Looking for Constructive Input and Opinions

[Bosshawk]

Hi folks....

Im going to poke the bees nest and ask for opinions and thoughts here.....please no bashing just inputs on cause and affect... im sure it will irritate some people and others will embrace it... but would like an intelligent discussion....

For years we have nerfed the lev, repeatedly and multiple times... with the root of the reason being LT's.....
I can understand the fun for an LT and have LT'd plenty in the last 20 years....

I also thoroughly enjoyed solo leving.. it was what originally got me hooked on the game....

I had a discussion with qan about something and he said maybe throw it out here for people to give thoughts on.. not 100% sure its feasible... and there might be a couple different ways to go about it...

As of now.. the lev really is almost an unplayable ship on its own... theres a few like me that will still try to solo it... but even with all the nerfing the most it is used is as an LT still...

I firmly believe that the nerfing increased the desire for LT rather then reduce it as it made the ship unplayable by most unless the used it as an LT....

This gets to the point of my post.....

Years ago this was not possible.. and without bots still woudnt be... but it might possible with bots now...
IF it was setup so a Lev could NOT stay attached to a Terr(with a certain bounty required).... it could attach but immediately forced to detatch.... would this be something considered interesting to try?

In order to do so the lev would have to be adjust back towards the original lev more... which would mean a faster rotation speed... slightly faster movement...faster bullet and bomb speed... or maybe even just bullet speed...in order to make it more capable of surviving on its own if it was someone that learned how to adapt...

I know..everyone fears tks by levs... in actuality there is far more and far faster tks by javs then there is by levs.. mind you increased lev us might change that....

Qan mentioned an intriguing thought.. with everyone loving spending pub bux... maybe u could still purchase the ability to LT... but then the ship would revert back to the settings now while the person had purchased the right to LT....


Big questions would be:
1: can we do it... ive been told possible.. but also told maybe not possible lol
2: would it be something embraced as a good thing? or something that people would feel would really be a detriment to the zone...
3: no matter what changes we make on any ship its always going to piss some off lol....so id love to get intelligent discussion rather then personal feelings or bias....
4: If possible.. the buy option to still LT a good thing or bad?

Definitely open to thoughts and suggestions.....

The game was designed with actually 9 ships but can only use 8... we have never used the night wasp except on special occasions... but it also seems that the lev has become a non-usable ship... and yes i know cloaker fans will immediately holler that it needs adjusting... lol... but lets keep this thread on point please lol

[Rab]

IMO levs shouldn't be in FR at all. If we're going to use bots for anything it should be to prevent levs from being in FR.

[skyforger]

Would not mind the classic lev. To avoid having to use bots, I'd consider giving turrets with a lev attached a decent speed penalty. The annoying thing about LTs to me is not that they deal a lot of damage, but that it's rigged hard to catch and kill one if they are any good. Still keep the bounty needed to attach with a lev, possibly even slightly increase it.

But I barely pub, so my 2c shouldn't hold much weight.

[Mootland Farmer]

You probably know my premise on this issue, but I think there could be some compromise. I think LeviTerrs would be ok if they were confined to only the main Public freqs. Many players lose interest in playing because they have to deal with private freq levs and the enemy team. There are simply not enough resources to commit to both successfully. Also I cannot remember correctly because it has been so long since I even saw Trench Wars settings, but perhaps the bomb could be downgraded to Level 2? Pretty much like the Javelin, but without the bounce. Maybe you could manually increase the blast radius a bit, and this could bring teamkills down, as well as making Levis use a bit more accuracy.

[Efhat]

You probably know my premise on this issue, but I think there could be some compromise. I think LeviTerrs would be ok if they were confined to only the main Public freqs. Many players lose interest in playing because they have to deal with private freq levs and the enemy team. There are simply not enough resources to commit to both successfully. Also I cannot remember correctly because it has been so long since I even saw Trench Wars settings, but perhaps the bomb could be downgraded to Level 2? Pretty much like the Javelin, but without the bounce. Maybe you could manually increase the blast radius a bit, and this could bring teamkills down, as well as making Levis use a bit more accuracy.

MOOT!!!!!!!!!!

[G.KNOXX]

I think the levis need to move faster and rotate faster that would give them a fighting chance oh and hi bosshawk

[Materix]

Speed penalty for the terr is an awesome idea IMO. Instead of nerfing the lev again, nerf the terr with the high survivability that carries it.

[Zeebu]

i only ever really enjoyed pub when purepub was going on so that tells you my opinion on levs

[Bosshawk]

[QUOTE=Zeebu;914972]i only ever really enjoyed pub when purepub was going on so that tells you my opinion on levs[/QUOTE

fair enough zeebu... but can you elaborate why? obviously you disklike the lev.. thats fine...everyone has their choice.. im trying to get to the root of things to see if we can make it more useful or usable

is it because you feel it tks too much?
or do you dislike the LT's?

other reasons?

would love to know and learn :

[Zeebu]

i like basing and i felt that getting folks to 'base more properly' might get them more interested in leagues and whatnot

[G.KNOXX]

Ok so the lev's just need to go bye bye any way there just like big targets with signs that say SHOOT ME so make them faster or just get rid of them all together! You should put he night wasp in there place it's cooler any way and hint hint it's FAST! OMG SAY WHAT!😱 yep the night wasp is a lot F A S T E R DOWN WITH SLOW LEVIS 😬 START A REVOLUTION 😀😀😀

[qan]

(Very general comments, scattershot, apologies)

AFAIK disabling attach for specific players is not possible. We could do it for levis as a whole by setting the attach bounty quite high, though.

We had levs with L2 for a few years, and it was an interesting compromise. Though we covered it with blue bombs so that people didn't complain as much, heh! If people think that's a good way to go, could look at it again, with some maneuverability tweaks (and returning to 1500 energy). Increased rotation might be especially useful. Anyone know where some really old pub settings might be? Would love to compare these. The current settings are absolutely geared toward LTs, it's true. Low energy, big bomb. They came out of a time when we were trying to return L3 bombs to Levis no matter what.

Another possibly totally insane idea would be to give Levis L1 bombs (same as Jav/Shark). Straight bombing at high speeds is still incredibly destructive. A lot of the skill with Jav involves needing to bounce in order to make your shot work. This would definitely take away the oomph that we're accustomed to with Levis. But it might be interesting. Or, along that same line, if Levis were given L2 bombs, we could adjust settings so that L2 is actually somewhere between current L1 and L2. Slightly bigger than a Jav, but in the end not anything mind-blowingly destructive. Any of these kinds of changes would risk upsetting the delicate balance of basing. But they might be interesting to try on the weekend, to see how they play.

Reducing Terr's movement speed with a Lev attached isn't possible, unfortunately. That setting is for all ships. Terrs currently do have a slightly reduced speed with turrets.

It seems as if PurePub buys as a "solution" to levis is getting a bit extreme. I wonder if there might be another way. It used to be much more expensive but also last 3 times as long, so that it basically killed Levi action completely. Maybe going back to a longer time for more $ would be a good move, now that !lolnope is possible? In the meantime, I've increased PurePub prices slightly in response to the larger influx of money from festival buys, milestones and elim rewards (need to restart though). Hope that makes sense. There's just more money in the system and $35K has become worth much less than it was only a few months ago.

Another idea would be to have Lev kills not forbidden while purepub is active, but instead incurring a kind of tax. This might be a different kind of purepub buy, a cheaper alternative for example. It's I suppose similar in nature to !lolnope in that a levi with enough money can fight through it.

[Mootland Farmer]

It's called brainstorming Qan!

If I was to really push an idea for Levis, and it could also perhaps improve gameplay in Pub, it would be to disable or make it really hard for players to play on private frequencies.

Benefits:
-Players can still play the current / original Leviathan in pub without the fear of being forced out
-Teams have the ability and players to stop the enemy LeviTerr from bombing their base
-Teams can use the LeviTerr as a legitimate option to capture the base
-Games will be more instense / longer due to having more players on the main Public frequencies, which could lead to;
-Player retention. More interesting games leads to higher player retention in our game
-Less tinkering of the settings, and ease of implementation

'Cons'
-Less targets and bounty for Levis and LeviTerrs
-Ahh I can't think of any others...

Players can still LeviTerr, they can also Warbird duel in spawn, and they can still base. Even if you remove Private Freqs, players can still do all these traditional games in Pub.

Just some thoughts...

BTW, hi Cripple!

[Bosshawk]

definitely some interesting ideas!

[Major Crisis]

I dont really see a problem with lev in general.
The problem is more with the unbalanced teams. Often you see one of the teams end up with 2-3 levs and when they get hunted down by 1 player (or lev are being useless themself) the team has to get flag by less players. I see teams with 6-7 people having multiple levs and then its pretty impossible to make a good fight into FR. Just like several times a team ends up with multiple mid/spawn players (if not afkers). All this hurts a team really bad when it comes to FR fighting. And in the end a terrible FR fighting kills pub.