Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[2kill]

Nah, because I said "I have no trouble killing other spiders...etc". Spiders can hardly be considered overpowered against other spiders :P . Maybe I should've put it some other way, but I clearly couldn't have meant what you thought I meant.

nah nah it wasn't about the spiders killing spiders it was

I have no trouble killing other spiders or most other ships regardless of their rank

:P

anyway I'm with you really, spiders with L1s aren't really overpowered

2kill

[Singularity]

I have to agree with mjoll again. Yesterday I ranked my weasel up to level 32 and concluded it almost impossible to kill people that do not want to get killed.
Without rockets it is literally impossible to kill a base ter, with rockets it doesn't get much more easy since the ter will port when seeing a weasel rocket, plus, you need to quite close to use it anyway.
The only kills I got were from people that planned on going straight at me and shooting, whereas a NC usually follows. Shooting a ship going away from me or just dodging sideways is useless as they have to do no effort to dodge it. I know it isn't meant to dominate ships anyway but at the moment it feels totally dead.
It is actually good for taking a flag, but then, if there is a ter and a jav/lanc/lev waiting in a flagroom even this is close to impossible.

My solution: make the terrier bullets a bit slower or the cooldown higher, it's ridiculous that it can take on ships 1 on 1 that easy, not just weasel. Make the rocket of the weasel last 50% longer or increase it's bulletspeed to make it viable to go after a ter.

[Mjollnir]

Listening to Jngy talk about Weasels from a Terr's point of view really shows how weak the Weasel has grown in comparison to the Terr. Vergilius just loves his Weasel so he is being mr. positive again but I have a few ideas anyway. Two points on the Weasel subject:

- I think the Weasel rockets could be a little stronger. They are really weak nowadays. I don't remember why they were weakened this much but it was probably because Jav rockets were being changed. The Jav rocket seems fine at the moment, so it maybe a problem to balance this though.

- Since yellow bullets and blue bullets cannot be seperately adjusted in energy consumption, it has been a problem to make the blue ones useful. My suggestion is that the Weasel gets extra RP from kills when you kill anyone with the blue bullets. That would encourage using "the better bullets" more. I know Verg likes his blue ones but I am pretty sure I can get more RP with the yellows just because I can shoot them so many more times.

[Vergilius]

I'm not sure if this is in the game already, but probably not: How about when you get TKd, your streak count wouldn't go to zero? This way it wouldn't be so annoying to get TKd. And maybe the one getting TKd would get some RP as a compensation, while the TKer loses some. It's then more as if the TKer has to "pay" for his mistake.

This is already in effect. If you are teamkilled, your streak doesnt get reset (or at least it shouldnt be). The Tker pays for its mistake, it loses RP for every teamkill he makes. The one getting tked getting compensation? This isnt implemented, and isnt really necessary imo. In most cases the teamkiller is to blame (as in missing a shot, or firing at sharks), but also cuz of ppl that dont bother getting out of the way. Stupidity is something we dont have to reward.

Vergilius the only way a weasel can kill a terr is with a rocket, that's the only way it can compete with a terr's speed. And even with one it's hard to pull it off. You have to be facing the terr. It's not like the jav rockets that allows them to turn sharply.

It is given rockets just so it CAN compete with its speed. And indeed, turning sharply isnt in the options, but in the beginning of beta test that was the case, making it overpowered. Portals almost werent available then, making them simply a sitting duck.

Whenever I'm alone in the flag room and I see a weasel coming many times I don't call for help. I don't even waste my bursts because I know I can take care of it. And like I said in today's game, the terrs in distension have faster bullets that allow them to kill something without getting close. And get close is what the weasel needs to do to kill a terr. Because even a rocket can't outspeed a terr firing and warping. Or I could just choose to not fight the weasel at all, the terr is not an attacking ship. Let my teammates handle it. I'll just stay away and shoot in its direction.

In theory, yes. But the warping isnt always fast enough. A spid with antiwarp weakens you alot. I dont care if i die then, my goal is to kill you, period. Trust me, when im cloaked most of your teammates dont look on their radar, especially during fr fights. In an empty base, it is hard to kill you. But the more teammates you have around you (and the more of my teammates that are in your base, if you think logically) the 'easier' it gets for me.

The double RP and no escape pod are there to encourage a weasel to kill the terr because it's so hard specially for a weasel. If it wasn't for that weasels would probably not bother.

This is exactly my point! Dug implemented that just so the weasel gets motivated to go after the terr! I'm not saying that the weasel has an advantage or so versus a terr, im saying that a weasel's main goal is to go after the terr. The bonus isnt there to award luck, but skill to the ones that can take out terrs regularely.


I have to agree that there are two main ways for the weasel. Building your ship to survive and claim flag, or building it for terrkilling. Mjoll mostly went down the first road, i took the second.

But anyways, this is quite a silly discussion to have here, back to bugfix.
Talk to me in game to discuss further, this is quite interesting..

[Joku Ugo]

I'm not sure if this is in the game already, but probably not: How about when you get TKd, your streak count wouldn't go to zero? This way it wouldn't be so annoying to get TKd. And maybe the one getting TKd would get some RP as a compensation, while the TKer loses some. It's then more as if the TKer has to "pay" for his mistake.

[Joku Ugo]

you realize you just said spiders are overpowered?

Nah, because I said "I have no trouble killing other spiders...etc". Spiders can hardly be considered overpowered against other spiders :P . Maybe I should've put it some other way, but I clearly couldn't have meant what you thought I meant.

[Squeezer]

I haven't actually played this, but I'm all for anything that can breathe some life back into TW.

So I'm wondering has anyone considered, once this is no longer a beta of course, contacting some of the freeware websites, torrent sites, and maybe even G4 to describe the changes you guys have implemented?

Okay, maybe G4 was a little far, but a little press coverage could spread the game around and get a larger player base. If it's as hyped as people in this thread seem to be reporting, then it could be a welcome innovation.

[jngy slate]

Vergilius the only way a weasel can kill a terr is with a rocket, that's the only way it can compete with a terr's speed. And even with one it's hard to pull it off. You have to be facing the terr. It's not like the jav rockets that allows them to turn sharply. Whenever I'm alone in the flag room and I see a weasel coming many times I don't call for help. I don't even waste my bursts because I know I can take care of it. And like I said in today's game, the terrs in distension have faster bullets that allow them to kill something without getting close. And get close is what the weasel needs to do to kill a terr. Because even a rocket can't outspeed a terr firing and warping. Or I could just choose to not fight the weasel at all, the terr is not an attacking ship. Let my teammates handle it. I'll just stay away and shoot in its direction.

The double RP and no escape pod are there to encourage a weasel to kill the terr because it's so hard specially for a weasel. If it wasn't for that weasels would probably not bother.

[Viruk]

OK, so I just got level 2 bombs in my Jav. And I must say, I feel kinda overpowered.

Could be. Don't forget you were facing a really bad team that last game though. We were practically laying our heads on the block.

[dako]

OK, so I just got level 2 bombs in my Jav. And I must say, I feel kinda overpowered.

Hop in and immeadiately get an Unstoppable streak, hardly even trying. At one point, we held both flags and I got a teamfer (because they have no sharks :P) That netted me about 3k RP. For a single shot. I don't even have rockets and I terrs still run from me when I turn to face them.

Im not saying nerf jav or anything, but pretty much the only way im getting killed is through stray bursts or if they recruit some sharks.

47 minute total : 129 kills 57 deaths 22 Teamkills.

Yes the TKs are abundant, but when their shark actually did rep, the results were usually disasterous for my team. Note: Contrary to popular belief, very few of my TKs are due to bad jav/leving skills, and when I do make them, im usually quick to admit them.

[Vergilius]

Lol jngy, the terr hitman wasnt based only on the day that i raped your ass :P . On a normal test about 15-25% of my kills are terr kills, i think that is the highest terr-kill rate of any ship. The reason terr gets xradar so cheap is just BECAUSE it is the main victim of the cloaking ship, and needs a way to defend itself, no? I can seriously say that if xradar wouldnt be available so easy for terrs.. well, prepare to get cloaked twice every minute. Weasel gets encouraged to kill terrs: its the only ship that gets a DOUBLE RP bonus if we get one, PLUS the guarantee that it cannot use its pod back in. I mean, if that arent weapons and arguments to kill terrs, what is? Dont be wrong, a strong weasel is the terr's worst enemy, right next to jav bombs. But the difference is, javs mostly just aim at the pack, and you die because someone next to you catches. Weasel on the other hand sneaks through first line of defence, and actually goes for the tek.

(and oh yeah, the reason you dont get cloaked that often is because i am on your team, and only become my victim if i (or you) !assist )

[Viruk]

Ship balancing again

Terrier escape pods:
Although it makes sense that an escape pod would be weaker than its ship it also seems unfair that you should spawn without any upgrade that will never recharge. A surviving base terrier may have to play without critical upgrades for some time. Ideally they should randomly be resupplied all their missing unrechargable upgrades back during a period after a respawn. Spawning with weakened weaponry would still make pods unattractive to assault terriers, especially now they get Last Breath without them. Hopefully pod use would still be limited while the penalty for those just trying to survive for their team would only be temporary.
If this is impossible then terriers probably need a tougher escape pod with no critical systems (this includes X-radar) badly downgraded.
I am still against them spawning more than once per death or starting with any more rechargables than they had when they died (although I am far more concerned about bursts than anything else).

Lancs:

Or lower the max by making the increase 15% and having it stop after 4 lvls. (ie 60% max). This way lanc still sees some low rank benefits from leeching, but it doesn't get too powerful in the mid-levels.

This seems reasonable to me but you could always add another 15% to take it up to 75% at a ridiculous price for those who just love to leech - a bit like the last burst on a terrier.

My reasoning: Leeching becomes more powerful as you upgrade energy and bullets so perhaps best to avoid anything close to a 100% option unless other high level ships have something equally powerful. Max leech should be available relatively early but be somewhat less powerful than the max super on a multifire L3 (edit: or L2 if it can't get L3) spider. This assumes the lanc is still supposed to arrive late and max out at a relatively low level.
(I am not sure what a maxed out warbird has that will match either though!)

If the lanc now seems overpowered it must only be because of high level leech and no longer being overshadowed by the spiders. Yes we now see the odd L3 lanc too but we had L3 warbirds long before this without problems. Apart from the leech and its distinctive spread fire it is hard to see anything else it excels at.

Spiders:

The higher level spiders who still have L1s feel underpowered to me, in comparison with other ships

Since the tweaks my spider certainly no longer seemed overpowered to play although I could still rank quickly. My spider's L1 single fire was often too slow-firing and weak to match the L2 fighters at dealing with individual, powerful enemies.

The more rapid-fire multifire gave me enough firepower for a fair chance to shut down an enemy before they fire (or at least fire enough to kill it). In addition the spread gave it extra chances to kill or quickly retarget and a great 'spray and pray' weapon for when in amongst the enemy. The downside is that it is less efficient, trickier to aim and encourages overfiring and rash attacking. Despite the frequent deaths the kills still let me level up quickly though. At my current skill level it is probably still a little underpowered. I suspect if I can ever learn to use multi effectively it will be OK but still only dominant when a super is triggered. (I haven't tried it with an energy tank though.)

L2 spiders? Difficult to know until I try one but clearly spiders will need this upgrade to compete at some point.

Levis:
They are supposed to be juggernauts so not surprising that most ships will have trouble killing any lev maxed out for tanking. I would certainly have a problem with them ever being powerful enough to just sit there and absorb the continuous firepower of any normal ship remotely close to their level though.

I cannot speak for high-level levis like Zei's but I know my mid-level lev is not overpowered: high energy, port, speed and fast bombing balanced by underkilling short-EMP bombs, slow-firing bullets, insufficient recharge and very poor agility.
If levis can really upgrade enough to remove some of these disadvantages while maintaining the advantages it probably would make them overpowered.
Would nice to see all the ship stats or have a go at Zei in my puny L2 weasel!

[jngy slate]

I didn't know there were ships that could have enough energy to survive L3 bullets. o_O And weasels are not the terr killers. Why do people keep saying that? It's the opposite, the terr is the weasel's enemy since it can get xradar at low levels and cheap, and it also doesn't use up any energy. That day, I'm not sure why I sucked so much and you were able to kill me like 10 times. But that shouldn't be enough to declare the weasel the terr hitman. I was just having a bad day.

The weasel's job right now is more of getting the flag. But that's pretty hard with the 5 seconds, is it 5? It does an even better jav in distracting half the ships in flag room. The other team can use this to get in the flag room.

The terr hitman right now I would say are the javs, and zei. >.> I can survive zei if I just keep my distance from his shooting range. But that's tough to do when we're having a flag room battle and Zei is sitting outside right next to use firing. It's odd, in pub the ship that kills me 95% of the time is the warbird. But in distension they rarely kill me.

[Vergilius]

Zei; please dont look at this as a personal attack on you . Im just saying that when you have upgrades like that, with full nrg, recharge and stuff (as you tried last test) that there is no way for me to kill you. If you dont shoot first, there just is no way to kill you. Even if I am lvl 100; and you 54, since i cant upgrade bullets anymore, or bombs, or thors. You dont even need to upgrade your bullets for that.. And that doesnt feel right. The only way i can imagine is to hit you with l3, have a big ass recharge myself, and hit you directly after with another, before you gained enough nrg again. And lets face it, the way your lev can move around i only have a chance of that happening when youre afk. The way i have balanced my ship now, i think im even going to have a hard time killing you if you ARE afk :grin:. And to alter all my settings, just so i can kill the lev in base? Nah, not worth it :P.After all I am a terr hitman (at least, thats the weasel's goal, right) and not a lev hitman.

[Zeimonster]

Dangerous post ahead - and tell me if im going the lane of 'my ship is weak, you are strong, i want more powerzzz'- but I kinda feel that the levi that Zei is flying is getting a bit overpowered. It is easier to kill a terr than him. Hell, i can cope with every ship in base. I am not saying that I am weak, far from. But when a ship with huge agility, multifire (doesnt even need to be l3 bullets, l2 is enough), an enourmous emp bomb, humongous recharge and a port faces my lvl 48 weasel (not a weak ship), there is absolutely NO chance of killing him.
I either get emped to minimalistic energy (without him having to aim his bombs at all), get hit by his multi or outmaneuvered. I can cope with that - hey, every ship has its benefits, right. But when i finally DO get past that, and (assumig he doesnt port away) get a hit, he simply eats it cause he has so much energy and incredible fast recharge. I kinda feel like a Toddler fighting Mike Tyson there: I only can beat him if he is already on life support when 4 other tough guys already bashed in on him.

I fully agree that some ships should be stronger than others, but zei's lev is just.. invincible for the weasel. Which i feel isnt correct, since there always should be a chance for a disadvantaged ship (from about the same level, ofcourse) to beat the stronger one. Which i feel is way too small as it is now.

He he, made me grin. Anyway, I cant have ALL those upgrades at the same time (shit load of energy, fast recharge, portal, L3 bomb, fast maneuvering ship) because they all are very fking expensive for me.

To have 2500 energy, I need 20*10=200 ups, which equals to 20 ranks. Not so bad yet, ok. For full recharge I must get 12 upgrades in total on average of about 17 ups for one (just a lucky guess, but the last upgrades cost 40 ups or whatever). So that's 200 ups more. Now i've used up 40 ranks worth of ups to get full energy and recharge. Then we need to upgrade the bomb of course. That takes about 80 ups to get to level 3 (last level is 55-60 ups). Sooo, 48 levels used. Then what, maybe some speed and thrusters because i'm the slowest ship in the game if I dont get any upgrades on those. Speed ups cost 15 each which is ok. Thrusters, instead, are more expensive than anything else on this ship. First upgrade doesnt cost much yet (10 ups or whatever), 2nd one for ~20, third one for 40, fourth one for 53 and the fifth and final for 60 ups.

Now where was I? 48 ranks used and I'm level 54 so i have 60 ups left. I can buy 2 speed upgrades and 2 thruster upgrades. Then I'm done. Portal would cost 43 ups, multi 18 ups, blue bullet 40+ ups, first upgrade of rotation 9 ups (i almost always take this one too). Then there are xradar, decoy and stealth which all cost some 15-20 ups.

The point is, I cant simultaneously be a superior tank and move faster than any terr, own a portal and L3 bombs yet at this level. I have to carefully choose which upgrades to put my ups on even though I'm the highest level non-terr around.

There are many ways to build a levi and I saw you get rather frustrated yesterday when I put all my ups on energy and I cant say I wouldnt have enjoyed the situation. :wub:

However, most of the time you'll find me in the ship with all the speed upgrades I can get, ~2k energy and a lousy recharge - and of course a portal.