Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[2kill]

Possible change of energy/recharge upgrades

... ... ...

I like the idea... just as I liked the idea about ship progression unlocks (the support or attack ones) though I never posted about it I feel that its a really fun part of rpgs having to chose at the beginning how you will play the rest of the game so I say go for it!

[Zeimonster]

Very good and interesting an idea, yes, as long as there is a chance to change the ship type. It would suck if someone wanted to go for "special forces" as a levi and then later would notice that it was not the optimal choise to go for. Mmm, that was just an example but even theoretically i dont think a levi with minimal energy and recharge would do quite well. :7


Btw, i love the new multi on levi :wub:

[Viruk]

Re: Possible change of energy/recharge upgrades

It could be made to work and I like the idea of a choice between energy/recharge/specials but there are many things I don't like about it:

You are forced to make a major choice that will restrict or cost you a lot at an early point in the game when a (new) player will have the least experience or idea of the implications of that choice. This will hurt (maybe even deter) newbies most and making this choice is going to be painful even for veterans. This is not like a traditional RPG when you are buying into a widely known character class and will know with confidence that, for example, your wizard will need lots of mana. If you get it wrong you cannot console yourself with some good roleplaying. Nor will there always be people who are not busy in combat there to offer help on what options are best for your ship.

The new system will probably need retesting or there are likely to be balance issues. We would lose a lot of the work we have done so far in trying to balance the ships and it would be much more difficult for a single player to test all the possible combinations themselves.

Some ships are likely to struggle to find enough special abilities to use for UPs meaning no upgrade options for many levels.

Upgrading energy and recharge can be a pain for most ships but there are some where it makes a difference (e.g. upgrading levi energy, upgrading recharge for spider or anything with x-radar). You would lose the fun of upgrading this.

Greater inflexibilty in upgrade choices seems to me to be a bad thing in itself and I am not convinced that the system will force weaknesses into ships much more than your choice of ship already does.

I am not convinced that the current system particularly encourages people to go for mainly energy and recharge. I have been forced to upgrade thrust and speed on many of the ships more than I had initially planned in order to compete. In the new system I would be penalised for adapting to changing or unknown conditions.

Some ships have special abilities that can be an alternative to energy or recharge (energy tank, super, leeching). Forcing them to upgrade takes away the choice of concentrating on the special instead.

I would not like to see unlimited energy and recharge based on level as this would make it even easier to get ship imbalances due to leveling speed. I shudder at the thought of adding all that extra energy and recharge to the fast-ranking terriers. This also makes the game less newbie friendly as high level ships will be inherently much harder for a newbie to kill.

[meddi]

I have grown used the current way of things (nrg / chrg wise), and thus find it hard to appreciate how the new system would work. Seems like a pretty drastic change. I guess the best way to find out is to try?

[2kill]

Re: change of energy/recharge upgrades

I have been thinking about this over dinner and I still think this is a great idea. (coming from a RPG fan) Though Viruk's comments are valid, I would like to try to address some and lay out my ideas.

So that it doesn't deter new players or get them down you could have it default to the scout (the all around average ship) and they would only be asked to choose a "class" (e.g tank, or scout) at rank 3 or something. This would make it a gradual process so that they don't get overwhelmed, if they chose to ignore the bot and not choose which one they want it would simply continue in the default class (scout) leaving the player without a care in the world.

To the fact that the new system would make a greater difference between ranks, I would have to say I don't think that would be the case. As the new system would have greater control over when they get an increase and would be able to keep them closer... maybe a smart idea would be to have 50% of the energy and recharge upgrades within the first say 20 ranks this would mean new players would get close enough to be a threat in good time.

As to the terr getting to much energy or recharge I would think that the classes would be set on a per ship bases which would mean that the terr could never really turn in to a super ship.

About the to many UP for the upgrades I would say that we will have two new spots to think about so UP could be used on them.

As to forcing them to choose between energy specials or normal energy and recharge I think that’s a good thing. Cause as we have found out with the lanc, leech is very powerful and by making it have to have just a high leech and low energy, or a low leech and good energy it should make the lanc less overpowered the same holds true with the spider and its super.


On an ending note just cause the new system would require testing does not mean we should not test it


thats all right now


2kill

P.S. Just finished the test and thank you so much for the fast rearm graphic in ops.

[jngy slate]

change of energy/recharge upgrades

I think I suggested an offensive/defensive ship idea a while ago. Oops kept running around in his terr killing people and I kept in flag room trying to stay alive. Would be cool.

Today's last game ended with a stalemate with one freq getting 0% RP and the other 100%. This probably happened because the freq who got 100RP held both flags for like 10 seconds while the other freq never got a chance to hold both flags. I've thought of a fairer formula I think you should use so that one freq doesn't end up getting nothing in case of a draw.

freq 0 RP = ([((total round time-(freq 0 flag time+freq 1 flag time))/2) + (freq 0 flag time)] / total round time) * total RP

That would give freq 0 the RP worth for their time and split up the time both teams held a flag each between the two.

[Viruk]

So that it doesn't deter new players or get them down you could have it default to the scout (the all around average ship) and they would only be asked to choose a "class" (e.g tank, or scout) at rank 3 or something. This would make it a gradual process so that they don't get overwhelmed, if they chose to ignore the bot and not choose which one they want it would simply continue in the default class (scout) leaving the player without a care in the world.

This would certainly help but the first 3 levels will probably only take half an hour's playing time even without the beta multiplier whereas it will take many, many hours before a new player will understand how a ship and all the upgrades work in the game.

Currently we can only see the next upgrade ahead and we rely on information from (and encounters with) the few players with high level ships to know how upgrades work which makes it very difficult to make reliable long term upgrade plans even without all the tweaking. RPGs that force you to make your choices at the beginning usually give you fairly complete information about the classes and specialisations you can choose. Players should be given that information if they are going to be making choices in advance. Even if they have it I can still see many players being reluctant to invest time in long term planning for a basing game and then later getting upset when they discover they have missed out on getting the best combinations.

To the fact that the new system would make a greater difference between ranks, I would have to say I don't think that would be the case. As the new system would have greater control over when they get an increase and would be able to keep them closer... maybe a smart idea would be to have 50% of the energy and recharge upgrades within the first say 20 ranks this would mean new players would get close enough to be a threat in good time.

Something like this seems like a good idea. Even if upgrades did go on for ever as Dug suggested it would be a long time before high level players became a problem if this happened increasingly infrequently at higher levels.

As to the terr getting to much energy or recharge I would think that the classes would be set on a per ship bases which would mean that the terr could never really turn in to a super ship.

This ought to work but will be harder to balance than the current system because you would have to find out the different leveling rates. (If we are really lucky these would only vary slightly depending on level, specialisation and any tweaks to all the various upgrades)

About the to many UP for the upgrades I would say that we will have two new spots to think about so UP could be used on them.

Will the limiting factor not be the number of unique upgrades we can think of that can actually be made to work rather than number of upgrade slots? If upgrade slots are limited might it not still require the energy and recharge slots for internal use?

As to forcing them to choose between energy specials or normal energy and recharge I think that’s a good thing. Cause as we have found out with the lanc, leech is very powerful and by making it have to have just a high leech and low energy, or a low leech and good energy it should make the lanc less overpowered the same holds true with the spider and its super.

My point was that the new system prevents you from doing this fully because you would get some of the energy/recharge upgrades automatically whichever of the 4 specialisations you chose whereas now you could theoretically choose not to upgrade energy or recharge at all and use the UP on maxing your specials and other upgrades instead.

(And I am not convinced that either lanc or spider is currently overpowered despite my misgivings about leeching and the L2 + super combination)

On an ending note just cause the new system would require testing does not mean we should not test it

While I love to test things I would also like to see the finished game go public 24/7 before I die! :P

[gdugwyler]

Some good thoughts. Viruk, I think you especially have a point about forcing players to choose too early and being too confusing, especially with everything else already thrown at them. (I do plan to have extensive help information available, however, and am working on it.)

I think that a good solution to this problem would be postponing the choice until later. In the first X number of ranks, everyone could receive the same number of upgrades to energy and recharge, and the same amount of UP. (Essentially, automatically the "Scout" build.) During that time they would be getting a feel for how they wished to play the ship, and when it's time to make the decision, they should have the experience and information to make it. This would also give a certain amount of play with upgrade points earned in that time, so that even if you planned to go to a heavy build you'd still have some flexibility available. This system is pretty common in RPGs, the specialty or "prestige" class chosen after some time has been sunk in (the first "class" being akin to the ship itself). And if a player didn't want to choose, as 2kill suggested and I'd planned they would simply default to Scout.

During the time before the choice, a reasonable bulk of energy and recharge upgrades could also be given to balance out the fact that, even if they are earned more slowly, energy and recharge upgrades will go all the way to rank 80, perhaps with a large bonus if anyone does reach 80. Thanks to the person who suggested this. Scaling the upgrades seems an optimal way to go.

Zei, you did make a good point about something like Special Forces in the Levi. At present they don't have a lot to upgrade other than their basic upgrades and some bonus weapons. I'd like to focus a significant effort on ensuring that all ship types could be successful, which would necessitate expanding on the Levi's available skills, even if we're to add some that are not wonderful but not expensive, either. (I think that will be key to filling up the rest of the upgrade slots.)

Also, if I do go through with this, as fair warning I'll be mixing up the slots, so that guns and bombs will probably appear in slots 4 and 5, so that special abilities can generally be 6 and up. I may also try to order them in terms of which are most likely to be able to be upgraded first, as a more logical way of laying it out.

And, yes, I'll be keeping all the old code in case this doesn't work at all! It's actually not too significant a change, code-wise ... and actually, it shouldn't be too tough to balance, after looking at a bit of data about how much the average person has sunk into energy and recharge.

[2kill]

I think that a good solution to this problem would be postponing the choice until later. In the first X number of ranks, everyone could receive the same number of upgrades to energy and recharge, and the same amount of UP. (Essentially, automatically the "Scout" build.) During that time they would be getting a feel for how they wished to play the ship, and when it's time to make the decision, they should have the experience and information to make it. This would also give a certain amount of play with upgrade points earned in that time, so that even if you planned to go to a heavy build you'd still have some flexibility available. This system is pretty common in RPGs, the specialty or "prestige" class chosen after some time has been sunk in (the first "class" being akin to the ship itself).

lol thats what I was thinking about them going for a bit without choosing they would have a few ranks to play around, though now that I read my post that didn't really come out.

This would certainly help but the first 3 levels will probably only take half an hour's playing time even without the beta multiplier whereas it will take many, many hours before a new player will understand how a ship and all the upgrades work in the game.

3 ranks was only a guess , Dug's X number of ranks would have made my idea clearer

Will the limiting factor not be the number of unique upgrades we can think of that can actually be made to work rather than number of upgrade slots? If upgrade slots are limited might it not still require the energy and recharge slots for internal use?

... your right there though, I was counting on some creativity :P

While I love to test things I would also like to see the finished game go public 24/7 before I die! :P

rofl with you there

2kill

[roxxkatt]

havnt been able to play much dist due to my job lately, but i have to throw in my opinions as well...


as for the summon, it may have taken awhile to code or something, and may have that 'new thing' temporary shineyness, but it only degrades the overall quality of the game.
it might work well as the terr being able to summon -one- shark, or for a terr to summon a teammate for defense, but for anyone to summon about ten teammates from the opposite base without penalty is rediculous.
and also, the few other summons i saw were summoning good terrs out of fr battles by some newb...
the ops wormhole ability more then covers this...


as for the new energy idea, some aspects sound good, but the majority of it sounds like reduced gameplay to me...
adding an rpg element to the game might be interesting right now, but some people would like to max out their ability to manage their stuff.
its pretty fun right now, but locking yourself into a choice is always not fun to me.
being able to change my stuff on the fly without penalty is great, and even when you can do it with rp penalties later will be a good thing. (can do it with 0%, when u lvl for no penalty, in a sense)

because right now, if you really wanted to have minimal recharge/nrg and have multifire and xradar, you can do it...
with this new thing, you may not be having full control of where your points go...
because sometimes, i would much rather have -both- maxed chg/nrg, and only red bullets/bombs...


adding this will throw a large amount of complexity into this game, and some of us play it for its simplicity...
sometimes some things can be elegant for their sheer simplicity.
but judging from the amount you typed, you already have your thoughts on it, and are going to implement them...


edit: and sometimes, i know my team is outnumbered and outgunned, and i consider getting my team all the way to the stalemate as ops...
the maximum split id like to see is 40%/60%, so having a flag 100% of the time would get you the 60% stalemate reward

[Ward]

I wish these mature individuals filled me in on what's going on here. I'm kind of lost.

[roxxkatt]

read then.

letters make words, and words make sentences.
sentences contain information.

[Ward]

read then.

letters make words, and words make sentences.
sentences contain information.

But you see I'm few pages behind and it's sort of a lot to read. Only if you could summarize what's been happening in one paragraph. Please do it, I would really like to become a part of this mature crowd and discuss the bugs in the new distention beta.

[Jeenyuss]

But you see I'm few pages behind and it's sort of a lot to read. Only if you could summarize what's been happening in one paragraph. Please do it, I would really like to become a part of this mature crowd and discuss the bugs in the new distention beta.

wow im so exausted i am to tired to j/o to this.

[DankNuggets]

RE: RECHARGE / ENERGY UPGRADES

Personally, I am against this idea because I'm one of the people who actually enjoy leveling slots 4 & 5. I feel that 1) I get a great advantage by having more energy and recharge, more so than having specials. 2) I feel that my patience in upgrading expensive items early on will allow me to upgrade other slots later w/o waiting 3-4 ranks to upgrade.

The last one is the main reason since the higher upgrades take at least 3-4 ranks to earn all the UP needed. I can get these 3-4 ranks easier right now than as a higher rank (it would take forever). It just seems prudent to upgrade these now and leave things like turning/thrust/speed to later ranks as they require less UP, and you'll receive less UP per session (if any) as you progress.

Also, I feel that while they aren't appearent to others (you can see an enemy's speed, turning, and thrust easier than top nrg and recharge) slots 4 & 5 add more towards an advantage than slots 1, 2, 3 if you're any good at dodging already. If 2 ppl shoot at each other at the same time, I'd like to be the one who can shoot that second bullet 1st.

IDK, i guess i feel that maybe the basic upgrades (slots 1,2,3) should be the ones that get automatically upgraded, but that's probably b/c i don't want to waste the UP on them right now.

In sum, I feel that it may make the game a more level playing field (no pun intended) but overall less fun to play