Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Fluffz]

how is such a small weasel gona carry 5 blocks of wall? my imagination says it isnt because it would have to be bigger. HintHint

[gdugwyler]

Weasels do presently get a brick, which I think stretches about 5 tiles wide. Not really planning on giving it to anyone else. Spiders, for example, should be focused on largely being strong covering fire.

Mj: sorry, didn't mean to suggest that you're whining. I appreciate the time and thought you put into things here. You're one of the most involved beta testers, and if everyone did what you are presently doing, it would make my life a lot easier. It's just hard for me to decide what to change if largely what is coming in are suggestions to nerf/buff a ship without consensus.

L1 bullet damage: I'll have to play the spider a little more, but I'm guessing that even though bullet damage was 600 before, with the new energy/recharge change it may need to be lowered, considering that most ships aren't able to tank huge amounts of any kind of bullet any longer -- though of course a rank 0 can tank a hell of a lot more than it once could, most rank 0 ships being able to at least withstand 1 red without dying if at full energy.

Terr burst: it sounds like a good change may be to more severely limit the starting number of bursts for a terr, but increase the regeneration ability, as proj dragon is suggesting. It wouldn't change the dynamic all that much except to limit the number of double-bursts occurring. Would make the ship a little more unpredictable as well ... knowing that a freshly-respawning terr is not necessarily the most strong. This would have the added effect of extending the life of the average terrier, and encouraging a more tactical approach, suicide terring being less possible.

Jav: Let's just see how this one goes for now. I think one problem that's occurring is people were playing the Jav differently than it's played in any part of TW. First, I actually heard a jav say that his bullets were nearly useless. What? That should have been enough to make me think... but when you look at the settings, it's no surprise: Jav could fire a bomb with a bounce that would do 2650 damage on contact, and have a not-insignificant proximity damage effect when it hits a wall ... all for a mere 725 energy. Compare this with an L2 warbird bullet that does not bounce, has no damage effect on nearby players if it hits a wall, and does about 1600 damage, for a cost of 1000 energy. Granted, the WB's recharge is much better, so it can fire more often, and it can move around a good bit faster than a jav. Nevertheless there's a pretty obvious gap. Normally in a pub arena the jav's bomb costs 1100 to fire. Now in Distension it costs 1000. What does this mean? Javs are probably less fun to play, because they can't go chasing after people firing 2 (sometimes 3) bombs. Yeah, I actually saw a Jav chasing down a WB in a pretty wide-open area, a place where the bird should win 8 of 10 times. What Javs are going to need to do is start playing like Javs in any other arena: making careful, delicate shots, with guns to support when times get rough, rather than just throwing everything into energy and recharge so they can fire 3 bombs in 5 seconds. Rocket cost, though: I'll check it out in case it's too high.

[Vergilius]

The brick will be available soon for weasels, me and mjoll are working towards them

good question tho: how many tiles will the brick be?

[AcidBomber]

Yeh i like that brick thing! I think it should be given to spiders, makes more sense. 5+ tiles long would be nice!

Maybe even replace the decoy with a 3-tile brick that spids now have? Since decoys are pretty useless when it lasts 5 seconds...

[project dragon]

It's hard to use PH as our reference to "overpowered" sharks, because he basically has the highest level shark (or ship dare-I-say) in distension. If he has a shark that is greatly more leveled than you, then it should be difficult to kill him. It's common sense!

As for the terr burst, I gave my suggestion before. I still think it should be a one-hit kill weapon, because it just makes sense for a terr. Other ships don't have to worry as much when shooting, because they can die and attach again, but it's very detrimental for a terr to shoot, lower his energy, and get aimed or strayed, which may end up in your team losing the base. Bursts usually are random, but skilled terrs can use can aim it (they know where the bursts are going, like basing terrs should), which can help their team greatly. However, I would like to see the burst be "greened" more frequently (higher percentage of a chance to green burst/portal per upgrade), over a terr with the capability to hold x amount of bursts at spawn.

Also, I don't know if it's already an upgrade you can get that I have never seen, but I think that support ships should be given the ability to use an important option to help support their team: bricks. I think that having a brick upgrade would help a lot in flag room battles. A middle sized (maybe 6-7 tiles long?) can be used as a insta-wall kind of thing to help aid a terr and his team in the battle, or even try to good'old brickwarp trick for minutes of entertainment and anger!

[Aquatiq]

The energy nerfs have moved me to change from the "speed/eat/tank" ship you all know and love, to a very average-speed warbird that can no longer zoom by you and not have you realize it until you are dead. Half the time when I -DO- eat yellow bullets it's because I'm baiting someone into firing at me so either myself or my teammates can finish them off. If someone feels like they are getting hosed by the system because they felt they deserved an easy kill, they're mistaken.

[HateTheFake]

terrier burst should and must be kept the way it is, the constant people who are crying about it are the same people who never help their team by playing in it. Terrs need a way to get rp and with the currect profit sharing im only getting 100 rp and thats with everyone having a beta bonus. So in the game with no beta bonus its going to be more like 30 rp. Terrs need burst just like wbs need bullets. If any correction is to be made id rather have the burst last longer. As it is noone ever wants to play this ship, and the ppl that do often play it rather be playing a different ship. I had to do terr because noone on my freq ever wants to change.

[PH]

Now that PH has red bullet multi he kills a lot of ppl with his rep-lag-zillion bullets combo. I am not suggesting a huge nerf but I think the damage shouldn't be *that* high.

oh no i have a decent way to defend myself in combat now! this must not be allowed to continue!

[FarScape]

A spider can shoot the L1 bullets so quickly that of course you can't kill with one shot. But two shot kills are too easy in my opinion. Also, spiders don't have any problems killing a high level javelin. Only problematic ships to kill are the warbird with it's huge energy and laggy speed and the leviathan at higher levels.

My point wasn't that you should gain upgrades easily. I am just saying that it's illogical for the same 3% increase in charge rate to cost 24RP after a few upgrades, when the first upgrade costs 10RP. These things are very hard to balance though so I don't know how it should be. It just feels it really isn't worth upgrading some of the things after a few upgrades.

I can name 2 javs who I had hard time to kill: a2m and B.rabbit. try kill them in spider and see that they are almost matched. anyway, Its might be logical to have ships who are better against X,Y,Z ships and weaker against A,B,C.


For the upgrades that aren't worth upgrading after sometime, that doesn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't see myself upgrading speed anymore because I'm not sure about its benefit for my playing style. There are some other upgrades who I feel the same about it.
I'm speaking about the spider of course. maybe in other ships its different so Ill save words on the matter. Anyway, like any RPG game, In higher stages it shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades.

[Mjollnir]

Yeah don't forget that its a level factor. Spider isn't that strong against high levels warbirds and javelins, it isn't strong even against weasels and levi's on high ranks. most chances that the L2 bullets will take spider in 1 shot, rather than spider can take them in 3 shots (some warbirds are really hard to take, but thats fine).

I don't think the power of the L1 bullets should be reduced since you cant kill with them with 1 shot like most of the ships in game for now (dunno if max energy will stop it).

For the level upg points, It shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades... don't see a reason to change it.

A spider can shoot the L1 bullets so quickly that of course you can't kill with one shot. But two shot kills are too easy in my opinion. Also, spiders don't have any problems killing a high level javelin. Only problematic ships to kill are the warbird with it's huge energy and laggy speed and the leviathan at higher levels.

My point wasn't that you should gain upgrades easily. I am just saying that it's illogical for the same 3% increase in charge rate to cost 24RP after a few upgrades, when the first upgrade costs 10RP. These things are very hard to balance though so I don't know how it should be. It just feels it really isn't worth upgrading some of the things after a few upgrades.

[Mjollnir]

I appreciate the feedback here. Have to say, though, I'm starting to notice a trend in players saying their ships are weak and the ships of others are quite/too strong.

Bursts: Regardless of how fast it would be able to level with more profit-sharing, the Terr needs to remain, above and beyond, fun to play. If it's not fun, people aren't going to play it, and even now in beta most people are pretty reluctant to touch the ship. That said, I also don't see what's wrong with a burst making a one-hit kill. This is what it does for every ship in pub, for example ... and unlike the warbird's bullet (which does the same in pub) there's no way to upgrade the damage, so having it remain permanently one-hit kill seems reasonable. Is there a specific intent to the 1599 damage level? Maybe a ship you like to play that has 1600 at a certain time, or what? I'm sorry for being suspicious here, but the number given is quite intriguing, you have to admit. Perhaps we could look at slowing bursts down a little bit, and/or reducing the damage to something that will kill most ships, but not all.

L1 bullet damage: It was at 600 before the big change recently, and I reduced it to 520. Some people griped that with most ships now starting with L2 and dropping L1 bullet damage back to pub's 520, it made the ones that have only L1 at a distinct disadvantage, so I upped it back to 600. Recently I played a spider and it did seem pretty easy to mop up, though, so I see the point. However, this brings me to ...

Warbird overpowered: If WB is overpowered, and Spider is overpowered due to L1, which is "more" overpowered? The WB, Spider and Lanc are the fighting ships, and in 1v1 combat against any other ship should generally appear "overpowered." Anyone who understands the basics of TW mechanics knows this... so are you saying it's overpowered compared to spiders and lancs? I also recently heard someone saying that WB was rather crappy now. Didn't necessarily believe it, but, just throwing that out there.

Jav bomb nerf: The Jav bomb energy being put up to 1000 wasn't really a nerf so much as a correction. It was set at 725 or something equally ridiculous ... consider in pub the damage is 1100, and that the ship is still played like hell there, and I would be inclined to believe that the jav is not suffering. I'll look at the rocket cost, though.

Flag cap: While newbies may play the game, I would like to aim it at being able to be tactical. Any online flag cap game of much merit requires you to hold a flag for a decent bit before it's considered capped. Some require as much as 30 seconds. I don't think 10 seconds is too much, really.

Assist abuse: I talked a little with meqa, and she's just macro'd !assist x. From what I understand she's not able to actually return immediately after, which would be a nasty bug. If that's not true and it's being abused, I'd like to figure out how it's going on, though. Keep me posted.

Upgrades costing more at later levels: This was the case before the system change -- only, it was less gradual then. You'd have 5 levels of recharge for 1 UP, and then the next few for 2 UP, and then 3, etc. There are also rank limits as you suggest, though. Problem is: too few upgrades, too many ranks.

Weasel power: Doesn't seem too bad. That's just me.

Okay. I understand that my constant whiny bickering may seem like I just want the ships I play to be better and the other ships worse but that is not my intention.

Basically I just felt that the bursts are adding too much of a luck factor to the basing. I don't really actually care about the damage that much but I guess it could be annoying how easily a lvl 0 terr can kill a lvl 80 ship with a lucky burst. It would be nice to find a nice balance of less bursts but making the ship more fun to play somehow. Does most fun come from the killing or would people be content with some "cool" way of getting extra RP like taking over the enemy flagroom -bonus or securing the home base for x seconds -bonus?

L1 damage just feels too big, especially when I am not playing a ship that has a lot of energy like the lev or a wb. Ships that can't really dodge stuff like the lanc and the jav get owned and even terrs die very easily from what I have seen. My weasel usually gets owned by one random shot after I have spent only a little energy (max energy being like 1019).
Now that PH has red bullet multi he kills a lot of ppl with his rep-lag-zillion bullets combo. I am not suggesting a huge nerf but I think the damage shouldn't be *that* high.

The wb and the spider both feel a bit too strong in their own way. The speed of the wb adds lag so adding the bullet eating capabilities they are very annoying even for multiple people to kill. I also trust Zei's take on this since he is saying he feels it's too strong and he is a high level wb after all. Spiders are just wrecking machines.

I am not sure why the jav bomb cost has to be so close to normal tw settings. I think the cost could be lowered at least so that 2 bombs can be shot close to each other. Shooting so slowly decreased the amount of kills A LOT and a lot of javelins seemed to complain about it. If you aren't convinced I guess I have to test it once more but at the moment it seems I am not gonna play that ship at all when the game gets public.

I am out of time so I got to stop writing this crap but I hope I cleared up some of my views.

[Fluffz]

it would be very nice to get some benefit for attacking. currently it doesnt feel like its worth it. for example there could be buyable items for single use. so you could add another value next to UP which could be CASH. for every kill in the enemy flagroom you could get some of this CASH so you could buy yourself a shield some day.

as for weapon abilities, i think they could be more deiverse. currently there are shots and bombs. i am thinking of the alternative levi bomb with the massive shrap, or a grenade bomb that explodes automatically without hitting wall using high proxy range and time. a thor of some sort would also be nice. maybe a shrap nova would be possible with proxy and high proxy range. i am thinking of the lanc there, that proxy speedless bomb and lvl3 bullets seem to be rather boring and useless upgrades.

also the upgrades do feel a little expensive, im lvl 30 and i need 3 lvls to buy 1 energy so i would need to be aproximatly lvl 60 to get full nrg and recharge, but than i could not afford the other stuff that requires a lot of energy to shoot out. talking about lanc again.

[FarScape]

Yeah don't forget that its a level factor. Spider isn't that strong against high levels warbirds and javelins, it isn't strong even against weasels and levi's on high ranks. most chances that the L2 bullets will take spider in 1 shot, rather than spider can take them in 3 shots (some warbirds are really hard to take, but thats fine).

I don't think the power of the L1 bullets should be reduced since you cant kill with them with 1 shot like most of the ships in game for now (dunno if max energy will stop it).

For the level upg points, It shouldn't be easy to gain upgrades... don't see a reason to change it.

[Vergilius]

Comments on the weasel (yeye, what a surprise, coming from me, i know)
Acid, i know me and Mjoll are a pain in the ass for you, but dont forget we both are lvl 34+. We both have different tactics when we upgraded our ship. Mjoll for example has stealth, rocket, portal. Decent combo, and annoying as fuck. But thats what the weasel is all about. Me on the other hand has invested in speed, rocket, and recharge/energy. Both different techniques, both effective to drive a terrier that cant eat l2 nuts. But imo, the weasel is not too strong. Looking at the recs we had at the end of the test yesterday your spider had more kills, and less losses. For us it (finally) became easy to get our win:loss to a 1:1.

(and oyeah, you might got a little annoyed by me yesterday, i was really enjoying to dodge your spider multi and then boom you off )


Oh and dug.. I love the vengeful bastard. Nothing cooler than seeing that nme just freeze after i die, unable to get away. Brings a smile to my face

[AcidBomber]

L1 bullet damage: It was at 600 before the big change recently, and I reduced it to 520. Some people griped that with most ships now starting with L2 and dropping L1 bullet damage back to pub's 520, it made the ones that have only L1 at a distinct disadvantage, so I upped it back to 600. Recently I played a spider and it did seem pretty easy to mop up, though, so I see the point. However, this brings me to ...

Warbird overpowered: If WB is overpowered, and Spider is overpowered due to L1, which is "more" overpowered? The WB, Spider and Lanc are the fighting ships, and in 1v1 combat against any other ship should generally appear "overpowered." Anyone who understands the basics of TW mechanics knows this... so are you saying it's overpowered compared to spiders and lancs? I also recently heard someone saying that WB was rather crappy now. Didn't necessarily believe it, but, just throwing that out there.

Upgrades costing more at later levels: This was the case before the system change -- only, it was less gradual then. You'd have 5 levels of recharge for 1 UP, and then the next few for 2 UP, and then 3, etc. There are also rank limits as you suggest, though. Problem is: too few upgrades, too many ranks.

Weasel power: Doesn't seem too bad. That's just me.

L1 bullet damage, did you change it to 600 now? Or was it already at 600 earlier today?

As for warbirds, it seems alright now, level 30 wb vs level 30 spid have an equal chance of winning, spids winning depend on luck at times though (If the wb' miss), and wb winning depend on whether spids can aim... but yeh that's normal

I am kinda confused about the upgrade costs, it seems very high, but maybe that's just me...

As for weasels, spec Mjollnir when he's a weasel, it drives the other freq nuts in the flagroom. =s

PS: Spider spread angles?

As well, the decoys for spiders are practically useless, lasts for like 5 seconds?