Build 35

[rob]

Welcome to the first build of 2013!

* Eliminate pane cracks
* Zooming via keyboard no longer erases click-to-move target
* Add triggers for shotgun, blink, overdrive and shield regen to all tanks
* Add regions to map (no gameplay effect yet)
* Add ESC as synonym for Z

The big change is the addition of triggers. Although they are currently all the same for each tank, we eventually want each tank to have different triggers, sort of like LoL and DotA heroes have different abilities. Currently they are all on cooldown. We haven't decided whether we want a mana system. We understand that the addition of triggers has upset balance; we figured you'd rather play them as is than wait longer.

The regions (zoom way way out to see them) don't do anything yet, but hopefully they'll give some bonuses within a week or two. We've already noticed some bugs with the region icons. We'd be interested if others spot them too.

Please let us know what you think of the triggers. Your feedback helps determine whether we double down on the idea or drop it.

Rob

[Jufda]

Triggers are great addition. Now there is something to do in the battle instead of just standing / circling. They seem to be a bit OP atm. A bit longer cooldown would be good. I think it would be good to keep for example 2 default triggers that all the tanks share and have 2 triggers special to each tank. Maybe have some kind of shop to update the triggers or choose from some alternatives.

I hope the armada bug gets fixed asap.

[tarbomb]

Tarbomb's first impressions:

Eliminate pane cracks

This is a change I really didn't notice until I dug up some old screenshots. I'm mostly impartial about this change, but if there are performance enhancements caused by the removal then I'm all for it.

Add triggers for shotgun, blink, overdrive and shield regen to all tanks

The triggers are nice, but as a person who prefers the mouse to WASD the keymap is a bit annoying since the easiest keys for my fingers to reach are the keys that I have no use for. I hope remappable keys will be added soon.

More thoughts on abilities below.

Add regions to map (no gameplay effect yet)

Regions have me hankering for a minimap. Zooming in and out to view where I am breaks the flow of the game (and is extremely risky in combat), and with much more positional information to look out for than before (towns, frontier, and now region), a minimap would be extremely useful.

Add ESC as synonym for Z

Unfortunately, ESC as a safety key doesn't work during chat, which means this change doesn't address my original complaint (unable to nexus when chatting).

The big change is the addition of triggers. Although they are currently all the same for each tank, we eventually want each tank to have different triggers, sort of like LoL and DotA heroes have different abilities. Currently they are all on cooldown. We haven't decided whether we want a mana system. We understand that the addition of triggers has upset balance; we figured you'd rather play them as is than wait longer.

Here are my opinions on the triggers:

- Shotgun: my personal favorite. Extremely handy for clearing out a mob of minions that would mess up my autotarget system, and goes very well with my preference for high-damage single-target tanks.

- Blink: a bit of an oddball, and the one I found least generally useful. It's okay for escaping a swarm of enemies, but in that scenario the 5-unit difference often ends up putting me into yet another fray (unless I'm pointed away from the enemy towards the clear area, which doesn't happen much since I normally prefer to retreat by backing up instead of turning around). It's only really useful for two things: escaping the inner part of a drill station, and scouting.

- Boost: pretty generic ability, but extremely useful. Popping a boost right after destroying a mob with a shotgun provides an immense one-two punch, and allows me to mow down targets extremely quickly. It also provides a new (no-prism) tank with the power to take on enemies alone effectively, which means the newbie experience is much better.

- Recharge shields: in theory a useful ability, but its inability to repair shields in the middle of a fray means that it's only useful for speeding up recovery time outside the fray, which isn't normally long. It would be far more useful if it acted like a power crystal: instantaneous repair independent of whether the tank was taking fire or not.

In general, I really like the principle of triggers. It makes battles more engaging and strategic, and makes the game more than just one of movement.

The cooldown method works, but I don't think it goes well with the grid arrangement - the typical attack run goes as follows: activate abilities, destroy enemy, and sit there and wait until the abilities get recharged before continuing on to the next one. The cooldown, while it does succeed in making sure the abilities won't be used multiple times in one fight, also introduces more monotony into the game by encouraging the user to wait for them to sit there and recharge before going onto the next enemy. This isn't a criticism of the cooldown itself - I'm just saying that it doesn't go with the grid structure, and one or both of them should change (preferably the latter, as discussed in the other thread).

I'd also like to see some team-centric abilities to enhance strategic team play - AoE heals/boost, group invisibility, decoy, etc.

I love the changes. Looking forward for more!

~TB

[stupidity]

Sectors are interesting. The only "bug" I've noticed so far is that sometimes the bounding boxes for the sectors are visible when zoomed (adding a hazy overlay to everything) and sometimes they're not. Actually, I find that sometimes the box for the origin sector does not appear at all.

Triggers are so OP. I don't think they have to be a use it then wait scenario at all. I've taken to running two instances of the game at all times to compensate for the tedium of playing alone, and my current strategy has been to take turns between them in many situations.

For example, I will charge both tanks toward an enemy spawning structure (basic structure, not a control tower, drill, or supertank) and use the shotgun on only one of the two tanks to clear the minions while both get in deep enough to attack the structure. The structure will drop pretty quickly, and then I immediately move to the neighboring structure of same type and use the shotgun from the other tank. By the time the second structure has dropped, the shotgun has cooled down on tank #1 (or at least very nearly) which means I can repeat ad nauseam.

I will also double up on tanks with heavy armor against a drill, get in close and rotate so that the strong armor soaks up the biggest damage. By trading places, I can tank for a long time between the two tanks and use the regenerate shield trigger on the tank taking a break to get him right back in there.

I also found the shield regen trigger useful for scouting. Although a regenerating shield can be destroyed by taking hits, maximum effectiveness is when a tank has multiple shields and can be positioned so that at least some of them can completely regen.

Damaging I find useful for single targets with high HP.

I barely use blink. Only for scouting.

The bottom line, for me, is that the triggers expand the versatility of gameplay and make the player feel skilled. That is the win. I don't expect that the current triggers will be what we see in the long run (i.e. each tank may have one or two triggers, but probably not all tanks with 4 of the same trigger) so it's probably not a big deal to discuss the balance of the abilities themselves.

[tarbomb]

A little bug found when multiboxing:

Note the reported position of David, and the actual position of David.

[stupidity]

Giant Jufda:


And here I can't see anything but city tiles:

[sven]

The triggers can be fully recharged by going into tutorial and leave from it. It's very resourceful for users who started out fresh, can balance out the weaknesses of certain tanks. Even helps cleaning at faster rate!

[tarbomb]

Graphical Glitch: HP bar does not always disappear when at full HP