The State of Maze Regions (And the Game)

[Kelsoo]

Maze regions are not that new of a concept in the game, they have been added maybe somewhat recently, but it does seem that only just recently in the past two weeks or so that these regions are starting to finally be explored and attacked for the precious ability to farm the walls which aid in in the ability to greatly speed up the tedium that is farming tanks.

Now here is where I find a problem or would like to maybe present my ideas and thoughts on maze regions, because I think they are a step in a very right direction for the game. First, they force players to come up with strategies to get past the horrific exterminator missile stations(which I will get to). And secondly, force players to fight in cramped spaces. The best way I have found to speed up clearing a maze region and reaping the benefits of which I refer to as the "Prism Field™" is for one player to scout as far ahead as possible, with as many high damaging tanks with the ability to go invincible or invisible as possible to prepare for a callout, where in which they will all TP and slowly create pockets to anchor in and allow the scout to get ahead further, and decrease the time it takes to reach the core.

And this is a dangerous process, Grid12 finally has something that is a danger to the playerbase! Doing this is exciting and fun. Being cramped when you haven't quite cleared a 2 x 3 encampment for anchoring and are forced to try and stay alive long enough for those players that had to Origin so that they can clear the rest, all while dodging incoming missiles is fun. It is enjoyment and something that is needed in this game desperately. And that is just the clearing part, trying to find your way to the core.

Which brings us to the concept of a core. And where I think maze regions have problems that will have to be ironed out.

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Firstly: Because of the nature of maze regions, they will probably never be cleared beyond 30 to 50%. It's just impractical, maze regions are kind of done once you reach the center and kill the core. Then players will kill off the walls on the outskirts away from the exterminators for tanks, and find another maze region eventually. It is because of this that I think the maze regions should work differently than other regions. Because they will most likely never be fully cleared, and this is mainly a fault of the exterminators, but also because it would take eons.

I think maze regions should be auto cleared, maybe around 60% give or take (with the precondition that the generator is killed), or should spawn region bosses and subcommanders (that may auto clear out certain areas?) much sooner than your average region, so that they can still be rewarding, as they will never be cleared, at least not with the frequency of other regions.

Now, there is another way to circumvent this. But it could also just be added to maze regions to begin with and this is why it will be number two.

Secondly: The core. The thing that powers the entire maze region, it feels like the game is alive with this thing, that all of Grid12 is being powered, which is a concept that I believe could be implemented with great success, the idea of power and electricity, energy, being something that drives the world in a way. Maybe even implementing charging stations that act as some sort of benefit.

The core, I feel is like a treasure chest, but not yet. As of now the loot it drops is okay, it's certainly better than normal loot, but I believe it could and should be increased to fit the completion of finding and exterminating the generator boss, after the mini treasures that supplement and help keep the players going after, being destroyed in the maze that are the Prism Fields™. I feel like the core can be implemented as a much bigger entity, even something as the region boss of only maze regions that is already there without clearing, waiting to be found, that has the generator in the very middle as a lonely treasure box as the reward for defeating a much grander enemy. This is my second recommendation for adding reward to maze regions. At least to help the fact that region bosses will probably never be unlocked.

Thirdly: Now I don't want it to sound like I am going "Oh yeah difficulty is fun etc etc I want a nerf here here and here" because I certainly want these regions to maintain their difficulty, but believe they need to have some things changed.

Here is where I shit on the Exterminator stations. Now I do not necessarily want these nerfed, especially heavily, but believe certain balance issues are in order to make them actually difficult as opposed to just maybe... unjust or bullshitty difficult. My first thought, range nerf, heavily. Give them enough range maybe to reach the second tower in a line, or a bit further, but not the overkill fly fast clutter the screen range they have as of now. Now this is partially to combat the fact that teleporting to a town with these things not cleared around it (even when offscreen) can decimate even a maxed Herc in seconds if the player stopped to type a line and panics or switches tanks or is just plain distracted for seconds. The result is... not fun. And feels unfair. But also to work around just the fact that they have.. a bit too much range.

Secondly; shot speed somewhat reduced, or at least the rate at which they fire the bullets. One of those two. Or maybe just damage could work, as while dodging is fun, the nature of the controls and how Grid12 works makes dodging every 20 missiles sometimes rather unfairly difficult, and just the mistake of running into about 2 or 3 of them shouldn't kill you with no chance to react. Insta kills are no fun, but their damage should decrease only minimally. They bring a feeling of unease to the game, and that should remain.

Thirdly though, I believe the lasers on these stations need to be removed, it basically makes it certain that you will take damage and have absolutely no time to regenerate your shields unless you go invisible. But also a reduction of the fire rate to allow for certain tanks with the trigger to allow shields to regenerate work can work

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Okay so I believe that this is everything I can suggest for maze regions, but there is a reason I went into my thoughts on them, and that is because of the state of the game. The state of how it is played and experienced and where (I) think it is going and can go or be improved in (my) opinion Because (personally) I have never had as much fun in this game as I have in maze regions, even in comparison to region bosses! I believe that mazes in Grid12 are a perfect additive, a yin and yang in which with them and cramped corridor fighting the game can succeed massively and find a dynamic no game I have played has really hit with the concept of mazes and being implemented in a game. I think maze regions can benefit this game like a dungeon, where different regions can have different types of mazes as well.

I think that mazes should be added, and that they can bring more dynamic and changing flowing gameplay, where players are forced to group up, they are forced to work together to get loot in the center, and the great thing about Grid12 is the fact that all players, new and old, will be able to quickly join in and do them, a feature of the absence of player elitism and power that comes with scaling systems. A feature that should remain.

But, this does not mean that I believe the other regions should be removed, oh no not at all. Because of yin and yang, a system of straight mazes and only would not be fun. You could not enjoy them and as so I believe they cannot exist without the other. I believe other regions are a great way to find safety, a way to add different gameplay as well, more open with different reasons. As I believe maze regions should get their own bosses I believe that outside of them, Zetas and Omni's and the like need to exist. Different dynamics for different areas. I believe convoys should only exist in these reasons, and going back to the idea of generators, maybe in a lore sense are generated from these maze regions. To attack towns or what have you, and carry loot from the generators who knows. Convoys and the idea of mineral mining and flotillas should be in these regions. They can also serve as mini quick grinds to kill fortresses for various purposes or even to just get a different style of gameplay from how you would play in maze regions.

Another idea I would toil with is having those regions as being town upgradable but different from before or having them serve a purpose to the player. Maybe as a place where you can add mods and augs to your tank (and the only place) and sell and buy as well. Maybe to serve as a place to kind of make the preset tanks "yours" where you can customize even just cosmetically, the features of your tank. This goes back to one of the main ideas that the game should have constantly progressing stat bars, stat bars the all players can contribute to as well so not as to only be on a personal level. And I would also like to reiterate the idea of energy and electricity, something "powering" the Grids to be a factor. Maybe you can "connect" these maze regions to the others and serve as a way to gain some benefit or aesthetic benefit. Who knows. All of these things do not necessarily have to exist with the others, in fact that would be somewhat impractical.

Now, this is in a way my own idea of a place where the game can head, it is also my bigger idea for the game, it is just something I concocted while feeling what it was like to be in a maze region, especially when with someone who is still learning. Certain things are huge changes while others are small, all in all this is just my thoughts and how I think specific aspects can be improved. This isn't my game to decide what direction it takes either, I am just providing my feedback on it, at least outside of moaning about tank balance and the melding system.

So please tell me what you think, if you agree with me and would like to discuss different things, great! If not even better, I would love to hear different thoughts on how the game is currently going. Thanks for reading.

TL;DR: Maze regions are gud, add more, make game get better, more customizing in game thanks, bye.

[Justin]

Rushing maze regions, and all the co-op involved with simply getting to the core are all extremely fun. The core battle is kind of a let down because of how people actually get there: Rushing.

Rushing is fun, and very difficult with the maze region because of the lack of checkpoints. Creating checkpoints along the way by having other players TP to you is definitely effective, but how are you supposed to call out for help as you're rushing? If you stop for just a second, you die. I don't want that aspect to be removed because that is exactly what makes rushing the maze region incredibly fun, but once you get to the core while rushing, you're screwed.

Unless you have to have players with cloaked tanks TP to you, and people will definitely die in that process (dying is more efficient than origin-ing and waiting a large amount of time to get back in the fight, while risking having everyone else go to origin/die aswell). There's so much going on with all the random towers in there, it's impossible to survive without cloaking. This makes the battle against the core - to put it simply - boring.

So yes, I'd like a core revamp.

~next topic~

After you kill the core, as you've already said, all that's left is to kill the walls that are outside of the exterminator's range, and then the region is abandoned.
(Except, a few times we actually have spawned the region boss in the maze region. I really have no idea why we decided to. However, it would be cool if there was a 3rd type of region boss added that was specific to maze regions.)

The 'regular' region (who knows how long it'll be called this. If more region types are created, what will this be called?) encourages players to keep fighting in the region after leveling all of the towns inside and destroying deltas within the region by spawning caches, subcommanders, and eventually leading up to a region boss. So, a region is almost always guaranteed to be cleared before a world reset when it gets passed 50%. It's the exact opposite for walls, and I don't like the idea of that.

I don't have any suggestions for how to change this besides creating a 3rd region boss for maze regions, added with Kelsoo's exterminator nerf suggestions.

About that though... (~next topic~)
    
One small thing I disagree with is removing lasers from them. If lasers were removed from exterminators, rushing maze regions would be made so much easier. Rushing isn't supposed to be easy, and it's already pretty simple once you rush the maze a few times alone. Just don't stop moving.

You can't regenerate shields against any enemy in the game if you're constantly in combat. Controlling how long you stay in the fight, and backing away from a deadly situation is one of the things that make this game challenging.

The only reason why exterminators are hard is because the exterminators have massive range, and the projectile lifetime is way too long. Less player detection range + less projectile lifetime will make exterminator fights possible on classes that don't have cloaking triggers.

~next topic~

I tried oh so very hard not to mention how much of a boring grind doing the walls in massive groups are, but I can't help myself.

People ONLY do walls because they drop good loot. Not because it's fun; not because it's a challenge; not because they're an obstacle preventing them from reaching a goal (since there are no goals in a maze region after killing the core); ONLY for the loot. In other words, it's the pure definition of grinding.

Side note: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_(video_gaming)
Look at the first example of games with grinding. And then it goes into why players grind, and the first example is to reach the ultimate goal. In grid12, there is no ultimate goal. It mentions other things like 'being better than other players' but then that goes against the idea of this being a co-op game.

Grid12 is a competitive co-op game because it has no goal. You play with other players but secretly (or openly - I try to do that in a friendly way) try to be better than them.
I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, since so many other games do this aswell, and the game is in testing still. I'd like the competitiveness to go away though.

[Kelsoo]

For a quick response, I have found that if you are efficient enough at typing, really all you have to do is wait for a cloak or just spam letters and have the others TP to you to create checkpoints then origin, I usually just refresh though since it is more efficient (and clears out your Mem)

I am incredibly happy that the core will be revamped, I hope they keep the various structures that lie around it though, it created a sense of unease when you finally reach the boss and now everything holds out on players being able to clear around it and survive long enough to TP back after the restriction, then going all out. The TP restriction which I now fully and openly embrace.

[rob]

Justin & Kelsoo, thanks for the feedback!

[Kelsoo]

Thanks for reading it rob Taking the time to read posts at least makes us testers feel like we are contributing.

As for the rest of your concerns Justin

I agree, after more thought, I just feel it is a bit cheap to have in no way at all possible guaranteed damage, but without the lasers it would be much too easy, however

I wouldn't be opposed to having there range nerfed a bit, or making it so you have to actually zig zag through the exterminator stations to make it through the region and still let the player have a sort of "dodge" control. maybe putting lasers on random sides of each station so that the player has to pay attention to keep shield regeneration.

Or you could just you know, keep them.

Please elaborate on why you dislike the way regular regions are currently working.

[Justin]

Feb 18, 2014 18:30:30 GMT -5 Kelsoo said:

Thanks for reading it rob Taking the time to read posts at least makes us testers feel like we are contributing.

As for the rest of your concerns Justin

I agree, after more thought, I just feel it is a bit cheap to have in no way at all possible guaranteed damage, but without the lasers it would be much too easy, however

I wouldn't be opposed to having there range nerfed a bit, or making it so you have to actually zig zag through the exterminator stations to make it through the region and still let the player have a sort of "dodge" control. maybe putting lasers on random sides of each station so that the player has to pay attention to keep shield regeneration.

Or you could just you know, keep them.

Please elaborate on why you dislike the way regular regions are currently working.

I was agreeing with your debuff suggestions for exterminator, besides the lasers.

And I was comparing how people are encouraged to complete regular regions once they get to 50% because of all the possible things you can do at that point (caches, subcoms, and I would say flotillas if they were actually possible to prepare for). All these things encourage players to keep clearing the region all the way to region boss spawn.

That's good. Also, convoy routes, leveling towns, and simply scouting deltas/minerals encourage players to clear a region between 0% to 49%, although it isn't enough to have players entering all the newly discovered regions. I guess this isn't a bad thing either.

Having the walls work in the opposite way, encouraging players to destroy the core... and then what?

To sum this up in a sentence: I think you misunderstood me, because I agreed with most of what you said and I like the way regular regions currently work.