Trench Wars Pub & Zone REVITALIZATION - Need your feedback

[Voth]

A lot of great ideas being tossed out and discussed here. Plus, many of the critiques have made us realize that we do need to alter things to make this realistic and setup for success. One thing I want to make clear is that this idea of including sub-games (base, wbduel, javduel) in the Public arena is separate from the issues people have with Pub itself (i.e. Levi's, private freqs, etc. This is not to say that discussion about those issues is not welcomed, because it is, but I just wanted to make it clear that the implementation of those possible changes to pub is separate from this other proposal.

Here are a few big points that I want to toss out there after reading responses here and speaking with people in-game about the idea:

1. Randomizing Teams - This is one of the big things that I think is going to be necessary. We don't want stacking, and we don't want a thousand messages spamming everyone every time someone gets added to the game, subbed, ship changed, switched, etc. For basing, we will still need a cap assigned for each team, who will handle subs, shipchanges, etc. For example, if we have 16 players ready to go for 8v8 basing, the teams will be randomized to 8v8 (all spiders) by the bot, and the captain will then change two people to shark and one person to terr. They can also change people to include specials (wb/jav/lanc), but no more than two per freq for 8v8.

My belief is that randomizing teams will streamline this whole process and make it inherently simple. A wbduel game is gearing up, simply secure your spot with !playwbduel or something similar, and then once the spots are filled, the bot will automatically randomize teams and start the game. For wbduel and javduel, we either will need to code in to the bot to include a feature that there's a player needed on Freq 1, type !enterwbduel to sub, this being for if someone ragequits, lags out too much, has to log off unexpectedly, etc in OR we will have to have a captain assigned for wbduel/javduel as well. The only reason I don't like the idea of the captain is because we might still have trolls subbing newer or less skilled players out for their buddies because of the randomizing of the teams. Hopefully it wouldn't be an issue, but with a lot of our players, I wouldn't be surprised? The flip side of the coin is that a lot of players are worried about some pub trolls screwing up these games on purpose, so maybe it is best to have a cap so that those players can be subbed if needed. Either way, we will need staff oversight on these games in order to smooth over these issues and take action if necessary. NEED FEEDBACK on randomizing teams, if you guys could take a moment to touch on it.

2. Once games (wbduel, javduel, basing) are ongoing, Freq messages will be utilized to lower the spam for the other players. The only arena messages that will be necessary are to canvas for a substitute for one of the games. Obviously, when a game is gearing up, arena messages will be used to advertise that players are needed, etc, but once a game is going, Freq message will be used.

3. Lots of players I've spoken to privately about this in game are concerned about lag issues this might present, with all of the sub-games possibly going on in the background. I'm going to defer this question to qan, as I don't know. I've already emailed him about it, so I'll either post his response to me up here, or he can chime in himself. I don't know if we will know the extent of lag change until it is actually implemented.

4. Scoreresets for these games. Wbduel and javduel require it - base doesn't necessarily. How can we work around this so that people don't have their pub K : D reset every time they play a javduel? Is it possible for the bot to just keep track of 10 deaths from their current death tally? Meaning, if my pub K : D is 501-300, the bot will know that I'm out of the game when my pub K : D reaches 310? I know this will make it harder for people to keep track of other players' deaths during the game, but the bots are now freq PMing when players reach 7, 8, 9 deaths so that will alleviate some of the issues. I deferred this to qan too, as it would be he who would have to tell me if it's possible and/or worthwhile to code this into the bot. Again, I just don't know.

5. Levis, Priv Freqs, etc: Like I said before, these are separate issues than the sub-games being included in pub. We all have our opinions on how pub should be...a lot of times, you can get infinite different opinions. It's tough to sift through all of them and really make any big changes, because you're just not sure how much player-base you will alienate. I know a lot of players like LTing, like hunting LTs, like fraying in center, etc, so it's hard for me to go ahead and say we should just eliminate leviathans, or chop off the bottom of the map to force people to base. I think there has to be some sort of compromise made on these issues, and I'm not sure what it is. I'll brainstorm a bit more about it and try to include some ideas. I do think that eliminating private freqs might be a good place to start, because as Moot (Hi Moot!) pointed out, at least an LT on a pub freq is sort of forced to assist their team rather than just obliterate both teams and cause people to rage out.

[godisdead]

My feedback.

I have been playing since 1999 with a few breaks here and there and have seen good times and bad in TW pub, which is all I have ever played.

I appreciate the work that has gone into these suggestions but I feel they are more of a sticking plaster than address the core issues. I feel people in spec are afk most of the time apart from two or three for example.

Likewise, introducing events or mini games within the same map is interesting but will not increase player numbers - it will just group them together in the same room, the only difference being that they are playing different games. It will give an illusion of more people only, but I suspect the public basing activity will be more or less the same.

However the intentions I completely agree with - that is, to get more people playing.

My suggestions:

New players do get some help from ZH but all too often they are trolled in game and also in chat. It takes a few days to get up to speed and I wonder how many new players give up. With a stack of unfamiliar buttons to work out even just to fly shoot bomb warp attach etc I wonder if it is all too much for some.

Solutions? I feel players should be warned not to verbally abuse new players, or perhaps new players could have an icon or symbol next to their name.

Public basing

When the warping into base was introduced this was a genuinely worthwhile feature and when the basing is good, its really good. Good basing keeps players coming back, so I feel if time and resources are going to be invested, they should be spent enhancing the core game - public basing. The changing maps are good and it is these changes that are key to retaining and increasing the audience.

I feel the one element that could benefit from a serious enhancement is changes to each of the ships that come and go. Sporadic and random changes to ships lasting from a few seconds to a few hours could be really good. There are so many parameters and variables to experiment with the possibilities are endless. For example allow levs to have a spider attachment for an hour asa defence turret.

As long as a ship is always enhanced (never reduced) I feel it will always be received positively.

We have seen some experiments with ships recently but they seem to disappear as fast as they arrive, and players are never invited to feedback on these changes.

That is all.

[Rab]

Can we chop the bottom off the map too to encourage ppl to go in base asap?

[Rab]

Mootland's idea of disabling priv freqs is good. Can we do that asap?

[Fork]

so wat uh water ahem water u cough somethin in throat water u fkin warin i wont ask agin gif me deetales sayed it slowoly

Translation: water u fking wearin

[Mootland Farmer]

Probably the best thing to do if your gonna have all these sub-arenas / maps in Public 0 is remove private frequencies, especially if you want good basing action. One of the problem with Leviathans is that they offer nothing on a private frequency. They are not going for the flag are they? If they are 'forced' to join freq 0 or 1 at least they can help either team reclaim the flag.

[forwards]

ban all the lying corrupt scum in staff

U can start by unbanning me and giving back my 47 mill.

also allow this

[Leland]

kick out everyone from spectator mode.

[Crescent Seal]

so wat uh water ahem water u cough somethin in throat water u fkin warin i wont ask agin gif me deetales sayed it slowoly

[Jones]

Here's my idea:- we host battle royal. A huge arena with everyone fighting in it. If you're in the red zones during the announcement and then your lifebanned. Get killed by your hunter and your lifebanned. Until there is 1 survivor and he becomes the ultimate player the game has seen...This needs to be the final event

there is already a survivor, we call him Iron

[Ivf]

These changes should of been done years ago, to keep the players who was already hooked.
The game is dead and there's no way of improving population IMO.

Here's my idea:- we host battle royal. A huge arena with everyone fighting in it. If you're in the red zones during the announcement and then your lifebanned. Get killed by your hunter and your lifebanned. Until there is 1 survivor and he becomes the ultimate player the game has seen...This needs to be the final event

[Jones]

Pub should definitely be made more attractive for people. It should have happened years ago. I don't think pubbux has ever been a good idea. Weasels and Levis do more harm than good. Lack of leadership with balls catered to the few levis a few years ago (actually more than a few) and so any good basing game is destroyed by lamers only thinking about themselves.

Base has doomed itself over a couple of years with 99% of the basers stacking on 1-2 squads. Basing has died because of this. Picking the best and friends while acting as captains for years has successfully weeded out any newbies entering ?go base and some random warbird from paladen or whatever who was lucky enough to get picked. Combined with the fact that people like Rab just so enjoys yelling at people, whining and quitting whilst being a terr because the team "wasn't good enough". In conclusion: the elitist attitude and dreams of receiving a pixelated medal even if it means never getting to play has deteriorated basing into a joke over the last few years.


The problem with combining base and pub is mixing 2 different people together. Cres pointed this out earlier in the thread. The problem is basically that while flagroom basing is chaotic ?go base has some sort of structure. Figure out how to make that work either with people taking the time to teach pubbers how to do it properly or just let anyone enter until it's 8v8 and game begins.

I would love to see an active ?go base arena as it were a couple of years ago. As a warbird or javelin the base games offered a fun and different competitive aspect and offered am enjoyable break to the repetitive wbduel and javduels.

I am for this idea of trying a ?go base aspect in pub. I would love to see that league up and running again and I would be absolutely happy if pub would start attracting new players. This of course takes a zone-wide effort we can't afford to be egoistical and only think about ourselves.

[rothe]

I may be reading you wrong raizin but I think people are talking about consolidating arena's into pub correct? Not more arenas

And yea I would like to hear from you and others higher up the tree what your thoughts are about the levi problem and the problem with people being able to get points in pub when its 5v1 or just noone on the other team and they still get points. LF made some good points.

Lets hear some feedback from staff now.
That is exacttly what people want
Sooooo
Lets hear some feedback on thoughts about this go into the teepee and meditate on solutions.

edit
Maybe this
Only pub for squads then have the base arena open only when the matches play during the season then shut those arena's back down so people have to train and interact with one another (also rising pub population) in pub?

Edit

Yea though I want to hear someone on staff justify how in pub one levi and one terr come in and its fair that they ruin the game for anyone in base shouldn't there be a minimum population or something?
Sitting at the bottom safe and throwing shots at base or flying to the top of the base and shooting at base to kill anyone in base is just horrible or do staff disagree?

Please I would love answers to these questions. People say there is so much staff lets here from staff or just other players.

[raizin]

I know the population is low, but if two pubs where brought back again, would enough basers find there way back to purepub? It's the only way to not alienate players who like to levi while pleasing anti-levi players.

[Trasher]

Agreed with Voth, for once.