Rondel's Game Impressions/Suggestions

[elrondel]

I'm gonna summarize all of my thoughts, sorta like a blog here. It can be closed if we can't do something like that.

First off, my build 21 post:
I haven't played enough to make a long review, either. However, I can say my first impressions :
Firstly, my laptop with 3GB RAM / Will post further specs later can definitely not run this game so far, although background programs might have something to do with that.

My desktop, though, can definitely run it -
I was a bit confused at what to do when I first joined the game after Tutorial. The tutorial was simple enough, but I feel that it would be helpful to explain the depositing gridshards, leveling up, prisms, etc. at the end of the tutorial.

After wandering around a bit and reading the Instructions on forums and asking Linkshot for some help, I really got happy with the game. I'm enjoying the different classes and ease to swap; those are really great factors to me.

I've heard about the collisions with players- While it may become a problem later on, I like the metaphysics of the game as they are.

I think that the environment needs to change more dramatically, but that's a minor issue to me right now.

I also enjoy the ease of camera swap - I like both modes, right now, but would be interested to see what could happen with the traditional WASD / QE option, similar to RotMG's camera rotation.

Last thing for now; I think that lenses should be more defined in level, as to make it more clear to which a player wants to collect; I also think there should be an option to discard (Some people like the $$$ factor from collecting five of the best lenses, for example.)
All of these are minor points. So far, I'm really enjoying the concept of the game. Can't wait to see how it progresses.

Edit: Also, I think 3-5 seconds on the wait after leveling up a building would be better. It gives time for the tank to turn around and whatnot.

Edit 2: Alright, after playing a few hours, I'm at level 4 and think that drops are a bit too easy to come by. My loot at this time are Double Resplendent Abs. Prisms, a Flawless and Exquisite Focusing Prism, two Resplendent Stabilizations, a Resplendent and Exquisite Dissipation, two Flawless Deflections, and a Resplendent and Pulch Overdrive. These seem good to me (Pulch best?) for only a few hours of play at a lower "leveled" zone.

Edit 3: Hurricane range seems flawed. I can snipe off a tank without getting hit or moving period.

Read more: grid12.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=26&page=2#ixzz27p3DeKkN


My current idea, way out there:
9/28/2012: I think there needs to be more punishment on death. Total loss of gridshards is great, but they can be re-farmed. I had a conversation with someone a while ago about loot drops and their ease; I realize that this will be changed later, but what about dropping a tier off of two random prisms per death? This will encourage loot progression and re-progression, while adding depth to death.

9/29/2012:
Here are my laptop's specs:
3GB RAM
358MB Approx. Total Memory on GPU
Runs the game at 5-7 FPS with background; I can run Realm at ~40 on Low. I can't seem to change the Quality on this game (My right click menu is bugged?)
Without background, I can run this at 19-25 FPS on that laptop.

My desktop upstairs with 8GB RAM/512 MB Graphics can run this at 50+ with background and max without it.

[elrondel]

9/29/2012 3:45 PM CST, game Victory

[stupidity]

Regarding WASD movement:

I, too, would like to feel like I have more control. I can understand the concept of one-click playing for a number of reasons, but eventually I feel like I personally am not *doing anything*.

I have the distinct impression that we want to make sure this game can be played on an ipad . For that reason, I am wistful for a more in-depth play style that doesn't involve a bunch of controls. The bottom line is that I want to feel skilled (or at least growing in skill) at playing this game. If all I ever do is one-clicking I don't feel that way and I won't keep playing.....unless there is something *else* that makes gameplay more deep. Maybe the strategy decisions are very specific. Maybe the co-op is phenomenally good. *shrug* I just don't know, but I would like to make up for the lack of controls with something else that makes me feel good at the game.

[amitp]

My hope is that the one-click controls can be combined with a “where you stand matters” to make the gameplay more interesting. For example, wall tiles, energy booster tiles, travel speed booster tiles (for fast travel), ricochet shots, defense boost tiles, range boost tiles, etc. So the game becomes not only do you have to get in range and oriented the right direction, but you also have to think about where exactly to stand, and these places could be changing as combat progresses.

Essentially, instead of clicking on your special abilities to use them, you'd click on places on the map that enable the special abilities. They'd be attached to the world instead of to your character. You'd have to evaluate each situation, figure out what specials are around for that situation, and choose how to use them most effectively. Skill would be not purely about your own character, but about your ability to figure out how to combine what you have and what the world offers in each unique situation.

However, this is all a big unknown — would that be any fun? I don't know!

If this kind of gameplay is fun then there's a combinatorial explosion of gameplay possibilities — each type of tank multiplied by each type of enemy multiplied by each area of the world would provide lots of variety. I know it's fun in games like Civilization — every time you play, you have a different world and different opportunities and have to figure out how to best take advantage of them. There's a huge variety in gameplay without requiring the game designers to keep coming up with new content all the time, which is what traditional MMOs (and also RotMG) end up doing.

Disclaimer: this is just something I'd like to see; I don't know if Rob is actually planning to try this out.

[elrondel]

10/02/2012: Theorycrafting Day and Conspiracies Galore
Right, so, I was on half an hour ago and noticed a town at level 1 that I could teleport to (Firebase Charlois). I headed there, checking the global bonuses after a day off -100% Dmg, 100% Range ,105% CD or so. "Cool," I think to myself.
At Firebase Charlois, there's no sockets filled, town's barely leveled. I dump my 40k gridshard into the town, making it around level 3.
At level 3, this town now has 4 green resonators, a few blues, a few yellows, and other colors.

Now this is where I get crazy.
For half an hour, I straight up farm the entire area. 50k grid at least without the lens bonuses. I cap off a few green bonuses and watch my damage buff fly to 125%. You can head to Firebase yourself - I did only the greens, left everything else.
Up to 135% now at 50 minutes later.

Now, here's the theorycrafting part:

I didn't touch a SINGLE lab or extractor point.
So, theoretically, if an entire group (namely the testers) went around, explored, and buffed up the resonators, could they not achieve an extremely high level of damage, and roam around powerleveling and farming victory points?
Since the surrounding enemies become harder, that group could buff research to 9/10 before doing this (It's currently at 7/10 and we have multiple +100% buffs, and could easily hit 200% soon)
I think that is really, really powerful..

[elrondel]

10/02/2012 BUG

When I break an item I already have (I.E. Pink pulch) I see a +xxx show up, usually +800, but none are added to my total. I am 100% sure that I am not picking up any actual gridshards except for the item broken.

Example picture:

[stupidity]

Responding to your theorycraft topic.

I can also envision players yelling at each other over a rift between those who feel the "right" way to play is to push for research level 10 (victory) while another group might say that the "profitable" way to play is to farm victory points with all the global buffs.

[amitp]

Yes, I think there's a disincentive to get to 10/10.

However, in my notebook I have “Cap #victory points so that people don't farm at the end” and I believe Rob knows about this issue too.

The current end-game system was just the quickest thing to get to a playable game; it's not the final design. A lot of the focus is on making sure combat is fun, adding to the variety of player tanks (a new tank coming very soon!!), adding to variety of enemies (seeing the next building struck fear into my heart). So I think all of our conversations here about the middle and end game are going to greatly influence the things that are tried out.

[stupidity]

Capping victory points just tells us who our two fighting camps are. The ones who are trying to close the server are the ones who already reached max, while the ones who are trying to farm victory points are those who haven't.

Better to do two things:
1)balance early server exploration rewards with late game killing rewards.
2)put a strong incentive to actually closing the server. If I am *forced* to close the server, that is disappointing. If I *want* to close the server, I will be happy.

[amitp]

My hope is that the “big picture” game changes completely and there's no more conflict over closing the server. Right now there's a disconnect between the two goals — victory points are separate from the winning conditions, and worse, they're in conflict. If they were in alignment (victory is a consequence of winning instead of victory points are awarded for not winning) then I'd *want* to close the server because it'd be a victory.

You can see the alignment right now in XP and town building. There's not a conflict between helping everyone (by building towns) and helping myself (by getting XP). The two are in alignment because helping everyone also helps me. I like this design. Sure, you can waste your shards on something useless, but you are (almost?) never in a position where your use of shards hurts other players.

For example, instead of a 10/10 research level, if the goal were to rebuild our civilization by colonizing 200 sectors, then we could award a victory point for each sector colonized, and more victory points means we get closer to winning the game. This design caps victory points at 200, but I think it wouldn't feel like an icky arbitrary cap. I don't know whether this specific idea would work out (it's just a guess that hasn't survived player testing) but that's along the lines of what I'd like to see — never have conflicting goals for the endgame. Conflicting goals means some players will want the game to go one way and others the other way and there will be arguments and bad blood between the camps.

[linkshot]

Can people steal a colonization? Is it radius-based? If you contribute to the colony, do you get a shared point?

[elrondel]

New bug : Buildings don't update 'til you leave the screen (downgrade)

[elrondel]

There's another game end. Lots of bonuses

Not sure if it's a bug, but on the game reset I spawned with those 4 lenses in my inventory. First building I got the 5th one to make an all-different combo. Free 50k to start the new world. Gave us a level 3 Origin right off the bat.

[elrondel]

I haven't been on for a little while, school's been keeping me busy. Hopefully I'll be able to try out these new builds soon