The circle jerk which is TWD basing.

[Nipple Nibbler]

LeeRomeno We did have farm squads back in the day, I was on a few of them and even capped some. In order for this to actually work there needs to be 2, so they have someone to play against without getting completely wrecked. It would be great if a bunch of us could get together to try to organize this as a group sometime after TWL.

For the record, we all started out as that dumb noob detaching into mines . EVERYONE has done it at least once. Anyone tells you otherwise is just letting their ego talk.

[apt]

As relative newcomer here as well, but not to subspace overall ( i have around 30k usage in EG, but not more than 500h of it in TW), I have to agree that what makes games most fun are more or less balanced teams. Some great players on your team can elevate your own game as well, while getting completely owned will demoralize you.
As an Euro, i have had pretty hard time actually getting into basing matches and experience as well due to that. Every now and then I notice a situation in game, where I do something stupid, but mainly because this situation has not really happened to me before (for example blocking path of mines for sharks to rep, deattaching too fast next to mine etc). Those things you can only learn by experiencing them, but there are really not that many basing games held during euro times, a few which are, already quite late (midnight to 1am). Situation is different a bit now, when squads prepare for twl and I am luckily on an active one, but before only jds and dds were played. Which are fun, but as an EGr my heart is still in basing. But it was far worse before during summer and autumn. I log on pretty much on daily bases and there were periods of 2-3 weeks, when no basing matches were held during euro times and most i could do was just play in elim.

As for bringing new players to the zone, i think draft league is the best solution for that and it has worked as well. As long as you keep it balanced, it will give the newbies worth it plenty of chances to play. Most of good basing matches i have had have been in the last 2 draft leagues ive played.

I was squadleader in EG for longest time as well and my focus was always on bringing up new players. In EG, it was common for top elite squad to have also so-called training squad, which shared chat and which players were also used in squadmatches if needed (sort of borrowing system). I think majority of EG vets at some point of their time went through some of the training squads. Just playing with top players gives alot more than sitting in spec and watching. A few of those training squads even became competitive squads on their own in later phases.

As for vets in TW, there are plenty of nice people and then there are also complete touchebags, who take every death personally and start on some weird hunting/trashing thing. As i have grown a really thick skin with all the years in EG, i do not care, but it is still hilarious to watch the reactions.

Oh and thanks for the great guides Ogron and a2m, read them all a few times and there are many useful tips there.

Hey,

The farm squad has always been a really nice concept. You'd see that a long time ago in SVS, where you had AML, IML and Pro League and Pro League squads would have their "baby players" start in AML and overtime the squad was good enough and invited to IML and eventually some of those players were accepted into the mother / Pro League variant.

But even now the population in Trench Wars might be a tad too small for that, or way too small actually. But good points and thank you for sharing your experience, it's so beneficial to hear from an outsider who is experiencing the game and community for the first time.

And yes, balance is key, to enjoyability first and foremost and the best way to have players experience unique situations as you shared with us, is for them to actually experience it - and the best route for that to occur in conjunction with learning is not to be on a squad full of players of their same skill level or game awareness, but by being the dumbest person in the room; in essence having the opportunity to play with players whom are elevated on the experience and skill hierarchy.

But, yes and yea we had a HUGE euro crowd way back in the day, back when I started in like 2003, actually I'd want to say most basing games were actually during euro timeframes.

[LeeRomeno]

As relative newcomer here as well, but not to subspace overall ( i have around 30k usage in EG, but not more than 500h of it in TW), I have to agree that what makes games most fun are more or less balanced teams. Some great players on your team can elevate your own game as well, while getting completely owned will demoralize you.
As an Euro, i have had pretty hard time actually getting into basing matches and experience as well due to that. Every now and then I notice a situation in game, where I do something stupid, but mainly because this situation has not really happened to me before (for example blocking path of mines for sharks to rep, deattaching too fast next to mine etc). Those things you can only learn by experiencing them, but there are really not that many basing games held during euro times, a few which are, already quite late (midnight to 1am). Situation is different a bit now, when squads prepare for twl and I am luckily on an active one, but before only jds and dds were played. Which are fun, but as an EGr my heart is still in basing. But it was far worse before during summer and autumn. I log on pretty much on daily bases and there were periods of 2-3 weeks, when no basing matches were held during euro times and most i could do was just play in elim.

As for bringing new players to the zone, i think draft league is the best solution for that and it has worked as well. As long as you keep it balanced, it will give the newbies worth it plenty of chances to play. Most of good basing matches i have had have been in the last 2 draft leagues ive played.

I was squadleader in EG for longest time as well and my focus was always on bringing up new players. In EG, it was common for top elite squad to have also so-called training squad, which shared chat and which players were also used in squadmatches if needed (sort of borrowing system). I think majority of EG vets at some point of their time went through some of the training squads. Just playing with top players gives alot more than sitting in spec and watching. A few of those training squads even became competitive squads on their own in later phases.

As for vets in TW, there are plenty of nice people and then there are also complete touchebags, who take every death personally and start on some weird hunting/trashing thing. As i have grown a really thick skin with all the years in EG, i do not care, but it is still hilarious to watch the reactions.

Oh and thanks for the great guides Ogron and a2m, read them all a few times and there are many useful tips there.

[apt]

Well considering most sqds are stacked right now. It would be a great idea to try and add 3/4 players who are not the best/new to basing in tw into each sqds rosters you don't have to roster them to your TWL roster. Just let them be active in twd at the very least. Seems there is a decent amount of players who show interest in basing, they just can't find a home and lose interest, constantly being benched or never borrowed and eventually lose interest completely. You can't expect them to all go to one squad full of newbs and vs a full line of stacked players, it will just be a bad lopsided game. Not sure what's so complicated about that. Use them as filler players instead of borrowing so much.

I agree, that's what I asked for about two weeks ago when we decided to remove juice from TWL contention. The idea was to have the other squads evenly absorb the interested basers into their TWD roster. But it was ignored, I mean, the general psychological state of the players now is pretty pathetic, even today Strike ( EDIT STRIKE, I wrote Silence, mb ) and Pandora were issuing out !challengeall! TWBD games and immediately withdrawing their juice challenge - so we would not be able to accept.

Not really gonna speak on it anymore, just for grown men, y'all pretty deplorable. Truly, love y'all tho.

[olde]

Well considering most sqds are stacked right now. It would be a great idea to try and add 3/4 players who are not the best/new to basing in tw into each sqds rosters you don't have to roster them to your TWL roster. Just let them be active in twd at the very least. Seems there is a decent amount of players who show interest in basing, they just can't find a home and lose interest, constantly being benched or never borrowed and eventually lose interest completely. You can't expect them to all go to one squad full of newbs and vs a full line of stacked players, it will just be a bad lopsided game. Not sure what's so complicated about that. Use them as filler players instead of borrowing so much.

[Nipple Nibbler]

Here is a perfect example of someone on our roster not paying attention to the line they are putting in and it made for a really shitty match. It starts with your own squad, if you can not balance your own line, you can not expect the other team to do it for you. Just do your best to avoid putting in too many low tier basers at the same time.

https://twd.trenchwars.org/showgame/90113424

[apt]

I don't do lines much these days, but when I do I try to balance the teams if I can. But like Ogron stated, when my team has 5-6 beeps I am not going to sit them so you can add 7 6* players. I will add the beeps then borrow whatever low star players are available. Also Like Ogron stated, you can't just put in 7 weak players. Maybe if there was a second low tier basing squad around it would help. You could reach out to warbird squads and play regular base matches against them, if they know they will be vsing a low tier squad they might actually want to play some base. Brainwave used to play vs ossify and wingmasters a lot back in the day when they were only wb squads. You could trade, "play us in bd and we play you in dd" that helps activity in both divisions if regularly done.

I have seen some people intentionally stack win 15-0 games and it only hurts the zone. Nobody enjoys getting slaughtered every game, and on the winning side it gets boring. This does still happen but I don't feel like it intentionally happens as much as this post makes it out to be.

yeah its messy and there's no easy way through it. but i can say since this thread, ppl have been more open to adding at least 1 new player if they have the slot for it.

if you have like 7 people on your squad and you want to vs a full squad, obv you wanna do the best you can and get the best you can, unless you have to skill balance.

but more in general, if we have like 3-6 players and need borrows, its good and friendly practice to keep this game we love alive, to just add newbies, even if it means a loss.

but thanks everyone

[Nipple Nibbler]

I don't do lines much these days, but when I do I try to balance the teams if I can. But like Ogron stated, when my team has 5-6 beeps I am not going to sit them so you can add 7 6* players. I will add the beeps then borrow whatever low star players are available. Also Like Ogron stated, you can't just put in 7 weak players. Maybe if there was a second low tier basing squad around it would help. You could reach out to warbird squads and play regular base matches against them, if they know they will be vsing a low tier squad they might actually want to play some base. Brainwave used to play vs ossify and wingmasters a lot back in the day when they were only wb squads. You could trade, "play us in bd and we play you in dd" that helps activity in both divisions if regularly done.

I have seen some people intentionally stack win 15-0 games and it only hurts the zone. Nobody enjoys getting slaughtered every game, and on the winning side it gets boring. This does still happen but I don't feel like it intentionally happens as much as this post makes it out to be.

[apt]

Let's use that dataset instead:



The elite 9* and 10* players went from 25% of all BD playtime to 26%. (Dataset)

It seems like you're simply changing the definition of an elite player to something else when the evidence doesn't match your pre-conceived notion.

Most basers are willing to be accomodative to a reasonable degree with borrows and lineups if you pm them.

And like I previously said, you can't just add 7 newbies and challenge 8s... it's going to be a 15-1 stomp and teams are not going to want to play you. As zid and renzi said, stomps aren't fun for anyone. All it does is kill base and reduce activity.

If you borrow more strong players, and rotate in your newbies, you end up with 8 bds where you played 3 new players = 24 games played.
If you add 7 newbies and get stomped, you kill base or squads privately challenge to bypass you, and your new players = 7 games played.

Most teams can't play more than 2-3 new players because they have 5-6 beeps and they're not going to bench their whole team to accomodate you. Especially during TWL. In the first half of 2020, the ideal mix tended to be 5-6 veterans and 2-3 new players in an 8v8 match.

But you're not showing 2021.

EDIT: Also, I don't see how these superficial ratings have anything to do with people cancelling TWD games vs Juice or refusing to borrow players who aren't even ranked in TWDT because they are new.

This is super strawmanning to the maximum degree.

[ogron]

Let's use that dataset instead:



The elite 9* and 10* players went from 25% of all BD playtime to 26%. (Dataset)

It seems like you're simply changing the definition of an elite player to something else when the evidence doesn't match your pre-conceived notion.

Most basers are willing to be accomodative to a reasonable degree with borrows and lineups if you pm them.

And like I previously said, you can't just add 7 newbies and challenge 8s... it's going to be a 15-1 stomp and teams are not going to want to play you. As zid and renzi said, stomps aren't fun for anyone. All it does is kill base and reduce activity.

If you borrow more strong players, and rotate in your newbies, you end up with 8 bds where you played 3 new players = 24 games played.
If you add 7 newbies and get stomped, you kill base or squads privately challenge to bypass you, and your new players = 7 games played.

Most teams can't play more than 2-3 new players because they have 5-6 beeps and they're not going to bench their whole team to accomodate you. Especially during TWL. In the first half of 2020, the ideal mix tended to be 5-6 veterans and 2-3 new players in an 8v8 match.

[apt]

i don't understand what you're asking. perhaps you can clarify for me?

if i expand the dataset to include all 250 players who played 10 bds or more, it shifts the numbers even more in favor of low-stars:



6*s and 7*s accounted for 42% of all BDs played.

9*s and 10*s only accounted for 25%.

Here's a link to the raw data in google docs if you want to play around with it.

Mm, these numbers are cute, but all I can I know from anecdotal experience is that when I began playing at the end of September, most TWBD games were organized by ag$ and myself - and we picked everyone.

As of the last couple of months and more importantly the last few weeks, these numbers are most definitely not an accurate reflection and a superficial rating isn't an accurate reflection of people just picking their same elitist friends over and over.

Elitism extends beyond skillset, it's a social agreement and transaction.

[zidane]

what are we even talking about here lol, lot of mediocre people play every single bd. i agree with what renzi was saying.. blowouts in bd are 0% fun and are completely miserable for both sides (moreso losing side) whereas in jd/dd you can get at least go for kills and have some fun.

it's always been hard to make squads, now more than ever with less of a population

[Vehicle]

Claushouse I mean that there are fewer 9 and 10 star players than there are 6 and 7 star players. So I would like to see the numbers weighted in terms of how many players fall into each category. It might not support my argument but I think it would be a more accurate statistic for this conversation.

[ogron]

Did you control for the amount of 6/7*'s versus the amount of 9/10*s? I have a feeling that the giant difference in the number of players in each rating would effect your numbers.

i don't understand what you're asking. perhaps you can clarify for me?

if i expand the dataset to include all 250 players who played 10 bds or more, it shifts the numbers even more in favor of low-stars:



6*s and 7*s accounted for 42% of all BDs played.

9*s and 10*s only accounted for 25%.

Here's a link to the raw data in google docs if you want to play around with it.

[Vehicle]

viop11 Because when people feel attacked they are much less likely to hear you out.

I want to acknowledge that teams are 100% within their right to pick whomever, whenever. The reason I'm in this thread is not because I think there is something wrong with that. It's because as someone who has seen a lot of eras of this game, it is my opinion that the basing community is more insular and less welcoming than ever before.