Current Rabbit Flag

[hallucination]

Wondering how ppl like the current version of the rabbit flag... It has upgrades (obvious) and downgrades (maybe not so obvious, but potent). Any guesses on what the downgrades are?



--hallu

[Nude For Satan]

Its better than the 8-flag silliness imo. I prefer no flag at all, but if its gonna be a rabbit flag, this version seems a bit improved over the previous one.



Samgunn made an interesting comment the other day. I believe he considered that his Jav lost a little pace when he had the flag. Any truth to the rumour?

[dnclarke]

I dislike the current rabbit flag for the following reason.



1: The energy loss from the upgrades is to costly in my opinion. This reason alone is enough for me to not really want the flag. I am sure with some practice managing energy would work itself out.



2: Having the 1 flag does not really create an interest for players to go after the flag holder. Not really any reward.



For these reasons, I would prefer the jackpot style 8 flags, Sometimes this creates some competition between the freq's and brings some old league players out of the wood work to play. Especially the Jackpot Event after the MoC.. That was a lot of fun..



I know the flags are not traditional Chaos, however it does create a sort of competition for players that don't typically care about being a reset winner or traditional standings within the zone.



I do think nude is onto something, it appears as though my ship is a little bit slower, possibly rotation. I would say recharge however that is cause I overshoot when I have the flag (back to reason #1) <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':clapping:' />



See you in the zone



-20

[Nude For Satan]

I never realised how averse I was to the flags until yesterday. I was rocketting along to get back to an opponent after another death <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':clapping:' /> when the flag suddenly appeared in front of me. In my panic to avoid it, I actually tried to rep it out of my path.

[hallucination]

Upgrades were obvious -- guns and bombs +1



samgunn was right -- speed was cut by 300 when carrying a flag. Even with the flag, Javs would were still noticeably faster than other ships.



20 noticed another downgrade in that it cost 25% more to fire weapons.



That was it -- no other changes. Experiments and user testing need to be done to determine actual impact of settings changes rather than speculation of what they might do to game play. This test showed that the downgrades were a little too strong, but not much.



btw, flags are back to normal Jackpot settings -- i.e. no upgrades/downgrades -- the reward of jp flags is to win the flag point jackpot via your freq gaining all 8 flags at once. The JP flag game after MoC last week was a good success -- I'd like to run this regularly if possible.



--hallu

[Ethylene!]

[quote name='hallucination' timestamp='1299976281' post='273528']

Upgrades were obvious -- guns and bombs +1



samgunn was right -- speed was cut by 300 when carrying a flag. Even with the flag, Javs would were still noticeably faster than other ships.



20 noticed another downgrade in that it cost 25% more to fire weapons.



That was it -- no other changes. Experiments and user testing need to be done to determine actual impact of settings changes rather than speculation of what they might do to game play. This test showed that the downgrades were a little too strong, but not much.



btw, flags are back to normal Jackpot settings -- i.e. no upgrades/downgrades -- the reward of jp flags is to win the flag point jackpot via your freq gaining all 8 flags at once. The JP flag game after MoC last week was a good success -- I'd like to run this regularly if possible.



--hallu

[/quote]



Why is the length of time mines are active still reduced? The reasoning last reset was because of the flag upgrade. Now that the flag upgrade is gone why is the timer for mines being active not back to its normal setting?

[hallucination]

Truth is that I thought the settings file I used to restore to the previous settings had that reset to the previous value, so thanks for pointing that out in the zone in your typical, diplomatic manner.



I'm leaving it at one minute (instead of two) for now to reduce mine stacking a bit since it is anti-newb. I will start another thread on the topic of settings in general.



Next Saturday we're going to have RR-SVS settings (retail release standard vie settings) for a day. That should be interesting.



--hallu

[Ethylene!]

[quote name='hallucination' timestamp='1300039373' post='273547']

Truth is that I thought the settings file I used to restore to the previous settings had that reset to the previous value, so thanks for pointing that out in the zone in your typical, diplomatic manner.



I'm leaving it at one minute (instead of two) for now to reduce mine stacking a bit since it is anti-newb. I will start another thread on the topic of settings in general.[/quote]



Try telling the players what you are changing instead of keeping it a secret...you're not going to get much trust or warm feelings from players when you don't tell them what is going on.



So we want to make the zone more newb friendly...if the reason for keeping the mine timer at one minute is to help newbs then you have a bunch more settings to change because the length of time that mines are active is not even close to the top of the list of reasons why newbs leave after playing for only a few minutes. You can remove mines altogether and newbs still won't stay so what's the next setting to change to make newbs stay? Oh, I have an idea, give newbs a supership, you know like in EG, that would help them learn how to play Chaos.



On the topic of flags, one thing I have noticed is that for players that don't want to have a flag and it's associated downgrade (current settings) and happen to get one, they either have to recylce, go sit in safe for 300 seconds (if they get lucky someone will come by and shoot at them in safe and get rid of the flag), or fly around avoiding people for 300 seconds. This becomes a problem if there are only a few people playing in the zone (which is more frequently the case these days) and most of them have the flag and I don't want the flag, it leaves me with very few people to shoot at, if any, not much fun. Basically, in low populations I have to shoot people with a flag so I can at least get a few kills but then once I get the kill and the flag I either have to recycle, go to safe and wait 300 seconds, or flay around trying to avoid people for 300 seconds, again, not much fun. The flag should NOT have an upgrade or a downgrade, it should only have points associated with it, that's the only realistic way to have a flag game in Chaos.

[hallucination]

Scientific testing usually requires at least a single blind design. User bias can be a huge issue for the acquisition of valid data. For example, you erroneously think the flag currently has a downgrade, and so your behavior changes based on what you think is going on, or what you think the effect will be, rather than what is actually going on.



I agree that it would be nice for players to be able to drop a flag if they wish -- better yet to not even pick up the flag in the first place if they wanted that. Chaos has had a flag since about 2000 when a rabbit flag was added. The current Jackpot flags have even less effect since they don't alter game play at all.



There are many ideas being considered to try and keep more new players in the game long enough for them to start to understand the complexity and depth of our apparently simple little game. If anyone has some specific ideas on that, please post them.





--hallu

[Nude For Satan]

Flag hides bounty, over-rules ?target.



When you are red, you attract attention from flag-game-harlots. Even if you just entered arena and spawned on top of a fag with 50 bty. Immediately you're beset upon by all those guys who take the "L" out of Flag.



Also, the thing I harp on about all the time, I know, again re the flag over-riding ?target. Flags hide high bounty. Not so much in single flag game, but definitely in the 8-flag game. I know you've said its unchangeable (probably hardcoded I guess) but its really annoying. Annoys me more than anything else in the game.



I don't like the flag games.

[Jazz]

I like the 8-flags in the game. <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/good.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':p' />



Many of the original zones no longer exist, but some of the regs are from those old zones. The flags appeal to the ppl who played Running-Zone and Warzone <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/drinks.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8)' />



Running zone was pretty much the same as Chaos zone (but with flags). And while it mightve been ok to have 2 separate zones based on that difference many moons ago when there were far more players, it makes more sense to incorporate them in one zone now with fewer players. It dont think it really changes the zone too much. Except maybe attracting more hunters and vulchers towards those with the big red target <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':unknw:' />



And if i dont feel like flagging, i still kill the red ..... but then i use the option to SC. I dont bother with the option to avoid combat (unless my bty is kind of high) or sitting in a safezone . I green alot to get my ship up to strength (way more than some ppl on my freq it seems), and i keep greening as i play to keep it that way. So a SC and its loss of bty isnt a big deal to me. <img src='http://www.subspace.co/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unknw.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':yahoo:' />