Distension discussion

[Aquatiq]

This can't be right:

Aquatiq> !status
      DBot> ,---------------------------------------------------.
      DBot> |  2nd Lieutenant AQUATIQ   Javelin Scout - RANK 21  \
      DBot> .==========================================================================.
      DBot> | Pilot for Intergalactic Planetary, Inc..                 Army wins:  38  |
      DBot> |      Total RP:  29220                    Session RP:  45                 |
      DBot> |      Progress:  ( 804 / 4963 )           RP to next:  4159               |
      DBot> |                 [=         ]                          16% to Rank 22     |
      DBot> |      Upgrades:  29                               UP:  16                 |
      DBot> |   Auto-Energy:  (5/19)                Auto-Recharge:  (6/17)             |
      DBot> |        Streak:  0                      Played today:  132 min            |
      DBot> | ProfitSharing:  0.0%                  Participation:  100%               |
      DBot> | Promotion estimated after 7 more battle(s) won.                          |
      DBot> | Remaining RP on which you receive a special bonus: 28662RP               |
      DBot> .==========================================================================.
   Aquatiq> !specialize 3:yes
      DBot> You have specialized to SCIENCE VESSEL!
      DBot> Cost: 1461RP  (5% of current)  You now have 210 UP to spend.
   Aquatiq> .
      DBot> R-21 Javelin Science Vessel  -657 / 4963  5620RP to R-22.    [                    ]  0%  UP: 210

[Stabwound]

What's incorrect about it? Changing specializations takes 5% of your total RP, and since it won't subtract a rank level, it just puts you negative in RP needed for your next rank.

[gdugwyler]

I'll throw in a clause somewhere so that if the RP needed for the next rank is <0, it'll add it to the total amount needed to the next rank rather than printing negative. So if you have -10/20, after the change you'll see 0/30.

I'll have to check out that Avarice code.

Anyone who's reporting bugs or has done so during beta, remember to contact me in-game regarding a reward. There are a lot of you that put in hard work who aren't getting the bonus awards you deserve. I'll try to be on more often and start playing more regularly so that you can actually talk to me about it. Sooner or later I may introduce a mode that will allow ops to load the bot without running the game, so that special commands may be accessed any time.

[Aquatiq]

Oh I thought it was supposed to be 5% of your RP you have for progress to the next rank. Ouch, no more specializing for me.

[TagMor]

The balance of teams is a problem. People have been defecting to the other team when it is already severily uneven.
Today i watched upc defect from a team of 16 into a team of 22.. I have seen cheese do the same thing.

[roxxkatt]

i defected once, when i had -1- lvl4 ship, do u mean assist?


and i would rather have negative rp then to be lied to, qan =(

[Stabwound]

Earlier I was playing, and was specced at the end of a round to let someone else play. I eventually was able to get back in after sitting in the queue, and was instantly specced again to let someone else in. I don't think that should happen. =P

[Peace_Maker]

Earlier I was playing, and was specced at the end of a round to let someone else play. I eventually was able to get back in after sitting in the queue, and was instantly specced again to let someone else in. I don't think that should happen. =P

Yes it should, you get to play more than me!

[gdugwyler]

Stabwound: interesting case. I think I know why that happened: you still had the max amount of playtime for that day. I'll try reorganizing the queue so that it puts the people who've played the least in first, regardless of when they joined the queue -- that way, in that situation, you'll sit in the queue longer, yes, but you won't be put in just to have it taken away. (That case is a fairly rare one anyhow.)

As for displaying the RP as 0/100 rather than -20/80, I don't think it's a matter of lying to players... what a ridiculous suggestion. It's a matter of displaying the exact same data in a way that makes far more sense... If a player does !specialize, they'll still see the amount to the next rank is now a great deal more.

Regarding specialization, are many players finding that they're specializing after rank 15 and having to pay the 5% penalty? I could raise the rank in which the first specialization is free to 20, if it seems to be an issue. Also, if the 5% seems too harsh, it could be reduced to something like 3%... but I'd like to keep it high enough that people aren't doing it regularly. The text should now give everyone a better idea that the RP is taken from the total RP, rather than from the to-rank amount.

As for team balance, I'm trying out a new formula in which rank 0 players have a strength of 50. This means that "strength" is now 50+rank. So a rank 10 player will have a strength of 60, whereas a rank 30 player will have an 80 strength. This is a better indicator of strength than before, where rank 0 strength was 10. This would mean a rank 10 player would be 20 str, whereas 30 would be 40 strength -- that means one rank 30 player would be worth exactly two rank 10s, something that I don't think makes a great deal of sense. Going with 50 as rank 0 strength may be a bit high, and we may now see teams mostly even in number but not very even in rank. If that seems to be the case, I'll drop the rank 0 strength by 10 each time until we find the right balance.

Oh, and goal rewards were reduced a bit.

[Xp.]

i think it would b good idea to up the max players to maybe 60???

[E sharp]

i think it would b good idea to up the max players to maybe 60???

I'm not sure that's possible; things can get quite laggy now with only 40. It might even be a good idea to take it down to 30 (boo, hiss) if that would help. Spending half of a battle in rearm is not fun.

[Mjollnir]

A few observations:

- Wb bullets are almost impossible to repel. I guess that is because of a change in bullet speed or the repels. I just recently started playing the Shark, so I do not know how long this has been a problem. Lag is only partly responsible for this problem.

- Assist rewards seem way too small. That is probably one of the reasons the teams tend to be unbalanced.

- It is extremely hard to score goals with the new goal bases in place. I guess the reward could be increased like someone suggested? Maybe you could make the base a little easier to attack as well.

- Changing to a Terr or a Shark when your team has too many, results in getting specced. It would be nice if it just switched you back to your original ship. This is something I already mentioned to qan in game.

- I feel that the leveling rate gets too slow very quickly. I suggest a 2x increase to the RP rate, or a drastic decrease of rp needed / level after the beginning. The first levels are easy to get and do not need to be made any easier though.

- I am not sure about this, but every time I have done my first specialization on a new ship, I have felt like I have had way more UPs to spare than I did when I was a Scout. This happens even when I specialize in the Warship that should have less UPs after level 10.

- Getting a Lanc is still too tough I bet. I hope that different ships have an easier / harder time of getting the Lanc, so you don't have to level up a spider to actually be able to unlock it.

That's it for now.

[dako]

Fixes / ideas

In the F1 help file, there is an error with the opsshield ability, which currently reads "Shield a specific player, or all enemies". Lol.

Goal RP reward messages are whacked, showing I'm getting 700 RP per goal or something.

I don't know if this was intentional, but if you kill someone within 2 seconds or so of them attaching, you get a -20% out of base...

Can we (pretty please) lower the cost of XRadar? It costs 21 UP for my jav, I know im going to want it in the future, but I dont see why it should cost THAT much, considering thats like 4 levels worth of UP, and much better spent on multi / shrap / l2 / speed / thrust.


EDIT: Ugh.. new issue

Hopefully this is coincidence. A week or so ago my continuum client crashed (with the blah blah continuum.exe has encountered an error and needs to close blah blah) when switching ships in distension. I don't remember details, but I do know it happened, I attributed it to random fluke / my computer hating me. Same thing happened today while on my own team, changing from jav to shark, but couldn't because we had too many sharks already. The crash occured right as i press 8 to switch to shark. Hopefully I'm the only person this is happening to...

DOUBLEEDIT: New idea

You know how different ships need different streaks for weasel? Why not do that with lanc? Some of the people who like to play shark / jav and the like and are fairly good at it will never see the likes of the current requirements... I don't think it should be restricted to only high level spiders, which is pretty much what its at currently.

[gdugwyler]

Good input. Thanks.

Lanc requirements: Reduced again. I understand what you mean about spiders. At present I don't have a solution except, yes, separate requirements for each ship. Might go that route. 5kpm could be about right for spiders. Note that the Weasel streak requirement is actually the same for all ships, but it was moved back to 20 recently after many people were able to unlock it rather easily.

Levelling rate: I understand that you guys want to rank up faster, but you have to look at it in terms of the big picture. We already have someone at rank 40, and it's been... well, not too very long at all. I'd like to not have to reset the game very often, or ideally, at all. If we were still seeing the highest player at rank 20, I'd say we should take a look at it, but doubling the rank-up speed is absolutely out of the question as it now stands. I know it can get a bit grindish... however, the most important aspect of Distension is enjoying the play of a custom ship, with the ranking up being the backbone of that, but not the main focus. If the game doesn't stand on its own, it's a failure. I think it stands reasonably well, and is quite enjoyable even if it can be a bit of a hassle to rank up.

Terr/Shark limits causing spec: Should be fixed. Will now just drop you back into your old ship.

Goals & rewards: Will think about the rearrangement of goals. Anyone else have an opinion on this? Goals will now also display the amount you actually receive, rather than some inflated number. From this number, we can get a good idea of whether or not making goals is worth it. I'd like to keep it at a level where it motivates enough people to play, but not so much that it's not inconceivable to walk away to get a drink or go to the bathroom.

Assist rewards: The formula was modified a decent bit, and now the awards should be a bit more valuable in comparison to the amount made from kills.

-20% out of base for respawners: Unfortunately, there's no CPU-friendly way to make this work properly. If we were running serverside this would be no problem... I could reduce the penalty or just nix it, though.

Jav XRadar: As nobody's yet purchased it, I reduced the cost to 16. Still not cheap, but that should make it a little more appealing. I justified the reduction because the Jav has traditionally been an X-enabled ship.

Don't know about the WB bullets or the switching to shark crash (heard of the crash, though; think it's a client bug).

[Stabwound]

The "shark" crash has been around since Continuum was released. I dont' think anyone ever figured out what the issue is there, but it has nothing to do with Distension.