Distension discussion

[roxxkatt]

currently, the lag limits allow -anyone- to play distension, and they are going to be revised very soon, and !lagout might actually start being used.

what lag limits would you like to see?
im thinking 5% ploss s2c+c2s, 300ms avg, 1000ms spike

[not in game]

No need to get all firey on me, but I'd like to know what it is about Distension that makes it so popular. I don't have much fun playing, but maybe I'm missing something.

[TagMor]

Don't you remember PH and Aquatic in beta? easily the most two of the most annoying ppl, and they were in wb. they'd sit in the mid base, bounce around full tilt, and shoot/tank ppl on the way to the fr. They were annoying as fuck, and didnt' seem to complain about the underpowered wbs.

Exactly.. I am pretty sure Wb's have since been castrated, so that it is impossible at rank40 to "bounce around full tilt"

[TagMor]

First of all, L3 bullets are only a non-guaranteed kill on highly ranked ships that have opted to increase energy, which requires a sacrifice in other abilities. For 95% of players, an L3 bullet is an instant death.

The 5% being mostly terr's, which as I said does nothing but promote camping of the WB.

I don't understand how you can say the Distension warbird is inferior to the pub version, when it has: super, thor, ability to respawn where you die, mines, x-radar, multifire, decoys, etc. Is that really inferior? What do you think would be a fair enhancement to the warbird?

I said it is inferior in the basic elements of speed, manouvrability and firepower. Multifire is useless, 2 mines do little when sharks have shitloads of reps, maybe thors will balance it out although it will probably further promote camping.
I think a fair enhancement for WB would be either, increase the speed/thrust so it can have l3's and be comparable to Pub WB, or increase the energy lvls so l3's can be fired quicker.. Similair to the weasel which can cloak and fire l3's in quick succession..

Well, that's why I said that Distension probably doesn't have a large enough player base to support the 24/7 w/restricted play idea. And no, it would never be 1-2 hours per ship.

The only way to quickly increase the player base would be to make it 24/7. Otherwise you have the situation of a limited amount of people finding it during the strict session times, being stuck in spec, and most likely going back to Pub.

[roxxkatt]

tagmor, stay in school, youre not very intelligent yet.

also thie time limiting is not a great idea.
viruk, remember in beta when it ran for 6-8 hours, twice a day, and rounds werent limited and usually went 50 mins long?
that shit was SATISFYING.

[Trunks_rage]

lol wut? a high lvl lance can clear an entire fr with its steady stream of l2's.
Lances most often have the highest amount of TeK's and kills in general. Please if you are going to be biased because you dont use WB than just stfu, we have enough trolls already.

WB is one of the original ships, if it were too powerful there would be little incentive to switch to other ships at a lower rank. The lanc is very powerful in the FR, but outside of it the bullets are too slow in the open, and my ship is more or less maxed out on speed already at rank 36. Plus there aren't many good upgrades for the Lanc, the bomb is a joke, and if more people were willing to spider I could easily be overwhelmed. Spider is my favorite ship but the lvl2 bullet upgrade is very hard to get with the point spreads to rank 47 and now that everyone can tank so many bullets I had to switch to my lanc. Even now people have caught up because the lanc is getting less effective with every ship being so fast and able to dodge my bullets. But the lanc is the hardest ship to unlock so it should be very powerful, otherwise why bother?

[Viruk]

I can almost guarantee never run 24/7 on an unrestricted basis.

It is possible it WILL eventually run 24/7 (not during TWL or special events) with a restricted amount of play per day. qan was talking something like 1-2 hours per day per player, which sounds about right to me. However, I think Distension would need a much larger player base for this to work.

The bot is still unstable and anything like this is probably far off into the future, if ever.

I look forward to an end of this annoying logging on to a schedule. I don't like your suggested 2 hour limit though.

For me 2 or 3 hours is often not enough for a satisfying session. Since I may log on at various times of day I might easily want to play 2 sessions in an arbitrary 24 hour period.
I really enjoyed playing for hours that time when the bot was accidentally left running. It was so good to be able to choose when I stopped playing. (One of the reasons I still play Continuum is its convenience.)

Since the game is often less fun with few players and the existing playerbase would be stretched thin over 24 hours it would not make much sense to limit playing time to 2 hours per day. I hope the good terriers on my army want to play all day!

Perhaps there is some technical reason why long playing affects stability or drains limited resources? If so you had better make this clear or people would just switch to an alternate name to continue playing.

I can see why a player might want to be able to compete in the rankings with other players who have much more time to spend. I am not sure why they expect it as most other leveling games don't have playing-time limits like this. I would certainly resent my enjoyment being curtailed for such a petty reason. Better to have a competitive player rating system that reflects ship skills and achievements in a way that ship rank never will.

Do not expect me to play other parts of TW more just because you restrict Distension. Nor am I likely to stop playing other good things in TW even if Distension becomes fully available. I cannot be the only player that thinks like this. At the end of the day the quality of the games will determine player numbers and commitment. Staff intervention could certainly destroy any area (at the cost of disaffected players) but will never be enough to ensure the survival of a weak game.

If the Distension playerbase want limits though, then I would rather see the limit be per player ship. That way you could continue to play in another ship.
Some sort of diminishing RP after 2 hours would be fine with me as I play for fun as much as rank gain. Totally removing the RP gain would remove the sense of progress from playing though.

I agree that we need to ensure as best we can that it is reasonably stable and doesn't badly affect other areas of TW (at least directly) before unleashing 24/7 Distension though.

[Stabwound]

Stab I know you probably don't hear it enough but you get mad props for not freaking the hell out after a post or two

you're cool shit son

B)

I would like to point out a couple of issues with the current settings:

1) Inferiority of Warbird:
It has become quite obvious that warbird is severily underpowered. If you use the standard TW settings as a guide, it would seem (at around rank40) all other ships are much more powerful than their standard TW counterparts. All except warbird, which apart from 2 mines, is much weaker in terms of speed, manouverability, and fire power. It is possible to make it faster or more manouverable but only at the sacrifice of l3 bullets, and the l3's are not even a definite kill.
Also, it seems the "masterdrive" function of warbird has recently been reduced, which does nothing but further increase the inferiority of the ship.
I suspect warbirds have been unfairly oppressed as a tactic to reduce camping and promote more basing-friendly ships. However, it is unfair to all the people who have invested considerable amounts of time to their warbird, thinking that the settings are balanced and fair.. Which leads to the next issue..

I can assure you there is no secret agenda against warbirds in Distension.

First of all, L3 bullets are only a non-guaranteed kill on highly ranked ships that have opted to increase energy, which requires a sacrifice in other abilities. For 95% of players, an L3 bullet is an instant death. Also, don't forget that the warbird eventually gets the thor ability, which is arguably overpowered and is pretty much an instant team-fer.

Secondly, as I said before, I see nothing in the bot code that suggests the "masterdrive" function was altered at all.

I don't understand how you can say the Distension warbird is inferior to the pub version, when it has: super, thor, ability to respawn where you die, mines, x-radar, multifire, decoys, etc. Is that really inferior? What do you think would be a fair enhancement to the warbird?

Tbh I dont like this idea much, because it "forces" people to play on peak hours: I doubt we'd see 30+ players in distension at 1-3pm EST like we do now. I am probably not alone when I say I would rather play when there are a lot of people playing, since the more people there are the more RP you gain.

This will most likely result in long queues, unless the player cap is lifted or removed. But yeah, I wouldn't like to see this happen.

E: What if the cap was 1-2 hours for one ship?

Well, that's why I said that Distension probably doesn't have a large enough player base to support the 24/7 w/restricted play idea. And no, it would never be 1-2 hours per ship.

[DankNuggets]

not to mention that wb bullets are still the hardest to repel in the game. That and your lag makes it very difficult to repel your shots. Really you shouldn't just be trying to kill the terr, it is the goal, but you have to take out others on the way.

Don't you remember PH and Aquatic in beta? easily the most two of the most annoying ppl, and they were in wb. they'd sit in the mid base, bounce around full tilt, and shoot/tank ppl on the way to the fr. They were annoying as fuck, and didnt' seem to complain about the underpowered wbs.

also you get a thor, which is easily the best weapon in the game. Pretty soon you will be able to take out an entire fr once every 5 mins.

Maybe someone could post a semi-coherent response?

Coherent Response #1. You complain more than anybody when distension is not hosted.

Coherent Response #2. You complain about distension when it is hosted.

Choerent Response #3. If you don't like the only ship you know how to pilot, then try another ship, maybe you'll actually get good at this game.

When I think of warbirds in distension, I think of that wicket666 guy, and a bunch of newbie ear campers. I can't recall a single instance where I saw wicket, disorder, that Orange guy, or any other "single ship" pilot complain. Try a new tactic, like pushing, if the camping isn't getting you off while you play.

[TagMor]

wb is fine as it is now, master drive is a benefit, not something to be relied upon as well.

tagmor doesnt like LANCESTRS either?

riiight.. WB is fine because you dont use it and instead spend most of your time in lancaster... wonder why that is?.. go choke on some salami you fat pos.

As I said, a lvl 40 WB is inferior to a Pub WB, where as all other lvl 40 ships have large advantages over their Pub counterparts.

Edit: Maybe someone could post a semi-coherent response?.. atm all I have is "wb's tank alot", "you are not the best wb" and "wtf you dont like lancasters?"..

[Mela]

If it's ever 24 hours a day it will be capped to 1-2 hours play max-

Tbh I dont like this idea much, because it "forces" people to play on peak hours: I doubt we'd see 30+ players in distension at 1-3pm EST like we do now. I am probably not alone when I say I would rather play when there are a lot of people playing, since the more people there are the more RP you gain.

This will most likely result in long queues, unless the player cap is lifted or removed. But yeah, I wouldn't like to see this happen.

E: What if the cap was 1-2 hours for one ship?

[TagMor]

So don't say that they are underpowered, you just need more practice. Don't expect to be good at a ship just because you're level 50.

wtf are you talking about? Just because Disorder kills you, doesnt mean WB isnt underpowered. Everytime he does kill you, he probably misses out on 2-3 other kills and doesnt get the RP bonus to justify it.

[roxxkatt]

wb is fine as it is now, master drive is a benefit, not something to be relied upon as well.

tagmor doesnt like LANCESTRS either?

[jngy slate]

In my experience the wb who has given me the most trouble has always been disorder. He is the 5th highest level wb. He somehow always manages to squeeze his shots through the small gaps in the map and even through the gaps between other players to hit me. So far he has given me the most trouble if he is playing and on the other team. He will account for about 70% of my kills. If he shoots at me I know that he will not miss unless a shark reps or I warp. I remember him in the beta too, he was the wb that killed me the most there also. But not as much as now only because I was a much higher level in beta. So don't say that they are underpowered, you just need more practice. Don't expect to be good at a ship just because you're level 50.