Build 32

[rob]

Hello, brave testers!

We have just pushed build 32! Changes this week:

* Add Augments
* Lose one level of each prism at death
* Decrease time before HP starts to regen
* Decrease HP regen rate
* Remove HP meter when full
* Add "ammo clips" to Hurricane (3 rounds, 1.5sec reload) and Beta Processor (4 rounds, 5 sec reload)
* Make Watchtower eye asymmetrical
* Increase idle timeout to 10 minutes
* Add Viking class
* Add Supply Station and Supply Wardens
* Clean up Wildfire graphics
* Tone down bright green pane color
* Add A, S, & D as hotkeys for power crystals
* Reduce city-levelup award to 5% of earned but not awarded VPs (from 10%)

Augments are a big change this week. They are permanent, per-tank-class boosts that you buy with victory points. There are six types: speed, damage, range, hitpoints, shield and cooldown. Each augment level boosts the corresponding stat by half a percent. The first augment level (in a given stat, in a given tank) costs 1 VP; the next is 2 VP, the next is 4, then 8, etc. With this pricing scheme, it's really cheap to get a few augments on every stat in every class, but it costs an amazingly large amount to get a big boost.

The half-percent number is very likely to change; we also intend for each stat to have its own multiplier. For example, range has the ability to really break the game, so we may decide to nerf its multiplier. We can also view the stats to determine if one augment type is not getting bought, and we can boost its multiplier. We are also imagining that each tank would have different multipliers someday. For example, the Trailblazer might have 0% range, damage and cooldown mutipliers, but much higher multipliers for speed and shields.

We also made changes this week to hitpoint regen. We wanted the healing classes and the power crystals to be more relevant. Plus we wanted it to be more of a big deal to drop a shield. We may need to revise less-shielded classes like Cobra and Hornet in response.

Although I really want the game to be playable with mouse only, the power crystals are just too hard to click in a panic situation; hence the hotkeys.


Features we are considering for the future:

* Having fortress minions range much farther from their home bases, meaning you can't just fight one fortress, then heal up, then fight the next. You get incoming aggro from all the neighbors too.
* Triggerable abilities, such as AOE blasts, heals, buffs, debuffs. These won't be aimed, except maybe based on what direction your tank is facing. Or maybe at the nearest enemy. Perhaps these would be defined by tank, perhaps they are equipment..not sure.
* Map-based stuff like territory conquer requirements for ending the game; debuffing enemies that are cut off from their supply lines; showing all explored territory on the map


As always, we thank you so much for your help in testing the game. Please post below with bug reports or other thoughts.

Rob

[linkshot]

Definitely support per-class multipliers, but would rather put that on the backburner until we're into public beta

Scattering a bunch of enemy supply buildings around the map (at a generous max distance from Origin, of course), hidden, sounds really fun. I'd definitely be okay with that even being a secondary victory condition, since, as Realm taught us, people like loot. Supply buildings sound like they would give a lot of loot. Ergo, you want to reboot the server as fast as possible so you can keep recycling that loot.

[rob]

We fixed a bug where typing a, s, or d in chat would use your power crystals. So reload until you have version 32a.

Rob

[sven]

Bugs:

i.imgur.com/WJimp.png

* "/drive" command doesn't integrate with the tank selection where the tank that's picked from the command should be highlighted.

i.imgur.com/Eddlx.png

* "/drive" tank switching remain the same with the previous vehicle stats.

* The alternative for exiting the augments interface by clicking into blank space isn't included but the cancel button.

[tarbomb]

Add Augments

At the lower levels, at least, I haven't really found much difference between an augmented and a non-augmented tank (the range is the only major upgrade, but you need (for instance) at least a 15-20% range boost for it to be helpful, and I'm hesitant to dump that many VPs on a range boost for one tank. I think the concept is right, but as you said, the values need a bit of tweaking.

The other issue I have with augments is that they encourage grinding too much, and really separate old players from new ones since the old players like me have a few hundred or maybe even a few thousand VPs hoarded up to spend, and new players have none. Since augments are permanent, that could become an issue in the future. There are a few possibilities:

• Augments have a hard cap that you can't exceed. This leads to "maxing the tanks" being the personal goal of the game, which might or might not be a good thing.
  
• A portion of augments go away on map reset. That means I get half the augments from last game for each new game. I'm not sure how this would carry on to multiple servers though.
  
• Augments are temporary, with durations somewhere between 5 minutes and an hour. This encourages strategizing and planning instead of plain shooting, and doesn't have any problems with multiple servers. Further, a massive stockpile of VPs doesn't generate a horrendous imbalance anymore, and it's easier to maintain the "single battlefield" goal.
  

Lose one level of each prism at death

This makes the game too much like RotMG IMHO. We now have both a severe penalty for dying (it takes a long time to get all pulchs in the game - weeks right now) and an instant get-out-of-jail-free card via the panic button. That really, really discourages risk-taking, and penalizes casual playing since dying has such severe consequences now. I think the highest death penalty should be losing the single most valuable prism (or if there are multiple pulchs, a random one).

Decrease time before HP starts to regen
Decrease HP regen rate

As you said, this does give healing tanks some purpose again. However, shields (which healing tanks and crystals can't heal) are now slower to regen, which means recovery takes a long time. Furthermore, healing tanks still can't fulfill the battle healer role very effectively since their heal is both slow and unable to handle shields, so they're more or less limited to an orbital role where they orbit the battlefield, heal the wounded tanks (which still need to wait since their shields have to regen by themselves), and maybe destroy one or two minions - a pretty boring role, and one I don't see many people doing. If healing tanks were buffed WRT shields and healing rate, and allowed to heal shields, it might make healing worthwhile to play (the good thing about the system right now is that you will always get loot, which makes "SB-hogging" or "loot-stealing" nonexistent.)

Add "ammo clips" to Hurricane (3 rounds, 1.5sec reload) and Beta Processor (4 rounds, 5 sec reload)

Hurricane is ridiculously gimped right now. The previous nerfs (targeting, then damage) have seriously crippled it, and now the reload time makes it one of the worst tanks around. However, the introduction of ammo clips gives another approach to re-balancing the tank - increase the reload, and re-introduce the ability of the hurricane to target an infinite number of tanks.

Add Viking class

OP. Seriously OP. The burst damage is obscene, the turret spins around fast enough to be practically instant-hit, and the reload is too low. I think increasing the reload time (in order to make it a true hit-and-run tank) is needed for balancing.

Add Supply Station and Supply Wardens

Fun new enemy to deal with, but the loot is a good deal less than those given by even buildings. Perhaps the minions should be given higher loot drops.

On your proposed future features:

Having fortress minions range much farther from their home bases, meaning you can't just fight one fortress, then heal up, then fight the next. You get incoming aggro from all the neighbors too.

I like the concept, but tanks would have to be buffed as well to compensate. Also, we need a /pause button - if aggro ranges increase, they might shoot you even when you're in big cities (I've had this happen to me in a small level 1 city - panic button didn't work since I was already IN a city, but I was still being attacked).

Triggerable abilities, such as AOE blasts, heals, buffs, debuffs. These won't be aimed, except maybe based on what direction your tank is facing. Or maybe at the nearest enemy. Perhaps these would be defined by tank, perhaps they are equipment..not sure.

As a PC gamer, I like the idea, but this (and the panic button) makes mobile gaming much more difficult (since you need to keep one hand on panic/ability buttons at all times) if you're planning to head in that direction.

Map-based stuff like territory conquer requirements for ending the game; debuffing enemies that are cut off from their supply lines; showing all explored territory on the map

Yes, please!

[remm]

I feel like the hitboxes for the enemy structures need to be a 2D shape, and not just a point at the centre.

The main reason is that it would help significantly with targeting the larger buildings like the control tower. What happens at the moment with the control tower is that even if you are positioned right up against it, the tower's minions will still be closer to you (and hence you shoot at them) because there's an impassable distance between yourself and the centre of the tower.

The other reason is to help out the Hercules class. Some bomb shots can pass straight through the building you're attacking, meaning that only a couple of shots will actually hit the centre of the building to do damage. With an Enemy Building, about a quarter of the bomb shots can do damage to the building regularly if the bomb is dropped next to it. With a Drill Station - because of its immense size - only two of the bomb fragments will ever do damage, and the rest fly through the building harmlessly.

I also like the augments. I understand that they will need tweaking, but it's nice to be able to improve one tank specifically. It adds value to a tank, making it more unique to you.

[hypevosa]

uh, I found the viking tank utterly useless compared to almost any other tank >_>

[amitp]

With this pricing scheme, it's really cheap to get a few augments on every stat in every class, but it costs an amazingly large amount to get a big boost

Can you explain what you expect players to do here? Is this to encourage grinding? It just doesn't seem fun for ever increasing amounts of time to get a 0.5% increase in something. 0.5% just doesn't seem enough to be noticeable. Tiny linear increases in numbers don't excite me; they feel like gray goo. In other games I find that I am drawn to things that qualitatively change gameplay, not the things that quantitatively change it. For example in Torchlight I will pick the new grenade launcher instead of the +2% increase in armor. Is it optimal? I don't know. But it's more fun. Is it just me? I guess I'm not an optimizer.

[rob]

Dec 15, 2012 12:05:08 GMT -5 amitp said:

Can you explain what you expect players to do here? Is this to encourage grinding? It just doesn't seem fun for ever increasing amounts of time to get a 0.5% increase in something. 0.5% just doesn't seem enough to be noticeable. Tiny linear increases in numbers don't excite me; they feel like gray goo. In other games I find that I am drawn to things that qualitatively change gameplay, not the things that quantitatively change it. For example in Torchlight I will pick the new grenade launcher instead of the +2% increase in armor. Is it optimal? I don't know. But it's more fun. Is it just me? I guess I'm not an optimizer.

The reasoning behind the nature and cost of augments:

• We wanted to give players something to spend their victory points on. We wanted it to be a permanent buff, but it couldn't be very large, because soon veterans with lots of large boosts would severely outclass newbies and it wouldn't make sense for them to exist in the same world anymore.
  
• We wanted there to be no fixed upper limit to the boosts.
  
• We wanted people to be encouraged to spread the boosts between tank classes, and between stats on a given tank.
  

Half a percent is not noticeable; I agree. But once you start to string a bunch of these boosts together, you'll get a noticeable effect. In some ways I wanted to mimic stat pot hunting in RotMG: a large number of small bonuses that together add up to something large. It's not something everyone wants to do, but certainly many people seem to like doing it and it's a straightforward thing to implement.

We're not done adding things to spend victory points on; augments are just the first. Some people might appreciate a bunch of VP-unlock-only tank classes with totally new weapons on them, such as grenade launchers. The optimizers will continue to trick out their Mustangs and Wolverines with augments. Maybe some people will buy both? Maybe others will spend VPs for other purposes, relating to crafting, storage, housing, guilds, etc?

Rob

[linkshot]

Augments menu can be used when near enemy territory as well as town territory, but not when around neither. imgur isn't behaving, so I can't get a pic up.

Also, Mustang is outclassed at pretty much everything. I think it needs more range, and its red/blue shields need to be able to regen while the greens are soaking damage.

[sven]

I ran into complications by dying so often ended up with relying on a single tank, Valkyrie. Similar to few builds ago, level from scratch isn't the case here... Indeed this is pure perma-death where users only have to use co-op play to proceed further progress. I hope this doesn't lead to leeching reward while a person doing all the work just having their presence around. Well, as long both deal damage to the minions then it's fair I guess...

Outer Gripe:



After countless of teleporting, I grew tired of ending up in the same spot as being spawned. (monotonous) Why not have variety on teleportation space based on the direction where the tank goes from.

[rob]

Dec 16, 2012 15:29:04 GMT -5 linkshot said:

Augments menu can be used when near enemy territory as well as town territory, but not when around neither. imgur isn't behaving, so I can't get a pic up.

Also, Mustang is outclassed at pretty much everything. I think it needs more range, and its red/blue shields need to be able to regen while the greens are soaking damage.

The "inappropriate timing augments menu" bug is being looked at; not sure if we'll get it fixed in 33 or not. Seems not too serious.

Something is up with inner shields not regenerating correctly. I've noticed this as well. It's on the list for 34.

Rob

[linkshot]

Yeah, layered shields don't regen properly because when green is being shot at, it counts as red and blue at the same time because they all cover the same side.

[rob]

Dec 18, 2012 13:58:19 GMT -5 linkshot said:

Yeah, layered shields don't regen properly because when green is being shot at, it counts as red and blue at the same time because they all cover the same side.

Tim found the problem today. The plan is to push it live Wednesday.

Rob

[sven]

While death can be permanent, how about easing the amount gridshards by having a function to transport them from a small portion to the nearest town. Similar to pneumatic tube as seen on banks. It'll be differ from the actual teleport and deposit. That way users who carried large amount of gridshards don't have to be interrupted from what they're doing and continue clearing up the area. It can be send through a button or a press of a key. Maybe the amount can be varies through % of augments.

Do do do, I hope this is convenient method rather than a lazy way to put it.