Build 39

[rob]

Hi everyone!

We just pushed build 39 live. Changes this week include:

* Add Hercules triggers: bomb drop, immobilizing burst, self heal over time, mine toss
* Add Predator triggers: front shield refill, shotgun blast (2x building damage), artillery blast (2x vehicle damage), leap back & begin shield refill
* Add Wolverine triggers: explosing blast, main gun overdrive, refill least charged shield, give corner guns a DoT effect
* Make various disarm triggers visible to other players even if there are no enemies around
* Remove Hercules "poop bomb"
* Support new region-wide facility effects: max minions, minion creation rate, speed, turn rate, turret turn rate, gridshard drop rate
* Add tree of facilities out to level 6 (copied 4x per town)
* Add new Triangulum fortress & minions

This week Tim worked on a bunch of new triggers that include bombs and explosions. We wanted to put Herc's bomb on a trigger, and give him a tossed mine as well. The tossing animation didn't make it in this week; we'll figure out what to do with that later. We also added triggers that do more damage to certain enemy types, and new heal over time and damage over time effects. Please let us know what you think about these.

The other big change this week is the facility tech trees. As we add more region-wide facility effects, we'll flesh out the tech trees even more, and then move to having 4 different tech trees, and then to randomly-chosen sets of 4 trees in each town. As of now, the prices and performance of the facilities are almost certainly not well-chosen; I'd appreciate your feedback on that subject.

We now have a second triangular fortress. Soon I hope to add a third and then create a triangular enemy icon and a set of facilities that affect triangular enemies.

The next set of facility effects should include damage inflicted, damage received, rate of fire, hitpoints and perhaps range. These are slightly tougher because the client must be informed about them. We can also further stratify things by having facilities only affect small, medium or large fortresses (and their minions). We could also do vehicles vs buildings, or flyers vs drivers.

As always, I appreciate your helping test these new ideas. Your feedback is very valuable!

Rob

[tarbomb]

Hercules triggers are nice enough to make it one of my favorite classes now. I'm particularly fond of the new bomb mechanic, since it actually goes through enemies now. Mine toss could use an animation, though - having the mine simply appear in front of you isn't very satisfying. The only ability I feel is out of place is the immobilizer, which really doesn't have much use on a tank whose ability can hit multiple minions anyway. A blink for getting away when boxed in would be far more useful.

Predator triggers are good too, but I'm a bit confused about the difference between the shotgun and the artillery classes, and haven't been able to perform a very scientific test to tell the difference between the two (reading HP on moving minions is tricky, especially when you have a gun shooting at them. It would be so much easier if enemy HP bars or RotMG-style HP loss numbers were implemented - hint hint?). Do the blasts only do more damage to one kind of enemy than the other, or is it just a range/spread/damage difference? If you're distinguishing between "buildings" and "minions" targeting-wise now, I'd love to see some kind of selective targeting ability for the sniper tanks.

Wolverine triggers complement the class well, but I don't see the point of a DoT effect. All it really does is buff up the damage of the gun a bit, which means that it's essentially a damage boost. In the future if you implement some kind of enemy defense this may change, but right now it's not really an interesting ability yet.

The new region bonuses are starting to make the game interesting. I'd like to see a window indicating the quantity and type of debuffs that are active where I am, sort of like the resonator boost indicators back in the older builds, and/or a minimap to see when I'm about to exit their influence. Also, having "unique" town-specific facilities would be fun too - a single, very expensive (~200k shards) building unique to a region (not a town) unavailable until its town reaches, say, level 6 that provides a major boost after being built - say, all enemies start at 0 minions, or drop higher level prisms, or more prisms, etc. That would add an incentive sweeping a specific region for its super-building, and make scouting in general more fulfilling.

On triangulums: These things seem to be Extraction Facilities Mk. II - decent damage, with some very pesky minions. It's a well-designed but fairly unremarkable enemy.

[randomg]

I don't have time to do the full write up, but long story short:

This build is a blast(literally!).

First point - Triangulum's are *brutal*. They absolutely shred any un-careful tanks. They're also sneaky in that the base isn't that dangerous - I died twice to minions AFTER I killed the base.

Also, most nagging issue I've had so far: the box showing the HP of what I'm attacking covers up my HP bar and shields, so I can't see what I'm doing. By the time I can tell I'm taking damage, I'm almost dead. I know that sounds silly, but it feels like more than a cosmetic issue.

I've also found that without the ability to aim, minions tend to pull my targetting around on turret based tanks. Is there possible for a toggle, or for maybe a 'target the boss' type trigger for the heavy hitting tanks? Avenger immediately comes to mind, and maybe Hornet, but I'm sure there are more.

More coming, these are just ht points that hit me immediately.

[fsm]

Minor Bug report: If you partially fill a socket and come back to finish filling it later, it still removes its total cost in gridshards, even though it was partially filled.

[tarbomb]

Just measured a few stats:

Herc bomb damage: 75
Herc prox mine damage: 200

I feel that the bombs should do a bit more damage, and the bomb should do more than the prox mine. After all, the prox mine is a near-guaranteed hit, while the same thing's not true about the bomb.

I've been trying to get a measure for the predator shotgun's damage, but I can't really get an accurate measurement because of the tank's tendency to shoot everything in front of it (could we have a fire on/fire off toggle?) It seems that the anti-structure shotgun does around 300 damage and the anti-vehicle about 250 (both measured on a watchtower), but I can't exactly gauge the number. In any case, the damage seems to be appropriate.

Also, I just got 20k shards, then 14k gridshards from two despoilers in a row. The gridshard drop facilities are great. Now can we have a prism booster, please?

[sven]

Tool tips for the facilities are confusing to determine which type of enemies are going to affected just by staring at the current design.

The sockets and the facility shape are the same... A shape that incorporate specifics towards Round & Quad. should matched up the way how sockets/ facility to make easy choice of deciding, if a user is picky out of strategic matters. As for both/ all enemies, the current look of the facility does match the criteria I think.

Facility Stats. Interface would be keen to have to view bonus as progress builds up through territory.

Triangulum base is like a dished gelatin, leaving those who wanted it have to fight for the course. Although they happen to be slow brutes, speaking of minions. A tank with great speed and moderate back shield can breeze through the impact. With the shield badly damage and partial health loss by the Tri. minions, it still gets the job done. I say that Triangulum is the exact opposite of the Extraction base. It may need a slight HP buff or a small armor.

Miscellaneous

• Bug?: Whenever a mouse click the FPS adjuster, the tank direction will altered to location where the FPS performance is at. Either the control is through keyboard or a mouse, it's somewhat bothersome. Especially for someone who abuses it unfortunately... (myself) *tear
  
• For a straight clear direction of northwest through mouse control, the performance of FPS should be toggle-able through the "G" key? That way the FPS isn't altered slightly or left untouched.
  
• Users who got kicked out often from idling shouldn't have to refresh the page each time they encounter a notice. Instead be sent back to the main page, where the title screen is. Or at least an okay button to be sent back?
  

[fsm]

Bug? On the wolverine tank, both me and sven were able to get its cannons to rapid fire. This only lasted for a while before it stopped working, but it was incredibly OP while it did.

[sven]

Indeed! The Wolverine was the highlight of the "OP" tank on the build, what FSM said only lasted for while was til death. FSM did use a default Wolverine with no usage of augments. A matter of seconds for a minion or a base to killed, I've seen it firsthand.

Shifting subject, was the stacked loot intentional in certain enemies? (Grid control, Drill Station Parts, Watchtower?) The loot appears to be random by chance, but it's overly generous I find it frighteningly. Sometimes ended with several prisms/ gridshards, and luckily obtain a few crystal splinters in one go.

The lag factor in Drill Station with in or side of the town was unbearable to withstand moments of the confrontation. The screen froze on me then get back til the parts of the Drill dispatched. This also happen when I picked a stacked gridshards loot for a few moments...

[tarbomb]

On wolverine: Definitely OP. DPS-wise, when under the main turret buff and edge DoT buff, it's probably around twice as powerful as a buffed Viking on a single target, and the shield quick-recharge means I can last almost three buff recharge cycles against even a despoiler, which, even with flying minions and drillstation tanks hovering around it, goes down in one buff cycle, before my shields even drop. It definitely needs a nerf, but instead of nerfing the damage down, how about limiting its defensive ability (reduce shields and replace the shield regen for, say, a blink? Playing Wolverine is extremely fun to the DPS, and I think that it makes the point for an extremely powerful but weak glass cannon analogous to the wiz in realm.

[remm]

Okay, today was probably the first time I've played this in maybe 5 builds.
With that in mind, the game felt better than I remember it. Even though I was playing alone, it was good fun.

So, just a few comments.

I love the trigger. They add so much to the gameplay, and looking at how much they vary between tanks, there will be so much to learn and master.

The blink triggerwill be great for facilitating cooperation. It will let you get next to other people easily, to fight alongside. Anything that can help players to cluster and work together is a good thing.

I was playing mainly on the viking, and I found that I could destroy a weaker building by blinking in and popping one of my two damage triggers. While clearing to the town solo, I relied heavily on my triggers, and would not take on a new structure without at least one or two ready.

It wasn't immediately obvious that the town sockets worked like a tech tree. It wasn't until I founded a new town that I realised how it worked, and I saw the patterns in it. I aimed for the gridshard drop ones.

It was extremely profitable to clear out a well established region for gridshards. I think I was carrying 500k on me when I moved to found a new town that someone had discovered. It actually provided me with an interesting dilemma, whether to carry that much with me when going into a region with no town buffs/debuffs.
When I first entered the new region, it was so fast I almost died before I realised how much harder it was.

I liked how the introductions of regions shaped how I played. I would work in a developed one so that I could build another region up to a similar level. The one we had with three large towns in it felt conquered by this point, and that it would just be a matter of time for it to be cleared out for the easy and numerous gridshards.

[tarbomb]

On enemy types: you're distinguishing between "shapes" right now. Such a distinction feels pretty arbitrary at the moment, so unless you have ideas about different mechanics for different shapes, how about distinguishing between minion-centric enemies ("bases") and non-minon-centric enemies ("fortresses") instead? Buildings, triangulums, extraction facilities, and bore augurs would fall into the former category, and watchtowers, supertanks, grid control towers, and despoilers would fall in the latter. Drill Station is a unique enemy in that it both packs a punch by itself and through its minions, and could fall into neither, both, or a third category for bosses.

[sven]

Progression Screen Album

imgur.com/a/armUX#0

Bugs

• A rare lag like no other occurred (possibly multiple loot handling) and booted me out to a black screen, arrived to Origin as a "shadow puppet" state... Common interface isn't seen but the shadows & map icons. Best feature encounter ever, I barely face any lag afterward! (Excluding experiencing a slight from multiple loot pickups) Unfortunately, the shadow feature only last until refreshing web browser.
  
• When gaining multiple lenses simultaneously may cause the placement to be uncoordinated.
  
• Picking up more than 11 loot will delay for the remnants til the first set updates
  
• With massive amount of gridshards drop from enemies due to facility boost, unfamiliar users who jumped in can unlock tanks in a cinch.
  

[tarbomb]

We just broke int. Negative shards!



Game seems to be reacting poorly to this - it's crashing and blackscreening now.

[remm]

I had a bug where my triggers were all refilling fully.
It always happened while in a town, and seemed to work only on certain squares in the town.
I could sit in one place and repeatedly use my extra damage triggers (to kill a drill station) for example, but then it would go back to normal if I moved a few squares.

It happened maybe 5 or 6 times while playing tonight.

[pfiffel]

Gridshard drops and other bonuses being stackable like they are now is massively OP and causes a bunch of issues. Within a few hours on a new map, we were able to upgrade the trees to a point where bonuses were just utterly broken.
Enemy fortresses ended up basically paralyzed and having only one (also basically paralyzed) minion. The only challenge left in these very well established regions are watchtowers.
Fortress drops passed the limit of signed integers ((2^32)/2), and I wasn't able to even pick them up anymore. The server seems to shut down for a bit when trying to upgrade a city past level 18 (same integer issue here I guess):


Leveling up very rapidly in addition to Gridshards also resulted in VPs becoming negative and in my case managed to glitch out the player level, too (I assume -Infinity happened to the bar):


Something seems to be off about the size of cities, or rather, how it is displayed in the client; they seem to be smaller than they actually are, which causes some confusion about when being able to switch tanks and when enemy grid points actually block them from expanding:


All of that being said, the trees and the implications behind them are a great addition and achieve their goal of making the game more focused on regions and clearing them, rather than expanding to different cities rapidly. Some balancing is needed of course.
Another thing I'd like to add is that it would be better if regions were arranged differently each time the map resets, so far it has always been the same.