Changes to Public Arena coming June 10th

[angry.chair]

Stick to go basing

i've talked to people who played for years and didn't even know about esc+a.

if ?go base is your solution to a pure pub, to the new steam players i say have fun playing nothing but spider. all the other spots have been filled for 20 years.

there's not enough patience and a lot of bad attitude outside of pub. pub is where it's at, it's where it's always been. i won't hold my breath for 2 pubs worth of new players from steam, but i'm really hoping for 7 pubs worth of new players. you might not like me and think im bad for this game, but i've been playing almost 14 years and this is the only game i've never quit. the divide of "pubbers" and "non pubbers" feels very real. which is sad when no one plays this game and there's only 20 people taking it seriously. it might seem obvious but having more players is the only solution to fixing everyones problems because the only answer to them is more filled pubs.

[evil Broccoli]

I second Rion... if we are going to stick with the weasel as a cloaker thing, then the small cloaker is the way to go, the big weasel is clumsy, obvious, useless and a easy target, no one plays it now.
Although i still have my opinion that we could convert the weasel into a bricker ship to include in the base dynamic, if we stick with cloaker, go with the small one, much more fun.
as for ?go base, waiting for a critical mass of players to go there once a day is frustrating, either incentive mods to host "base events" more often or we could turn it into an automated elim style thing

[Viruk]

So weasel now has cloak, stealth AND still has a rep? What is the plan for defending against a ship most ships cannot see until it flips the flag... and can then push everything out of the way? More TKing flag mines from sharks? Lots of TKing repped bombs from newbie javs? Suicidal terr rushes?

[Rion.]

The solution is simply to change it back. This change is the kind of thing that will really damage retention come the Steam launch. "Fuck you" mechanics like a completely undetectable ship were more acceptable in the period this game launched. The gaming landscape has evolved. It's not OK any more. First impressions are important and players that are used to playing modern games will not put up with it.

Consider:

Steamnoob: I like ship 1, how do I fight the invisible ships?
Bitter Vet: You can't, you need to change ship to see them.
Steamnoob: But I like ship 1...
Bitter Vet: Yeah then sometimes weasels just kill you, that's how this game is.
Steamnoob has left the arena.

By contrast:

Steamnoob: I died to an invisible ship?!
Bitter Vet: Check the radar more, noob.
Steamnoob: Oh, you can see them there? Ok, got it!

Then how much of a badass is this noob going to feel when they radar snipe some jerk that's trying to sneak up on them? That's how you keep players.

I'm hopeful we can at least get a productive dialog to follow this announcement of the changes.

It seems that the block was simply reeling off public relations platitudes rather than actually intending to engage with the community. I'll be sad to see this great old game die due to easily preventable junk like this.

[Crescent Seal]

It seems that the block was simply reeling off public relations platitudes rather than actually intending to engage with the community. I'll be sad to see this great old game die due to easily preventable junk like this.

nothing new and will continue to happen.

[PH]

shark had x-radar since birth

krynetix took it away because his low iq somehow led him to believe that nerfing sharks would silence the levs and weasels who were screaming at each other

not at sharks, at each other

just so we're on the same page here, teams only have one full-time line of defense against weasels now (terr)

alternatively they can rely on javs who have to toggle their radar, i don't know about you but i've watched the current crop of pub javs and they already tk more than enough without being tasked with trying to kill an invisible enemy that has a repel

and levs being able to green/buy x-radar is irrelevant from my perspective because lol @ base levs

just put it back already

[kiDDos]

Shark used to have xradar by default, how does a base ship have to go to safe to buy xradar to defend against a full cloak? basically most ships have to go to base to defend against a cloak... how is that good for basing?

[kiDDos]

go to safe*

[kiDDos]

Ok, i take that all back because i can't even buy xradar in safe as a shark. So I am completely defenseless against cloaks. Sounds like a good balance.

[the block]

The lack of X-Radar on the Shark was an oversight which has now been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out!

[kiDDos]

The lack of X-Radar on the Shark was an oversight which has now been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out!

woot! TY

[bkgmjo]

This might be a bit early to draw conclusions about the changes, but a general impression I personally got from watching pub play since then is that flagging freqs seem to be much more stable now due to the lack of !buy win and flagstealing. The issue of massive freqhopping however remains and still has to be addressed. But with less fast changes of the flag owning freq teamkills also seem to have been reduced.

The teamplay factor also seems to have increased. Partially, because freqs have to rely on radar information from their allies, but also because many who look for easy kills now roam spawn area fully cloaked and drive people who used to just spawnkill closer to flagroom and teaming, which in the long run keeps more players in the game.

Even though LevTerrs now do not have to face random epidemic or roofturret buys anymore, they have a much harder time warping away due to constantly needing radar turned on, which needs to be turned off to warp and reduces recharge rate. Still, now the !buy advantage is on their (and jav roofer's) side as most who focus only on the flag game will barely ever visit safe zones. This could be reduced a bit (and shifted into collecting greens instead of buying) by drastically increasing the costs for items (factor 10 at least) as LTs barely get income in the form of pubbux. The game should after all favor skill in flight and aim instead of promoting ports to safe zone every five seconds. Additionally, I do not really like seeing a radar on levs as cloaks are a pretty good counter to fast re-greening and I fail to see a reason why a warbird or lanc should not but able to defend against cloaks in spawn, but a lev should.

The weasel itself now finally became a real surprise weapon again, able to blow away mines on entrance unexpectedly, lurking for careless LTs without radar, making people actually turn on radar to see them and being far less of a lamer ship in basing action. It does play a role in laming people in spawn yes, but they are not really fast enough to chase down ships flying towards base and I don't really see why it's bad to have one spawner kill the other. What I personally do not like much is that it drains energy when fully cloaked and is so weak. It should be able to remain in a spot and wait for prey or hide in the enemies base and wait for the right moment to strike. A single yellow or two red bullets already kill it, which only allows suicide mission inside base without a chance to sneak away again. This was okay when it was small, but with this size and speed dodging in close combat is not really an option.

Good job giving sharks radar back btw.

[forwards]

This might be a bit early to draw conclusions about the changes, but a general impression I personally got from watching pub play since then is that flagging freqs seem to be much more stable now due to the lack of !buy win and flagstealing. The issue of massive freqhopping however remains and still has to be addressed. But with less fast changes of the flag owning freq teamkills also seem to have been reduced.

The teamplay factor also seems to have increased. Partially, because freqs have to rely on radar information from their allies, but also because many who look for easy kills now roam spawn area fully cloaked and drive people who used to just spawnkill closer to flagroom and teaming, which in the long run keeps more players in the game.

Even though LevTerrs now do not have to face random epidemic or roofturret buys anymore, they have a much harder time warping away due to constantly needing radar turned on, which needs to be turned off to warp and reduces recharge rate. Still, now the !buy advantage is on their (and jav roofer's) side as most who focus only on the flag game will barely ever visit safe zones. This could be reduced a bit (and shifted into collecting greens instead of buying) by drastically increasing the costs for items (factor 10 at least) as LTs barely get income in the form of pubbux. The game should after all favor skill in flight and aim instead of promoting ports to safe zone every five seconds. Additionally, I do not really like seeing a radar on levs as cloaks are a pretty good counter to fast re-greening and I fail to see a reason why a warbird or lanc should not but able to defend against cloaks in spawn, but a lev should.

The weasel itself now finally became a real surprise weapon again, able to blow away mines on entrance unexpectedly, lurking for careless LTs without radar, making people actually turn on radar to see them and being far less of a lamer ship in basing action. It does play a role in laming people in spawn yes, but they are not really fast enough to chase down ships flying towards base and I don't really see why it's bad to have one spawner kill the other. What I personally do not like much is that it drains energy when fully cloaked and is so weak. It should be able to remain in a spot and wait for prey or hide in the enemies base and wait for the right moment to strike. A single yellow or two red bullets already kill it, which only allows suicide mission inside base without a chance to sneak away again. This was okay when it was small, but with this size and speed dodging in close combat is not really an option.

Good job giving sharks radar back btw.

you ever quit whining?

[PH]

nope, i'm having to green x-radar

as shark

a ship that can die 7-8 times a minute in a flagroom battle

you're still doing it wrong

[angry.chair]

flagging freqs seem to be much more stable no

too many levs in base. lev can survive too easy in base. never 2 full teams, lev always on fuller team. quickest way to ruin basing, a lev you cant get to raping your half team.

usually dont care about ship changes. but would rather have small weasel in base than a lev.