Post by tarbomb on Dec 2, 2013 2:05:30 GMT -5
Okay, it's Thanksgiving weekend. Time for Potpourri III.
Since I haven't really had the time to give good feedback for some time, I'll be covering a lot of topics in this post, going back a few builds.
The biggest change in the game, lately, has been the map. Whereas before, the map served generally as a backdrop for the game - it was always there, but short of clearing convoy routes, it never mattered - it's now front and center. I think that's a good thing, especially in a heavily position-based game like Grid. It definitely adds a good deal of variety to the game, since you're no longer spending all your time killing the same enemies over and over again. That being said, I feel there are a few shortcomings in the map metagame.
My biggest gripe with it is that you have little control over the map, despite it playing such a large role in the game. Aside from deciding where and when to kill enemies and which direction to scout (and even here you are heavily restrained by comlink), you have no control of the map - convoy routes, towns, regions, subcom positions, and a lot of other things are at the mercy of the RNG. This often leads to very frustrating situations. One issue that frequently arises is that there are no towns at the edges of a convoy route. Take a look at this image:
If there's a convoy heading on the horizontal route heading eastwards, nobody will see it until it crosses New Struveana. The problem isn't much that you can't do anything about it. It's all a matter of getting lucky enough to find a town that's near a convoy route. If there isn't one, or it's in a bad place? Tough luck.
What I'm hoping to see is some form of additional control over the map, instead of it being completely random. It could be anything from some sort of droppable sensor that would detect incoming convoys to full-fledged costructable towns.
I've said this a few times, and I think now is a good time to say it again: I don't like the region system as it is right now. It's too regular and uniform; each region is, for all intents and purposes, its own little game, with an endgame boss, a goal (to clear it), minibosses, escape flotillas, etc. Instead of one single overarching map, Grid12 seems to be composed of a bunch of individual games that just happen to be occurring on the same map, with convoys being the only thing that stitches them together.
I'd like to see more interesting, irregular patters of different terrains with different buffs (perhaps even continuously varying buffs, similar to the old resonator system except with resonators being preexisting on the map instead of user-constructed), and the square region concept done away with; events currently based on region clearing could be changed to depend on performing tasks based on random map waypoints (e.g. find eight summoning crystals of the same color from random points on the minimap, and placing them onto a preexisting slot to spawn a region boss).
Admittedly, the regularity has an advantage - in theory, you could put each region on its own server, allowing the concepts of "servers" to integrate well with the game. If that's what you're planning to do, I propose creating "super-regions", perhaps equivalent to a 3x3 square of current regions.
In general, what I want to see is more building action. Killing stuff should only be one facet of the game. Building cities, and perhaps roads and other landmarks on the map, would give the game a much more interesting strategic factor, and allows more forms of teamwork in the game rather than just "Come here and gimme some extra DPS!"
Game progression has changed quite a lot too. Modules have significantly changed game advancement. It's definitely an upgrade over just augments, but there are two points I want to raise about them:
1) Randomizing modules each time you buy or meld them makes absolutely no sense. The prospective customer or melder is essentially reduced to playing a lottery with relatively rare and valuable items, wagering that the upgrades will be useful. Worse yet, it cuts off control over playstyle - whereas one can decide to focus on some facet of development (say, speed) with augments, the randomized system precludes that. If I want my trailblazer to have really strong shields but I don't care how long speedboost takes to recharge? Too bad, not possible.
I'll propose another system: instead of "levels" for modules, we'll have "base" modules providing a +1 stat boost in some stat (randomized on drop, and constant thereafter). You can meld two modules, which will combine their stats and downscale them by some constant factor (so, for instance, melding a +1 cloak regen and a +1 shield strength will result in a module with 0.8 cloak regen and +0.8 shield strength) - the downscaling prevents people from simply tacking on modules to each other to create an utterly overpowered tank.
2) Augments don't really make sense anymore. After getting to level 10 or so, there's no real point in boosting stats by paltry 0.5 increments when a single augment can boost your stats by 5%. Augments were never particularly noticeable in the first place; I think they need a buff.
On the topic of drops, nobody would miss crystal splinters if they were removed and not replaced with anything. They're utterly useless.
Here's some feedback on some specific tanks and enemies.
- Spectre is horrible. The damage is strictly mediocre, the rather weak shields take forever to regenerate (this is its achilles heel), and the firing arc isn't that great. The only thing that I've found it remotely useful for is killing GCTs, which isn't something that needs a specialized tank in any case.
- Fury isn't a great tank anymore. The double-layered shield no longer manages to impress now that there are so many tanks with cloaks and invincibility abilities, the damage is mediocre, and in general it's been eclipsed utterly by the phantom, which has unquestionably superior defensive ability (cloak is a huge factor), firing arc, and ease of use. Its mine is completely useless, since things you want to paralyze are normally running away from you, and the mine takes too long to arm. I actually haven't seen anyone using a fury in the previous few weeks.
- Wolverine, like fury, is a pretty decent tank, but falls flat on its face when compared to a phantom, which has superior shields, roughly equivalent DPS, and a cloak.
- Hurricane is highly hampered by its lack of decent shields. It's only able to target three enemies (eight on boost), the damage isn't that great, and the shields aren't as strong as (yeah, you guessed it) a phantom's.
- Phantom seems a little too popular now. It's by far the most popular tank in the game, for reasons described above, and is good at everything - clearing, convoying, and even scouting to some extent (I might rank it equal to a trailblazer in a high-rectangle low-watchtower zone). It doesn't need a nerf, but it needs to be made more "angular" in focus - part of the appeal is that it can do everything decently, which prevents people from using other tanks.
- Dragon and Guardian are nice, well-balanced tanks. I'd like to see Dragon's guns replaced with a shorter range but more powerful lightning gun though, for self-defense against minions.
- I miss the old drill station. The new drill feels too much like a building on steroids rather than a unique enemy, since a) 360 degree firing arc on the walls means that orbiting the drill in the center is not really an option anymore (it seems you can't orbit anything except GCTs anymore) and b) the minions spawn from the center, like any other enemy. I'd love to see a return to more restricted firing arc on the drill walls and minions spawning from the annexes. Save the damage fest for the deltas.
- Novas. These things are annoying. It's essentially an exercise in patience and drudgery. Walk up to it, shoot it for a bit until you lose shields, back out, and do it again for three or four times. There's no real strategy or tactics involved - just sitting on it is how everyone does it. It's just an exercise in frustration, and the loot's not outstanding either, considering that it takes as long to kill as a drill or a delta. Either nerf the healing or the minionspam, or boost the loot to make them worth it.
- Walls. I like this enemy - long range, fairly hard punch, and can't be leapt over by a 'blazer blink. The loot's horrible though - GCTs drop loot that's just as good most of the time, and 2% module drop isn't enough to redeem it in my opinion. If they dropped guaranteed pulches, that would be great.
- [edit] Escape flotillas. The work/reward curve makes no sense to me whatsoever. They're approximately as hard as convoys, if not slightly harder due to having aggressive minions. They spawn randomly, too, so unless you're actively monitoring the map, you won't know when one spawns (this could be fixed with a chat message). My main gripe with them, though, is that for an enemy that takes as long to kill as a convoy, and apparently has the same loot (I've never seen one killed before, but I recall Rob mentioned convoy-level loot in one of the build notes or in the chat), it's simply not worth it to clear a sizeable path for a flotilla. If you clear a path for a convoy, it's good for 50 convoys. If you clear a path for a flotilla, it's good for only one flotilla, and even then the path will be shorter because the flotilla spawns in the middle of a region rather than crossing it. The concept has promise, but flotillas need major changes. Make them move slower, toughen them up, and possibly buff the loot drop.
On testers: I think we need more of them. Most of the time when I log in I'm the only one. There's a small core of testers who continue to play right now, but I think that this core, myself included, suffers from a lack of "newbie perspective" - we're too accustomed to the game as it is now, and the opinions we form reflect that. While there are newbies, there aren't enough. I don't think the game is ready to be open to the general public yet, but I, and many others I've discussed this with, agree that we need more new players in this game. I can't offer any ideas for this (I don't know anyone else who would be interested), but some others have suggested taking the game to TIGsource or some similar community.
Finally, some miscellany:
- Will scouting leaderboards become part of the game? (Yeah, I probably sound hackneyed now.)
- I've been getting a lot more random freezes, blackscreens, etc. Last night the server crashed in the middle of an omega, kicking everyone on at the time for a minute or so (less than five minutes); the omega was gone when the server went back up. Often I log in and the game blackscreens or just shows the background and not my tank until I wait a bit, and sometimes I need to refresh several times to get it working.
- The new ProBoards is really annoying. I've been logging in a lot less these days because I can't click Cmd-\ to log in anymore - I have to click login, then Cmd-\, then wait for a painfully slow redirect, then go back to where I was. Is there any way to get the old login back?
- It would be nice to be able to see (but not act on - allowing people to select nonoptimal prices allows them to game the market) more prices in the market than just the best one. For instance if I need a 15 tank but there's none on the market, I might want to buy two 14 tanks instead... but there's no way for me to know if more than one person has a 14 tank for sale at a reasonable price.
- [edit] Different kinds of red arrows for different enemies would be nice. Often I'm zoomed in, orbiting a watchtower to regen health and shields and I see a red arrow and think it's a convoy somewhere far-off - no need to care about it - and before I can react, I get knocked out by a patrol right on top of me. Different arrows for convoy/patrols/bosses, or a range indicator, would be nice.
- [edit 2] Red dots are occasionally buggy. They sometimes "stick" on the screen, despite nobody being near them, and they don't move until someone moves close to the new position of the convoy/patrol and updates its position. Here's it happening to a patrol - note that it's not close to any tank or town:
It appears to be a client-side bug; I asked another person if he saw it and he said he did not.
I'll try to get dummies updated next week, after my school load lightens a bit.
Also, happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Thanks especially to Rob for this great game.
Since I haven't really had the time to give good feedback for some time, I'll be covering a lot of topics in this post, going back a few builds.
The biggest change in the game, lately, has been the map. Whereas before, the map served generally as a backdrop for the game - it was always there, but short of clearing convoy routes, it never mattered - it's now front and center. I think that's a good thing, especially in a heavily position-based game like Grid. It definitely adds a good deal of variety to the game, since you're no longer spending all your time killing the same enemies over and over again. That being said, I feel there are a few shortcomings in the map metagame.
My biggest gripe with it is that you have little control over the map, despite it playing such a large role in the game. Aside from deciding where and when to kill enemies and which direction to scout (and even here you are heavily restrained by comlink), you have no control of the map - convoy routes, towns, regions, subcom positions, and a lot of other things are at the mercy of the RNG. This often leads to very frustrating situations. One issue that frequently arises is that there are no towns at the edges of a convoy route. Take a look at this image:
If there's a convoy heading on the horizontal route heading eastwards, nobody will see it until it crosses New Struveana. The problem isn't much that you can't do anything about it. It's all a matter of getting lucky enough to find a town that's near a convoy route. If there isn't one, or it's in a bad place? Tough luck.
What I'm hoping to see is some form of additional control over the map, instead of it being completely random. It could be anything from some sort of droppable sensor that would detect incoming convoys to full-fledged costructable towns.
I've said this a few times, and I think now is a good time to say it again: I don't like the region system as it is right now. It's too regular and uniform; each region is, for all intents and purposes, its own little game, with an endgame boss, a goal (to clear it), minibosses, escape flotillas, etc. Instead of one single overarching map, Grid12 seems to be composed of a bunch of individual games that just happen to be occurring on the same map, with convoys being the only thing that stitches them together.
I'd like to see more interesting, irregular patters of different terrains with different buffs (perhaps even continuously varying buffs, similar to the old resonator system except with resonators being preexisting on the map instead of user-constructed), and the square region concept done away with; events currently based on region clearing could be changed to depend on performing tasks based on random map waypoints (e.g. find eight summoning crystals of the same color from random points on the minimap, and placing them onto a preexisting slot to spawn a region boss).
Admittedly, the regularity has an advantage - in theory, you could put each region on its own server, allowing the concepts of "servers" to integrate well with the game. If that's what you're planning to do, I propose creating "super-regions", perhaps equivalent to a 3x3 square of current regions.
In general, what I want to see is more building action. Killing stuff should only be one facet of the game. Building cities, and perhaps roads and other landmarks on the map, would give the game a much more interesting strategic factor, and allows more forms of teamwork in the game rather than just "Come here and gimme some extra DPS!"
Game progression has changed quite a lot too. Modules have significantly changed game advancement. It's definitely an upgrade over just augments, but there are two points I want to raise about them:
1) Randomizing modules each time you buy or meld them makes absolutely no sense. The prospective customer or melder is essentially reduced to playing a lottery with relatively rare and valuable items, wagering that the upgrades will be useful. Worse yet, it cuts off control over playstyle - whereas one can decide to focus on some facet of development (say, speed) with augments, the randomized system precludes that. If I want my trailblazer to have really strong shields but I don't care how long speedboost takes to recharge? Too bad, not possible.
I'll propose another system: instead of "levels" for modules, we'll have "base" modules providing a +1 stat boost in some stat (randomized on drop, and constant thereafter). You can meld two modules, which will combine their stats and downscale them by some constant factor (so, for instance, melding a +1 cloak regen and a +1 shield strength will result in a module with 0.8 cloak regen and +0.8 shield strength) - the downscaling prevents people from simply tacking on modules to each other to create an utterly overpowered tank.
2) Augments don't really make sense anymore. After getting to level 10 or so, there's no real point in boosting stats by paltry 0.5 increments when a single augment can boost your stats by 5%. Augments were never particularly noticeable in the first place; I think they need a buff.
On the topic of drops, nobody would miss crystal splinters if they were removed and not replaced with anything. They're utterly useless.
Here's some feedback on some specific tanks and enemies.
- Spectre is horrible. The damage is strictly mediocre, the rather weak shields take forever to regenerate (this is its achilles heel), and the firing arc isn't that great. The only thing that I've found it remotely useful for is killing GCTs, which isn't something that needs a specialized tank in any case.
- Fury isn't a great tank anymore. The double-layered shield no longer manages to impress now that there are so many tanks with cloaks and invincibility abilities, the damage is mediocre, and in general it's been eclipsed utterly by the phantom, which has unquestionably superior defensive ability (cloak is a huge factor), firing arc, and ease of use. Its mine is completely useless, since things you want to paralyze are normally running away from you, and the mine takes too long to arm. I actually haven't seen anyone using a fury in the previous few weeks.
- Wolverine, like fury, is a pretty decent tank, but falls flat on its face when compared to a phantom, which has superior shields, roughly equivalent DPS, and a cloak.
- Hurricane is highly hampered by its lack of decent shields. It's only able to target three enemies (eight on boost), the damage isn't that great, and the shields aren't as strong as (yeah, you guessed it) a phantom's.
- Phantom seems a little too popular now. It's by far the most popular tank in the game, for reasons described above, and is good at everything - clearing, convoying, and even scouting to some extent (I might rank it equal to a trailblazer in a high-rectangle low-watchtower zone). It doesn't need a nerf, but it needs to be made more "angular" in focus - part of the appeal is that it can do everything decently, which prevents people from using other tanks.
- Dragon and Guardian are nice, well-balanced tanks. I'd like to see Dragon's guns replaced with a shorter range but more powerful lightning gun though, for self-defense against minions.
- I miss the old drill station. The new drill feels too much like a building on steroids rather than a unique enemy, since a) 360 degree firing arc on the walls means that orbiting the drill in the center is not really an option anymore (it seems you can't orbit anything except GCTs anymore) and b) the minions spawn from the center, like any other enemy. I'd love to see a return to more restricted firing arc on the drill walls and minions spawning from the annexes. Save the damage fest for the deltas.
- Novas. These things are annoying. It's essentially an exercise in patience and drudgery. Walk up to it, shoot it for a bit until you lose shields, back out, and do it again for three or four times. There's no real strategy or tactics involved - just sitting on it is how everyone does it. It's just an exercise in frustration, and the loot's not outstanding either, considering that it takes as long to kill as a drill or a delta. Either nerf the healing or the minionspam, or boost the loot to make them worth it.
- Walls. I like this enemy - long range, fairly hard punch, and can't be leapt over by a 'blazer blink. The loot's horrible though - GCTs drop loot that's just as good most of the time, and 2% module drop isn't enough to redeem it in my opinion. If they dropped guaranteed pulches, that would be great.
- [edit] Escape flotillas. The work/reward curve makes no sense to me whatsoever. They're approximately as hard as convoys, if not slightly harder due to having aggressive minions. They spawn randomly, too, so unless you're actively monitoring the map, you won't know when one spawns (this could be fixed with a chat message). My main gripe with them, though, is that for an enemy that takes as long to kill as a convoy, and apparently has the same loot (I've never seen one killed before, but I recall Rob mentioned convoy-level loot in one of the build notes or in the chat), it's simply not worth it to clear a sizeable path for a flotilla. If you clear a path for a convoy, it's good for 50 convoys. If you clear a path for a flotilla, it's good for only one flotilla, and even then the path will be shorter because the flotilla spawns in the middle of a region rather than crossing it. The concept has promise, but flotillas need major changes. Make them move slower, toughen them up, and possibly buff the loot drop.
On testers: I think we need more of them. Most of the time when I log in I'm the only one. There's a small core of testers who continue to play right now, but I think that this core, myself included, suffers from a lack of "newbie perspective" - we're too accustomed to the game as it is now, and the opinions we form reflect that. While there are newbies, there aren't enough. I don't think the game is ready to be open to the general public yet, but I, and many others I've discussed this with, agree that we need more new players in this game. I can't offer any ideas for this (I don't know anyone else who would be interested), but some others have suggested taking the game to TIGsource or some similar community.
Finally, some miscellany:
- Will scouting leaderboards become part of the game? (Yeah, I probably sound hackneyed now.)
- I've been getting a lot more random freezes, blackscreens, etc. Last night the server crashed in the middle of an omega, kicking everyone on at the time for a minute or so (less than five minutes); the omega was gone when the server went back up. Often I log in and the game blackscreens or just shows the background and not my tank until I wait a bit, and sometimes I need to refresh several times to get it working.
- The new ProBoards is really annoying. I've been logging in a lot less these days because I can't click Cmd-\ to log in anymore - I have to click login, then Cmd-\, then wait for a painfully slow redirect, then go back to where I was. Is there any way to get the old login back?
- It would be nice to be able to see (but not act on - allowing people to select nonoptimal prices allows them to game the market) more prices in the market than just the best one. For instance if I need a 15 tank but there's none on the market, I might want to buy two 14 tanks instead... but there's no way for me to know if more than one person has a 14 tank for sale at a reasonable price.
- [edit] Different kinds of red arrows for different enemies would be nice. Often I'm zoomed in, orbiting a watchtower to regen health and shields and I see a red arrow and think it's a convoy somewhere far-off - no need to care about it - and before I can react, I get knocked out by a patrol right on top of me. Different arrows for convoy/patrols/bosses, or a range indicator, would be nice.
- [edit 2] Red dots are occasionally buggy. They sometimes "stick" on the screen, despite nobody being near them, and they don't move until someone moves close to the new position of the convoy/patrol and updates its position. Here's it happening to a patrol - note that it's not close to any tank or town:
It appears to be a client-side bug; I asked another person if he saw it and he said he did not.
I'll try to get dummies updated next week, after my school load lightens a bit.
Also, happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Thanks especially to Rob for this great game.
