Build 23

[zuboki]

Suggestion: Make the Wolverine only playable if you register on Kongregate.

Seriously, though, I like the handling- it feels very crisp, reactive, and controlled. In fact, I think I might like it too much- it lessens the unwieldiness of the Ashbra and the Blutercules, which was their main drawback originally. I'm liking the idea of Kirby Air Ride style differentiation to add more variables to tank selection than firepower and defense.

[rob]

I made all the tanks handle like Wolverine today. Actually they turn a little faster than the original Wolverine. Let me know what you think.

[sven]

Recently seen two bugs.

• After my tank shields wore off along with being severely damaged, I teleported to some town. While the shields fully rejuvenates, it can't be seen as transparent until death. Visible through zooming out along with blocking the health gauge which can be problematic during battles.
  
  
  
  
• Also, Origin and Kolga finally intercepted/ made contact with each other. I was in between with their engagement and this screen occurred.
  
  
  
  

[tarbomb]

A few other observations:

• +1 to Link's idea of switching prism and lens names. Even now it still messes me up sometimes.
  
  
• Could you make wolverine close-in guns white like the Mustangs? It's a bit hard to tell which shots are which (the other tank that uses two gun types, the avenger, doesn't have this problem because the three parallel beams are easy to tell apart).
  
  
• I love the new town icons. It's much easier to tell how leveled-up a town is.
  
  
• Tank menu is really nice and the tooltips help enormously in finding out how the tanks behave.
  
  
• The people firing at invisible ghosts problem is still there - yesterday I saw Rob's tank shooting madly into thin air. I didn't play too much before B23 so I can't say if it's decreased or not, but the bug's definitely still there, and moderately common.
  
  Edit: managed to screenshot an instance of this phenomenon.
  
  The shot is rather faint, since getting the screenshot at the right moment is hard, but if you look carefully you can see Fenrir shooting at thin air.
  
  
  
  
• Bug: sometimes terrain is reclaimed immediately upon death of an enemy (I've seen this several times already, but only found out it was a bug this morning when Mike told me in-game). Doesn't seem to be any pattern yet. I've only seen this with buildings; then again I kill more buildings than anything else.
  
  Edit: Just ran into another instance of this bug with a groundfort, so apparently it's not limited to buildings only.
  
  
• I've been having some random crashes as well - sometimes the screen goes black and doesn't come back until I close and relaunch the projector window. Occasionally it automatically starts the game again at Origin, as if I just died - but I keep my gridpoints.
  

[elrondel]

I just want to comment that it would be nice if Scorpion's missiles didn't fire in an overkill manner. Firing 8 missiles at a mini-tank when it could be changing targets to the building is a bit overkill.

[remm]

Yes, in a game with auto fire, there needs to be an 'intelligent' auto fire system.

For most tanks which have lasers that deal damage instantly, that's not too much of a problem. But with the Scorpion, you can have a lot of shots in the air just being wasted.

In regards to range, I like how the turrets turn to face an enemy before they come within range.
But I don't like how they have no 'memory' of what they have been firing at, or that different turrets don't target independently or efficiently. They just aim at the closest enemy. With a class like the Avenger that relies on a main cannon to deal damage, it can be annoying if you are targeting something with a lot of hitpoints (buffed gfort), and an enemy tank appears in behind you which causes your main turret to rotate to face it, and the minor turret destroys it before the cannon even turns to fire.

However, I must say that when targeting is done based on distance only, it forces the player to go in deep and attack from next to the enemy that they wish to attack. And I like that, because it gives you a simple strategy. It's easy to understand, and make use of. I like having the choice about whether to attack the enemy building, or enemy tanks first, and position my tank to specifically attack what I want to.

[james]

Agreed with Elrondel about Scorpion's missiles.

Also, let's say Scorpion fires five missiles at a mini-tank. Two hit and the tank dies, but the remaining three just fly at where the tank stood and explode. I think the remaining missiles should retarget at a different enemy, not just blow up and go to waste.

[wicked]

Theres a small bug in the extractor level goal.

Edit: next time i should resive the screen.

[tarbomb]

Just ran into a bug today.

I destroyed a building, but somehow the tank was shooting at the place where it had been for a few seconds afterwards. I stayed there in order to see if it would end, but as an unfortunate stroke of luck would have it, I disconnected just half a minute later.

Screenshot:

[remm]

Quick bug report. I died while trying to level up a town that was deep in the buffed lands, but instead of dying like normal, the game froze. But instead of freezing like it normally does sometimes, the HUD changed, and everything was gone from it except the performance statistics, the chat log, and (possibly) the prisms.
I probably should have taken a screenshot.

[tarbomb]

Another bug:

I killed a groundfort earlier today and it died, but its sprite stayed there. The loot bag was under the residual image of the groundfort, and the terrain was eventually entirely reclaimed with the image of the groundfort still sitting there. As you can see in the screenshot, I can stand on top of the ghost-groundfort without any trouble at all.

Screenshot:



And another one later, when the terrain has been fully reclaimed:



Edit: ran into a similar bug today, but this time the tank was shown on top of the residual image of the fort. Again, the lootbag was invisible under the groundfort. Sven, who was next to me, didn't see the image of the groundfort and said things looked perfectly normal.

My view:



Sven's view of the same situation:

[sven]

My Reactions

__________________________
Pros
__________________________

+ Interface improvement with town arrow and player icon names display properly are fantastic! Same with snazzy town icons!
+ Convenient Teleporting through towns by clicking doesn't lag often on my side.
+ Tanks turning maneuver comfortably, smooth sailing along positional/ rotational movement.
+ Wolverine's a wonderful addition to the tank selection counting special design, shields/ control, and well-armed guns.
+ Lens combo mechanic are quite addicitng and halting before lens pickup, very nice. Including awards for useless prisms.
+ Silver & Corsair are distinguished from each other like fellow counterparts. I enjoy the silver guns from Corsair.
+ Eliminate tooltips from loot, hooray for less clutter.
+ Discovered town announcement, awesome!
+ Server fixes, wonderful! (Although I've been d/c a few times, rare circumstance couldn't describe. I assume I'm not the only one.)

__________________________
Cons
__________________________

- Even when the negative health-bar display was fixed, I seen health bounces up upon death. (It could be just me)
- While player leaving announcement are dandy to have, I feel repetitious after dying so often during my conquest of exploration. Hmmm... Sven has left, Sven has joined, Sven has left, Sven has joined- Seems like burden for fellow users unless they don't mind.
- The bug where other player shooting invisible ghost still lingers.

__________________________
Additional Thoughts/ Opinions
__________________________

• While town announcement are great for alerting players about a new location, how about a short jingle for the player who discovered it? It promotes encouragement.
  
• Tooltips for viewing user's HP & shields are sort of distracting, envy that I can observe my ally health precisely but not my own. I wish we can see the numbers of hp below the health bar it would compliment teleporting to hometown safely. Also further understanding the health aspect of tanks, since the tank's tooltips did explain well with the mechanics.
  
• It seems interface has been improving, few may need minor polishing such as the resonators when they reached a triple digits leaving the percentage cut off and level text looks unaligned once the user reached above lvl 10.
  
  
  
  
• The controls between "b, background" and "m, music" are conveniently adjacent to each other. The key "n, noise" toggling would greatly further the experience of playing comfortably. The background still won't remain the way as it set it to be when being off after death.
  

__________________________
Bug Report (Death Side Effects)
__________________________

Upon Death
...................................................................

• Based on perfect timing to achieve this bug, I was dealt serious damage making sure I was left by 0 HP. Then teleport to the safest town, seeing that my tank was destroyed but it seems I still gain control invisibly (on my view) or as a ghost. It did rejuvenate back to full health. In the end, it takes a single damage for my tanks to die once again. i.imgur.com/gJOT7.png
  
• The moment I was dying, in a split second I teleported to the nearest town... I did succeed the game would froze on me, leaving everything gone from it except the performance statistics, the chat log, and (possibly) the prisms. (As remm stated, sort of) i.imgur.com/X2cZy.png
  Same goes for fail attempt of teleportation. i.imgur.com/4dUWb.png
  

After Death
...................................................................

• Of all the chances I've re-spawn, I saw a unique blue pointer which I have no clue how did get it there or where does it lead to. i.imgur.com/ZZUgK.png
  
• There's one time I was rubber-banding when spawned which is a first on a rare occurrence. I've seen side-effect that seem peculiar, resources change colors as I move or transform... i.imgur.com/CplAp.png i.imgur.com/FDyHt.png i.imgur.com/NJTx8.png
  After another death, game's performance got back to normal.
  
• This is certainly one of the strangest re-spawn I ever encountered, while waiting for the screen to load up I heard sounds of projectile. I realized I can move even though I can't see where was I going. I assume it's playable though I died again and the screen loads up normally again... I have tried to replicating this bug though the results keep ending up being freezed. i.imgur.com/rSFHS.png
  

Note: The bugs I performed are mostly done by the method of teleporting to a town at the moment of death.

[amitp]

Sven has probably respawned more than anyone.

Sven has left, Sven has joined, Sven has left, Sven has joined

Yes, this seemed odd to me — is the game really setting up a new connection on death?

[tarbomb]

Oct 7, 2012 14:29:42 GMT -5 amitp said:

is the game really setting up a new connection on death?

I asked Rob that same question a few days ago in-game and he said yes.

[kakugo]

Quick and Easy feedback here

[Playing]
When feeding gridshards into socket and roasting a tough enemy, I often feel tedium.
Waiting without doing anything is really bad in such a game.

[UI]
Smooth view scaling is marvellous.
About our army's stats, I hardly paid attention to them. I think that they are not always need to be displayed.

[Tank]
Cobra is rule!
A complicated attack range did not work advantageously.

[Building]
I did not give a little shards to socket. Usually I store much quantity can pull up a level and come back to build.

[Control]
It is good. In fact, I have mastered quickly.
protip: click a tank to stop