Build 51

[rob]

Greetings testers! We just pushed build 51! Changes include:

* Add coins
* Reduce Spectre's Rotational Overcharge rate of fire bonus from 300% to 100%
* Subtract 12 hours from short term storage time remaining at death
* Show max prism level and count on folded up prism display
* Add six new augment item types
* Eliminate protomod drops
* Add new triggers for Valkyrie: Quasonic Fire, Petacharge Reservoir, Ionic Flame Ejection, Stasis Web

Coins will be used as currency to buy and sell items in the marketplace. There is no marketplace yet, but you can start collecting coins from convoy bosses. 1 in 5 of them will drop a coin. Once the marketplace is built, you'll be able to price things in fractional coins. Also, eventually (months from now) coins will no longer drop; you'll buy them for dollars from Jetbolt, or else you'll acquire them by selling items in the marketplace.

There's been plenty of discussion in other threads about the new death penalty and the new augment items. The new augment items will be about twice as common as tank unlockers.

Also don't forget the data dump at grid12.com/grid12staticdata.sql . It's got all the drop rates and combat stats.

We really appreciate your help testing Grid12. Thanks!

Rob & Tim

[rob]

Oh yeah, I remembered that the UI gives you no indication as to whether you will over-augment if you use an augment item. We'll get something in place to help with this on the next build.

[quicklite]

Welp. I guess that lowly level 1 protomod I picked up out of impulse a few hours ago is now the last of its kind now. Ah well

I do appreciate the Spectre nerf, and I like new the death penalty. Because of how stubborn my computer is about changing builds, I won't be able to check out the new valkyrie until tomorrow, so I'll withhold judgement on that for now. I'm not 100% sure about augment items yet, but I'll just have to wait and see how those play out. Also, I think that you guys should keep the coins dropping, but nerf the drops once they become for sale. Because some people who will inevitably play this will not be able to, or just not want to spend money, and although I'm all for severely hindering their trading abilities, taking them away completely could cause a few ragequits. Imo, you should be able to make one or two smaller trades by collecting coins, but coin drop rates should be small enough so that to truly experience this system you guys are coming up with, you need to buy coins.

And about coins: Will they be buyable from day 1 of the market, and if not, when? And how many options to pay will there be from the start? (I usually do this sort of thing by BOKU, but am willing to compromise )

[rob]

Real money purchasing of coins will not happen for a while (months?). We need to get the anti-cheat code working first. Once RMT for coins is in, we'll turn off coin drops. This will not destroy non-payers' ability to trade. Skilled non-payers will continue to do what they do best, which is farm & meld up the best, rarest items in the game. They'll get plenty of coins because rich noobs will buy these items from skilled pros. That's the difference between the Grid12 model and other F2P models such as RotMG's: Jetbolt doesn't sell items -- players do!

[Stabbeh]

Will the marketplace be the only place items come and go, or is there going to be player-to-player trading too? Maybe being able to buy items with Gridshards (by the thousand or so)?

[hypevosa]

I honestly don't understand what advantage you see in fractional coins when having to think about decimal places will lead to large player errors when entering prices once there's a market - just having a larger quantity of coins would lead to less user errors.

[delsy]

Seconded.

[hypevosa]

Also, feedback on the valkyrie, I like it, alot, however, the damage on the set things on fire trigger is very, very, very underwhelming. Perhaps this could be something like does 1% of enemy's current health in damage to a minimum of 5 damage or something? Either way, using the trigger has no appreciable effect at all on any enemy since every enemy's average lifespan while under attack is far too short to see any.

[hypevosa]

There's some bug with convoys where they teleport/disappear long before exiting the map, there might be something off with the calculation for when they leave.

[delsy]

Stabbeh

Shards for trade seems to make sense at first, since that's the general loot, but since gridshards are converted into VP when you build cities at a rate of 1000:1, it suddenly makes less sense. Who wants to sell an item worth 64 VP for an amount of gridshards equalling 60? Maybe they'd go for it if you overpaid, but then why not just augment your tank yourself?

[gingerbear]

I find Drills dropping lvl 1 augments pretty ridiculous. Given that convoys drop 7-10, Drills should drop 4-6.

I approve of nerfing Spectre, but I think you might have went a bit overboard with it. Perhaps raising to 150% would be perfect.

[quicklite]

gingerbear agreed on both points.

I also think that the valk's DoT trigger should be buffed just a little bit. I mean, I know that it now has a really useful shotgun, and insta-regen instead of shields (and very possibly a speed buff ), but overdrive was really the old tank's main source of power imo, and while I'm fine with taking it off, I still think that the DoT needs to at least come close to it.

[hypevosa]

I think fire works better as a %age damage base anyways, the more that's destroyed the less fire can do naturally.

[quicklite]

Now that I think about it, I think that this new valkyrie should replace the hurricane in VP ratings. I mean, it is just as potent as those 500VP tanks now, arguably even as potent as the 1000VP ones, while the hurricane is a little weaker.

[gingerbear]

Just ocurred to me to mention that the almost constant shooting from spectre looked awesome at +300% RoF. It would be perfectly acceptable to nerf damage to 50% and put back the +300% while in overdrive. That way it won't be OP and would look cool at the same time!