Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Lizard Fuel]

First off, I appreciate all the time and effort that dugwyler is putting into this project. Dug, you've come a long way from where this started, but it's just my opinion that you went further than you needed to. I'd still like to be a part of this beta test, but its not fun when its 3 vs 3 or 6 vs 4. Personally, i found distension to be A LOT more fun when we had full games, and people (sometimes myself) were stuck waiting in spec for a round to be over. Most didn't mind waiting, because it was that much fun to play. Now, nobody even bothers showing up because it has gotten far too complex. I would suggest taking a few steps backwards back to when you had the most public interest. You're not getting much help with the same 7-10 people testing it every day, only of which 2-3 post on here. I don't mean to scrutinize, you've made a great game to play, I just think you should stop trying to add to it so much. Thats all.

[Fluffz]

well the time slots are awfull, euro08 games in the first slot and the 2nd is too late. lets have a longer single session after the euro games.

[Mjollnir]

Is there a real reason why we can't test on weekends? There are plenty of times during the weekend when some lame event isn't being hosted. I think we would get more people to the tests as well.

To the comments about the lack of people playing Distension: The game isn't that complex. It is complex compared to other events in TW but that doesn't mean it is incredibly hard to get into. I think the lack of people is due to the long break, the euro football and lack of public advertising. I am sure, the seemingly complex game turns off some people, so it would be nice if someone was helping them, or there was a simple help menu for getting started.

[roxxkatt]

• raise terr attach bounty to 100, only THE BEST TERRS should be allowed to attach
• increase lanc bullet fire cost, more
• slow lanc bullets down
• increase multifire delay, to the stupidly long levi multi delay.
• removing flag blocks was good, but why the hell did you move them to the bottom? fix.
• ball game is good, but possibly distracting. move wormholes farther away from the goals.
• decrease spider bullet cost a little.
• increase wzl multi delay a little.
• ADVERTISE DISTENSION

and to all those people that think levi shrap/bomb is overpowered,
#1: i can hit a -weasel- with a big, shiny, blue bomb, and then the wzl promptly fired -2- multifire lv3s at me immediately after, killing me.
#2: every bomb nerf makes the levi bomb more useless.
#3: emp bomb only does about 20% damage, and dug keeps reducing it for some reason...
#4: a blue bomb costs about all the energy to fire.
#5: bomb = many tks, big bomb = many more tks

and i believe the shrapnel is an excellent idea, because it actually allows me to get a kill with my bomb, even though its 15rp for -1- shrap, and i only get 5 or whatever per lvl...


and those ppl that think dist is getting too complex:
i partially agree, but compare it to hyperspace...


and to dug:
the energy bar is almost completely useless,
set the max energy as low as you can, as close to the highest a ship can get...
then add a long energy bar, LONG, into the lvz, that should stretch across a 1280x1024 screen, to fix it.

i forget which arena this was used in, but its already taken care of, somewhere in tws 2000 arenas...

[Vergilius]

and to all those people that think levi shrap/bomb is overpowered,
#1: i can hit a -weasel- with a big, shiny, blue bomb, and then the wzl promptly fired -2- multifire lv3s at me immediately after, killing me.
..

Hmm, this was prolly because of lag. When i get hit by a levi bomb, not even a blue one, i die (and my nrg is pretty high), let alone that i can fire 2 multi l3s directly after. He shouldve been emped pretty badly. I can only guess that he dodged on his screen, otherwise this simply isnt possible.

and as a vb proposal: since we are 'stealing' many things of ?go enigma, why not add the 'out of control'? ya know, speed, rotation and thrust being huge and uncontrollable

[roxxkatt]

because that affects everyone

[Viruk]

raise terr attach bounty to 100, only THE BEST TERRS should be allowed to attach

I would rather avoid having ANY killed terriers arriving straight back in the FR with their starting burst. THE BEST TERRS will not be dying much anyway and if you do manage to kill them it is right that your team should get an advantage.

increase lanc bullet fire cost, more

Only if the Lanc is still overpowered and it won't underpower it at later/earlier levels.

slow lanc bullets down
increase multifire delay, to the stupidly long levi multi delay.

No fighter ship should have stupidly long fire delay or slow bullets.

ball game is good, but possibly distracting. move wormholes farther away from the goals.

I like the wormholes near the goals. I hate that goals can apparently be scored (very noisily and spammily) too quickly. Can you temporarily set the speed of the ship that has the ball to a standard slowish rate to equalise the ships and encourage passing?

decrease spider bullet cost a little.
increase wzl multi delay a little.

Perhaps. It might be better to avoid tinkering without a good reason though. We have few low level ships to test it with (and they don't seem to know enough to realise that they should be higher level.) As it is the new system is likely to have upset ships that were already balanced at lower ranks.

ADVERTISE DISTENSION

Agreed.

and to all those people that think levi shrap/bomb is overpowered,
#1: i can hit a -weasel- with a big, shiny, blue bomb, and then the wzl promptly fired -2- multifire lv3s at me immediately after, killing me.
#2: every bomb nerf makes the levi bomb more useless.
#3: emp bomb only does about 20% damage, and dug keeps reducing it for some reason...
#4: a blue bomb costs about all the energy to fire.
#5: bomb = many tks, big bomb = many more tks

Levi bombs are not overpowered without the shrap but I don't think I could design a level 40-ish weasel that could instantly fire back even one multifire after being hit with an L2 bomb unless you hit it when within the blast radius. Although most ships can survive them it often seems as though it would be quicker to die and respawn than wait to recover from the EMP enough to fire. This seems right to me.

and i believe the shrapnel is an excellent idea, because it actually allows me to get a kill with my bomb, even though its 15rp for -1- shrap, and i only get 5 or whatever per lvl...

Kills not deserved by your aim. You would struggle to find many other upgrades for 15UP that are always available and can deliver that kind of damage. Cheap at twice the price.

and to dug:
the energy bar is almost completely useless,
set the max energy as low as you can, as close to the highest a ship can get...
then add a long energy bar, LONG, into the lvz, that should stretch across a 1280x1024 screen, to fix it.

Only if it doesn't mess up the screen for those playing at lower resolutions.

[DankNuggets]

i think it should be made pretty clear (since it took awhile to sink in with me) that you can forgo the specializations and continue playing advanced scout with little or no recourse. This should keep people who think it's gotten "too complicated" from complaining, since it's the most complicated change.

I don't know if it would just add a bunch of spam or complicate things further, but if you could upgrade a ship w/o actuallying piloting it, it would make upgrading much faster and help prevent afk people in battle. Something like !dock then !u #:# where the second # is the ship. Be even cooler with !mu #:#:#, but that's inherently complicated and confusing with 3 input #'s. Allowing !lagout for those people so they can take themselves out of the equation to prevent imbalance, but retain participation since they're supposedly upgrading to help the team. I think this problem mainly stems from the ship reset, so it's probably not necessary in the long run now that I think about it.

personally, i suggested nerfing lanc entirely because of foobarz camping in the corner of the fr, shooting multi lvl 3. He's quite adept at it, probably the highest lanc and one of the highest ranks in general because of it. It's plain annoying in a 5v5 game when he's the only ship that can afford to camp. The nerf of lvl 3 multi specificially ought to help stop him from being able to camp so effective. I don't think it's a good idea to continue the nerf too much, because the lanc should still dominate in midbase conditions. (fast moving, wide spread, high energy shots)

[2kill]

Okay... been awhile since I posted, heres my take on whats been happening.

1) people not playing: this has a few reasons, one the two weeks without any games as dug worked on it, two instead of a nice build up to the new system which it will be when its released people were forced to re-upgrade their ships confusing them plus learning a new specializen system I think its the combo that really threw people and new people are turned off cause they have to jump right in to upgrading their ships and they don't really know what they are doing. I do not think that it really is the specializen by its self that is turning people off and as dank said you can now just play without even worry about specializen

2)terrs attaching: I think you have already fixed this but 50 level terrs shouldn't be able to attach there just isn't enough flying death around to suppress them so maybe when they get to level 75 they could attach... so make attaching bounty 75 almost no one well ever get there anyway.

3) Levs shrapnel: annoying as heck... but I think it should increase the levs kills I know cheese l3 shrapnel was annoying me... though I hear he annoys his teammates

4) New abilities: I am just listing abilities and will not comment on what ships they should go on thats for you to decide

One: "vortex" the ship opens a vortex underneath his ship and all ships near him (and including him) are thrown in different directions kind of like a random jump space. As he upgrades the ability the area it grabs and throws increases (or just one if you want) this ability could get extremely annoying... I suggest only one ship get it and it have a cool down of 30 minutes that would make the max times you can use it in a round would be 2

Two: "store access" I know we talked about specials being bought before but here is a different take. the person would upgrade this ability and get access to buy stuff through the bot with !buy <name> now the different levels of this ability would unlock more powerful specials the order is up to whatever you want but something like this rank one, x radar stealth, rank two cloak multi, rank three, temp energy or temp recharge (only one allowed per life) rank four, thor repel (to buy these it would have to be a huge amount of points). Now when making this I think you will have to decrease the amount the flags give you or just take them in to account and make everything good and expensive

three: Darn it! I forgot I was thinking about this last night if I remember I will post again

cya all in distension

2kill

[Vergilius]

2)terrs attaching: I think you have already fixed this but 50 level terrs shouldn't be able to attach there just isn't enough flying death around to suppress them so maybe when they get to level 75 they could attach... so make attaching bounty 75 almost no one well ever get there anyway.

cya all in distension

2kill

In higher lvls the ship's bty doesnt represent its lvl anymore. eg i have a weasel of lvl 51(? 52? i dunno for sure) and my bty is 65-ish so that doesnt exactly work out. Maybe make attaching an ability you have to purchase?
Available at rank 75, cost 1 UP or something? Although im afraid that isnt possible to implement in the game..

[Lag.Com]

The only way to do it would have the 'attach-bounty' set ridiculously high, then buying the 'being able to attach to terrs' upgrade give you a zillion greens to put you over the required amount. Which would be bad.

Of course, the bot could just spec you or ban you or something if you attach to another terr. Easy

[dako]

So I'm giving up on this.

I haven't seen more than 15 people in the arena at one time in forever. This new "lets put everyone at rank 40" thing completely screws over those who actually put time in to level up their ship. Sharks still run the game with 5 reps. Terrs get obscene speed and portals.

No shuffles in weeks. Every other ship is a weasel. Game can still go to 5v10 without anything from the bot. Ship specializations only make things more confusing and are completely unnecessary.

I know its your game and you do what you want dugwyler, but damn. It was going good until the 5 minute timers were put in.

Many many suggestions have been put in, but I don't see any useful responses, so I'm not even going to try the "constructive criticism" approach. Perhaps something will be done when it actually does die.

[Vergilius]

Today i spent most of the test assisting. Last game, finally one thats somewhat close, i am on freq 1 the whole time. First time theyre gonna win a round. freq 0 decides to go speccing before round end to create an avarice (btw i thought that was fixed?). Bot detects that, and puts me back on freq 0. result: i get nothing as round end bonus. Cant the round end bonus be calculated for the amount of time you were on the winning freq?

Also, i have to agree that the 5 min timer as it is now isnt working out. Imagine freq 1 getting fr with 0:10 on the timer for the other team. that means they have to keep fr for almost 10 minutes in order to win. So either you close up the fr so that getting in becomes mich harder (DONT- fr battles are fun) or you can put the clock to three minutes. When another team has it for 10 consecutive secs, they get the hold. Otherwise the team that loses first fr battle loses the round- havet seen any eceptions on this yet.

Hows the newbie tutorial coming? with ads we have some newer players in - and its pretty much hopeless to get them started now, with high levels.

[Mjollnir]

Today i spent most of the test assisting. Last game, finally one thats somewhat close, i am on freq 1 the whole time. First time theyre gonna win a round. freq 0 decides to go speccing before round end to create an avarice (btw i thought that was fixed?). Bot detects that, and puts me back on freq 0. result: i get nothing as round end bonus. Cant the round end bonus be calculated for the amount of time you were on the winning freq?

Also, i have to agree that the 5 min timer as it is now isnt working out. Imagine freq 1 getting fr with 0:10 on the timer for the other team. that means they have to keep fr for almost 10 minutes in order to win. So either you close up the fr so that getting in becomes mich harder (DONT- fr battles are fun) or you can put the clock to three minutes. When another team has it for 10 consecutive secs, they get the hold. Otherwise the team that loses first fr battle loses the round- havet seen any eceptions on this yet.

Hows the newbie tutorial coming? with ads we have some newer players in - and its pretty much hopeless to get them started now, with high levels.

The timer is way too long like I have mentioned before. And it does seem to be possible to cause an avarice by speccing. It also seems that it is always warning about avarice when it's a small game and the teams are 5v6 or so. The teams are never balanced in a situation like that (especially since everyone is level 40+) so avarice shouldn't happen. It doesn't help that the assist rewards are tiny and the guy who wins by avarice gets more than someone who assists just before winning.

We really need a good tutorial for newbies. It is extremely confusing for them to be put in a level 40 ship without any help. It would be much easier if they started at level 0 but then they'd whine about getting owned. Since the newbies tend to have no attention span whatsoever they just leave after dying a few times. Most of them have no idea that they are supposed to upgrade their ship, and that alone makes them think the game is stupid, since they keep dying.

[Mjollnir]

So I'm giving up on this.

I haven't seen more than 15 people in the arena at one time in forever. This new "lets put everyone at rank 40" thing completely screws over those who actually put time in to level up their ship. Sharks still run the game with 5 reps. Terrs get obscene speed and portals.

No shuffles in weeks. Every other ship is a weasel. Game can still go to 5v10 without anything from the bot. Ship specializations only make things more confusing and are completely unnecessary.

I know its your game and you do what you want dugwyler, but damn. It was going good until the 5 minute timers were put in.

Many many suggestions have been put in, but I don't see any useful responses, so I'm not even going to try the "constructive criticism" approach. Perhaps something will be done when it actually does die.

I think there was at least 21 people playing today. This is a beta test so it's natural that people get screwed sometimes. I probably lost the most RP of anyone in that reset and I don't even care. You have to understand that anything can happen and the whole purpose of the test is to balance the ships and the game so that it's stable in the public release.

I agree that Sharks are too powerful but I don't know about Terrier portals and speed since you are playing against very high level ships. They may get too many portals but I would have to test a lower level Terr to know for sure. Terriers are very strong but I guess that's how it's intended so they don't die so much. The bursts now disappear more quickly than before and I think that's a change to the right direction.

The bot doesn't allow teams like 5v10 easily and you are just plain wrong about that. The assists reward needs to be upped though. The Weasels do seem extremely powerful at the moment so I am not suprised people play them.

Ship specializations are fine when they get balanced. I think they really need to be looked into though since they are going to be a big part of the game. I was playing around with my level 60 Terr and noticed a few things. For example low nrg, low chg ship got 33% recharge and 1775 energy and a med nrg, med chg ship got 36% and 1825 or so. The difference is so small that I am wondering if it's supposed to be like that? Also, warship seems to get a lot more energy than a Z-class ship could afford even with all the UPs. I wonder if the energy prices are in balance? I am not sure about all the numbers since it was some days ago when I tested the shiptypes but you get the general idea.

The powerball game is currently very chaotic. A suggestion:
- Make it a confined space (and make it smaller than the current ballgame area) that is seperate from the rest of the map.
- Warp the people in there when the break starts and allow people to !enable or !disable the ball game warping if they want.
- You could possibly add some obstacles to make other than the fast ships useful as well.