Suggestions for making TWD alive again

[olde]

+1 Turban,

[Fork]

I just have a feeling that turning twd into a league might not be the right approach.

Disadvantages:

1) If you make TWD into a league- would that make TWL less competitive???

2) There won't be any squad practice anymore if each game means something.

3) Lower squads are just gonna feel more depressed knowing: not only do they have any chance competing in TWL but now TWD league too. Might be less newb squads because of this and more stacked squads.

4) Could be less games played because squads may not want to risk playing top squads to lose points (when it comes near the end of the competition)

5) With no roster limit- squads could be even more stacked to the point we already know which squads going to win a month before competition ends.

Yes there might be more competition for those 3-4 squads that are decent but this certainly doesn't do any favors for those rubbish squads/ chill out squads that just want to have fun.

I mean instead of adding a new competition for those top 3-4 squads to have fun with. You could add fun + competition by just given some kind of reward for playing x number of games/ squads being able to challenge the world for a twd game...



--IDEA: TWD Events competition--:

Once a week- squads are invited to play many events in that day. (squads would be informed in advance) Inorder to play- 3 registered TWD players on each squad have to show up. Could be combination of events:

The events are random and could be Javufc/ Zombies/ twisted/ bigsealjavs/ wb events/ other events for basing. If only 2 players show up for each squad- could host tourny. (players not on a squad are not allowed to play- tricky part is doing a check on each player beforehand). If a squad looks very weak- the host could give them a slight advantage.

Could have ladders for this and a point system in place so the squad gets 3 points for winning the event/ 2 for 2nd place and 1 for the rest of the teams for playing.

Trial this out for a month or so (4 event days) to see how effective this is.

Another method is to invite squads for this competiton... and to have a knockout competition. There could be 6 squads who enter and after each event- the bottom squad is knocked out until there is a winning squad.

Advantages:

1) Something different + could be fun!

2) Encourages new players to be on a twd squad... then hook them in twd games mwhahah

3) New competition


Disadvantages

1) People might whine who aren't on a squad but still want to play the event- well too bad- join up to a squad!

2) Checking who's on a squad before event starts might be a pain in the arse.



I'll make a thread about this idea for the fun of it.

[mtine]

This thread isn't meant to stip of controversy for TW Staff, so please keep that out of this. All I wanted to do was start a conversation for improving TWD in general, adding more ideas to make it more appealing for pro/new players and changing some stuff that currently don't work/aren't appealing to the majority of players.

I like turb's and summa's ideas, but I need to know what exactly are we talking about here. Where to start? How is this gonna improve things? What should we (the players) do to help achieve it? And I'm definitely for adding rewards to this league such as achievements, maybe some pubbux, medals etc. and maybe even change the gameplay a little to make it more fun, for example adding new leagues (bear in mind this is just a suggestion), encouraging more squad-based events for achievements/prizes (like deathmatch, zombies) and in generally playing more together with your squadmates.

I know my idea is far-fetched, but I just wanted to show you guys that if we had something else to do then just qualify for TWL using TWD, this league is useless atm. There's no appeasing of playing a dd or jd match anymore because you can get the same feeling while playing wbduel/javduel while having better players on your team/more diverse teams. Plus more people play those arenas.

The main point is adding something to it, without the need of many coders (maybe 1 or 2) while adding stuff we (the normal players) can do (like changing maps, adding prizes, twitching settings etc.) to improve the experience while also encouraging new players to participate with like making pubsquads, adding ideas for achievements, helping maintain the website and so on.

Oh, and one last thing. I think it would be better if only 1 or 2 staffers worked on this that are really devoted to it and have an idea of what they are talking, and let players cooperate with them, because honestly, TW staff won't do zip about it (this discussion started before I even started playing and still nothing has changed), so yes, leave them out of the loop and concentrate only on people that wanna help.

[kthx]

Whats up Summa, staff sucks so bad though man.

[Turban]

There is a need for player and squad achievements, daily quests and milestones to give the players and squads clear goals to accomplish while giving them ways to track their current progress. Daily quests would be done on a league-by-league basis, meaning they could be achieved in all five leagues once a day / month / season. There could be daily quests in public for players and squads to complete as well for public cash rewards or something similar to that.

These achievements would include things from the public arena, elimination, weekend events, tourny, TWD, TWL, TWEL and so on, and the list below is merely a fast example. We would utilize the TWPD website to keep track of all the achievement progress of the players, and have leaderboards in each category along with statistics (percentage of players who have gained the achievement et cetera) and other fancy things.

DAILY QUEST (resets every 24 hours at 11:59PM EST)
WIN OF THE DAY - Grants a small rating bonus (5) to the squad for winning a ranked match.

MONTHLY QUEST (starts on 1st of each month at 12:01 AM EST and ends on last day of the month at 11:59 PM EST)
50 GAMES PLAYED - Grants a medium rating bonus (30) to the squad upon completion in the league where it was completed.
30 GAMES WON - Grants a medium rating bonus (30) to the squad upon completion in the league where it was completed.

SEASON QUEST (starts when the season starts, and ends when the final playoff matches end in TWL)
150 GAMES PLAYED - Grants a large rating bonus (60) to the squad upon completion in the league where it was completed.


[PLAYER - TWD]
PLAY A TOTAL OF 5/10/15/20/30/50/75/100/150/200 GAMES IN ONE LEAGUE
PLAY A TOTAL OF 10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/300/500 GAMES ACROSS ALL LEAGUES
PLAY FOR A TOTAL OF 2/5/10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/300/500 HOURS IN TWD

KILL A TOTAL OF 25/50/100/200/300/400/500/750/1000/1500/2000 PLAYERS IN A DUELING LEAGUE
DIE A TOTAL OF 25/50/100/200/300/400/500/750/1000/1500/2000 TIMES IN A DUELING LEAGUE
ACHIEVE AN ACE IN A MATCH WITH OVER 5/7/9/11/13/15/17 KILLS IN A DUELING LEAGUE
GET A KILL COUNT OF 8/10/12/14/16/18/20/22/24/26 IN ONE ROUND IN A DUELING LEAGUE
ELIMINATE 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100/150/200 PLAYERS FROM THE GAME IN A DUELING LEAGUE
KILL A TOTAL OF 10/25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/750 PLAYERS USING BULLETS IN TWLJ
WIN A TOTAL OF 5/10/15/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/250 GAMES IN A DUELING LEAGUE

KILL A TOTAL OF 100/200/500/1000/1500/2000/3000/4000/5000/7500 PLAYERS WITH A FIGHTING SHIP IN TWBD
KILL A TOTAL OF 10/25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/750 PLAYERS WITH A SHARK IN TWBD
KILL A TOTAL OF 10/25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/750 PLAYERS WITH BURST IN TWBD
USE 75/150/300/500/750/1000/1500/2000/2500/3000 REPELS AS A SHARK IN TWBD
GET 5/10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/300/400/500 FLAG CLAIMS AS ANY SHIP IN TWBD
EAT A TOTAL OF 100/200/300/500/1000/1500/2000/3000/5000 GREENS IN A BASING MATCH
ACHIEVE A 10/12/14/16/18/20/22 KILL PERCENTAGE AS SPIDER IN A FULL MATCH (TWBD)
WIN A TOTAL OF 3/5/7/10/15/20/25/30/50/75/100/150 GAMES IN A BASING LEAGUE

STAY ON THE SAME SQUAD FOR 5/10/20/50/75/100/150/200/300/500/750/1000 DAYS
BE A CAPTAIN OR ASSISTANT FOR A CONSECUTIVE 5/15/30/50/100/150/200/300/500 DAYS
REMAIN TWD REGISTERED FOR 10/25/50/75/100/150/200/300/500/1000/1500/2000/2500 DAYS
COMPLETE 1/3/5/10/15/30/50/75/100/150/200 DAILY QUESTS IN TWD

[PLAYER - TWL]
PLAY A TOTAL OF 2/4/8/16/32/64/100/150 GAMES IN A TWL LEAGUE
PLAY A TOTAL OF 2/4/6/8/10/12/16/24/42/50 FULL GAMES IN A TWL FINAL

[PLAYER - PUBLIC]
PLAY A TOTAL OF 5/10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/250/300 HOURS IN PUBLIC
GET 50/100/150/200/300/500/750/1000/1500/2000/3000/5000/10000/20000/30000 KILLS IN PUBLIC
COMPLETE 5/10/20/30/50/75/100/125/150/200/250 BASING ROUNDS IN PUBLIC
ASSIST ENEMY TEAM (!SWITCH) 5/10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200 TIMES IN PUBLIC
COMPLETE 1/3/5/10/15/30/50/75/100/150/200 DAILY QUESTS IN PUBLIC

[PLAYER - EVENTS]
WIN A WEEKEND EVENT 1/2/3/4/5/7/10/15/20/25 TIMES

[PLAYER - ELIMINATION]
OBTAIN RANK 1/2/3/4/5/6-8/9-12/13-17/18-25 IN ELIM (WARBIRD / JAVELIN / SPIDER) AFTER A RESET
GET A TOTAL OF 10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/300/500/750/1000/1500 KILLS IN ELIMINATION
WIN A TOTAL OF 3/5/7/10/15/25/50/75/100/150 ROUNDS IN ELIMINATION

[PLAYER - TWEL]
PLAY A TOTAL OF 5/10/25/50/75/100/150/200/300/400/500 DUELS IN TWEL
DUEL AGAINST 5/7/10/15/20/30/40/50/75/100/125/150 DIFFERENT PLAYERS IN TWEL

[SQUAD - TWD]
COMPLETE DAILY QUESTS  (1/3/5/10/25/50/100/200/500/1000)
COMPLETE MONTHLY QUESTS (1/2/3/5/10/15/20/30/40/50)
COMPLETE SEASON QUESTS (1/2/3/4/5/6)
PLAY A TOTAL OF 10/20/30/50/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/750/1000 GAMES IN A LEAGUE
WIN A TOTAL OF 5/10/20/30/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/350/400/500 GAMES IN A LEAGUE
PLAY A TOTAL OF 10/25/50/100/150/200/300/400/500/750/1000/1500/2000 GAMES ACROSS ALL LEAGUES
HAVE WIN RATE ABOVE 40%/50%/60%/70%/80%/90% OVER THE COURSE OF A MONTH WHILE MAINTAINING THE MINIMUM ACTIVITY REQUIREMENT

[SQUAD - PUBLIC]
GET A TOTAL OF 100/250/500/750/1000/1500/2000/3000/5000/10000/25000/50000 KILLS IN PUBLIC
WIN A TOTAL OF 3/5/7/10/15/20/30/40/50/75/100 BASING ROUNDS WITH AT LEAST 3 MEMBERS OF THE SQUAD ON THE SAME TEAM

There is a small list, a mere example, of achievements that already could be implemented, but it would be a big project nonetheless.

[Turban]

NOTE: This should not take priority over the restructuring of TWD and TWL leagues, and is something that can be worked on after it has been completed.

[olde]

personally I think everything should be built around Twd too produce activity and getting more people hooked, or even just playing new ships like a dder playing bds or vice versa.

I mentioned one idea about a year ago, that alot of people didn't like, but with our dying/slow population since the ddos, it probably seems more reasonable now.

Now The Idea!!

Instead of having 10/12 small sqds during off season, WHERE MOST ARE ONE LEAGUE SQDS. Lets have 6 BIG sqds, that play ALL 3 leagues, built strictly for activity.

The #1 plus about this is you're gonna have players step up and play different ships, because you're not stuck on a 1 league sqd, that alone will boost activity. BAM, #2 it takes zero coding, since thats always the problem we run into no? WAMO #3 the getting HOOKED factor comes in too play, if I log on and sqds are active people are twding, I tend to stay for hours (if I have the free time =]) I'm sure a lot of players feel the same way ,and when I say players, I don't mean the thunder/Pandora nerds who will sit on here 24/7 Even when its dead, I mean REAL people who have lifes but still enjoy SS! A lot of the tw community thinks like "NoLifers" stop that! Instead be realistic, think like a normal busy person, I mean if nothing is going on you don't have time to waste sitting in spec waiting hours for a game. Right?

And the main objective 6 small SQDS all 3 league SQDS, active all day, getting people hooked again , people stepping up in new ships.

Please don't let anything I said offend you, it's all truth, think like a busy person, please be realistic. And remember it takes ZERO coding.

-Old Motha Fukn E

[kthx]

Im sorry.. but daily quests.. achievements.. all this.. its fucking stupid.

Log into TW for 8 more days and receive a diamond warbird!!!!

Play one match of twdd/twbd/twjd today to receive 5 FREE diamond greens!!!


This game is not a fucking pay to win cell phone game and trying to add stupid fucking shit to try to make this game into something other than what it is is fucking stupid as well.

ADVERTISE THE FUCKING GAME FOR WHAT IT IS TO A CROWD THAT IS 25-35

[Turban]

it wasn't meant to be interpret like that, wark. thanks for the laughs, and you surely noticed that i said achievements would not be a priority at all, especially when we have about 40 other things that needs to be completed before that can even be considered as an option. they could be something to further enhance the gaming experience once everything else has been fixed, but with the current structure (in terms of leagues) and other shit that is broken, it would not work out.

advertising is not happening anytime soon from the looks of it, although i have heard that our tutorial is progressing fairly well on the dev side of things. they are apparently waiting for that to be completed before doing anything, but whatever.

[mtine]

it wasn't meant to be interpret like that, wark. thanks for the laughs, and you surely noticed that i said achievements would not be a priority at all, especially when we have about 40 other things that needs to be completed before that can even be considered as an option. they could be something to further enhance the gaming experience once everything else has been fixed, but with the current structure (in terms of leagues) and other shit that is broken, it would not work out.

advertising is not happening anytime soon from the looks of it, although i have heard that our tutorial is progressing fairly well on the dev side of things. they are apparently waiting for that to be completed before doing anything, but whatever.

Could you make a list plz? Am curious to see what those are.

[Turban]

it would include things (ranging from minor to major) such as;

- fixing the public map download size by removing useless LVZ files that are not even being used
- removing several or most of the items from the public cash shop
- minor bug fixes and features to enhance the public game play (such as warping to base)
- removing those big asteroids in public or scale them down to "normal size"
- clearer objectives in public to complete; new players have no idea what basing is or how it works
- leviathan problem still needs to be addressed
- when leviathans fixed, address the anti-LT protection
- weasels are dumb and do not need a repel for gods sake
- bringing back pure public weekends (friday night - monday morning)
- include a tutorial area to the public arena, ranging from simple to advanced
- create a bot for the tutorial areas to assist players
- figure out how to handle a large amount of new players if marketing goes well; battle plan required
- solve our marketing issues; we have an inactive marketing staff
- figure out where to advertise, and how to advertise, and communicate where it is being done
- retraining of staff members about how to handle calls
- hiring more staff members for additional activity, especially during off hours when no one answers help/cheater calls
- teaching staff members how to host events properly and when to host them
- a rigid schedule in terms of hosting (weekend events, normal events, hockey) and leagues, and more communication on that part
- more staff to player communication in general; less secrecy
- monthly staff reviews for the players
- new leaders to several staff departments
- removing sysop position from useless people who are there for the name only
- one leader with a clear vision and get shit done attitude
- rehiring of former staff members that are passionate and want to help; need "get shit done" attitude as well
- actually having a league department for discussion between TWL/TWD/other leagues; atm everyone does their own thing
- fixing elimination arena (separate to elim/belim with idle areas like it was for a while)
- restructuring of TWD and TWL; integrate and figure things out from there
- need more competition in both leagues
- outsource some projects using a bit of our donation funds, but no more of these 24 fiasco shit please
- more communication about projects, what is going on, what is "stalled" et cetera
- more statistics and graphs to TWD
- bug fixes to our websites (TWD/TWL/TWDT/TWEL)
- fixes to tourny (website, bots) with a schedule to follow, perhaps disable elim for the duration
- implementation of friendly and ranked matches in TWD
- continue the TWPD project before we can even consider achievements

there's the first ones that come to mind, but there are plenty of others without getting too much into detail.

edit: forgot something important, but there's your short list.

[Fork]

Why are we making suggestions for twd when we already have perfectly fine ideas anyway? The problem has always been how to code these ideas in... even with all of staff agreeing with the idea- if noone can alter the matchbot codes (because they are a confusing 10k or so lines of code) then your just wasting your time.

Literally squads being allowed to challenge the world should happen because squads struggle to find squad matches and they leave. People who want to vs a squad would come and team up with people they don't normally team up with to try and tackle them. They don't simply go to ?go javduel because its a public area/ doesn't count to anything/ 0 competition. If my squad could challenge the world- it would keep our squad logged on until we get real squad matches.

Although many staff like the idea (minus turban coz hes anti with all my ideas) qan/ thepap tells me it would take too long to mess with the matchbot codes- the codes would need to be re-written because over a period of 10 years- people have added more and more codes too it that have made it too confusing for anyone to mess with without breaking the function of these bots.

[Turban]

to be fair, most of your suggestions are against the competitive aspects of this game and plenty of them are not even needed at this point in time. not to forget some are outright impossible to implement. they are low on the priority list for most of the part, especially the ones that make no sense.

what TWD needs fixing on a fundamental level. there is no point to add more layers to the cake when the foundation is not strong enough to carry the added weight.

we have a broken rating system in place, and with it comes a shitty qualification format for TWL although that one can be changed. there is no incentive to play in TWD due to its lack of competitive parts; there are no seasons and leagues to follow. there is no way for new players to get involved. hell, there is not even a schedule to follow, and weekdays are slow in terms of competitive games due to that fact.

short rant

[Ephemeral]

There are two layers of problems; the first layer is ‘resources’, the second layer is the prioritized list of things to do.

The first layer is the most challenging and by far the most important. And this is where the staff issue also creeps into the picture. Many good people have left, there is no money to speak of to work with, time is critical. I have not seen many solutions offered to resolve these issues. Some of us have pushed for sweeping changes to staff in an effort to bring back some of the previous resources we have lost. But the staff culture has strongly resisted this kind of sweeping change so that is off the table. Some of us might be able to step up and offer some substantial amounts of money for development work but given the situation of the zone and game, who in their right mind would do this? Some of us have been trying to get the zone to change its course for the last 4-5 years, but to no avail and now we are in the 11^th hour. So we have few good developers left, no money t work with, little time to get anything done. Who fault is this?

So where are all the ‘great ideas’ for fixing the lack of resources? No one wants to, or has ever wanted, to deal with these hard decisions. Instead, we have folks that keeping pulling ‘great ideas’ out of their ass that only addresses the second layer, ‘features’ that might ‘help’. There has NEVER been a shortage of these ideas. Ideas for this layer are easy, any moron can come up with them.

So this is what we have done for years. Come up with second layer ideas without having the proper resources to get the job done. What was the result? A zone full of half-assed features, none of which works very well, many of which are full of exploits, few of which meet the zone’s overall vision and direction.

This is a lot like the economy. You simply cannot underestimate the importance of people having confidence in the direction and vision. When there is no confidence, no amount of ‘good ideas’ or well organized lists are going to raise the level of resources needed. In fact when there is little or no confidence it has just the opposite effect on resources. Fix the confidence (like some of us have been saying for 5 years) and the resources issue will lessen. Sit here and keep throwing ‘good ideas’ at the wall with the same way the zone is run and watch it continued slow death of 1000 cuts.
Eph

[Turban]

its a sad, yet hard fact that this zone has indeed lost most of its resoures, and its ability to accomplish anything. i know dozens of developers who quit due to the lack of vision from the leaders at that time, and because they burned out mostly because of the vast amount of useless projects. then again, several devs were allowed to freely roam and do whatever they pleased which lead to all of these random, broken features we have right now. it also damaged the zone.

but eh, no point crying over spilled milk.