Changes in Pub

[Shaddowknight]

Have stealth + cloak actually stop regen completely, but give more speed/rotation

[Kahlan]

We should just make ?go subroids the new pub map since that's what new people see when they look at the game anyway.

[dofus]

Weasel
The maneuverability (speed, rotation, etc) is fine, don't change anything.

About items, it doesn't need Rocket. It can already go invisible and stalk enemy ship without worry that it can see you,
but Rocketing will just encourage laming and "hunting" specific players. Also if someone has XRadar that drains energy (Jav, Shark for example)
even if he constantly toggles it to see where you are, you can just Rocket him very fast and he won't have time to react. its lame.
You have invisibility to retreat, so don't need rocket for that too.

The problem is it can go completely invisible without any penalty, so any newb can hop in wzl and lame in spawn area and hunt Warbirds with high bounty,
it's too easy because there's no skill involved.. you just put stealth and cloak on and slowly fly towards enemy (with Rocket = guaranteed kill).
Make it so Stealth is free, but Cloak slowly drains energy. This forces the pilot to tactically think when to fully engage invisibility, and only has limited time to kill his target before energy becomes too low to fire a shot, it gives the ship a "assassin" feel, not just a ghost that can kill anything easily and disappear.

Also WZL NEEDS XRADAR this is very important, no one likes being killed by enemy wzl because you were visible recharging energy after you killed someone. Better to give all invisible players radar and atleast they can then "duel" eachother fairly.

-Remove Rocket
-Make Cloak drain energy slowly
+Add XRadar

also about small wzl, that was a map problem not the ship problem. The map has too many holes, if you there will be small weasel, atleast remove some holes especially those in flagroom. if bouncing bullets are added the wzl should have lvl 2 bullets, not 3 or else it will be too overpowered (lvl 3 bullets flying around flagroom is basically a burst)

Leviathan
I am for the idea of this ship being a "heavier" Javelin bomber ship. It's better because think: Why do people went LT all the time? Because the Lev is so slow, has bad rotation, and is a sitting duck in spawn. That's why Levs want to attach to Terriers.

It's good to change the lev entirely: make it faster and maneuverable, so it is a solid solo-playing ship, it discourages people to go LT and actually play the Leviathan and enter base. LT is still an option but it has less effect than before because the bombing is weaker. This change was a wise decision.

The EMP is a bad idea in my opinion, it should remain unique to the shark. The blast radius is still pretty big and you can still get alot of kills in base and weaken enemy ships, even now moreso with high rotation which means easier aiming. EMP is too overpowered for Levi because you can disable energy of entire enemy team for several seconds which is crucial in flagroom battles, remove it.

Give it XRadar that drains alot of energy (so you can toggle it like Shark). Levi is still the slowest ship and if only 1 player gets mad and wants to hunt you it's GAME OVER because you will get spawnkilled by a weasel you can never see and all your fancy Repels, rockets and portals won't matter anymore against an invisible player.

-Remove EMP effect
+Make ship even a bit faster
+Give XRadar that drains alot energy

Essentially the Leviathan will be a slow Javelin without bouncing bombs, but bigger bomb radius.

[Ephemeral]

I'm finding that the majority of people who are complaining about the changes are people who don't/can't play any other ships. In game if I get cloaked more than 2-3 times by the same person I usually switch to lanc and hunt them into submission drawing annoying and incessant complaints in my pm about how I have no life, am a huge nerd, etc all the while they have like a 350-25 rec cloaking people in spawn. The people that play these 2 ships play them because they want (need) some sort of edge, whether it being completely invisible so they can shoot you without getting shot at back or being able to kill loads of people at the same time from light years away. Now these people are upset because they cannot lame everybody in sight and are forced to actually get good at a ship to compete with the general masses. I for one love the new changes and support any moves made to encourage these people to start thinking more about the team aspect instead of just themselves so +1 for these changes.

I would also suggest giving the weasel a little more speed, 10% seems like a good number.

^^^ This.
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 falls into the ‘no shit’ category.)

Any good solutions that will appease everyone? No. The mistake was allowing these ships to evolve the way they did and now that they have a player base trying to undo this without losing some players is probably impossible. Trying to find some watered-down pragmatic settings might retain a few of them but let’s face it; changing these ships into those which can be useful to basing, teamwork, and capturing the flag is going to end up changing them significantly.

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

[Demonic]

Weasel
The maneuverability (speed, rotation, etc) is fine, don't change anything.

About items, it doesn't need Rocket. It can already go invisible and stalk enemy ship without worry that it can see you,
but Rocketing will just encourage laming and "hunting" specific players. Also if someone has XRadar that drains energy (Jav, Shark for example)
even if he constantly toggles it to see where you are, you can just Rocket him very fast and he won't have time to react. its lame.
You have invisibility to retreat, so don't need rocket for that too.

The problem is it can go completely invisible without any penalty, so any newb can hop in wzl and lame in spawn area and hunt Warbirds with high bounty,
it's too easy because there's no skill involved.. you just put stealth and cloak on and slowly fly towards enemy (with Rocket = guaranteed kill).
Make it so Stealth is free, but Cloak slowly drains energy. This forces the pilot to tactically think when to fully engage invisibility, and only has limited time to kill his target before energy becomes too low to fire a shot, it gives the ship a "assassin" feel, not just a ghost that can kill anything easily and disappear.

Also WZL NEEDS XRADAR this is very important, no one likes being killed by enemy wzl because you were visible recharging energy after you killed someone. Better to give all invisible players radar and atleast they can then "duel" eachother fairly.

-Remove Rocket
-Make Cloak drain energy slowly
+Add XRadar

also about small wzl, that was a map problem not the ship problem. The map has too many holes, if you there will be small weasel, atleast remove some holes especially those in flagroom. if bouncing bullets are added the wzl should have lvl 2 bullets, not 3 or else it will be too overpowered (lvl 3 bullets flying around flagroom is basically a burst)

Leviathan
I am for the idea of this ship being a "heavier" Javelin bomber ship. It's better because think: Why do people went LT all the time? Because the Lev is so slow, has bad rotation, and is a sitting duck in spawn. That's why Levs want to attach to Terriers.

It's good to change the lev entirely: make it faster and maneuverable, so it is a solid solo-playing ship, it discourages people to go LT and actually play the Leviathan and enter base. LT is still an option but it has less effect than before because the bombing is weaker. This change was a wise decision.

The EMP is a bad idea in my opinion, it should remain unique to the shark. The blast radius is still pretty big and you can still get alot of kills in base and weaken enemy ships, even now moreso with high rotation which means easier aiming. EMP is too overpowered for Levi because you can disable energy of entire enemy team for several seconds which is crucial in flagroom battles, remove it.

Give it XRadar that drains alot of energy (so you can toggle it like Shark). Levi is still the slowest ship and if only 1 player gets mad and wants to hunt you it's GAME OVER because you will get spawnkilled by a weasel you can never see and all your fancy Repels, rockets and portals won't matter anymore against an invisible player.

-Remove EMP effect
+Make ship even a bit faster
+Give XRadar that drains alot energy

Essentially the Leviathan will be a slow Javelin without bouncing bombs, but bigger bomb radius.

Heh we don't want the Levi to be a javelin though, so the EMP makes it stand out!!

[Demonic]

Weasel - OK let me through this one out to you guys, since you seem all creative this last week. If you had the ability to change the weasel, what would you do. It would need to make sure the following criteria were followed: ****1**** The ability to cloak (but not necessarily stealth) *******2******** Needs to have the ability to support/aid basing as well as being a stand alone ship (like wb can fight in flag room as a baser, but can also have fun solo'ing outside base) ******3******** Cant be identical to any other ship, although can hold certain traits of them. A couple of idea's which aren't necessarily the best but may get you thinking --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. ---Wzl Shark --- Remove rocket and stealth, add additional repel and increase speed by 5/10% -- 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. ---Wzl NINJA--- Stealth + cloak, remove rocket but keep everything else the same. 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)

[Rab]

increase speed by 10%, remove rocket

[Dral]

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.

I like the bouncing bullet idea, gives the weasel a reason to be played. If this were added to wzl though I would remove multifire or decrease BulletAliveTime from its current ~10 seconds to somewhere between 6-8 (effects other ships though :/)

Edit: On second thought, I could easily see an entire priv freq of weasels going to roof and turning the flagroom into ?go dodgeball. That's cool though I like dodgeball

[Shaddowknight]

Increase speed by 10%.
Level 2 bullets with current multifire angle, higher speed, but also slightly higher fire delay
Level 1 bomb, but only able to mine (max 2).
Allow repel, but no rocket (since higher bullet speed)
Allow buy/green of burst, 5 or 6 burst shrap moving at slow speed.
Allow either cloak but not stealth.
Increase max energy to 1300.

[dofus]

Heh we don't want the Levi to be a javelin though, so the EMP makes it stand out!!

It already stands out as the "heavy bomber" ship. EMP is just overkill imo

As for weasel I really think cloak should drain energy (slow). Having both infinitely on without penalty has no tactical value.
This will encourage wzl pilots to actually use their brain and know when to toggle Cloak, and only have a limited window of opportunity to ambush their enemy while completely invisible before the energy runs too low. This will give the ship more depth and a higher skill curve.

[dofus]

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

[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.

[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

[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]

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