Build 64

[rob]

Greetings Brave Testers!

Tim and I just pushed build 64. Changes include:

* Only show convoys on map when they are near a player or town
* Have convoy routes go away after 50 boss kills on the route
* Color convoy routes (yellow through orange to red) to show kill progress
* Put convoy route radius multiplier back to where it was in 62 (.5 of a region)
* Add a per-tank-class XP-like mechanism
* Add a small item drop chance to convoy minions and fortress redoubts
* Reduce item awards for discovering towns and routes to level 7+
* Added item awards for discovering a region, clearing a region and connecting a town
* Made all item awards "social" for everyone near the awardee
* Remove VP award notification at region clear
* Require a "skirt" of cleared land outside a town before it can level
* Make pizzas immune to immobilize
* Make GCT, drill station, delta and the 2 largest zeta buildings immune to disarm
* Add another .5 second to zeta bomb delay
* Allow rural tank switch, at cost of putting all triggers on cooldown

The big experiment this week is only showing convoys when they are near players or towns. The detection radius is about 3 fortress widths, measured from the player or edge of the town to the center of the convoy. I'm hoping that this will both reduce the convoy icon spam and increase the importance of leveling certain towns, while encouraging the playerbase to select strategic sections of the convoy route to turn into chasing lanes.

We are hoping that having the routes dry up and disappear will give a sense of completion, as well as eliminating the visual clutter associated with the mostly-useless inner routes in the late game. We are also hoping that the new route colors will help players identify which routes will most benefit from additional lane-building.

We've also started working on an XP-like system (or maybe it's like frequent-flyer miles?) where you get points on a per-tank-class basis. Currently you get 1% of any gridshard pickup in XP. We are thinking that the XP will someday unlock slots in the tanks into which you can socket items. We are also planning to do an XP reset in a few weeks, after we evaluate how the pickup and leveling formulas are working.

In response to feedback, we rescaled the scouting rewards and added more, and we made them go to everyone nearby in the same way loot does (one fortress width).

We are also experimenting with tank switching outside of town. We are considering adding the trigger cooldown penalty to in-town switches as well (feedback welcomed on this).

Thanks to everyone for helping us test. You guys are great!

Rob & Tim
Jetbolt Games

[Ood]

* Make pizzas immune to immobilize

Oh thank god...

Xp looks... interesting, though I'm having a hard time seeing it as anything other than a tank specific 'lite' version of VP. Unlocking slots for stuff is all well and good, but I'm not really seeing why VP couldn't have been used/adjusted for this purpose. Time will tell I guess.

I like the hidden voys even without having played much of this build. It makes 'convoy hunting' a job, just as much as scouting or clearing. If you want to kill convoys a lot, you now need to do a bit of work to find them even after locating the route.

Disarm immunities are a bit of a downer... if you ask me...

More feedback to come hopefully.

[Kelsoo]

Edited:


This build feels alot like it's setting the stage for the ones to come and hopeful addition of fixes and such.

Anyways XP is VP with a new look and more useless as of now (obviously). I am happy that a leveling system is coming back, and think the plans for it sound somewhat promising. Though I am still an advocate for VP coming back with a better purpose, and hope it does.

Clearing is still not incentivized unfortunately and again obviously. A level seven pickup for clearing out an entire region is extensively lame, and not worth it for the very extreme timesink clearing a whole region can be, along with the chance that you and your group may end up doing most of the work and having to get off, then having someone else do minimal work and get the reward, like gingerbear stated.

Personally, I don't think you should get any reward past 15 for clearing, otherwise it would be OP, 2 or 3 11-13 augs/tanks should work just fine maybe 10's. And it definitely should be more frequent, 25% intervals would do fine, with occasional mini bosses. Possibly even random encounters spawning once a certain ammount of a fort is killed off enough "super forts" spawn, say existing forts gain more HP and dmg with one additonal pattern or something and they drop (7's?)

While clearing and killing forts itself is still not rewarding (unless you're not at full pulches), just clearing regions is what is rewarding. This should be fixed with the addition of XP, from which I hope to see very interesting things.

Here is a list of tanks that I never see used/ see used sometimes, but are outclassed heavily by their brothers or virtually have no use to me as well: Phantom, Viking, Hurricane, Wildfire, and the Wolverine.

Here is what I think could be done to these tanks to make them useful.

Phantom:While seemingly indestructible at times, this tank lacks in almost every other department it can. It is pathetic in terms of damage, and even while beefy, the Herc outclasses it, and unfortunately outclasses many of the once semi - useful crowd control tanks. I think giving the guns a faster RoF along with making its blast a bit more powerful would do fine. Replacing the para with a invis trigger to allow it to sit on an enemy and deal decent damage could also be a choice, since paralyze is pretty useless unless you can stun. Or just giving it a stun in place of the trigger.

Phantom may be about being "beefy" but just because its beefy doesn't make it good, it might be a decent beefy tank, (not really) but the Herc and others are just straight up better, giving players no reason to use this tank other than to abuse its invinc to grab loot.

Viking: The Viking isn't completely useless... it's just the classic example of auto- fire and single gun making a useless tank. This guy can do alright work with a team, utterly defenseless otherwise otherwise. Its two shields cannot really compensate for all the damage it takes and it will pale in comparison to its brothers. I suggest replacing the blink with a minion only explosion with a (~18?) second cooldown. Then you could possibly make the shield trigger an insta charge, or adding a back shield for retreating and keeping it to the start up regeneration. With something that can help handle the minions it should allow the Viking to fire at something actually threatening.

Now of course with all these buffs the tank could become OP, I think nerfing the damage of the main gun would do fine, or possibly HP and damage nerfs?

Hurricane: Ah this tank... (another to fall to the Herc plague, and was useless back then as well) Many think of it to be a complete object of derison, and a pathetic excuse for a tank. As a newer player this tank seems favorable, but many leave it behind soon after unlocking a better tank. Beside the obvious buffs players want added to it (more damage, targets, less lag etc) Here is what I think would be in the tanks best favor.

Now it seems this tank is meant to be completely crowd control/support , so I assume it should remain a tank only to be used in parties. . I suggest increasing the fire rate and adding one or two more targetables. I would also suggest replacing the stun with a temporary heal circle for support, (maybe deployable?) that also insta heals 1/4th of the HP of the user (the healing circle would not affect him) A route you could take with this tank is making it only able to attack minions and small fortresses, only when trigger one is used would it be allowed to attack anything.

And finally decreasing the cooldown of trigger one, or making it last longer, maybe instead adding damage to the buff the player recieves?

Wildfire: The Wildfire, this is a tank I thought I would love, seeing as it looks like a Hurricane that can solo... but that is more than just not the case. Its weak shield combined with a pretty long regeneration period then a long regeneration... as well as not being the most useful at damage until its triggers hit makes it, slightly better and worse then the Hurricane.

I think it would benefit most from just decreasing the shield time, and a slight buff to the front shields, (maybe no buff to the front shields?) in fact just that would make it much more useful. After that I would propose killing off trigger 1 and replacing it with a blink back, or a mustang like side cone, for those pesky minions the attack the sides. Possibly increasing the RoF it can do while not buffed slightly, and decreasing the RoF while buffed. Just so that it doesn't have to rely on it's damage triggers, but they still are of help.

While I think the Wildfire can benefit more from just faster shield regen and become more viable, I would hate to see it become super OP again. I think it is still a tank that can stand it's own in a group.


Wolverine: This tank is probably one of the least used tanks among the playerbase, I don't think I've ever witnessed someone using this after already unlocking it and trying it out, in fact I may not have ever. Anyways, it's definitely up there. It's shields are probably its only problem, and they are a big one. They prohibit it from doing much, and make it near impossible to shield rotate + regen because they go down to fast. Along with the 1st trigger not really doing much for it, you end up with a tank no one seems to want to use. It has to constantly, very very constantly regenerate, and can get you in very plightful situations.

My main suggestion would be increasing all the shields, making them all the same and able to actually take some hits. While this tank is not completely awful. no one wants to use it ever because it just isn't really all that useful at anything, it's an all around tank that can't do much. Increase the shields, make the regen trigger start up not insta, regen of two shields. Then I suggest maybe making trigger 1 drop a somewhat damaging imoba bomb, as well as blink you back?

I don't mind the whole disarm immunity thing to much. I mean just like the Hornet, it is a prime example of shooting at things that cannot shoot back. And that makes for a boring time. I think nerfing disarm times could benefit the game, making players rely more on shield rotating and drawing the line of when you need to get out of a bad situation. Though I wouldn't want to only see corsairs at convoys... and I don't think the total removal of disarm would benefit the game. Just that it should be tidied up.

I hope to see certain convoys returned to eventually, as they are starting to get old with the very basic design of "get behind, stun para move up" aside from the pizza, which is pretty fun to do. I would love to see convoys that maybe occasionally just stop in there tracks for a short amount of time, doing heavy damage to those not paying attention and running into them. Just in general see more dynamic convoys, with a better premise then just chase, stun+para loot rinse and repeat. As it stands convoys are steamrolled so hard, even the Flux is starting to feel the power of 5 people.

Zeta's have a problem as well. They are never spawned anymore, because no one ever bothers to clear an entire region, and if someone does, chances are you're not on to do it, or enough people for that matter. Many people miss Zeta's all the time, they're spawning is to sporadic, in fact extremely so. You are just too likely to miss out on a Zeta spawn, and it kind of sucks.

My suggestion is changing the way they spawn, or adding more things that could make one spawn, this would also help in testing it more frequently. Though obviously it should not spawn to frequently. Suggestions would be every 150 convoys, Every 60% region ( maybe this would spawn a "baby" Zeta, without the inners?) as well as fully cleared. Possibly every ~450 big fortress kills? Though I think this would just make them get cherry- picked.


Anything else I can think of is posted in Build 63, VP coming back, the melding system and etc.

[gingerbear]

@ Build #64

So far, I like it.

The sneaking convoys are fun, and also the map is no longer littered with red dots... as long as there are no cities and players all around.

The main concern is... since the favoured course of action is now leveling cities that are bordering convoy routes to get more vision, it further weakens the building system. I mean, the gain from the ability of noticing the convoys earlier might be bigger than nerfing some buildings. Please note that a minotaur/herc/hornet trio eats towers for breakfast, anyway.

I like the XP, and although I agree that it is actually a kind of VP-light, it fits more in theme than the global nature of VP. Eagerly waiting what goodness will sprout of it.

The level decrease in rewards is also a good thing. One feels no longer jealous of people who get to discover cities / regions or connect stuff, which means people are no longer forced to keep up with them. Also, since everything is now a team reward, shout-outs for "new region near" or "connection almost done" are more frequent and even fun team events, even if the drop is not that great. However, since there are a lot of tanks now, I think this loot is heaven for new players, which is good, it lets them faster to catch up.

The downside is, of course, that it doesn't really help in clearing actual regions, as that - compared to anything else - yields a lot less and a lot harder to get reward. I'm positive this will be balanced out sooner or later.

I don't think the disarm so far would be that bad. I mean, it only affects main buildings, and let's be frank, that is not that of a big hit. (GCT's and Zeta's main damage source are bombs, Drill is not dangerous, and Delta's real threat is the focus of all guns. Since the minor turrets can still be disarmed, the situation isn't that grave.) As long as you don't get carried away with the disarm/paralize immunity and tanks that have skillsets for these are still viable, I approve of the challenge.

---

I think the next thing that needs a rework now is the city building/leveling system. With VP out of the picture and the decreasing incentive to build anything makes this question more and more urgent. There has been some good suggestions so far, and expect me making a new wall of text about it yet again...

The other question is of course sector clearing and Zetas. Namely, there are two main problems:
1. To reach the event there has to be a lot of relatively unrewarded time to be spent. This can be alleviated by partial sector events, just like Rob said earlier, by - for example - adding mini bosses for every 25% done. (Question: what would happen at 100%? Will both a mini and a zeta spawn, or only a zeta?). As soon as tank XP becomes useful I'm sure clearing will get more indirect incentive by that, too.
2. A successful Zeta run requires many adept people online at the same time, has a low time-frame, and is heavily dependent on the triggering action (aka sector clear). Why is this a problem? Because, for example, I wouldn't bother clearing a sector to 80% if I knew the rest will be cleaned when I'm asleep, missing all the loot I've been working hard for. Also, if there are not many people online at the time, but they would still want to clear a sector they can't do it with good conscience as that zeta would "surely go to waste". A possible solution would be that has been discussed earlier: locking down the spawned zeta, and to unlock it it would require massive damage dealt, so it would be surely enough people around for the event. (An immunity to triggers might be a good idea to avoid shenanigans by corsair shear, DoT attacks and shotguns... Or to make the threshold really high, counting these in, too.)

Before adding more tanks, it would be nice to consider that
a) how the adding of new tanks will be sustainable
b) how the meta game and current balance makes the people prefer the already existing tanks. Just like kelsoo stated, I think too that Phantom is never used (I know I never used and would want to use it), Viking needs a better targeting system (or triggers that help it aiming towards things that it really should be shooting at), and some of the other tanks could use some slight changes too...

[quicklite]

Kelsoo, I agree with all of that except for the viking and the wildfire. First-off, the wildfire does not need any sort of buff. If used correctly, that thing can still rip through its enemies. It can still easily damage small/medium fortresses and outer structues without its triggers, as long as you have both frontal guns targetting the fortress, and then can tear massive holes in anything with its triggers on. You can use the cloak to avoid fire, and the shields are strong enough that although the tank isn't tanky per-se, it isn't fragile either. And its lightning gun under trigger 2 does just fine with dealing with minions. Giving it any further crowd control/power without triggers would just turn that thing back into the killing machine it used to be, whereas nerfing trig 4 would take a massive chunk out of the most valuable aspect of the tank. Keep it as it is, imo. It's still a beastly clearer, and I use it over the minatour frequently.

As for the viking, I agree that it needs some sort of re-do, but I feel like nerfing the main gun and then giving it crowd-control AoEs and whatnot would go completely against the tank and how it works. The main gun is extremely useful. Even though it has reload times and limited targetting smarts, it is a massive damage dealer, has a very substantial range, and is one of the most powerful things in the game when overdrived. Imo, the best fix for it would be a two parter. Firstly, give it weaker, but more complex shields, and give it a very fast shield regen. After all, the idea behind the tank (when I used it), is to maximize the damage done while it's going through a clip or two, and then using the reload times to rotate shields and/or fall back, regen, and re-prepare. As for the fact that it has trouble not aiming at minions, I have a slightly cooler fix: replace its shotgun trigger (which frankly is weak and feels very out-of-place) with a AoE that affects only vehicles (excluding convoys), and puts them in a sort of rotmg-like 'stasis' for 5-7 seconds or so. They are no longer in the way, and allows the viking's gun to hit home, but they aren't outright 'killed' and will come back to be a problem later. Imo, you should be able to drive over land minions under this effect, and they should be unable to come out of stasis if a tank is sitting on it (yes, you could technically exploit this, but seriously, what good would one freaking minion out of the way do?). That would make the viking a hack of a lot more useful, not to mention more unique.

[gingerbear]

Aug 22, 2013 10:28:10 GMT -5 quicklite said:

[...] and puts them in a sort of rotmg-like 'stasis' for 5-7 seconds or so. They are no longer in the way, and allows the viking's gun to hit home, but they aren't outright 'killed' and will come back to be a problem later. Imo, you should be able to drive over land minions under this effect, and they should be unable to come out of stasis if a tank is sitting on it (yes, you could technically exploit this, but seriously, what good would one freaking minion out of the way do?). That would make the viking a hack of a lot more useful, not to mention more unique.

A Mystic in Grid 12? That could be fun. Alternatively, there could be a massive "wind blow" effect, that simply pushes all the small minions out in a moderate radius, letting the viking shoot at whatever it wants. The minions would eventually crawl back, so this would be only a temporary solution, but would be enough time for the viking to deal damage.

Also, Kelsoo, adding invisibility to phantom would be kind of bad, since the whole point of that tank is to, well, tank damage. It's not meant to be chicken out of fight or sneak in/out. In that regards the "phantom" name is a bit misleading, just like the spectre has no cloaking ability either.

[kable]

Why are you making GCTs immune to disarm? Everyone already ignores them, they aren't worthwhile enough to bother.

[Kelsoo]

Aug 22, 2013 10:28:10 GMT -5 quicklite said:

Kelsoo, I agree with all of that except for the viking and the wildfire. First-off, the wildfire does not need any sort of buff. If used correctly, that thing can still rip through its enemies. It can still easily damage small/medium fortresses and outer structues without its triggers, as long as you have both frontal guns targetting the fortress, and then can tear massive holes in anything with its triggers on. You can use the cloak to avoid fire, and the shields are strong enough that although the tank isn't tanky per-se, it isn't fragile either. And its lightning gun under trigger 2 does just fine with dealing with minions. Giving it any further crowd control/power without triggers would just turn that thing back into the killing machine it used to be, whereas nerfing trig 4 would take a massive chunk out of the most valuable aspect of the tank. Keep it as it is, imo. It's still a beastly clearer, and I use it over the minatour frequently.

That is why I proposed decreasing the RoF of it while triggered, I realize how much damage this thing can do while triggered, especially if you can get up close to an enemy, this thing literally tears things apart. But it really isn't all that useful otherwise.

While this tank isn't in most need of a buff, it could definitely have more use with one. It's very fragile in my use, I have a full set of pulches and the tank at all 10's, and it still gets torn through. Where it might be an okay clearer, (definitely would never use it to solo clear) the predator and valk are just straight up better, the tank is nice to have in groups, but not very enjoyable to use, or needed since in groups of 3 or more where this thing won't be getting fired at as much, you are already tearing through fortresses.

When other tanks are just straight up improvements (in their specific fields) something should be done about the tanks that really see no use.

I now agree with you on the Wildfire case for the most part quicklite, while I think it's shield regen should be a bit lower. I do think it is a fine tank, once more people bother to unlock it I will be interested to hear their opinions on the matter. It can't really solo effectively but it is nice to have around and play with.

[israphial]

This build seems pretty good.

I've not spotted any bugs or major issues thusfar. The convoy route changes are interesting, and it seems like we kill less convoys, which means our worlds last longer.
Also, it seems like more people are clearing, which is good. I still suggest an incentive to kill fortresses though. Like, maybe every 20 fortress kills you get an Aug or a special boost to your Exp.

Also, that right click bug still appears to be a bug! Can we please see a fix to it in the next update?

[Kelsoo]

There is a bug where if you go invisible in a tank, then switch it carries over, nothing major but an invisible Hornet is pretty powerful.

[rob]

Aug 23, 2013 2:05:38 GMT -5 Kelsoo said:

There is a bug where if you go invisible in a tank, then switch it carries over, nothing major but an invisible Hornet is pretty powerful.

From my testing, it just lets the cloak continue for the normal 5 or so seconds, which seems not too strong. Is this what you're seeing?

[quicklite]

Also, for the record, most leveled tank should be a thing on the leaderboards. At least give us some reason to try and level tanks before the wipe ^^.

[Kelsoo]

rob, yes that seems to be what I've been getting from messing around with it. Nothing game breaking but it is there.

[gingerbear]

Aug 23, 2013 11:33:22 GMT -5 quicklite said:

Also, for the record, most leveled tank should be a thing on the leaderboards. At least give us some reason to try and level tanks before the wipe ^^.

How is "most leveled tank" is different from "highest augmented tank" page? Aside from missing the exact levels?

We already have that, it is the 3rd page on the top list, right after storage and coins.

Or I'm missing your point.

[quicklite]

As in exp levels, not aug levels. Ya know, the new green bar which does nothing atm.