Changes to Public Arena coming June 10th

[c00l_b0y]

I don't like the "Fuck you guys I'm quitting" posts, so I didn't bother, but you're right - this change has caused me to quit the game. I've been checking here every now and then and logging on to see if they unfucked my ship yet, but to be honest I feel too bitter about the change to play the game now.

Changing any ship settings destroys the balance of the game for some people, and destroys it completely for others. I feel so bad for people like Rion who have had their favourite ship changed completely. When is staff going to realise that any change they make is going to be appreciated by some sure, but some people are going to detest these changes? No matter what you do any drastic ship changes are going to cause some people to leave. And rightly so, they should feel betrayed because they're not being considered. People might moan about no changes, but the be all and end all of things is that CHANGES WILL CAUSE SOME PEOPLE TO LEAVE. CAN WE AFFORD PEOPLE LEAVING?

They should poll out if everyone prefers the weasle being large because I suspect a majority of people wont...

I agree completely with Fork, why can't we have a poll? Is this an option that's being considered? Someone please answer me on this one. Finally I feel bad for complaining about how Im now getting stealth killed as warbird all the time when some people have lost their favourite ship; but as a daily pubber I just want to say that I'm not having fun whenever someone decides they don't want to be killed by me no more and want to weasel me till I get bored of playing or am forced to switch to Jav....


Viruk also raises good points as Im sure have many others, all I'm asking is for a bit of democracy here.. Furthermore I think it's a really big statement that the subspace forums that I was a member of no longer exist, and staff should see the fact that a returning 2004 player like myself is reduced to PLEADING for the game to stay the same as it was when I returned as a really bad sign. I returned to a game where my main zone (MG) was gone and I had to learn how to play TW, going and changing the game I've learnt is out of order in my book. Not to mention disrespectful to a whole host of players. The amount of people that play this game casually as well! You can still see people coming online everyday and showing how they're dissapointed that the games changed. These are people without the time or resolve to create a forum account, I'm quickly seeing as well that perhaps noone's reading this and I'm just wasting my time here.

[c00l_b0y]

As I cant find the edit button I also want to make one more point..

As a warbird basing is now no fun due to full stealthing weasels, does that mean you guys want me to sit and be a spawnkilling warbird? Because thats the only way I can avoid being stealth killed when someones after me

[Rion.]

You need to update again. I have seen Spock! happily cloaking ppl all day.

With respect, it's a complete assumption that you saw Spock! 'happily' cloaking people in pub. Did you actually ask his opinion on the weasel changes? How about junin?

If you saw me pubbing since the changes happened then you might've seen me playing the weasel, and let me tell you: I wasn't happily cloaking people. I was trying to 'get over it'. I was trying to have fun in a game I loved despite my favourite ship - which I've played for years - being deleted.

Does anyone honestly believe that someone that 'mained' the small weasel would prefer the big ship? If so, I don't think you realise that it's literally a different ship now. It's still ship 6, it's still called the weasel, but a ship size change is in the same league as removing the bounce from javelin bombs. It is a 'small' change, but it completely changes the ship to something else. If you were to stop jav bombs from bouncing then lots of people that love the ship for that feature would stop playing the game. An entire skillset that players have cultivated for years would be gone.

Have you played Javelin elim against one of those ancient Javelin masters? It's like they're psychic. They never overcommit, they constantly read and threaten and lure you into overextending, and then they destroy you. Complete control and knowledge of their ship, built up over years. Honestly, it's really cool and a testament to the incredible design of the javelin.

I wouldn't put myself on the level of those jav masters at all, but I've had my moments where people have private messaged me for doing cool things in the weasel, like mastering the boost-shot or moving through the walls like a ghost. I've even had a couple of people ask me to teach them the ship. These memorable moments will never happen with the big weasel.

A large contributor to this is that the skill ceiling of the ship has been completely collapsed. Escaping a furious lancaster by boosting through a one-block gap is really hard, and if you miss then you just bonk the wall and look like a moron before you get blown to smithereens. The lancaster gets a feeling of satisfaction from seeing you screw the maneuver up before they blast you. If you succeed, you feel like a badass spaceship ninja. It's win/win for the game.

That dynamic, exciting, unique feature - not just of the ship - but of the entire game, has been deleted. It boggles my mind why anyone would remove such an incredibly fun feature right before pushing the game out to a large audience of new players that we are trying to hook into being long term members of the community. Why on earth would you do that?! Gameplay is all we have to offer! We don't have graphics, or a big community, or twitch integration, or any number of modern features - gameplay is why this game has endured so long, and it's all we have to seduce these people that give the game a cursory once-over into being long-term players. Why remove something exciting that creates memorable moments right before the Steam launch?!

Speaking of the Steam launch, if we really aren't going to get the small weasel back, I honestly believe that the game is better off with ship 6 being a blank slot. Just delete it. The big weasel design is that bad.

Take the rocket, take the repel, take the blue bullets, hell even take both the stealth and cloak. Just leave the small ship in the game.

Changing any ship settings destroys the balance of the game for some people, and destroys it completely for others. I feel so bad for people like Rion who have had their favourite ship changed completely. When is staff going to realise that any change they make is going to be appreciated by some sure, but some people are going to detest these changes? No matter what you do any drastic ship changes are going to cause some people to leave. And rightly so, they should feel betrayed because they're not being considered. People might moan about no changes, but the be all and end all of things is that CHANGES WILL CAUSE SOME PEOPLE TO LEAVE. CAN WE AFFORD PEOPLE LEAVING?

Thanks for posting. Maybe it will help. It does feel pretty hopeless, and I feel like a dumbass for writing so many words that will probably be ignored about a patch in a multiplayer asteroids game, but I've played this game since I was a kid and have so many good memories of it that it feels really horrible to suddenly have something I've enjoyed for years be deleted for no apparent reason.

[big eater]

One of the most enjoyable times I've had in trench wars is dueling warbirds as an uncloaked weasel. The small weasel was deceptively good 1 on 1.
I concur with Rion: if the small weasel isn't going to come back then get rid of the ship completely until you can think up a better replacement.

[Tiny]

Take this time to get good at a ship that means anything please. ty for this

[SinOfSaul]

These changes have resulted in quite a few veteran X players no longer playing. If I were able to put my own x together it would be small, stealth, cloak and a NON lethal weapon. It would be way more fun being annoying, my main reason for playing was to be annoying . As for LTs, why not cut the speed, slow them down a little. As for now I cant play TW with the new changes.

[Minsc & Boo]

Escaping a furious lancaster by boosting through a one-block gap is really hard, and if you miss then you just bonk the wall and look like a moron before you get blown to smithereens. The lancaster gets a feeling of satisfaction from seeing you screw the maneuver up before they blast you. If you succeed, you feel like a badass spaceship ninja. It's win/win for the game.

As one of those furious lancasters, I heartily concur. There is nothing more satisfying that catching an X trying to sneak up on you and chasing it down. The fact that the X is small, and has a legitimate chance of escaping once the chase is on, only adds to the drama.

+1 for no (or limited) stealth on X
+1 for small X

Note: I have almost never played X so my opinion is based on my experience as Lanc vs X

[bkgmjo]

Rion um... don't have to explode here. I got you as well as all others who complained/liked/requested stuff in various ways on the list and in case I ever get any rights to decide over what happens in pub I shall ask the people who actually play pub what they prefer. However, this would not only be the people who insult the most or write the longest texts or have the highest post counts on forums and it will annoy some people, too. What I can do here right now is only collect opinions, give a few answers and forward them to sysops who are supposed to judge.

Just as a side info maybe: The goal of the weasel change was to promote basing and make defending flagroom easier and more reliable, since many kept stealing flags on solo freq with an extremely unfair advantage of having many entrances from all sides and a ship that can barely be hit due to it's size and speed. I totally agree that the small weasel is awesome to play and it is fun to duel other ships with it and I would happily support it staying, if it did not have it's side effects on the basing population. Your claims of it being such a bad design are pretty invalid though, as Trench Wars grew to the biggest zone with the big weasel.

[c00l_b0y]

I'd be exploding if they had changed my favourite ship into something else... wouldn't you bkgmjo?

You say the sysops are the ones the decision rests with, then why aren't they here reading what the userbase thinks of these changes?

I see why they put a german in charge of relaying the userbases thoughts to these fucks who don't even care enough to read a forum, absolute loyalty, I can see how the conversation will go exactly

"HEIL MEIN FÚHRER"

"So what do people on the forums think about these changes?"

"SEHR GUT MEIN FUHRER"

"Ah yes now we must change another ship, people love when their ships change"

"YAH YAH WUNDERBAR MEIN FUHRER"

Jokes aside das tut mir leid bkgmjo

[M_M God]

Now now c00l_b0y, he actually isn't german so don't even dig up old WW2 'jokes'. Seriously though, we do read everything that's being discussed on these forums, as that's part of our job and because we do indeed value the opinion of our players dearly. A lot of people are forgetting the simple fact that TW has played with a big, original weasel for years, that many of the players didn't like the change to the small weasel at the time and that people tend to get bored by having everything stay the same for years and years. The thing with changes is, some will like it, some will not and certain changes will be accepted better by the playerbase than others. It's good to use this to voice your opinions, so we can gather feedback and discuss what changes seem to have worked or are liked, and which are not. While bkgmjo and others responding here may be staff, they are also just normal players as well, just like myself, we do what we think is necessary or will improve the zone and have been doing that for years. We have the best interest for the zone, it's players and the continuity of the game itself, hence some recent changes, moving to Steam and continuous discussions and talks about ways to improve the zone and attract new players, give them a more fair playing ground, etc. We are still limited in what we can and cannot do and try to work with that. As always, just post your thoughts here, what might improve the zone and why these changes aren't good in your opinion, and we will discuss and review them together with the rest of the people concerned with Pub and our new player efforts.

[c00l_b0y]

Right fine fine I'll cool it a bit but mate while you're here, and if our opinions our valued so dearly, why can't we just put a quick poll out and then it can be democratically decided and personally I won't mind the changes if they're voted for...

Just as long as it boils down to a few folk making decisions at the top, and not a vote; You've got to admit the fascist jokes aren't entirely out of place...

[Fork]

Right fine fine I'll cool it a bit but mate while you're here, and if our opinions our valued so dearly, why can't we just put a quick poll out and then it can be democratically decided and personally I won't mind the changes if they're voted for...

Just as long as it boils down to a few folk making decisions at the top, and not a vote; You've got to admit the fascist jokes aren't entirely out of place...

Yeh and as long as changes are evaluated to see if going in the right direction or actually was it a bad decision? Personally though there needs more incentive\ more reason to play pub... Playing so many rounds of pub achieves what? It gets boring fast but how can we tempt players to become addicted to staying online, to tempt players to get out of spec and play pub when there's only 2-3 players playing? Ideas like what I suggested in the past: jackpot spacebux at the top of the screen that goes up with each kill in flagroom\ flag time... And freq that wins gets 10% of that number in spacebux should spice pub up. The changes to pub have just really been about altering ship settings... Which isn't really a change. Smarter changes would be anything that doesn't ruin the gameplay of pub basing but adds an addictive factor to tempt people to stay logged in to achieve something.

[Steep]

... why can't we just put a quick poll out and then it can be democratically decided and personally I won't mind the changes if they're voted for...

Just as long as it boils down to a few folk making decisions at the top, and not a vote; You've got to admit the fascist jokes aren't entirely out of place...

Ops cant rely heavily on polls, whats the margin for error with 15/500 voting? polls are misleading when someone tries to make big decisions. in my opinion, the only way to measure a success for (pub) changes is to observe the gameplay. at least bkj has made some points, whether his points are delusional or not, is up to debate. For example, i dare to say, that few years ago when lts were "killed" from the zone, it saved the pub even when it ment losing those diehard lts. and yeayea, pub isnt active atm, but it was then two years ago.


ps facist jokes are out of place u нацист

[roxxkatt]

fat wzl has been universally hated every time some knucklehead has had the bad idea of bringing it back
thats why small wzl has been a fixture ever since dock> put it in 15 years ago

the only thing fat wzl does is stop the ppl complaining about late round flag touches



a far better idea is to reinstate small wzl with lv2 guns, cloak/stealth/xradar, no specials, and slower spd/thr with drastically reduced afterburners

[roxxkatt]

the old small wzl was good, but it shouldnt be 1v1 dueling with warbirds