Changes in Pub

[Vehicle]

I’m not sure who you are or how long you have been playing but you are nowhere near correct in most of your statements. Here is the TW objective taken straight from the TW web site (Moot asked for my input when he published this so I am fairly familiar with my own words).

“Mission Statement - The ultimate goal of Trench Wars is the development and maintenance of an online community that fosters teamwork and camaraderie among its members.”

“Main Objectives - 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.”

Quoting yourself to justify your own opinions? Cool. I think part of the reason this game has survived is precisely because the 'objectives' are different for everyone, and different to the same people at different times. I'm not trying to start an argument here but I really don't think it's cool for people to go around defining what the game is for other people.

[Vehicle]

Make it's stealth drain a decent amount of energy instead of it's cloak. Then buff it's speed, manoeuvrability and recharge rate.
This way it can't really be effective fully cloaked but it forces players to monitor radar. Also, you wouldn't be able to just ram a weasel to kill it after it fired because of the faster recharge and cheaper single bullet cost.

Or if you really want to get wild make cloak drain a decent amount of energy, take away it's rocket, give it slow red bullets, and give it a single L2 EMP Mine. And maybe a rep. (I get that that's a weird idea but just saying would be cool.)

[AceHac]{er]

I’m not sure who you are or how long you have been playing but you are nowhere near correct in most of your statements. Here is the TW objective taken straight from the TW web site (Moot asked for my input when he published this so I am fairly familiar with my own words).

I beta tested subspace on a 56K modem. When they switched to selling it I was gone 5 years until I found Continuum. Played off and on since. So yeah, a long time.

“Mission Statement - The ultimate goal of Trench Wars is the development and maintenance of an online community that fosters teamwork and camaraderie among its members.”

“Main Objectives - 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.”

So explain how LTs, kill-a-thons, and pub bucks has anything to do with teamwork, basing or capturing the flag. Additionally I have never advocated getting rid of ships 4 or 6, or even changing their current settings. In fact the only change that I advocated was to remove private frequency LT. If a team can use a LT to ‘loosen’ a flag room so it can be taken then go for it.

In my post I was saying Levs and Weasels were always a part of the game because to me your post sounds like they have always been outside the TW purpose and I say they are not, now it sounds like you may agree there, which is good. I was simply explaining how they ARE used "to take flag room" and to "support team play" to take or defend FR.

Now you throw in private freqs ... well a private freq can be a team. BTW, an LT with support is definitely "a team"; successful LTs work together quite well with an objective to protect the Lev so he can rack up kills. An LT with 500 or 1000 bty Lev, now that IS teamwork! Much more teamwork than a wb or a jav that sits on the roof and picks people off (often on their own private freq so no attempt to base there either) but that's alright. It's also OK for sharks to mine the lower and mid with no attempt to base; that's alright. So IMO these activities would be the "other aspects of Trench Wars" and an LT is no worse for the game objective than these other cases I mention. So there is basing and there is teamwork and sometimes there is both other times neither but that is not a requirement to enjoy pub.

And of course there has been changes to the ships, settings and maps. Are you really trying to argue that ‘it always been done so therefore it must be correct’? I recommend that before you post you actual think through your post and verify that you have your facts straight.
eph

I thought about my post. If you read it ... I agreed with you about the kill-o-thons not being part of basing. The private duels aren't really part of basing either but apparently they are part of the "main objective" so fine leave that. I made no mention of pubbux, that was all you so don't put words in my mouth one way or the other.

As for the "there have always been changes", my point is that it is not correct that the changes always seem to be directed towards the X and levi. Changes to the map periodically to keep things interesting is a good thing but constantly messing with ship settings isn't. So I'm saying Weasels and Levis belong in the game and it is annoying that their settings are always the ones that get FUBARed annually.


General statement here, not specifically a reply to Eph ... If you don't like LTs bombing the roof then post some of your wbs or weasels up there to defend it. If an LT is doing too much damage get your own turret with an antied spider and hunt them down ... but no that would take teamwork, better to whine they are too powerful.

It seems some people want a castle with only one castle gate to defend. Strategies change and today paratroopers and bomber planes exist. Flag games obviously end eventually, so tiny weasels and LTs apparently haven't made basing impossible - just put them back the way they were.

[Supreme]

As Eph said in another post, I agree that the current levis should be permissible to play on public freqs, as they can still be helpful in breaking up and taking control of a flagroom. Levis (as powerful as they are) should be heavily dependent on help rather than making them more mobile in their current state. If they are to be made into basing ships, then they really need to be nerfed down dramatically to the level of other ships. As someone mentioned, I believe AceHacker, the objective for basing is that all basing ships were meant to be used together as a "rock paper scissors" mentality. Each ship has their weaknesses and strengths that matches other ships levels. That's why I originally suggested the levi be limited in duration or ability to play rather than messing with the settings itself, if the intention is to stop LTs from taking over as much as they have. Even if levis are only permitted on freq 0 or 1, that would change things dramatically because they would still have to be part of a team effort to kill enemies (whether in flagroom or base itself). If they continue to substantially disregard the killing of own teammates, staff can step in and warn/ban them from ships. Also, as I suggested, levis could be permitted to not enter safety anymore, even on freq 0 or 1. That would leave them open to attack at all times. I mean if they happen to enter safety, the bot can change their ship or warp them to spawn (if not attached to a terr).

The solution is easy when you think about it. Theres still a antitk-bot in pub right? Allow them only on pubfreqs. Boom, limited play and less powerful in one shot.

[Shaddowknight]

Another fix for the weasel... return it's old settings, just tweaked slightly

The following from a server.set from dev zone while we still had one. (just a .cfg basically with descriptions on what the settings actually do)
"Radius:0:::The ship's radius from center to outside, in pixels. Standard value is 14 pixels."

So, I'd guess that 7 pixels was what the Weasel had. Make it 8 or 9, so it's still small, but not able to fit in the flagroom holes. It won't be as easy to hit as it is now, just slightly easier than before.

Just another option to put on the table, not saying it's best.



As I said before, making both levi and weasel balanced enough to be played in ?go base and twd/twl would be optimal. Give a greater sense of similarity between those arenas/leagues and pub (we lost a lot of similarity to pub when the map in pub0 was altered to be something other than that of ?go base/twd, no longer can pubbers get actual practice with angles and camping spots in pub).

[Left_Eye]

The current levi (although made less defenseless) has been a part of TW for over a decade (even when TW was popular). What has really made TW lose population is the fact that it is a 2D game trying to compete in a 3D world (at least when it comes to respective gaming). The thing that makes people stick around, or even continue coming back, is the population itself, not the game playing (that is just a byproduct). The community is what has made this game last so long.

As Eph said in another post, I agree that the current levis should be permissible to play on public freqs, as they can still be helpful in breaking up and taking control of a flagroom. Levis (as powerful as they are) should be heavily dependent on help rather than making them more mobile in their current state. If they are to be made into basing ships, then they really need to be nerfed down dramatically to the level of other ships. As someone mentioned, I believe AceHacker, the objective for basing is that all basing ships were meant to be used together as a "rock paper scissors" mentality. Each ship has their weaknesses and strengths that matches other ships levels. That's why I originally suggested the levi be limited in duration or ability to play rather than messing with the settings itself, if the intention is to stop LTs from taking over as much as they have. Even if levis are only permitted on freq 0 or 1, that would change things dramatically because they would still have to be part of a team effort to kill enemies (whether in flagroom or base itself). If they continue to substantially disregard the killing of own teammates, staff can step in and warn/ban them from ships. Also, as I suggested, levis could be permitted to not enter safety anymore, even on freq 0 or 1. That would leave them open to attack at all times. I mean if they happen to enter safety, the bot can change their ship or warp them to spawn (if not attached to a terr).

[Shaddowknight]

I think the ultimate goal would be to make both ships balanced enough to be playable in Base/TwBD and ultimately TWLB

Why arent they allowed with tjeir previous settings? Easy, they are unfair for basing. Fix this and let all ships be used in our basing leagues.

[Emaho]

I just wanted to say thanks for making pub playable again! No more LTs ruining everything.

The weasle could use a tweak (now its just original settings and we moved away from that because the ship sucked with those settings) but I'll leave that to you guys!


Again: Thanks!

ema

[Rab]

Eph is right

[mtine]

To make u wzl lovers go away, here's a pro solution:

1. Change the wzl back to the small form
2. Make it keep cloak + stealth
3. Remove all the holes that lead into FR

GG.

[Ephemeral]

This is an flawed argument. First, Subspace included a levi from day one, and had ships 6 thru 8 not long after, probably before this zone even existed. Second a small weasel was excellent for basing to save the flag when your team is outside and useful for clearing out levis inside FR. On the other side, levis are excellent for keeping people out of FR while they sit inside it, or for clearing out some defenders holding FR by bombing from outside. So they are both valuable for basing.

And I believe this premise is also flawed. If all TW truly wanted was basing then they would do away with the dueling areas in pub & the kill-o-thons.

I’m not sure who you are or how long you have been playing but you are nowhere near correct in most of your statements. Here is the TW objective taken straight from the TW web site (Moot asked for my input when he published this so I am fairly familiar with my own words).

“Mission Statement - The ultimate goal of Trench Wars is the development and maintenance of an online community that fosters teamwork and camaraderie among its members.”

“Main Objectives - 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.”

So explain how LTs, kill-a-thons, and pub bucks has anything to do with teamwork, basing or capturing the flag. Additionally I have never advocated getting rid of ships 4 or 6, or even changing their current settings. In fact the only change that I advocated was to remove private frequency LT. If a team can use a LT to ‘loosen’ a flag room so it can be taken then go for it.
And of course there has been changes to the ships, settings and maps. Are you really trying to argue that ‘it always been done so therefore it must be correct’? I recommend that before you post you actual think through your post and verify that you have your facts straight.
eph

[AceHac]{er]

TW has grown and supported players who specialize in ships 4 and 6 while fully knowing that they were not being used to take flag room and support team play. Now they want to get back to the original basing/take flag room intent of Pub 0 and are finding that some of these players are pissed.

This is an flawed argument. First, Subspace included a levi from day one, and had ships 6 thru 8 not long after, probably before this zone even existed. Second a small weasel was excellent for basing to save the flag when your team is outside and useful for clearing out levis inside FR. On the other side, levis are excellent for keeping people out of FR while they sit inside it, or for clearing out some defenders holding FR by bombing from outside. So they are both valuable for basing.

For me the true test here is if TW has the backbone and leadership strength to stick to the objective of bringing Pub 0 back to the team-orientated game is started as. To achieve this they will have to resist the temptation give into the vocal specialized players, including a willingness to lose a few, to make these changes meaningful. This is one of those times when you simply cannot please everyone. It just sucks that TW screwed up years ago and now has to pay the price.
eph

And I believe this premise is also flawed. If all TW truly wanted was basing then they would do away with the dueling areas in pub & the kill-o-thons.

The truth is TW makes these changes about once each and every year. No levs for a while, levs with EMPs, levs with superlev, big weasels, little weasels, stealth, no stealth. It's always the levs & weasels they screw with every year because somebody will always complain they are too weak or too powerful. The game was meant to be like rock, paper, scissors but with 8 ships where one ship was a natural solution to killing a second ship and defending from a third, and that ship was a natural killer of a fourth and defender from a fifth and so on; the problem is it's a lot harder to balance 8 and it is always the weasels and levis that get "adjusted".

If you had the ability to change the weasel, what would you do. ... ideas ... --WZL terr-- No not a terr per say, but give the wzl the ability to allow 1 ship to attach to it. When ship attaches it loses cloak and speed penalty of 75%. Holds L3 multifire bullets, no rocket and one repel. Has cloak but no stealth.

Why would anyone attach to a broken down terr? Just get a real terr. Plus when weasel goes back to small, and let's face it, eventually it will, it would be weird if others can attach. Better idea is if a weasel attaches to terr it's cloak settings surround all attached. It would give it value to a turret.

---Wzl Shark --- Remove rocket and stealth, add additional repel and increase speed by 5/10%

So even weaker than the crap we have now for one lousy extra repel? Better to just leave it one repel but put it back where X can buy more like other ships.

-- Wzl wb style --- remove stealth, increase speed by 5% and bullet speed by 5%, lose rocket. Add bouncing bullets to give it something different to existing ships.

The lessor of all your evils; big weasel is still sad option.

---Wzl NINJA--- Stealth + cloak, remove rocket but keep everything else the same.

small but w/ no rocket would be better than this crap we have now; you're talking about taking this current garbage and also removing rocket. How lame will you make it before just deleting it completely?

No reason why we cant trial the best couple of idea's like we have with the LEV, and tbh the lev settings have generally been preferred by the majority of players (minus perhaps the avid LT'ers)

You make the lev weaker it always pleases everybody except the ones that LT ... gee, no sh1t! Lev changes simply aren't as drastic as small vs large weasel - a lev still keeps bombing no matter what but the weasels use completely changes when it can't slip in.

My 25 cents (inflation) ...

The weasels "special power", i.e. it's value, was being small and secretive so it could steal the flag. You are listing all these "like other ship" examples because when a weasel is big then it's "special power" is just being "an annoying POS".

Is it possible to have a map block that bullets can fly through but a small weasel can't? If so you could plug the top and bottom holes of FR and still leave the sides for little weasel to save flag but easy enough to defend against if there is FR defenders. Another possibility is to add wormholes so tiny weasels and maybe even LTs might get sucked away to spawn if they approach the roof or try to enter FR incorrectly.

If we are stuck with big weasels for a year then I think Stealth+cloak should drain energy and levis should get x-radar that drains energy. Unless bullet speed increases, X should keep the rocket.

[Ephemeral]

... levis were meant as alternative fun for those that don't really care to base during all times...

It was this kind of ‘bottom up thinking’, without regard to the teamwork and flag capturing intent of pub 0, that has helped lose TW population. Instead of embracing and nurturing what got TW popular those in control tried to listen to every single person and make pub 0 ‘all things to all people’. Here’s an idea, if you don’t ‘care to base’ then go play another arena or find something else to do. This is why you need good strong leaders who know understand the objectives of the game and apply them from the ‘top down’.

It is a fantasy to think that Pub 0 can be ‘all things to all people’. It is a fantasy to think that Pub 0 can exploit every aspect of the game, each ship, and each weapon. It is a fantasy to think that ‘pub bucks’ or ‘kill-a-thons’ have anything to do with teamwork or a good competitive base game. And it is painfully obvious that this has not worked for Pub 0.

Pub 0 is the ‘cover’ to the TW book. It is the first place that new players land to learn the core aspects of the game. There are plenty of ways to implement features with other arenas and events. But instead Pub 0 has been used since it has the only captive audience; if days/weeks were spent developing something then applying it to Pub 0 was a sure way to get it used. More ‘bottom up’ thinking.

This isn’t about changing some ship settings. It is about trying to restore what originally made this game popular. ‘Alternative fun’ is just another way to say that it is ok for highly experienced players and staff to climb into a LT and rain bombs down on a competitive base game for their own selfish pleasure. Tweaking ships settings or supporting ‘alternative fun’ is meaningless when there are 54 people in Pub 0 and only 9 of them are not in spec and playing the game. I know this sucks for those players who specialized in the ‘alternative fun’ ships but hopefully people would rather see TW survive than to play it selfishly for only a few more months.
eph

[Left_Eye]

Honestly, the weasel should have just kept the old settings but made it bigger, without any additional changes. I think that alone would have nerfed the weasel enough to where it couldn't do as much damage as before. That's at least what I suggested a long time ago on different forum topics. I think by having changed the weasels ship beyond that, it nerfed it too much to where it may just resort back to being a spawning/laming ship. The biggest problem that I had seen before weasels changed were how often they could sneak in through all the small holes in base and get flag when a whole team had the flagroom occupied. If things had been kept the same and just made weasels big, that would have solved a lot of the problem with the weasel up. From all the things I have seen over the years, a ship has to be well balanced completely if it was to be fit into basing. The only ship that I really have liked how they had changed it was the lanc. That was done to a good extent to where it fit in better with basing games. Just as a side note, I'd like to mention that back long ago, weasels and levis were well balanced against each other. When people got sick of levterrs, they used to spawn levis with a weasel before they got to safety, until people eventually either had to help the levis (only a few did that or do that now - unless friends) or the levi just gave up and played other ships. Levterrs never really caused such a problem as they do now, and I think that's partially why. The weasels were made into a basing ship, so they abandoned their original ways.

As for the levi, I would prefer the old levi but limited in time/duration as opposed to having the settings completely changed for it. I think if there are restrictions on it, there wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem or complaints as there are now. Personally speaking (my own opinion), I would rather have levis more defenseless on their own rather than making them more mobile and independent with just as much power in other areas. In fact, a good idea may be to expand antiwarp radius (almost lethal to levterrs as it is) and make it a little more expensive to buy. Another suggestion is not allowing levis in safety at all, period. If people want to assume the risk of playing a levi, they have to constantly be on their feet from pursuers. At least that way, it requires teamwork to help a levi survive. People can believe what they want to believe, but a lot of times (even in the past), I made some good friends by levterrs or other private freqs of the sort. Most of the complaints now (that I see) were that levis could undo a base game at a moment's notice whether it was happening at any time of the day. There has to be better options rather than altering the levi ship completely, such as having bot restrictions on the levi itself. If settings are messed with and efforts are made to use it as a fighting ship, then more thought needs to be placed into it, especially if the levi is trying to be incorporated into and complement basing action. I mean if indeed that is what is happening, then you have to make it just as balanced with the other ships, otherwise if people start playing it and getting used to how it works for basing, then it really should be opened up to TWD and TWL, including ?go base. At least thats my perspective. At this time, people know levis were meant as alternative fun for those that don't really care to base during all times.

That's just my $.02 anyway.

[dofus]

Also now that the weasel is big, it shouldn't be able to get 1 shotted by Lancs..