NEW Pub LEVI and Small X in Testing

[qan]

The levi guns being reduced to 650 energy isn't helping. Here's my argument: the biggest complaint about the new levi is the L3 bombs. Guns, reps, etc, are fairly peripheral in terms of concerns. Ultimately, to much has been traded. It wasn't a fair deal to the levi at the end of the day.

I'm trying to approach doing these changes as more of a process, hopefully one we can kind of engage in as a community. Not too personally tied to any particular changes. But, I do get the feeling that by and large, most Levis prefer what we've got now to the L2 Levi. 650 on guns doesn't let you double-shot, it's true. And it's possible that double-shot wouldn't affect things that much negatively, because if they miss, it leaves the Levi at basically 0 energy, whereas before it would leave you at around 500, and able to fire another L2 again fairly quickly after. It's something we can still look at in time.

To be candid, the approach with both of these ships is to try to restore some desired functionality (L3/small size) that is pretty controversial, but do it in such a way that grudgingly, the opponents of the ship are OK with. This might mean what seems like some pretty harsh nerfs until we can find a balance... where the ship is tolerable to both sides. And if you start with a ship on the weak side, then you don't risk players being up in arms over a clearly OP ship (at that point, simply adjusting settings won't help, even if they're harsh nerfs to counter; people will already be livid, and demand a return to the old, or simply quit in disgust). It's more innocuous doing it the other way around, then pushing up as needed. I've thought about this a fair bit, not just from a settings perspective, but also a PR/psychological perspective. I also have had a fair bit of experience balancing settings over time in Distension. I hope you can see some of the logic behind it.

The goal is to make pretty much nobody happy. Compromise is the process where every side can live with the results but no-one is overjoyed over them. It's not about what's fair. It's about what is tolerable to play for both. A Levi that, while frustrating to play in spawn, is still fun situationally, doing its trademark ridiculous damage, and encouraging vengeful hunters to get involved in that time-honored side game ... or to spawn the living crap out of Levis. Remember also that when we've had successful L3 in the past, we also had larger crowds, including a fair number just spawnkilling. Today it's a bit easier to get out of spawn and start lobbing, though you'll still have some problems. And, yes, you can't just ?buy in safe to green anymore so it's definitely tricky there. But you can get out of spawn more easily than back in the day. I remember just suffering through death after death as a Levi, and not even support could prevent it sometimes. Going solo is certainly still very challenging. But the Levi's never been exactly designed to go solo, instead practically requiring either a Terr or a protecting fighter. It's a ship built for cooperative play.

As far as greening X goes, if you place XRadar in greens it also will spawn on players, because the 3 bounty you begin with is 3 provided greens. I suppose we could start bounty at 0, but that seems pretty extreme. Not having XRadar certainly steers it away from being solo-viable, but that's never been the focus of the ship. Everything about it begs to partner with someone else. Not that soloing's not possible, but doesn't seem like it should be a priority. If anything, discouraging soloing has always been the goal of Levi settings. Suppose we could look at high-drain XRadar that spawns on the Levi. Just not sure how big an issue it is right now, especially considering that weasels no longer have Stealth except via !buy, and even then it's pretty high drain, so not that useful for Levi spawning.

As for small x, I'm not sure it needed changed at all. The original small x settings were a perfect balance.

Respectfully, I strongly disagree. Especially re: their old afterburner settings, which would let them sit outside base and then just storm in and nab the flag for the bonus, then run back out again and wait. They may need some changes, but the original small X was a menace to flag games. I'm not sure you participate in flag games, so you may not have experienced this, but trust me, it was quite bad at a certain point. It was loathed enough to return to the large X, until people forgot about what it was capable of and now are generally in favor. (This is how Levis usually go, too. And so we swing back and forth between extremes.) It may not be where it needs to be -- that would be amazing luck, to just be able to take a thoughtful stab at some settings and have them work brilliantly (and I've seen some sysops incredibly frustrated because their settings didn't work perfectly the first time without any real playtesting ... how could you expect anything but some degree of failure?). But I disagree that it's actually less useful than the larger X. Time will tell, though.

Please give it some time to see how it works in context of the whole game, not just from a personal perspective. I was a little bit exasperated when you came on right after the changes went in and immediately had a strong opinion. How can you form a well-reasoned opinion on anything in 30 seconds? Try to look at it from an arena perspective. I haven't even formed a serious opinion on it yet, and I spent quite awhile thinking about each setting, asking opinions, looking for ways to counter old problems and so on. It'll almost certainly need some tweaking... my initial reaction from watching it in play is that it's somewhat underpowered, and could use a slight speed boost and perhaps the permanent starting rep rather than chance of. Maybe a bit longer rocket -- though they can already do most of what the rocket does with thrust shooting. It also takes time for players to be able to utilize new settings effectively, so it may need a bit more for skillful play to emerge.

small weasel is THE WORST thing you can do. map wasn't designed for it, spend ages fighting for flag and some tiny fucker nabs it, awful.

Bet you have no interest in reading the above, but just wanted to let you know (and others who share this opinion) that we've tried to work to prevent its cheapest levels of play from being possible, especially re: disruption of flag games. Try playing Weasel and doing a rush at the flag from outside base, and you'll probably see it's difficult to get in and out again if the enemy team is awake at all. Usually by the time you hit flag you're pretty close to out of energy. So weasels will instead need to focus on taking out someone along the way and maybe having a shot at the flag afterward, but it's nowhere near as easy as it once was.

[2pac]

small weasel is THE WORST thing you can do. map wasn't designed for it, spend ages fighting for flag and some tiny fucker nabs it, awful.

its pub bro not .?go base chillax

[Rab]

small weasel is THE WORST thing you can do. map wasn't designed for it, spend ages fighting for flag and some tiny fucker nabs it, awful.

[Azov]

It's slightly tweaked from old small X to specifically prevent it from being able to overburden flag games, but it should be an improvement over the recent large X, which most people seemed to agree was nearly useless.

Levi gun fire energy has been reduced to 650 to slightly increase solo longevity, as a balance for what will surely be more of a problem for them with the new weasel.

Please let me know what you think.

First, let me state I think it's awesome you're making these changes to pub, qan. Without you guys we wouldn't be getting anywhere. That being said, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism. Solely my personal view on levi's and weasels:

The levi guns being reduced to 650 energy isn't helping. Here's my argument: the biggest complaint about the new levi is the L3 bombs. Guns, reps, etc, are fairly peripheral in terms of concerns. Ultimately, to much has been traded. It wasn't a fair deal to the levi at the end of the day. I think greening x-radar needs to be available, and you have to be able to fire guns twice to make them effective. Current energy levels still make the guns generally useless. Example: carrying an 18th century muzzle loaded musket versus a shotgun. You can't fire once, then tell the enemy, "oh hang on while I reload plz", wait until guns recharge, then say "okay ready!". You're either dead or your opponent is long gone by then. You need to be able to fire both barrels like a shotgun to have any hope of defending yourself in spawn. Levi's always have been and always will be easy targets. So all the trade offs have come at to high a price.

As for small x, I'm not sure it needed changed at all. The original small x settings were a perfect balance. Now it's more or less useless aside from going "weee" when you fly through tiny openings in base. I'd rather have the big-x again if this is the case. At least the big-x version of uselessness has more utility than the small one. If the small-x remains (which it should), it needs reps and its full rocket boost back to make it the effective "cloak and dagger" type ship it was. Otherwise it's liking pulling out of your garage a rare coffin nosed Cord you take out to drive around and show off. But you would never dream of doing much else with it because it's to high a risk of something bad happening.

[rothe]

nvm delete

[qan]

Small X is now in testing in pub. I updated the first post of the thread with the specific details.

It's slightly tweaked from old small X to specifically prevent it from being able to overburden flag games, but it should be an improvement over the recent large X, which most people seemed to agree was nearly useless.

It should also be of good use for attacking solo Levis that go roof and bombard base, and in sidestepping those irritating sharks that love to mine the base entrance when there's a low pop and no opposing shark.

Levi gun fire energy has been reduced to 650 to slightly increase solo longevity, as a balance for what will surely be more of a problem for them with the new weasel.

Please let me know what you think.

[qan]

U guys gonna add something dif in pub for once or continue to mess around with ship settings until game is dead? Heh

Yeah, I know, bit of an old cliche, screw with the Levi a bit. Well, it's an attempt to get back to a core mechanic of the game, with Levis at L3. If it doesn't work out the old settings are always just around the corner, and nothing really lost. In the end it's something some people wanted to see, and we've hypothesized a solution. It doesn't cost much to try it, and didn't cost much to come up with it, either. As far as something different in pub... everything added has the potential to turn into a firestorm and ruin the game in its own way. I've added a lot of new things to pub over the years (anyone still remember when the flag time game went in, so many years ago?). But it's never been easy. Also, if I put a lot of work into something major in pub, it's always bound to make someone salty about how not enough work is being done in some other part of the zone.

They've been doing that since 1999 or so. I'd rather them stop playing with pub and start fixing everything else in the zone, but that rarely happens. Too many people log in for 15 minutes a day to play pub for them to focus on the people that play 15 years and keep the game propped up.

As your humble workhorse/servant/slave, this one respectfully implores you to consider that it works on many things other than pub. Most of it goes largely unseen. Some more noticeable things include: reworking elim's laddering system in order to favor longer play, as well as work toward additional elim options such as late entry and practice arenas; working with claus to improve TWD stats to create a more meaningful rating system, as well as an individual-focused TWD laddering system; push notifications to phones, with other devs working on bringing the ability to receive TWD notifications on phones and reply to them; pairing with map developers to freshen up maps in various areas; etc. If the young master has suggestions as to how this one should better allocate its time, please consider attaching an Excel spreadsheet with optimized schedule. But it only meekly requests that you allot it 15 minutes for breakfast.

You can also do plenty on your own to help the zone (Rework maps! Tilesets! Sound packs! Settings! Mentor new players! Promote the game outside the community! Design easily-implemented solutions to known problems in the zone! Simply detail those problems without being incredibly condescending and self-satisfied!), but mostly it's disparaging forum posts. Not in and of themselves unproductive, I suppose, and we all must have a machine to rage against. Allow me to leave you with this link in commiseration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOqOlETcRU

[Funky Hobo]

I like the big lev changes and ideas, pub has been great fun with the increase of LT activity.

One slightly controversial thing I would say is that the introduction of the new Most Levi Kills at the end of rounds may be making the Levi's big targets in spawn (they may possibly need more protection). That being said, I've noticed that the anti-lev spawners have given rise to pro-lev protectors who bodyguard the levs from those spawners. Interesting politics/gameplay!

Also, bring back the small x! (with just cloak as before) It's about time. That was a unique ship to tw that added another dimension to game play during basing.

[Exalt]

U guys gonna add something dif in pub for once or continue to mess around with ship settings until game is dead? Heh

They've been doing that since 1999 or so. I'd rather them stop playing with pub and start fixing everything else in the zone, but that rarely happens. Too many people log in for 15 minutes a day to play pub for them to focus on the people that play 15 years and keep the game propped up.

[Fork]

U guys gonna add something dif in pub for once or continue to mess around with ship settings until game is dead? Heh

[bounty]

Yes agreed... i had em set at 500 energy to fire ..was so levi could defend itself alone in spawn.. qan wanted em at 800 .. and with bombs at 1040 to fire you might as well not use guns anymore when alone. The guns are crippled more than most like

[Azov]

+1 for rothe's idea.

Also, one thing I noticed about the lev is you can't fire double bullets to kill something. Not enough energy :|

[rothe]

I have an Idea for a new base.
Players will have to adapt quickly.



also thank you for links will try some things and settings like i member.

[Fork]

Could you trial out an idea I suggested here: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthr...-to-pub-design

Im sure it will test the skills or provide a challenge for players trying to enter base from the sides... Very very simple to add in and like I said could just be a trial to gather peoples opinions (I know I would practise trying to enter and perfect it)

[olde]

I like the trees and such to jazz up the map idea. To be honest I requested the ?go boki map to be the new full time pub map back before the resize map was announced. The green, leafy jungle enviroment is super cool and the hiding effects would be epic in pub. In my opioion weasel small or large should keep the L3 bullet. One hit kill is a must, if you fire cloaked and just damage an enemy, it will just piss em off and thats trouble for you recharging.

Make it happen :P