DSB Pub

[Tembest]

How can we get new players? I have played pub a couple of days now and always when I do, I only get people to leave.
They are new to the zone, so they don't have clue how to play it.

They play against me 2 on 1, 1 on 1, I kill them without even trying as any vet would do. Well, what do they do? They
leave either for good or try tw, they see they can actually kill someone in that lucky oneshot game and they stay there.

Vets can't play pub or anything else for that matter. We are far too overpowered for pub and will only frustrate people,
and there are no pracs going on. The game is dead for newbies because they can't fight veterans, and it's dead for
veterans because there's nothing they can play.

How on earth would we ever get out of this? Only solution would be to create sort of a newbie arena where all newbies would
fight each other, where anyone with 200+ hours usage would not have access to. Then there's the population problem.
If we now get 1 vs 1 games, I can assume we would have 1 vs 0 if we split the arenas. This is .... sad.

[Matioso]

Agreed, agreed. There should be some way to help newbs out but it's very difficult to do so. Give them more specials maybe? And how to do that...

[Fly Swatter]

There may not be a way, but altering the way upgrades are handed out is a good start. This current system makes vets stronger with every kill, even vet vs vet, its an annoyance not knowing the energy/recharge level of the other guy. You add shields/cloak into the mix and pub is basically just annoying for everyone. On top of that there is no game, just killing.

Code: Select all

MAP
1: original map
2: one outside NKZ

MAIN SETTINGS
1: reduced freeze time for emp bombs -1/2 sec

SECONDARY SETTINGS
1: all ships max energy capped at +200 default level.
2: all ships max recharge capped at +400 default level.
3: all ships upgrade energy +50
4: all ships upgrade recharge +100
5: wb and ter max burst decoy and repel set to 0
6: jav and weas max burst and decoy set to 0
7: lev and lanc max burst and repel set to 0
8: shark and spider max decoy and repel set to 0
9: death greens will replenish ships default items only.

		[PrizeWeight]
		Burst = 3
		Decoy = 3
		Portal = 1
		Proximity = 40
		Repel = 3
		Rocket = 6
		Everything else = 0

PRIVATE FREQS
1:Private freqs are reduced to just freqs 0-1-2-3 (no more !myfreq). Freqs 2-3 server a multi purpose, during lowpop times they do what they do now. If down the road there is a real game in pub, freqs 2-3 could allow for a 3rd maybe 4th freq to join in the game at full balance. Freqs 2-3 will only run until there are x amount of players in-game, then its just freqs 0-1. Ideally, freqs 2-3 would not be shut down in the middle of a game, so when there is a game the switching will only happen in between games (PUB NEEDS A GAME).

WARPBOX
1:Its switched on/off when the in-game population reaches x amount of players. Note: the warpbox works smoothly when running merv-core 46 (and or other conflicts with the current bot). 

SPREE REWARDS
One block of both energy and recharge is give out on the 7th, 14th, and 21st kill.

[the_real_the_snake]

well you have two options:

1) eventually all vets will quit the zone, which will leave room for new players to grow.
2) change the prizing upgrade system that you gain spawn bonuses according to your W/L ratio and usage calc. You lose bonuses when you kill players during your life.

This way you give new players some edge... only solution..

[Fly Swatter]

2) change the prizing upgrade system that you gain spawn bonuses according to your W/L ratio and usage calc. You lose bonuses when you kill players during your life.

This might be a legitimate idea, id feel comfortable if it was a judgement call by real life staff members and not by statistics. Example: staff could !noob %tickname, this could add energy and recharge to the noob each respawn. I dont think taking anything away from the regular players would go over well.

[the_real_the_snake]

you can always make good enough AI to make these decisions.
No harm in staff monitoring for abuse though, which is solved by removal for upgrades anyhow..

[Seriel Killer]

how about just nuke people's emails all over the world about the zone?

[Delic]

i wonder if some of you will ever realize that there is no artificial
solution to this. there's no genius formula that will regulate the
game as to balancing it for new players and old players. it's been
tried for years and all those attempts have failed. what I haven't
seen tried is bringing the game back to the basics. there was a
point in time when this zone had fewer players than now you know,
and that's when it all started. All the obvious differences between
now and then aside, if you can give players a new reason to stay
without losing the fundamentals then there you have a good start
to finding a solution. Easier said than done? Maybe, but at least get
on the right path. Learn from past mistakes instead of going around
in circles. If you look at the history of dsb and dsb staff, that's exactly
what's been happening. No extra specials or prizes or bounty or
whatever you wanna call it will get this zone out of the situation it's in.
No eye candy will make people want to play a 2D spaceship game from
1994. We can't compete with other games at that. What we can offer
is far more simpler, and simplicity has always been the beauty of ss imo.

[Delic]

First of all, making it easier for newbies to compete with veterans in combat
is absurd and defeats the whole purpose of this type of action game.
This game wasn't made to be played like that, and if people wanted to
play a game like that, they'd play an RPG where they can level up. In SS,
real experience weighs more than prizes that you happen to fly by or obtain
somehow. Extra bonuses or prizes that unbalance the shipset should be
whiped out completely once and for all. As many of us said and apparently
predicted, it has never solved anything and one could argue the contrary.

What you can and should do is put more emphasis on things other than killing.
This can be done in several ways, some of which have already been partially
implemented in the past. Ultimately a vet will always beat a newbie, and
if you're trying to find a "solution" to that then you're wasting your time,
but at least it would be more newbie-friendly if there were roles that players
can take in the gameplay where combat isn't a critical requirement for success.

Anyways, I think that if we get down to the real issues and try to take the
problems by the roots then issues such as vets vs newbies would go away
by themselves. As I've mentioned before, I'm convinced that a relaunch is
required to achieve that... What that means is taking all the original factors
that make DSB unique and fun and putting them back together in a new way.

If DSB is ever going to stand a chance to see life again then a relaunch is
most definitely required. And that means more than just changing the server
platform to AS3. It means focusing on the gameplays that the zone has to
offer and truly develop them and uplift the unique characteristics that DSB has.

[Seriel Killer]

how about just nuke people's emails all over the world about the zone?