say anything my signature covers it. why do you wanna go around with unlimited invisibility killing everyone who cant even see you, damn.

here if you really want to play that way ill tell you what to do. you must go to all five safes, and in each, type this: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A. then you must shoot every rock in the arena 3 times without dieing. this is a cheat code that will give you 30 invisible super bombs

I don't know if this has been said but

It's up, up, down, doen, left, right, left, right, B, A, START

Ass.

[deutschpunkrevolte]

30 invisible super bombs

what is an invisible super bomb?

[Fluffz]

there already is a support bomber, its the levi. back than, befor the levi was banned from pure, one of my suggestions was to give it an emp bomb instead, making it more helpfull and less deadly. its a simpel change, reducing the levi damage. why would u turn the cloaker into a bomber when we have a bomber who is locked away?

general problem is, any change on emp bombs would also change the shark. so a lot of things are limited with this idea. there is a global value that makes emp bombs weaker than normal bombs. also the emp duration is the same for all bombs. and thats the only two values to define the emp upgrade. afaik.