Publics

[Fluffz]

Ok, my bad.
Let's all debate the pros and cons of the size of the weasel and the color of bullets. No sense in trying to understand the issues from the top down, let's do more of the same thing and argue over minor shit like has been done for the last 5 years and see if that works.

a leviterr can get 1000 bty after one spawnkill without much problem that is. he earns it by destroying any basing attempt. am i the only one who does not need a top down view to see the problem here? 50 attach bounty, problem reduced.

[Troll King]

A top down approach would be to look at what is causing a problem and then try to stop that cause, as opposed to the historical bottom-down approach which has been to take away the symptoms of the problem and hope for the best. Raising the bounty attach requirement, for example, won't get rid of the problem, just delay it; if a levi can get a bounty of 20 and attach fairly quickly right now, raising the target to 50 won't take much longer. Also, by raising the limit, levis who want to green up will want to find a way to do it faster. What's the fastest way to get bounty, shoot around in the vast open space of the spawn area and hope you'll hit something, or go to the base where you only need to aim for a wall and you'll get some bounty? All you'll do is make them want to target the base more to get their bounties up faster.

TW has been working with these bottom-up band-aid solutions for years and they've only added to the problems.

[Chao.]

A top down approach would be to look at what is causing a problem and then try to stop that cause, as opposed to the historical bottom-down approach which has been to take away the symptoms of the problem and hope for the best. Raising the bounty attach requirement, for example, won't get rid of the problem, just delay it; if a levi can get a bounty of 20 and attach fairly quickly right now, raising the target to 50 won't take much longer. Also, by raising the limit, levis who want to green up will want to find a way to do it faster. What's the fastest way to get bounty, shoot around in the vast open space of the spawn area and hope you'll hit something, or go to the base where you only need to aim for a wall and you'll get some bounty? All you'll do is make them want to target the base more to get their bounties up faster.

TW has been working with these bottom-up band-aid solutions for years and they've only added to the problems.

I liked the idea of extending the lower walls out a bit to form that courtyard you were talking about. I've got a basic outline of it as ?go pubshield2 in the dev zone if you're interested.

[Lemmin]

Hmm. I think Ephemeral and Troll King have the broadest view of whats going on here.

I'm stretching my memory back 7 or 8 years, trying to remember what I used to do when I was new to the zone.

When I first came to the zone, fresh from the SVS zones (I'd already been playing three years on and off, so not a total newb), I tried all the ships out and decided I liked the terrier most. I made it my mission to become the best (pub) base terr ever, and thats what I did for two years in pub (this was waaay before TWD existed, so thats all we had to amuse ourselves).

In my dim, hazy, probably rose-tinted memories, Levterrs weren't a huge problem. I always seemed to have a port and I could get from one side of the base to the other when I saw a lev bomb approaching. If I got too annoyed with the LTs, it wasn't a problem to go out and hunt them in a Terrier - they died pretty easily around the top of the base. Levs used to be my friend, and I used to invite them to attach into the flag room to defend it.

For some reason, about 5 years ago, LTs became much harder to kill. I can't remember if there was a settings change, or maybe thats when people learned to lagcheat on cont, or LT drivers became more skilled, or the good base players who could hold a pub together through a levi bombardment quit or went somewhere else, but they started ruining the basing. I started campaigning for pubs without levis. A year later maybe (hazy memory again, not enough drugs probably) pure pubs made their debut to my general delight.

I don't actually mind Levis in pub, so long as there is some way that a skilled pilot can avoid their depredations. If LTs are easy to kill, and if a half-way organised team can survive having a couple of them zoom around outside the base, then they don't really detract from the basing game, and can even contribute by allowing levs in to defend the flag room. It used to be a great feeling when your well placed ports allowed you to escape the incoming levi bombs just in time, and allow you to continue to hold the flag room.

As it stands now, for whatever reason, LTs are effectively invulnerable. I don't know if many people reading this have tried to kill an LT recently, but if they don't warp away, they eat your bullets, and the only ships with half a chance of killing them (lancs) can't rely on a one-hit kill any more. The only ships that can stop them warping (spiders) can't actually kill them because a terrier is about as fast as spider bullets anyway.

Think on what Ephemeral has said, I can't actually work out would be the best thing for a newb. Certainly Levis aren't the best ship to start in - you have to get 20 bounty before you can attach, and then you have to find someone to attach to. A Lev isn't a newb ship. Do levs detach from a new players game? Well, they are an easy kill while in the spawn zone, however a few easy kills get boring and you soon start to look for bigger game, ships your own size.

Thinking about it, I can't see how Levis give anything to new players at all. LTs tend to be semi-experienced players, usually friends who other players, so LTs are probably something you graduate to. New players tend to choose lancs or warbirds from what I've seen.

From a selfish old-fogey pub-baser point of view, I'd rather see LTs out of public arenas. From a newbie point of view, I think they are better off without Levis also. I can only really see justification for a FEW levi arenas, and the rest pure - almost turn the existing system on its head.

I think the logical argument still has to be keep pure pubs, or expand pure pubbing to cover every public arena.

LEM

[Lemmin]

Also thinking about things from the Newb point of view, I'm going to see if I can find a few people who have never played before SS, and dump them in pub. I'll ask them a few questions about which ship they like best, and ask for their suggestions as to how to improve the game.

In a non-leading way (if possible) I'll ask their opinion of LTs, and see if I can get a real idea of what they are like to someone who has just started playing. I may even be surprised by their response!

Even though as a ZH I should see a lot of new players, its often hard to filter those who really ARE new from those who just pretending for whatever reason.

LEM

[Vehicle]

Okay, this is how to solve the problem:



Using this map, or some derivitive of this map (you can make it pretty,) get rid of levi restrictions, put pubbots in every pub (for the purpose of running games rich,) and bring the weasel back up to size. This way, controlling the base will also involve controlling the mid to some extent in order to protect the flagroom from levithans.

Purepubs sucessfully destroyed all the pubs below them, i'm sorry, but that's just fact. If the mission statement is to encourage basing, encourage basing, because as far as i'm concerned the only reason people stay in the lower pubs is because they don't know how to get out.

[Izor]

Levis are going to have a field day with the losing team on that map, veh. they'll just freqhop or quit.

Rich:

lol saying that pub is more fun than the subarenas has to be a joke. If this were the case, the playerbase wouldnt have declined by nearly half since purepubs were implemented.

You are the least compromising person on this thread: you think that basing and only basing should be in TW. You think that because its something you enjoy that its something everyone else will. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is what has the zone in the situation it is currently in.

Eph: I am at least attempting to look at this from the top down. The problem I see is that pub got fucked with when it didnt deserve it, and when the problem has gotten worse no one has stepped in

BTW, a way to encourage basing I think is to add that timer that is currently useless under the energy bar to the old pub, while still keeping things the way they were. The mvp module is pretty nice, too. Basically, just some of the things that have been added to these top pubs being implemented in all of

Maybe a streak module would help with LTs, too. I've always thought those are a good way of getting levterrs to be hunted. An *arena with what kind of streak they're on brings it to the attention of the pub, who then likes to end that streak usually (trust me, I know how annoying it is when you anger a bunch of pubbers). I would even contemplate zoners briefly if they get to say..900 bty to stop them from getting 1k, but zoners always encourage feeding for attention whoring

[Sufficient]

Okay, this is how to solve the problem:

Using this map, or some derivitive of this map (you can make it pretty,) get rid of levi restrictions, put pubbots in every pub (for the purpose of running games rich,) and bring the weasel back up to size. This way, controlling the base will also involve controlling the mid to some extent in order to protect the flagroom from levithans.

Purepubs sucessfully destroyed all the pubs below them, i'm sorry, but that's just fact. If the mission statement is to encourage basing, encourage basing, because as far as i'm concerned the only reason people stay in the lower pubs is because they don't know how to get out.

?go suffbase ... or ?go basesuff ... I forgot which.

=========

I'll say it for the 3rd or 4th time ... reduce one-hit-kill radius for levs. So simple. Increases the skill needed to do be a successful lev/LT. Does not require a change in fundamental gameplay/dynamics of the ships. Does not require a change in map. Lev can still be the lev. LTs can still LT. Basers can still base (just hafta worry a little bit about levs). AND levs can potentially be incorporated as a BASING SHIP. GG.

[Fluffz]

A top down approach would be to look at what is causing a problem and then try to stop that cause

oh sorry, i gave up hope on that long ago because if you guys would believe your own words you would have to reduce levi blast radis and blast power by a lot. and i seriously cant see that happening so all this wuss about mission statement, greater plan and top down thinking is just useless words. id rather have a semi working band aid solution than a never happening top-down-view solution. or what do you call putting a wall around base that wont change a fucking thing avout levis, maybe even make it worse...



why are newbs playing levi right away? well back when i newbed my way out of spawn into base and saw a bomb whipe out a flagroom it made my ship decission for some years. i gave up WBing (which i were pretty good at) to LT around on a private freq for a cheap 10:1 ration.

if it were up to me id find a way to change the ships settings to something that
a) keeps LTs in game
b) gets rid of attach bounty
c) nerfs levis enough to make that possible (like with shrap)
but i dont even talk about that seriously anymore, it reminds me too much of 5 years ago. instead i would find a force-levi-detach system combined with a big attach-bounty-requirement along with the magic-solution walls acceptable IF levis get back into all pubs.

ps: lemin that change in LTs u talk about were the creation of that LevTerr(sp) squad and the enormous skill we had at LTing.

edit: i forgot the strict-TKs-Ban Bot

[Chao.]

?go suffbase ... or ?go basesuff ... I forgot which.

=========

I'll say it for the 3rd or 4th time ... reduce one-hit-kill radius for levs. So simple. Increases the skill needed to do be a successful lev/LT. Does not require a change in fundamental gameplay/dynamics of the ships. Does not require a change in map. Lev can still be the lev. LTs can still LT. Basers can still base (just hafta worry a little bit about levs). AND levs can potentially be incorporated as a BASING SHIP. GG.

I checked the map, the it doesn't seem like its going to stop bombs from disrupting basing. All you've done is made obvious which shots will directly hit the walls of the FR. Even with the radius shrunken in that map it seems like they'd be just as big a problem.

[Sufficient]

I checked the map, the it doesn't seem like its going to stop bombs from disrupting basing. All you've done is made obvious which shots will directly hit the walls of the FR. Even with the radius shrunken in that map it seems like they'd be just as big a problem.

Yeah. The purpose of my map was to open up roof for javs/the team trying to break cram. I was just showing Veh something like that. And yes, I know there are holes in the roof.

When I suggest shrinking the dmg radius of the lev, I don't intend on it to eliminate LTing or fully protecte FR. LTs will still be able to LT. Some FRs will still be decimated by LTs/levs. When make this suggestion, it is to lower the amt of "random wall bombs" and make the levs more of a basing ship and more of a skill ship. Don't expect to be totally shielded from any lev dmg if they get a lower dmg radius. Good levs/LTs will be able to inflict damage even if the dmg radius is smaller. The suggestion only makes it more of a skill and less of a hit-any-wall-and-kill-everyone type of deal.

[Chao.]

Yeah. The purpose of my map was to open up roof for javs/the team trying to break cram. I was just showing Veh something like that. And yes, I know there are holes in the roof.

When I suggest shrinking the dmg radius of the lev, I don't intend on it to eliminate LTing or fully protecte FR. LTs will still be able to LT. Some FRs will still be decimated by LTs/levs. When make this suggestion, it is to lower the amt of "random wall bombs" and make the levs more of a basing ship and more of a skill ship. Don't expect to be totally shielded from any lev dmg if they get a lower dmg radius. Good levs/LTs will be able to inflict damage even if the dmg radius is smaller. The suggestion only makes it more of a skill and less of a hit-any-wall-and-kill-everyone type of deal.

Oh, I realize that fully, I just don't know if shrinking the radius is going to make enough of a difference if they can aim right at the middle of the side walls.

[Troll King]

oh sorry, i gave up hope on that long ago because if you guys would believe your own words you would have to reduce levi blast radis and blast power by a lot. and i seriously cant see that happening so all this wuss about mission statement, greater plan and top down thinking is just useless words. id rather have a semi working band aid solution than a never happening top-down-view solution. or what do you call putting a wall around base that wont change a fucking thing avout levis, maybe even make it worse...

You're already decaring the mission statement a failure when it's just getting started, and saying it's better to continue with the same band-aid solutions that have proven to not only be failures but also to be the reason this zone is facing the problems it faces today. I'm seeing more productive discussion of suggestions in this thread and in others ever since Moot started that mission statement, and these changes have more of a chance of not only being implented, but also of actually improving things, than any band-aids thrown out at any other point I can recall in the last 7 years. Give this process a chance: it's just starting.

[Mootland Farmer]

Chao <ZH> and myself have been working on a new map. The features of this map include;

1) A protective bubble around the left/top/right side of flagroom. This means LeviTerrs are still able to able to bomb flagroom and midbase from insdie the base.

2) Levishots from the top of roof and the sides holes which can hit lower flagroom have been cut off. However, Javelins can still bomb base from roof since their bomb bounces and the small Weasel can still get in roof and from the holes under the top ears/pods

3) There is a courtyard. The low left and right pods of the current map have been brought down, forming a small courtyard. They've been brought down like the shape of a banana like so. You'll understand what I mean when you see the map. :]

4) Lastly, the asteroid ring has been moved in a bit, and the base map centered in the middle of the map, making it more prominant. I'm still abit unsure about the safes. Maybe keep one.

Hopefully I'll be able to upload this map soon, and test it out. I'm still open to ideas. See whatever works best.

[Zerzera]

lol saying that pub is more fun than the subarenas has to be a joke. If this were the case, the playerbase wouldnt have declined by nearly half since purepubs were implemented.

You didn't prove any correlation between pure pub and the decline of the playerbase, and are you sure the playerbase declined by 'nearly half'?
You don't even seem to know exactly when pure pub started, and you don't seem to know when the prime of TW was.

You are the least compromising person on this thread: you think that basing and only basing should be in TW. You think that because its something you enjoy that its something everyone else will. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is what has the zone in the situation it is currently in.

The zone is a base/flag zone, just because they also happen to have the nicest sub-arenas, doesn't change that.

Eph: I am at least attempting to look at this from the top down. The problem I see is that pub got fucked with when it didnt deserve it, and when the problem has gotten worse no one has stepped in

Public was mainly inhabited by basers and people trying to feed on the fact that basing was going on, more and more people left the publics to play in sub-arenas, if you enter a new game and there is only 10 people playing you probably will give up on it pretty quick. This is also why pure pub needs to be extended, to be sure there is enough room for new players to get into the action (they might not know how to switch arenas, and thus need to end up in a crowded arena).