Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Lizard Fuel]

thats true, how exactly do streaks work?

I think to have a streak you have to get X amount of kills within a specific amount of time. But don't quote me on that.

[Shadowmere]

Oh, LOL it was about distension streaks. Yeah, this happens when you visit forums at 1:20AM.

[HateTheFake]

I think streaks are when you kill 5 ppl within 8 levels of your rank without dying

[Exalt]

Poppycock. The WB becomes useful the moment it upgrades to L2, at which point it can kill most low to medium level ships. Do you have L2? Focus on ships your own rank and don't complain that a lower-ranked WB can't kill every high ranked ship with full energy in one hit. L2 is roughly equivalent to a 1 hit kill for most ships at level 25. If you want to kill almost every ship in the game in one hit, wait for L3. In the meantime don't expect to be one-hit killing everyone just because you're a bird. Think about the fact that there has to be room to grow as you ran up. If you want to make a WB with normal TW settings, ?go. Due to the way that any upgrade system must work with wide variations in strength between the start and end ship, you are not going to find the ship you're looking for here. How you're able to kill depends not only on your upgrades, but the upgrades of other ships. Were the object to create stock ships, you wouldn't see the various special abilities, but just a gradual progression toward that goal. Distension ships are initially worse and then much better than the stock models, but you're not going to see the exact point in between where the ship is equal to a stock... again, L2 has to be set as a "virtual" L3 (equivalent to L3 in pub; Distension L2 WILL kill any pub ship) because L3 needs to be able to take out much better ships. But to be honest I'm getting tired of responding to complaints into which very little thought has been put, as is evident here. You might consider that there are people playing this game other than yourself.
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ummm, maybe i am considering all of it.

WB is useless in distention if you make it this weak. Why would you fly in a wb when you can fly in a jav that shoots 2 bombs in a row WITH shrap, and l2 bullets etc etc, or spids that can kill most ships in one or two hits, with FAST recharge, compared to a wb that if it doesnt kill they are dead in matter of seconds


If you really want to make WB a useless ship then by all means go for it, but that just ruins the whole point of your little beta test then.

Maybe you might wanna consider there are other people playing this game other than yourself, and realize that I have valid complaints

[Mjollnir]

jav=overpowered

it can shoot 2 closely fired bombs (with shrap)
has l2 bullets
and can kill a level 30 wb with ease

at least increase the time shot between bombings

I don't see the problem with being able to shoot 2 bombs. It is hard to get kills with the jav as it is. I think it would ruin the jav if there was a delay after a bomb since it would be meaningless to buy recharge and energy which cost like heck btw. I also don't understand how you think it can kill a level 30 wb with ease since any decent wb can own a jav very easily. Maybe you just suck at the ship? Oh.. and my Jav is level 29.

[Mjollnir]

ummm, maybe i am considering all of it.

WB is useless in distention if you make it this weak. Why would you fly in a wb when you can fly in a jav that shoots 2 bombs in a row WITH shrap, and l2 bullets etc etc, or spids that can kill most ships in one or two hits, with FAST recharge, compared to a wb that if it doesnt kill they are dead in matter of seconds


If you really want to make WB a useless ship then by all means go for it, but that just ruins the whole point of your little beta test then.

Maybe you might wanna consider there are other people playing this game other than yourself, and realize that I have valid complaints

I do not think your complaint is valid though. It is still a very annoying ship to play against because of the huge manuverability that induces a lot of lag. You probably have the wrong upgrades or don't know how to use the ship properly. Just watch Zeimonster or Dack(?) in the ship to see what I mean. If it was up to me, I would probably try to do something about the manuverability because of the lag problems.

Balancing ships can be really tough and just because you got to fly an overpowered supership for so long doesn't mean it's weak now - it just feels that way.

[Mjollnir]

I tested out the lanc bomb a bit yesterday. I guess it was a bit harsh to say it is "useless" but I just meant it's not worth upgrading. I upgraded my speed to MAX and thrusters to 1 point less than the MAX and tried shooting the bomb in a few different ways. Unless there is a secret way of shooting it that I have totally missed, it sure didn't seem very effective. The bomb is still so slow even when shooting it with max speed that it doesn't seem to be worth the effort.

Is the Lanc meant to be so slow even with maxed out speed? I thought it was supposed to be a ship that will upgrade slowly but gets very good in the end. If you don't want to make the ship any faster I guess you could make the bomb recycle a little weaker.

If there really is a way to shoot the bomb more effectively, I apologize for jumping into conclusions.

[Zeimonster]

Wb definitely is not too weak atm, it still can own practically any ship of its own level and a bit higher 1 on 1. Jav is ok but imo there's still something to tweak with the shrap. It's a bit too effective, maybe because of the huge number of the shraps coming from each bomb, maybe the damage they do (instakill any ship i think) or the speed of the shraps. Maybe we could try to slow them down a bit and see if that makes it more comfortable for the others. Now it's just too random. I dont even have time to dodge if I happen to see one shrap coming straight at me on the edge of my screen.

And I agree with mj that it's hard to level the jav - i'm stuck at level 15 (My average in twlj games this year is some 4-10, though. Maybe that explains why i cant play jav here either.)

[Mjollnir]

Wb definitely is not too weak atm, it still can own practically any ship of its own level and a bit higher 1 on 1. Jav is ok but imo there's still something to tweak with the shrap. It's a bit too effective, maybe because of the huge number of the shraps coming from each bomb, maybe the damage they do (instakill any ship i think) or the speed of the shraps. Maybe we could try to slow them down a bit and see if that makes it more comfortable for the others. Now it's just too random. I dont even have time to dodge if I happen to see one shrap coming straight at me on the edge of my screen.

And I agree with mj that it's hard to level the jav - i'm stuck at level 15 (My average in twlj games this year is some 4-10, though. Maybe that explains why i cant play jav here either.)

I understand how the shrap could be annoying for the others. If you are going to change it I agree with slowing the speed of the shrap a bit. Any other change will probably make them (and the ship) too weak.

[gdugwyler]

Thanks to those who have posted info on upgrade times. I'll continue making adjustments. The present experiment: actually make the increase factor smaller for levels >25. In the low ranks (0-10) the rate is 1.6 to jack it up fairly quickly, so perhaps this needs to be compensated for later on. We'll have to see -- it may go back later on.

Streaks: To get a streak you have to kill 5 players within 12 ranks of your own. No time limit, though. The rank difference allowed was recently increased and will continue to be tweaked in order to keep streaks fun without being all that cheap.

Exalt: the second someone uses the word "useless" to describe an entire ship in this game, I begin consider their opinion pretty much "useless" as well. This is exactly what yours is as regards the Warbird. Just a few hours ago I observed more than one WB going 2:1 without too much difficulty. Granted, they were good pilots, but this should mean that someone with at least decent skill should be able to at the very least pull 1:1, which is not something that you can say for many of the ships in Distension. This is what I'm talking about when I say you're not thinking of others playing the game. Spiders can kill some ships in a couple of hits; it all depends on the rank. If you want to talk about recharge, let's talk about recharge, though: WBs enjoy the best in the game. And I don't see them getting killed constantly by other ships. Why would you fly a WB rather than a Jav or Spider, you ask? Because you want a fast, agile sniping ship. Javs can be picked off easily at a distance. Spiders not as much, but they're much slower than most birds. The warbird also has a smaller amount of RP required for every level than both of those ships, and to boot, it makes kills generally faster than either. I appreciate you taking the time to post, but what you say just isn't ringing true.

Mj and Lancs: I think you may not have it yet. You said you tried a couple of different shots, but I'm guessing you did overlook one. Here's a hint: the speed of the bomb is equal to the amount of kickback the ship receives when firing it. This means if you fire it in the direction you're moving, you'll pretty much stop, and the bomb won't have much of any thrust on it ... Also, the Lanc is meant to upgrade fairly quickly but top out early, which is why it doesn't have very many upgrades. The "fairly quickly" part might not yet be working, though. This may need to be remedied by lowering the firing delay ... I haven't seen many people use the ship at all recently, really. Anyone have opinions on it?

Jav balance: The Jav is meant to top out late, but I don't want it to be too painful in the meantime. We could kill two birds with one stone: slow shrap down a little, but also lower the amount javs need to rank (again). How does that sound?

[Exalt]

I do not think your complaint is valid though. It is still a very annoying ship to play against because of the huge manuverability that induces a lot of lag. You probably have the wrong upgrades or don't know how to use the ship properly. Just watch Zeimonster or Dack(?) in the ship to see what I mean. If it was up to me, I would probably try to do something about the manuverability because of the lag problems.

Balancing ships can be really tough and just because you got to fly an overpowered supership for so long doesn't mean it's weak now - it just feels that way.

ive seen zeimonster play, whats so great about him? guy dies just like everyone else

[Epic li]

As a level 30 lev, i still get owned by the wbs that have l2 bullets,any kind i mean, its hard to dodge with this ship... after the energy thing, it got a bit easier

[Mjollnir]

...
Jav balance: The Jav is meant to top out late, but I don't want it to be too painful in the meantime. We could kill two birds with one stone: slow shrap down a little, but also lower the amount javs need to rank (again). How does that sound?

Sounds perfect.

[HateTheFake]

I like the lowering of rp needed to rank for jav but still think there should be a delay in bombings, i have a jav and played in the ship, its a basing ship all it needs is 1 cram and u practiacally have a streak going for it, then with the l2 bullets, its definately not weak.

also isnt the reason why u lowered the wb energy/increased amount needed to acheive high energy was to give others a shot to kill it. I would think that javs are the same way. Granted it may not be as fast, however with a rocket it isnt exactly slow either

[gdugwyler]

MAJOR CHANGES!!

The upgrade system has been altered significantly.

• First and foremost, all upgrades were refunded. This means you will need to repurchase all upgrades for all ships. I know it's a hassle, but every single item cost was changed, so this is necessary.
• You now receive 10UP per rank up instead of 1. To match, on average upgrades cost 10 times what they once did. However you'll notice maneuver upgrades are generally cheaper than energy/recharge and such. This allows fine-tuning of costs. For example, XRadar for the Terr now costs 5UP, or half of what you get from 1 rank, making the decision to buy it not a very difficult one.
• !scrap and !scrapall are free for a while, to allow changes to be made to your new builds without a hassle. This gives you a chance to explore some options. It will probably stay this way until just before the end of the year.
• The rotation bug has finally been fixed. The only way to make upgraded rotation work without it getting jittery later on is to start out with a fairly high number for rotation. In this particular case it's 200, which is the default rotation value for WBs and Javs in pub. You might find you don't need to upgrade it at all. This is unfortunate, as it almost means losing a stat, but I'm sure some people can find a way to use higher rotation. It was in the end just more important to have responsiveness for ships that previously started with low rotation (Jav, Lev, etc) than to make this a necessary upgrade.
• RP amounts required for ranks >25 have dropped significantly across the board. This is in response to the suggestion that it's just too damn boring to level after 25, even with the beta bonus multiplier. I do notice people going up in rank pretty fast now... but that's far better than people leaving because it's just not fun anymore. I'd rather have the game be pretty entertaining all the way through but not take too much time to get to a high position, rather than dragging it out just so that there will be more playing/grinding out of obsession rather than enjoyment ... This will mean that the game may need more frequent resets than previously planned, and also that rank 80 may actually become attainable (L3 jav bombs, anyone?). So it goes.
• Other random stuff: rank ups are arena-announced for rank 10, 15, 20, and any above 25; end round bonuses now are based less on the time it takes to win the match (you now get the same amount for a win under 15 minutes as you do for 15); and so on.

I'm holding down the proverbial fortress by myself for the vacation, so there will probably be more extensive testing, staff/Jesus willing, including weekends. Should give a chance for people who haven't played the game much to have a go.

EDIT: I forgot to credit Mythrandir for the idea of the 10UP/level to allow a finer gradation of upgrade costs. Thanks Myth.