posted 03-26-2002 12:01 AM            

Getting rid of the center box
Allowing anti in the center (this might help get rid of center killers)
Expanding bases to be a little wider and closer to the spawn area

Players are willing to work on maps and such, settings can be discussed.

These are players speaking out to the staff to change what we feel may help the zone out. other ideas include

Reducing cap ship energy to a max of 8k (this will force teams to learn to flag better and rely less on a cap, also forcing caps to learn how to cap by supporting the team instead of being the team)
Reducing priv freq size to 8 and pub freqs to 10, this will make less of an advatage with the now 10:14 ratio

posted 03-26-2002 05:09 AM            

I think this would be a good idea if anti becomes legal everywhere, because then they become a target and a few players can rush to kill it to allow their cap or flagger to get to home/nme/liquor store. You would then need skilled pilots to anti, or at least be effective.

Personaly I believe this would ease the playerbase into all encompassing anti as well, even centre killers would like it, they would know if they are being antied and not try to use their port until they either kill it or evade it.

Also perhaps making anti slightly more rare in the green rate would be an idea, or maybe just in weasles, since they are more widely used than spiders and can also green a hell of a lot faster.

I ask the mods to not tolerate childish behaviour on this thread and delete any post which may hinder its purpose.

posted 03-26-2002 05:09 AM            

quote:

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Getting rid of the center box

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Hmm, pros and cons here. center should stay, cause its the only place you can green without being antied, that way you can get back to your base quickly.

quote:

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Allowing anti in the center (this might help get rid of center killers)

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naw, that way some punks will anti the whole of center, not allowing quick return to base. this will be a big problem when some pop turns up and people get bored.

quote:

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Expanding bases to be a little wider and closer to the spawn area

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Agreed!

quote:

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Reducing cap ship energy to a max of 8k (this will force teams to learn to flag better and rely less on a cap, also forcing caps to learn how to cap by supporting the team instead of being the team)

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fine by me but then make em a bit quicker too. not much, just a tad =)

quote:

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Reducing priv freq size to 8 and pub freqs to 10, this will make less of an advatage with the now 10:14 ratio

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Agreed!

And my own addition:
remove center safes, and place em somewhere far outside, where you CAN anti the person all the time. this to counter the lame safe-lobbers.

posted 03-26-2002 05:10 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Misoza:
BAH, you didn't mention my idea of being able to identify ships running anti on the radar. Can someone tell me if this is at least possible?

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posted 03-26-2002 10:53 AM            

I read the other thread that Garath posted, and I also read codegrrrl's reply. What she said was the closest thing to the truth that I can find.

Taking center out is really out of the question. A zone that is not SVS really requires a center spawn area to exist.

In addition, removal of the no-anti-in-center rule simply destroys the game. You will have a couple people who just sit in center and anti. When you are in a 30v30 base firefight, you need all the support you can get. That support will be stuck flying from center back to your base if they are antied. That also nullifies the low or no bty attach, not to mention the problems it creates for cap ships.

Lowering the cap energy is a good thing. Less reliance on a super ship and more reliance on player skill and the cultivating thereof is a good thing.

I also like privs. Privs where what this zone thrived on back when I started, ages and ages ago. This zone no longer thrives on newbie entrance to the game. There are a lot of people who I believe would come back if they had a reason, and I think privs is that answer. I'm wondering if even a reset of pub then a reset of priv would work, switching off? Just an idea.

posted 03-26-2002 10:56 AM            

I think that with our current population size, 8 man priv freqs would be ideal; however, once we get back to a constant population of 40-50, i think 10 man priv freqs would be better.

posted 03-26-2002 11:22 AM            

maybe if they were smaller a bit, you might actually get MORE then 2 teams competing.

besides, big privs of 10 sux0r. you get a freq of 10 good flaggers and they win usually (or they arent THAT good ). make em smaller might divide the good flaggers over multiple freqs.

posted 03-26-2002 11:46 AM            

But I do agree with you Whizz on your idea of making privs smaller. One thing that I think people don't realize is how many of the things that would require client changes to implement can be done somehow through the bots. Here's what I mean:

Misoza wants radar to identify anti'ers. This, though I think it's an excellent idea, is not possible with the current client. However, if the bot kept tabs on players, keeping track of which ones had anti and there was an easy way to ask the bot for coords of anti'ers nearby, then you've basically got the same thing. Saving the msg ":botname:?antiers" in a macro could really come in handy when you've got some pesky fighter with anti on and you don't know where he is.

Whizz says make freqs smaller. I'm not sure, but can freq size be changed midgame without recycling the server? If so, then I say have privs (evens get 1-3, 7; odds get 4-6, 8) and have the bot set the max size of the freqs based on the percentage of people in the zone. Once again, I'm not too sure if this is feasible, but it's still something worth asking about.

The bots provide us with tons of abilities that we haven't yet thought up, simply because we tend to think along the lines of our capabilities. But once you get past thinking "Oh well...it would take a while to find out the names of all players with anti on....etc" and realize that things like this take the bot a fraction of a second to complete, things become possible to implement.

I may have gone a bit off topic here, but I just thought I should point out the fact that we should begin thinking of ways to improve the zone with the bot in mind, rather than actual zone settings. It makes it a hell of a lot less intrusive towards all players that way, in my opinion.

Oh yeah...I'm willing to work on the bot, if some of you kind people would be willing to donate a dollar or two to the "Get Crawdaddy a connection for home use" fund. I can't get into SS from work and that's my only internet connection so far. So if you're interested in donating mere pennies to the cause, I promise that as soon as I get a connection, I'll start messing around with that bot and making changes, etc. I'm reachable at crawdaddy@hotmail.com.

Also, did .37 affect the current bot situation in any way? Just curious.

posted 03-26-2002 12:03 PM            

Center should stay, but bases should be enlarged. I suppose flag time would have to be increased as well.

About the privs thing in general, we've tried privs only for a reset but it was detrimental to the zone population. Personally, I'm not surprised but I would believe it would be temporary. Players who don't like it will leave, and other players will come and stay. I just think its a matter of time, but to some, the dip in population is too scary to watch. One Idea might be to try it during the summer when everyone is relatively free, so that even a dip in population wouldn't empty the zone.

Just my thoughts.

posted 03-26-2002 12:54 PM            

anyhow about the bigger base ideas, i know one thing, i added some bigger bases into the priv freq night ORION map. yet i got A LOT of ridicule for that. people saying it takes too long to get into bases and all. granted all the bases were timed out with enough time to make it through for the current flag settings...that is just what i am getting at, the time flag times.

i think if the bases are increased in size that the flag time should be upgraded by 50 secs or so. this would give the attackers enough time to get into the base without the timer running out on them 3/4 of the way through the base.

also there are some draw backs to this, as there are to all options. this increased flag time would also (i feel) increase the amount of people that would be "running" with the flags to get points or "easy kills".

to comply with this i say take out the flag upgrades, or downgrade the amount of nrg that the l4 bombs/bullets take away from the person/player getting hit by them. or make it take more nrg to shoot these powerfull weapons.

also as an added point i think that instead of just increasing the players guns and bombs by one level that they should all be increased to lv, and from that point make all the ships downgraded with the effect of the lv bullets/bombs taking more nrg to shoot and not as powerful as they are now. this would almost (i feel) totally get rid of the running with flags and they would still be helpful in bases due to the fact that a few of these bullets can make the difference in a person living or dieing.

just thoughts....

posted 03-26-2002 01:18 PM            

I wasn't aware that we still had l4 upgrades with flags. Personally, I feel that a ship with flags should be weakened, not upgraded. Whether it means a 100-200 drop in energy or temp downgrade in weapons, I don't know. I just feel that flags shouldn't just encumber you and make it a little harder to maneuver. This would definitely require that flaggers receive more protection from their teammates and probably cut down on runners...or at least cut it down to just a few very skilled players.

posted 03-26-2002 02:47 PM            

I like the idea of dynamic freq sizes except I think the bot would have to be programmed so there is a range of populations that work for each size. What i mean by this is that we don't have the current situation that we do with cap ships in that if the population hovers around 14 per freq the caps keep on going in and out. This could get really annoying if it happened with freq sizes, so the change would have to be moderated if the population hovered around a trigger point.

I like the decreasing cap ships for the reasons Mackie said.

Quick..i think what is meant by opening up the bases isn't by making them longer but by making them wider, so there aren't as many 2 or 3 tile chokes, the corridors are wider etc. Basically, the idea is to get rid of a team just lining up on lineup spots and pouring bullets down a 4 or 5 tile corridor while the other team hopes to get someone who can lag through or, in these days, tells their cap to run through it all.

posted 03-26-2002 03:00 PM            

And...make the teamgreen limit 20, and put in an attach bty of 12.

IFF caps are gonna be reduced to 8k max, AND anti is allowed in center,
increase the cap teamgreen to 75.

posted 03-26-2002 03:17 PM            

Hopefully I didn't forgot anything to mention

posted 03-26-2002 04:25 PM         

Why would I want to increase the flag time... so I sit on my ass longer? Why would I want a larger base... so I can spend more time flying to see some action than actually getting into a fight?

Honestly, what's the point of large bases and a long timer? You spend more time flying than anything else in this zone already.

Then there's the brainless attackers that suicide to their death in bases. We should penalize people that do this by making them spawn and green but instead we almost encourage it by not really having a high attach bounty.

As for the whole no anti in center thing. If you can't figure out how to either fly away from anti or kill the person with anti, then you should go to chaos zone and learn to play or something.

posted 03-26-2002 04:31 PM         

If you "vets" can't figure out when and when not to priv up, then private freqs will never work in here. I've seen games when there was like 20 playing people and a priv of "vets" formed and basically crushed a bunch of people I haven't really seen before. Is this really considered fun for you guys? Do you really need the points that badly?

If the zone pop is small... < 45 people, just play on the provided pub freqs. This allows the newer people to play with the more experienced. You never know who might surprise you.

Of course there's going to be that stupid freq hopper that goes for the points. Fine, let them hop for points. You just remember their name so when it does come time to priv up, just don't freq them. It's not that much of a hassle is it?

posted 03-26-2002 04:32 PM            

Fast paced games are one thing. Games that end fast are another.

I mentioned changing the flag timer, but didn't specify which way. At the time of this post, I can't seem to remember why I said that :P

Abadx: what bases do you like? don't give a size, but just name some specific ones. Easier to get an idea of size by example than by explanation.

posted 03-26-2002 04:36 PM            

I think that privs would work if there wasn't a bottle neck at EVERY base. It seems that once a good freq grabs the flags and heads over to a base, any other freqs that attack are competing for the right to just enter the base. I think that privs may actually be feasible if bases had multiple paths to the flagroom.

posted 03-26-2002 04:47 PM            

Originaly I thought "larger bases" meant opening them up, widening chokes and so forth instead of making them longer. Maybe this is what was meant.

Also, perhaps make the bot only make freq size changes after the jackpot has been won, so some unlucky person on the winning freq doesnt get robbed of a hard earned win. This could perhaps be used for caps as well, so they dont ping pong as much.

About flag upgrades, firstly, what are flags trying to represent? Why would the Empire and Rebel Faction fight so fiercly over them? Maybe they could be a rare energy source that both sides desire, this could explain the powerups, as well as the flag weight as they are ferrying heavy material, ore. *shrug*

-Miso

posted 03-26-2002 05:20 PM         

Smaller bases in my opinion are better for game play because you spend less time flying around. Of course we'd have to drop the timer way down if the bases get smaller. I guess the ladies room (i think) was a fairly small base, but I would like it a bit smaller than that and I'd like for the tunnels to be a bit wider. I like a base where a cloaker can really show off their stuff.

I never liked the idea of guarding two different entrances into a flag chamber. With that type of setup you could never hold a base.

posted 03-26-2002 09:07 PM            

Anti allowed everywhere (anti range isn't large, can't possibly ruin flag game)

Expand bases more towards center while widening them up more (the size of the bases right now are fine, in terms of length, but like garath said they need to be a bit wider)

Priv freqs of 8, pub freqs of 10 (seems like just the right amount to get a good game going without too many bullets and bombs everywhere)

Get rid of the bot (when the bot took a vacation, i honestly believed the zone population to be healther and livlier, i see it as a problem when players have to ask for mods all the time, this should not be the case)

Caps reduced to 8k max nrgy, but starting out at 6500 so they need to be greened up to that point.

what garath suggested, by increasing team green to 20, raising attach bounty to at least 10, and increasing cap team greens to allow them to possibly be greened to full energy

Concerning flag upgrades...

Flag upgrades are good in my eyes, hurting the ships anymore well, maybe making them slightly less manuverable as to force flag carriers to actually go home instead of fraying in the center.

Another thing we need here is for the staff to respond to this thread, at least giving their ideas also.

It is apparent that we all have ideas about how to improve this zone, and these ideas need to be taken into account.

posted 03-27-2002 02:20 AM            

they aren't willing to give a new look or a new take on swz out.

i say just do it, one day, just change it all up. take out the center, allow anti, change bases around. people will just have to adjust.

the no center thing really makes no difference to the zone. the only thing that the center provides is a boundary for the greens to appear in and the flags to appear in. without the boundary would be the edge of the bases. the anti everywhere would just have to be taken in as that, the flaggers will just have to run a lil more and have a lil more skill rather than knowing if they dry warp from a base they can get into the center and almost be safe to run to another base. i think this would almost completely clear up the base hoping idea.

base hoping could also be solved through the mmg and the providing of newer bases for the players to play in and have them be, yes more open, yet more dificult to get through.

i know that sounds like a too prtfect base. but it can be done.

Quick*

posted 03-27-2002 06:23 AM            

Ok, first of all, what i think would be good is getting neuting back. When i first played the zone it had neuting, and i think it gave an extra dimension to flagging strategies. If we want to implement this though, i do believe that we have to get rid of the many deep doors in our bases.

Second, about the privs. I too am in favor of private freqs, and i think the freq size should be adjusted to population. There are zones, like dueling arizona, that use a bot to adjust freqsize. we could have privs that for instance change between 4-6-8-10 people depending on the number of people playing. I tried to find out what the bot does, when freqsize decreases, to larger freqs, but i couldnt find anyone who knew yet. Maybe half/half pubs/privs per reset would be possible too, we will always keep the problem that some do and some don't want privs.

Third, bases should be closer to the center, and be wider. I think this is something that will most likely in the next map. I also agree with the anti allowed everywhere. When bases are close to center (which is either or not limited by borders) people can choose to run away from the anti, or fly directly to the base they want to go. An idea to combat people antiing the whole center, would be decreasing anti range a little.

The flagupgrades - I don't feel that weapon upgrades from a flag bring something extra but centerkilling into the game. I think flags should be something that decreases the manouvrability of your ship, but that should be about it...

Cap ships are a part of swz, but at the moment they might be a too big part when they are into play. It could be an idea to make them a bit less strong, but still with the intention to have it be a cap ship. It wouldn't be possible to have this set as it is now with privs, but yeah...maybe us mods should get some shipchecking going again. i wouldn't mind doing it. And if we don't play with the 1-3/4-6 rules on privs it wouldnt be too much work to check for cap ships on the relatively small privs freqs.
I do think, that our veteran players should step up too to set an example when or when there are not any mods online. When the bot was down for some period not too long ago, i've seen people who i don't consider newbs, fooling around in cap ships just because they weren't being babysit, while they obviously needed it.

I think i covered what i wanted to say...thanks for your time

Wild.
SWZ Staff

*edit: just some spelling errors

[This message has been edited by Wild (edited 03-27-2002).]

posted 03-27-2002 11:27 AM            

On with more ideas/input. About the bases, I like the idea of having small ones at the corners of center. Maybe a different layout per goal is all we need for this with the goal being in the flagroom of the mini-base.

As far as the bot goes, I think it's a necessary evil. I'll agree that it has hurt the zone in several ways, such as the elim bots. Although I do enjoy playing in those arenas, I preferred the much more personal elims we had in the golden days of SWZ with mods hosting them. However, it does take the task of ship checking off the shoulders of the mods, which in my opinion is best. I mean, the only difference between having a mod checking ships and having a bot checking ships is that mods are slower and the bot's more forceful, so it gets the job done ASAP. Also, without the bots, some cool ideas can't be accomplished such as the dynamic freq sizes unless a mod were to constantly sit there and decide on the best size per freq. Once again, the only difference here would be that the mod is slower in accomplishing the task. Now, if the players decide they want the freq sizes to remain as is, a mod can always turn off that function in the bot.

Unless I read this wrong, I don't think population-based nrg levels are the way to go for caps. If you've got enough people on all the freqs to allow caps, then the teams should be able to handle an 8k nrg cap.

abadx: Your ideal base--unless I'm misinterpretting your words--seem to be a short and easily maneuverable base. I'm all for wider sections in bases, although I think a tight squeeze here and there aren't bad because piloting is also a skill that should be required of a good flagger. If there were a way to keep people from setting up bomblines on that particular spot, then I think it would work.

Also, something I haven't seen mentioned is the subject of wallbombers. I think that it'd be really easy to get rid of the problem of wallbombers through a real easy design. Note: this design would need to be changed up a little bit for bases with multiple entrances. Take the entrance to the base and connect the two walls of the entrance to each other with a wall that wraps around the base, thus creating a bubble around the base that nobody can enter. Should add a little bit more skill to thoring flagrooms, too.

-Craw�

Oh yeah. Thanks for the response Wild! Hopefully more staff will start responding to this post.�

1. First edit
2. Second edit

[This message has been edited by Crawdaddy (edited 03-27-2002).]

posted 03-27-2002 12:13 PM            

I think craw has written the most

Craw, the ideal based, with our flag timer, is a base that would take about 100 seconds to fly through, uninterrupted by any sort of attack, plus, we never said to take out all choke points, just that some bases have too many, if you think of the current map, no one can get through r5(ladies room)without lag or a cap

With the applications to the MMG, i think that it would be possible to incorporate all these ideas and it would be even better if we could get a new map within the next month (crosses fingers)

The idea of small bases near center is very feasible, there is lots of wasted space, and small bases like ladies are very fun to play with when the pop is small.

I wasn't talking about adjusting caps for pop craw =), keep them at how i described them, 8k max nrgy

I feel like i'm repeating myself with this thread =) so let's get some other ideas up in here besides the ones we got how about discussing this...

The outside border ot the map is useless? All that junk on the outsides should just be taken out and move bses closer to the edge so u can expand the current ones.

senti mentioned the safes outside center, i think we had safes outside center until this map..correct me if i'm wrong

The number of greens needs to be increased if you are going to force an attach bounty, which i think should be enforced

PUT IN AN ATTACH BOUNTY =)

posted 03-27-2002 12:22 PM            

Also, I'm all for small attach btys. It would definitely put a dent in the effectiveness of suicide rushers (such as myself).

I think your idea of an ideal base suits me, basically. The thing about coming up with a suitable notion of what an ideal base is that we shouldn't think of it in terms of the current flag timer. There are lots of factors that go into creating the ideal base, but don't keep any constant...seems like that would allow for more innovation.

I'm starting to run out of fresh ideas for now. Let's get some fresh faces in here!

posted 03-27-2002 12:25 PM            

The shipbot needs to gotten rid of, it is serious hurting the player base not in terms of population but in terms of education. I know that newbies learn to ignore green messages because of the constant green spam from the bot right now. Some players don't even read the chat, so that in itself is a problem.

Mods are supposed to be players with responsibility and of some importance to players right? Well if they are to be responsible, give them responsibilities, take out the bot and let us do the rules and ship changes and all that good jazz. Simply letting a bot change ur ship and tell u that u were the wrong ship is horrible, players need to see who are mods and who to ask for help.

Granted we have the ?cheater and ?help command, but i rarely see people using these who haven't already played for a while. The new players ask in pub chat how to do things, they should be able to priv message a mod (if they know how)

Basically what I am saying is that the staff-player relationship needs to be re-established and improved. When the staff and players are working as one, then the zone has somewhere to go. I honestly believe that getting rid of the ship bot will be the first step in this process.

oh yes, on a side note, ship rules need to be reinstated during priv days if you reduce the freq size, again getting back to the summer of 99 settings.

posted 03-27-2002 12:29 PM            

Though a way to counter this is just to reduce the blast radius a little bit. Bases who which have double walls look a little weird imo. I would sooner adjust the blast radius then add another wall to the base.

I mentioned the current flag timer to just keep something constant to define my ideal base, however, changing it up would be very nice, maybe to 150 seconds? or something.

posted 03-27-2002 12:37 PM            

I know that one thing that bugs me (and this may be due to lack of knowledge of continuum and the server, etc) but there's no easy way to find out who's a mod in the game. Asking in pub doesn't always help to find out, either. I think if we had some background ads in the center either listing mods, this could be resolved. Or if there's a command that lists the mods, place the command along with it's usage in the ad, instead. Another way the bot could help in this is by listing mods that are currently online in a greeting to entering players.

-----------Added after original post-----------

dbob: I just know I don't care for wallbombers, but yeah...decreasing bomb radius would be helpful too. Would definitely increase skill level needed for bombers, as well. I know that some bases have doubled walls, but as you said...it looks goofy. I'd like to try both your idea and mine.

And yeah, I'm all for making changes in one day. Actually, having a test week wouldn't be bad at all. I think what may be best, though, is to have it all done in SWZL zone
so that the zone population doesn't plunge as a result. Once we've got a basic idea of what works and what doesn't, then take the better changes and THEN throw them into SWZ.

-Craw

posted 03-27-2002 01:56 PM            

-------Added to original post------

I'm obviously in love with the bot. Please don't take my baby away!

-Craw