Changes in pub #2

[jim the chin]

Soooo, anyways....
I see there is some hate for the pub bux system in the staff circle. Would we go back to the built-in buying at safes from the good old days?

Well staff seem intent on taking us back to 10 years ago, so expect to see it happen. There will be no discussion. They'll emphasize the words of a few people who want pubbux gone in order to say it's what everyone wants.

[bkgmjo]

Simply put if population is supposed to at least not shrink too much all 4 groups have to be pleased, which are basers with/without limited ship settings, league-ers, lev-ers and lamers. Hard to say but ya, lamers are a part of this community and I doubt you can reduce this to LTs sitting outside of base and warping soon as a blue dot shows up on radar. Sitting on roof antiing or cloaking in spawn is just as annoying. We even have a best spawn lamer award now due to some reason unknown to any staffer I asked.

What is needed is a concept including all of them in a pub even if it will cause complaints. Otherwise if things keep getting changed and "tweaked" population will soon be below levels that still allow events, leagues or whatever else. My suggestion for that would be 2001 settings with changed L2 bullets like they are now, 3-sized map(based on actively basing players, not general count) and a bot pushing to base as it currently does, just without all the retarded superweapons which don't have anything to do with competition. Also bi-weekly pub basing events on random maps as they used to happen back in the day could spice it up.

Not saying this would be perfect but it worked well to fill the game up to 8 active pubs. Would be nice to see a complete and tested change instead of "today we change this, tomorrow that and after a month we just reverse all of it and if complaints get too much we just put someone else in charge to get the blame". Take the example the brits just made with inviting the tax avoiding industry to find out how changes really would alter the game. A non-LT cannot rate what LTs would do with it as a non-baser cannot say what is good for basing and a permanent league only player really can't say anything about pub at all since players have changed and do not teamplay as they did in euro server times.

Just for those who do not know what 2001 settings were:
wb, jav, spid, terr, shark as they are now, lev 4 reps 1 rocket (randomly starting with a portion of them) and speed as now with slightly smaller blast radius, lanc and lev also had L2 bullets which were instant kill. Weasel was slightly faster than lev, full cloak, had a rocket and a rep, were big as now and were kind of tank-ish, still dying from wb shots but could take quite a few hits from terr or spider but due to its low speed would not have a chance against those. Also all ships did not start with all of their toys, was kind of random including multifire. Oh ya and everyone had to go to safe to type "?buy burst" instead of having to do ":::::::::<CTRL+Backspace>:botname:!buy burst".

[jim the chin]

yeah, I am aware, everyone one staff has their own opinions as well. I personally want lts to just go away, but thats me, abd I dont expect everyone to agree. I would expect changes to be made for the better enjoyment for all, instead of allowing some to have fun at the expense of others not having fun. Trying to balance everything isnt exactly simple. Changing one thing can greatly affect other things you may not think about.
As for Tiny, thats all about personal preferance.

Exactly. I think LTs are mainly used by vets who want a bit of fun when they're tired of the more serious events they play in subarenas. Hardly benefiting pub to let them do that. I wonder how many basers have quit playing for the time being because of it? I am a baser who has quit, but I obviously still care enough to post here, so I imagine others are waiting for LTs to be nerfed before coming back too.

Suggestions:
1. Stick wormholes on the left and right side of the base so LTs can't line up to shoot from there. They have to skirt close to the side of base to avoid the gravity, and when they reach the roof, the bot can be bought by anyone concerned (make the bot last longer and make it cheaper). This way, they have to enter the base or risk going to the roof.
2. Make lev bombs weaker and the ship faster. Basically, use the previous lev that was so fun and popular that even I played it for some of the time.
3. Raise bounty needed to attach and make sure they can't buy that bounty easily.

[Izor]

You seem to be the only person against removing the bot store jim. Wormholes dont work because then you cant antiwarp people on streaks...that was proven in a previous iteration of pub map. The 2004 settings before the bot stuff as opposed to the 2001 settings imo led to a more fun pub. That's just my opinion but things were pretty balanced then.

[Bukkake Surprise]

"Basers were just the ones to come on here and cry the most. Eventually basers became in charge of changing stuff and you see what we were left with."

Yeah, basers came here to cry and vote to put the pub game-destroying levi back. The players of Continuum are stupid, but they're not THAT stupid.

"I just dont think Kryn will keep these settings around forever based on the feedback he gets."

Then why did he bring back these settings based on the "feedback" the "poll" provided?

"We do occasionally have staff members who go away from their keyboard."

No, they were active.

"Ever sent in a ?cheater call about a TKer who is repeatedly TK'ing, and then moments later that player is suddenly stuck in another ship that doesn't have bombs?"

No.

Your question should have been "Ever sent in a ?cheater call about a TKer, continued to get TKed, sent ?cheater again, got TKed by two people now since another asshole saw that there's no mod and he could do anything he wanted, sent ?cheater a third time, got a message from a bot that someone is coming, got TKed again, then the mod arrived and half of the time did nothing since he hadn't seen the TKing occur while the other half of the time he "warned" them and left and then got TKed by the same asshole a few days later and then again a few days later because the fucking "warnings" don't do jack shit?".

In that case, an emphatic "yes". Many times.

"a lot of us in staff have been playing this game for a very long time."

So have I.

"Have they caused trouble in the past?"

Repeat TKers don't get permanently locked out of bombing ships, so clearly nobody cares about who caused trouble in the past.

"It seems that you care about this zone otherwise you wouldn't be wasting your time in this thread"

I do care about this zone, and I am wasting my time in this thread. The mods make decisions for themselves, to suit their own preferences, since it's mostly mods who LT. I do not have the slightest illusion that I am listened to. I've been playing this game for far too long to believe my opinion matters at all. I've seen stupid and abusive mods, and I have no idea which of the current ones are like that and which ones aren't. I don't know about your "systems" and "internal workings". All I have is my end-user experience , and my end-user experience is that of assholes who repeatedly TK with impunity and of mods on private frequencies fucking up the basing game with LTs.

"The changes with the Leviathans were needed (despite even the majority agreeing on it). Even though like 2 months ago I've been getting a lot of feedback in both directions (positive and negative) on the L2 bomb levi, it's clear that this step has killed LTing entirely and LTing is a part of the game."

No, the majority wanted the weaker bomb on the faster levi. There were still LTs, so don't pretend otherwise. It's just that the assholes who LT on private frequencies (i.e. mods and griefers - but what's the difference at that point?) disliked that they could only kill one or two people with each bomb instead of 8. And so they brought back the overpowered bomb AND they made the flag room smaller to ensure high kill counts per bomb.

"the attic in the FR is gone"

Why was the attic removed? It was great. It provided greater scope for maneuver and it prolonged flag room battles. Oh yeah, "because Arilou's map is iconic".

"the hardly visible (but pretty good looking) asteroids are gone"

Whoever came up with those was a retard. What imbecile thought constantly running into the rocks would be fun? They weren't even good looking. Good riddance. Once again, stupid mods fiddle with pointless crap so it looks like they're doing something instead of attending to the real issues. And they can't even get the pointless crap right!

"The solutions that I put in place weren't optimal"

So why did you put them in place? Why didn't you just take off the weasel's rocket or its repel and its ability to buy more?

"Suggestion: Restrict buy to safe only for LT, not Lev."

A levi that can buy its way to 20 will soon be an LT. And which can then hop off the terr for a few seconds, buy everything it needs and hop on again.

Most of your ideas are terrible.

There is too much buying involved. What happened to actually playing the game?

"Personally, I think the levi needs a complete re-working."

Yeah, exactly, but the chumps, instead of changing the overpowered levi, are instead changing the entire game around the overpowered levi.

I want to see bounty getting reset to 3 upon entering a safe or upon changing frequencies, even in a safe. That will prevent the feeding of and freq hopping by unscrupulous levis and their mod/griefer friends.

[jim the chin]

It's just that the assholes who LT on private frequencies (i.e. mods and griefers - but what's the difference at that point?) disliked that they could only kill one or two people with each bomb instead of 8. And so they brought back the overpowered bomb AND they made the flag room smaller to ensure high kill counts per bomb.

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself. They're basing the whole game around LTs to please a few vets and mods who only ever do LTs in their spare time to piss over the pub game.

[jim the chin]

You seem to be the only person against removing the bot store jim. Wormholes dont work because then you cant antiwarp people on streaks...that was proven in a previous iteration of pub map. The 2004 settings before the bot stuff as opposed to the 2001 settings imo led to a more fun pub. That's just my opinion but things were pretty balanced then.

No, what happened is the nostalgic staff put a load of stupid items on the bot to build up antagonism towards it. Now they'll use that antagonism to take away the whole system.

[Spock!]

Lol, and the staff say stuff like "We lost alot of LT players when we changed it to L2 lev" LOL. Do really give a shit about losing these lame-asses? All they did was kill they game, who gives a shit if they have been around from the 90's, it doesn't give them the fuking right to ruin the entire game for everybody else.

As I said before, Leviathan is just not practical with current population numbers. I actually liked the L2 lev, (TY to Fis) it could get to base by itself with some luck, and was pretty handy defending base, but wasn't as OP as the L3 lev.

As the above posters note, tons of staff LT all the time. So of course the staff are not going to get rid of the only way they can get their rocks off. Its like asking a politician to vote to lower their pay...............

[roxxkatt]

just like we could remove bullets from ship 6
noone cares if they leave either

[Asmodeus]

Nevermind...just forget it.

[Izor]

What do you consider 'good' items in the store? Cause theyre all so dumb

[jim the chin]

What do you consider 'good' items in the store? Cause theyre all so dumb

Shrap - Great to buy in jav/shark to make bombs/mines deadlier. They don't overpower the ship, but give it a nice boost.
Antiwarp - Seems very useful for stopping LTs.
X-radar - For stopping cloakers.
Rocket - I would like to see more ships able to buy a rocket (if they can't already). It can be quite a skill to use it properly in a jav. It could be used to break into FR quicker, to dash for the flag, or to give a bomb/bullet extra thrust.
Brick - At the moment this is useless. Staff should make it last a bit longer ~20 seconds. Could create some interesting tactics.
SPECIAL(roofturret) - Without 1-tile weasels, roofturrets really do come in handy.

Most of the others can be gotten rid off. I see they already removed strikebase, which was one example of a stupid thing they added to stir up distaste for the buy-system. Flag saver is another stupid and pointless one that is only there to annoy people. The only reason they added these things is to make people hate the pubbux system. Remember, we have nostalgia-tards in charge who want to go back to 10 years ago... the buy-system will be gone soon enough and this is their way of chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

[Ephemeral]

For the record none of this shit is new; even back in 2009 we were posting these ideas. For example, in this 2009 post I recommended that the zone start considering consolidation and removing the selfish ‘features’ such as private frequency LTs. In this 2011 post Wazzaaa made a clear case for why pub bucks were killing pub. I added to this thread with this post;
“I asked Beam and he told me that he does it b/c 'its fun'. I said that its fun for him at the expensive of all others (he does it form a single person freq), he acknowledged that and said about buying things, "that's what all of the items do, they give one player fun at the expense of others". I guess a case could be made that when a staffer plays, he can do w/e he wants as long as it is within the rules independent from what most consider 'good for the game'. On the other hand when people wonder why the zone doesn't attract new players or can't seem to raise any real donations, perhaps things like this are part of the answer. What is the point of coming up with creative marketing ways to attract new players when they come into zone and are greeted with endless lame kill macros and staffers who sit in a private freq ruining the pub game for their own personal satisfaction?”

Yet here we are, years later, still suggesting the same solutions to the same problems. Why do we tolerate such slow response and reaction from those who run the zone? Rome has been burning for years and they are still fiddling. Fiddling around with small little tweaks instead of having the balls to make the sweeping changes that are really needed to keep the zone alive.

This is not about this ship setting or map changes, IMO this kind of ‘solutions’ are really nothing more than distraction to the difficult and hard decisions that have to be made. We cannot compete with the better quality games and other IRL time sucks, this is a given. Players leave all the time, this is a given. If we don’t retain as many new players as those who leave we have reached critical mass, this is a given.

All decisions, not just some decisions by some of those in charge, HAVE to be made in the context if new player retention and keeping pub 0 thriving. You can’t pick and choose a the low hanging ‘easy’ decisions (like changing a ship setting or making a map change) and call it a day.
eph

[Izor]

You dont find buying shrap to be a bit ez? Gone are the days of annoying solo roof/base javs I suppose, but the prospect of not having to green shraps for 5 mins first is nice.

Buying antiwarp is already being abused by people to sit on roof and disrupt basing. Do you really need me to log in and hold it over spawn for a few hours? Seems fun.

Rockets already killed the single pixel weasel. Well the ability to buy them and spam them led to a stupid decision to change the ship settings for some reason I may never fully understand.

Xradar wouldnt be an issue without the undetectable x, so reference ^

Bricks just dont have a place in this game. Levis had them for a little while but it wasnt a very potent item.

The specials are so lazy and roofturret is a perfect example of a selfish change to this game. People used to play roof all the time and it pissed off some baser mod that kept getting picked off, so he added some feature where he could just hit a macro and deal with it.

On a side note though, some of those specials would be great if the system was reset regularly and you didnt have people spam !buying cause they have infinite money.

[CloudHelmut]

I just don't see antiwarp being abused that way that often, obviously YMMV.*eta:it sometimes has that as a side effect because LTs are always going roof, so you need antiwarp near the fr. Unfortunately.

Anyways, I agree with above that retaining new players is key and that no-energy drain hidden weasel and uber bombs on the lev discourage it. You got to face the fact that making sure you please the "lamers" part of the community so they don't leave simply isn't the way to go.