Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[FarScape]

2 burst max would seem fine to me, 1 could do, but I think for this situation 2 is fine.

I think if you want to tinker around with it, if you lower the max burst / portal a terr can carry, you should increase the percentage in the regeneration option in the armory. It's currently at 5% for every upgrade, why not make it 10% per upgrade and increase the up points needed to get the upgrade? That way, the terr can't spam all their bursts at once, but will have burst/ports rearmed more frequently.

Thats what im saying. don't just limit it to 1, but also increase the regeneration of it so you will "green" it more often.
terriers will have enough bursts in a battle, but they wont be able to spam 2-3 in a row.

Dug the tank idea is smart as tactical option, i agree. maybe it will work, ill try get used to it

[gdugwyler]

There are 3 things that can be tweaked as far as bursts go:

1. Maximum amount allowed to be carried at once.

2. Amount a player rearms with.

3. The percentage chance of burst being prized every 30 seconds.


1 and 2 seem nearly the same, but their effects are quite different. If you start with 2 bursts (#2), you're much more likely to be able to double- (or triple-) burst. So it follows that reducing this would reduce the possibility of double bursts. However, limiting the maximum amount of bursts to only 1 (#1) completely eliminates all chances of double bursts ever occurring. Personally I think that's going too far for something that is really only a minor annoyance. I think the reason that it's frustrating is not because it occurs at all, but because it occurs so frequently. Logically to rectify the matter we'd reduce the frequency rather than remove the possibility altogether.

Also note that limiting max bursts to 1 (and possibly same for port) makes regeneration far less useful, necessitating a percentage chance increase, as was suggested. Even that may not make up for it -- on a ship that people are still sometimes reluctant to play.

[Zeimonster]

wouldnt it be possible to reduce the damage of the bursts to 1599, the same as lvl2 bullets? just feels stupid that a completely random piece of junk can kill a high level ship with full energy

[Mjollnir]

A few notes on the comments here and on the game in general:

- I agree with bursts being annoying. They are a random luck factor in the game that too often decide how a flagroom battle goes. Limiting the damage to 1599 and limiting the amount of bursts both sound like good ideas. If you nerf the bursts enough you can just add more profit sharing RP for the terr. In my opinion a terrier should be able to get most of it's RP without killing. That way we wouldn't have annoying kamikaze terriers (Ze Punisher) on the team and even the lonely terrier in the home base and the losing team's terrier could level up in a nice rate.

- Red bullet damage is too high. Doing 600 damage per bullet has made spiders (and the shark multi) too strong, being able to kill most people with 2 bullets from full energy.

- The javelin got too weak after the bomb energy nerf. I also tested the javelin rocket and it didn't seem worth the huge amount of RP it costs.

- The warbird is still too strong as I have stated multiple times. Would be nice to hear some opinions on this but only like 5 people post on the board so bleh. And most warbird pilots naturally disagree except Zeimonster.

- The levi feels pretty strong now. I feel like my level 21 levi gets more kills than my level 36(?) javelin, now that it's weaker. I need to test the levi out some more but currently I feel it doesn't need to be nerfed.

- The amount of time required to capture the flag is too long. Something like 3-5 seconds would be better. Even though Distension isn't played by total newbies, it is still basically a public arena (and the amount of newbies will increase once we go public) so the teamwork will suck pretty bad most of the time. Because a long time needed to capture a flag requires more teamwork, it is really frustrating not being able to do anything when most of your team is retarded.

- The assisting system could probably use some tweaking. It seems some people are using !assist # and getting returned very soon (possibly by spamming !assist to the bot?) and then doing it over and over again. That has given certain people a lot of extra RP I bet. I don't see why else someone like Meqaman would keep doing it so much. He probably has the highest level ship in the game (along with PH) and I wonder how much of it was done by "abusing" the assist system.

- What is the reasoning behind later level upgrades costing a lot more RP although they give the same amount of %? For example the leviathan gets 3% recharge / upgrade but at some point the upgrades start costing like 24 RP which is ludicrous. The first upgrade costs something like 10 RP. In this sense I liked the old point system better. Shouldn't you rather limit certain upgrade levels to the level of the ship instead of making them cost more and more like that? I am probably missing something here but I feel it's better to say how I feel about these things than be quiet like most of the people who are testing the game.

This got a little longer than I expected but it would be nice to hear other people's opinions on these points.

[AcidBomber]

Yeh what's up with upgrades costing anywhere from 15-20+ UPs now that i am a level 30 spider?

I noticed the same upgrades cost more UPs as i level, yet i still gain 10 UPs per level, and is much much harder to level when you're level 25+... so then is basically 2 hard levels per upgrade now =(...


PS: What's up with weasel's energy recharge rate, rocket, and portal? Is owning up everyone (especially terrs) in the flagroom with the fast recharge and portal + rocket (aka - Mjollnir and Vergilius)... not to mention is hard to aim at those gay ships... -_-


PPS: Is it possible to make spider multi-fire angles closer? right now is like 70 degrees... which is practically useless unless you're in the open.

[gdugwyler]

I appreciate the feedback here. Have to say, though, I'm starting to notice a trend in players saying their ships are weak and the ships of others are quite/too strong.

Bursts: Regardless of how fast it would be able to level with more profit-sharing, the Terr needs to remain, above and beyond, fun to play. If it's not fun, people aren't going to play it, and even now in beta most people are pretty reluctant to touch the ship. That said, I also don't see what's wrong with a burst making a one-hit kill. This is what it does for every ship in pub, for example ... and unlike the warbird's bullet (which does the same in pub) there's no way to upgrade the damage, so having it remain permanently one-hit kill seems reasonable. Is there a specific intent to the 1599 damage level? Maybe a ship you like to play that has 1600 at a certain time, or what? I'm sorry for being suspicious here, but the number given is quite intriguing, you have to admit. Perhaps we could look at slowing bursts down a little bit, and/or reducing the damage to something that will kill most ships, but not all.

L1 bullet damage: It was at 600 before the big change recently, and I reduced it to 520. Some people griped that with most ships now starting with L2 and dropping L1 bullet damage back to pub's 520, it made the ones that have only L1 at a distinct disadvantage, so I upped it back to 600. Recently I played a spider and it did seem pretty easy to mop up, though, so I see the point. However, this brings me to ...

Warbird overpowered: If WB is overpowered, and Spider is overpowered due to L1, which is "more" overpowered? The WB, Spider and Lanc are the fighting ships, and in 1v1 combat against any other ship should generally appear "overpowered." Anyone who understands the basics of TW mechanics knows this... so are you saying it's overpowered compared to spiders and lancs? I also recently heard someone saying that WB was rather crappy now. Didn't necessarily believe it, but, just throwing that out there.

Jav bomb nerf: The Jav bomb energy being put up to 1000 wasn't really a nerf so much as a correction. It was set at 725 or something equally ridiculous ... consider in pub the damage is 1100, and that the ship is still played like hell there, and I would be inclined to believe that the jav is not suffering. I'll look at the rocket cost, though.

Flag cap: While newbies may play the game, I would like to aim it at being able to be tactical. Any online flag cap game of much merit requires you to hold a flag for a decent bit before it's considered capped. Some require as much as 30 seconds. I don't think 10 seconds is too much, really.

Assist abuse: I talked a little with meqa, and she's just macro'd !assist x. From what I understand she's not able to actually return immediately after, which would be a nasty bug. If that's not true and it's being abused, I'd like to figure out how it's going on, though. Keep me posted.

Upgrades costing more at later levels: This was the case before the system change -- only, it was less gradual then. You'd have 5 levels of recharge for 1 UP, and then the next few for 2 UP, and then 3, etc. There are also rank limits as you suggest, though. Problem is: too few upgrades, too many ranks.

Weasel power: Doesn't seem too bad. That's just me.

[AcidBomber]

L1 bullet damage: It was at 600 before the big change recently, and I reduced it to 520. Some people griped that with most ships now starting with L2 and dropping L1 bullet damage back to pub's 520, it made the ones that have only L1 at a distinct disadvantage, so I upped it back to 600. Recently I played a spider and it did seem pretty easy to mop up, though, so I see the point. However, this brings me to ...

Warbird overpowered: If WB is overpowered, and Spider is overpowered due to L1, which is "more" overpowered? The WB, Spider and Lanc are the fighting ships, and in 1v1 combat against any other ship should generally appear "overpowered." Anyone who understands the basics of TW mechanics knows this... so are you saying it's overpowered compared to spiders and lancs? I also recently heard someone saying that WB was rather crappy now. Didn't necessarily believe it, but, just throwing that out there.

Upgrades costing more at later levels: This was the case before the system change -- only, it was less gradual then. You'd have 5 levels of recharge for 1 UP, and then the next few for 2 UP, and then 3, etc. There are also rank limits as you suggest, though. Problem is: too few upgrades, too many ranks.

Weasel power: Doesn't seem too bad. That's just me.

L1 bullet damage, did you change it to 600 now? Or was it already at 600 earlier today?

As for warbirds, it seems alright now, level 30 wb vs level 30 spid have an equal chance of winning, spids winning depend on luck at times though (If the wb' miss), and wb winning depend on whether spids can aim... but yeh that's normal

I am kinda confused about the upgrade costs, it seems very high, but maybe that's just me...

As for weasels, spec Mjollnir when he's a weasel, it drives the other freq nuts in the flagroom. =s

PS: Spider spread angles?

As well, the decoys for spiders are practically useless, lasts for like 5 seconds?

[Vergilius]

Comments on the weasel (yeye, what a surprise, coming from me, i know)
Acid, i know me and Mjoll are a pain in the ass for you, but dont forget we both are lvl 34+. We both have different tactics when we upgraded our ship. Mjoll for example has stealth, rocket, portal. Decent combo, and annoying as fuck. But thats what the weasel is all about. Me on the other hand has invested in speed, rocket, and recharge/energy. Both different techniques, both effective to drive a terrier that cant eat l2 nuts. But imo, the weasel is not too strong. Looking at the recs we had at the end of the test yesterday your spider had more kills, and less losses. For us it (finally) became easy to get our win:loss to a 1:1.

(and oyeah, you might got a little annoyed by me yesterday, i was really enjoying to dodge your spider multi and then boom you off )


Oh and dug.. I love the vengeful bastard. Nothing cooler than seeing that nme just freeze after i die, unable to get away. Brings a smile to my face

[FarScape]

Yeah don't forget that its a level factor. Spider isn't that strong against high levels warbirds and javelins, it isn't strong even against weasels and levi's on high ranks. most chances that the L2 bullets will take spider in 1 shot, rather than spider can take them in 3 shots (some warbirds are really hard to take, but thats fine).

I don't think the power of the L1 bullets should be reduced since you cant kill with them with 1 shot like most of the ships in game for now (dunno if max energy will stop it).

For the level upg points, It shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades... don't see a reason to change it.

[Fluffz]

it would be very nice to get some benefit for attacking. currently it doesnt feel like its worth it. for example there could be buyable items for single use. so you could add another value next to UP which could be CASH. for every kill in the enemy flagroom you could get some of this CASH so you could buy yourself a shield some day.

as for weapon abilities, i think they could be more deiverse. currently there are shots and bombs. i am thinking of the alternative levi bomb with the massive shrap, or a grenade bomb that explodes automatically without hitting wall using high proxy range and time. a thor of some sort would also be nice. maybe a shrap nova would be possible with proxy and high proxy range. i am thinking of the lanc there, that proxy speedless bomb and lvl3 bullets seem to be rather boring and useless upgrades.

also the upgrades do feel a little expensive, im lvl 30 and i need 3 lvls to buy 1 energy so i would need to be aproximatly lvl 60 to get full nrg and recharge, but than i could not afford the other stuff that requires a lot of energy to shoot out. talking about lanc again.

[Mjollnir]

I appreciate the feedback here. Have to say, though, I'm starting to notice a trend in players saying their ships are weak and the ships of others are quite/too strong.

Bursts: Regardless of how fast it would be able to level with more profit-sharing, the Terr needs to remain, above and beyond, fun to play. If it's not fun, people aren't going to play it, and even now in beta most people are pretty reluctant to touch the ship. That said, I also don't see what's wrong with a burst making a one-hit kill. This is what it does for every ship in pub, for example ... and unlike the warbird's bullet (which does the same in pub) there's no way to upgrade the damage, so having it remain permanently one-hit kill seems reasonable. Is there a specific intent to the 1599 damage level? Maybe a ship you like to play that has 1600 at a certain time, or what? I'm sorry for being suspicious here, but the number given is quite intriguing, you have to admit. Perhaps we could look at slowing bursts down a little bit, and/or reducing the damage to something that will kill most ships, but not all.

L1 bullet damage: It was at 600 before the big change recently, and I reduced it to 520. Some people griped that with most ships now starting with L2 and dropping L1 bullet damage back to pub's 520, it made the ones that have only L1 at a distinct disadvantage, so I upped it back to 600. Recently I played a spider and it did seem pretty easy to mop up, though, so I see the point. However, this brings me to ...

Warbird overpowered: If WB is overpowered, and Spider is overpowered due to L1, which is "more" overpowered? The WB, Spider and Lanc are the fighting ships, and in 1v1 combat against any other ship should generally appear "overpowered." Anyone who understands the basics of TW mechanics knows this... so are you saying it's overpowered compared to spiders and lancs? I also recently heard someone saying that WB was rather crappy now. Didn't necessarily believe it, but, just throwing that out there.

Jav bomb nerf: The Jav bomb energy being put up to 1000 wasn't really a nerf so much as a correction. It was set at 725 or something equally ridiculous ... consider in pub the damage is 1100, and that the ship is still played like hell there, and I would be inclined to believe that the jav is not suffering. I'll look at the rocket cost, though.

Flag cap: While newbies may play the game, I would like to aim it at being able to be tactical. Any online flag cap game of much merit requires you to hold a flag for a decent bit before it's considered capped. Some require as much as 30 seconds. I don't think 10 seconds is too much, really.

Assist abuse: I talked a little with meqa, and she's just macro'd !assist x. From what I understand she's not able to actually return immediately after, which would be a nasty bug. If that's not true and it's being abused, I'd like to figure out how it's going on, though. Keep me posted.

Upgrades costing more at later levels: This was the case before the system change -- only, it was less gradual then. You'd have 5 levels of recharge for 1 UP, and then the next few for 2 UP, and then 3, etc. There are also rank limits as you suggest, though. Problem is: too few upgrades, too many ranks.

Weasel power: Doesn't seem too bad. That's just me.

Okay. I understand that my constant whiny bickering may seem like I just want the ships I play to be better and the other ships worse but that is not my intention.

Basically I just felt that the bursts are adding too much of a luck factor to the basing. I don't really actually care about the damage that much but I guess it could be annoying how easily a lvl 0 terr can kill a lvl 80 ship with a lucky burst. It would be nice to find a nice balance of less bursts but making the ship more fun to play somehow. Does most fun come from the killing or would people be content with some "cool" way of getting extra RP like taking over the enemy flagroom -bonus or securing the home base for x seconds -bonus?

L1 damage just feels too big, especially when I am not playing a ship that has a lot of energy like the lev or a wb. Ships that can't really dodge stuff like the lanc and the jav get owned and even terrs die very easily from what I have seen. My weasel usually gets owned by one random shot after I have spent only a little energy (max energy being like 1019).
Now that PH has red bullet multi he kills a lot of ppl with his rep-lag-zillion bullets combo. I am not suggesting a huge nerf but I think the damage shouldn't be *that* high.

The wb and the spider both feel a bit too strong in their own way. The speed of the wb adds lag so adding the bullet eating capabilities they are very annoying even for multiple people to kill. I also trust Zei's take on this since he is saying he feels it's too strong and he is a high level wb after all. Spiders are just wrecking machines.

I am not sure why the jav bomb cost has to be so close to normal tw settings. I think the cost could be lowered at least so that 2 bombs can be shot close to each other. Shooting so slowly decreased the amount of kills A LOT and a lot of javelins seemed to complain about it. If you aren't convinced I guess I have to test it once more but at the moment it seems I am not gonna play that ship at all when the game gets public.

I am out of time so I got to stop writing this crap but I hope I cleared up some of my views.

[Mjollnir]

Yeah don't forget that its a level factor. Spider isn't that strong against high levels warbirds and javelins, it isn't strong even against weasels and levi's on high ranks. most chances that the L2 bullets will take spider in 1 shot, rather than spider can take them in 3 shots (some warbirds are really hard to take, but thats fine).

I don't think the power of the L1 bullets should be reduced since you cant kill with them with 1 shot like most of the ships in game for now (dunno if max energy will stop it).

For the level upg points, It shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades... don't see a reason to change it.

A spider can shoot the L1 bullets so quickly that of course you can't kill with one shot. But two shot kills are too easy in my opinion. Also, spiders don't have any problems killing a high level javelin. Only problematic ships to kill are the warbird with it's huge energy and laggy speed and the leviathan at higher levels.

My point wasn't that you should gain upgrades easily. I am just saying that it's illogical for the same 3% increase in charge rate to cost 24RP after a few upgrades, when the first upgrade costs 10RP. These things are very hard to balance though so I don't know how it should be. It just feels it really isn't worth upgrading some of the things after a few upgrades.

[FarScape]

A spider can shoot the L1 bullets so quickly that of course you can't kill with one shot. But two shot kills are too easy in my opinion. Also, spiders don't have any problems killing a high level javelin. Only problematic ships to kill are the warbird with it's huge energy and laggy speed and the leviathan at higher levels.

My point wasn't that you should gain upgrades easily. I am just saying that it's illogical for the same 3% increase in charge rate to cost 24RP after a few upgrades, when the first upgrade costs 10RP. These things are very hard to balance though so I don't know how it should be. It just feels it really isn't worth upgrading some of the things after a few upgrades.

I can name 2 javs who I had hard time to kill: a2m and B.rabbit. try kill them in spider and see that they are almost matched. anyway, Its might be logical to have ships who are better against X,Y,Z ships and weaker against A,B,C.


For the upgrades that aren't worth upgrading after sometime, that doesn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't see myself upgrading speed anymore because I'm not sure about its benefit for my playing style. There are some other upgrades who I feel the same about it.
I'm speaking about the spider of course. maybe in other ships its different so Ill save words on the matter. Anyway, like any RPG game, In higher stages it shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades.

[PH]

Now that PH has red bullet multi he kills a lot of ppl with his rep-lag-zillion bullets combo. I am not suggesting a huge nerf but I think the damage shouldn't be *that* high.

oh no i have a decent way to defend myself in combat now! this must not be allowed to continue!

[HateTheFake]

terrier burst should and must be kept the way it is, the constant people who are crying about it are the same people who never help their team by playing in it. Terrs need a way to get rp and with the currect profit sharing im only getting 100 rp and thats with everyone having a beta bonus. So in the game with no beta bonus its going to be more like 30 rp. Terrs need burst just like wbs need bullets. If any correction is to be made id rather have the burst last longer. As it is noone ever wants to play this ship, and the ppl that do often play it rather be playing a different ship. I had to do terr because noone on my freq ever wants to change.