Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Vergilius]

The weasel seems to be very tricky to alter. It is either too weak, or too strong. NLS, I cant remember ever seeing you in the weasel, so basically you only notice it when it kills YOU. You see it cloak, or port, and scream "it is overpowered!" Well, I am a fulltime weaselplayer in distension, and I think i can say how the ship feels. Believe me, if you are not camping, it is extremely difficult for a weasel to go positive. Dont forget it takes quite a lot of practice for us to manage the ship. killing something with slow-bullets only really is a pain in the ass, its a way bigger handicap than you can imagine.
The past week dug was experiencing with the weaker weasel. rockets being short, bullets costing more energy, and I must say i really considered quitting the ship, cuz I had a hard time even getting 1:2 in it. Now, it looks like a decent ship again. I can maneuvre it pretty good now, got used to it now. We really need that extra's, cuz bullets alone? were defenseless. really. I dont want to be forced into becoming a camping player (oh how i love taking the terrs out now) so please, dont weaken it again. Now it is decent, dont tweek to much of it anymore. (speaking bout lvl 26, well see how it goes at +10 lvls at a time)

[HateTheFake]

Honestly i think the weisel is fine before the use of rockets, i even saw mj warp? I think the x lovers just want another over powered ship. As for shark i think they to are also fine, the only problem i seem to encounter is the constant lag of a few players (sin) being one of them. Will the lag limit for beta decrease a bit? Also is there any way of getting a nightwasp maybe without cloaking?

In warbird i noticed the decoy doesnt last as long as the spiders, it cost 2 ups to get but, definately not worth the 10 secs of time it gets to spend in base.

[Burzum]

Finally, energy required to fire a shark bomb is up a bit, and the rate at which afterburners decrease energy is increased very slightly.

Is the energy requirement for a shark bomb the same at all levels? It sure seems to me that it increases in linear correlation to the total energy, rather than having a fixed energy cost.

[project dragon]

The Shark is a powerful ship to play against, but it is in no way hard to shut it down.
When I'm in my shark, it's still relatively easy for a single high leveled spider to make me use all my reps and die even before I reach the flag. A flagroom full of spiders make an easy job of me, seeing as how I could probably never be at full health (due to lag bullets sometimes getting through my reps, which happens and I know it's a part of the game), which basically renders me useless, unless I mine a bunch, but reckless mining usually results in my team being TK'd. It is not hard to take me down, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to give a fight before you do.
Also, with the tiles around the flag, it has become kind of useless to kamikaze to the flag, because once I've wasted my reps to get there I'm basically a sitting duck unless my team follows me to the flag (which kind of rarely happens), and the other team should be able to take me down easily and recover the flag before it switches over.


I thing I was thinking of, and suggested to gdugwyler (briefly, and he seemed to not hate my suggestion :P) was to find some way to utilize the ?buy command. If players have been playing for quite some time, why not give them something of a reward (other than ranks and rp haha)? If there was some way to give them something simple - perhaps a decoy, or maybe a 3 tiled brick, something simple (or a thor! if we get adventurous) - at a high cost of your points, it could shake up some things in base. This way, you don't have to use a point to invest something on your ship that you won't always be using.

Anyways, I thought this could be an interesting idea. Input would be nice.

[Edify]

I played today for the first time. It was fun. Good job.
Although, I'd like to know if it runs on some sort of schedule without reading the entire 5 page thread.

[Mjollnir]

Although I posted yesterday that the warbird seemed okay I am about to change my opinion on them. Today I played against multiple 20+ warbirds with my level 26 spider and it was nearly impossible to kill them because of their huge amount of energy. Even when they shoot they won't die from a bullet and since they are so quick it is very, very hard to hit them with 2 bullets in a row AFTER they have actually shot.

The weasel was a bit better but I would still like them to be stronger somehow. Maybe make the movement upgrades less costly? And now that they aren't very strong anymore it seems to be very slow to level them because of the low amount of kills they get compared to the other ships. Since their main purpose is usually killing the terr you could possibly give them an even higher bonus on killing a base terr (weasel specific bonus of like 100% more from the current amount).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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)