Distension discussion

[Stabwound]

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.)

This is what just happened to me, and I didn't even try to enter the game:

DBot> A slot has opened up. Sending you to your army...
(DBot)>Commander STABWOUND authorized as a pilot of PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY. Returning you to HQ.
DBot> Another player wishes to enter the battle; you have been removed to allow them to play.
(DBot)>STABWOUND leaving hangars of PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MISANTHROPY. Time played today: 37 min.

[Viruk]

I concur with Lizard Fuel. It can be incredibly frustrating how often quick wins/losses continue for a hour because of poor team balance. I propose that if a team wins a war with three CONSECUTIVE battles won the teams should be shuffled before the next war. This way it only takes a few (maximum 5, I suppose) annoying wins/losses for the teams to be switched up.

I think in many cases losing teams have the right ships and skills to win but people fail to step up and take responsibility to switch to the right ship, make that push or make/heed terrier calls. In these cases those teams probably deserve to keep losing.

There is a slight problem with the game in that it doesn't always encourage team play though: players are forced to use particular ships and tactics to unlock certain ships regardless of what is best for their team.

Of course if you do decide to shuffle the teams automatically you have to decide whether to make some kind of temporary forced assist or shuffle the armies.
Temporary forced assisting should work but could be confusing and awkward to implement.
Shuffling the armies may not even the teams properly since the armies are now much bigger than the teams. It would cause much grief to those who invested resources in defecting or have developed loyalty to their army although they are probably already so ticked off with the earlier arbitrary reshuffles that it would make no difference.

There was some heated discussion about the Shark repel situation on the chat.

The repels used to be too strong in beta, so at some point they got nerfed a ton.

So whatever happens we don't want them back that strong.

Currently you can't repel Warbird bullets unless you are not moving or you are moving backwards.

I think this claim has to be tested as it is counter to my experience.

Even then, it is hard and often fails because of lag.

When sharking I usually find I fail to repel in time mostly because of inadequate danger sensing and repping reflexes but I have no doubt that lag is a major factor at close range.

Sharks have to move forward all the time to help with the flagging, so most Wb bullets get through your repels. The reason for the problem is probably the fact that, the weakened repels are no match for the relative speed of the bullet and your ship.

They certainly don't have to be moving at full speed though. If there is a settings problem we need to test to see at what sort of relative speeds it occurs.

1) Some players (that mostly consist of Warbirds) feel that they should be able to shoot through repels, since they are used to it

I am certainly used to it happening at close range and would not expect it to be radically different in Distension but since I believe it is a laggy effect I feel it ought not to happen much beyond this without a good reason. Very high relative speed seems a good reason to me.

and they feel the game is already balanced perfectly.

I doubt anyone is under the delusion that the balance is - or ever could be - perfect. After all that beta testing it is probably pretty good compared to anything else in TW.

That is a pretty standard reaction and isn't really a valid point but here it is anyway. Defending your ship is fine but please try to validate your claims with logical arguments.

Seems like two perfectly logical and valid points to me. Whether they are strong enough arguments is debatable.

It's also good to remember that, balancing a game like this is very hard and there is still much work to be done, even if it did go public already.

Lets just make sure there are no major imbalances and it is fun to play. Then we can all relax and play it. Shark rankings do not indicate they are underpowered. Sharks certainly make an impact on the game when playing and their reps are certainly very useful. There is no outcry from most other shark players. I would certainly hate to see the existing balance risked without a very good reason.

5) The ability to shoot through repels is overpowered. Even if the Wb is meant as a counter ship for the Shark, it doesn't have to be that strong. Levis and Weasels are a much more balanced match up.

I doubt it was ever intended that warbird was meant to counter shark by anything more than being able to one-hit kill it between reps (and maybe not even that). It does seem rather nice that it worked out that way though: waiting for them to run out of reps is not much fun. I think that shooting through reps is only overpowered if it happens all or most of the time. If it only works sometimes at close range or at high relative speed then this seems quite a well balanced counter to me. If bullets regularly go through (not between) reps at long range with no excessive lag or relative speed then I would agree that there is something badly wrong.

6) It takes no skill to be able to shoot bullets through repels. The game should always be more about skill than anything else.

You can use timing to shoot between (not through) repels if they have a short enough duration to allow this.
You also require good aim to hit the ship at all at long range.
If it is possible to use high relative speed to shoot through a rep then achieving this will often require some flying skill (or lack of skill from the shark).

I would turn this argument around and say it would be better that good timing and sensible flying should be a factor in successfully repping something. There is little skill in repping if reps are so powerful that you can just use them in succession while rushing full-tilt at the enemy and be immune to all enemy fire until your reps are used up.

7) Repels are currently very weak in bigger flagroom battles because they don't really stop the bullets nowadays, they just slow them down a bit. This results in the Shark turning into a kamikaze ship that is unable to achieve its original purpose (and that makes it boring). Just rep-rep-rep-mine-mine-mine-die-attach and repeat. This point is a little hard to explain but I will try to explain it later if needed.

Seems to me that the bullets are stopped. They may not be flung back towards the enemy as fast as a rapidly advancing team might wish though. It is possible to run down a bullet you repped at high speed.
I agree with your description of repetitive sharking but am not sure what else you would expect and whether a single ship can achieve much more without it being seriously overpowered. Nor is repetitive play unique to the shark - many ships end up repeatedly 'doing and dying' in a hard fought, crowded FR battle.

8) For those that think, it's all about timing or lag are not entirely wrong but are missing the point. Those two things factor in the problem but are not the source of it. It doesn't matter how well you time your repel when the bullet keeps coming, even after a successful repel. Tanking bullets doesn't solve the problem either, and Warbirds generally have the ability to one-shot-kill any Shark of the same level, due to getting blue bullets when Sharks start tanking yellows.

The ability to tank bullets sometimes might be a good argument that shark is not underpowered but I agree it seems a poor excuse for allowing poor repping. I am just not convinced by my sharking and warbirding experience (currently around Wb L20, Sh L16) that the rep settings are insufficent to stop a fast bullet in most cases.

I also believe that if reps are beefed up to the point at which they could overcome lag and timing issues then it risks making the shark significantly overpowered and it would also make the playing experience worse for all those who rely on skilled flying and firing.

In conclusion:
If a high relative speed and fast bullet combination can be used to overcome repels I would welcome this for game balance reasons.
While I deplore the laggyness and skilllessness I think close range lagging through reps also helps game balance.
Only if fast bullets alone or fast bullets with a low relative speed can bypass a well timed rep do I see this as a problem.

[Lucon]

The obvious answer here is to make me an ER.

[E sharp]

^ This.

[project dragon]

An idea for if you want to mess with the shuffle idea:

Have the bot shuffle the teams only if one side wins all three rounds under a certain amount of time. If one freq wins all three rounds in, say, under 10 (?) minutes of actual flagging time, DBot will decide that the teams are stacked and shuffle accordingly. You can call it "divine intervention" or something like that. The shuffle will only happen if one side wins all three rounds in a row.

[Peace_Maker]

specialization

I would like to try specialization but as a rank 39 terr. I have been told I will lose 3% of my total RP earned so far. I have not done the math but to me I think it will be a lot. Can someone please explain all of the specialization penalties and if I do not like it will I get my RP back when going back to scout? Make the title specialization so its easy to see for future reference please.

[2kill]

I would like to try specialization but as a rank 39 terr. I have been told I will lose 3% of my total RP earned so far. I have not done the math but to me I think it will be a lot. Can someone please explain all of the specialization penalties and if I do not like it will I get my RP back when going back to scout? Make the title specialization so its easy to see for future reference please.

when you are level 10 to 15 (they were talking about rising it to 20) you get free specializations to try out the different types. after level 15 (or 20) every specialization costs you the 3% of your total rp. but if you have never choosen a shiptype before there will be no rp penalties, so choose wisely. Also going back to scout will cost you another 3% rp

hope that helps
2kill

[Lizard Fuel]

LF's Specializations

I see people inquiring about this alot in game, so I figured I'd list what I have as my specializations for other people to consider. Those who don't agree, feel free to edit it to your own preferences.

Warbird - Z-Class. This ship doesn't get a whole lot of anything before level 30. So it may even be worth it to wait until that point to specialize out of your scout.

Javelin - Do not use.

Spider - Artillery. Description alone makes it sound ideal for the spider. Though doing this too early in the ranks kinda sucks. I have fast recharge, but can only shoot 3 bullets before I'm out of energy. (I'm level 18 i think)

Levi - Scout. You're going to need the high # of UP per level, so I'd use this or Science Vessel. This is my highest ranking ship, and scout has worked out just fine for me. (Note: Max speed, rotation can be maxed out before level 25, so the rest of your UP can be spent on special abilities)

Terr - I would say Warship, but again emphasize not to do it too early in the ranks, for the 4UP you get per level with leave you at a huge disadvantage. I would say leave it as scout until at least level 50, which comes quickly for ship #5.

Weasel - I chose Z-Class for my weasel and had a lot of fun with it. Gave myself enough energy and recharge to eat a bullet and shoot one of my own, and enough speed/thrust to juke some terrs right out of their panties (gazo mainly)

Lanc - Haven't unlocked this. Don't really care to either.

Shark - The obvious choice here would be warship. The not so obvious fact to Distension newbies is DON'T DO IT EARLY LIKE I DID. I absolutely refuse to spend 3% of my RP to specialize back to Scout, because I think that's a huge ripoff, but I am now a level 23 shark, with less abilities than a level 18 shark. (Only 4UP per level up)

[Raible]

Can someone please explain all of the specialization penalties and if I do not like it will I get my RP back when going back to scout?

With a rank 39 terr it'll cost you about 6600RP each time (no going back) you specialize, which isn't that big of a deal at this level, just enough to not do it every day. You can also savely type '!specialize 1' to the bot and it'll tell you what'll happen and how much it'll cost since you have to include ':yes' to actually make it happen.


About Imbalance:

I've been thinking there could be a system of one army requisitioning a player from the other army or out of spec (putting him/her into a priority queue). Either for one round/until a war is won/lost (player should be locked to this army) or completely defect. Both need of course some incentive to this player that may or may not be paid for in RP by the players of that army. For example this player gets a bonus to profit sharing or an RP % increase while he's fulfilling his/her 'contract'. Tactical ops and/or a few of the players with the most wins and/or everyone once every X minutes might start an internal vote to requisition a player, and if more than half support the vote, the player itself is asked.

[Stabwound]

Terr - I would say Warship, but again emphasize not to do it too early in the ranks, for the 4UP you get per level with leave you at a huge disadvantage. I would say leave it as scout until at least level 50, which comes quickly for ship #5.

Umm, changing specializations gives you all of the UP you'd have had if you specialized at rank 10, so putting it off until a later rank does nothing except waste RP.

[Wil]

z-class your terr so you can get double burst/3 portal/multi-fire terr. Killing machine!

[CounterPunch]

Getting Weasel Back Bug?

Previously I had lost weasel to someone.

After getting 20 kills in spider it says:
(DBot)>For earning 20 successive kills, your Weasel has been returned to the hangar!

I went on to get a 30 kill streak and then died. It never said I lost it to anyone.

However, my weasel is still locked. Why is that? Can anyone tell me.

Is this a bug in Distension? How do I get my weasel back? :unsure:

[gdugwyler]

Repel settings

Don't have time for everything, but I just wanted to post the repel settings. First, a description:

Repel:RepelSpeed:::Speed at which players are repelled
Repel:RepelTime:::Time players are affected by the repel (in hundredths of a second)
Repel:RepelDistance:::Number of pixels from the player that are affected by a repel.


These are the default TW settings:

RepelSpeed=1200
RepelTime=150
RepelDistance=150


These are the Distension settings:

RepelSpeed=1100
RepelTime=190
RepelDistance=150



You'd think that only the distance would really matter for repping WB bullets. Note that WB bullet speed is exactly the same in Dist as in pub. I'm willing to bet if sharks weren't able to move as fast as they can at present, they could rep these fast bullets (the rep wouldn't "go off behind them"). I shark a decent bit, and I've definitely noticed the ability to rep goes right down the toilet the faster you run at the bullet, and it's not even about timing. Really, if the bullet didn't hit you, your rep would actually repel it in most cases if you press the button at the right time. (Imagine a ghost shark for this example.) However, I'm certainly willing to entertain modifying repel settings; I'd like the shark to be a valuable, entertaining and skillful ship. (Perhaps some of the skill needed is moving slowly?) To this end, we could increase the power of the distance somewhat, considering the larger flagroom, while reducing the time and speed... and we can also try returning to default TW settings for a bit to see if that's a bit more comfortable. Really, though (and pardon me if it doesn't seem relevant) if you thrust at the enemy and rep in normal TW, your rep is still likely to go off behind you as you take the bullet yourself.

[Stabwound]

btw, I left you an important in game ?msg regarding distension

[dako]

Dakos specs:

Warbird - Artillery - The main thing that seperates a helpful warbird from a useless one is how fast he can pick off people attaching to the terr, or stragglers around the base perimeter. A faster fire rate helps this immensely, so you dont HAVE TO SIT IN THE EAR AND SNIPE!

Javelin - Scout / Artillery - This is a toughie, because javelin needs to be able to lob bombs a a decent rate. With artillery, you can achieve this faster. However, with artillery, you can NOT fire a level 2 bomb when you get to level 40 and are able to purchase the upgrade (you can with a scout, but this compensates some fire speed).

Spider - Artillery - Lets face it, obvious choice here. Spiders, regardless of specialization, are not ever going to be a tank. Make use of the spiders already fast recharge and ramp it up, I think with artillery you can shoot a constant stream without losing energy because of the fast regen.

Lev - Scout - Yes. Scout. The only class I left the way it was. Mainly because of the UP cost. Portals are expensive, so is multifire, and eventually, prox, level 3s, and shrap. You need all the UP you can get, and levs need to be able to both tank and shoot their bombs at reasonable speed (warship lev takes forever to load a bomb :_( )

Terrier - ??? - I only played terrier until 20, because I absolutely suck at this class, so I left it scout. Looking at it however, I would go with either warship or z-class.

Weasel - Warship - Also seems pretty obvious to me, once you get cloak + stealth + level 3s, you basically become a suicide bomber for terrs. You only really get one or two shots, and cloak / stealth is hella drain on you, so you need to be able to take as much punishment as you can while closing distance on the enemy terr. However, artillery would probably fare better for those lame people that sit in the ear and lob multi level 2s to get streaks.

Lanc - Z-class (pure tank) - Lanc was meant to be a tank anyway, but the leeching makes this obvious at high levels. Once you get to 60% leech, recharge shouldn't matter at all, because more than half the time you kill someone, youll get a full charge anyway. You're also going to need the UP for the bomb / leech / firebloom / multi / level 3s.

Shark - ??? - I played shark for a while on warship, but I didnt do very well, it was painful for me to get to 20, im at a loss for this ship.