The Leviathan

[KrynetiX]

Private frequency LT is mostly used as a weapon of terror. It’s only purpose is to run around and rain bombs down on hapless teams which are trying to play the game correctly.

It's hard to argue with that. Might be something we'll do in the near future.

[bkgmjo]

Private frequency LT is mostly used as a weapon of terror. It’s only purpose is to run around and rain bombs down on hapless teams which are trying to play the game correctly.

It's hard to argue with that. Might be something we'll do in the near future.

So if I get this right you have your mind set on breaking the game by punishing players randomly already anyways. Why even ask for input then? Faking open decision then totally ignoring every single alternative and different perspective and making sure to display you are head of dev and thus in control and will do what you want to do is just what every other upperstaff person who broke things on the game did, too. You keep claiming things you cannot show to anyone, join a chorus of made up facts and keep kissing ass off sysops who do not even play the game and don't know how it is right now after all these modifications that happened since they last showed up in pub.

Go ahead and break the stuff you want to break so badly and live with the consequences NOW and don't have everyone waiting for nothing.

[the block]

Here's my 2 cents. As a player who probably levs/LT's 90% of the time, I think it would be terrible to take away the attaching ability of the levi. LT's are part of Trench Wars. The levi has also been so crippled as it stands now, it already takes forever to green and attach, especially once you've annoyed a few players into hunting you, they will relentlessly kill you until either party gets bored with it and leaves. With its weak bombs, slow recharge, 1 rep, and spiders chasing with anti, it's also much more difficult to stay alive now once you've attached to an LT. You have to have a good terr that knows what he's doing to have any success at it. I also think LT's add an element of keeping everyone on their toes. You not only need to defend the flagroom from mid base, but you need to defend from the roof as well.

Some suggestions I could live with, if the alternative was killing off the LT:

1. Limit attaching ability of levi to playing populations of something around 16+ players. It's not very fun to LT with an empty pub anyways, so I'd be ok to restricting LTing to times where there are more players. I would NOT be ok with restricting LTing to only during set hours or schedules.
2. Perhaps limiting LT's to freq 0 & 1. This would eliminate giant LT freqs (which I very much enjoy btw). As a result it would stop LT's from wanting to kill anyone and everyone due to everyone being blue, and would provide more incentive to capture & keep the flagroom to get the points and pub bux that is associated if they are part of a basing freq. If there becomes a teamkilling problem due to some trigger happy levis, institute some sort of TKing penalty to make the levis more careful (pub bux reductions, auto spec, locked in non-tking ships for a certain period of time, etc). All this would promote LT's participating in basing.
3. Increase the incentive for taking down an LT. Increase the multiplier, make it a minimum $1,000 or more. If it is more of a prize to take one down, more people will go after them, and as a result there will be less of them. Natural selection occurs, survival of the fittest, only the best levis and LTs will survive it.

All this said, I've recently come back within the past 6 months or so after a very long SubSpace hiatus (~10 years), and I think killing off the LT would also mean I stop playing again, for whatever that's worth. It's what is fun to me, I've gotten to know some other good players who I've developed TW friendships with and who also enjoy LTing, and if it just went away one day, I'm afraid I would just get bored and be done playing. I know some would celebrate that, but with a 15 year old dieing game, like has been mentioned many times previously, the goal is to retain and recruit as many players as possible.

Just don't do anything rash. Maybe put it to some sort of vote with only players with a certain amount of ?usage during a period of time gets a vote?

[kthx]

Maybe you faggots should stop whining about the levi and realize two things:

1. People either quit the game or get into warbirds, terrs, and spiders and hunt down lt's with antiwarp, while learning valuable lessons about handling things on their own.

2. The people who take the first option aren't worth keeping anyways.

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

Pub is free play, has anyone given any thought to the positives of LT's? Namely that it offers pub a greater challenge than the monotony of basing?
Warbirds learn to shoot fast moving targets, snipe and to chase.
Levi's learn about energy conservation management, rocket kills, warp kills and when to use reps.
Terriors learn how to pilot more skilfully through narrow tubes and how to use turrets, portals, bursts and work in a team/ partnership.
A fun alternative to basing -trying to get 1000 bounty for example.
The friendships made through LTing.

I'm sure this is not a complete list and there are those that will contest some of the points here till they are blue in the face, but ask yourselves is it really worth denying new players the learning curve, LT's offer?

[Zeebu]

what is forcing an LT into joining one of the main freqs breaking?

[Ephemeral]

IMO it is about the intent and purpose of the zone. The mission statement says one of the zones primary purposes is using teamwork to capture the flag. How can flying a private frequency LT in any way be considered trying to capture the flag? Its purpose is selfish and self serving. No real teamwork is needed, just a single partnership.

Again, if a LT is a part of a larger frequency which is indeed trying to capture the flag room, then this is certainly an acceptable strategy. But two people who are having ‘fun’ at the expense of disrupting an hour long great flag room battle does NOT serve the zone any benefit at all and in fact has the opposite effect.

Of course the mission statement for the zone is not written in stone and the purpose of the zone and pub can be changed. It is what it currently is because the thinking was this was a sustainable approach to the zone. There are a lot of forces at work that seem to want to make the zone much more ‘selfish’. Promoting events like hockey and Distension are good examples (things that by definition have limited participation and virtually no new players). Loosening of the racism policy is another one.

If allowing and supporting more selfish play/behavior is what will save the zone then perhaps that is what should be done. Throw the doors open and let people do whatever the they want; consideration of other players and the zone itself doesn’t need to be supported. IMO that would not help at all but perhaps my age and faltering health is causing me to see things differently.
eph

[bkgmjo]

The mission statement says one of the zones primary purposes is using teamwork to capture the flag. How can flying a private frequency LT in any way be considered trying to capture the flag?

How can elim, wbduel, javduel, tourney, TWDD, WDJD, TWSD, most of TWL, hockey, most other events events and in pub spawning, dueling, camping, roofing, chatting, safesitting, idling, hunting LT and whatever else you can do be considered trying capture the flag? Want to forbid and punish all of this, too?
This is Trench Wars. It offers a variety of options and this is what made the zone successful. If you want pure CTF then go play some Team Fortress.

No real teamwork is needed, just a single partnership.

I think you missed the difference between the LTs people complain about and those they laugh about. Simple example: A newbie terr with a random lev is an easy kill within mostly seconds of hunting and fires from the same 3 spots over and over and over, so is predictable and not much of a threat to anyone. The LTs who team get stronger by experience of players and variety of ships. Just like any other well working team in the game and I have yet to see another place in the game where people instantly listen to the flight leader (terr), report scouting info, sacrifice for their leader by greening and meatshielding and luring, attack each threat instantly (anti/porttraps/hunters), come up with creative strategies, ignore own stats for the good of the team by letting themselves get teamkilled easily and defending instead of being after own kills and follow the goal they set themselves as a team with passion. A lot of this also goes to hunter teams, too. Part of this was happening in pub squads before they were killed by the great "pure pub" and permanent ?go base, too. Now if you do not call this teamwork then show me where more of it is happening on the game.

[bkgmjo]

what is forcing an LT into joining one of the main freqs breaking?

BanG guy's laziness and ignorance as they would finally have to deal with the teamkillers who keep pushing the LTs to privates. Cannot tell Demonic to actually care about real issues and distract her from making the weirdest changes to the game. Besides, forcing players into a specific way of playing is not really a nice way to do things. Come up with stuff that makes them want to play like you want them to, don't cry for big brother coming to punch the meanies.

[Ephemeral]

bkgmjo,
I wrote much of the mission statement with Moot years ago; pretty sure I know what it says and means. As I stated, this is the primary intent, there are secondary and tertiary intents. Yes, there are other venues and features which are not about capturing a flag.

Like I said, rally to change the mission statement. Make it more selfish and so that people only care about their own ‘fun’ even if is damages the zone. But don’t argue that private frequency LT are good for the zone and for pub.

Imagine an arena of just LTs flying around, even with all the ‘teamwork’ you say they have to have. Sound like fun? Sound like this is sustainable for the zone?

Bottom line is that pub cannot be ‘all things to all people’. It should have a narrowly define purpose, right now it happens to be a arena meant to be about capturing the flag room. The fact that dumbasses have allowed it to morph into other shit (like Kill-a-thons and pub bucks ) does not make it right. The justification has always been ‘hey, some people like this stuff’ but that kind of thinking is what has gotten the zone into the shape it is in now.

We cannot mix selfish play with teamwork in the same arena. A lot of this shit is exactly what is hurting new player retention. Have you ever helped any new player? Were they asking you how to “where people instantly listen to the flight leader (terr), report scouting info, sacrifice for their leader by greening and meatshielding and luring, attack each threat instantly (anti/porttraps/hunters), come up with creative strategies”? LOL Come on, no new player is going to learning this kind of stuff.

Pub is not the dumping ground for every new fucking idea that comes along. It is a captive audience and one that attracts those with ‘good ideas’ because of it. If any of these fucking idea were worth a shit they wouldn’t HAVE to be forced unto Pub. They could be implemented in another arena and people would them begin to play it. So take the selfish LTs and kill-a-thons and go start another arena, see how popular it becomes.
eph

[Ephemeral]

BanG guy's laziness and ignorance as they would finally have to deal with the teamkillers who keep pushing the LTs to privates. Cannot tell Demonic to actually care about real issues and distract her from making the weirdest changes to the game. Besides, forcing players into a specific way of playing is not really a nice way to do things. Come up with stuff that makes them want to play like you want them to, don't cry for big brother coming to punch the meanies.

bkgmjo,
You raise a good point; one of things that is badly broken is the team-killing process. While a reactionary solution is not ideal it still would at least be an improvement. I've had some discussions with Dez on how to improve this process but I dont know if he was able to make headway before he stepped aside. What ideas do you have for improving the process so that some player do not exploit the system?
eph

[Zeebu]

i liked pub better when it had 0 bells and whistles. go back to that.

[Ephemeral]

i liked pub better when it had 0 bells and whistles. go back to that.

Zeebu,
Exactly. And most importantly this is exactly what originally drew many people to play the game.

TW took advantage of ‘one shot – one kill’ aspect of SS and combined it with a simple flag capture strategy. This meant that a newer player could join the game, immediately kill some people AND come together with all kinds of other people to achieve a win. This formula was always successful.

Adding new arenas, events, and other non-pub features was fine; it wasn’t until we started to screw around with pub and make it ‘all things to all people’ that new player retention dropped below critical mass. By that time we had many people ‘hooked’ on pub features that very never a part of the original intent; now they are upset when there is talk about removing them. Adding too much complexity, in the name of holding on to existing players, has resulted in not being able to retain new players.

If anyone thinks for a second that the vast majority of private frequency LTs are not selfish they are idiots. Could pub survive without private frequency LTs? Of course, it would barely miss a beat. Could private frequency LTs survive without being able to blow up distracted teams battling it out in the FR? Of course not, there is no popular arena where LTs just bomb each other or one LT gets chased around by everyone else. It’s not fun for the majority, it is fun only for 1-2 players. This is not a formula for success in pub.
eph

[kthx]

You are wrong Eph. Hunting LT's so you can talk shit to them afterwards is probably one of the few things left to do in pub besides having a bounty race bottom, leviterring itself, shark terring and mining the tube etc. Me and izor would LT and there was literally people who would login just to hunt him down so they could talk shit. Coddling a bunch of newbies into not getting bombed is fucking stupid, let people figure out on their own how to deal with the shit.

I see a bunch of people sitting here whining about LT's ruining pub basing and defend Distension which does the exact same fucking thing to pub when its hosted pretty much every fucking day when I get home from work it seems.

[kthx]

All this fucking babysitting from staff has raised a generation of pussy ass players. I say fuck it, bring back pub circa 2005 IE Zeebu's plan and let god sort the newbies out. The people who stay are smart enough that we can then worry about getting them into leagues.