Build 81

[rob]

Happy New Year!

We are here one day early with build 81. Changes include:

* Add Aggressor-class Dronebase
* Add Butcher-class Missile Station
* Fix bug which disconnected users who used triggers exactly when they finished cooling down

We are planning to spend the coming week improving our content editor, which should make it easier to provide more tanks, enemies, etc in the future.

Thanks for playing!

Rob & Tim
Jetbolt Games

[tarbomb]

Butcher is pretty cool. The homing missiles do a good deal of damage (enough to knock my trailblazer's outer shields completely out and do some damage to the inner). My main gripe is that the missiles are way too hard to see (too small and poor contrast), but other than that, I'm enjoying this enemy.



I haven't seen an aggressor yet, although I think I saw a drone flying past. Those things seem pretty rare.

[Kelsoo]

All notes from the previous build rollover to here. Everything about tank balance should be summed up there and ideas about subcommanders.

As for the new content.

Butcher class: Tormentor clone is what this one seems like, or maybe a more fitting name would be Tormentor 2.0 . It's plenty fun, at first I was screaming in my head for missile range nerf, though after doing it, I couldn't see this enemy doing anything else. It uses the same concept of circling, but makes it actually dangerous (in some way at least) constantly trying to run away from this fortress's missiles even if you aren't engaged with it adds variety to other towers in-game, and fun.

But where this tower fails (and many like it) is group circling, a plague that effects GCT's and the like. Though GCT's are much less dangerous in comparison due to less damage, circling this guy with more than one person can spell death for many as the missiles are a death sentence. As a solo tower, this is fine, as a tower that adds different dynamics to what the game already has in place, it succeeds as well, but as a tower that can be done with groups, it brings out the problems with the current teleport system, and the enemy unit itself.

Constantly having to Orgin when trying to do something like this with a group and miss out on a reward can be frustrating, and is very much so. As it stands, the Butcher Class enemy, does it's job, and that's about it in my opinion. And has room for improvement, but does not necessarily need it immediately.

Aggressor Class: If this enemy was made with the sole intention of being another super tank nuisance that screams "ignore me I'm not worth it!" Then it unfortunately, succeeded. With no real strategy on how to actually face this guy other than, group as many people as possible together with high DPS tanks and kill it before it spawns 20 more minions, it isn't all that fun to face.

Though the idea of letting the enemies chase you with no distance cap (it seems) is a good one. But I would like to see their HP take a slight nerf. And luckily, this enemy seems rare enough. I hope to see some work done to it.

Also please do something about the Super Tank. I hate it.

[Kelsoo]

The town level bug still exists as well.

[Ood]

So, this has been going on now for a while... Whenever I try to load the game on this computer, it won't connect to the server (or at least that's what it seems like). The play screen loads fine. I click to login, enter my credentials, then get an infinite connecting... message.
Is this because of my connection, or because of something else?
Sorry for the poor description. There just isn't much to describe.

[tarbomb]

So, I just encountered an aggressor drone base. I'm not sure why Kelsoo said it was annoying to kill - I managed to mop one up solo quite quickly in a speed-boosting zone. With no guns and no preexisting minions (making a swarm takes time), it's actually a pretty straightforward enemy to kill, provided you don't dally too much. The philosophy seems to be "kill it as soon as possible if you see it, before it spawns drones," which adds more variety to gameplay, since simply staying at the edge of the cleared region isn't a completely viable strategy anymore.

I'll update this post with the video once vimeo finishes processing it. Edit: here it is: vimeo.com/84078740

As for butchers: the missiles not only need to be more visible, as I mentioned in the post above, but they have to be distinguishable from the ones that building minions shoot. It is extremely annoying to see a missile coming and not know what it is so I can decide to dodge or ignore it.

[rob]

Jan 13, 2014 16:15:09 GMT -5 Ood said:

So, this has been going on now for a while... Whenever I try to load the game on this computer, it won't connect to the server (or at least that's what it seems like). The play screen loads fine. I click to login, enter my credentials, then get an infinite connecting... message.
Is this because of my connection, or because of something else?
Sorry for the poor description. There just isn't much to describe.

I just saw the same thing, and restarted Chrome to fix it. I'm on Windows 7.

[Ood]

rob
I use Chrome yes, and Windoze 7, I've had this issue for maybe 4 months now (whenever I asked you to reset my password was the beginning, maybe late 60s build wise), restarts of computer, Chrome, etc. do not make me connect. Using Firefox or Internet Exploder gives the same result. If there is some hidden 'forced' restart in Chrome that I could try I'd be happy to give it a go. Clearing cache doesn't solve the issue, even re-install of Chrome doesn't do it. Flash (both of them) are up to date, disabling one or the other doesn't work, nor does having both enabled.
*shrug*