Why Nerf The X into oblivion?

[Troll King]

I'm not sure what you want to have done with team kill though. Are you proposing to make it impossible to team kill?

[Fluffz]

oh yeah, I forgot, it could repel, wow. whatever. get a shark

this repel was the most important thing ever, you could sneak up entrance and repel badly placed bombs in everyones face. or you could use it to enter base, you could use it to escape, you could use it to repel someone into a mine out of nowhere. this repel when compared to size was an improvement and the weasels main weapon. it also had this physical BAM! effect when you did it in the enemy base. attention whore ship.

make the cloaker big, leave the settings and give it back its repel.
even better, leave it small, take away multifire and give it back a repel or at least the ability to green one.

I'm not sure what you want to have done with team kill though. Are you proposing to make it impossible to team kill?

shipchange them to a non tk ship for X minutes, except sharks obviously.

[Doc Flabby]

I have to agree with zonk! this new large X sucks.

Even though I am part of the campain for restoring the size of the X
I actaually want the small one back, on the boki map the large X is unplayable.

If the large X had at least its infinate cloak i would have a chance of getting into the base. With the doors on the side entrances there is just no way, in when you are blocked by mines. The small X doesnt have this problem.

The reason why the large X had repel was so it could get past mine fields.

I am only supporting the bring back the large X campain on the condition the full cloaking abilities of the ship be restored. Along with the repel and rocket. I like the lameness of full clock :P

Just want to make one point.

Pub was alot more fun during the extended old skool weekend. Maybe we need to start with the old settings and work on how they can be improved.

This is what i would try:

No Private freqs in first 2 pubs. All pubs have timer.

WB - can green draining x-radar
Jav - no change
Spider - can green draining x-radar
Levi - attach bty increased to 50 (i like this idea fluffz) Starts with 1 repel and port.
Terrier - no change
Weasel - large + infinate cloak + repel + emp bomb(no damage) + no multi + slow bullet + x-radar + no rocket but can ?buy rocket
Lanc - use new lanc settings.
Shark - no change

x-radar can also be .?buy for 500 for all ships except levi.

[Troll King]

shipchange them to a non tk ship for X minutes, except sharks obviously.

I disagree with this. While TKs are annoying, they are a necessary part of the game. At the same time, there should not be an automated anti-tk strategy because there are just too many variables to consider. An automatic response from a bot won't be able to look at the context of team kills. Many team kills are accidents, and many are caused by the other team, and in these cases should not receive punishment. I don't know the numbers for team kills, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them are of this nature. An automated response will not be able to make proper judgement calls and there will be too many unnecessary ship changes made. You need a human being to make those kinds of calls.

[Fluffz]

the current situation is: the current policy is not working and needs a change.
if you play a ship than can spoil the fun of other players there has to be a working solution to avoid this situation or else they will quit sooner or later.

there are no accidental tk, there are just risky shots. if you choose to play a ship with bombs you have to carry the "risk" of being changed. i cant report every tk, that would be considered as spawning the bot.

who cares if an enemy shark reps your bomb - something you did not think would happen - if this shot tks your terr? of course you should get ship changed. and if you kill 5 nmy ships and one of your own you still killed one of your own. a tk is a tk and avoidable. why should someone even bother with a dogfighter ship if he has 5 jav bombs going in his direction all the time.

this also applies to the old x. one of the main reasons to change permanent cloak was that it destroys the fun of getting a high bounty.

[Troll King]

That's too harsh a penalty. There will be far too many unnecessary ship changes because you're overreacting to the problem. Team kills are a part of this game, and there are such things as accidental ones. Sometimes it's even the fault of the person who got killed. If there's a crowd of enemies and a jav takes a clear shot, but an anxious lanc charges right in after the shot and gets caught in the blast, that's the lanc's fault. And if I'm rushing towards a crowd of enemies and get TK'ed by a jav that also takes out three enemies including one of the enemy's terrs, I'd say it was worth it and I wouldn't be upset. I would be upset however if the enemy took out the rest of our team when the jav got ship-changed while I was spawning, taking 2 of our defenders out of the flag room.

Right now, it sounds like your worry is that a team kill will ruin your chance of getting a high bounty. Well guess what, letting ships get high bounties wasn't a high concern on the zone's mission statement.

I find nothing wrong with the way TKs are handled right now, while an automated solution will be inadequate.

[Liquid Blue]

the current situation is: the current policy is not working and needs a change.
if you play a ship than can spoil the fun of other players there has to be a working solution to avoid this situation or else they will quit sooner or later.

Your ideas on how to solve the tk problem will cause alot more people quitting than there are now. Like TK said, 90% of TK's are accidental- and implementing ship changes after every tk will result in people becoming frustrated with the game and not playing it. I can hear them now-

"What? Why am I a warbird now? I can't choose my own ship? This is lame"

And then they quit the zone and play something that's is less restricting.

Yes there are risky shots, but there are also accidents. As long as your teammates can control their ships and don't know exactly where you're about to shoot, there will always be accidents. You can't type " Hey guys I'm about to shoot right there, stay away from the wall" as you're hitting tab, and still hope to smack an enemy. You also can't rely on people to stay away or move fast enough when one of your missles is coming in their direction; sometimes, shit just happens. You say sorry and you move on. As long as you don't make a habit of it and apologize, most people realize it was just a mistake and move on.


Alot of things about this game and zone can be seen as "unfair" or "spoiling the fun":

"Lancs get to shoot twice, that's unfair when I'm in a wb"

"Terriers get to burst, that's unfair I want my spider to be able to burst"

"Weasels can cloak, that spoils my fun when I'm a warbird"

"Spiders get to shoot too much, Javs shouldn't be able to shoot lasers out their butts, etc etc"

and so on and so on. While the zone and settings do need some work, you have to realize that everything can't go your way, there will always be something that you might not like about the game. Deal with it. Life moves on.

[Iguana Bob]

There is no proble with the small x. It cant cloak stealth for more than a few seconds and that makes you have to micromanage the energy. Also its a close combat ship so it can easily be sniped. The small spaces that a x can get in are balanced, javs, ters, lancs can all protect the spaces so its not a big deal. If both teams have Xs then they balance each other out. The big x sucked bad and was to easy to get killed becuse it was way to slow and big, the only real way to be effective was to rocket fire. And if you nurf the spaces that Xs can go through then how can you effectively deal with roof campers except by going the long way around?

If you ask most people what made them not want to play pub then it would be LTs that went around the base blowing them up and then warping when anyone got close or tking javs and then Xs. At the most extreme then just give everyone energy draining x radar thats greened or get rid of stealth and keep cloak.

It all comes down to Im paper, nerf scissors, rocks fine. All the ships balance each other out its just that Xs balance out Xs. And if you do nerf Xs then to balance it out then remove burst, x radar, stealth from levs, shoot from levs, repel from sharks, increse energy cost from spiders and lancs, and slow wb shots to that of levs because thats how bad you nufed the x right now.

Dont ruin Xs because of a few worthless cry babys.

PS: most people dislike playing pubs because it gets boring after 20-30 mins becuse nothing really changes and there are no objectives, while hosted events are much more dinamic. Its not that everyone hates one ship so they wont play.

[Fluffz]

Your ideas on how to solve the tk problem will cause alot more people quitting than there are now. Like TK said, 90% of TK's are accidental- and implementing ship changes after every tk will result in people becoming frustrated with the game and not playing it. [...] While the zone and settings do need some work, you have to realize that everything can't go your way

1. all my suggestiond are not targeting myself but the general gameplay.
2. the settings were fine, except for the levi, they need no or only less work. map change, ok. bots, ok.
3. even tho this is off topic i disagree. the current TK situation is too bad for any player with a certain usage. i ?go base every time pub players are to new and tk me too often in a row (this happens a lot these days due to the ammount of javs).

i consider any vet leaving pub as a drastic drop in pub gameplay which causes a way more devastating effect on pubs than 3 guys getting shipchanged and pissed off.

i am not being too harsh, last time after being TKed 5 times in a row (that is without an nmy kill in between) i did an help call and NOTHING happened. so much for the current situation. it is NOT working. this is a fact (for me). i went to base, there were 22 people. 3 pubs were open, one with 34, one with 30 and one with 4 People. the for gameplay important 1/3 of this zone couldnt give a shit about pub while the 2/3 of this zone get a bad impression in pub. where does this lead? nowhere in my oppinion.

as an idea for a possible tk bot, it could leave it up to the tked player to take an action. every time you get tked you get a message: Player X has TKed 3 times in the last 5 minutes. you can either forgive him by messaging !forgive to the bot and erase this TK from the record or shipchange him for 15 minutes to a non TK ship if he exceeded 2 TKs in the last 5 minustes by messaging !punish to the bot.


as example, go ask utopia how he thinks about this TK situation, without knowing i would think he can see the problem, pub terr that he plays. he can carry a team, whenever he terrs you have enjoyable and good pub basing. whenever he gets tked too often he leaves, leaving an crappy pub behind. dont expect him to do a cheater call. there is NO excuse for tking a terr. protecting this TKing guys - no matter how fair it is - is ruining the game for everyone else that tries to pub, which has a worse effect than every private freq LT could have. in the longer run, this is why the need of 2 people is not better than the need of one.

[Doc Flabby]

don't be a wuss just TK back. or change freq and keep hunting them untill they change ship they get the idea soon enough.

[Liquid Blue]

1. all my suggestiond are not targeting myself but the general gameplay.
2. the settings were fine, except for the levi, they need no or only less work. map change, ok. bots, ok.
3. even tho this is off topic i disagree. the current TK situation is too bad for any player with a certain usage. i ?go base every time pub players are to new and tk me too often in a row (this happens a lot these days due to the ammount of javs).

1. Those changes that you're suggesting are what will cause more people to play less, or quit altogether.

2. That's your opinion, not fact. Just like you think TK'ing needs to be worked on, I believe there need to be some more changes to freshen up the stale gameplay.

3. Again, your opinion.

i consider any vet leaving pub as a drastic drop in pub gameplay which causes a way more devastating effect on pubs than 3 guys getting shipchanged and pissed off.

Especially when those three people each tell someone not to play the zone, right? Snowball effect is what we're looking at here, in terms of playerbase. We need new and more players, the vets will usually play in another arena for awhile and eventually come back. New players make the world go round, and pardon the drastic examples but those three could have brought in three more people, who could have brought in 4 more people, and so on and so on. We can't just cater towards the vets if we want the zone to survive.

i am not being too harsh, last time after being TKed 5 times in a row (that is without an nmy kill in between) i did an help call and NOTHING happened. so much for the current situation. it is NOT working. this is a fact (for me). i went to base, there were 22 people. 3 pubs were open, one with 34, one with 30 and one with 4 People. the for gameplay important 1/3 of this zone couldnt give a shit about pub while the 2/3 of this zone get a bad impression in pub. where does this lead? nowhere in my oppinion.

You are being too harsh and you're letting your opinion get affected and consumed by how much you get tk'ed. It's summertime, all zones in SS suffer a shrinkage of the player base, so describing how many people were in pub the one time you were on doesn't add anything to the discussion.

as an idea for a possible tk bot, it could leave it up to the tked player to take an action. every time you get tked you get a message: Player X has TKed 3 times in the last 5 minutes. you can either forgive him by messaging !forgive to the bot and erase this TK from the record or shipchange him for 15 minutes to a non TK ship if he exceeded 2 TKs in the last 5 minustes by messaging !punish to the bot.

So all someone who wants to TK but avoid the shipchange is message !forgive to the bot? Then they can keep on tk'ing, just typing !forgive after every 3? What about some of those 4,5-shotter TK's that happen in the fr when things are most hectic? The guy didn't get a chance to type !forgive so now he's stuck in a specified ship for 15 minutes? That's a horrible idea, shoving someone in a ship and not letting them change their minds for more than 1 or 2 minutes is idiotic and will only serve to push people away from this zone.

as example, go ask utopia how he thinks about this TK situation, without knowing i would think he can see the problem, pub terr that he plays. he can carry a team, whenever he terrs you have enjoyable and good pub basing. whenever he gets tked too often he leaves, leaving an crappy pub behind. dont expect him to do a cheater call. there is NO excuse for tking a terr. protecting this TKing guys - no matter how fair it is - is ruining the game for everyone else that tries to pub, which has a worse effect than every private freq LT could have. in the longer run, this is why the need of 2 people is not better than the need of one.

I don't know or care who Utopia is, he could play the best terr in the world and it wouldn't matter in this discussion. He left because he didn't like getting TK'ed? Tough luck, the team will still move on. Creating rules to favor specific players will get more heat thrown towards staff than they know what to do with.

Rules like the ones you are suggesting are going to cut off the new player base and even alienate vets from staying in pub.

[Fluffz]

of course its my opinion, wtf. you continue thinking the situation is fine, i know it isnt. i made my point as clear as i can, you might disagree or not understand it, i think its the second. LT/TKs -> pros leaving pubs -> shit pubs -> no new players. end of story.

[Liquid Blue]

The point is you're letting your frustration with the TK situation shape your views on how the zone should be "fixed"- you're trying to go about giving harsh harsh consequences to a common occurance in the gameplay-rules that would only further alienate people from the zone, which is our main problem.

In short your solution to TK's would only make the zone worse off than it is right now.

[Fluffz]

harsh harsh consequences like a shipchange if you can not stay below 2 TKs / 5 Minutes, with the exception of sharks? if you tk the terr or your lined spiders you cost base which 15 other ppl try to hold, how is this harsch? its fair.

to make it short too, i think TKs cost more people than the freedome to TK give. if you have a better solution, please bring it up. but a solution is needed in my biased oppinion.

if its not the game that keeps this community alife its the endless discussions about the needed changes ....

[Troll King]

I still think the current situation is the best way to go. I don't see any need to change it. As a shark, I get TKed plenty of times and I except it as a part of the way that I play. In a crowded flag room battle, I can expect to get TKed several times in a minute's span. Getting shipchanged after 2 TKs in 5 minutes will be far too common in such an environment. As much as getting TKed in such a situation might lead to the flag getting lost, having someone shipchanged and sent out of the base will make that more likely to happen. I'd also be angrier if we lost base because my teammates weren't re-attaching quick enough because they were busy messaging the bot about whether to !forgive or to !punish.

As for the arguments about vets leaving pubs because of a couple of TKs, the reality is that vets have been leaving pubs in droves over the last few years. This in turn has lowered the quality of pubs and one result is an increase in TKs. The long-term solution? Get more vets to play in pubs and STICK WITH IT. None of this retreating to ?base like a wimp. If you wan to fix the problem, don't threaten to run away and hide. When I think of the term "vet", I think of grizzled warriors who are familiar with shit blowing up in their faces and yet continue to play through it. I don't think of pansies running from the slums to their safe gated communities.

Of course, that's just my opinion.