Zone code changelog

[qan]

Agree that it's gotten a bit out of hand. You're certainly not the only person to note this. It's meant to be an occasional, special thing, not going constantly.

We're looking at ways to make it work a bit better within the normal structure of the zone. In the meantime, the following changes have been put in:

Duration: 1hr -> 30m
Cost: $290K -> $200K
Interval after AM ends that it can be repurchased: 0 min -> 15 min

[garbagehead]

Some further thoughts on Attach Mode:

1. It takes some of the strategy out of the game. A big part of flagging was protecting your terr and going after the other team's terr. Not anymore.

2. It takes variety out of the game. I have not played a single game with more than 6v6 without Attach Mode since it started.

3. It leads to endless rounds that really aren't very fun. There have been 40-, 50-, 60-minute rounds that just end with virtually everyone sharking and constantly repping in order to win the round. Normally long rounds are fun, but I find the hour-long Attach Mode rounds pretty boring.

4. Almost no one calls (i.e., posts in team chat saying to attach to them when other team members have died). Sometimes I am the only one on my team who has macros to use telling people to attach, so I spend a lot of my energy ticking different people's names and posting macros into chat. It's really annoying when you're the only person calling.

Personally, I would like to see Attach Mode disabled when it's more than 6v6 or 7v7 and just automatically enabled when it's less than that. It could be similar to how, when few people are playing, you spawn in base rather than in spawn. When you have enough people playing, usually someone is willing to baseterr. If the issue is people not BTing, you could always up the rewards for BT.

If people aren't on board with disabling AM, could there be certain days when AM is disabled? Maybe no AM on weekends or something? I feel like, otherwise, I am never going to get to play a big round without AM ever again.

Perhaps issue #4 could be addressed by automating macros somehow? Or giving everyone default macros to use? It's really irritating to be the only one calling on a team.

[garbagehead]

Hey qan, I think we have to rethink Attach Mode. When it's more than 5v5, it leads to these endless rounds where half the teams are sharking because you can never fully clear flagroom. It's just not very fun. It's great when there are only a few players, but it really takes away from basing when there are a lot of players.

[Leland]

thanks

[Kassius]

Pub

• MineAliveTime during small games (<17 players) is set to 15s when no opposing shark is found.

Like it

[BIET]

Pub

• MineAliveTime during small games (<17 players) is set to 15s when no opposing shark is found.

[BIET]

(Contributions by qan, Wirah, bitsaver, Dezmond, snoopie, BIET)

Pub

• Changing ships too quickly might take away items and prize energy deplete
• Sharks have 3 shrap in duels
• First !deploy is no longer free
• !rpsduel duels now are best of 3
• Flag capture delay for weasel raised to 7s. default is 3s
• !buy break adds a small break between flag games and starts a ball game with increased goal rewards
• !tktax command to disable getting money from players who TK you
• !afkcheck is auto run and checks everyone who's been idle and sends them a code
• !status shows a lot of interesting info
• !report <player>:<reason> allows players to report other players who are disrupting Pub
• !bug now used to report bugs instead of !report
• New spawn system that warps players to different regions based on amount of playing players
• !festival now has random multiplier between 300% and 1000%. Buying it while a festival is active adds 200% to the existing multiplier
• !throwdown <amount> goes to a group funded festival with a multiplier between 600% and 1200%. Activates after enough money has been added to the pot.
• Throwdown adds 300% to the existing multiplier if festival is already active
• Betting window on duels is now longer, as long as scores are event
• !buy attachmode makes most ships attachable for an hour
• STFU mode no longer gets stuck. !chatstate to check current state of chat
• New center timer showing time needed to window
• Top right timer now shows total time elapsed since round start instead of time to window
• Progress bar added to wall below flag that shows how close the flag holding freq is to winning the round
• Most item prizes doubled to account for inflation
• MineAliveTime and BombAliveTime reduced to 60s and 45s respectively
• DecoyAliveTime reduced from 100s to 20s

Web

• TWDT rosters (twdt.trenchwars.com)
• TWDT statistics and loads more
• New website for TWL (twl.trenchwars.com)

MatchBot (TWD/TWDT/TWL)

• Addition of star ratings in TWDT scoreboxes
• New MVP formula.
• Blueout is off by default for TWD matches
• !jupe command added, to be used by both teams captains to reset flag

Elim

• KO bonus 3%->5%, Win bonus/player 2%->4%, streak bonus 3%->4%
• Bot PMs players who voted for the losing ship for the next vote
• Betting on the winning player with !bet <name>:<amount>
• Bets are shown in ?chat=bettinglounge
• Elim skins added for placing in the top 10 of a season

BWJS

• Score above radar

Base

• Captains can now be seconded by other players and doesn't require staff to assign caps
• After holding the flag for x seconds, both teams are warped back to ears for a flag reset

Events

• New racing bot
• New racing events: baku, cota, dunkeswell, hungaroring, marinabay, monaco, montjuic, nurburgring, sakhir, shanghai, spafra, sunderland, suzuka, suzukasouth, yasmarina, zandvoort. All with improved graphics (cars, track, timer)
• Bombflag event + robobot module

App

• New TWChat app in the Play Store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...trenchwarschat)

General

• Loads of bug fixes
• Loads of small tweaks

[Soldier13]

you still suck

[Primary]

We should also track how many white people vs minorities are on staff so we dont have 2019 tw staff where it's just all racist white people.

[garbagehead]

Few suggestions for pub:

1) Private freq LTs are ruining the flag game. And I say that as someone who loves to solo lev and LT. There should be a version of purepub that you cannot lolnope that either blocks LTs or private freq LTs. Issue isn't solo levs, just LTs. IIRC, the people who got really upset about purepub buys (which led to introducing lolnope) were solo lev players.

2) Is there a way the arena could better advertise the hunting freq (99)? In my experience, I'm always having to PM other people (who are clearly also hunting the LT) to join it.

3) Is it just me, or are ports shorter now? The shorter ports make it harder to terr and solo lev. I prefer the older, longer ones.

Thanks for reading. Thanks also for making it easier to start a shufflevote---it's really improved the flag game. And thanks for all the other work you all do!

[qan]

(Contributions by BIET, qan, Wirah, K A N E and Zazu)


Pub

• Milestone system complete overhaul (previously known as "landmarks"). Includes tracking of dozens of new data points, storage when bot is rebooted, and a slew of commands
• !stats vastly improved, and scales depending on resolution
• !sessionmoney command to show all money earned/spent that session from various sources (flag game, kills, duels, milestones, etc)
• Much more accurate flag timer tracking
• Interzone Chat with Extreme Games via TW-Chat bot
• Ships reset at round start, refreshing port, repels and other specials. Bounty preserved
• Terrs given bonus based on how much time they spend in FR
• !rpsduel: both players choose ship without knowing the other's choice, then duel to 1
• !transfer/!collect allows you to transfer money between names without a 3rd party involved
• !kottop and !kotall to show most Kill-o-Thons won
• !warp fr/!warp base can now separately enable/disable warping into FR at round start, and warping into base during low pop
• !afkcheck now only requires 1 player
• Spawn kills no longer count toward Kill-o-Thon or landmarks
• Bot refunds purchases that are active when it shuts down
• Shufflevote now attempts to balance new teams by ship type
• STFU time to 30 minutes and a minimal cost. Can only be purchased in-game
• Now a 50/50 chance of ending up on freq 0 or 1, rather than always filling freq 0 first
• Terr duels now allowed
• # of hits needed to kill !buy baseterr now scales with number of current players
• Fix for freq stacking (long-time bug)
• Fix for occasionally being warped out of base during low pop spawn (long-time bug)
• Shrap removed from Jav duels
• Lotto ticket prices lowered
• Loyalty bonuses increased

TWD

• Scorebox overhaul, showing sub in/out times, ship switches/changes, who eliminated whom, and separate stats per ship in base
• !needborrow added, allowing teams to send a zone-wide request to borrow a player
• !whohas now works on WhoBot

TWDT site

• Created at http://twdt.trenchwars.com
• Match schedules with starting days and times
• Ranked standings list
• Team breakdown with stars for each player in each league + pick order

Elim

• Removed penalty for games with <10 deaths
• 100% confidence reached after 100 games (from 75)
• To be laddered, players must have played in the last 7 days
• Out of bounds abuse now allowed only once before spec
• PM beep when next elim starts for all players who were eliminated in the last one
• K shown for winner and MVP
• !rh (ratingshelp) shows explanation of ratings system
• Showing various stats in end round display
• Increased win rewards, particularly for win streaks
• 30s start time reduced to 10s
• K/D streaks now reset between rounds

Web

• Refactor of PayPal donation code

Racing

• Various improvements and tweaks

Forums

• Migrated to vBulletin 5
• Still need a better set of themes! Anyone willing to look?

General

• Hundreds of bugfixes, small feature additions and minor tweaks

[qan]

General

• When using a command that may accept partial name input, and there are two matches, provide a list of matches and ask which one was meant (TWD, BWJS, !ch in pub)
• !report command to send a bug report to staff Slack bots channel automatically
• !comment in pub now sent to Slack dev channel
• Reduced frequency of lottery somewhat, in response to reduced participation
• MessageBot now allows anyone to create and operate a channel

Pub

• !poker video poker added ("full pay" Jacks or better -- 99.54% payout with perfect play). !pokerinfo for more info
• !poker and !fruit by themselves now repeat the last bet made
• Landmark system greatly expanded (credit: BIET)
• Ability to turn off landmark messages, and reset your session !stats (credit: BIET)
• !commend simplified to give a set amount to all players
• !lolnope added; raised cost to $300K
• Rockets now have a 15 second between purchases, and slightly increased price
• Thor price increased
• !shufflevote refactoring
• Festival always continues until the end of the current round, never in the middle
• Intermission between rounds shortened from 100s to 40s
• $ Milestones shown only every $5K (was $500)
• Intermission extends if shufflevote is initiated

Elim

• Returned to classic base map
• !late allowed until 1st elimination
• Revised how stats are calculated, making it more difficult to get extremely high or extremely low ratings, and factoring skill in far more
• Practice mode removed
• Requiring TWD registration to earn a ladder rating and $ from matches
• Dramatically increased win rewards, especially for games with many players
• $ bonuses for win streaks/breaking win streaks
• Only Jav or WB now allowed as vote choices
• Rating confidence at 100% after 75 games played
• Names will be added with proper casing on ladder splash after next reset
• Storing round data about each player (will make it possible to show detailed stats later on)
• 3rd level of doors in WB for extremely small games (5 or fewer)

TWD

• Borrow enabled by default
• Watches on enemy deaths automatically at 8
• More time for lineups when adding time in ?go base
• !borrowlist now shows rating in TSL
• !borrowme should not expire until you log off (need to verify)
• Check for player registration before allowing borrow

Base/Jav/WBDuel

• Watch commands from TWD added
• Watches on enemy deaths automatically at 8

TSL

• Squad vs world
• Various matchmaking improvements and bugfixes
• !backfill fixed
• Show ranking of your value this game compared to other games (Just earned your #2 value this season! etc)

[Rab]

TWD Website
- "On the Move" default filter changed to "Since 1 week". Removed: "Since 24 hours" (too short), "Since 3 days" (too short), "Since All-time" (didn't work).
Link: http://twd.trenchwars.org/onthemove

TW.org
- Removed broken link "TWDT" from "Network:" section.
- Fixed "Getting Started" link so it actually goes to the "Getting Started" guide.
Link: http://www.trenchwars.org/index.php?v=gethelp&id=2

[Rab]

TWD Website
- "Free Agents" page no longer includes players who are currently in squads. Now you can actually use this page to find people to recruit!
Link: http://twd.trenchwars.org/freeagents

[Rab]

?go base
- No longer need to !nominate caps. A new game will start when two people !cap.