Distension discussion

[DankNuggets]

A couple things I would like to see:
-New goals
-Have the bot automatically switch to 2 base distension when enough players enter

goals could use some work, but i think it'll be a while and several iterations if you're looking for the "perfect" goals. The base is easily crammed with ppl, and the ball gets stuck fairly often inside the goal where only an x can get it. Not sure how to fix these things though, so GL.

The second part really needs to go in though. 40 ppl in top flagroom is too much, and the game always heads towards stalemate with the longer flag hold requirement.


404-

The insentive is the same in almost all TW games: it feels good to watch a ship go BOOM! A first-time player can kill almost all other people in the arena ATM, with the exception of high ranking terriers mainly, which should be immune from the weakest of ships killing them.

Plus, as a hint to those having trouble at the lower ranks, try turreting for a few ranks. You'll save your terr the energy of shooting to defend itself, and assuming you aren't attached to an idiotic, suiciding terr, you won't die. Just know enough not to be lame and camp if you're able to attack. To many people camp in this game already. Turret for a bit, get those first few ranks under your belt, and you're hooked. That first speed upgrade, that first bullet upgrade... and you'll know why you're here in distension and not pub.

The upgrades aren't so drastic that you're a sitting duck. Far from it, I'm killed quite often by lower level ships. One, you're in a shitstorm of a FR battle, and no one's got full energy-- big ships go down easy like this. If you're turreting in the fr, you've got a better chance than the higher ranks attacking you.

Oh, and yes, wb does get THORS. It's one of the last upgrades though, coming at a rank I'll probably never achieve (50?). Good news though, it has like a 5min cool down i think, so you can die, thor, die, thor, die, thor...

[404 Not Found]

Plus, as a hint to those having trouble at the lower ranks, try turreting for a few ranks. You'll save your terr the energy of shooting to defend itself, and assuming you aren't attached to an idiotic, suiciding terr, you won't die. Just know enough not to be lame and camp if you're able to attack. To many people camp in this game already. Turret for a bit, get those first few ranks under your belt, and you're hooked. That first speed upgrade, that first bullet upgrade... and you'll know why you're here in distension and not pub.

Sounds interesting, as well as you and many other have an invested interest. I am well aware of turreting and played in Chaos league years ago when they outnumbered TW...we are talking yrs and yrs ago when everyon would turret.

I personally hated turreting and grew tired of Chaos League...

You make a good salesman DK...I just am jaded and as noted prior, will check it out if I ever re-load continuum on my computer. For now I am just a forum user.

[roxxkatt]

list moved to page 13

[RiiStar]

Dugwyler, are you alinea or qan in game?, your updates are clutch!

He is the one and only Qan...
Alinea is a lovely young mother to a new born baby (hence why she was absent from TW for a period before/after having baby Kaitlyn) !!!

Both are awsome coders

[Viruk]

Other thing: I'll begin reworking armies over the next few weeks so that permanent assignments go by the wayside.

So no chance of developing teamwork or loyalty to a flag?

I may also just have to reduce end round bonuses, while also reducing somewhat the to-rank amounts for some of the support ships.

Where did that come from? It is goal bonuses that are still too high at the moment (getting ~140RP or ~7 same-level kills) not end of round bonuses! Do you think we are basing too much instead of spawning and camping?

Armies will exist on a daily basis, shuffled at each daily time reset; an auto-assist system will come in that will work by permanently reassigning players for that day rather than just sending them to assist; and armies will be randomized if one is dominating the other. Just a taste of what's to come, as clearly the conscience of Distension players cannot be relied upon...

We haven't even got the current assist system working properly yet and we are still going to need it since teams will vary in balance at different times of day and when powerful players get specced. I suggest the following:

• Make the consequences of avarice clear (You won X RP but could have won X RP)
• Make the chance of avarice more dependent on average imbalance throughout the game than just right at the end and display that chance in the imbalance messages.
• Make it so assisters don't get switched back to their old teams just in time to miss out on the victory they worked for when assisting.
• Make the assist rewards publically known (What % of the playerbase knows the Saint bonus exists let alone what it is worth?)
• Make it so you can clearly see whether there is still an imbalance when you see the message showing one of your teammates has assisted.
• Make it easy to assist. (Make !assist switch you to the ailing frequency. You can get killed while looking up whether you are on team 0 or 1 and typing !assist x)
• Max assist rank as shown in the imbalance message seems wrong. When trying to assist (I think in a single flag game) after various max assist levels 30-40 were quoted in the messages it wouldn't let me with my level 26ish spider citing imbalance.
• If the assist system is improved it is vital to tell the players or many will continue to ignore the assist system out of habit.

A possible suggestion for a new army system with 3 types of player:

• Ally (independent and flexible)
• Loyalist (stable and tied to the fortunes of the flag)
• Mercenary (squad-based)

Everyone starts as Ally.

Allies are shuffled at the start of every War to either Misanthropy or Planetary.
Allies can defect but at a low cost that reflects that allies are going to be shuffled regularly.
Killing any allied player who defects from your side should give 20% bonus until the next shuffle.
Allies should get a small extra assist bonus but suffer extra Avarice penalty.

Once a player reaches Officer rank and has gained a level 20 ship they could remain as an Ally but have two other options. This is to ensure maximum flexibility in the critical period right after any reset and that new players have enough experience to understand their choices:

Players can become a loyalist of their current army for at low joining cost.
When the bot reshuffles teams it will first attempt to keep loyalists on the appropriate army. If the armies are severely imbalanced by powerful loyalists there could be a forced assist for the duration of the war.
Loyalists cannot directly defect to become a loyalist for the other army.
Loyalists can defect to a squad or to become an ally again at the current cost.
Killing any loyalist who defects from your side should give 20% bonus for the next 24 hours.
When fighting for their flag; loyalists would be awarded a small extra bonus on victory but would get similar penalty to their consolation bonus for defeats.

They can defect at low cost to join a mercenary player-run Distension-registered squad.
When the bot reshuffles teams at the beginning of every war it will first attempt to keep loyalists on the appropriate army. It will then attempt to shuffle these squads as blocks to balance the teams. Squad shuffling need not be random. It would make sense to try and achieve a new combination of squads and armies for each war. If this cannot be achieved (due to powerful loyalists or squads) squads could be split for the duration of the war.
Mercenaries can defect to become an ally or loyalist or to another squad at low cost. The defecting RP is paid into the squad fund.
There is no bonus for killing any mercenary who leaves their squad.
Mercenaries can be kicked out by their squad at a low cost paid from the squad fund.
Squads would have a small extra RP bonus dependent on the proportional power of their players paid into their squad fund on every victory where the squad isn't split.
A squad owner could choose to headhunt any player who is permitted to defect by contributing RP from their squad fund to offset the defection cost and provide a limited bonus.
A squad owner could choose to award a limited bonus shared between its members from its fund.

No player would be allowed to change allegiance more than once in any 24 hour period.
No squad would be allowed to headhunt more than once in any 24 hour period.
The assist system would still be needed to even things up during the course of a war.
It would be useful to display flags of permanent allegiance (if any) as well as current army (with direction of goal) to minimize player confusion.

This system could allow for private frequency battles on alternate Distension maps (maybe even in single flag games).
It ought to have a better chance of promoting good teamwork than a randomly shuffled army.
It would be a solid base for squad based competition within Distension.
Squads that recruit too many players or all the powerful players should find themselves split too often to achieve much. It would pay squads to develop player talent and recruit wisely.
Distension squads could go on to do other things outside Distension within TW.

[Stabwound]

Btw, I think there's something wrong with the part of the code that adds people into the queue. From what I can tell from the code (although I could be reading it wrong) when a player tries to enter the game but it is full, it attempts to queue them. If they have played the most out of any player that day, it's supposed to deny them a slot with the message:

"Sorry, no play slots are available, and you've flown more today than any other pilot here. Please try again later."

But it's actually denying many people with varying play times. Right now there are 3-4 people that are getting that message; they can't even get in queue for literally hours (I was in spec for 2 hours and always got that message when trying to enter, and I am positive I had not played the most out of everyone in the arena). My guess would be that it's not setting the "highestTime" variable correctly, or needs to set it a different way, but I didn't really look at it that closely.

[Mjollnir]

Btw, I think there's something wrong with the part of the code that adds people into the queue. From what I can tell from the code (although I could be reading it wrong) when a player tries to enter the game but it is full, it attempts to queue them. If they have played the most out of any player that day, it's supposed to deny them a slot with the message:

"Sorry, no play slots are available, and you've flown more today than any other pilot here. Please try again later."

But it's actually denying many people with varying play times. Right now there are 3-4 people that are getting that message; they can't even get in queue for literally hours (I was in spec for 2 hours and always got that message when trying to enter, and I am positive I had not played the most out of everyone in the arena). My guess would be that it's not setting the "highestTime" variable correctly, or needs to set it a different way, but I didn't really look at it that closely.

It sure does seem to work in a weird fashion. What is the original reason for not letting the player that has played the most in the queue?

On an unrelated note: I would love a bot command for changing ships to prevent getting disconnected for too many ship changes. This happens when trying, but failing to switch to a Terr or a Shark repeatedly, and when trying to enter the queue from spec. The command would work by checking if you can switch to the specified ship, and only allowing it if possible. This way your ship doesn't change unnecessarily and cause a disconnection. The command could be !sc #, where # is the ship number from 1 to 9. The same command should work when trying to enter the queue.

Second unrelated note: The queuing has been done pretty well in Chaos/League SVS zone. The bot private messages you when it's your turn to play and you have to respond with !claim within 10 seconds. If you fail to respond you lose your spot and if you respond in time you have 30 seconds to enter the arena (before losing your spot). Distension queue could easily work in a similar fashion.

[project dragon]

On an unrelated note: I would love a bot command for changing ships to prevent getting disconnected for too many ship changes. This happens when trying, but failing to switch to a Terr or a Shark repeatedly, and when trying to enter the queue from spec. The command would work by checking if you can switch to the specified ship, and only allowing it if possible. This way your ship doesn't change unnecessarily and cause a disconnection. The command could be !sc #, where # is the ship number from 1 to 9. The same command should work when trying to enter the queue.

I believe that you can do this via arena settings, not by bot (at least the d/c for too many shipchanges thing).

[Dwopple]

distension should be an event. something like ?go warzone...everytime you come back when its hosted all your shit will be there. instead of a regular thing.


or just get rid of it all together

[roxxkatt]

ill just leave this here...

Cheese!> POLL RESULTS: DISTENSION 45 - NEWBS 7

[Liquid Blue]

or you could not constantly rise to childish bait and focus on producing positive posts

[Stabwound]

You can't fault a child for being childish.

[Stabwound]

By the way, from people that played far into beta, does anyone know how much damage an L3 bullet does, or if a terrier can tank one at some point?

I mean, I'm just about rank 50, and they still one-shot me, which is extremely aggravating, because when you're in a flagroom fight with 30 other people, half the time you won't even see bullets at all and you just blow up. It just seems a bit extreme, as warbirds get them early enough that that at the time they unlock them, they will one-shot anything that's supposed to be a tank type ship, including a shark or levi warship or whatever, not to mention go straight through repels, as was discussed earlier in the thread.

Does anyone else think they're a teensy bit overpowered?

[TagMor]

No
if anything is overpowered atm it is the weasel.

And Another Thing:
the bonus for standard TeKs is a little strange..
First, I think it should be raised to atleast 50%.. terr is nearly always surrounded by its teammates and has good tanking abilities. Plus, there is usually only 2-3 per team.
Also, as I understand it, if you kill a terr in fr who's team holds flag, then you get 50% bonus.. but if you kill a terr in fr and it's team doesnt hold flag, you get the standard 10%... I dont think this is quite fair, as said, terr is extremely hard to kill and taking one out in fr (with or without flag) deserves a much greater prize than 10%rp bonus.

May I suggest 3 bonus levels:

FR Terr w/flag Kill (200% bonus)
FR Terr Kill (100% bonus)
Standard Terr Kill (50% bonus)


I feel something like this would better reflect the hardwork involved in TeKs. Aswell as promoting the team aspects, as killing the terr is fundamental to winning and often involves the sacrifice of many deaths.

[Stabwound]

No
if anything is overpowered atm it is the weasel.

Well, no offense, but the WB is your main ship, and you use L3 bullets, so this is a pretty biased response.