Levis/weasels changes

[Tiny]

Stop listening to the people who do not use the ships.....you're making changes based on people who dont want to use or know how to stop the levi/weasel. It's not a matter of nerfing them, it's a matter of you dont want to listen to people complain, so you change the ships so much that people stop using them. I have seen plenty of people that I kill with a weasel (the original weasel) change ships into a terr or javelin and commence raping me. Each ship has a counter...its not a matter of changing the ships, it's a matter of getting people to change ships. Get your shit straight..change the ships back, stop nerfing, stop resrtricting. You want to kill a levi...get antiwarp...weasel...xradar. Stop making these dumbass changes. I havent pubbed since you made these changes a fraction of what I was pubbing. You are deterring people as opposed to encouraging.

[Tiny]

And...unrestrict the fucking !buy feature outside safe, or give me my fucking donated money back, cuz I cant spend my fucking pub bux in pub without making it to a fucking safe zone which is on the outskirts of the mother fucking map. fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

[BooBiesYaY]

Stop listening to the people who do not use the ships.....you're making changes based on people who dont want to use or know how to stop the levi/weasel. It's not a matter of nerfing them, it's a matter of you dont want to listen to people complain, so you change the ships so much that people stop using them. I have seen plenty of people that I kill with a weasel (the original weasel) change ships into a terr or javelin and commence raping me. Each ship has a counter...its not a matter of changing the ships, it's a matter of getting people to change ships. Get your shit straight..change the ships back, stop nerfing, stop resrtricting. You want to kill a levi...get antiwarp...weasel...xradar. Stop making these dumbass changes. I havent pubbed since you made these changes a fraction of what I was pubbing. You are deterring people as opposed to encouraging.

levi or lt was the easiest thing to kill with anti. anti's range is so boundless that the anti could be out of your entire radar and still be effective. and lt's have ZERO defense against antiwarp on a terr they cant survive that at all. i did not support the changes to l2 bombs, although maybe basing interest has ticked up slightly i cant really tell.

as for weasel i like them small but i dont care either way. i think weasel deserves a little edge because they are so vulnerable to terrs and xradars.

mainly i wish they'd stop buffing/nerfing settings every 2 months and just stick with something. but whatever who cares really i guess, could be worse.

[Azov]

I do agree that the the !buy feature being disabled only when you're in safe is not economical. If you are a levi, traveling to safe is akin to walking from one end of the United States to the another. By the time you get there, you look like Forrest Gump.

[Drosophila]

There are long standing questions about how modifications to the levi and weasel impact ship balance. In general there seems to be the perception that the Levi is over powered and the weasel may be to weak. To analyze this question, I downloaded the full stats for the top 100 players (sorted on kills) for each of the 8 ships in pub on Feb. 17, 2014. For each player, I calculated the win/loss ratio. Then for each of the 8 ships I calculated the average win/loss ratio and 95% confidence intervals; with n = 100 for each ship. As expected, jav, spider and lanc are all well balanced ships: the average win loss ratio for each was in the range of 1.08 to 1.13. Likewise sharks had a significantly lower win/loss ratio of 0.73.

What may be somewhat surprising is that the win loss ratio for the weasel was the same as for the shark: ie. 0.74. In terms of ship balance, this suggests that the weasel in its current form is underpowered.

In contrast, the win loss ratio for the levi is 3.3. This is to say on average every levi loss is paired with 3.3 wins. As compared with every other ship, it is as if every time a levi respawns it gets two free kills.

I think it would be interesting to discuss the idea of reducing the strength of the levi to bring it to a similar level as to the other ships.

Best wishes,
Drosophila

	ave win/loss	sd	n	se	tinv	0.95% ci
shark	0.74	0.34	100	0.03	1.98	0.07
weasel	0.75	0.32	100	0.03	1.98	0.06
jav	1.08	0.47	100	0.05	1.98	0.09
spider	1.09	0.37	100	0.04	1.98	0.07
lanc	1.14	0.42	100	0.04	1.98	0.08
terr	1.23	0.49	100	0.05	1.98	0.10
wb	1.49	2.23	100	0.22	1.98	0.44
levi	3.31	2.64	100	0.26	1.98	0.52

[Jones]

the warbird is by far the strongest ship. no other ship can kill it. trench wars does not have balanced ships, it never has and it never will

[Drosophila]

the warbird is by far the strongest ship. no other ship can kill it. trench wars does not have balanced ships, it never has and it never will

Hi Jones,
Yes the warbird is a strong ship. I was a bit surprised to see that. Yet frankly except for the levi, in particular, the ships are pretty well balanced.

Drosophila

[Shaddowknight]

Interesting information there. There are a few things that could be done (if it's decided that it's needed) to help even that out for the levi. Reducing power is one, removing some of it's spawn-with (or buyable) protections is another option. Lots of fine tuning that COULD be done if it's felt to be needed.

As for the weazel, I think it's still fine as is currently. It's a more skill intensive ship if you intend to play for W:L. It's prupose is as an infiltrator, not a combat machine. It's the rogue of the party, sneaking in to steal the prize while the warriors and mages break down the front door.

The levi's purpose is as a high-power vulnerable death machine. As just that it's fine. Pairing it with a levi (and other ships) can completely nullify it's vulnerabilities (given a skilled terr, shark, and other protectors). Even without skilled team with them it still removes a large portion of the weaknesses. It's like letting wb's have no-drain x-radar once they get 20 bounty. Or a jav getting bullet upgrades. The concept of it is fine, but it imbalances the ship dynamics when a Levi-terr is about. On the battlefield facing a tank is one thing, but a tank moving at the speed of a fighter jet is a whole nother story. (Just trying to use practical analogies to get a point across, before people decide to be dumb and attack me over it, as has been shown to happen in the past).

[Drosophila]

These are good points. One could make the case that given the weasel's ability to capture the flag, the win loss ratio (being close to the shark's) is reasonable. In addition, for the most part people seem relatively happy with the current settings for the weasel. Perhaps Spock could give some input?

Your points on the levi are also well taken.

[Steep]

Just thinking; does tw need that one ship that can cloack? Perhaps making weasel another nice fighter ship would work wonders to the game, and leave the cloack to events only.

[Morh]

Just thinking; does tw need that one ship that can cloack? Perhaps making weasel another nice fighter ship would work wonders to the game, and leave the cloack to events only.

This is what I have been saying for years, about both the weasel and the levi, but no one listens. I mean, why do we not utilize stuff like bricks and thor's, to make new ship "classes"?

[Shaddowknight]

We tried brick on the levi when fiS and Demonic worked on playing with settings (mostly was Demonic, and I put some input into it a time or two also). I don't recall if those settings were put into place in pub for long, if at all. After playing around with settings so much in a short time, Kryn wanted to let things settle and stop changing ship settings for awhile (which I agree is was needed). Perhaps we can start to try new things out again soon, but I would probably wait till after TWL when the Council forms.

[Ephemeral]

Dro,
Thank you for taking the time to do this analysis; but I have a few concerns.

I understand why you limited it the top 100 but doesn’t this skew the results? For example it may, or may not, have captured new players. I suggest that new player stats are also as important, perhaps more important, than those of experienced players (which are more likely to be included in the Top 100) when thinking about the power of the ships.

Additionally ‘kills’ are only a small part of the basing strategy. For example a person could effectively play shark and contribute to his team without racking up many kills at all; repping the enemy mines and taking down the opposing terrier without ever laying a mine himself. A terrier could play a very strong role in a basing win by simply staying alive. My point is that simply considering ‘kills’ presents an incomplete picture of a ship strengths.

But again thank you for taking the initiative to introduce empirical data into this forum and improvement discussions. It is far better than to have this kind of information as opposed to simply personal opinions.
eph

[Drosophila]

[but...why...per...]

Aside from having a slightly higher thrust (still remarkably slower than other ships) the levi has never been so weak. In comparison to previous versions it has a much lower bomb power, 1 less repel and yellow bullets are no longer 1 hit kill.

With regard to LTs it is easier than ever to buy anti-warp or a roof turret to prevent FR bombing, even the old bombing lines have been reduced by the most recent map. I really don't see what reason there is to further 'nerf' the levi settings.

I would also like to thank Eph for bringing attention to the problems with the above sample and how/why it is not a representative sample of the population.