Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[jngy slate]

terrs: i see no reason to change them, one can do well almost as good with a rank 20 terr as a rank 45 terr as long as you have teammates. Plus, they've already got a plethera of abilities it seems.

Good point O_O. How about making the number of ships able to attach to a terr simulaneously upgradeable? They would start with only one ship being attached at a time and could go up to about 7. Then the low level terriers would really have a competition with high level terrs. In a crowded battle the higher level terr would be faster in getting ships there. While some of the ships that attach to the low level terr might have to wait an extra second to wait for others to detach.

[Viruk]

Then I remember being pretty disappointed when the changes came in that limited you to getting 25% of a rank. At rank 1, 4 kills can take a long time and I remember it being painful at that point -- and that was back when there were no level 3 bullets and far less ships eating a level 2. I just can't imagine trying to kill with a rank 1 ship at this point

Personally I enjoy the sense of rapid progress you get at low levels and even with a 25% cap this period ends all too soon.
It is not as if 25% of a level is an insignificant amount. There are probably players now who would be glad to rank 25% in a game let alone for one shot!

For the ships that do not level mainly through support bonus it really isn't that difficult to kill at low rank when basing although you should expect to die a lot trying. I regularly get 'humiliated' by low level players. In crowded games I don't have to imagine killing as a level 1 ship - I am often forced to kill when the rearming is unexpectedly slow when I am equally weak and vulnerable despite being a rewarding target.

With no penalties for death, minimal upgrades for each level and little incentive to spend energy on killing low ranking ships, Distension is already a very lowbie-friendly game and little more assistance should be required.

Probably there ought to be a cap set at whatever percentage makes a skilled ship level at a roughly equivalent rate to that of a skilled support ship of a similar level. Since those early levels fly by so fast it is perhaps unimportant to get things exactly balanced though.

[jngy slate]

Thought of a super after playing with WPE and her bot. Unlimited decoys that only last for 5 seconds and you only have 5 seconds to use them.

[Vergilius]

About the new weasel decoy ability- looks neat, have to think of tactics to use it wisely but i see possibilities. But can you make them last longer available? I mean, when i load them i only have a few seconds to use them. If we look to jumpspace ability (jav loads it when its 'safe' to jump into fr) it is a little different. This is used in full action- to get away from a nme or bedazzling terrs- and at that moment i prefer using my hands for dodging more than typing ::--- f5 f5 f5 f5. So i suggest either make the time available longer so we can load them in advance, or by releasing all decoys automatically after pressing ::--- (with .3 secs delay inbetween, to spread em) which gives the effect it is meant for (instead of just prizing 4 decoys)

[DankNuggets]

terrs: i see no reason to change them, one can do well almost as good with a rank 20 terr as a rank 45 terr as long as you have teammates. Plus, they've already got a plethera of abilities it seems.

javs: javs are popular to some extent because of the novelty involved with using them (that is to say bounce shots + multikills). This won't change too much no matter how much you nerf them. You'll just make it unbearable to play at low ranks. I think the best way is to make them as vulnerable as possible after shooting a bomb. This might entail a sort of 'freezing' of energy recharge for a second or so after bombing, or maybe keeping them from firing bullets for a second or so after bombing. this way they'd be much more reluctant to fire bombs all willy-nilly since tk's aren't a big deterrant.

Newbs: I completely agree with alinea - it was wayyy more fun to play a low ranked ship when you could rank up quickly. Having a bunch of low-level ships around doesn't help anybody; the faster they catch up to the rest of us, the more fun and competitive the game will be (even though uneveness is a big part of RPGs)


also, what ships currently still need abilities? i got plenty of time on my hands to think up stuff

[jngy slate]

I am against reps and cloaking for the terr. The decoy seems pretty worthless since I'm moving around the flag room all the time. It would only create a small distraction. But I like the idea of making ships lean towards being offensive/defensive.

[alinea]

Just gotta pop in quickly and comment on the balancing of the terr and the jav since I see people have suggested more tweaks to them.

TERRS
I think terrs are perfect and don't need any more weapons than they have at this point. It's a nice balance between offensive and defensive and is a pretty attractive ship to play regardless of what side of the field you like to play on.

JAVS
I haven't seen any javs complaining about the recent nerfing and with those changes, they seem right to me (coming from a non-jav perspective). You're still going to have problems when so many of them are shooting at the flag room entrance (whether you're unable to get in or getting tk'd), but that's just how the game goes and I don't think limiting the number of javs is a proper way to fix the issue IF they are too popular -- which I haven't felt is the case these past few days.

NEWBIES
I still see complaints from new players who feel they are pwn'd repeatedly when trying to get into the game -- especially at these levels. It's understandable, but is there something we can do to make the game more lenient on the little guys? I remember when I decided to get rank 20 in all ships and I found it fun to pick on the high powered ships and get a TON of RP and rank up like once per kill. Yeah I died a lot trying to do it but when I got that kill and knew I had HUMILIATED them, it was pretty entertaining. Then I remember being pretty disappointed when the changes came in that limited you to getting 25% of a rank. At rank 1, 4 kills can take a long time and I remember it being painful at that point -- and that was back when there were no level 3 bullets and far less ships eating a level 2. I just can't imagine trying to kill with a rank 1 ship at this point. And really, is it such a bad thing to give one ship a full rank for killing one player? Once they get to any kind of comparable rank to that of the majority of ships, they won't be ranking up that quickly anymore. So why not give it to them?

-ali

[roxxkatt]

FIX LAGOUT

i have never once been kicked into spec, and i get disconnected from spec randomly almost every other test on my lagcomp.
PING Current:30 ms Average:30 ms Low:30 ms High:70 ms S2C: 8.3% C2S: 0.1%
which means your ploss settings suck...

and LAGOUT NEEDS TO HANDLE PEOPLE WHO HAVE GOTTEN DISCONNECTED for a few mins... people who come back immediately should still be fine.

i got disconnected with my team having 20s left on the clock.
which pisses me off to no end. especially since losing 15,000RP for no goddamn reason is bullshit. especially after i helped my team to win while being outnumbered, and outranked.



also, exalt wants everyone to know hes an even bigger dumbass then ward

[2kill]

Distensionbot was probably the reason why Trench Wars recycled.

people are abusing the queue, which doesnt work as it should.
i came in late, and was placed into the queue, and when it said i could get in, i pressed esc 4 about 5 seconds later, and was given the msg that i had to wait again.

well when I laged out and someone got let into my place it worked for awhile... but every once and awhile I would try to enter a ship for the first bit it would spec me and tell me that I was in the queue and I was to wait... but later when I entered it told me a spot had opened up... after I entered, this isn't the first time I did that so don't know whats happening there

2kill

[Viruk]

You are misinterpreting me, With your crticism against repels, they are valid, yes, but not when a repel. one SINGLE repel, is attained upon completeing a certain feat, which would have to be exceptionally difficult and would therefor make a terr getting one repel relatively rare, or maybe a 5% chance of geting a repel every 45 seconds or something, then repels would be rarely used by terrs but would help out a lot when they get one.

As for the decoys, they would also b relatively rare for terrs and therefor would make this a *special* ability. So spammy fr's just wouldnt happen.

And as for cloak, your crticism seems to hold that when i say cloak i mean Shift+home and terr is cloaked.... but no, thats not what i mean, with the cloak i think it would be sufficient if it was quite difficult to obtain, and when it IS obtained , lasts for a maximum of 5 seconds, = the MAX time it'd take for an enemy to check their radar.

Sorry if I am misunderstanding you but you did mention the possibility of starting with one rep which scares me. Terriers already seem overpowered.

I do not have a problem with any of these specials providing they are rare, very difficult to obtain or prohibitively expensive. I like the idea of somehow having to complete some difficult feat every time you need to use the special. The problem is that the ability might then be somewhat ineffective so using and getting it would really need to be lots of fun to make up for this.

[Viruk]

Theres a limit of sharks per team, make a limit of javs per team. The game today was absolutely ridiculous with all the jav bombs flying around. Took all the fun out of the game. Not even gunna elaborate, jst make a jav limit per freq. the shit today was retarded.

It was all that jav shrap flying about that annoyed me today. I hate being killed by stuff that isn't really aimed and is difficult to dodge.
Rather than forcing a limit I would prefer we concentrated on ensuring that the jav is not overpowered (which I am not sure about) and that the penalties for TKing are high enough to deter unskillful jav players (which I am sure they are not).

[Oops]

no...

You are misinterpreting me, With your crticism against repels, they are valid, yes, but not when a repel. one SINGLE repel, is attained upon completeing a certain feat, which would have to be exceptionally difficult and would therefor make a terr getting one repel relatively rare, or maybe a 5% chance of geting a repel every 45 seconds or something, then repels would be rarely used by terrs but would help out a lot when they get one.

As for the decoys, they would also b relatively rare for terrs and therefor would make this a *special* ability. So spammy fr's just wouldnt happen.

And as for cloak, your crticism seems to hold that when i say cloak i mean Shift+home and terr is cloaked.... but no, thats not what i mean, with the cloak i think it would be sufficient if it was quite difficult to obtain, and when it IS obtained , lasts for a maximum of 5 seconds, = the MAX time it'd take for an enemy to check their radar.

[Maverick]

did dist crash tw, or did they recycle after it finished?

Distensionbot was probably the reason why Trench Wars recycled.

[Viruk]

I was thinking of some possible upgrades a terr could get that are *unique* Now yes i know terrs already rack up tons of kills with bursts nonstop, but killing is not the prime use of a terr so these are my suggestions for something useful, how hard they are to get is up to dug, im not going to suggest the difficulty in getting any of these upgrades but here goes :

1. A repel. I frequently end up flying in enemy base and i choose to not stop, get in as fast as i can and be aggressive, but many times my team will have no sharks around, thus i am forced to sit right next to flag or wherever waitign for someone to suicide a mine because weve got no sharks. It gets extremely annoying, so ONE rep for a terr, whether the terr will start off with one rep or it will only get a rep when * insert achievement here* happens is up to whoever.

2. A decoy. A decoy would be pretty sweet and would have a key role in getting into enemy base and would buy soem valueble time.

3. A cloak. Im not saying terr should Shift+End and have cloak as logn as they want, im thinking more like for 1-5 seconds the terr can cloak off of the main screen ( NOT radar) upon * insert achievement here* . That would really help when terr is gettign raped in base as his teammates frantically attach and die or when the terr is severely outnumbered.

Those are my suggestions. Id like to hear what everyone else thinks

None of these suggestions is really unique.

Repels for terriers: Absolutely not! Even with the shark limit, repels are far too common already! Repels (and bricks) are very powerful, affecting the movement and damage of all ships in the area. They cannot be countered. When frequently used they take much of the skill out of the game. Repels worsen the problems with bombs, mines and TKing. Repels also make bursts (especially firebloom) more dangerous.
IMO only sharks should have repels. Even high level sharks should never be allowed enough to encourage them to use them frequently and indiscriminately.
No single ship should be able to do everything. Team play should be encouraged. Teams where no-one rams a mine or attaches as shark/weasel when their terrier calls deserve to lose.

Decoys for terriers: It would make sense as they are the most targeted ships but it could also make this annoying ability more popular and powerful and lead to spammy FRs if they are allowed too many.

Cloak for terriers: You only have to look at the success of cloaked sharks in getting to the flag to see it could be useful for terriers assaulting base. A base terrier on the ropes would soon have their position revealed by their attaching teammates though. The importance of spotting attacking terriers would encourage more people to use radar and make all cloaking a less effective tactic which would be a shame for those who already rely on it. Overall I would say it could be slightly overpowered and as a mainly offensive advantage it would make stalemates more likely. It gets the thumbs down from me.

[roxxkatt]

people are abusing the queue, which doesnt work as it should.
i came in late, and was placed into the queue, and when it said i could get in, i pressed esc 4 about 5 seconds later, and was given the msg that i had to wait again.

btw, the 40 limit allows a 22v22?


also, wbs are overpowered, especially with their new shields...
it took an emp lv2 bomb, and 2 lv2 bullets to kill aqua, and about the same to kill ph...
and it doesnt help that everyone that plays wb runs away like a pansy.
all high lvl wbs end the game with a 100-5 or similar rec.


btw did dist crash tw, or did they recycle after it finished? =S