Use of !buy purepub

[Viruk]

I suspect the population was too low to support basing AND patrols against LTs when you started your LT freq. I have seen this many times.

Your massive LT freq (they often outnumber the active basing players on any other freq) probably killed the basing by blasting the undefended FR and key basers left before purebub was bought or turned to hunting.

This would leave only spawning, duelling, AFKing (and LT hunting which would have been killed by purepub).

With the key basers gone or exhausted by fruitless and tedious hunting there would not be enough to restart the basing game.

So unsurprisingly the population drops further until/unless enough new players interested in basing turn up.

But with very low populations it is rare to find good basing (even without enemy LTs) so basers play something else instead.

New players see no teamwork or fair play and either leave the zone or become another LTer and perhaps never learn good basing skills.

A vicious circle is created.

When will the pro-LT faction realize that too many parasites will kill the host?

No greening limit is protection against a massive freq with allies willing to kill-feed their levs and block attacks against them. LTs just become an unbalanced, overpowered synergy of movement and firepower. Only their skill-lessness protects us (and with so many vets LTing that isn't reliable.) Very satisfying to kill, but equally boring to chase or guard against (and unless they want to fight, killing them depends more on luck - or their error - than any amount of skill on your part.)

With lower populations we need permanent, dynamic priv freq size limitation to ensure that no priv freq is likely to outnumber the active, basing pub freq. LTs should be auto-warped away from FR at the lowest base size settings. Maybe we could then have more limits on !buy purepub.

The alternative would be to horribly nerf the lev's bomb radius or speed (we tried damage - they just stacked more levs on the turrets). I would not want to spoil the fun of playing a basing lev by doing this.

[bkgmjo]

You suspect this happened. I have been asking for stats, logs, videos or whatever for LTs being a cause of pubs dieing in the long run since mootland started the era of "pub upgrades" breaking the game around 2005, yet I still wait for something. I also still wait for the great anti-LT measures to help grow pub again for years. While I am waiting I can see sharks, javs and weasels spawning in mid in low pop times throw off players every single day. I can see superweapons make people leave every single day. I can see freqhoppers who abuse a heavily buggy and unbalanced reward system kill pubs all day long. And I can see people stop basing and going to spec, dueling, spawning or LTing on privs because small weasels and their flag stealing makes defending flagroom or even building up bounty in there a joke with their 11! (or even more depending on size) entrances to base and lagrockets. Even a single jav on roof or the sides of it where no bot can be bought with the abuse of !buy to get full shraps almost instantly at any time can cause more harm to people in flagroom than a LT.

Simple example:

When a group of say 5 vet players groups together in a pub of about 15 other players on pub freqs to hold base, it is very likely they will dominate base and pub freqs will barely have a chance to win a round. Yet I see no complaining about this. But as soon as they get a Lev on their freq they are called a LT freq and are the root of all evil. And when they only occasionally enter base because they prefer to build up bounty and give pub freqs a chance to win rounds by this they are even more evil. Just because they have a lev and are evil enough to actually work as a team.

Just yesterday a game like this went on and the pub grew to roughly 45 actively playing people for a long time, which is a pretty rare sight these days. People had fun and heavy battling occurred. After a few hours the pub began to shrink as it does every day around this time. Instantly people came up blaming the private freq with a LT for it.

[Viruk]

No amount of game stats will tell us WHY players are doing something. We can only guess by what we know affects us, what makes logical sense and what others say (which will not always be the full truth.)

Maybe that disappearing terr was going to quit anyway but I know I would find it unusually difficult and pointless to be a terr if half my tiny team was chasing an LT and I couldn't port reliably due to others vainly trying to anti it.

Spawning in mid is often annoying - but does not stop me basing and may even help me. (I would hate it if I cared more about my rec, or streaks.)

Superweapons? - Buying Super is limited and only disrupts basing in the short term. Epidemics and shields hurt more but are still limited. I may have the buyblock option to help me if this goes on for too long. It rarely does and sometimes creates an unusual challenge. Priv freq LTs can carry on relentlessly disrupting and are tediously common. AFAIK I cannot target a priv freq with epidemics, buyblocks and purepubs without disrupting other players.

The dubious reward system is a problem - but mostly for those who care about spacebux. It doesn't stop basing. The satisfaction of a well-earned victory beats winning a few spacebux (although it is nice to see your name on the award list.) I laugh at an end-of-basing-round "Most Veteran" or similar award going to some levi on a freq that never even held the flag for 30 sec!

Small weasels with rocket (and worse - reps!) make it very hard for a small freq to defend against, but are less useful defending in turn. Perseverance and teamwork can win out eventually (and it can be done while basing!) I would remove their reps entirely but you could let them buy the odd rep cheaply when the population is high.

Insta-shrap sharks and javs roofing are a pain for small basing freqs but they have limited options and are far more predictable and easier to avoid or drive off than an entire LTing freq.

Loaded frequencies (skillwise) make for one-sided basing games and will lose us basing players but at least there is a challenge for the losing frequency. They are not trying to do two different, difficult things at once like holding base AND driving off defended LTs. The bot could probably be made to stack the opposing freqs (numerically) against teams on winning streaks if people think this is a big problem.

Some of the above might be as much of a problem as a single lev sitting on a terrier but none of it compares with the disruptive effect of an entire freq of selected players (ab)using an overpowered ship combination to prey on small freqs of basers busy fighting each other.

[Fork]

I can just imagen someone buying this to annoy lts that have got a big killing streak. If you cant kill them and your rich, lets buy pure pub and piss them off to logging out (along with the people that were attached or even the players that had fun hunting them down).

[bkgmjo]

I actually have a problem with calling things abuse when they are used the way they are ment to be used. This includes LT, !buys, lag effects like lagrocket or the reward system. It is generally not the players job to balance the game and give incentive to make it fun for all (or most) sides, although it greatly helps at times when some take the initiative and balance stuff a little by how they play.

I can see why you say chasing a priv freq LT kills basing. As I also stated before, you hurt your own team when you are busy guarding both freqs. But just to maybe make spawners go to roof and defend against other roofers a reward for defending there instead of one for killing levs in spawn might be beneficial? Ya it would have to instantly be void if you start shooting anyone IN base from roof. Also for some secret reason the LT warnings which alert pub freqs are not shown to private freq hunters and makes them use up pub freq slots by this while countless duel challenge spam as arena message is totally okay apparently, have yet to find a reason for this. Ya the rewards are really not that great and mostly a joke in comparison to gains in duels or flagstealing (I suspect Veteran goes to score gain without flag points, which makes a player who kills someone he got killed by twice before the veteran), but apparently quite a few players care, otherwise you would not see constant mass-freqhopping just before round ends or the priv weasels stealing flag all the time.

Btw, you might wanna try using the priv LTs to your advantage against the enemy pub freq. They are usually pretty predictable and easily lured to shoot at the enemy closest to the wall. I tend to use this as bonus air strikes against the enemy freq. Also take a deeper look into how the regular LTs operate, it might greatly help you defend from them as most players have the always same weaknesses. Cat for example would run from decoys and fall for every porttrap due to always the same 3 spots, kesha (sry can't remember the spelling) and a few others panic when faced with anti or are hunted by a single player and quite a few terrs easily fall victim to cloaks. I'll leave the rest for you to discover.

[bkgmjo]

Oh maybe as side info Viruk, in the case I mentioned here the patrols were there for a pretty long time (700+ bty LT with hunters like Wazza who know how to hunt and give some serious challenge) and the LT got about 3 shots roughly directed at base in 5 mins. Which also shows that a hunted LT is far less dangerous than one where people rely on a roof turret to deal with it. I cannot say how it started. I joined in later for the hunters vs. hunted game which really cannot be called basing, but does entertain people and is a valid part of what pub should be I'd say.

[Shaddowknight]

From what I've seen, buyblock is used mostly by LT's to stop their hunters.
We actually no longer track !buy stats (someone thought it was creating unneeded database use or something) so we can't track who buys what how many times unless we go into the bot log searching for specific player's using !buy commands.
I do agree we SHOULD be tracking who is buying what, and what ship they are in when they do it.

Also, if you wish to whine about buying out of safe, perhaps we should just force everyone to buy in safe, just like the ?buy ages of yesteryear, that way it's fair and annyoing equally for everyone.

Basing King : MKB + PKB
Most Veteran Like : MK
Flag Savior : MFC
Best Terrier : PKB + TPA + LD
Most Cautious : LD

MK = Most kill
MKB = Most kill in base*
PKB = % of kill in base* VS the rest of the map (ie: 2 kill in base and 0 outside = 100%)
MFC = Most flag claimed
TPA = Total of players attaching

*base = flagroom + mid

How it works

For each variable, everyone get a rank from the best (Top1) to the worst (TopN) where N is the number of players.

Each rank get a weight :
Weight = (N-r)+Max(0,(4-r))*2

As you see, the Top1 get +6 bonus, Top2 +4 and Top3 +2.

Now, let's do an example for Basing King with 30 players.

Paul: MKB (top 29) PKB (top 29) -> 1+0 + 1+0 = 2
Bob: MKB (top 5) PKB (top 16) -> 25+0 + 14+0 = 39
Smith: MKB (top 3) PKB (top 4) -> 27+2 + 26+0 = 53
Roger: MKB (top 8) PKB (top 1) -> 22+0 + 29+6 = 57
John: MKB (top 2) PKB (top 3) -> 28+4 + 27+2 = 61
Arobas: MKB (top 1) PKB (top 2) -> 29+6 + 28+4 = 67

Arobas has the highest total, he get this achievement.

And for the record, cat warps at the drop of a pin.

[bkgmjo]

Hm ya, buyblock is indeed being used to prevent spamming of hunting buys. This is not why I talked qan into building it in and testing its effect though. Was supposed to give people a chance to have a retroish basing game with equal ships instead of winning by buys (idea came up when use of flagsaver was rampant).

However, I would not let a buyblock stop me from hunting lol. Actually I got all of my LT kills without buying any item ever (not that I ever buy more than a decoy to fool around anyways). Strategic hunting like forcing the LT to constantly warp into spawn, giving it no break and waiting in the spots which are most tempting for a LT to visit makes a wb without any extra tool a very useful hunting ship. Not to talk about a terr with wb/spid/lanc or even a counter LT. After all, terring a lev when you are hunted constantly is a full adrenaline job and a stressed terr makes mistakes. Often even chasing it without firing once is enough to make it suicide in panic. Makes a single person be able to keep a whole packed LT in check and dramatically reduce it's ability to freely shoot at base.

But I guess to hunt like this you might have to know both sides or at least watch a lot.

[Bukkake Surprise]

"and dropped again after ppl constantly tried to cyber me."

:laugh:

[qan]

!buy purepub is, like anything developed in this game, another experiment, and one that inevitably gets left in until it's eminently clear it's a bad idea. I'm not yet convinced that it is -- but this is perhaps a good one to throw to Council. Like just about everyone, I think there are better solutions, but we may not yet have come to them.

Limiting Terrs to 3 attachers seems like a no-brainer to me. It's fun to have massive turrets on occasion, but really, it's not interesting enough to justify what it allows LT freqs to do. It's also an easy switch. In all honesty, we could possibly even tighten it up to two attachers max and not be too much worse for the wear. This would mean a max of 2 Levs on a Terr at once, and no pocket Shark to defend them. However, the 3rd slot is nice in that it lets a Terr carry 2 Levs and still have an opening for people to attach, after which they would need to detach to allow others on. Anyhow, I'll add this to the next Council meeting agenda.

We'd been talking about basing-only times during primetime on weekends, but of course, this isn't really when LTs are taking down basing. Basing occurs pretty naturally whenever 10+ are on the pubfreqs. It's only a problem when the pub pop is low and most people on pubfreqs are spawnkilling anyhow; base is simply too meager to be worth getting lobbed at by a freq that is at times much larger than your own. (Private freqs can bypass the priv freq population limiter by changing over when there are many on pubfreqs, and then not changing back; in a way, this almost ensures that the private freq will prosper, as suddenly it's a special, elite thing from which some are excluded.)

One interesting option would be to allow Levis to !buy L3 bombs if in FR for a reasonable amount, which would then be removed once outside FR. This could encourage Levis to base, though of course many are very used to being able to fire indiscriminately, and this would increase TKing. Sorry, but some of you guys are just not that great at Subspace, and are not able to hold yourselves back from taking a shot that might kill an enemy even if it'll mean killing a couple of teammates. That said, I personally don't think TKing should be that big a deal. (Reminds me of the idea to make a TK-OK freq, where you can change to that freq if you want to be able to TK anyone on it without any risk of getting in trouble.)

Rather than simply changing Levis out of ship from a !buy purepub, it's been suggested that there is some kind of Levi sudden death mode activated immediately after the !buy. Once the Levi dies, it's changed to a different ship, and is unable to change back. As time increases, the bounty for killing the Lev increases, and it becomes more difficult for it to survive. Eventually some of the following could start happening more often: deprized repels, negative full charges, engine shutdowns, negative engine shutdowns, deprizing of ports/bursts for Terrs, callouts to the public freqs showing coords, etc. All combined with a disallowing of !buy altogether. The Levis would have a chance to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper. Would be a pretty enjoyable mode. Might even be worth halting the start of the flag time game until all are hunted down.

I did a slight modification today to this !buy that does give Levis a little bit of a bang before they're force-switched to a new ship. It might involve something along the lines of super and shields for the last few seconds, which might be worth hanging on for. I don't think it's a great solution, but it's at least an amusing one. Hopefully will not prove to be game-breaking. Apologies ahead of time to the basers, but they do need some consolation for the abrupt change to purepub, and this is at least something, until something better can be implemented.


Speaking of, I'm thinking of putting in a !buy sortapurepub, where you can buy, well, sort of pure pub. This means Levis are allowed, but only on public frequencies. It'd be cheaper, and hopefully as a result a bit more attractive. I think the main gripe people have with Levis is the private freq aspect, where they rampage against both freqs (especially while they're basing) and do little to promote the population of anything but more Levis and more hunters, a sort of beat-'em-or-join-'em mentality.

[Shaddowknight]

I think the main gripe people have with Levis is the private freq aspect, where they rampage against both freqs (especially while they're basing) and do little to promote the population of anything but more Levis and more hunters, a sort of beat-'em-or-join-'em mentality.

I heard a suggestion that would also help, to limit the size of private frequencies to be proportionate to the number of players. This would prevent the 8-player private LT freq from insanely overpowering the 3-5 player pub freqs. Minimum upper-limit of three (private freqs would be limited to no fewer than three), and gain +1 for every 6 players (approx 3 from each of freq's 0 and 1). Some similar system to prevent a private frequency from being being completely overbearing in pub.

The old attach limit on terrs was 4, and there was really no reason for it to have ever been changed. It wouldn't affect most lt's that much, as they usually only have two levis, but it would limit them when they have a shark attached as well, as you said.

[qan]

I heard a suggestion that would also help, to limit the size of private frequencies to be proportionate to the number of players. This would prevent the 8-player private LT freq from insanely overpowering the 3-5 player pub freqs. Minimum upper-limit of three (private freqs would be limited to no fewer than three), and gain +1 for every 6 players (approx 3 from each of freq's 0 and 1). Some similar system to prevent a private frequency from being being completely overbearing in pub.

There's a limit in at present, but it only checks when a player tries to change onto the freq, and not when people leave a pub freq. Unfortunately, pub freq players could use this to destroy a private frequency if those on the privates would actually be removed from the private freq when a pub freq (or pub pop in general) drops below a certain amount. Just tell everyone to spec and suddenly you ungreen all the freq's Levis, reset their bounty and potentially keep them from rejoining if you don't rejoin your freq -- an easy way to be spiteful.

The old attach limit on terrs was 4, and there was really no reason for it to have ever been changed. It wouldn't affect most lt's that much, as they usually only have two levis, but it would limit them when they have a shark attached as well, as you said.

My memory isn't always great, but I'm pretty sure it was 3 (or, 4, including the Terr, as you like it), and then changed to 4 a few years back, before the limit was raised to its current state. I agree that it's a simple change that wouldn't have much affect on gameplay other than limiting the extensiveness of power of a private LT freq, which at present is pretty damn substantial when attempted by some top-notch players.

[bkgmjo]

Simple question: Why constantly put limitations, punishments, unbalanced super weapons and ruining of a ship which never broke anything first?

You could add passive defenses, more incentive to hunt LTs, pubfreq-like bonuses to private freqs who play in flagroom, modifications of the map, more safety and equal buy rules for levs in flagroom and so on. But what is chosen instead? Some pseudo-solutions which ruin lots of play styles you did not even mean to target, cause hatred between players, make it almost impossible for a newbie to learn how to lev for a basing team and modify the balancing of the other ships. All this does is throw off players and harms the game as a whole, especially when it goes back and forth.

So what I beg of you: If you come up with ideas, get information from the people this change would affect, get their input on what would happen and how their play style would change. Especially the LT players are usually very open on this and abstain from random insulting, unlike those who just spread populism and hatred against them. Give it a try, even if you think you have played sufficient pub/LT to judge, I haven't seen any of the deciders doing that with the current settings. Also see the game as a whole and think about how it would affect balancing and ship roles for all other ships and play styles, as simply limiting pub to a ?go base theme is a narrow vision on TW. I am sure your goal is not to ruin anything, but more eyes simply see more. A note on that: I appreciate staffs attempt at hiring many new ZHs. Shows presence and allows to react more quickly and also in low pop times. This already improves the game.

Some random thoughts I did not want to make a new topic for, as we currently have 10 of those opened a day for nothing:

• Auto-Balancing
  Allow every freq to only get (smallest pub freq + 1) players by freqchange with a minimum of 3 or 4 (specs not counted and allowed to join) and reduce award gains for players on a freq bigger than smallest pub freq to encourage players to balance after some left. (Example: priv or freq1 has 8 players while freq0 has 5, so they would only get 5/8 bux for everything. Freqs smaller than 5 players would always get full bux, as 3 vs. 4 would reduce by a whole 25% and at those freq sizes basing barely happens anyways).
  
  Allowing privs to only be smaller than pub freqs simply means they cannot compete in basing on larger pubs and stick to LTs on multiple small freqs who work together, doubt this is what is wanted.
  
  
• Purepub (until you realized it kills pops and does nothing good)
  Why not just give levs the option to
  1. Live until killed with tasty bounty on their head and instant ship change should they go for a safe and purepub starting as soon as the last lev is removed.
  2. Wait it out in some box with safe zones outside the map. Doubt they hurt anyones feelings there and it would be way more fair for a 800 bty LT to just make them pause than to remove them.
  
  Also:
  • Start it after a game has finished (all rounds) as removing actively basing players after round 1 and taking theirs and their freqs potential wins for the whole game is unfair.
  • Have it last for a whole game, not fixed 30 mins.
  • Increase costs with the number of active players, just like the costs for epidemic, buyblock, turret, baseterr and all other things that potentially affect all other players actively.
  
  
  
• Auto-Warping
  On round start it would be nice to warp levs or LTs currently in base area AND ROOF to safes rather than sending another 80 bty baselev into spawn randomly.

I did not force you to read this, so don't complain about length.

[Shaddowknight]

• • Start it after a game has finished (all rounds) as removing actively basing players after round 1 and taking theirs and their freqs potential wins for the whole game is unfair.
  • Have it last for a whole game, not fixed 30 mins.

That would actually be abusable by a priv freq not wanting levis, by switching freqs every game, unless the bot would check if the players on the "new" winning freq were the exact ones as the last.


As much as bot-related options are nice to keep things fair, I still would ultimately prefer that things be balanced via config settings. If the bot is required for balance, that just proves that the settings are unbalanced to begin with.
IMO, the bot should enhance gameplay, not be required to keep things balanced for a fun experience for everyone.

[bkgmjo]

Was ment more in general. Finish one game with levis, run the next without so people know what they deal with before. I would also like a game less based on bots, but the only settings which worked for that were the ones before bots came into play.