Build 55

[tim]

Hi everyone!

Welcome to build 55. Thanks for being patient with the delay. Here are this week's changes:

* Your own buy offers no longer show up when you try to liquidate an item
* Added basic sorting to Items For Sale menu
* Correctly remove tooltips when opening buyoffer / selloffer menus
* Tightened error conditions on numbers when editing buy offers
* Your own sell offers can no longer be seen in the Items For Sale menu
* Only tell players about the lowest priced item for sale for a given item type/level
* When making a buyoffer, autobuy items for sale if they would meet the conditions of the offer
* When listing an item for sale, autosell your item to an existing buyoffer if it would meet the conditions of the offer
* Notify seller of proceeds when selloffer triggers
* Removed "/10" from region conquer display
* Victory boss kills to 500 from 250
* Add loot drop for finishing convoy, fix "one armada member left" bug
* Have GCT drop no prosms, storage, or unlocks, but more augments & fewer splinters
* Have Drill station drop more storage and bigger unlocks
* Added new dialog for using augments on a different tank than your current one
* Added new dialog to confirm deletion of an item from storage
* Redesign Hercules Turret & Gun
* Hercules immobilize into disarm
* Add imobilization effect to Hercules and Fury proximity mines
* Drop proximity mine at Hercules location, not ahead
* Boost Hercules timebomb damage from 75 to 300

This week brought a lot of changes, some big, some small. We have pushed a number of improvements to the market system this week, and they should make buying and selling items quicker, easier, and cleaner. Items now autobuy and autosell when placing offers if there is one that could match your offer somewhere. When this happens, whoever placed the second offer gets the best deal. For example, if I list an item for sale at 2 coins, and a buy offer exists at 3 coins, I sell the item for 3 coins. If I put a buy offer in for 3 coins, and the item exists for sale at 2 coins, I buy the item at 2 coins.

In response to player feedback, we decided to increase the number of convoy kills required to end the game from 250 to 500. We also have done some rebalancing of loot to make killing drill stations more worthwhile.

A new dialog has been added to help make using augment items easier. This new dialog shows you a list of tanks you could use that augment on, and their current augment level of that items type. A dialog has also been added to confirm item deletion, just so no one deletes an item by accident.

Hercules has recieved some reworks and buffs, and he now can pack quite a punch while bringing along some strong disables. We'll probably continue to adjust him over the next couple of weeks, but give him a try this week and let us know what you think.

Rob and I are both taking some time off after this week, so while there will be a push next week, it will likely not be very large. One of the things we're going to be working on is a new tank menu, and the removal of purchasing tanks with victory points. Along with this will be a new tank, so start collecting those unlock items now, as this tank will need a level 16 item to unlock. We plan to start pushing new tanks more often after this next one.

Other stuff we're looking at for the future are ways to provide more rewards to players for exploring and building in the early-mid game, and some extremely difficult, but rewarding challenges for the endgame.

Thanks again for your continued help in testing Grid12. We appreciate your feedback and time spent playing the game. Please report bugs and other issues in this thread.

Tim

[tarbomb]

Bug: there's a condition where abilities are unusable. The ability pane looks like this - almost fully charged, but not quite:



Refreshing makes the issue disappear.

[Ood]

Herc buff is very nice, but borderline overpowered. The range of the first mine (trigger 1) is just too long. Once a drill station has been killed, placing a mine in the middle will hit any and all remaining drill annexes and walls. Perhaps nerf the blast radius almost 1 grid. It still needs to be useful for having convoys drive over it, without having the pain of very precise aim (that often is for naught if the target goes over the mine too soon). A small radius nerf satisfies this while still allowing the herc to wreck a good number of enemies without much effort.

A further note on the herc. Having more enemies that shield themselves would make herc's new mine (and other possible very offensive triggers) much less friendly in a solo fight. Currently the best example is again with drills. A solo herc can very very easily take out all the outside structures of a drill station, but when it comes to the main structure, its low dps, and the station's regenerative shield put up a tough fight for the herc. Whereas all other structures can simply just be mined to death with no real challenge, especially when the cooldown on the mine is very low. Just some thoughts, I'm not sure when we'll get some new enemies, but shielding variety could be used to adjust some balance issues instead of just buffs/nerfs to tanks.

[tarbomb]

Actually, in keeping with the concept of the herc as a close in bomb thrower, I think the ideal nerf would be to replace its cannon with a wildfire-class lightning gun, rendering it a defensive weapon only.

[Kelsoo]

Herc buff definitely makes it much more useful, and allows more situations in which it can perform well. However I still find the Herc having trouble soloing basically anything, with a low DPS and as Ood mentioned with shields and regenerating enemies, it just does not pan out well.

A solution could be to nerf the range of the bomb slightly while adding a bit more power or fire rate to the main gun, while still allowing the player to rely on consistent bombing tactics. As it stands the Herc is still relatively dependent on a good situation to be in.

But I look forward to whatever else will be added to the Herc, and the other tanks with the addition of new ones.

[renenutet]

I dunno, I kinda like the Herc now. Although it can't do ANYTHING on its own, I could see it being a great team player. Imagine a "convoy checkpoint" of 5 hercs and some corsairs. The hercs lay proximity mines in the convoy's path and on approach, lay time bombs and retreat. Corsairs swoop in from the back, hercs take the lead and tank shots while chainstunning. Corsairs move in on omnicharge and systematically shear.

Herc is finally useful. (celebrates)

[gingerbear]

When people teleport away, their icon still tends to stuck on the screen.

What's more interesting I see names I am pretty sure hasn't been around for the fight.

This picture is from last convoy fight:



So, who is bootycaller? Is it a previous name of someone somehow stuck in the memory? If not, a ghost player? Or is the loot called so? (it was where the convoy loot dropped)

[tarbomb]

Black pane glitch again:



It's happened several times in the last three days, almost completely randomly.

[delsy]

A Hornet run straight up against the middle of a drill wall won't attack, oddly enough. Backing away or turning even slightly lets it attack again. Something similar with the corner building; when I rammed up against it, I was targetting things beyond it.

Not that a hornet has any business being up so close, but it is a little strange.

[Ood]

Jun 25, 2013 1:17:16 GMT -5 delsy said:

A Hornet run straight up against the middle of a drill wall won't attack, oddly enough. Backing away or turning even slightly lets it attack again. Something similar with the corner building; when I rammed up against it, I was targetting things beyond it.

Not that a hornet has any business being up so close, but it is a little strange.

The Hornet firing arc is very small. I think drill walls have a smaller 'hitbox' than they appear to. You didn't start firing at stuff on the other side of the wall?

[delsy]

I did indeed begin firing past the wall. Perhaps drill walls have two hitboxes spaced slightly apart?

[tarbomb]

Ghost Hercules. Other people saw it too.





Ghost tanks also show up on the zoomed-out map.

[delsy]

Still on the subject of hornet, its lightning trigger has a much wider and longer range than I remember, striking a few tiles away and in any direction covered by a shield. Has it always been this way? And if I really am so blind, why didn't anyone correct me in my tank thread? :/

[zub]

If chat is up and cursor inside it, using mouse wheel both scrolls the chat and zooms the map. Sometimes it results in chat stucked in the beginning of it (new message makes chat scroll to the top), but I can't reproduce it reliably.

[Ood]

Just checking in on the teleport bug, scenario:
5-8 people online, hunting for prisms.
SirNull in spectre says: Delta here.
All teleport to him.
SirNull stuck in overdrive.

Perhaps that's a feasible way to replicate the bug? Have someone call a large number of people to teleport to them, and initiate overdrive once they start coming.