Changes in pub #2

[Spock!]

"I find !buy rocket to be an integral part of the ship"

Have I proven my point yet about the store? Why even have the store when people can buy things in unlimited quantities. Might as well start spid with anti, jav and shark with 15/5 shrap, and start having the bot prize people every 30 seconds.

Its not so unlimited as you state. There is a 30 second delay between rocket buys, I don't know the time on the other items, but Im sure it is similar. Having a boost of speed every 30 seconds is hardly overpowred.
The store gives the player the choice to spend their hard earned money on improving their team's chances for victory. It especially helps in smaller basing matches if the terr isn't getting prized as many greens and needs another port. Same goes for the shark with reps. And the spid can !buy Anti for $300 to counteract the enemy terr if it buys ports too much. This is a better system than the spid spawning with it because then everybody would have it on and overall basing would kinda suck. Having to choose when to spend your bucks on an item also puts a more strategic element to the game as well.

And really, money prizes are not that much. Most Veteran-like is generally prized an average of around $160, that enough for 1 rocket. And just your average player kill is around 1-5 pub bucks. So the people that have lots of pub bucks are the ones that are tight-fisted bastards that don't spend much money or they are people who win it in duels. Either way, I never seem to have a problem against players using !buy because none of the items you can buy are really that over-powering.

Amen.

[Shaddowknight]

I rarepy spend pubbux... Im from the time of ?buy only in safe. If I dont spawn with it, I usually dont need or fare for it. The only exception has been antiwarp, and even I need it less (as leviterrs arent much of an issue anymore). Buying items should be an enhancement, not a necessity.

[Ephemeral]

Pub bucks was/is the most ‘anti-new player’ feature ever added to Pub 0. It has nothing to do with the price of shit and arguing over the cost of things is to miss this point. The very premise, that of earning bucks/empowerment the more you play, clearly favors more experienced players. Even if a new player figures out the pub buck system within the first few times of playing you still have vets flying around prizing themselves so they are stronger ships. And then there is the ‘?buy win’ issue, often crushing great competitive games.

The only reason to keep pub bucks is to appease the guy(s) who coded it and selfish players who can’t see that it is damaging TW by making it far more difficult to learn and enjoy the game. It is an unnecessary added layer of complexity implemented under the ‘if we just keep adding shit to Pub 0 we might hit on something makes TW more popular’ approach. Anyone who has played for more than a few years broke into the game without this pub bucks system. We somehow managed to enjoy Pub 0 arena by simply joining a disparate group players, form the cooperation needed to take the flag room, and holding off the enemy. It gave us the ability to learn the game at our own pace and without having vets flying around with overwhelming power. Many of us then moved on to enjoy the many other aspects of the game; whether it was joining a league squad, events, of playing one of the specialized arenas like elim.

Vets already have increased knowledge and experience, this gives them all the advantage they need to own it up in Pub 0. This was always the case and I see no reason to change it by somehow limiting vets play in Pub 0. But I see no value at all in adding feature that change the balance even more against new players like pub bucks has done. If anything a pub buck system that would be helpful to the long-term health of the game would be designed exactly opposite as the current one. Pub bucks should be available to new players to give them a bit more strength; more experienced players should not be allowed to get pub bucks at all.

One thing is for sure, even though TW experienced a fairly large influx of new players due to the Steam effort, very few of them have stayed. So while the current Pub 0 changes are in the right direction, we still do not have Pub 0 setup in a way that will keep new players coming back.

So with all due respect to the vets who are yipping about the cost of shit – get your head out of your selfish ass and come to grips with the fact that if we don’t find a way to make Pub 0 more ‘new player friendly’ that won’t have any TW zone to even log into. Need more evidence? Go look at other zones. They also ended up adding more and more complexity to their zones in desperate attempts to hold populations. It only served to accelerate their demise, they ended up empty shells filled with vets whining and bitching at each other. We are well on our way.
eph

[Spock!]

Eh, I actually agree with Ephemeral......

Maybe instead of !buy we can make it so that you can Green more items. Even a noob knows how to pick up a green.

That way people can re-charge their ship's powers without worrying about the whole pub bucks system. Maybe make the odds of greening items more likely? That way everybody will be happy. People will still have items while not running around !buying recharge constantly

[Shaddowknight]

the issue with changing the items greens give is that it would actually make terring and sharking more difficult. You would get full charges and reps/ports/bursts less often (cause of the other random prizes instead). I think it could be done well with a bit of balancing and fine tuning, but I still feel the old ?buy system worked just fine, and would be preferable to letting people pick up random antiwarp and decoys and supers.

[Izor]

Well Eph, I assumed that saying we should remove the store entirely wouldnt go over well because it took a lot of effort to put in. But people like me or this newbie spock or the 20 levs I see spamming their buys truly is damaging when these new players cant touch them. My happy medium would be making it so that the store is still intact, but reset the pubbucks and make the prices more reasonable so its not an unlimited system. I'm clearly in favor of bringing ?buy back though.

[fiS]

The prices and !buy... Well that's interesting. Now we could argue why we have it and so forth. I'm not a fan of it either, and upon implementation (3-4 years ago?), most likely not has been entirely thought through, with the whole inflation (hah, at the current stage one can't even talk about inflation anymore), and a possible reset or anything. So what happened? People started to collect their bucks when thors were removed from !buy, and the regular items don't cost enough to make a difference right now.
It's just not as easy. I can't just go ahead and revert it. Just alone the people who have donated real money and got their pubbucks in return. That wouldn't be fair. In another topic though, some people have given some ideas of what could be done, since it causes a lot of bot traffic and we need to reduce this traffic.
The original idea on this is to make the Points=Pubbucks and one would still be able to either ?buy everywhere (or only in safe, depending on the setting, easy change) while all the other features like betting or dueling still being intact. What would be wrong with this idea is that either: 1. it wouldn't reset like the current points do (it'd be permanent as in e.g. ?go javs), so people can keep sitting on their pubbucks, and that's an idea that I hate. It would destroy the whole "pub competition", making it even worse for newbies, or 2nd: it would reset. OH GOD! Bummer! The million bucks I'm sitting on are gone! That'd be something that I personally would love, but that a lot of others would have a huge problem with - just resetting their bucks...
I hope you see the conflict there, quite obvious actually.

Turning !warp on by default was something that I got implemented not long ago. Your reasoning against it is pretty much my reason for it: Newbies. They get into the action, and a look beyond spawn. More important than that though: it encourages some pubbing. There's a bot notification about !warp command (ideally though, the bot will PM you on your 1st warp with "type ::!warp" to turn this off").

The weasel problem... Well, I already told you multiple times how and why the small weasel setup that we had was not fitting into pub, hence I'm not going to repeat myself about that. But you're right, the current weasel isn't played much with. Might have various reasons and not only the reason that it's too weak. Like: I never really jav in pub - I just don't like being a useless x-fer hunting team mate :P
If anything, the current weasel would rather become stronger instead of small. Btw: You don't even go for flag, how in hell would you be able to judge the small weasels impact on the pub game?

Killothon has been changed to be in base before I got in charge of Pub with a legitimate reason: When killothon was on, spawn was full, base was empty. And the remaining basers got shot on their way to the entrance. People (generally) disliked that 1/6 of Pub is a spawnfest.

Btw, the ez fine is currently disabled.


Also, Izor: You might want to take a look at yourself. I appreciate the input you throw in here, but seriously, what am I supposed to think when someone who macros everyone's (stray-)death with a "Pubber XY got owned [and i now sit on 200 bounty]" macro is talking about how TW Staff deals with newbies? Do you think your attitude is helping the game or newbies in any way? You're trying to piss them off and make them mad - and that's pissing me off. Just the same as all the TWD guys who scream that TWD is dying, while they're going hard and putting 2 specials in a bd vs a obviously weaker squad, 15-0'ing them, and then saying "you guys are bad" etc.

This zone doesn't only consist of staff who breaks everything. It is community driven - that is what it is. And community driven doesn't mean it's staff driven.

Community, wake up.

[Ephemeral]

Sorry I do not understand the difficulty in removing pub bucks. I have never spent a dime and bought anything in Pub 0. At one point I think had close to $1M and donated it to Tab, at least he only uses it to buy reps and doesn’t use it to trash competitive base games. (In retrospect not the best decision for the game but I was getting tired of the constant pan handling and begging for money in Pub 0, it was easier to give it away to avoid the 6 PMs I was getting every time I played Pub 0.)

So are you saying that players with a lot of pub bucks and they will get mad and go away if their pub bucks are taken away? Are not these players well established by definition of having a lot of pub bucks? If the point is to get Pub 0 back to being new player friendly I don’t see how experienced players are a concern. Yes, you want some experienced players in Pub 0 but only if they are setting the best example for the game. Just as you point out, having an experienced player owning it up with kill macros and endless buying. If these players don’t play Pub 0 what exactly is lost? If these players quit the game is it really a loss?

And people donated money to get pub bucks? Really? Wow. I actually bought SubSpace, it wasn’t free when I started playing. I wouldn’t feel ripped off now if my pub bucks were taken away.

But let’s go with that some number of experienced players might get upset over the loss of pub bucks and not be willing to put the future of the game before their own selfishness. Can we come up with something that pub bucks can be redeemed for? Perhaps one of the SS tee-shirts/ A name on some map somewhere? How about we recycle unused names into a pool and allow people to buy names with soon-to-be-useless pub bucks? I know, I know, no one can unlock inactive player names from the database server. But how about we ask people to donate some they might have? Or how about a big weekend event where pub bucks are used up to buy some Thors or something. Surely there are plenty of ideas where pub bucks could be used up before getting rid of them.; it does not have to be that they simply disappear.
eph

[Shaddowknight]

Or how about a big weekend event where pub bucks are used up to buy some Thors or something. Surely there are plenty of ideas where pub bucks could be used up before getting rid of them.; it does not have to be that they simply disappear.

Give a long enough advanced warning that they will be going away (maybe a month?), and do this ^^. Allow special item buys or fun stuff like that for players to spend it on. People who donated for them should not be able to complain about them going away, as they will have been given ample time to use them up. I agree with Eph that it wouldn't be that difficult to manage taking them away, just requires some incentive for players to spend them on before they would vanish.

[Izor]

So your argument is that because people who have a lot of pub bux might quit, you're scared to do away with the !buy store. I guess you can look at it this way. The way things are now surely isnt working. We have the game on steam and 0 new players have stayed with the game. This is partly due to the fact that it's a really outdated game, but games like minecraft and other indies are still able to have a decent following without much to offer graphically. You were not dealt the best hand when you inherited the current situation in pub, but continuing terrible decisions from the past and making your own (!warp) won't get us anywhere.

You can not repeat yourself as much as you'd like about the weasel. At the end of the day 2 weasels have ever worked on this game. The original lame spawn levi hunter and the basing 1 pixel. It wasn't until !buy came along and weasel had 2 reps and 2 rockets to lame the flag with that the 1 pixel was a big problem. Anyone who's been around a few years can educate you on that. I'll let you learn yourself...this levi seems to be a happy compromise, but you wont find that with the weasel. Whether or not I go for the flag myself doesnt mean that over the years of being around base I havent been seeing whats going on there.

Maybe you should look at the rest of the community for being unfriendly to new players. I answer everyones newbie questions when they ask how to do basic things like attach, but most of pub chat is filled with 'F11 LOL!!!!' 'ESC+Q HAHA!!!!' or 'ALT+F4 YEAH $' when people ask these things. lol at my playstyle...I've always done the same thing and gotten a lot of bounty and its never been an issue. The one thing I do have issue with I'm posting about here. My unlimited shark reps are completely unfair for newer players. They have literally 0 chance of killing me without lag or crew of at least 5 floaters. If you've observed pub over the last few weeks you'd notice this. As for TWD, thats the way it's always been and will be. You want the top basing squad to go in with a dominant line, lose to gantz and say wow you guys are awesome?

[fiS]

Eph, it just isn't as easy. But I promise I'm trying. In the end, we want to keep the whole betting and dueling feature (for points instead then?) up because people seem to use and generally like it. I have gotten Pub in that situation (with !buy and pubbucks), so I'm trying to change it for the better, but rather smaller steps.

Izor, just to correct you: In the end stage of the weasel it was not allowed to !buy repel/rocket and still could steal flag with ease, especially if there were multiple xs around. And yeah, when I see someone trolling a newbie with obviously wrong information, I pm them and ask them to stop it in the future and remind them of the consequences of their behavior. The most of these people show insight. - It's nice that you're helping our newbies when they're asking questions, but just look at yourself. Do you think your bit of helping newbies justifies all the insults and kill macros?
Unlimited shark reps? There's a item !buy cooldown. IIRC you have to wait 30 seconds in between buying another repel; so unless you're going to hide somewhere for 2 minutes to "replenish" your repels, which is not likely during active gameplay, that's not true.

[Spock!]

; so unless you're going to hide somewhere for 2 minutes to "replenish" your repels, which is not likely during active gameplay, that's not true.

Lol, Izor actually does this....

I really don't see why people hate the new x so much. Iv'e asked around in pub and most people generally say its "useless" and "sucky"

I normally play on Feq 11, but to test it out I've been playing base alot more recently. I still find it real useful, since you can still stray L3 bullets across base, and the Repel allows you to get mines out of the way if a shark isn't around. The rocket is great for popping terrs also, since the other enemy team members are too busy shooting at your team to watch radar.

Anyway, the only reason Izor started posting here was because I broke his streak 1 too many times in the X and used !buy rocket a few times on him. He just came here because he was mad and wanted to try and neuter the X back to it's slower form.

Amen.

[LF]

I'm not going to get into arguments or go into details anymore, but I will say as someone who has donated more real money than anybody else and gotten a ton of pub bucks for it.... I'm way more offended that the real money was a total waste than I am by the prospect of not having pub bucks anymore. At this stage of the game where people spend $ to get basically every kill (Izor, Primary, sinning, etc) or hoard their cash because it makes them feel special (Skymans with 10 million) I'd rather see it gone entirely too.

[Left_Eye]

I honestly would rather see the pubbux system replaced with the "points" system, and have advocated it by creating the idea in the first place when I noticed these inherent problems in the pubbux system. To me, that makes the most logical sense, as it would get rid of the whole "hoarding" problem (to where those that felt compelled to spend their pubbux would actually spend them), and every reset, it would put new players on the same level playing field as others. It wouldn't fall in benefit of either veteran or new player, just those that play pub the most, which is who this real benefit should be going to.

In addition to that, it might entice new players to actually want to play events, or even veterans for that matter, when we could hand out points prizes for the MVPs/winners of events, as there would be no inherent problem of hoarding or inflation issues. This system was created by dexter, who really had no concept of how to introduce a money system into a game, in my opinion. When this was first installed (or for that matter - suggested), it should have had much more thought put into it. We are left dealing with the ramifications of their decisions, and to be honest, the best solution is to do the switch I have recommended. If you really think about it, it's the best compromise available while keeping our goals in mind. Also, it would allow a better expansion into the rest of TW without affecting pub as much as it has now. More tournaments could be hosted with huge points prizes for those that care, same with elimination games or hell, even betting on TWD games, without having any affect upon the rise of the money system.

Honestly, I would also tend to believe that more people who even donated money would feel more like LF. They would feel more pissed that we haven't done anything rather than the actual pubbux. If they are that upset with it, then find another way to make it up to them. I'm sure we as TW staff have other avenues than pubbux. I think the institution of pubbux really needs to be modified to have a more stable pub.

I have more ideas, but I believe this is the best one that I've been able to come up with regarding the "points" system I originally proposed, and many of the sysops that were looking into this really liked the idea as it may lead to a more stable system of money in pub while keeping things intact.

[Izor]

lmfao LF...I was about to donate a decent amount of money to this game, but then I started asking a bunch of specific questions and realized I was blindly throwing money away. At one point a year or two ago I said I would donate 500 dollars to the winning LD team, thinking 100 per starter isnt bad, but when I got the response of can we use it in other leagues too I just ragequit with it. Tbh I'd probably still do that, but the people in charge of money here not named Pure_Luck have 0 trust.

Back to the main point here LF's comment hopefully is the beginning of the end for pub bux. You're right I'm doing lame shit every kill in pub but the system is there so why wouldnt players use it? I can get streaks np by just laying mines and buying repels so no one can kill me. But I do see guys with 10000 bursts in base and I've even seen the occasional spid griefing anti on roof. It's a dumb system that has probably killed this game faster than having a broken levi for its entire existence.