Trench Wars Leagues and what future holds ..

[Iron]

Its time to accept it, change the damn res.. i cant stand play windowed and my ship looks very bad and weird playing on full res 1024 or 1440.

[LF]

You are going to have stacked teams regardless. There has only been a handful of players who have strayed from the usual 1-2 "super squads" while the rest ride the coattails of everyone else. If you wanted you could use W/L just to determine the playoff teams then use total flag time to seed them accordingly. How often does a 15:00-14:5X actually happen in TWL? At most MAYBE once a year? More realistically more like once every 4-5 years so having it happen every game is unrealistic. For the sake of argument say it did happen, a team that goes 4-2 and wins all 4 games by a convincing margin is likely a stronger team anyways than a team that goes 6-0 that wins by less than a minute every time. My suggestion doesnt cure any of the existing problems, all it does is increase playing time for everyone involved which in my eyes is a win. Hell you could even use HALF of the idea and make total flagtime irrelevant (Except for tiebreakers) and just play every game to 30 minutes regardless. If I play and lose a game 25-X its still Y minutes longer than playing a game and losing 15-Z. So you could change nothing except that the clock doesnt stop once somebody reaches the magic #15 and all it would mean is that people get to play more. Simple as that and nothing negative about it

[Shaddowknight]

Usng total flag time is still flawed. Its possible to win every game 15:01-15:00 and Lose to a team that gets 25:00 For most games and loses a few. How would forfeits work? 30:01 to winning team? Again the same problem. Still an issue of a team having more flag time than others not even needing to try at a certain point. Win 28:01 for three games is more flagtime than squeaking a 15:01-15:00 win for 5 games. Winning 5 games should be better than winning 3 games and losing 2. The only squads that would benefit are the super-stacked teams, which does not help the problem of well... superstacked teams.

[LF]

Getting to 15:01 in a 30 min timed game is a win already. Spec4rec. It's still a race to get to 15 minutes flagtime. Once you get there, why not troll all the twlm players and suicide 80 times? It literally doesn't matter once you have the win secured.

You clearly stopped reading halfway through. Read the rest of it and I already addressed that issue.

And Ricko, TWEL I actually agree with because of its highly competitive nature. I'd say even add TWEL to the regular TWL medals but I still stand fast that twdt/twlm/attack tournament etc are bad choices for medals. If they want recognition put names on map and website to remind them how awesome they are and to give them a reference point of their awesomeness when trolling newbs in pub

[Ricko]

LF - I don't think adding some individual medals is a bad thing at all, plus we're keeping it so they only show when you click on a player's individual profile, only TWL winner medals show on TWD rosters.

Players like individual recognition, look at every other game out there online you get trophies and medals for doing the smallest of things and they stick on that player's profile/history, in TW we have it so only the 20 people a year who win TWL get a medal? Doesn't make sense...not that I'd want the smallest of achievements awarded with a medal for TW, but stuff like winning TWEL or being on a winning TWDT team is worthy of recognition, it's no easy feat to be the best dueler in the zone in a ship or winning TWDT which has a similar structure to TWL (league then playoffs).

[Shaddowknight]

I don't play wb enough to care either way but I do think removing res limits is a bad idea. Warbird is already the easiest ship in the zone, and it would only be made easier/more boring if people were forced to adjust to R4 becoming the new R1 due to unfairly large resolutions. My 2 cents.

Also adding medals for all this pointless shit like TWDT and TWLM is just plain stupid. If these people so desperately require recognition then put their names on the particular part of the website in which they want to feel special. This is the same level of stupid as Dezmond trying to add "Attack Tournament" medals for an EVENT that I hosted in which like 30 people total participated. I say save the "medals" for TWL only. If you must add medals why not add medals for the winner of each weekend event while we're at it. Equally as important as TWLM and equally participated in/cared about.

Last but not least just a suggestion for TWLB. How about instead of a race to 15 minutes each game, instead just a flat timer of 30:01 minutes? Or even better 40:01 minutes? What I mean is that the game MIGHT end 15:01-15:00 but it could also end 29:30-0:30 or anything in between. Generally speaking 99% of LB games are decided considerably before the timer runs out. To play the full 30 (or 40) every game would see higher kill totals and generally more/longer participation. I can see the downside being once Team A reaches the 15/20 minute mark, that Team B would lose any incentive to give a shit since they have no chance to come away with a W. The solution to that could be that to qualify for playoffs it would NOT be based on W/L record but instead TOTAL FLAG TIME or even use W/L to get into playoffs then seed the teams based on TIME DIFFERENTIAL ONLY. That way even if you can't win that particular game you still have a reason to keep playing hard and getting every second of flag time you can get because it might make a difference between the #4 seed in playoffs and spectating. Probably needs to be discussed a bit but in my head right now it makes sense and seems fun.

Getting to 15:01 in a 30 min timed game is a win already. Spec4rec. It's still a race to get to 15 minutes flagtime. Once you get there, why not troll all the twlm players and suicide 80 times? It literally doesn't matter once you have the win secured.

[roxxkatt]

also for the record i am for unlimited res

[roxxkatt]

mb, polls aren't 2:1, they're pretty much 1:1
far from conclusive
especially as there's not many votes

The best argument for removing the limit is that we MUST remove it if we expect players from Steam to play this game.

a limit of 2048x2048 seems reasonable as well, and fits 99% of the population

[LF]

I don't play wb enough to care either way but I do think removing res limits is a bad idea. Warbird is already the easiest ship in the zone, and it would only be made easier/more boring if people were forced to adjust to R4 becoming the new R1 due to unfairly large resolutions. My 2 cents.

Also adding medals for all this pointless shit like TWDT and TWLM is just plain stupid. If these people so desperately require recognition then put their names on the particular part of the website in which they want to feel special. This is the same level of stupid as Dezmond trying to add "Attack Tournament" medals for an EVENT that I hosted in which like 30 people total participated. I say save the "medals" for TWL only. If you must add medals why not add medals for the winner of each weekend event while we're at it. Equally as important as TWLM and equally participated in/cared about.

Last but not least just a suggestion for TWLB. How about instead of a race to 15 minutes each game, instead just a flat timer of 30:01 minutes? Or even better 40:01 minutes? What I mean is that the game MIGHT end 15:01-15:00 but it could also end 29:30-0:30 or anything in between. Generally speaking 99% of LB games are decided considerably before the timer runs out. To play the full 30 (or 40) every game would see higher kill totals and generally more/longer participation. I can see the downside being once Team A reaches the 15/20 minute mark, that Team B would lose any incentive to give a shit since they have no chance to come away with a W. The solution to that could be that to qualify for playoffs it would NOT be based on W/L record but instead TOTAL FLAG TIME or even use W/L to get into playoffs then seed the teams based on TIME DIFFERENTIAL ONLY. That way even if you can't win that particular game you still have a reason to keep playing hard and getting every second of flag time you can get because it might make a difference between the #4 seed in playoffs and spectating. Probably needs to be discussed a bit but in my head right now it makes sense and seems fun.

[Jones]

well, using res-resizer and 4300+ res is as good as any

[Turban]

as per requests made by Ogron and Tiny, and some others, we have added medals to the winners of seasons 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17 and 18 of TWLM in various categories such as Overall (S5 - S12), TWLM-J/D/B, Betting, and Stock (S12 exclusive). we are now waiting for someone to update the history page, and to save time I have already updated the HTML code so it should be easy to add to the site.

the medals were created by Ogron, and they can only be seen on the profile page of a player -- consider them as personal achievements of sorts, similar to TWEL and Attack Tournament medals. the roster pages will remain exclusive for TWL medals.

[Turban]

if my memory serves me correctly, we had numerous arguments in the past when we removed the resolution limits from TWLJ and TWLB, mostly by the same players who are afraid of any type of change -- for a good reason, given how often these changes have failed in the past -- and some of them even flat out said that it will ruin both leagues. however, as one can easily see, both of these leagues are doing fine and have shown signs of improvement, granted our overall population has continued to slowly drop over the years, and have now became the two most competitive leagues by a large marging in terms of competitiveness. granted, the so-called advantage people assumed players would get is on a much smaller scale in these leagues to even attempt to prove a point.

[Rab]

mb, polls aren't 2:1, they're pretty much 1:1
far from conclusive
especially as there's not many votes

The best argument for removing the limit is that we MUST remove it if we expect players from Steam to play this game.

Keep the current resolution limits (1440x900 / 1280x1024) -> excludes over half of Steam users (so is completely fkin stupid option)
Increase the resolution limit (1920x1440) -> excludes ~2% of Steam users
Unlimited -> excludes nobody

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[Turban]

Just an abridged version here.

"Hey were going to go ahead and remove resolution limits anyways because we know better than every player ever over 500 polls and 100+ players"

What a joke.

nothing has been removed, and again it's something that I will seriously consider if we want to believe that this game has a future, and also if we want an already stale, downgraded league to start developing again after all these years. there was a long period of time where there was absolutely no resolution limits in TWLD, granted this was in the earlier days of the competition before the golden age, and most seem to have no recollection of that fact.

the limits may not be removed this season. it's still open for discussion, but again the only thing that will push me towards the change is an influx of new players, whether it's through steam or a successful marketing effort.

in the short run, limits should remain to please the current players while there remains a need to make minor changes to the league to lower the advantage some teams gain, and decreasing the random factor of each game with unlucky spawns, in terms of deaths and positioning, and perhaps even strays.

[Turban]

thanks for your input, and I'm well aware of the polls that we have had in the past, and even many of which we had in the recent times and even I have created two or three polls about the topic.

nevertheless, resolution limits will remain a touchy subject to talk about, especially when most of the seasoned warbird veterans are always going to be against the change, thus there remains a chance of these players boycotting the league if we go through with the change. this is all while the new generation of players seem to want the resolution limits gone for them to even consider challenging themselves in the league that at one point was the most prestigious title a team could earn.

admittedly, both parties do have their valid reasons to either keeping or removing the limits, and sadly there is is no decision that will please both sides.

we have several arguments about removing resolution limits being a bad thing, such as the competition shying away laptop users, and the games being a matter of who can afford to have the best monitor to get an edge over other players if we were to remove the resolution limits. there are some who argue that it would lower the skill required to play the ship, at least in terms of player reaction times, positioning and knowing when to play aggressive / safe, and even some who state that removing the limits will result in all games becoming a boring, drawn out battle of the endurance featuring ten players. all of these are by all means fine arguments, despite most being mere assumptions of what would happen if we went through with the change. no one is talking about how it would eliminate strays from the game, or increasing and promoting team play over individual performance, or even lowering the advantage some squads gain through third-party programs such as TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, or even bringing a breath of fresh air in terms of warbird players and population as the competition has became stale over the years.

as an added fact, we have ran two seasons of TWDT-D with no resolution limits, and it has been fairly well received by the players, even if some people have attempted to belittle the competition. in my opinion the past two seasons of draft league have been competitive, and there has been a good number of new warbird players stepping up and trying out the ship thanks to the change.

however, keep in mind that I am only strongly considering removing the limits if we are truly getting on Steam, which is still a good possibility, as in the long run this change would immensely help this zone. I prefer looking forward, and while we do have this stigma attached to our zone where most believe that change is bad, and people who make changes want to see the game fail, that is a big load of cow pie with no basis on truth or facts. I would not consider making any changes to the resolution limits if I truly believed this game had no future.

at the very least I will slightly increase the resolution zoom to give teams who do not use third-party voice communication programs a way to fight back as the increased vision would allow the players position better, find their team mates and locating enemies on time, thus promoting more team play and making the game less about luck.

another change worth considering is increasing the spawn radius to lower the chance of players getting spawn killed, even when it's a slim chance to begin with.