Specials in TWBD and bot commands

[roxxkatt]

i capped a game long ago where entire team was specials, and it was a great game and everyone had a great time
and i think team ended up winning as well

so there is that

[PrOnEsSim]

There better a goddamn limit for specials in TWL. One per team is preferred.

[Stayon]

Appreciate the positive replies!

[Trasher]

Trasher's main point: TWBD bot should limit special use.

1) I agree specials should be somewhat limited against noobs, but not against squads like curse/leviathan
2) This is diverging into a discussion about how lanc itself is broken and needs to be fixed, a separate issue.

I said that both teams would have to agree to it before the game. You're not forced to accept a challenge that would mean a non special game. I'm not even saying that newbies should be entirely spared from the wrath of the lancs or whatever, just to give them some respite every now and then.

You go ahead and lanc vs me all you want DF, I'll be waiting.

[Turban]

one thing I would like to mention, but keep in mind that the call remains to the TWD operators to decide.

right before we started the last TWL season, we were considering a request to weaken or removing the lancaster given how strong of a ship it is in the right hands. that ship does have a hidden potential to be an extremely good shark and spider slayer, while also being very effective against other specials, terriers and in small skirmishes. the power of the ship is further amplified due to certain game mechanics we have in the game such as repel ignores, attaching with low amounts of energy, and damage scaling of bullets with lancaster doing 1040 damage with a relatively low energy cost. it is also the fastest ship (in terms of maximum speed) which is not often noticeable, but may still be worth mentioning.

however, we thought that it was very unlikely that the ship would see much play thus it was left untouched. we may bring up the topic this coming season and see what can be done about the ship in that league.

[Downfall]

Trasher's main point: TWBD bot should limit special use.

1) I agree specials should be somewhat limited against noobs, but not against squads like curse/leviathan
2) This is diverging into a discussion about how lanc itself is broken and needs to be fixed, a separate issue.

[Spezza]

I reallllly dislike lancasters but it's not really possible to know if they have changed twlb until there are actual competitive teams, right now there's really not many bds with 2 twlb sharks on the opposing team (although tbh i feel for me at least i cud not rep it). I'm just trying to show the reality of how it has effected our bds that i've been a part of, because it seemed like there may have been a few misguided notions. People can do whatever they want, I don't want to control anyone, just don't say it's for anything but yourself because the rationalization drives me nuts.

[Jerome Scuggs]

really i think the best solution here is the one i believe maketso suggested - bring back the old lanc for twbd/l

otherwise, stayon, i know you probably feel constrained by everyone bitching about your use of lancs... but hey, keep in mind that the less you use them now, the more devastating they will be to use during TWLB. so really, you're still at a major advantage here but the added benefit is that by using regular lineups now, you are letting future TWLB squads practice and get to a skill level where they can begin focusing on specific strategies such as how to contain lancs.

honestly this very well could be a paradigm shift where the new lanc turns out to be a better 'grunt' ship than the spider and it sucks you aren't free to completely explore that option without alot of backlash.

[Stayon]

Just played a bd all spids vs your squad Wazzaaa. From now on, no lancs and im at your mercy, Patouf included. Whichever fate suits us best, please enlight me on how to address this issue, called saving Trench Wars, from the unavoidable.

Jerome, dont take my examples to the extreme. They are here to emphasize an idea. You, Wazzaa and whoever are free, not only to disagree, but to conduct in the manner they know best. We're all equal in the end. As agressive I may sound explaining my view on how lack of competition created stacked squads, and how it leads people into making easy choises, cutting around bushes is not for me.

Spezz, idealistic? Maybe. But adversity has always been a good teacher.

[Jerome Scuggs]

i didnt wanna mention it first because i am terrible at this game and so "lag" is probably just another excuse i use, but spezza hit the nail on the head - lancs exploit the little quirks of lag worse than any other ship in the a twbd. wb's/javs/spids each have natural 'checks' against rep ignore abuse. wbs/javs can be cleaned up with 1 bullet after firing, repignored spider bullets won't 1-shot you if you can manage your energy, and for all three, sharks repels can be timed, so even with laggers, you can feel when they are gonna shoot and still rep. lancs sort of skirt around all these natural balances, even if their first shot is repped, they can usually fire the second volley before a shark can get off the next repel - or they can save their second shot, giving them enough energy to stay alive. most sharks wind up wasting alot of repels against lancs, popping off 2-3 reps in the hope of catching the lanc volley, which then affects timing and coverage.

i mean, i could work my ass off and try to get better, but at the same time it's also frustrating knowing that at my best, i'm still at a disadvantage because of my 30-40ms.

this actually makes me wanna take the convo to another thread, but since no1 is actually developing the game i might as well just post here - my sort of theory about this is that (in very unscientific terms) the client is programmed with a built in 'prediction' algorithm that kicks in when lag occurs, ie, when you lose connection the client continues to 'move' your ship, and when you regain connection this causes all the 'jumping' and ignores due to conflicting information being sent by client and server. that in-of-itself is not the problem, the issue is that the system was designed to work in a 56k era and now connections are so good that the differences between connections is sometimes monstrous - when a 100ms player fought a 120ms player you wouldnt notice any lopsided lag, but now you see 40ms averagers playing against 140ms averagers and i think this creates a situation where the client basically gives one player an advantage in terms of pure reaction time.

i mean, is there anyone who is both 1) considered a top10 player in their league who 2) routinely has ?lag under 80ms?

[Stayon]

zid budddddd, spelling erros (get it) the last thing on my mind. you ever type more than a sentence? Ill write two of them, on how much love I have to give you wednesdays after a salty Russian Bride scrubs my back. Want it in Spannish, Portuguese, French or the single one you know?

[zidane]

stayon is a clown for real and he also has about 50 spelling errors in that block of text

[Spezza]

Rep ignore is a broken facet of this game, lancs exploit that more than any other ship in base (besides rocketing javs obviously) because of how much they can shoot, how powerful their shots are, and how fast their bullets are. So when you're a shark going up against 5 lancasters it is folly to assume even if you rep before they shoot that you will not get rep ignored, it is broken. Now when you have a new squad with not 3 yr+ sharks it becomes pretty demoralizing for everyone because the sharks cannot control the situation, they want to leave the bd because what is the point of playing if you have MORE limited control over the outcome than before

Spiders are sad because they attach and die often and a good lancaster should never die to a spider 1v1 in any ranged setting so newer spiders get discouraged from bad records (as do "elite" bozos). The obvious answer to all lancs is just to do all lancs as well and that's a valid point but either way you are changing the game the other squad accepted to play.

Now for Stayon:
Your idea of people having the competitive drive to try and push through impediments in their way is very idealistic. In sports psych (LOL SUCH A SPORT) you learn that new players are motivated best with positive reinforcement OFTEN and repeatedly and overall motivation is fostered best by a 5:1 ratio of positive reinforcement vs constructive criticism. They are losing motivation every time they play you guys because the situation becomes less and less in their control(rep ignore IS BROKEN) and in middle they are at a HUGE disadvantage spider vs lancaster. Overall they look at their score and are crestfallen, the judgement when you're a new player is way too harsh from everyone. I don't see how you think that is a good learning environment.

Your thoughts on learning to play vs specials I have considered as well. I believe playing against lancasters and warbirds should help sharks learn some things that are probably less obvious to learn while playing vs spiders, and it should teach spiders to push better behind sharks for fear of 1 hit KO. In practice it doesn't work like that because its too hard to recover when a rep is ignored or missed, rep lag is really big in base with such little space as seen by rep bursts killing 3 different people.

The option on bots would be good, I think any squad will play any squad anyways but I think it's obvious that what patouf is doing at least vs 24/7 is not to try different things, and is not to help 24/7 learn and I hate that you make that your "reason" when you obviously won't learn that from beating new players, demoralizing them, taking away any sense of control and MAKING THEM WANT TO LEAVE DURING BD.

[Jerome Scuggs]

that was the weirdest thing i've ever read. so basically stayon wants us all to push ourselves to new levels, because otherwise we're just failures or w/e

but here's the thing man we already have pushed ourselves to new levels, such as "windows 7", "broadband internet", "other video games". this game might be the only game you play but most people nowadays unfortunately don't, and just as unfortunately, people hate change, etc etc etc.

if this convo happened 10yrs ago i'd be laughing at trasher, but also, 10 years ago trasher wouldnt have to post something like this, there would be an active community who would tackle this new change in gameplay and come up with new tactics - just like with cramming

but now, idk, you seriously have to take into consideration the fact that there just isnt enough activity to let that sort of dynamic process happen. i don't think changing the rules is something that needs to be done but idk, don't be a dick about it. but since you're posting about people you know pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to take pictures of favela kids i guess you lean on the more ayn rand-y side of this debate, "winners win losers lose fuck everyone who isn't me" mentality. but just remember half of the game is the people you play against, and if you run them all off what game will you play next?

[Wazzaaa.nl]

It's not 2000, it's 2015 we don't have the amount of people we used to have
this time is a survival time, about trying to keep the game active as much
I see you got the same old view on the game, like the older players
this is one of the reasons what caused trenchwars to be what it is, a dying game
keep on thinking we're in 2000 with tons of ppl and tons of squads
with your thinking in this time we'll have just two squads in twl soon

I don't make any excuses here, im just dumbfound you can't seem to understand new players from this time and era
realise your patouf "vetstyle" is one of the reasons new players don't stick around long
they realise this game is dying why would they want to stay longer and get trolled on by the "vets"?
They rather not take the time to stay and level up, picking a new game is so easy days esp if the current game got like < 100 active players