Attack

[Diakka]

thanks for the feedback jim, i couldn't agree with you more about the base. i like how much more open it is but the tunnels are too simple and too short to get to center of base. needs some more diversity.

[Diakka]

Update: Automated system ready

Thanks to WingZero a bot is ready in order for players to play Attack at will. It is fully automated and players can cap themselves. Once two players have typed !cap to bot it will begin picking. There are ship restrictions, but the bot will let you know as you are picking. Here is a help guide.

diakka> !help
TWBot> +-- AttackBot Commands ----------------------------------------------------------------------
TWBot> !status - Displays the current game status
TWBot> !lagout - Returns a player to the game after lagging out
TWBot> !notplaying - (!np) Toggles not playing which will prevent being added when on
TWBot> !list - Displays list of each teams player information
TWBot> !caps - Displays the captains of each team
TWBot> !cap - Volunteers for assignment to captain of a team
TWBot> +-- Captain Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWBot> !ready - Use after picking when ready to begin the game
TWBot> !add <name>:<ship> - Adds <name> to game in ship number <ship>
TWBot> !remove <name> - Removes <name> from game (during picking)
TWBot> !change <name>:<ship> - Changes <name> to ship number <ship>
TWBot> !switch <name1>:<name2> - Switches the ships of <name1> and <name2>
TWBot> !sub <player>:<specer> - Substitutes <player> for <specer>
TWBot> !list - Lists players, ships, and statuses for each team
TWBot> +-- Staff Commands --------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWBot> !setcap <team>:<name> - Sets <name> as captain of <team> (0 or 1)
TWBot> !go <arena> - Sends bot to <arena>
TWBot> !die - Kills bot
TWBot> !killgame - Abruptly kills the current game

If you ever want to play let staff know in a ?help and we will try and get players to come.

[Diakka]

There are a few new commands you will find in the !help menu. One of the main ones is !stats. Stats lets you know all the individual player stats of every player in the arena. We hope to advance in this with a little more detail.

We played an hour long 6v6 game tonight and have come to the conclusion that playing to a certain amount of goals takes too long. We are going to make the games timed, somewhere around 15 minutes. If you have any other suggestions from playing the game please let us know them right here. We still plan on improving all aspects of the game to fit players' liking.

Type ?chat=attack in game if you are interested in the event and want updates and etc.

Thanks,

-diakka

[Jason]

gotta try this out sometime

when do you think you'll have another round of testing?

[fLaReD]

We usually play at night between 12 and 1am EST

[Diakka]

If it gets more popular we hope to play it more during the day, but for some reason it's easier to get better games going during the nighttime.

[Diakka]

Trying to figure out which direction we want to take with Attack. Should it replace TWFD, be it's own league, run a mini tourny, or just have organized scrims? This is still all to be decided (leaning towards TWFD replacement) and with that said we need to keep teaching the public how to play. In order to assure this happens we installed some new commands which will allow players to know what is going on pretty easily. Here they are:

diakka> !about
WingBoy> +-- Rules of Attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------.
WingBoy> | The goal of attack is to score more points than the opposing team in the given amount of |
WingBoy> | time. Work as a team to move the ball in to the enemy base and shoot the ball in to their |
WingBoy> | goal to score a point. |
WingBoy> +-- Ship Restrictions --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
WingBoy> | Teams may use a maximum of: |
WingBoy> | -1 Warbird -2 Terriers |
WingBoy> | -1 Javelin -0 Weasels |
WingBoy> | -10 Spiders -10 Lancasters |
WingBoy> | -0 Leviathans -2 Sharks |
WingBoy> +-- Tips ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
WingBoy> | -When holding the ball, your ship will receive upgraded guns, bombs, and mines. Use this |
WingBoy> | to your advantage. |
WingBoy> | -Use the doors located on the far end of each base as a way to escape your base with the |
WingBoy> | the ball. If you are carrying the ball when the door changes states, you will be warped |
WingBoy> | to your spawn area. |
WingBoy> | -Collect greens to help your Terriers increase bounty. When a Terrier has 20 bounty, he |
WingBoy> | may attach to the other Terrier. |
WingBoy> | -Use both of your Terriers. When one Terrier is attacking, the other terr can start a |
WingBoy> | flank to help destroy the enemy. Just be sure not to leave your base unguarded! |
WingBoy> `-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'

diakka> !rules
WingBoy> RULES: Timed game to 2 minutes most goals wins or sudden death. 10 players in basing ships per team. Ship limits: 1WB 1JAV 2TERR 2SHARK

There are also some other basic commands being installed which Jason mentioned after playing in a game earlier tonight. Some of the commands include !terr, !myfreq, and being placed on !np freq...all of which have already been updated. Flared is also designing lvz' s (*objons) which will flash the score and when sudden death overtime has started. A TWD style scoreboard has also been installed for your convenience. We also plan on updating the tileset and going to a more traditional style. We aren't exactly sure what this will be yet as people have come to us asking if they could make one for us. The map will be updated soon a slightly different goal room and the doors will be smaller and harder to get into with a longer duration opening and closing. We didn't want to get rid of the doors, but wanted to make them a little harder to use. The doors allow you to warp out of your base with ball since this can't be done any other way. It's an interesting tactic and we wanted to keep that aspect part of the game. Hopefully it gets to stay.

The new map with these updates can now be found in ?go Attack.

Keep checking back in if you are enjoying these updates and please type ?chat=attack in game to meet some other players.

[Stylez]

Lmao, such a big hassle over something so minor. First off, yes, this map came from 17th parallel, I made it specifically for that zone, though even with help from pernille and samapico back in the day, the map never got used, due to the zone utterly dying out. I was on staff with Fieryfire and diakka for the TWL broadcasts and I asked diakka to take a look at the map and thought of a good way to use it, seeing as that it never had a chance to see the light of day. I not only told diakka about this map being from 17th parallel, but made a forum post of it in our "secret" TWL broadcast forum section, where we discussed all the different rules that would apply and how the game would be played. Which by the way, I only get credit for the maps design? Thought it was me who came up with the concept in the first place, seeing as that how I just integrated TW's game play with how 17th parallel use to be played. But, all that bullshit set aside, I just did it for shits and giggles, was effing bored one day and sort of missed my old stomping grounds, which in a way I was trying to keep alive with doing all this.

Is the map incompatible for TW's? Lol, no... There are many different maps and settings for those maps in TW's, all of which work out fine. TW's has more "user" friendly ship settings than most other zones, which in turn makes for a more diverse atmosphere; greater opportunity for expansion. Basically, TW's has a simplified game design allowing for others to create practically any type of variation and/or assortment of game play.

Why am I typing this all out? Iunno...

[Tsumetai]

I just had a blast playing two games in a row on this. Here's one suggestion I have for a change:

Make sharks reps better when they become a flag carrier. Maybe they push players harder and further away, or last longer, or something.

It seems to me that the best thing a flag carrier can do is go on the offensive. You never want to retreat if you don't have to, so every ship that has a shot at getting the ball should get a serious upgrade to their push. All the fighter ships get bullet upgrades and become far more lethal. Wbs get multi shoot, lancs get one hit kill bullets, and spiders can lay down a huge spray of lanc bullets. This turns the fighter, especially a spider or a lanc, into a one man killing machine, especially when the enemy doesn't have their sharks up. All shark can do is try to lob a relatively slow bomb out to enemy, or lay a mine as a last ditch resort and hope the enemy runs into it and isn't able to rep it back and hurt the flag carrier's team. Basically, the shark only has a defensive option and one shitty offensive option in comparison to other flag carriers. It would need to be tweaked just so to avoid sharks being too good obviously, but I think sharks should get the option to have super reps to make them a more desirable ship in general.

Now you're saying "but sharks can use bombs and reps very well in twbd!" Well, this isn't twbd. In twbd, sharks can contribute greatly in an offensive sense by sumo-pushing the other team around due to the nature of the cram and the tight flag room space, which also allows a sudden bomb to be really effective, because the enemy team is usually pretty bunched up. In this new arena the action is more fast paced, because it places so much emphasis on charging forward. The tunnels are pretty wide, and the ability to pass the ball between front line players all day long makes the offense that much deadlier. A shark with stronger bombs just doesn't compare to, say, a spider shooting 10 individual lanc bullets at enemy front line in a few seconds. It seems to me the obvious strategy as it is now would be to put a ball of lancs or spids (or both) near each other at the front, passing the ball between them as each guy runs out of energy, to lay down a hail of super fire. If you give sharks better reps when they have flag, they would become a viable alternative to this potential tactic.

This is assuming that this becomes a competitive league, of course. In a random event setting I don't think the teams would be organized well often enough for that fighter ball of death tactic to actually be used effectively. It's just that in competitive play it could become so common place that it's all the teams would ever use, like the 5 spid offense in twbd before they modified cram (it's still used obviously, but not nearly so exclusively like in the old days). This is more of a heads up for a possible future problem than something that impacts gameplay now.

[Jerome Scuggs]

i dunno, sharks to me seem under-powered but thats because the normal timing rhythm barely exists due to sharks hopping between terrs, splitting up etc. perhaps increase rep green probability or make shrap bounce, but last for less time.

whereas sharks are key to pushing in a bd, i think in attack they function more defensively - to disable pushes. like tsu said usually a terr and a group of spids/lancs with the ball are plenty offense enough and the shark's role there is essentially to disable the other shark, who can easily destroy a push and put the offensive team on retreat with good reps/mines and teamwork.

[Money]

i was on 2 x pills when i played this and all i can say is there were too many walls, maybe i was just rolling too hard to play aside from typing 20 lines of chat per 10 seconds to mythril during it

[Diakka]

one of the problems we have run into while trying to test this event is the balancing of teams. we are considering making a tournament out of this if we get enough support but the one main focus will be how to make teams fair. many of the games are far too lopsided and the losing team is so frustrated they wanna quit and never play again. trying to figure out a way to correct this but hopefully we can get some better balanced games in the future...it could take a map change or map tweak. This is one of the main reasons this event might get pushed into a league type tournament play. My point is the only way for Attack to effectively be fun and competitive is if we have organized play.

[Soilderz]

I have yet to play this or even seen it but it sounds very much like Strikeball

[Supreme]

Its much larger & has bases

[Diakka]

Attack Tournament coming soon SIGNUP NOW!!!

Signup now for the up n' coming Attack Tournament by typing :AttackBot:!signup in ?go attack in SSCU Trench Wars. You can also join chat=attack and !signup in there while also getting other updates from the bot and players as well. We are going to see how many people we get to sign up for the tournament then we will go from there. More information on this tournament coming soon....