Distension discussion

[dako]

I don't see any thread other than beta, and since this isn't in beta still, it needs a new title

So, here, post your ideas, suggestions, comments, bug reports, etc. Relivant topics include : ship leveling, abilities, specializations, hosting periods, balancing issues, gameplay overall.

Irrelivant things / topics not to be discussed are : flaming, how lame distension is and how we should all give up life, random criticism without reasonable support, whining that distension isnt hosted more (:P), that you saw jesus in your toast, politics, or how to get secret ships (although im sure enough people know -.-).

"________ is overpowered because it is" posts will get you a frowny face.

My thoughts:

- The chat colors are very confusing as they are, i almost never notice when im getting PMs (with !killmsg on btw), but I've been playing for years now, im used to green pms

- I'm getting blinded by killing random spiders / sharks / weasels now, is there really vengeful bastard for all of those ships?

- Is there ever really going to be a set schedule for distension, or is it really just up to HMS now? I've gotten a vague "Mon-Thurs" with no time frame, but it was hosted for 5 hours today, so I dont know. I think the weekends would bring the newcomers in..

- I don't know if this was dug's intent, but is levelling really going to be this slow as time progresses? I remember rank 45+ costing 100k, and even at an average of 40 RP per kill (we'll say 60 to factor in streaks / end game wins), thats still almost 2000 kills. To put that in perspective, I got 800 kills today in 5 hours. At 160 kills / hour, that would take 12 hours, or roughly 6 two-hour sessions. And that was one of the top 5 killing ships out of 30ish

- Random typos with the end game message, specifically in the streak area and a couple random %258s in the reward messege.

- Is there anyway we could get a one way door so that the ball cant be passed into the base, its rather annoying :/ Or, just remove the ball at game start and put it back in after the game.

- The RP reward for getting a goal seems quite... pathetic, especially at later levels. Is there any way this could be ramped up proportional to level, or just increased in general. Secondary suggestion: split the RP among people who are near the goal, so that only people who are assisting in getting the RP actually get the RP.

[Malladrin]

I would really like some information on how much certain skills cost at certain lvls for all ships. It's hard to plan specialization and upgrades without this information.

In response to Dako's post:

- Random typos: Not so random. Write %245 (which I think it sais) and you'll hear a sound. However, something is wrong, since we see the text and not the sound.

- Vengeful bastard: Is that all it does, blind people, or could something else happen?

- I want a schedule too.:bigups:

- I concur with the RP reward for scoring a goal is very low, if it got higher people might actually care about the soccer game. Although, if it is a good soccer game people would warp before the scorer scored the goal, and thus only giving reward to those close to goal would be not so good.

[dako]

Malladrin:

Vengeful bastard can blind (short radius, wide radius), energy deplete, engine shutdown (i think), warp?. Its basically a way for the weasel to be more annoying, and also a deterrant for the terr to just sit in base killing the weasel that comes in through the sides.

The thing with the goal is, it helps a LOT if youre like level 1-8, where the RP rank ups are still under 500 RP. But after you get past 1000 per rank up, I'd really rather be spending my time talking to teammates / figuring out what to upgrade next.

For those of you that dont know, heres something to look forward to for your ships:

Wb - extremely fast later on, gets a thor (o.o) with huge radius and bombs x.x

Jav - Eventually gets the ability to warp in a designated direction almost instantaneously, gets extremely powerful bombs / shrap

Spider - Level 2 bullets + multifire + super. Nuff said

Lev - A lot like wb, gets very tanky and fast, the only ship (i think) that can eat a bomb, a mine, and a level 3 bullet. Level 3 bombs have huge emp prox that ends up screwing everyone over :P

Terr - Gets multifire much like pub ship, but with level 2 bullets. Eventually gets an absurd amout of bursts (I saved up 8 once in beta), with like a 70% regeneration of burst every 30 seconds. Also gets the ability to "summon" the entire team with one click.

Weasel - Gets really good at breaks and holds with rocket + decoys + level 3 bullets early on, ideal for terr rushes. Also can go in those tiny holes in the ears / side tubes of the fr. On top of that, can deploy a rather wide brick. On top of that, can cloak o.o

Lancaster - No one is this yet, will remain a secret

Shark - Gets... lots of reps. When I say a lot, im talking about starting out with 4 reps with a new one regenerating every 30 seconds. Also, level 2 mines have a HUGE splash damage area, and can get shrap eventually

Tactical Ops- No one's here yet either :P

Granted, all these, with the exception of weasel probably, takes until level 50 to get, but its not really all that impossible to get there.

[Viruk]

There are still some unresolved issues on the beta thread but I suppose it was getting rather long.

Re: Blinding
Are we sure this is from killing enemy ships or is it happening after the enemy score a goal?

Re: Goal rewards
I agree rewards seem quite low. Some players are encouraging their team to spawn and ignore the ball game.

Rewarding only players near the goal would reward those idiots crowding inside the goal who prevent the ball-carrier from scoring. Players who are killed assisting the ball carrier or who immediately warp to hunt for the ball would get nothing.

Probably any reward based on passing, scoring or holding the ball would be abused so best to leave it rewarding equally or according to level.

I think the goal reward should not be worth full team effort to allow people to have a break between battles without letting the team down. I would guess it should be worth more than 3 average kills if you want to avoid encouraging spawners to feed off the ball game.

Perhaps total reward based on total levels of enemy team and shared out proportional to your level?


Re: Leveling speed
If this goes 24/7 the basic leveling rate will need to be slow. You can still level up enough to move around faster fairly quickly though. I still hope to see frequent special events at higher RP rates.

[Stabwound]

Just wondering: why is it run so little now that it's out of beta? I just don't see the reason to keep it from being played on weekends, and even on weekdays only a few hours per day. It's even more annoying to just shut the game down before it's even finished (after a round ends, but still). If anything, I think it would be better to have it open on weekends. I mean, it's obviously a popular game, and I think TW needs anything that can get people online and playing.

Is it going to be up more often at some point?

btw: awesome game. Pretty much the only hosted/pub game to catch my interest in, like, 5 years.

[Peace_Maker]

Just wondering: why is it run so little now that it's out of beta? I just don't see the reason to keep it from being played on weekends, and even on weekdays only a few hours per day. It's even more annoying to just shut the game down before it's even finished (after a round ends, but still). If anything, I think it would be better to have it open on weekends. I mean, it's obviously a popular game, and I think TW needs anything that can get people online and playing.

Is it going to be up more often at some point?

btw: awesome game. Pretty much the only hosted/pub game to catch my interest in, like, 5 years.

Agreed, let it stay running. If something stops working then it could just stay down till someone comes on that can fix it. I think qan is the only one that messes with the coding of the bot.

On another note. I dislike how some ships are secretly unlocked. Why not just let players know how to do it so it can be a goal.

[dako]

Just wondering: why is it run so little now that it's out of beta? I just don't see the reason to keep it from being played on weekends, and even on weekdays only a few hours per day. It's even more annoying to just shut the game down before it's even finished (after a round ends, but still). If anything, I think it would be better to have it open on weekends. I mean, it's obviously a popular game, and I think TW needs anything that can get people online and playing.

Is it going to be up more often at some point?

btw: awesome game. Pretty much the only hosted/pub game to catch my interest in, like, 5 years.

As of now, HMS Stargazer is the "Event Coordination Team", so he decides when it goes up etc. Im pretty sure most staff doesnt like distension because it takes players from other events (being a superior arena and all). Im not sure if actual thought is put into the scheduling or if its just like a "HMS hosts it when he feels like it, if he feels like it" sort of thing. It unfortunately seems to be the latter. If I could have it my way, I would give Cheese! the ability to start / stop distension, of course reporting errors to HMS / dugqan. Im pretty sure the bots at a stable state enough so that it can be run without supervision

Peace_Maker: Thats part of the goal, to figure out how to get those secret ships :P

[PH]

I would give Cheese! the ability to start / stop distension

aldklskagkfdlasgkd;l nonoononoonoononono

no

they already killed the only fun ship and you want to al;kdsdsl;fjksdjd

noononno

[dako]

What did he kill? o.o

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

Okay, Let me make this clear, I DO want distension on weekends. I just shut it down LAST weekend because it was halloween and i had holiday plans in place first. Okay? It will go back to the 'normal' way. FFS Distension has only been available for what?? 2 weeks? And people are stating we have patterns on weekends??????????

Jesus christ people think. There are other things happening in the real world that we need to celebrate.

I have been hosting 1 hour -1 hour 30 minutes. at approx same time we used to do beta. Again, We do have to host other events. And I am attempting to host distension during peak times, and the occasional dead time to get the max amount of people.

This is a work in progress. I am not going to be shoving this down trenchwars throats. There are still bugs to fix.

-H.M.S. Stargazer
Event Coordination Team

[Malladrin]

Again, We do have to host other events.

btw: awesome game. Pretty much the only hosted/pub game to catch my interest in, like, 5 years.

So if we got inferior pub and games compared to another one, we have to host the inferior ones as well. I don't see why?
If good events are hosted they will get people even if Distension is running. Maximize happiness for the players, not for staffers, staff.

[DankNuggets]

Agreed, let it stay running. If something stops working then it could just stay down till someone comes on that can fix it. I think qan is the only one that messes with the coding of the bot.

I agree, if a few people were allowed to start the game, and set the timer to like 4-6 hrs or w/e, it would work OK. They could keep track of any bugs and if there's a serious one, they could take the game down so it could be fixed. I guess the problem with this is that you'd need to have people with staff powers to start/stop the bot, and warn/ban people for abusing bugs. You also need someone who's pretty familiar with the game and it's progression so they can recognize if someone's abusing a bug or if there's something that's not working right. I think there's at least one other person who's messed with the coding, but I could be wrong. You'd probably also want someone who's available enough at consistant times to keep it somewhat predictable.

on a side note, Cheese! could handle starting/stoping distension, but i'm betting you'll be sick of it soon enough. the guy's got good intentions and dedication, but I wouldn't put him in charge of the whole thing. But he is in the arena 24/7, so he might as well be the bot.

On another note. I dislike how some ships are secretly unlocked. Why not just let players know how to do it so it can be a goal.

This. It wasn't a secret in beta how to unlock them, it's kind of annoying. But I think it was always dug's intention for it to be this way for at least one or two ships.

Okay, Let me make this clear, I DO want distension on weekends. I just shut it down LAST weekend because it was halloween and i had holiday plans in place first. Okay? It will go back to the 'normal' way. FFS Distension has only been available for what?? 2 weeks? And people are stating we have patterns on weekends??????????

Dude, we're more than happy you're hosting this at all. I think the only, and i mean the only reason people sound unhappy is that we need a schedule of sorts. People really want to maximize the time they can play. Scheduling is critical to the success of the game. When it went into beta, it had sporadic following untill he set up regular testing times and then it was packed consistantly. The schedule was messed up with the addition of specialization and testing was not held to schedule. Other factors were involved, but everyone quit testing.

The initial debut was something dug hyped up for months, and planned on hyping it up extensively right before the release. It was hyped so poorly this time, i never even knew about the weekend release, and i read the damn forum 5 days a week . The posts about the weekend event were done like Friday at 2 am or w/e. I'll get over that, but everyone's asking about patterns of hosting, because that's what we were lead to believe would happen. I get pissed when I log on and see "not online, last seen 0 hrs ago" (i've gone to auto-commanding ?find distensionbot) over and over as it's been lately.

If you're hosting it haphazardly, then so be it. But if there's a method to the madness, let us know. But I for one, am extremely happy :bigups: it's being hosted at all.

I have been hosting 1 hour -1 hour 30 minutes. at approx same time we used to do beta. Again, We do have to host other events. And I am attempting to host distension during peak times, and the occasional dead time to get the max amount of people.

This is a work in progress. I am not going to be shoving this down trenchwars throats. There are still bugs to fix.

Good to hear a plan! That's all we wanted, to know what to expect.

[gdugwyler]

When replying to this thread last, I was in a computer lab, and the girl next to me hit the power button on the computer I was using, triggering a shutdown. She walked away, apparently not realizing what she'd done. Well, keeping this short as a result:

• Upped goal rewards, mostly for higher-rank people. Let me know how it feels. Also removed rewards for those in base/respawn at the time the goal is scored. Those who are spawnkilling may actually be contributing to the win, so no harm done in giving them the reward.
• Blinding issue: can't figure this one out. Is it only the blinding? Does it ever say that Vengeful Bastard has fired? (It will if you don't have !killmsg off.) If it's related to round-end loss, that one is intentional.
• Sound codes: should be fixed. Let me know if you still see any, and if so, where and when.
• For scheduling, I'm working on getting more ops together, particularly those that can host during odd hours. Making Distension available for everyone is important to me.
• PH: "they already killed the only fun ship and you want to" -- elaborate? Can't fix the unknown, baby.
• Lanc is now a bit easier to unlock.
• Shouldn't be any Levi problems anymore. Also, unlock ranks will show up properly in !hangar, now based on whether you're in a support or assault ship (as intended).
• Ranking up is slow, I agree. However, this game's only been running a couple of weeks and we already have people in the low to mid 20's. The ideal "max" rank is supposed to be about 50, with a few additional powers available afterward, but really not a hell of a lot going on there otherwise. At the risk of it becoming to grind-happy, the ranks have to be made slow-going. The other reason is that Distension is designed so that the newbie isn't vastly overpowered by a high-rank ship -- just somewhat. The additional powers should give you an edge, but not a guarantee of a win. This is why there can't be essentially infinite ranks with increasingly awful powers... it has to have a cut-off. The balance is the slow ranking. Consider that it's about the same with other MMORPGs. However, the difference is that they're usually mind-numbingly boring to rank up (thus the term grind). Distension, on the other hand (or at least this is the intent), provides a solid action platform, with a foundation of TW basing, that's actually fun to play aside from the enjoyment of customizing and ranking up your ship. Yes, you may have to play 5 hours, but at least it's not a boring 5 hours, as it would be in WoW (in my opinion). It's, uh, action-packed. If it gets out of hand and there's a unanimous outcry, I'll adjust the rates, but for now let's just see how it goes.

Please keep the changes coming. Those who have reported bugs, please contact me in-game while it's running so that I can give you a reward. I'm working on implementing a way to do a sort of "maintenance" load of Distension, which means eventually I'll be able to give these awards regardless of whether the bot is running. At the moment, however, it will only be while it's going. Thanks for the input, thanks to dako for starting such a thread (I was getting to it, but not quickly enough), and also to whomsoever stickied it.

Also, for the Americans reading this ... today is the day we begin to restore our flagging reputation in the eyes of the world: here's to the hope that the polls have been right.

[Peace_Maker]

• Blinding issue: can't figure this one out. Is it only the blinding? Does it ever say that Vengeful Bastard has fired? (It will if you don't have !killmsg off.) If it's related to round-end loss, that one is intentional.
• PH: "they already killed the only fun ship and you want to" -- elaborate? Can't fix the unknown, baby.
• Ranking up is slow, I agree. However, this game's only been running a couple of weeks and we already have people in the low to mid 20's. The ideal "max" rank is supposed to be about 50, with a few additional powers available afterward, but really not a hell of a lot going on there otherwise. At the risk of it becoming to grind-happy, the ranks have to be made slow-going. The other reason is that Distension is designed so that the newbie isn't vastly overpowered by a high-rank ship -- just somewhat. The additional powers should give you an edge, but not a guarantee of a win. This is why there can't be essentially infinite ranks with increasingly awful powers... it has to have a cut-off. The balance is the slow ranking. Consider that it's about the same with other MMORPGs. However, the difference is that they're usually mind-numbingly boring to rank up (thus the term grind). Distension, on the other hand (or at least this is the intent), provides a solid action platform, with a foundation of TW basing, that's actually fun to play aside from the enjoyment of customizing and ranking up your ship. Yes, you may have to play 5 hours, but at least it's not a boring 5 hours, as it would be in WoW (in my opinion). It's, uh, action-packed. If it gets out of hand and there's a unanimous outcry, I'll adjust the rates, but for now let's just see how it goes.

I have noticed when distension is turned off and everyone is specced everyone was put in blind mode. Other times I have noticed blinding is when scoring a goal during the ball game and when changing ships between rounds. Hope that helps.

I believe PH would be referring to shark since that is his favorite ship. I do not know what was changed with the ship though.

Keep ranking up slow. I don't want to get bored with the game.

[Jeenyuss]

i know i've said this before but can we please please please change the colour of the text back to regular? if it must be stylized can we at least make pm's green instead of blue?