Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Maverick]

dug, do you also get RP for teamkills?

[Kim]

dug, do you also get RP for teamkills?

You lose 1 RP

[Chao.]

You lose 1 RP

Thought it was 5.

[Maverick]

Cool. was just wondering about it

[gdugwyler]

Regarding level 10+ and such taking too long, the problems that the higher-ranked players are seeing are all very intentional. The game is designed to promote even play, and if you wish to fight against that, you'll find that it will be difficult going. The levels were calculated with the idea that you will have to kill X number of people of your own rank in order to level up; X rises slightly per rank but actually not very significantly. However, if you're killing people half your level, the risk of dying is lower, and just like in a more standard RPG it's going to take you ages to level at 50 if you're killing level 25 enemies.

To further underscore this point, the idea of the "humiliation" is present, where a lower-level player killing a higher level player results in the higher level actually losing points. This will be modified so that the lower level actually gets these points as a bonus, encouraging the hunting of players that are significantly higher than the pack.

The theory behind this all is: if you focus on a single ship, in all likelihood you are going to take down the quality of the game, both by being unable or unwilling to provide support in a particular ship when it is needed, and by simply imbalancing sides too heavily in favor of one side or the other. This is not to say that those who do this should be discouraged entirely from playing, but I hope that when there are a slew of rank 5's and a player has a rank 50 ship, they may consider firing up that old rank 8 spider or what have you rather than insisting on playing the 50.


To specific ships again:

Jav starts out pretty well-off, having a level requirement that is reasonably high in the release (tentatively 15). This is to make it a bit more special, and to compensate for the fact that it has a bomb that does 2650 dmg when it connects from level 0. Javving should probably be a bit rape-ish at present as a result. It's meant to have a pretty slow levelling rate, though.

Seems like sharks are really not having that bad a time of it. (Maybe these are the winning sharks.) I'll leave them alone for now.

Terr has a new ability in to prize back warps and bursts. For creative terrs, this can actually give you quite a stockpile even before you've upgraded. For each level you have +10% chance to be prized these things every 30 seconds.

The Weasel's upgrades cost 2 for the first level, but all of their upgrades start +2 ... if you do the math they're actually ahead of the game by 1 upgrade for each of the 5 basic stats, or essentially 5 free upgrade points. They should be fine.


To teamkills, javs and levis lose roughly half of their rank for each TK -- thus the differing numbers. For sharks it's less.


I'm trying hard to get the team evening working properly. I can make the !assist bonus larger and available/adverting more frequently, if you think that will help. If an assist bonus is comparable to the victory reward, I don't see why a player wouldn't switch except out of stubbornness or laziness.

[inaphyt]

Regarding level 10+ and such taking too long, the problems that the higher-ranked players are seeing are all very intentional. The game is designed to promote even play, and if you wish to fight against that, you'll find that it will be difficult going. The levels were calculated with the idea that you will have to kill X number of people of your own rank in order to level up; X rises slightly per rank but actually not very significantly. However, if you're killing people half your level, the risk of dying is lower, and just like in a more standard RPG it's going to take you ages to level at 50 if you're killing level 25 enemies.

To further underscore this point, the idea of the "humiliation" is present, where a lower-level player killing a higher level player results in the higher level actually losing points. This will be modified so that the lower level actually gets these points as a bonus, encouraging the hunting of players that are significantly higher than the pack.

The theory behind this all is: if you focus on a single ship, in all likelihood you are going to take down the quality of the game, both by being unable or unwilling to provide support in a particular ship when it is needed, and by simply imbalancing sides too heavily in favor of one side or the other. This is not to say that those who do this should be discouraged entirely from playing, but I hope that when there are a slew of rank 5's and a player has a rank 50 ship, they may consider firing up that old rank 8 spider or what have you rather than insisting on playing the 50.


To specific ships again:

Jav starts out pretty well-off, having a level requirement that is reasonably high in the release (tentatively 15). This is to make it a bit more special, and to compensate for the fact that it has a bomb that does 2650 dmg when it connects from level 0. Javving should probably be a bit rape-ish at present as a result. It's meant to have a pretty slow levelling rate, though.

Seems like sharks are really not having that bad a time of it. (Maybe these are the winning sharks.) I'll leave them alone for now.

Terr has a new ability in to prize back warps and bursts. For creative terrs, this can actually give you quite a stockpile even before you've upgraded. For each level you have +10% chance to be prized these things every 30 seconds.

The Weasel's upgrades cost 2 for the first level, but all of their upgrades start +2 ... if you do the math they're actually ahead of the game by 1 upgrade for each of the 5 basic stats, or essentially 5 free upgrade points. They should be fine.


To teamkills, javs and levis lose roughly half of their rank for each TK -- thus the differing numbers. For sharks it's less.


I'm trying hard to get the team evening working properly. I can make the !assist bonus larger and available/adverting more frequently, if you think that will help. If an assist bonus is comparable to the victory reward, I don't see why a player wouldn't switch except out of stubbornness or laziness.

The problem is there are so few people on the same level as you that this theory just doesn't work out, don't you think it should be up to the player which ships they want to level up and not the creater that wants to play god ?

yea i think you did a sweet job with the entire project btw dug everything is working well as far as i can see except the levelling obviously

[gdugwyler]

I strongly resent the implication that I'm making this decision on a whim, just to flex a figurative muscle. I provided what I believe was a valid pair of reasons for going this route, and you responded by insulting me rather than providing a counter-argument. Clearly it's implicit in the situation that there are fewer players of a higher rank; that's exactly the meat of what we're discussing! I'm sorry to demean you in this manner, but did you even read the post?

[Turban]

I like the current ship settings, to be honest. The leveling speed is just perfect (even without the 50% RP bonus) and should stay the way it is. Seriously, what is the point of fast leveling up (from 1 to 40) within 2 weeks? You need to do alot of work for those levels instead of just lvling up every hour or so.

QUESTION #1: How does the streak system work? Do you need 10 kills to start a streak (killing players at about your level) or something similiar to that?

[inaphyt]

I just don't see someone that plays wb using any of the other 7 ships i also see a player that only uses wb get bored of the slow un developing wb and type ?go.

That's just me

[gdugwyler]

The streak system works by counting the number of successive kills you've made, but only of those within 5 levels of yours. It was done this way because the streak reward given is based on the player's rank and not the rank of the victims.

I just don't see someone that plays wb using any of the other 7 ships i also see a player that only uses wb get bored of the slow un developing wb and type ?go.

This is a much more provocative argument. The warbird is one of the sparsest ships in terms of what can be upgraded, even if its upgrade speed is about average. It still does get some interesting and unique abilities, however -- and its L2 bullets should give it the ability to 1-hit kill well into the mid levels, where it can either start firing two shots in fairly rapid succession or just upgrade to L3. Its 1-hit kill power will start to become more obvious at that time, when L1 bullets become worth less and less as energy and recharge are upgraded more across the board. As that happens, WB 1-hit kill shots shots will still work, retaining the same power, which in essence will make it more powerful as more ships rank into higher levels. Spider, on the other hand, is stuck with L1 guns until pretty late in its life.

As for the speed that it upgrades, though? Consider this: even with a x1.5 bonus for beta, you're still only earning something more than about half of what a WB would normally earn at this level, because you're largely killing lowbies. So your advancement speed is much slower as well. If we make your levelling speed just as fast as an average WB when you're 5 levels above everyone else and have much less risk of dying, then we must effectively almost double the speed at which an average WB levels up! And I'm not ready to do this just to help some frontrunners who have no equal competitors have an easier time staying ahead of everyone else.

But: what we're talking about is a very isolated situation that really won't be occurring past the first few months of the public release, after which time there should be enough variation in levels for the frontrunner problem to be negligible.

I think what you suggest is best -- if people that get tired of their ship not levelling very quickly because it's levels above most others, they should ?go. Then when they come back in a couple of days, it should be almost twice as easy to level up, as by then people have caught up. Fixes itself, and as a friend of mine once said in a moment of brilliance, solution solved.

[gdugwyler]

In an effort to make the support ships more playable, I've made a couple of changes to them away from total defense:

- Terr gun speed increased by about 75%.
- Terrs now have the ability that gives them a small chance to be prized burst or portal every 30 seconds. (The frequency and/or % chance may need to be adjusted.)
- Shark gunning capability available at level 12. Shark guns cost quite a bit to fire and are the slowest in the game, but provide an emergency defense that may prove useful. Think of it as a can of mace more than anything.

Assault ships:
- Levi bomb damage increased to near the level it started at (does 30% of normal bomb damage).
- Levi EMP reduced to max 6 seconds on full contact.
- Spider firing frequency reduced by 5ms.
- Spider upgrade speed reduced slightly.
- Spiders will now have a larger array of special abilities than originally planned. In particular a short super will be available for prizing every 30 seconds in the later levels.
- Weasel upgrade speed increased slightly.


Due to the changes, assault ships will also now enjoy a slightly larger cut of the end-round winnings (35% v 65%).

[inaphyt]

The streak system works by counting the number of successive kills you've made, but only of those within 5 levels of yours. It was done this way because the streak reward given is based on the player's rank and not the rank of the victims.


This is a much more provocative argument. The warbird is one of the sparsest ships in terms of what can be upgraded, even if its upgrade speed is about average. It still does get some interesting and unique abilities, however -- and its L2 bullets should give it the ability to 1-hit kill well into the mid levels, where it can either start firing two shots in fairly rapid succession or just upgrade to L3. Its 1-hit kill power will start to become more obvious at that time, when L1 bullets become worth less and less as energy and recharge are upgraded more across the board. As that happens, WB 1-hit kill shots shots will still work, retaining the same power, which in essence will make it more powerful as more ships rank into higher levels. Spider, on the other hand, is stuck with L1 guns until pretty late in its life.

As for the speed that it upgrades, though? Consider this: even with a x1.5 bonus for beta, you're still only earning something more than about half of what a WB would normally earn at this level, because you're largely killing lowbies. So your advancement speed is much slower as well. If we make your levelling speed just as fast as an average WB when you're 5 levels above everyone else and have much less risk of dying, then we must effectively almost double the speed at which an average WB levels up! And I'm not ready to do this just to help some frontrunners who have no equal competitors have an easier time staying ahead of everyone else.

But: what we're talking about is a very isolated situation that really won't be occurring past the first few months of the public release, after which time there should be enough variation in levels for the frontrunner problem to be negligible.

I think what you suggest is best -- if people that get tired of their ship not levelling very quickly because it's levels above most others, they should ?go. Then when they come back in a couple of days, it should be almost twice as easy to level up, as by then people have caught up. Fixes itself, and as a friend of mine once said in a moment of brilliance, solution solved.

Well it's your project but.

all i'm saying is maybe create a new way of levelling.

i think as of current you using this method. 32-64-128-256-512-1024-2048-4096-8192-16384

as you can see this get ridiculous very fast i think it works like that anyway.... i don't think it matters how much rp you need from specific other level ships typing !progress after you been playing for so long is just depressing.

All i'm suggesting is that you do it a different way maybe using this formula.

N + 1/2N = M M + 1/2M = L

i think this will keep the levelling faster for the first 20 ranks and then it will get hard

[hak]

Distention Beta Test

Greetings.

In about two to three hours from now, there will be another testing session of Distension. This is around 10:00-11:00 EST and around 15:00-16:00 GMT.

Be sure to be in the chat distension, or #distension around those times to make sure you don't miss your chance to help testing.

See you then, enjoy your testing session!

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[gdugwyler]

N + 1/2N = M M + 1/2M = L

i think this will keep the levelling faster for the first 20 ranks and then it will get hard

This is definitely getting into good territory now. After your post I started a reply to explain the formula, but then double-checked and re-checked it thinking there may have been an error. I'm certain it's calculated properly now, but that doesn't mean it's perfect by any means, and if it's becoming too large it may need tweaking.

---

The formula is pretty simple, but fortunately not just a starting value plus 2 to the N, where N is the rank. I considered that, but of course it gets out of hand very, very quickly as you say.

It's presently done as a recursive calculation. Each ship has a starting value for rank 1 increase, 16 being about average. So for example it could take 16 to get to rank 1, and then 16 * a constant for ranks under 10 (I think about ~1.65) to get to the next level. "To get to the next level" is the key phrase, because that means you'll need ~26 more to get to the next level, or total 38, rather than just a total of 26 (which would mean rank 2 would actually be easier to attain than rank 1, requiring only 10RP). You probably see at this point why it must be calculated with recursion.

The initial constant of 1.65 is used until about level 10, when it starts to mellow out to a growth rate of about 1.15, so that to get to the next level you need to earn only slightly more than you did to get to the last one. This ensures it's slightly more difficult while not getting completely out of hand.

Today I did a test using spider and calculated RP needed for the first 16 levels. RP needed is the amount needed in addition to the amount already attained to get to the next level. Total is the total number, and isn't all that relevant. Kills is the number of kills required of a player of the same rank to reach the next level.

RP needed   Total     Kills
---------   -----     -----
16          (16)        16
25          (41)        25
40          (81)        20
64          (145)       21
102         (247)       26           -- rank 5
163         (410)       32
260         (670)       43
416         (1086)      59
665         (1751)      83
1064        (2815)     118           -- rank 10
1702        (4517)     170           (after this, next is ~x1.15 of last)
1957        (6274)     179
2250        (8724)     187
2587        (11311)    199
2975        (14286)    212           -- rank 15
3421        (17707)    228

These numbers don't seem too bad when you have players of relatively equal level. If you think about pub and how long it takes to rack up a couple hundred kills, you're not looking at more than an hour or two for each level once you're rank 11+, which is about right.

One tweak we could make is making the switch from the 1.65 multiplier to the 1.15 multiplier one level earlier. This would make it a good bit easier in the teens. Then maybe in level 25+ (where ships are roughly equivalent to TW standards) we could increase the multiplier to 1.2 or so, and maybe 1.3 for level 40 and beyond. Does this sound decent? Worth a shot, at any rate. I agree that it would be nice if the ranks didn't slow down so much until a bit higher, when people are a little more invested in a ship and have had a chance to see basically what it's about. What do you guys think?

So, in any case, thanks inaphyt for encouraging another look at the formula, even if it was initially not directed productively. You're right that there may definitely be room for improvement here.

[hak]

Distension

One tweak we could make is making the switch from the 1.65 multiplier to the 1.15 multiplier one level earlier. This would make it a good bit easier in the teens. Then maybe in level 25+ (where ships are roughly equivalent to TW standards) we could increase the multiplier to 1.2 or so, and maybe 1.3 for level 40 and beyond. Does this sound decent? Worth a shot, at any rate. I agree that it would be nice if the ranks didn't slow down so much until a bit higher, when people are a little more invested in a ship and have had a chance to see basically what it's about. What do you guys think?

I'm pretty sure a recursive formule as U(n)=U(n-1)*1.3 is a formula you can use for any level. It seems pretty logical to have to get the same 'experience' as the level before, and a bit more. I think most rpgs use 1.3 or 1.25 for a required-experience/level rate.

When it comes to leveling, in my opinion this shouldn't have to be superfast. It's good to take things easy, think about your upgrades and get used to you ship more before it gets too good. If there's one way to ruin a game, a role-playing game in particular, it's to rush through it.


Also: I think the terrier burst and portal system might be a bit enthusiastic. By using just 13 of your points, four bursts and portals can be collected on your terrier (correct me if I'm wrong, I thought I saw this last night), and you can make sure you have a 100% chance on getting a burst and portal every thirty seconds. This would be more proper being at about 5% per level, 50% max? Or you could use a recursive formula to give lower added percentages for higher upgrades. Like: 10%, 9%, 8%, 7% etc. This may all be over the top though, you could keep it simple by just reducing the percentages.

And another one: I think the spiders are have a really good setup right now, you shouldn't tweak them much anymore. They're a bit weak early, but get strong fast with the right upgrades. They seem to be key to getting a flagroom captured, which is key. It's good to see how spiders are still one of the most clutch basing ships. Keep up the good things.

Shark: I read bullets have been added to a shark's armory. What kind of bullets will these be? "They cost a lot of energy", so they will probably be one hit killers? I think a shark should just have bullets that do around 200 damage, and cost about 800. This, so they can bullet only the people they emped. Shark might be overpowered with good bullets, bombs, repels and mines.

Anyhow, it's good to see so many people interested in a new sub-game. Keep it up people.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)