Build 31

[rob]

Hello all,

Welcome to build 31! Changes include:

* Add Account registry/login/logout
* Add panic button and hotkey to teleport to nearest town
* Don't let towns accept gridshards if there are nearby fortresses
* Stop shard deposit at exact town level boundaries
* Improve performance of frontier dots
* Don't show frontier points in tutorial
* Fix control circle being drawn on top of tank menu
* Add Wildfire class
* Double Trailblazer's shield recharge delays
* Reduce Hornet rate of fire
* Change scorpion color scheme
* Edit a few tank descriptions to reflect recent changes
* Add Alpha Processor fortress
* Rename Enemy Building to Beta Processor
* Juggle minions between the Processors
* Give enemy buildings a random facing

Please give the account registration stuff a workout. It's complicated and we'd like to make sure it's all working. We appreciate it!

This week Tim is working on "augments", which are somewhat like per-tank prisms. You'll buy them with victory points. We are hoping to get these out in 32, but of course I can't promise that!

If you have comments, suggestions or bug reports, please post them below. Thank you so much for playing!

Rob & Tim, the Grid 12 team

[rob]

Also, we reset all the account names back to default values. So go ahead and use /choosename to pick your name.

Rob

[frogboffin]

Login's seem to be working for me! Haven't tried from a separate computer yet, but logins/outs work fine.

I'm finding watchtowers visible range to be annoyingly large, maybe just me, and the fact it was while soloing.

[tarbomb]

Logins seem to be working fine for me. I can play on Chrome again! The only potential problem I see is that you can change names indefinitely, which may cause some problems in the long run. I'd also like to see a way to reset the password and a forgot password button, but those aren't urgent.

The shields of the Wildfire need to be recolored. The front two shields have exactly the same color and it seems as if they were one shield when in fact they're two shields.



On a similar note, I think the Scorpion's change in color warrants a change in its shield color as well - how about orange?

The Trailblazer nerf makes it a bit more balanced. It's still possible for a clueful rusher to go on indefinitely like before, but it's significantly more difficult, slightly luck-dependent (find a circle-able enemy to regen around), and takes a lot more time (no more chatting with one hand and scouting with the other). In the end, the power of the trailblazer is still primarily limited by the clearing mechanic of the game, so I don't think this is a problem.

The safety key is a much-needed improvement.

Bug: hitting Z the same time one dies results in a freeze.



There is no perceptible difference between an alpha and a beta testerprocessor. The difference seems purely cosmetic to me - the minions may be slightly different, but this difference is imperceptible if I'm not looking for it, and hard to detect when I am. Edit: just noticed the secondary gun on the AP. I feel like a doofus for not figuring it out sooner... thought it was a minion shot all this time.

Back to testing!

[linkshot]

HELP OH GOD WHY

[linkshot]

Double post for actual feedback

Rob was talking about losing prisms on death. I'm thinking a level in each is good enough.

I have an issue with the panic button as it stands. I like panic buttons, but with instant /drive -> /goto, it is essentially just a heal. /goto should only be usable after crafting an item for it. /drive should only function if the town is safe to expand.

The last one makes people manage towns on another dynamic: Tank-switching towns. It is slightly prone to griefing, so perhaps towns at Level 5 or higher are exempt from the rule.

People can still get together with their friends by meeting at a town with /tele

[elrondel]

I haven't been on for a while, unfortunately. I do like the idea of losing a level or two in (a few or all) random prisms on death.

First thing I noticed : Made a new account, logged in, did a /choosename Elrondel, and I can't see my chatbox:


Playing on Low Quality on a 3GB RAM laptop (es horible), no chatbox appears but I can still type things. Did a /teleport Origin with no problem.

[sven]

* Add Account registry/login/logout

Works effectively, along with a password system that's case-sensitive. When logged off, it sets as default account where it starts as Silver.

* Add panic button and hotkey to teleport to nearest town

Very resourceful, especially in a situation where a bad FPS or lag occurred it'll immediately send the user back to town safely. There shouldn't be an excuse why death occurred other than making silly mistakes.

In addition, I'm getting an impression where it can be repetitious for a user like myself to keep changing tank to gain full health / shield at a town. When a user change tank, it shouldn't be to restore to full necessity that's what repair crystals are for. If I want to help an ally to the fullest I rather not teleport to town and restore full protection then teleport back where I last left off. *Repeat process

It seems to me like an unhealthy play-style, for a co-op game I want to support at the fullest, not letting the inconvenient exploit hinder the capability. The action of supporting one self to live longer than others isn't right to exploit most of the time.

* Add Wildfire class

From Linkshot's screen, my screen froze probably because of to much activity going on. Particles splattered everywhere clashing together, Wildfire maybe need to reduce it's plasma to two.

* Change scorpion color scheme

When I first saw scorpion, I didn't knew it was there since it's too blended with majority of the green tanks of the selection. It's somewhat similar to the color scheme of Predator. I missed it's vibrant detail which it makes it standout, uniqueness. I guess it takes time to adjust to it's design.

[remm]

This is getting really exciting. I have never watched a game develop before, but I am so glad I'm here for this.

[kakugo]

Login works correctly.

[tarbomb]

Dec 4, 2012 23:39:29 GMT -5 linkshot said:

Rob was talking about losing prisms on death. I'm thinking a level in each is good enough.

I think the idea of losing a level in one prism (perhaps the highest-valued prism) on death has merit, but loosing a level in each prism seems pretty excessive. It takes an extremely long time to gather prisms (especially pulchs) - ideally the situation would be that a decent player can get back to pre-death level before dying again. I see this game (mouse-only gameplay, quick leveling, linear upgrade trajectory) as a more casual game than RotMG or the like, and I think the punishment of death should likewise be much less severe.

[zuboki]

2 old issues that bear mentioning:

1) Chat is difficult to read in towns, particularly now that no buildings break up the blueness.
2) Yellow prisms still only give/display up to 5% bonus each, while every other prism has the bonus at 20%.

2 things I enjoy:

1) Drill stations are appropriately difficult. It does and should take a small squad to take down.
2) Non-respawning enemies and the frontier concept really shape the play area into something more than just randomly distributed cities.

2 previously mentioned ideas that I agree with:

1) Death penalty. I'd vote to make it "shatter 1-3 of the currently held prisms, chosen at random".
2) Temporary usable items. I'd definitely pop a double damage and/or a shield overdrive for a drill tower raid, for instance.

2 things I'd really like to see:

1) A stats page on your current tank- damage of each weapon, strength or each shield, base speed and max health all shown, modified by your current prisms. This will help with the current decision overload when selecting a tank, and could help strategic choices when the VP module upgrades hit the market.
2) Another minelayer. Maybe with less projectiles compared to Bluto, but higher damage and mine drop rate? Could be faster, a little less durable, and completely devoid of normal guns.

I don't know why these ideas are all in twos. Oh well.

[tarbomb]

Another perspective on a prism penalty for dying:

Most of us here are used to Realm and the concept of a severe penalty for dying - the idea that you should have to "reconstruct" your tank/character. This leads to a "safe" strategy.

Instead, why not try the exact opposite of that - no penalty for dying?

I know it sounds outlandish, but bear with me a moment.

This game is all about position - having your tank in the right place, facing the right direction, at the right time. Dying hurts you more by messing up your position (especially if you're scouting) than by removing your gridshards. So why not take it to its logical conclusion, and make dying a purely position-affecting event?

Obviously the concept of movement would have to be modified a bit. /goto would have to go (to... well, never mind...). Teleport and the "frontier" mechanic would have to be reworked in some way (as it is right now, /teleport is just a timesaver, since there always exists a clear path between two teleportable towns by virtue of the clearing requirement). Perhaps "clear to towns" could be replaced with roads (you'd have to construct a road to a town to have it leveled up) and roads would be assailable by mobile enemies (think armadas, but stronger and actually providing a challenge). Teleport would require the construction of an expensive teleport building that could be destroyed by an enemy attack. This naturally leads to town/road defense (imagine tower defense mixed in with the current drive-and-shoot game mechanic), which opens up a whole world of possibilities.

In this respect dying would mainly mess you up by costing you your position, and possibly your time. If you have to drive from a teleportable town to the battle, it means you have a strategic disadvantage, and by the time you get back the battle may be lost (the road destroyed, the town assaulted and de-leveled, etc).

As I see it, the advantage of having no death penalty is that you can play this game casually - you can just go in, derp around, and go away without really losing anything when you're bored. If you want to play seriously (read: strategically), then you have to take death into account.

What do you think?

Edit: To clarify, yes, I do mean removing gridshard loss on death.

[linkshot]

That's pretty much how it is for me right now. I always dump gridshards before I go exploring. Except to feel like I ever have to try at the game, I have to shame myself for dying, which is honestly far worse than any materialistic penalty, so that's why I vouch for Prism nerfs on death.

[sven]

After my experience with my last build and this build features "Add panic button and hotkey to teleport to nearest town" did got me thinking...

That death shouldn't be a punishment towards unfriendly spawn point which leads to discouragement. It takes a couple of seconds to type or mouse scroll to teleport where a person last left off. As in when a user dies, they shouldn't spawn at Origin at all, where they should be at the nearest town. Like a check point, bit similar to recent mechanic of panic but made convenient for death.

I'm certain dying and spawning back to the "lounge" area which is a hometown does sound like a familiar scenario, I hope it can stray away from the concept... Origin is indeed the best starting point when the user first logged into game, where they can observe what's happening by scrolling out of the map. While making progress through other liberated towns it shouldn't be made inconvenience dying and sent back to Origin.