Jav TKers getting out of hand, got zero help from staff over an eight hour period.

[Pressure Drop]

Well, I tried to solve this by making javelin an item to be bought.
It was fair to everyone.

But some idiots came saying I "Banned" them from playing on those ships. Anyways, I think I'll work again on the pub money system, now I do have a free time.
so, fuck off idiots trolls. Start complaining on forum already if you want.

your solution was the wrong one though ... also that isn't a very good attitude

-To maintain the game play focus of this zone; Basing, and to promote it to newer players and establish it within the community (Publics), while not neglecting other aspects of Trench Wars, such as the dueling aspect of Trench Wars.

if your going to resume work you need guidelines to be honest and those should be expanded to protect the casual pubber who jumps on to play a game he is familar with after 5 years of playing and thats what he wants , messing with core TWD ships or createing a system that requires playtime to get more powerfull / unlock ships should not be considered. There should be a focus on improving bot functionality not messing with core gameplay aspects like macroing !full charge to get 2x wb bullets in a row. This game should always be for the casual player as well as the power gamer.

[kthx]

Should just try my pub idea, I outlined them all and they all make sense.

[Jason]

i've put together a proposal for an automated system to deal with tk'ing. haven't had a chance to discuss the development side of things with dexter.

so far i've haven't received much feedback on the inter-staff side of things, so i'll post the proposal here and let the public contribute their thoughts as well.

the biggest issue with such a system is that there isn't a way to account for accidental tk's, and as such, some people might get unnecessarily punished. my take on this situation is that even accidental tk's screw over the rest of the team, so if you get locked out of a jav or shark because you suck at it, too bad.

proposal coming in a second post as it's a long read.

[Jason]

after seeing the player blackrazor discuss this on the forums, and also after having just spent the last 25 minutes in pub 0 monitoring all sorts of tk'ing and getting rather fed up with this "but he started it!" business, i am proposing the implementation of a system that automatically deals with tk'ers.

we already have the framework in place to implement such a system. we can track tk info, and players can report tk'ers. additionally, i've been led to believe that we can already handle shiplocking. surely most of this code can do what i'm proposing. and if all of the code isn't there, we have a great jumping off point from which to start.

so here's how it would work:

ON FIRST TK: obviously you have to warn the player right from the get go so appropriate expectations are set.

PubBot> *warn You are being warned for killing your teammate, <tk victim>. Teamkilling is illegal in SSCU Trench Wars. This is your first of only TWO warnings. If you continue to teamkill, you will be locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for a period of 60 minutes.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been warning for teamkilling <tk victim>. (1st Offense)

ON THIRD TK: the number three is negotiable. my thinking here is that a player may accidentally get one more tk off shortly after the first, and i would hesitate to punish people for bad luck. three strikes, however, and you're out.

PubBot> *warn This is your second and FINAL warning for teamkilling. Please cease and desist or you will be locked out of all bomb-equipped ships.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been given a FINAL warning for continuing to teamkill. (2nd Offense)

ON FIFTH TK: okay, so at this point a player has received two warnings. that's more than enough. there's no way anyone can say they weren't given a proper heads up. again, i've put a padding of one extra tk in between the second warning and the point at which action is taken. this is a buffer to catch an accidental tk that may follow the third tk in rapid succession.

PubBot> You have been locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for the next 60 minutes for failing to adhere to the zone's teamkilling policy.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for the next 60 minutes.


NOTES:

- the numbers at which warnings and shiplock should come are negotiable.
- the duration of the shiplock is negotiable.
- the purpose of the arena messages are to satisfy the tk'ers victims. people who are getting tk'ed get pissed and they want to send in a ?cheater call as a gut reaction. the bot will tell them that the situation is being dealt with before they have a chance to report.
- taking this a step further, the bot should automatically ban a player if they continue to tk after having already been subjected to a shiplock.
- this is probably obvious to any dev member, but both warnings and shiplocks would need to have a persistent state as far as the bots are concerned. no logging off and then back on to get around the system.


questions/comments/criticisms? what do you think?

of course this system isn't foolproof. there will be cases where players who accidentally tk get caught in a shiplock, but frankly, that's just too bad. if a player is playing poorly enough in a jav or shark to accidentally tk FIVE times, that player's freq is better off with them in a bullet-only ship anyway.

[kthx]

I don't see why it has to be this complicated.

There is already a module that does this.

[Jason]

it's not as simple as turning on a pre-existing module. it is a simple bit of integration into the current bot infrastructure, but please kthx, stop acting like we just have to flip a switch.

what i've proposed isn't complicated at all. i get that. making it a reality is the complicated part. need people to be constructive with criticism, and the more public support there is, the less complicated it becomes to make this happen.

[kthx]

I know but the solution for tw staff these days is always more modules, more bots, when they just really aren't needed. More bots and more modules and more automation and more this and that has been the problem, not the solution if you haven't noticed.

Instead of constantly relying on a coder to fix things, why not think up better ways to deal with the problem. There are some people who have played pubs for 5 years and never plan on leaving the pub, why not give them powers in public arenas, we could just have <PH>'s (pub helpers) who could watch for this kind of stuff and take actions when needed. Not only would this stop the problem with tking in pubs but would also raise a new generation of staffers who you could actually trust to do things correctly. It would be a precursor to joining staff, or for others a way to keep their public arena fun for basing.

And if you are worried about javelins and sharks TKing just reduce the bomb explosion radius for mines and bombs so that it means that it would be hard to TK unless you were doing it purposefully. This should help get rid of the accidental tk's.

The problem is with automation, and always has been and will be is that nobody is there to guarantee it is doing things correctly. What if a jav makes a shot from the FR to the middle area, and before he shot there was nobody there and his teams terr comes back up the tube after dying with 3-4 people on him and boom, the guy is instantly banned from playing jav for 60 minutes? Wouldn't it make more sense to (I know this is funny for TW) keep the human element involved so that stupid shit like I just mentioned doesn't happen? Who would be in charge with taking care of unjust bans, what if someone pissed me off and I purposefully flew into his bombs to get him shipchanged, and why the fuck don't we just have staffers handle TK's because I know that when a player uses !report to report a tker that it shows how many times they have tk'd.

So basically my question to you is do you want to actually fix the problem and maybe help the zone train some responsible players in the meantime or do you want yet another reason for staffers to not have to do work, talk to the players, and have another avenue of "ban system" that would be relatively ignored much like the current one is.


I think we have had time to see what complete automation has done to our public system and I think it is time to just remove the entire fucking thing and use some common sense, arena settings, a new map, and the people who have been pubbing for 5 years to fix it.

[kthx]

And this is nothing against you Jason but honestly we need to stop looking to bots and modules to solve all of our problems and go back to way it used to be where players solved their own problems, it helps teach them the game and makes them more useful to the tw populace in the long run.

[Dexter]

My post from Staff forum:

"So thats why I say, many people enjoyed the way that pub money system has. You buy something, its on the "middle" side, not being unfair with who wants JAV, not being unfair with who doesn't want JAV.
Plus, that, what major said, I'm agaisn't automating everything we want. I can make a MOD-Bot, then we could get ride of all Mods. What if I make a ERBot, to host all the events and get ride of all the ERs? Would that be cool? Yes, of course, we could get ride of some silly people haha. But not a big deal, since the fun of the game would be gone, everyone hosts on a different way, and everyone gives attention as a mod in a different way. Thats the fun of the game, if we automate everything, the fun is gone. Thats why I vote no for automation, takes time to code and people get tired of it after years."

So, I agree with Kthx. This should be taken care of by the own pub players, or by someone that is 24-7 on pub, or why not a ZH, since they're gone. Human intelligence can for sure make the zone better without any kind of bot. We can even get ride of elim and baseelim bot, base bot..and just keep TWD and some events bots. Thats my opinion ( from a bot coder, imagine.)

[kthx]

I would be pretty happy if we had an active ER base and could just turn on elim/baseelim during weekends or during non-peak hours but that is just me. I figure the less automated events, more the condensed the player base is in certain events,the more population hosts get, the more fun everyone is having.

[Dexter]

And so, if some people say using Pub money system just bans the others from using jav and etc, we can't forget that it is still a good gameplay, you get better and buy whatever you want. So, I'll see the best way to introduce it. If not in public 1, can be in public 2, maybe. or in other arena, ?go money, like that. I'm not sure, I just want to perfect pub money system and I'll, I'm getting back day by day, I don't want to leave TW alone.

[kthx]

Having to buy a jav wasn't the worst idea even though it is a really popular ship (which is why there are so many in pub), the problem was the list of players you had that couldn't use the money system that would never be allowed to buy the jav.

[Dexter]

I would be pretty happy if we had an active ER base and could just turn on elim/baseelim during weekends or during non-peak hours but that is just me. I figure the less automated events, more the condensed the player base is in certain events,the more population hosts get, the more fun everyone is having.

Yes and thats my opinion too. So, its up just now to Ara/M_M God and to Space/P_L, we need to know their opinion about forcing ERs and Mods to do more things manual. Elim and Baseelim would be the first step.
None cares about rank in elim, baseelim, right? Its not even the same as Robo Ref's. Plus that this is a problem and gives me a lot of head ache (Elim.java).

[Dexter]

Having to buy a jav wasn't the worst idea even though it is a really popular ship (which is why there are so many in pub), the problem was the list of players you had that couldn't use the money system that would never be allowed to buy the jav.

I assume it was good, then, because the list of 1 player was gone after 2 minutes and lets say, it never existed, I just feed ya to keep trash talking.

[kthx]

If the elim ranking system was done right it might be fun, especially if there was an Elim season that started and ended and the player got his name in the elim arena for instance. But that would only work if elim was hosted during a set schedule instead of 24/7 so that every player got an equal footing. I am sure we could develop some sort of ranking based on kills, deaths, average rank killed, average rank died to, etc.