Build 73

[rob]

Hi all,

We have just released build 73 into the hands of the Brave Testers! Changes include:

* Add ORB-13 subcommander
* Add T.60 subcommander
* Reduce number of Dreadfang Fighters, but increase their strength
* Increase Dreadfang Carrier's hitpoints
* Have Dreadfang attack only when players are in combat
* Make patrols do a quarter circle (not a whole circle) before disappearing
* Buff Vindicator shieldburst and leapburst
* Have X35 regenerate more minions, instead of not

Tim's got one more subcommander he's hoping to introduce next week. Please let us know what you think. And thanks for playing!

Rob

[quicklite]

2 new subcommaders? Damn rob, you've been busy!
It'll be interesting to see how these new minions work for patrols, though I won't say anything about it till I've tried it.
As for the vindicator buff, I don't own one, but it'll be interesting to see how it fares now.

[Ood]

Since I don't see anything about it on the roadmap, this is from build 72 post:

Oct 22, 2013 18:57:22 GMT -5 Crunch said:

Sub-commander bug:
It's possible for the final, destroyed building which would ordinarily spawn the x35 event to coincidentally be the target of the boundaries. If there are no other enemy building within the bounds, the x35 will spawn directly on top of players without warning.

RIP Ood.

Obviously, the building which was just destroyed should not be a valid target for the Sub-commander event(s).

Haven't had it happen again... but it would be nice to know it cannot happen.

Comments about this build:

Orb 13:
It's definitely cool. Flying bombers in a daisy type pattern over a central hard hitting core. But, the center dies a bit too quickly with only a handful of experienced players around. Orb 13 falls victim to the hornet because it doesn't have many minions. A good crowd controller and a strong single target dps (hornet, or others) is all you need aside from a bit of bomb dodging ability.
Though I like the hornet being good at basically everything (it's practically the only tank I play anymore, both for testing and fun reasons), there are some creative ways to reduce its efficacy.
Add minions that ignore players close to the core, instead circle the 'hornet zone' where hornet can just see the central tower enough to use its overdrive. Or,
Add a low power AoE ring burst that leaves the central area unscathed, but does moderate damage to players sitting in the far range (hornets, players recovering, and loot leechers).
Add a phase where the orbs 'bounce' off of a mid-sized circle surrounding the center, leaving a zone of bombless area near the center.

T60:
This one I'm not so sure about. It's a small powerful center that spawns fairly strong minions at an ever increasing rate as it is damaged. Here, the hornet is not effective (hurray!) and I choose the Kraken instead. I thought (perhaps intentionally) that this subco was made for the Kraken, your anti-minion gun can almost keep up with the minion spawning throughout 75% of the fight with the help of triggers, but unfortunately, my kraken was basically sitting in the same spot firing away. No need to move, my thick shields and regen triggers will protect me.

Perhaps instead of increasing the rate at which minions are made based on damage (have it go berserk sooner), give it 4 or 5 different minions along the way. Start with a slightly higher rate of the minions currently in place, then at 15% core damage, add another minion that circles the T60 in a different pattern. then another at 30%, 45%, and 60%. Then increase all the spawn rates slightly at 75%, again at 85%, and finally 95%. This will let more tanks get in on the party, you can have krakens, hurricanes, and hercules on crowd control duty, then you can have the structure specialists (mino, spectre, predator, anyone else with decent shields) get in close and take out the center.

Edit:
X35 now seems fine. It's still a bit bland and similar to the rest of the enemies in the game (one x35 is the exact same as any other x35...) but it's sufficiently difficult, and the healing things are a nice touch.

Dreadfang:
Still causes me virtually instant lag death. instead of bursting its minions, can you please let it stream them? Better still, have it constantly stream minions, but have the rate go up and down.

Vindicator:
Still not my favorite tank to group with. Crunchy seems to have it down best, you teleport to a town, switch to vindi, /goto player, burst, flee, repeat. There's not a whole lot of actual get your shields down, go to next structure take more damage, reduce shields, then burst... it's most effective when you abuse the sheildless tank switch.

[platima]

Hey Rob,

Posted this in another thread but was advised to post here. Two bugs (possibly) I had last night:

1. I could not use the login screen in Google Chrome (30.0.1599.101, OS X 10.7.5) - it would not let me type. I have this same issue with RotMG, so I'm not sure if it's to do with Chrome's Pepper plugin, or the Flash SDK used for the game. Using Chrome Canary though worked, which interestingly was the same with RotMG about 6 months ago, with Chrome ~23.
2. This could be a feature that I don't understand, but we were playing, I had 10 or 11 pulchs, and then suddenly had 2. No death, they just disappeared. I didn't actually see it happen, I saw it go up by one, then noticed 10 mins later it was at 2.

Cheers
-Platima

[platima]

Oh and 3. At point the game just dropped to 1 FPS, and Flash was using 100% CPU. Had to kill the process and reload the page.

[tribow]

Is it just me or am I the only one that cant wait for the next subcommanders.

[Justin]

Bug report (Not specific to this build)

I've always been complaining about how loot that I saw disappeared somehow because I teleported to origin or waited too long. Randomly I thought of why it might be occurring and tested it with levesque.

Hypothesis:
By killing an enemy within visible range, it will drop loot.

Test 1:
1. Levesque kills a watchtower and I stay within 'loot-range'.
2. I see the blue loot glowing, wait a few seconds, and go to origin.
3. Levesque stands on top of the loot and I teleport back.

Expected Result:
I would receive loot immediately upon teleport.

Experiment Result:
The loot is faded and I receive no exp/splinters/augs/tanks/stor etc.

Test 2:
Repeat 1 and 2 of previous test.
3. Levesque stands anywhere besides where he stood last time (So I would have to move my tank onto the loot instead of just receiving it instantly).

Expected Result:
I would still see the glowing loot, and then receive it by walking on it.

Experiment Result:
Same as expected result.

Conclusion:
After killing an enemy fortress and clearly seeing it dropping loot, by teleporting to Origin and back to a person sitting directly on the loot, it will become 'void' as if I had already received it.

[Duco]

Oct 26, 2013 21:12:12 GMT -5 platima said:

Hey Rob,

Posted this in another thread but was advised to post here. Two bugs (possibly) I had last night:

1. I could not use the login screen in Google Chrome (30.0.1599.101, OS X 10.7.5) - it would not let me type. I have this same issue with RotMG, so I'm not sure if it's to do with Chrome's Pepper plugin, or the Flash SDK used for the game. Using Chrome Canary though worked, which interestingly was the same with RotMG about 6 months ago, with Chrome ~23.
2. This could be a feature that I don't understand, but we were playing, I had 10 or 11 pulchs, and then suddenly had 2. No death, they just disappeared. I didn't actually see it happen, I saw it go up by one, then noticed 10 mins later it was at 2.

Cheers
-Platima

I think that due to lag the server thinks you died while the client thinks you didn't.

The server disconnects you because you died and changes your prisms to auroral.
The client connects and keeps your prisms at pulch.

Some time later, the client decides to check your prisms and the server sends that you have 2 pulch prisms.

"But where do these 2 prisms come from?" -You found them.


Just a theory on what might have happened.