Post by Justin on Apr 6, 2014 22:27:06 GMT -5
Right now I can't say much about the actual flotilla encounter, as I haven't been able to fight it in ages. That's a shame, because the whole idea behind it is very interesting and could be fun if there was a change to how it spawned.
This is how it currently works:
The Escape Flotilla (currently only one enemy with it, the corvette) acts like a convoy, in that it flies and follows a straight path. The difference between this and a convoy, however, is that the path does not follow a line on the map. The flotilla spawns on the warp zone (represented by an orange square on the map) and travels directly away from Origin. It is also a lot wider than it is long (from what I can remember after encountering it once a long time ago).
The Flotilla is also like a patrol (I can't say if it's only this specific flotilla type that is like patrols, or if all of them will follow this structure if the flotilla idea isn't scrapped). It spawns(or do they always exist and not respawn? I don't know) minions that chase the player and have no regard for the path that the main bosses follow.
The not too obvious issue from the description is that it's very hard to actually encounter the flotillas because of how they spawn: through their warp zones. Right now, warp zones only spawn in wall regions when a fortress is destroyed sometime between 50% and 95%. That means they will never spawn in origin, and we already know they always move away from Origin. Now, unless you somehow manage to clear an entire region and basically sandwich a walls region between Origin and that cleared region, the amount of time you'll have to fight the flotilla will be very limited.
What's so hard about clearing the region that you expect a flotilla to travel in?
Why go through all this effort for one encounter?
How could the flotilla change to make it a fair and fun encounter?
It could be as simple as making the color of the warp zone change from yellow to red when the flotilla is about to spawn (discovering a flotilla triggers this time, maybe a 30 minute timer, or simply clearing a certain amount of fortresses like how convoy routes disappear after 50 have been destroyed). No, this would make it worse. It would make their spawn time predictable, but if it's an actual time limit it will give a lot less time to clear an area for it to spawn and for the fight to occur.
Maybe a warp zone could be a timer that activates after a region is cleared, and more than one flotilla can spawn over periods of time? That would probably give enough space to fight the flotillas and allow players to clear an area in other regions and predict the paths of the flotillas so they can actually be fought. However, this still doesn't solve much, simply because time forces people to either clear for the encounter or miss it, and since the encounter is limited by spawns and not deaths of flotillas, missing it early on due to nobody being on to clear a path is very likely.
What if warp zones are triggered by something else? Possibly a craftable item that can be planted into the warp zone and begin the timer? I like how this would work, but at this point if including all the other aspects mentioned, it wouldn't really make sense. Why would the escape flotilla spawn on the players terms?
Imagine if a warp zone were instead the enemies last stand, an attempt to retake their territory or at the very least, escape with what they can from the region?
Warp zones could be like portals that lead from another dimension fully dominated by the enemy to the cleared region, and fortresses respawn starting from the warp zone icon moving outward, to allow the extraction of whatever was left behind out of the region.
So, let's say the warp zone is the letter W and origin is O. I think there should be an imaginary circle around a warp zone. Once that entire area around it is cleared, it could be activated, and flotillas will spawn (in the poorly made diagram below) to the left of the W, in any direction 180 degrees as long as it's moving away from origin/will never touch the region. Then, to the right of the W minions will begin spawning, to prevent players from fighting those flotillas without first dealing with the fortresses which spawn. They will continue to spawn, if untouched, until the entire imaginary circle is filled halfway with fortresses (imagine a line going straight through the W marking 180 degrees. The left = flotilla spawn area, and the right = the area that will fill with fortresses).
Again, this doesn't really solve anything because flotillas may still travel in uncleared paths, and for another, if the player actually does clear the region(s) that they expect a flotilla to travel in, they could just teleport and fight those first rather than killing the fortresses which spawn.
Instead, once a certain amount of those fortresses are destroyed, the flotillas will begin spawning. Or, there could be deposit areas that prevent the fortresses from spawning, and once all of those deposits are cleared/filled with enough of a craftable item, the flotillas will spawn/attempt to escape.
I'm out of ideas for how it could be changed (By out of ideas I mean I have to go to sleep because I'm tired, and don't want to re-read all of this right now so I'll do it later). The point of this is to make it so players can actually prepare for a flotilla battle rather than it randomly occurring and flying away, most often before people even notice it spawned.
I wish I knew more about how the ships worked. Are they easy to kill? Do they do massive damage? Can I surf them? Is it a cloak-only type encounter, or should I use the kraken? (Maybe someone *coughRobcough* can use /spawnfortress to spawn a flotilla for us at some point?
Or we could actually waste a lot of time skipping through a wall region to clear the region(s) that a flotilla may travel in after scouting for them in the walls, and then clear the wall region in hopes that we have enough people/time to fight it?)
Or it could be completely scrapped. That's an option I guess.
This is how it currently works:
The Escape Flotilla (currently only one enemy with it, the corvette) acts like a convoy, in that it flies and follows a straight path. The difference between this and a convoy, however, is that the path does not follow a line on the map. The flotilla spawns on the warp zone (represented by an orange square on the map) and travels directly away from Origin. It is also a lot wider than it is long (from what I can remember after encountering it once a long time ago).
The Flotilla is also like a patrol (I can't say if it's only this specific flotilla type that is like patrols, or if all of them will follow this structure if the flotilla idea isn't scrapped). It spawns(or do they always exist and not respawn? I don't know) minions that chase the player and have no regard for the path that the main bosses follow.
The not too obvious issue from the description is that it's very hard to actually encounter the flotillas because of how they spawn: through their warp zones. Right now, warp zones only spawn in wall regions when a fortress is destroyed sometime between 50% and 95%. That means they will never spawn in origin, and we already know they always move away from Origin. Now, unless you somehow manage to clear an entire region and basically sandwich a walls region between Origin and that cleared region, the amount of time you'll have to fight the flotilla will be very limited.
What's so hard about clearing the region that you expect a flotilla to travel in?
- It's not that easy to just hop over the walls region into the next one. By the time you clear a path to the next region and find a town, there's a chance the flotilla could have already spawned.
- Going around the walls region instead of directly through means you'll have to hope you're lucky enough to find at least 3 towns in convenient locations leading to the region you want to travel to, and eventually clear.
- This is all assuming that the walls region is directly north/south/east/west of origin. It could end up spawning 2 regions west, 3 regions north, and require many regions to be thoroughly cleared out before having a good chance at defeating a flotilla.
Why go through all this effort for one encounter?
How could the flotilla change to make it a fair and fun encounter?
It could be as simple as making the color of the warp zone change from yellow to red when the flotilla is about to spawn (discovering a flotilla triggers this time, maybe a 30 minute timer, or simply clearing a certain amount of fortresses like how convoy routes disappear after 50 have been destroyed). No, this would make it worse. It would make their spawn time predictable, but if it's an actual time limit it will give a lot less time to clear an area for it to spawn and for the fight to occur.
Maybe a warp zone could be a timer that activates after a region is cleared, and more than one flotilla can spawn over periods of time? That would probably give enough space to fight the flotillas and allow players to clear an area in other regions and predict the paths of the flotillas so they can actually be fought. However, this still doesn't solve much, simply because time forces people to either clear for the encounter or miss it, and since the encounter is limited by spawns and not deaths of flotillas, missing it early on due to nobody being on to clear a path is very likely.
What if warp zones are triggered by something else? Possibly a craftable item that can be planted into the warp zone and begin the timer? I like how this would work, but at this point if including all the other aspects mentioned, it wouldn't really make sense. Why would the escape flotilla spawn on the players terms?
Imagine if a warp zone were instead the enemies last stand, an attempt to retake their territory or at the very least, escape with what they can from the region?
Warp zones could be like portals that lead from another dimension fully dominated by the enemy to the cleared region, and fortresses respawn starting from the warp zone icon moving outward, to allow the extraction of whatever was left behind out of the region.
So, let's say the warp zone is the letter W and origin is O. I think there should be an imaginary circle around a warp zone. Once that entire area around it is cleared, it could be activated, and flotillas will spawn (in the poorly made diagram below) to the left of the W, in any direction 180 degrees as long as it's moving away from origin/will never touch the region. Then, to the right of the W minions will begin spawning, to prevent players from fighting those flotillas without first dealing with the fortresses which spawn. They will continue to spawn, if untouched, until the entire imaginary circle is filled halfway with fortresses (imagine a line going straight through the W marking 180 degrees. The left = flotilla spawn area, and the right = the area that will fill with fortresses).
|....._.....|....._.....|
|.....W.....|.....O.....|
|....._.....|....._.....|
Again, this doesn't really solve anything because flotillas may still travel in uncleared paths, and for another, if the player actually does clear the region(s) that they expect a flotilla to travel in, they could just teleport and fight those first rather than killing the fortresses which spawn.
Instead, once a certain amount of those fortresses are destroyed, the flotillas will begin spawning. Or, there could be deposit areas that prevent the fortresses from spawning, and once all of those deposits are cleared/filled with enough of a craftable item, the flotillas will spawn/attempt to escape.
I'm out of ideas for how it could be changed (By out of ideas I mean I have to go to sleep because I'm tired, and don't want to re-read all of this right now so I'll do it later). The point of this is to make it so players can actually prepare for a flotilla battle rather than it randomly occurring and flying away, most often before people even notice it spawned.
I wish I knew more about how the ships worked. Are they easy to kill? Do they do massive damage? Can I surf them? Is it a cloak-only type encounter, or should I use the kraken? (Maybe someone *coughRobcough* can use /spawnfortress to spawn a flotilla for us at some point?
Or we could actually waste a lot of time skipping through a wall region to clear the region(s) that a flotilla may travel in after scouting for them in the walls, and then clear the wall region in hopes that we have enough people/time to fight it?)Or it could be completely scrapped. That's an option I guess.
