Announcement: The Return of TWL + New League Ops

[Falconeer]

This is a good question that many might not have put much thought into, and hat's pretty much to be expected with most replies anyway as anything that is out of players' comfort zone tends to be met with much negativity.

Bursts have an 8.70% chance with current settings to be found inside a green. I took a look into the average amount of greens that is grabbed during the match across severalmatches in an 8vs8 setting and the numbers averaged out to roughly 30 total greens eaten per minute. There is generally speaking a very even split between both teams and no team has an enormous advantage no matter how the match played out. There was a variance between 27 and 34 greens eaten per minute, depending on the match, however it averaged out to the aforementioned number. We can simply run these numbers and simulate the average amount of bursts and portals terriers should be getting throughout the game.

Currently several bursts and portals go to waste as it is sub-optimal to use these items immediately upon receiving one in the off chance of your team getting lucky and replacing your used item within a matter of seconds. We feel these items are meant to be used as strategic tools to aid one in the battle.

On average terriers should be getting 1.3 bursts per minute and 0.52 portals per minute. However when considering the statement above about how many items generally speaking go to waste due to the nature of the game, it makes sense to slightly adjust these numbers.

Hmm, turban i'm liking how you present your ideas and state facts, good work on getting all the details honestly and formulating a plan. When you say we feel? might i ask who else is helping with this?

Sorry if i'm wasting time catching up and asking you questions, but how did you find out the average number of greens grabbed? Is this data collected somewhere/somehow? Do you think it's too much to ask if you could count the amount of bursts you received next time you or a friend play terrier in base? Just as a secondary and more subjective evaluation of the statistic you gathered? If not it's alright.

Given the statistics you presented then a 1 minute interval for bursts or a slight variation of that seems reasonable. Do you think there would be a change in average terrier performance? kill count? and kill death/ratio? with these changes? and would the change be dramatic? or would you lean more toward the change being a boost in those values for what is considered a good terrier player... but not an overly dramatic change?

[Turban]

Hmm, turban i'm liking how you present your ideas and state facts, good work on getting all the details honestly and formulating a plan. When you say we feel? might i ask who else is helping with this?

The league team consists of myself, Undercut and Lockdown, and we also have help from other veteran players such as Mythril who is handing us the baton to keep the competitive streak running.

My role on this team is more so to get the ball rolling and keep it in motion due to my former experience. I have helped to run multiple iterations of TWL while being in a leading position for two seasons, and helping with three other seasons. I also have history of helping to run TWDT and ensuring it goes on smoothly, and also have taken part starting up other minor leagues. These were some of my duties as a member of staff, and former system operator, as my main focus mostly went into the betterment of competitive play.

Undercut and Lockdown will take more commanding roles as the league draws closer.

Sorry if i'm wasting time catching up and asking you questions, but how did you find out the average number of greens grabbed? Is this data collected somewhere/somehow? Do you think it's too much to ask if you could count the amount of bursts you received next time you or a friend play terrier in base? Just as a secondary and more subjective evaluation of the statistic you gathered? If not it's alright.

Most certainly.

Match statistics can be found on the TWD website. This site keeps track of various statistics such as bullets fired and repels used, total amount of greens eaten o both team and player basis, amount of bursts used, and much more. The total amount of greens eaten tends to be greater in an 8vs8 setting as opposed to 6vs6 setting which makes sense as more players are dying in a match leaving item drops scattered across the flag room. It might be worth looking into increasing the intervals of prized bursts and portals depending on amount of players participating in a match.

Given the statistics you presented then a 1 minute interval for bursts or a slight variation of that seems reasonable. Do you think there would be a change in average terrier performance? kill count? and kill death/ratio? with these changes? and would the change be dramatic? or would you lean more toward the change being a boost in those values for what is considered a good terrier player? but not an overly dramatic change.

Bursts and portal changes are unlikely to negatively impact on the game, in fact it's more likely it have a positive impact as you can consistently make plays happen on the ship such as advanced plays with firing two sets of bursts in a short period of time.

The question you might have wanted to ask how
will all of these changes, which include periodical prizing bursts and portals, removal of greens getting, and normalization of shark shrapnel statuses, affect terrier in the grand scheme of things?

The real answer is: We do not know. We can make an educated guess, but how it really plays out will remain to be seen and needs to be play tested. My guess is that it will at first result in more deaths for terriers as the changes will punish positional errors due to lack of full charges, but as players gain more experience we should be seeing very similar or slightly boosted statistics for terriers. Many skilled terriers get a good portion of their kills from bullets, and not bursts, and with full charges being out of the equation you have higher risk to die when acting as a supportive sixth spider. However, we might see more kills from bursts and thus it will even out.

[Falconeer]

Thank you, sounds good! Look forward to the play testing then.

[ogron]

I don't think we should be against Turban's changes without at least giving them an honest try first for a week in TWBD or something.

People complain about changes all the time in base, and every single one has been for the better (random damage, removing the block, fixed shrap, timed games instead of points, etc.)

[Jessup]

If you guys are fixing things.. could we PLEASE remove x radar from all javs in twjd. I HATE the fact that button that drains you and serves no purpose yet is still part of ship settings in twjd. I hit it by mistake all the time and it drains me. No need to have it .. it would be such a relief to see x radar box gone from javs forever in twd. Guess it would apply to jav in base too if we are going to still allow specials. Tidy that annoyance up please ^_^

[Turban]

Sure, it's not something I never thought about but X-Radar serves no purpose for Javelin or Shark in league play. May as well remove it from those two ships.

[Flew]

Can we make Mythril sysop already

[Flew]

Just a proposition. I the way each player in twdt has a star rating. Is there a way we can implement like each twl team has a star rating total (salary cap?). like for example each squad can have a total rating of 400. Mythril is 10/9/8 so his rating total is 27. Mine is 8/7/6 so my total is 21. If me and him were both on the same team our ratings would account for 48 of the total "salary cap". Biggest issue I think we have is that after week 5. there's gonna be like 1 team that's 0-5 and another 2 that's 1-4 and then those teams dont show and then zone starts to die again. I think by having like a "salary cap", guys who are friends and top players can theoretically still play together but at the same time parity is "somewhat" also achieved. Just an idea, I'm high as fuck so suck me.

[Jones]

Should burst damage be capped below 1500 so terriers dont die but spiders do. Just throwing this out there.

[ogron]

Should burst damage be capped below 1500 so terriers dont die but spiders do. Just throwing this out there.

terrs killing terrs is a fundamental part of the game, so no.

also, terriers should know every burst pattern by heart, so for the most part you never need to dodge bursts... i already know where they're going the second they're fired, and i pre-dodge ahead of time and play around it. spiders SHOULD know them all, but most don't. would improve their play.

if anything, bursts should be slowed down based on your lag, to give everyone a fair reaction time. laggy euro terrs have a way easier time getting teks on enemy terrs because their bursts and warps show up late, you just explode. i have 30ms and it's very hard for me to port trap enemy terrs, while euros have a much much easier time doing it because whoever they're dunking has less time to react. sometimes i see mikkiz port near me and i don't see a burst and think im safe, then it shows up crazy late and i die because i tried to save my port. an NA terr is much easier for me to cope with.

[Falconeer]

terrs killing terrs is a fundamental part of the game, so no.

also, terriers should know every burst pattern by heart, so for the most part you never need to dodge bursts... i already know where they're going the second they're fired, and i pre-dodge ahead of time and play around it. spiders SHOULD know them all, but most don't. would improve their play.

if anything, bursts should be slowed down based on your lag, to give everyone a fair reaction time. laggy euro terrs have a way easier time getting teks on enemy terrs because their bursts and warps show up late, you just explode. i have 30ms and it's very hard for me to port trap enemy terrs, while euros have a much much easier time doing it because whoever they're dunking has less time to react. sometimes i see mikkiz port near me and i don't see a burst and think im safe, then it shows up crazy late and i die because i tried to save my port. an NA terr is much easier for me to cope with.

Could be truth to what you're saying, I'm not qualified to talk on the details yet since I haven't dealt with burst or terr much. But one thing I do know is that any skilled player just adapts their gameplay, aim, energy conservation to the ping of the other player once they know they are a lagger. From then on it's easy to win against a lagger while only requiring slightly more effort, and that's if you count it as effort to alter how you play briefly against one guy. Be it shooting them a bit longer in spider to make sure the damage registered, or shooting slightly wide to compensate for their location on screen, or reacting earlier/conserving energy more to make up for the delay.

Most pro players in DSB never complained about a lagger, though I guess the zone was 50% euro's at one point. But that's one of the fundamental differences between DSB pro players and TW ones. It's also how one knows who is actually good at the game for the most part. Good players don't whine about someone's lag, they kill them regardless and thank them for the challenge.

[Riverside]

Res cap in LD would be great. Not at all a fan of the way it currently is, it makes the game even more unnecessarily slow.
There's also a skill in using radar to snipe. League games have always been snipe/stray based (unless it was vs QS or HEAVY), without a reso cap, you're going to make it exponentially slower paced. You'll have a bunch of Welt's flying around, shit is gruesome.

I also think roster limit should be more strict, something like 7 or 8. Two league teams shouldn't get benefit much more here imo, because you're more likely to stack. Make it a per league limit (i.e. if you are a 2 league team, you can only put 8 people in each ship's "twl roster").

Would REALLY urge you to consider doing 2 games per league like you do with TWDT, and setting a half hour time limit to make sure games don't go over time. It's a lot more enticing for me to log in on a Sunday when I know I'm going to play 2 games, as opposed to playing 1 game with the potential for it to be vs a shitty team. If it means a shorter season, great. You're very likely going to see a significant drop in activity and interest if it's a normal 3-4 month TWL. I know for a fact it'd happen to me. 4-6 week season, 3 weeks of playoffs (ideally single elim but looks like you guys really have your hearts set on this double elim thing, so w/e).

Not a fan of using twd as a qualifier, but that's for selfish reasons. Just suggestions to make this season Sweet.
PS: great job here Myth.

[Spezza]

Warbird is funner on 1280. I won't switch res either way because its just way too boring. I will probably play either way. I would recommend if you really like high res wb that you try out SVS as their stuff can move even slower. We should also consider nerfing wb bullet speed to around 1/4 so that our aging population has the reaction time to dodge.