Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[gdugwyler]

Lately:

- Humiliation has been reduced slightly. Let me know how it's working these days. I still want it to deter those that try to be pack leaders, but not so much that it makes it impossible.
- Profit sharing now starts from rank 0 for terrs and sharks, but at a pretty small rate. The default rate will rise as rank goes up.
- !lagout should be fixed in the next round (I hope). There was a small bug with getting DC'd and it not setting up your old ship correctly.
- !status will show your current % participation for the round.

Thanks for looking into the rotation. You're right in thinking that prizes increase current rotation speed rather than total. There are four factors: initial rotation, which you get when you hit esc+# and enter with the ship; current rotation, which is what is set by initial rotation; upgrade rotation, which is added to current rotation every time a player is given a prize; and maximum rotation, which determines the limit for current rotation. So if Initial is 200, Max is 400, and Upgrade is 50, there are 5 total levels of rotation -- the starting level, + 4 upgrades. Prizing is done in terms of single prizes, rather than a percentage or specific value ... a specific value would actually be much more useful, but the client doesn't allow it unfortunately. So to get to level 3 rotation, *prize #3 is done 3 times (if 0 is the Initial level). The percentage is displayed to the user, which is a representation of current in terms of the difference between 0 rotation and the maximum. Thus in the example given, the initial rotation is 50% (as 200 is 1/2 of 400), and the levels would go in between 50% and 100%.

Chao, the tiles that were added around the flag to prevent mining has nothing to do with being mean to sharks, or preventing them from doing anything cheap. That you assumed this is sort of amusing in a certain way, not to offend ... but really, no need to jump to such conclusions! I don't think mining the flag is cheap at all ... I do think it can lead to severe TKing when a smart enemy shark reps, and generally don't do it myself unless there's an immediate threat, but -- the reason the tiles were put around was to prevent flag juping. I might take out one layer of the tiles to allow mining slightly closer, as that may not be too big a risk... juping is too severe a bug to ignore it completely if a decent solution is available.

NoLimit/Hate -- what happened to trigger the double rank up? Did you get 2 points from that? Or 2 ranks? I know it shows 20 each time .. assuming you got 2 kills right next to each other, something like that?

[Chao.]

Juping can be prevented by not ramming mines...the only people who were concerned about it were the ones losing because of it (The ones not smart enough to avoid ramming the mines). Really that's an easy solution - stop just rushing into mines and being surprised if the flag is juped. Wait for someone to clear the mines and go. I don't think it should be the map's job to stop it from happening when it can be avoided by people just stopping and thinking what they're doing.

[HateTheFake]

Yea i may have killed 2 people but what about the rest of my post

[Vykromond]

I don't think it should be the map's job to stop it from happening when it can be avoided by people just stopping and thinking what they're doing.

With respect, I strongly disagree. Game design should be as idiotproof as possible, since most players are idiots.

[Maverick]

With respect, I strongly disagree. Game design should be as idiotproof as possible, since most players are idiots.

Exactly, you can't expect the newbies to know this.
It's more like exploiting a game bug instead of a tactical move.

[gdugwyler]

Yes, very well put. And if we expect every Joe Public that walks in to understand the esoterica of our ancient client, we're setting ourselves up for confusing and alienating them even more than the dated interface already does to begin with. I'll take out some of the tiles, though.

Re: NoLimit, I responded to the rest of your post: Humiliation was reduced slightly, and !lagout should be fixed. What's far more interesting is the double rankup you mentioned, as nobody else as far as I know has ever gotten this. So please, I ask again, did you get double upgrade points? Did it rank you two levels (despite what it displayed)? Or was it just something that was displayed that really didn't have any effect? If you give me more information maybe we can fix it and you can get credit for it.

[hak]

Distension Beta; Anti-Mine Tiles

Please remove the tiles which prevent us from mining the flag, that's an ancient defense and anyone who cant get around it doesn't need to be playing a basing-oriented event.

Juping can be prevented by not ramming mines...the only people who were concerned about it were the ones losing because of it (The ones not smart enough to avoid ramming the mines). Really that's an easy solution - stop just rushing into mines and being surprised if the flag is juped. Wait for someone to clear the mines and go. I don't think it should be the map's job to stop it from happening when it can be avoided by people just stopping and thinking what they're doing.

With respect, I strongly disagree. Game design should be as idiotproof as possible, since most players are idiots.

Exactly, you can't expect the newbies to know this.
It's more like exploiting a game bug instead of a tactical move.

The problem: When a Shark deploys a mine on top of a flag, the flag will jupe when the mine is rammed by a hostile ship.
Because the Distension area has not one, but four entrances to a base, and a shark still has just four mines, it can not hold cram, or keep even half of it safe with it's repels. This results in easy cram-breaks, and thus a flagroom fight [2)]. Sharks adapted to this change in defense, and started mining more along the corners and pockets, but mainly along the flagbar. The enemy team will always be looking to get the flag, so mining along the flagbar isn't that much of a bad idea. The problem however with mining along the flagbar is that it results in quite a number of teamkills, and it causes flag jupes.

To solve these two problems, I have come up with several solutions:

• Solution A: Retile the flagroom so that no mines can be deployed anywhere near the flag itself.
• Solution B: Retile the flagroom so that there is a no-mine zone within one tile of the flag.
• Solution C: Remove the flagbar as a whole, leave a stationary flag with a small no-mine zone.
• Solution D: Leave the flag and flagroom as it is.

Solution A) When you forbid sharks from mining along the flagbar, you leave them no other choice than to randomly fly at a ship and put mines somewhere near it. These mines are not strategically placed, are mostly at random places, hardly ever kill anything and make a flagroom fight one big mess. Also: these random mines will be repped into every direction, killing a lot of enemies, but a big amount of allies as well. Besides creating chaos, this 'strategy' will create skill-less public sharks.
Although this solution completely solves the problem with flag jupes, it enhances the other problem: teamkills. Because of it's major negative side-effects, I find this solution unsuitable for Distension.

Solution B ) This solution is fairly similar to solution A, besides the fact that this solution requires just one tile of no-mine zone near a flag, instead of three or more. This solution also solves the flag jupe problem, but increases the chaos / amount of random mines in flagroom. It increases the second problem significantly less than solution A though, since there is still some room for mines just above and aside the no-mine zone. Because the mines are placed somewhat more scattered rather than all in one tile, the mines will divert throughout the flagroom, causing deaths on both teams.
In short, this solution solves the flag juping problem, but has significantly less effect on teamkilling.

Solution C) Removing the flagbar as a whole would make Distension somewhat more alike Death Star Battle basing; stationary flags with a lot of flag touches. Because of the small no-mine zone around the flag, it can not be juped any more. However, without a flagbar, Shark mines can and will be repped in all directions from central flagroom. This too will cause massive teamkilling, and utter chaos. Also, with the current flagging system, hold two flags for one minute to win, can not be used with this solution. It would require a system like Base, where your flag time is counted until you reach a certain time limit which wins you the round. I doubt G.Dugwyler is interested in changing his entire system around, so solution C is out of the question.

Solution D) Keep the flagroom as it is. This solution will still allow for flags to jupe, but it is the solution with the least teamkills. Four mines flying in one direction usually kill less than four mines diverting throughout the entire flagroom. This solution allows for Sharks to gain levels faster than with any of the other solutions. Being a Shark becomes increasingly difficult with time, as it takes other ships less and less to kill you. Deploying mines on top of the flag leaves an opportunity for high-level Sharks to kill something. This can be described as the most Shark-friendly solution, as well as the most team-friendly solution. It's easy for the enemy team to avoid ramming mines, as long as they teach people what to do, and not to do. So in the end, this solution is the most user-friendly.


To recap: Solution A is not a bad idea, but will cause many teamkills, and easy flag touches. Solution B is solution A improved. It is enhanced in such a way that there is less teamkilling. Solution C would require an entire new flagging system, so it is not really an option. Solution D leaves the situation as it is: not a lot of teamkills, but a flag jupe isn't rare.

Personally, I would choose for option B. Slightly more teamkills and slower levelups for Sharks are small sacrifices for a major bug like flag juping. I wouldn't mind seeing the flagroom stay as it is either, I guess people can get used to flag jupes.
Tell me what most of you would vote for: Solution A-B-C-D or another idea you can come up with. Please do post.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[HateTheFake]

As far as i know i dont think so, but since after i leveled the game shut down so i couldnt really tell you until the next time i look at my terr.

[project dragon]

Juping can be prevented by not ramming mines...the only people who were concerned about it were the ones losing because of it (The ones not smart enough to avoid ramming the mines). Really that's an easy solution - stop just rushing into mines and being surprised if the flag is juped. Wait for someone to clear the mines and go. I don't think it should be the map's job to stop it from happening when it can be avoided by people just stopping and thinking what they're doing.

As much as I enjoyed winning from jupes, I am also going to have to disagree with you. I don't think it's right to assume all players in distension or TW know what a jupe is. There are plenty of players still going "wtf?!!?" when the other team wins from a jupe. I don't think we should be exploiting the bug in this basing situation. Considering how jupes in the arena can sometimes last the entire minute it takes to win, it is rather unfair to the opposing team to lose based on one idiot that may of rammed the mines, purposefully or accidentally.

[Chao.]

As much as I enjoyed winning from jupes, I am also going to have to disagree with you. I don't think it's right to assume all players in distension or TW know what a jupe is. There are plenty of players still going "wtf?!!?" when the other team wins from a jupe. I don't think we should be exploiting the bug in this basing situation. Considering how jupes in the arena can sometimes last the entire minute it takes to win, it is rather unfair to the opposing team to lose based on one idiot that may of rammed the mines, purposefully or accidentally.

No one is trying to exploit a bug, I mine it primarily to stop weasels from walking in and taking the flag whenever they want. (Which they can now do considering the no-mine zone is two tiles wides around the flag now)

I guess a fair solution would be to reduce the area around the flag in which mines can't be placed. As it is now it's incredibly difficult to hold the flag, even with no enemy sharks people can just go through defense of the flag because of the gaps where mines are.

Come to think of it, I guess there are a lot of people who may not know what a jupe is. If someone does ram a mine regardless of what people ask them it could potentially ruin all the work the team has done. It's probably one of the only ways to stop a jupe without redesigning the FR. I just also think it's still taking away a decent defense strategy

[Singularity]

Currently the weasel looks very much underpowered, although I think the later availability of the total cloak was needed (Mjollnir owned a few games by himself when noone had x-radar yet) and lagrockets were quite powerful, the removal of both made it into a very weak ship.
Currently I am level 21 I think and there is no other ship I can take on 1v1, even at lower levels. The best solution is increase the speed boost in a rocket somewhat or give it a slightly faster bullet.
The shark on the other hand seems to be VERY powerful at the moment. It has very high energy combined with a high repel stock meaning it cannot be killed when it goes for a flag, shielding teammates as well. I'm not sure how that could be balanced.
The warbird and the spider seem to be pretty much ok, as is the lancaster.
The leviathan is a bit of a mystery to me although it doesn't seem to be really overpowered and people still use it.

[Kim]

Currently the weasel looks very much underpowered, although I think the later availability of the total cloak was needed (Mjollnir owned a few games by himself when noone had x-radar yet) and lagrockets were quite powerful, the removal of both made it into a very weak ship.
Currently I am level 21 I think and there is no other ship I can take on 1v1, even at lower levels. The best solution is increase the speed boost in a rocket somewhat or give it a slightly faster bullet.
The shark on the other hand seems to be VERY powerful at the moment. It has very high energy combined with a high repel stock meaning it cannot be killed when it goes for a flag, shielding teammates as well. I'm not sure how that could be balanced.
The warbird and the spider seem to be pretty much ok, as is the lancaster.
The leviathan is a bit of a mystery to me although it doesn't4seem to be really overpowered and people still use it.

The levi is a great support ship, one bomb into a pack of spids kills none of them, but a teammate can take them all out without breaking a sweat.

[Mjollnir]

Currently the weasel looks very much underpowered, although I think the later availability of the total cloak was needed (Mjollnir owned a few games by himself when noone had x-radar yet) and lagrockets were quite powerful, the removal of both made it into a very weak ship.
Currently I am level 21 I think and there is no other ship I can take on 1v1, even at lower levels. The best solution is increase the speed boost in a rocket somewhat or give it a slightly faster bullet.
The shark on the other hand seems to be VERY powerful at the moment. It has very high energy combined with a high repel stock meaning it cannot be killed when it goes for a flag, shielding teammates as well. I'm not sure how that could be balanced.
The warbird and the spider seem to be pretty much ok, as is the lancaster.
The leviathan is a bit of a mystery to me although it doesn't seem to be really overpowered and people still use it.

I agree with almost all of the above. The weasel is now too weak and I have stopped playing my level 30 weasel because it is no longer fun. The warbird and spider seem fine but the lancaster looks a bit too weak to me.

Also the sharks are clearly too powerful since the team with more reps wins every single battle. On top of that the sharks can thrust-rep-bomb so that no one can do a thing about it, often resulting in killing the enemy terrier and changing the tide of the game. They are supposed to support the team when attacking but now they are a one man army that can attack the flagroom, get the flag and too often kill the terr.

[gdugwyler]

Weasel: I've reduced the firing delay somewhat, and raised the total time for which a rocket lasts in an attempt to get this ship back into shape. If this doesn't do it, an upgrade in bullet speed may be in order, though I'd really prefer for it to have the speed it does at present, considering that it can pretty easily thrust-fire. I know the rocket time lengthening won't make up for the instantaneous nature of the old-style rockets, but hopefully it will compensate somewhat. I would like to see the Weasel return to being an annoyance to those that would call themselves the "real" players, as well as a formidable threat to an unsuspecting base, particularly considering there won't be too many of them around with the ship as special unlock.

Leviathan: With the Levi looking more like a support ship and its frequency of kills somewhat low, should its amount required to rank up be reduced slightly? It's a fun ship to play -- one of my favorites -- but its greatest asset in is assisting others either defend the base or take it, and for most of that work it gets no credit. If you couple this with the fact that it has a higher cost to rank up than any attacking ship, it appears a bit unfair. One reason for this is that the levi is the sort of ship that starts out horrible and gradually gets better over time, i.e., Allah have mercy on your soul if you encounter a very high level Levi, particularly after it's able to upgrade thrust to a level where its speed finally becomes useful. But getting there shouldn't be impossible, either -- just difficult. Then again, if people still play the ship, it can't be too bad at the moment.

Lancaster: The Lancaster was buffed just recently, including reduced firing costs and reduced delays between shots. It's returned again more to the style of being a fast-firing ship than the single-fire of days of old ... or maybe most accurately, somewhere in between those two. I'll try playing it a bit, but it's my understanding that it can actually hold its own pretty well now.

WB, Spider, Terr: Everyone agrees these are pretty much balanced at the moment?

Shark: I've taken a look at sharks, and I'm not certain I see how they're hugely overpowered. One complaint is high energy. They do start with initial energy slightly higher, but this is mostly to give them the ability to use bombs fairly quickly. After that they have 10 ranks in between their upgrades of energy, so that only by rank 20 do they have 1300 energy (slightly more than a stock shark). This doesn't allow them to take L2 bullet hits. Even at rank 30 they're still only going to have 1450, and by this point an equal level WB will have L3. Their reps don't appear too bad, either: the 4th comes at level 25, which is only one more than stock. But, as one attempt to fix a potential rep problem I'll switch the ranks required for the first level of repel regeneration and the 4th repel, so that they won't have more than stock at L25 without waiting around a bit. The rank requirement for the 3rd repel has also been increased slightly. Finally, energy required to fire a shark bomb is up a bit, and the rate at which afterburners decrease energy is increased very slightly.

Speaking to a different side of the problem, though, are you sure you guys aren't just playing against Good Sharks? People that you would do well to be afraid of in a BD anyhow? Particularly if the BD had 20 people on each side, two bases, and almost no team coordination? With enough spider or lanc support fire (or a levi to EMP), and a defensive shark to protect, an attacking shark should be forced to waste its reps and energy thrusting around before it can get to the terr. Hate to say it, but some of the problem sounds like a defending team that just doesn't have its shit together.


Rotation: Still working on it. Some dev members have provided information that may help this get resolved. It will be a bit of a project when it comes up, though, so I'm not leaping on it quite yet.

[Singularity]

Weasel: I've reduced the firing delay somewhat, and raised the total time for which a rocket lasts in an attempt to get this ship back into shape. If this doesn't do it, an upgrade in bullet speed may be in order, though I'd really prefer for it to have the speed it does at present, considering that it can pretty easily thrust-fire. I know the rocket time lengthening won't make up for the instantaneous nature of the old-style rockets, but hopefully it will compensate somewhat. I would like to see the Weasel return to being an annoyance to those that would call themselves the "real" players, as well as a formidable threat to an unsuspecting base, particularly considering there won't be too many of them around with the ship as special unlock.


Speaking to a different side of the problem, though, are you sure you guys aren't just playing against Good Sharks? People that you would do well to be afraid of in a BD anyhow? Particularly if the BD had 20 people on each side, two bases, and almost no team coordination? With enough spider or lanc support fire (or a levi to EMP), and a defensive shark to protect, an attacking shark should be forced to waste its reps and energy thrusting around before it can get to the terr. Hate to say it, but some of the problem sounds like a defending team that just doesn't have its shit together.

Sounds like a good step to fix the weasel, longer rockets might offset the lower speed, ill try it out tonight (if you run it ofc) to see how it goes. The Bulletspeed might not be necessary, my main beef was that the rockets weren't altogether that useful anymore, and without rockets the weasel's lower speed and low thrust bonus make it hard to kill someone with the slow bullets as it anyone can dodge them. Functional rockets make it again a sneaky ship for TD's or flagsteals.

The shark thing me and mjoll brought up isn't so much in that the sharks are too strong as a defense backup, they are actually capable of just flying into the flagroom, taking the flag and mining the crap out of stuff in between with very little you can do against them by themselves.
Yes, most people who shark also shark well in BD, but in a BD the shark reps so teammembers survive, not to kill or claim a base by themselves. It also seems the repel radius is bigger than the stock shark, or is that my imagination? It is quite hard to time shots with a spider for example to get 1 shot through as it is in basing games.

Edit: In a lot of games there are a lot of sharks on a team (sometimes more than spiders) and that actually works better.