Killing my fun in pub.

[Ephemeral]

I have been saying this for several years, TW is trying to be ‘all things to all people’. As the game grew older TW kept dividing/sub-dividing the population by offering different events, configurations, and leagues. Cutting up the same sized pie into ever smaller pieces served no useful purpose when what was really desired was a bigger pie. Making matters worse is the fact that for years and years changes were made in a vacuum and without any way to measure if the changes had a positive or negative impact on population. In fact multiple simultaneous changes were often made ensuring no chance of really understanding what was going on.

Now that the game is on the down-slope of the growth bell curve. IMO it is far past the time TW should have been ‘downsized’ to concentrate on its core competencies.

1. Enough of the current system of ‘rewarding’ staffers for running hundreds of events. Event popularity is easily measured, pick the top 5-6 and control how often they are offered.
2. Enough of the endless tweaking of the maps and for God’s sake stop forcing ‘holiday’ pub maps down the players throats. Use a single standard pub map as the default entry map and stop playing with the settings. If other maps/configs are thought to be desirable, them make them as secondary arenas and their popularity can be measured. (I am willing to bet that those stupid holiday maps would hardly be played at all, yet somehow we let Pink’s opinion dictate what everyone HAS to play.)
3. There is no real need for multiple problematic leagues, reduce it to a single well run league.

eph

[Spock!]

I generally agree with the two above statements. The tiny weasel does infact ruin many basing games (Me being an avid weasel flyer, I know from first hand) and I am all for making it big again, as long as we have stealth too. Cloak + Stealth + Big will not interfere with basing much at all, as the terr will be able to easily pick the weasel up on radar and shoot it. (as long as it has xradar on)
The only problem I see are "Veteran" warbirds bitching about being lamed. But the weasel really is too slow to be a serious threat to a wb anyway.

Lev terrs can go to hell for all I care. I think there should be a time limit as for how long a lev can be attached. That way it can still jump into base when it gets its bounty up while not totally ruining the basing match by blindly firing bombs from outside.
I have to say though, one reason I never base is because these so called "friendly" levs constantly tk to attempt to save their own asses, and that just ruin basing for me, and that is why I am now always on a priv freq.

Just putting my penny in the pot.

[Shaddowknight]

most pub changes arenc't done without some conferring with other staff and some other players
staff quota is mainly to ensure that we are doing our jobs. The deans cant be on at all times to ensure we are, so this helps give them an idea of who is doing great (in addition to info provided by other staffers). The quota also encourages some light friendly competition (although, this can be a bad if it lowers the quality of events)

i do agree there are a fre glaring problems that seem to not be dealt with, but getting real changes done isnt always an easy process around here, you just need to deal with the right people in the right manner

[fiS]

most pub changes arenc't done without some conferring with other staff and some other players
staff quota is mainly to ensure that we are doing our jobs. The deans cant be on at all times to ensure we are, so this helps give them an idea of who is doing great (in addition to info provided by other staffers). The quota also encourages some light friendly competition (although, this can be a bad if it lowers the quality of events)

i do agree there are a fre glaring problems that seem to not be dealt with, but getting real changes done isnt always an easy process around here, you just need to deal with the right people in the right manner

i dont even know who's in charge of pub at the time being (exactly). and the ones i think who are in charge of pub settings and map, i do never see them playing and enjoying pub.
which "other players" are decideing or having a say in there? my suggestions or ideas are just being entirely overheard too? i dont even see those people who are representative or in charge of pub looking or posting in this topic here.

staff quota... i dont exactly know why bkgmjo/eph are brining it up. it has a reason and it just cant be removed. yes, staff is helping the game, and ideally they're doing it entirely voluntarily out of their very own motivation. but there has to be a quota to ensure that everyone is helping at the minimum at least.

competition among quota is entire bullshit (imo). if you use it for your own motivation, that's fine, but competition itself... no.

EDIT:
the actual problem, oh yeah i forgot.

weasels: ive said that before and ever since they are this way.
they are entirely overpowered and just ruin fun. a compromise needs to be found here, because removing the weasel entirely isn't a solution and keeping it at the current strength is also not one.
a possible solution that i suggest: keep it small, let it have cloak/stealth (reducing energy slowly) but remove its rocket AND repel.
the possibilty to shift-bullet already makes it really overpowered, it doesnt need a rocket. same with the repel: it's small already and invisible, so why would it have an extra shield? no, no, no.

levis / lts: they're a part of tw pub and tw, some hate them, some love them.
basically i totally agree with bkgmjos statement above, it just makes sense.

!buy: the buy feature actually makes this game somewhat modern and gives motivation to play, does it really?
we need to limit where people can !buy stuff, how often they can (increase the delay?), adjust the power and effect of the features that just wipe out the entire flagroom. but then again, we need to find cool features that people actually want to spend their bucks on - other than !buy super during killothons.

[Ephemeral]

most pub changes arenc't done without some conferring with other staff and some other players...

Conferring with players, even knowledgeable players, is not the same thing as having vision and wisdom that leadership requires. Of course getting input from players is important but I simply don’t agree that this is a panacea or is the answer to running TW. Being a good leader of a zone means doing what is right for the zone long-term, not what some vocal players might be suggesting on a specific issue. (In fact, I would put this fairly high on the list of things to improve in TW.)

… staff quota... i dont exactly know why bkgmjo/eph are brining it up. it has a reason and it just cant be removed. yes, staff is helping the game, and ideally they're doing it entirely voluntarily out of their very own motivation. but there has to be a quota to ensure that everyone is helping at the minimum at least. .

I raised it as just one example of what I feel needs to be revisited and changed. I think it can, and should ‘just be removed’. If the quota is the metric being used to see if people are doing what they volunteered for, then something else is broken. At best it should be just one single thing used to understand the job someone is doing. At worse it is exactly what it has become, running TW on auto-pilot.

And don’t even get me started on ‘pub bucks’, it epitomizes exactly what I think is wrong with TW. Simply look at Qan’s post to see this in action (no offense to Qan or his contributions to TW). But this (and pub bucks) is exactly what I mean, TW generates ‘solutions looking for a problem’. Every player has good ideas. Every developer has capabilities and offer solutions based upon what they know they can pull off. But without a strong leadership, with a good vision and a plan to make it happen, this boat is just drifting aimlessly. TW has become a mess of diverse ‘good ideas’ with nothing holding it all together.
Is it hard to walk away from a lot of the work that has been put in? Sure. Is it hard to listen to some of the players whine and bitch about losing some of the ‘features’. Sure. Does understanding how well staff is doing their job take more than counting up hosted sessions? Sure.
But IMO squeezing out a few more years for TW means making these kinds of hard decisions, it is NOT about trying to be everything to everyone anymore. The current vision should be ‘downsize this bitch back to its core competencies’ and ‘yes, we do fewer things but damn they are good things’.
eph

[bandcampgirl]

Voting in pub against levis - YES!!!! too many levis all the time are ruing the game

dont listen to spock. he wants big weasel with stealth cause he never plays the basing game anyway, just wants to lame spawn. let weasels buy rep. the weasel flag saving makes the game exciting

Bring back strike base

Dont score lancasters in killothon. too many newbies straying spread shots

[Crown of Thorns]

I agree wholeheartedly.
Maybe have one dedicated FFA-ish/Base public map settings and for those who enjoy that playstyle and the other(s) with more of a streamlined base feel to it.

[cookies]

The current vision should be ‘downsize this bitch back to its core competencies’ and ‘yes, we do fewer things but damn they are good things’.
eph

This. I have been watching this game circle the bowl for a few years now, coming back every few months to see if staff fixed the glaring problems yet. But it just keeps getting worse-- farther and farther from the game I started playing. Playerbase is way down, we don't need this huge x-and-jav-favoring map.

LTs, small x, garbage map, and the broken-ass shop shit all over the game and staff's refusal to balance obvious bullshit is the reason most new people quit the game after playing for 15 minutes.

It's like with every update they are making an active, concerted effort to make pub suck even harder.

[Shaddowknight]

Unfortunately most of staff dont have any say in it.
We can state our opinions on it, but its no better than anyone else and doesnt help and more thab this thread has

[Spock!]

In pub today there was seriously 4 LT's running around all at the same time. If that isn't considered out of hand then I don't know what it.

I personally think we need to have a serious overhaul of the Lev. Make it a bit faster + better energy recharge but with a yellow bomb instead, and I don't know what else it would need......something.


And btw, who makes the decisions if staff do not?

[Spock!]

dont listen to spock. he wants big weasel with stealth cause he never plays the basing game anyway, just wants to lame spawn. let weasels buy rep. the weasel flag saving makes the game exciting

Reason I never Base is becuase the fucking LT's bomb the shit out of the place and the weasel doesn't stand a chance. Gosh!