Build 33

[rob]

Happy holidays to all brave testers world wide!

I just pushed build 33 live to production. Changes include:

* Add arrow key controls
* Add blue dots to show conquered territory
* Add red dots to show explored territory
* Don't deallocate objects as soon as players wander away
* Add Fury class
* Make Viking main lasers more visible
* Allow inner shields to heal even if outer shields are taking a beating
* Fix "inappropriate timing augments menu" bug
* Add extraction facility and minions
* Give loot drops to supply station
* Start watchtowers and control towers at a random facing

This week I added arrow key controls as an experiment. I'm very interested in whether they are better than mouse control. How can they be improved? They should work in both fixed- and swirly-camera click-to-move control modes (hit 'C' to switch controls).

The conquered territory dots go on any fortress location where the closest living fortress is 3 or more grid positions away. Currently there is no reward for them, but I'd very much like for there to be one. Maybe a bonus at the end of the map? Maybe some gridshard prizes just appear there every now and again?

The red dots are meant to help explorers know what has been scouted and what hasn't. Due to supply stations, exploring is very tough right now, even in the Trailblazer. I'd be interested in hearing any ideas about how to make Trailblazer a better explorer without making it useful in other situations (say, as a super damage soaking tank tank).

We are not deallocating game objects nearly as aggressively, so you can walk away from half-dead drills without fear of them regenerating for a while. This also means that super tanks won't just disappear if you walk away after you've killed the cross building. They will heal eventually, just not immediately.

Farther into the future, I'm considering adding invitation codes. This way, you can invite friends to play, but we can keep out any server-crushing mobs and also ban troublemakers. We are also thinking about adding new power crystals, such as shield regen, and other triggerable abilities as we move toward adding cooldown/mana-based per-tank-class abilities.

Thanks so much for your help in testing. We really appreciate it!

Rob

[amitp]

Woohoo! Exciting!

[fenrir]

Arrow Keys

These make it much easier to make sharp turns, and gives those who don't like the rotating control methods more finesse in their movement.

Territory Dots

Red dots are nice for Trailblazer fans (and everyone else), they seem to update well. For the buff, maybe give it a passive that increases speed every time it gets hit? Won't help much with tanking, but it'll help for running around. Or simply just increase the city reveal distance (and dot distance) for TB.

Not sure what blue dots are for, as the border does pretty much the same thing. Rewarding for the number of blue dots at reset would be cool, since the current system (if you want a quick reset) encourages exploring, cutting a thin path to the nearest town, build up a level or two, then repeat. Rewarding blue dots would push people to clear out larger patches of space more often, aside from just farming.

Deallocating

Makes large fights less all in, and saves me from feeling stupid when I run back a little to far to rest . Clearing near towns solo is also much easier.

Fury

Seems like a weaker Phantom, which isn't that strong to begin with anyway, imo.

Other

Extraction facility hurts.

[linkshot]

Dec 19, 2012 19:15:49 GMT -5 fenrir said:

Other

Extraction facility hurts.

"Oh hey I bet people are on now."
"Oh nope. Well, I'll just clear this path."
"Hey what are these guys? Ext--"
"OH GOD MY HEALTH"

And then I mashed F until I remembered it was Z and closed the tab.

[sven]

* Add blue dots to show conquered territory

What it means to be a conqueror is to sweep off the scums in the connected path. Enhance responsibility with care, nice addition. When zoomed out, I mistaken the blue dots for a town area since the size varies on the level which isn't correspond it's limitation.

* Add red dots to show explored territory

A holiday wish came true! This feature is exactly what scouts/ explorers needed! I absolutely agree with fenrir's statement about Trailbrazer remark. Though I'm sensing a doubt of co-op traveling which I thought was forgotten method.

During my time of traveling mostly as a lone ranger, it takes time and patience to discover new towns. Co-operating to team up and explore seems to be key unlike past builds where scouting along sides are optional.

Will it be too much to ask for to have the blue dots into green dots for the holiday occasion momentarily? Heh, just joking. ^^; Appealing visuals.

* Allow inner shields to heal even if outer shields are taking a beating

Noticed the difference with healing tanks performance quite efficiently. Splendid for support tanks!

* Add extraction facility and minions

Other

Extraction facility hurts.

Do tell!

Approaching them would be like adding salt to the wound. After eliminating them successfully without dying is having to embrace a battle scar. Very satisfying to say the least. They're the mines of the wilderness just by the encounters.

[linkshot]

Arrow Keys don't work for Turn and Throttle.
They're also much slower than a far away click.

[hypevosa]

Again, thanks for the key controls, they've made the world of difference for my experience with the game.

As for what to do with the trailblazer that will not make it a super tank, but also allow it to do effective recon, is to give it some kind of cloaking that makes enemies temporarily ignore it, I imagine it could work like so:

Whenever the trailblazer takes health damage, it fires its "weapon" which engages a cloaking field, the base time this field lasts is 3 seconds. However, the cooldown for the cloak is 15 seconds between shots.

This would allow trailblazers who get into a dire situation to lose enemies for a short time, but would require they also find somewhere safer very quickly. I'm not sure with exact times what we could do, but it's the only thing I can think of that isn't "make it faster" or "make it take more damage".

Also, as a reward for blue squares, what if THOSE are how we got shard pieces? For every blue square created by an enemy's death they drop one random shard for any player who comes to pick up their experience? That would give some incentive for clearing out enemies that are inbetween towns.

[kakugo]

Quick feedback for key control
I prefer mouse only control rather than key in Grid12.
Although key is correctly controllable, a key is pressed more often for troublesome rotation, and it seems to be an old game.
I am a big welcome that a player can choose control, of course ^^

[Jufda]

Arrow keys control is good.
For some reason I have FPS of 3-4 now instead of the usual ~15. Just died "because of lag". Trying again later if it works better.

[rob]

Dec 21, 2012 3:42:22 GMT -5 Jufda said:

Arrow keys control is good.
For some reason I have FPS of 3-4 now instead of the usual ~15. Just died "because of lag". Trying again later if it works better.

On my XP machine, framerate is 25 until I get into combat, at which point it hits 10-15. As the days tick on since last reboot, framerate drops ever further. Then when I reboot, it's better again.

On my Win 7 machines, I get 50-60 fps all the time.

Rob