Distension discussion

[gdugwyler]

I even considered to keep the map from getting tired that since its a war between two empires that people could summit maps as a different sector and once every month or so it would be put up for a weekend or something. now I kind of ditched this idea cause the balancing problems with a new map, and only being up for one weekend, and all the loading thats required :-/ just shoting this one out there. see if anyone even remotely likes the idea. since we are talking about leagues which would be on a different map we could have different maps for different sectors... whatever

Forgot to say -- I think this is a good idea. Would be nice to see things changed up. Could even run the maps for a full week, so long as they're of high quality. The only requirement would be that they have some similarities (same warp points available; roughly equally easy to defend or attack) so that the bot could function properly without defining new coordinates all the time. As the LVL loads separately from the LVZ, it also would not cause any real suffering in terms of the download -- maps are always quite small.

We can look at this idea again in a month or so, when Dist is starting to become a bit more regular. At that point I can provide a small template map indicating all of the spots that need to remain the same.

[DankNuggets]

But as I said earlier in the wall of text it's not staff's place to put a value on one of the other, that is for the public to decide. I believe if people are simply not going to play an ER event and they are a sizable population, who would rather spec and wait, then there's no reason to delay it or kill it for the intangible benefit of the zone's other events. It's like turning off TWD to boost the population of a public arena, it's just not going to happen no matter how much we might want it to.

Thank god someone in staff realizes this. Go figure it's a PR rep . It's really silly--yeah that's the word i'm gonna use--silly that we have 30-50 people sitting in spec waiting for the game to start, yet for some reason it's not deemed more important than random events.

I may be wrong here, but aren't events supposed to be hosted for players, and not hosted for <ER>s? I would hate to think what it would be like if we lost all our <ER>s because their egos are bruised by Distension, but aren't they here to serve us? Shouldn't their numbers and powers be dictated by the necessities of the population? If we don't need or want them hosting bug 2x a day, then thet don't need to be doing that.

You'd have to be living under a rock to not see that the people (or at least most of the people) want to see Distension permanentlly in TW. You'd have to at least concede that a good % of people want to be able to play Distension when they want to- be it 24/7 or a better schedule.

That being said, please throw out any and all "Distension is ruining TW" arguments, "Distension is ruining hosted events" arguments, and work on a plan that serves the public first and foremost.

Competetion between arenas for players isn't something that should be decided by <ER>s, it should be left to the market (where's Jerome on this one?)

[DankNuggets]

prestige

I'm thinking about a way to keep Distension "new" to players who've been going at it for months... what if, on attaining X number of round wins and rank X in all or some portion of ships (probably 50), you had the option of "reincarnating" with a number of special options... for example: a unique ability for each ship only available to those who've gone through this process; removal of various penalties (no scrap or specialization charges, for example); maybe a small queue advantage ... essentially, various goodies for the die-hard Distension player. They'd then be able to complete this process again if they wish, giving further bonuses (perhaps allowing one ship to start at rank 70? 80? -- and with each "reincarnation" allowing one more ship to start at this rank, though the number of wins required, rank required, or possibly just the sheer RP required per rank would be increased at each stage). In this way, the game could continue to challenge for a very long time those who simply have to have it all, or at the very least would like motivation to continue playing a game they enjoy. This would also solve the problem of players getting to extreme ranks and dominating others.

I've been thinking of something like this to counter a total reset. What if after reaching a really high rank (say 70), you were given the option to respecialize as a "prestige" or something. Respecializing to this would reset you to a certain rank (by way of RP penalty) -- but you'd be given unlimited UP or some other beneficial perk. That way, there'd still be stuff to do (ie rank up) and you'd be able to use all of the upgrades that you've sacrificed on the way up. The rank requriments for upgrades could be thrown out, or they could be kept so that the ship really isn't a rank 75 in a rank 50 body. Alternatives to the unlimited UP could be special upgrades that weren't available the first time around, decreased queue time, ops commands, etc.

[roxxkatt]

it could be possible

u could be asked to reset to lvl1 if you reach lvl80, and be offered the GOD shiptype, which could be warship nrg + artillery CHG....

[dako]

OK, im very very very very tired of saying this.

AVARICE DOES NOT WORK

It has never worked right, people still get the full RP rewards for avariced rounds. I played a 16v24 round today, the other team got avarice, with their sharks / ops / terrs still getting well over 1000 RP each, where the bot says the average was supposed to be 250RP. Why doesn't this work right, and furthermore, what has it gone unfixed for so long?

[Vergilius]

I was under the impression that terrs and sharks ALWAYS get more RP at round ends, win or loss, avarice or not. simply because its not a ship that grants u the fun of tons of kills or huge teamfers, and because they are after all the ships that are the most important in a team. Without them there simply is NO chance for a game for a whole team, its not more than normal that they deserve more RP than 'normal' ships.

And the avarice works; without avarice their RP bonus would be higher, too.

[gdugwyler]

To get mouths salivating and to make sure avarice works properly, I'll have the bot tell you what your bonus would have been if avarice didn't fire. That should boil some blood. I've checked it over several times and am fairly certain it's set up properly. Also, the average explanation Verg gave is exactly on: support ships receive more.

And speaking of support ships, the way the Weasel's playing it looks as though it could do with going back to assault... objections?

[roxxkatt]

• the weasel is only powerful early, expect complaints
• i like having the balance of 4 support, 4 assault
• can make 1% profits or less, almost 0
• as time goes by, notice less complaints over time.

[Viruk]

To get mouths salivating and to make sure avarice works properly, I'll have the bot tell you what your bonus would have been if avarice didn't fire. That should boil some blood. I've checked it over several times and am fairly certain it's set up properly. Also, the average explanation Verg gave is exactly on: support ships receive more.

And speaking of support ships, the way the Weasel's playing it looks as though it could do with going back to assault... objections?

Weasels don't look as if they need profit sharing or a high victory award but you should be able to switch to weasel to sneak into base and take flag without losing your participation.

Re: Prestige ships and resets

I am sure I never want to see godlike ships, ships with unlimited upgrades or level 75 ships impersonating level 50 ships. I am not even sure whether special upgrades only available to 'prestige' ships is a good idea when some ships are already short of upgrades.

I do have some ideas for more modest prestige bonuses

Prestige points could be earned by achieving ship levels at resets or if a player chooses to reincarnate their ship (back to level 1) and could be tied to each ship and carry over resets and reincarnations.
For example:

• Level 50 = Bronze award = 1 Prestige Point
• Level 60 = Silver award = 2 Prestige Points
• Level 70 = Gold award = 4 Prestige Points
• Level 80 = Platinum award = 8 Prestige Points

Players could also be awarded a prestige points for being highest in each shipclass and being in the top 5 or top 10 for each shipclass every reset.

Perhaps each of the following could cost 1 prestige point and each bonus could only be bought twice for each ship which would give even the top players plenty to collect. Most will be limited to a total 10% improvement which should be useful but not overpowering:

• [Shiptype]-killer bonus: gives extra 5% to the total kill bonus when you kill that type of ship
• Enhanced support bonus: gives extra 5% to your profit sharing awards
• Enhanced victory bonus: gives extra 5% to your victory awards
• Consolation bonus: gives extra 5% to your consolation and stalemate awards
• Mercenary bonus: gives extra 10% to all assist awards and -10% to any defection costs.
• Tactical bonus: gives extra 5% kill bonus for baseterrier kills, flag hold kills and extra 10% to holds and breaks awards
• Streaker bonus: gives extra 10% to streak awards and effective -10% to your rank when calculating whether too low rank for streaks
• Goal bonus: gives extra 5% for your goal rewards and 5% extra to the total team reward if you score
• Spawnkiller bonus: Outside Base penalty -10%
• Shiptype bonus: - 5% to the Swarm and Pall penalties and + 5% to the Solo ship bonus and Unplayed ship bonus
• Standard upgrade bonus: 5% UP discount on all rotation, speed, thrust and manual energy and recharge upgrades
• Special upgrade bonus: 5% UP discount on all manual upgrades other than rotation, speed, thrust, energy and recharge.
• Auto upgrades bonus: 1 extra UP for every automatic energy or recharge upgrade
• Early upgrade bonus: -5% to the required level of any manual upgrade
• Rearm bonus: +5% chance of spawning with priority rearm
• Prizing bonus: Your chances of prizing any specials during play are increased by 5%
• Duration bonus: Any special with variable duration lasts an extra 10% longer
• Chaos bonus: +5% chance of spawning prized as if one or more of your upgrade slots were that of a different shiptype
• Longplay bonus: -10% effective playing time when calculating speccing and queueing.
• Specialize bonus: -10% total RP cost when specializing. +10% to max level for free experimental specialization. 1 extra free specialization after experimental period ends.

Perhaps also your officer rank could carry over when you reset and we could invent a whole bunch of ridiculously grandiose high rank titles. Perhaps you should also get a modest RP bonus to all ships (even those not unlocked) every time you achieve a new rank. If officer rank carried over this could eventually help brand new players compete with prestige ships since they would be ranking faster.

Incidentally I think that without the beta multiplier it should take more than Officer to get Tac Ops as I don't see how anyone can achieve rank 20 in all ships without getting way past Ensign anyway. You get a Command notice at Lt Commander IIRC so perhaps this would make more sense.

[dako]

My FR and flag doors 80% of the time only last 2 seconds, I'm pretty sure this was a problem in beta too. And I'm pretty sure my doors are supposed to last a lot longer than what they do...

[Vehicle]

Weasel is definately an assault ship. And please make it so it has to wait at least a full second before it can fire again.

[Mjollnir]

The Weasel is currently very strong, so it could easily be an assault ship. It is a ship that has gone through a lot of changes, sometimes being too powerful and then getting nerfed to nothing. It got much stronger at the end of the beta period and it shows. Maybe some slight adjustments would be in place?

Another thing: the ball game rewards seem too high. Often one team is dominating the game, which results in them getting about 6 goals during one game. I personally get about 322RP / goal, so when you combine all the goals, it is more RP than you get from most flag games (and you get all of it in 5 minutes). The ball game is supposed to be just for fun but currently it's more important than the flagging. I do enjoy the fast RP but it's silly how much you get in comparison to the flag game. I guess you could always increase the flag game rewards!

[Viruk]

Another thing: the ball game rewards seem too high. Often one team is dominating the game which results in them getting about 6 goals during one game. I personally get about 322RP / goal that is more RP you get from most flag games (and all this in 5 minutes). The ball game is supposed to be just for fun but currently it's more important than the flagging.

For my level 25ish spider seems about 160 RP for a goal. A 2 minute round victory got me around 200 RP. Killing someone my own rank gets me about 20RP. 8 kills worth for a goal is too much.

[Stabwound]

Okay, there's something really messed up with the queue system. There are a bunch of people that can't even get in the game. I've been sitting here for the past 3 hours, and this is what happens every single time the game ends:

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: 147 min.

It's let me into the game and immediately removed me about 7-8 times in a row now. A bunch of other people are having the same issue, too. I played 2 1/2 hours earlier in the day, but I don't see why that should keep me from playing for the rest of the day. I've played longer than that in a single day before, and it never completely kept me out of the game...

I think it should just be put back to a first in, first out queue system again. Either that, or maybe there's something broken with this one that should be fixed?

[Static Burn]

Okay, there's something really messed up with the queue system.

I think we just need multiple distension arenas