|
|
Post by rob on Aug 25, 2014 9:12:17 GMT -5
We are working on some big changes to the way tank unlocks work in Grid12. The changes are designed to address the following issues:
* It's too quick and easy to get all the low-level tanks
* Getting the highest level tanks is a long grind
* Low-level tank unlock items have no real value and can't be sold
* The death penalty is too lax, which encourages suicide tactics (like with Corsair)
In a two step process, we are planning to change this. In the first step, we will re-lock tanks on death, which means that when you die, you'll come back in a Silver and be unable to drive the tank you died in until you use another tank unlock item to re-unlock it. (You'll keep XP, modules and augments.) As part of this we'll also reduce the highest tank unlock levels by about 4 to 6 levels, making it 16 to 64 times easier to get the unlockers. We figure this will make it much easier to try out a high-level tank, but much harder to continue playing it if you die a lot.
The second step will occur about two weeks later. We'll change the drop rates of all tank unlock items, making them much more rare and dropping level 1 unlocks only. We'll also further compress the range of unlock levels, making the highest-level tank require a level 6 (or so) unlocker. At this point we will also delete all tank unlock items in the database (hence the two weeks' notice).
Our aim here is to make tank unlocks more fun throughout the life of a player. Our prediction is that new players will end up spending more time using each of the low level tanks, rather than unmelding a lucky level 11 drop to get them all. Getting and keeping the highest level tanks will require less grind and more skill. All levels of tank unlock items will be useful and have a meaningful market price.
We'll probably not get this right the first time, and we'll need to adjust unlock levels and drop rates over time. Thanks for bearing with us.
Rob & Tim
Jetbolt Games
|
|
|
|
Post by Kelsoo on Aug 25, 2014 19:15:59 GMT -5
Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text Wall of Text
TL;DR Notice
I don't know if I should have just created a new thread but either way here this is. This is my opinion on the matter and how I think it can work to the best, and actually turn out to be a benefit, as well as discuss things that should be added if this does become normal, and some that should be added either way.
As much as I hated this idea at the beginning, it's comforting to see some revision upon what the original concept was. And it helps me to take this side, and be happy with it. And it also allows me to revamp and rant in my head about how I think this idea can get way out of hand in the best of ways and how I personally see something like this being a foundation for the game. I see only greatness in this seed and I'd love to tinker with it in my posts. So here is tank balance™ redux revamped ultimate edition with all the DLC.
I think an overhaul of this system (from now on this "system" I will refer to is just the games crafting or melding system which is also its progression system, these terms are interchangeable in the following paragraphs) will be what is best for the game and its progression. It also kind of seemed inevitable, this had to happen as the crafting system as a whole is pretty broken without room for any true enhancement, it was founded upon a static loot progression system with completely linear and unimaginative upgrades that did nothing more than raise a stat; albeit raising the stat was pretty unnoticeable, a drug on increasing numbers and player bragging rights. Ultimately it seemed that most of progression wasn't even noticeable and the only thing driving players was a cookie clicker esc " I want higher numbers, hold W for longer, get higher numbers than other players" endless grind of time with some WASD added in occasionally, this was especially true when the game literally was wait for convoy, yell at other players, do same sequence, kill sell meld and get more meaningless upgrades. Sit still. Crude and basic but that's how I viewed it for the most part. Kind of genius when you think of it though. Even this is enough to hook some players, just the want for that psychological execution of that moment, like leveling up in Realm or hitting that yellow number. But unfortunately it is also broken and it really isn't working. Systems like this really have to be hidden and disguised as something else, as every game of any genre has to hide the underlying truth. FPS's in hiding holding the mouse over things until they die etc etc. Unfortunately, Grid's system needs a better disguise, needs a better overhaul, it can't rely on just this it needs some enthusiasm.
Now this does not re-do that entire system (yet) but it does reiterate upon the side of "fun" or dynamic upgrades. Which is what I view tanks as. Fun, imaginative "upgrades" or divergence off of the brown and gray linear path of augments or otherwise. It adds "fresh" "new" buzzwordy content and extends that high a bit longer. They actually change gameplay. To allude to Realm (which I find did this, very, very well), the classes changed gameplay, but they evolved as well, by the method of maxing it provided a totally different method of playing, and one that was almost always even better than the regular experience. And it was kind of evil too. Realm relied on hooking the small percentage of the players; the ones that really had time, the ones that would go look and see what was deeper than there very first impressions of gameplay, maybe actually go visit the forums or seek a higher knowledge. They would go deeper than what most people were experiencing with the level crack and dying only to grind back. Realm showed the players how fun it could be once you maxed, and it provided just what it needed, that rush, that drug, addiction, those yellow numbers and the feel of being able to do so many more things, and it took it away from you, made you go back through the gray the level grinding the horrid boredom literal numbing process of leveling a character. And it did all of this very well. So the true fun would always be sought, the true gameplay or "real game" where it really showed off, and the casual players played until twenty, maybe unlocked a few classes, bought maybe a slot or two and kind of just left it alone. They had their fun, but the game got boring, leveling got grindy and they didn't even know there was even a further game. They accomplished their goals that they set had their fun and left. While the rest of us went two steps and maybe a mile further. Realm would be quite literally a drug of dopamine with 8/8's (again with the number classification, hubris is big in MMO's) that played a whole new game, with extremely addicting gameplay that really masked the grinding.. to a point of course.
This really begs the answer to a question that we probably already know the answer to, what is Grid's version of this? How can Grid12 hope to catch people like Realm did and inject them, and is it even trying to catch them in a similar way? Well either way it certainly and unfortunately is not the gameplay (at least not the extended gameplay, IE after playing for more than an hour or so on any tank). That is because he gameplay is far more than stale, lets just skip these metaphors and big words.
It is plain boring. Fun at first, perhaps to some, I know it was for me, well at least the experience of tank unlocking was but let's not spoil the next paragraph. But it quickly reveals itself for how undeveloped it kind of is, at the moment. Even the endgame isn't necessarily fun either, or enjoyable. It does not provide at all what realm did with the satisfaction and what would addict players. It lacks that romanticized "skill" that oh so elusive "fun" factor. Slow movement, no aiming, dodging is reduced to shield rotation which still doesn't always work and is worlds harder to design enemies for. The gameplay itself I feel is somewhat flawed in the worst of ways and will need many things changed to it, even if this is by no means a complete game in the senses of aspects outside of the pure pew pew, the pew pew is still broken and needs some fixing. Anyway we still run into a problem, and that is in the replayablitly of the gameplay itself, and this is a game where there either needs to be
ALOT of content being spewed out, or enough quality replayable content to keep others interested and to keep them coming back. Even Realm ran into this problem, fortunately it was solved very quickly, suffocate players. Realm fixed its own boring gameplay problems by holding back the fun parts, even to a maxed character, it forced you to wait. And it kind of had to. New enjoyable and actual thought out content can not, and could not be generated endlessly and quickly, consistently especially with a small team. So it held itself back, and in a way ironically for the best, it strung out players. And when you finally got to play and have that truly fun enjoyable moment you just might die, have to grind back invest more time which is just as good for the team as well. Hold back the fun let them die, give them little nuggets of extreme ecstasy and you have created a cat coming back to its food bowl.
Perhaps this is why players (usually, and in my opinion) in this game seek more tanks (until they have them all of course, and then whats the point, the game has no set goal really, and experiencing the gameplay really comes down to experiencing all the tanks, since there is so few content to experience with the tanks. It's like creating an amazing game, with one level, that you can play through multiple times with different "characters" that provide a spin on the way it is to maximize how much fun you can have. Although in Grid's case its an okay (and promising, and again the game isn't "complete") game with a lot of characters. So as opposed to making players seek boring upgrades (augments) that are hard to notice and ultimately still don't change the way the tank may work or the game is played. Or even prisms which I assure I will start attacking soon, and outside of meaningless upgrades and getting players addicted to the dopamine of these numbers going up that don't mean anything outside of hubris and the amount of time you spent playing (or coins). I propose that instead lets inject them in a similar way that Realm did, hook them on wanting their tanks back, beat them repeatedly with the whip of desire into needing those tanks back, torture them into wanting their tanks that they spent so much time modding, back. Make them want to get that upgraded destroyer back out
So the answer, if you even remember the question above. To me seems at least for now to be tanks. As they are the only progression I see in the game as of now, the only system currently that rewards the player with those brief moments of joy, and all the better if you take them away from the player as well. All the better to never let the player get used to using them, to never let the player truly get bored of it, kill him or her off if they start to and make them want to grind back up to those moments. And then, you've got them captured. But, alas this also has a problem (surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) because Grid can't have its tanks evolve, unfortunately, unless it wants to allow the imbalance of players like Realm of the Mad God did. So instead if it wishes to continue with this "new player same as old" mentality, while still scratching older players with nice cosmetics and aesthetically pleasing "upgrades" that will improve their E-Presence in the world and make them "superior" then you'll have to be able to design quite a bit of tanks, as well as perfect this system to never let players completely master them all. Oh ya and also make the game more funner and add interesting enemies and dungeons etc.
However, it is okay if they are able to master a few, (and by this I mean let them keep a few upon death, so by master I imply get used to a tank and such, subsequently meaning the tank that they may choose to mod and such. Which again would mean basically, let them find that one or more tanks that they really like or whatever and let them keep it alive longer, it provides them with a bit more of a guided experience of letting them keep tanks of their choice alive and specialize), and perhaps even give them ways to keep these specific tanks alive after a number of deaths, that way they can still play some tanks of their choice even upon death, or maybe use some starter tanks instead or something. There is a whole endless way of things you could think of to improve this system in particular. Give them some hope on death. Instead of completely being hostile towards them upon it. No one likes starting from a complete beginning after investing alot of time, you'll only drive away players this way and you need them to be hooked constantly. So something like this should be implemented in my opinion it will be a necessity.
Okay now new idea time! Here is my tank on how the rest of the system should be handled cause the current one is kind of poopy. If this is how you want the game to become, not even with these ideas, but just the idea of tanks being much easier to unlock and death being far harsher than it was, then I suggest that you completely and totally abolish augments. I also suggest that mods become a bit more interesting (of course let's not have them make players absurdly powerful, just allow players to perhaps do more things with their favorite tank(s). This means lets make mods do something other then stat boosts, lets make them do interesting cool things, and keep them random, instead of straight stat boosts turn them into kind of mutations.
Do with this what you want I think it would really add some flavor.
Secondly, I propose that as mods move up, augments get revived in a new body, if you still want them to be around lets make them much more rare and coveted, and lets cap them and 4 levels. So here is what I propose, Kelsoo has a tank with full 20's, that would now be a tank with complete level 4's, 15's become 3's, 10's 2's etc. Firstly I think this would really just be ggrrrreeeeeeat! But really, here are the main benefits I see out of this
- Players can now actually see the effects of augments, or whatever you'll like to call these new fangled things, because instead of .5 bonuses they're 5% bonuses at a time
- Because of this they are more sought after, maybe endgame items that you have to use materials to craft to.
-They still don't let old players have a huge advantage over new, it is the same as a tank with 20's.
And here is how I think this could work. Players perhaps raid parts of the overworld and otherwise to find materials to craft into these new "super augments" (placeholder, name them Rob's Essence if you want, I'd really like that) or perhaps materials to create drills that can mine into or mine out these ingredients to forge Rob's Essence; maybe they have to work together to craft super generators who knows! Reward them through weekly speedruns and dungeons with material boosts and parts that will help them in the overworld make it interesting you know, I think this would really put a twist on things. As players progress they can perhaps build super melders that you can put your Essence of the Grid Rob/tim/whatever into and upgrade them, costing rare and precious materials. Through this players get an actual nice upgrade to their tank that is a little noticeable, AND they feels as if they accomplished something, and it also forces players to think about how they spend their "skill points/super augments" lets them specialize and otherwise.
DEATH PROPOSALS
Lastly, in order for the prior two ideas to really work (and something I've been thinking about before those) I propose we destroy prisms. To clarify, not take them away, but make every tanks a standard Pulch (or lower.. whatever you feel really). So basically no more of these. Instead player starts with a full Pulch/Aurora and or otherwise and on death something different happens... kind of. Here is what I am thinking, upon death, whatever tank you spawn into (silver, or if some other tanks have immunities IE become starter tanks, or perhaps you create new starter tanks for seperate builds but I digress) has an automatic nerf down to Auros or the next level down, and you earn this back over a period of time.
FURTHER CLARIFICATION
X dies, X respawns now with a lower level of all prisms (just like death works now!) but instead of having to fight and get random drops back, X now needs Y ammount of combat time (Or experience) (perhaps a minute upon the first death) and if X dies again before earning, he goes down another level of prisms, or two. Perhaps every level is a minute, or if you die alot in a short period of time you gain a multiplier, it can be reworked in many ways, or more need of combat time (experience can be used too!) So after X earns this he now goes up a level in prisms! I see so many wonderful benefits in this system!
- It makes every player new or old on a very very similar level, and it removes the speed problem of new players. And it puts every player on a much more fair ground
- Now you can be sure you have your prisms back in a set amount of time, this method guarantees it! Useful for players who don't always have time to grind back out a decent set of prims.
- No more RNG! Instead this is a set time and or XP that is guaranteed and will make things so much less grindy, and adds a want, especially since you have clearset goals!
- Somewhat disencourages suicide tactics and otherwise, who knows you can make it so that if a tank dies many times in succession you go into negative pulch territory, or even start losing triggers!
- Works very well with the tank destruction idea I would think
A New Horizon of Starter Tanks
Here is my second idea on making tank destruction even better. Create a few additional new tanks, perhaps 2 or 3 more, and make them "starter tanks" or death tanks. Basically a tank for players who just died, but still want to play in their style. An alternate to just crafting items that make your already modded tanks invincible to a few deaths. These starter tanks can be the Silver for soloers, a support and a specialist who knows, but I see endless possibilities. Now I am no good in tank creation, only good at whining about how overpowered they are and why they need to be nerfed, but I am sure you, the All Powerful All Knowing Rob can think of something, and Tim too.
I think ultimately if you stick to this and perhaps even overhaul the whole melding/progression/////////whatever system, (even if it means throwing the original concept out and starting back form the ground up) that it will improve the game as a whole. The way augments in particular (but also mods and the rest) work seems to be broken, far to grindy, and "unfun" or frankly just not enjoyable at best and not very inspired. A new fresh or otherwise idea for different progression system (that is followed up on) like this may just save a very large part of this game, and I am not opposed to this idea leaking over into other aspects of the game either. I only hope that it continues to see improvement and revisions instead of being another idea never to be revisited. In fact I kind of hope that this is followed upon with a subsequent look at other ways the way the system of progression can be improved upon, outside of pure tank unlocks.
|
|
|
|
Post by Justin on Aug 25, 2014 22:21:35 GMT -5
What I'm about to say (somewhat) leans toward the 'tank unlock tree' that I know you want to avoid. There are too many 'different' tanks. There are quite a few tanks that don't have a useful 'niche'. It's hard classifying all the tanks that exist now into certain categories of play-style. Is this bad? Maybe. I don't like it much because it means you lose out if you focus too much on one specific tank type. Example: There are tank types x, y, and z. There are 3 of each tank types. You only have to use one of those 3 tanks for each tank type, and none of the tanks are particularly 'better' than the other. Tanks like corsair, trailblazer, hornet, cutlass, and vindicator are tanks that I think are too 'different' and will either be completely unused by some players or required to be used by all players because of their particular niches. I guess that isn't particularly bad, but the way the game is designed, with limited space preventing players from keeping everything they 'need', it makes it very difficult to focus on more than one tank at a time. With this new way of unlocking tanks, it could focus more on having players choose which tanks they like most and sticking with it. Since one tank unlock level can unlock many types of tanks, as you said, people won't be able to re-unlock everything with a lucky high level drop. It'll be harder to keep everything unlocked as you'll be spending tank unlocks pretty often (this varies on how often you die). So having too many tanks in the game that are so specialized and unlike each other, with this tank unlock update, probably would be more tedious to deal with.
I want to comment on what Kelsoo said but I have things to do (sleep). The only thing I remember after reading through it is the last part I read (about prisms) which I like, but have a question about. Would each tank have their own prism-set, so you'd have to play for X minutes on that tank to regain its prism levels, or will it apply to all tanks? I like the idea, it reminds me of something I read awhile ago about starting players off with a 'sampling' of how strong they could be if they keep playing the game, and then take it away from them as they die due to simply being new and making mistakes. Edit: Here we go It is plain boring. Fun at first, perhaps to some, I know it was for me, well at least the experience of tank unlocking was but let's not spoil the next paragraph. But it quickly reveals itself for how undeveloped it kind of is, at the moment. Even the endgame isn't necessarily fun either, or enjoyable. It does not provide at all what realm did with the satisfaction and what would addict players. It lacks that romanticized "skill" that oh so elusive "fun" factor. Slow movement, no aiming, dodging is reduced to shield rotation which still doesn't always work and is worlds harder to design enemies for. The gameplay itself I feel is somewhat flawed in the worst of ways and will need many things changed to it, even if this is by no means a complete game in the senses of aspects outside of the pure pew pew, the pew pew is still broken and needs some fixing. Anyway we still run into a problem, and that is in the replayablitly of the gameplay itself, and this is a game where there either needs to be The lack of enjoyment I would get from clearing regions and doing bosses is knowing that I cannot do the final boss alone, so I have to keep grinding until other people come online (and then face the "oh god these people don't want anything to do with me" feeling) and either I leave or they leave. In other words, not enough people play and I think I've made myself an outcast from the current active testing group, which I assume has happened with other players who no longer play aswell. Along with the fact that I don't see any point in upgrading the tanks I have (that I use) any further and upgrading other tanks seems like an effort leading nowhere. Considering making a new account for the new tank unlock system. I imagine what made realm fun back in the past was the massive gap between new players and veteran players. The veterans become elitists who play because of the social aspect of knowing they're better than everyone else who plays, and are encouraged to play simply because of that thought. The game now no longer has that, since it's a lot easier to get to get your characters to their strongest point, so people instead use base fame as their way of considering themselves elites (which realmeye encourages oh so greatly). Grid12 makes me want to make a new account because there are hardly any new players to show off your "yellow numbers" to, like it is in realm. Even though Rob focused on removing the gap between new players and veteran players, stats still exist that show who those veterans are. So again, the lack of players in the game is something that slowly draws older people away. This is what I read that made me think of the issue I mentioned in the beginning of the post. By either adding more tanks or modifying the current ones, you could make it so a lot of tanks have similar purposes so that you aren't required to 'master them all', but you'd be encouraged to, at the very least, master each tank type. yep. I'm not too sure about this. I agree that upgrading augments now seems futile after a certain point, because upgrading them gives such a minor boost and it gets exceedingly difficult to upgrade augments after awhile, with an absolutely unreachable 'level cap'. Also, this is another example of what Rob mentioned about a 'lucky drop' allowing players to breeze through the levels effortlessly. IE: Level 17 aug lets you get level 16 on any tank, regardless of that tank's current stat level being 1 or 15 as a result of unmelding. The reason I'm not too sure about your suggestion is that it kind of masks that unmelding issue and turns it into an actual feature. I can't say it's a terrible idea, I'm just not sure what it accomplishes. [Insert my response from earlier here] I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. The silver is a level 0 tank. Do you just mean creating more level 0 tanks that serve various purposes but are noticeably weaker than the unlockable tanks which serve those same purposes? If so, I think that'd be nice. |
|
|
|
Post by Duco on Aug 26, 2014 11:01:31 GMT -5
Damn, how do you manage to write that much? I can't even fit 200 words in a single post.
|
|
|
|
Post by gingerbear on Aug 27, 2014 18:47:11 GMT -5
Reflecting on Kelsoo's post, without particular order:
I don't like torturing games. I mean, maxing your character back up was a pain and eventually boring part in realm, which become pointless as the game didn't really progress anywhere. Yeah, I know that there are some new content now, but seriously I cba to return to that game. Grid12 is already "grindy" enough, I feel like making it more harsh on players would make it lose all the little charm it has still left.
I guess you are not right stating that the most fun of this game comes from the tanks hence it should be focused on more. Tanks can be learned pretty quickly and then it's just personal taste to choose among them. And if the game becomes popular and there are raiding mobs everywhere on the map, I guess it will be almost unimportant in which tank you are on, anyway.
You (and Justin replying to your post) make some assumptions on the gameplay and game effects based on the current amount of players, which might not be right. I mean, sure there are not many testers and they hop only on rarely. Part of the reason is - indeed - the not too engaging gameplay, but keep in mind that the game is still under heavy development, and Rob and Tim simply cannot create that much new gameplay/content which could not be tested fast. Of course "mob like" situations will unlikely be tested for a while anyway, but perhaps it is for the better for now anyhow.
The idea of "self charging" prisms is interesting, however, it kind of takes away from the "do it yourself" part of the game. Which is bad, since aiming and shooting is already done autmatically, so moving around and pressing trigger keys might be already too limiting. Except for the Scorpion tank of course, which mainly deals damage by its triggers. (Dragon kind of similar). Making fewer prisms with bigger steps inbetween could be a good idea, though.
New starter tanks? Well, could work. Silver is "crappy" enough to make me want to change to other tanks (once tasted their sweet power), I don't know in that regard other beginner tanks would help, or just make me feel "meh, whatever", and grind me back to my fav. tanks regardless.
|
|
