02-11-2014, 03:44 PM
Personally I am not a fan of the long safe timer. I'm probably not as adverse to it as Ninespike is, but I will admit that I don't like it. I'll try to break down all my thoughts on it. As I'm clearly the most skilled pilot in all of Subspace, my opinion should carry the most weight 
The timer has been changed to, what? 12 hours? 13 hours? It used to be 15 minutes? I was always used to Alpha's half hour safe timer. 15 mins and 30 mins are kind of the same, not much difference between them, the purposes of their duratin are fairly comparable.
What was (apparently) the original purpose of a safe zone timer of 15/20 mins?
A pee, a crap, a courier delivery, a phone call. Maybe just a PM convo with another player to plug a squad or talk about what some player was seen doing, etc. Basically for when you need a time out but expect to hopefully resume before too long.
Safe zones are also used to safely change freqs, bonus those boosters and rabbits. Stuff like that.
What is the argument FOR longer safe timers?
Seems the main point is that if someone has played for a while, got themselves a good bounty, and wants not to lose it, but has to go out for dinner/movie. You can stay in safe and keep your ship (spikes notwithstanding).
Pros :
- Keep your bounty if you're on a roll.
- Looks like a higher population in play (at first glance) - hopefully attracting more players.
- A player might hang around seeing if the guy in safe come out of afk soon, long enough for a third player to arrive and voila we have 2+ active players that might have missed each other.
- We're all older, our afks are more sudden, longer and more important. We don't have a known time to play up til mum calls you for dinner at 6pm. We have an unknown time to play before the sound of our children crying from another room calls us away. Longer afks, maybe even an hour or 90 minutes, I feel, are definitely indicated.
Cons :
- Antiwarp on plays havoc for fifteen minutes, let alone 13 hours! Bit unfair. Hallu: you had an awesome coding addition auto-turning off people's AW after a few minutes in safe. It seems to have dropped off the system. Can it be reintroduced?
- This player is not playing. Another player waiting for them to exit safe could understandably be pretty annoyed after sitting around a long time in hope.A regular is not going to be confused, but a newer player (eg someone from EG or TW just checking CZ out) is gonna go back home with a very disparaging assessment to share.
- It feels like a lie to new(ish) players (as above). I have seen players from other zones speak up obviously feeling ripped off. It looks like there's an active population here when four players are out of spec, then you see they're all in safe. I've seen instances of "How does this shitty zone get away with cheating the stats this way, those ships could be bots for all I know". Of course it's NOT actually cheating the stats, but appearances always count for something. (It must be said that the introductory bot PM describing players in zone and players in safe IS a good idea that allays some of this).
- Safed players clog public freqs. The counter-argument is: change freqs. "But sometimes three freqs have long-term safed players." "well, change to another one." "What, so I change to freq 11? So when new players enter I can be guaranteed not to receive any of them onto my team by default?" Also, *new* players need to be taught the pewpew, not the freqchangewhenplayersareinsafepew. They're not going to readily get the concept. They're going to go back to their own zone. Or to porn. Also, sometimes you've jumped in, played, done well, gone 5-0, but now you're low in items and could do with assistance as people start to focus on your bounty. //you there? //??? //????????? ... you've done your dash before finding out that the freq is a TRAP, If you're any good, you're now a bounty farm. There are some seriously emphatic rivalries in CZ (and subspace), you don't want to be caught out like this when your arch-nemesis is starting to challenge you.
Overall, I don't like it.
It's good that AW is or used to be turned off automatically after a timer.
It's good that streaks are ended if you're there too long.
It's good that the enter-zone green text warns you if players are in safe.
But I don't think this is enough to clear the way for such long safety time.
That's just my 2c, all I can think of right now. I'm sure there's many more aspects.
The timer has been changed to, what? 12 hours? 13 hours? It used to be 15 minutes? I was always used to Alpha's half hour safe timer. 15 mins and 30 mins are kind of the same, not much difference between them, the purposes of their duratin are fairly comparable.
What was (apparently) the original purpose of a safe zone timer of 15/20 mins?
A pee, a crap, a courier delivery, a phone call. Maybe just a PM convo with another player to plug a squad or talk about what some player was seen doing, etc. Basically for when you need a time out but expect to hopefully resume before too long.
Safe zones are also used to safely change freqs, bonus those boosters and rabbits. Stuff like that.
What is the argument FOR longer safe timers?
Seems the main point is that if someone has played for a while, got themselves a good bounty, and wants not to lose it, but has to go out for dinner/movie. You can stay in safe and keep your ship (spikes notwithstanding).
Pros :
- Keep your bounty if you're on a roll.
- Looks like a higher population in play (at first glance) - hopefully attracting more players.
- A player might hang around seeing if the guy in safe come out of afk soon, long enough for a third player to arrive and voila we have 2+ active players that might have missed each other.
- We're all older, our afks are more sudden, longer and more important. We don't have a known time to play up til mum calls you for dinner at 6pm. We have an unknown time to play before the sound of our children crying from another room calls us away. Longer afks, maybe even an hour or 90 minutes, I feel, are definitely indicated.
Cons :
- Antiwarp on plays havoc for fifteen minutes, let alone 13 hours! Bit unfair. Hallu: you had an awesome coding addition auto-turning off people's AW after a few minutes in safe. It seems to have dropped off the system. Can it be reintroduced?
- This player is not playing. Another player waiting for them to exit safe could understandably be pretty annoyed after sitting around a long time in hope.A regular is not going to be confused, but a newer player (eg someone from EG or TW just checking CZ out) is gonna go back home with a very disparaging assessment to share.
- It feels like a lie to new(ish) players (as above). I have seen players from other zones speak up obviously feeling ripped off. It looks like there's an active population here when four players are out of spec, then you see they're all in safe. I've seen instances of "How does this shitty zone get away with cheating the stats this way, those ships could be bots for all I know". Of course it's NOT actually cheating the stats, but appearances always count for something. (It must be said that the introductory bot PM describing players in zone and players in safe IS a good idea that allays some of this).
- Safed players clog public freqs. The counter-argument is: change freqs. "But sometimes three freqs have long-term safed players." "well, change to another one." "What, so I change to freq 11? So when new players enter I can be guaranteed not to receive any of them onto my team by default?" Also, *new* players need to be taught the pewpew, not the freqchangewhenplayersareinsafepew. They're not going to readily get the concept. They're going to go back to their own zone. Or to porn. Also, sometimes you've jumped in, played, done well, gone 5-0, but now you're low in items and could do with assistance as people start to focus on your bounty. //you there? //??? //????????? ... you've done your dash before finding out that the freq is a TRAP, If you're any good, you're now a bounty farm. There are some seriously emphatic rivalries in CZ (and subspace), you don't want to be caught out like this when your arch-nemesis is starting to challenge you.
Overall, I don't like it.
It's good that AW is or used to be turned off automatically after a timer.
It's good that streaks are ended if you're there too long.
It's good that the enter-zone green text warns you if players are in safe.
But I don't think this is enough to clear the way for such long safety time.
That's just my 2c, all I can think of right now. I'm sure there's many more aspects.
One of the three most dangerous people in Subspace.