Improve the zone

[Jareth]

Kill money for center needs to be adjusted compared to basing. I can't even upgrade a single ship as I get exp in center while basers are sitting at $500k-1m already. It needs to be adjusted so that I can upgrade a single centering ship without basing. It also needs to not affect basing money.

 

One option would be to change the way bountying in center works. Have kill money increase drastically as your bounty grows in lower numbers, but cut off to barely increase at higher bounties. The only problem I see that this would cause (actually make worse) is that people would be running in center more as they wouldn't want to lose their bounty. Which leads me into the running issue.

 

Speed on ships are too high while still being able to put out the damage that they do. The gap between minimum and maximum speed could be adjusted. Also the way that shields are designed will put people into a running state of mind so that they can repair their shield. This leads to tanky ships as the shield is up and switched to running away when the shield dies.

 

This kills my fun.

[spidernl]

I think it's mostly the balance of weapon speed and ship speed that's a tad off. Running would be far more difficult if either ships were slower, or projectiles were faster. As I think projectile speeds are fine, reducing ship speeds is the most logical option.

 

In short: I agree, and it's one of the things I already took into account in the new item set that I put on hold, and it's something I am also taking into account in the mass item set that I hopefully will finish.

Just noticed that wasn't actually much shorter. Oh well.

 

Edit: I'm open to suggestions for shields that make them less hit-and-run favoring. It's an issue I also am aware of, but I couldn't come up with any good solutions. Note that they'll always have to have some sort of cooldown/recharge system, as settings packets are too large to be sent very often.

Edited July 22, 2012 by spidernl

[Jareth]

I tried out one of the new items today, inversion, and they seem too weak by being stealth activated. Having to keep stealth turned on to charge them makes them completely pointless items. The stealth cost is way too high for them to be useful at all.

[Unix]

Bigger problem is you have to keep stealth on even after you have it full charged, if you take stealth off it releases the inversion matrix you saved up.

[spidernl]

The idea isn't to keep stealth on all day. You place one or two when you suspect they'll be most cost-effective. Same way you don't hold tab continuously to bomb, but wait for the right moment.

 

If the current charge time is too long at 10 seconds, I could further reduce that and raise the energy cost as well.

 

Edit: stoopid phone keyboard

Edited July 23, 2012 by spidernl

[Unix]

To charge you need to have stealth on

 

To place you need to turn stealth off after it's been fully charged

 

You cannot have stealth off while having a "stored" inversion matrix ready to go. A bomb you can shoot whenever as long as you have enough energy.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Unix

[spidernl]

So you have to predict when it's best to place, and charge up at the right moment. If current charge rates make this too difficult, I can increase them.

 

However, keep in mind it's a non-sig emitter. Odds are that the moment everyone considers the item 'worth using', every fool and their dog will have it.

[Unix]

The problem is if you charge it less than full, it will start shrinking. So to store the inversion matrix, you need to keep stealth on, which for some ships can be extremely costly. It would make more sense if you can stall it at a certain point then recharge it the last bit when you do need it.

[Jareth]

I've been paying more attention to the zone lately, which is why I have been posting here a lot, and I want to give my opinion on the direction it has been going.

 

Nanomite -> I think this one has been done to death in the past, but I guess I'll repeat it here. Nanomite makes people play selfishly, team kill, and generally not be helpful to their team. I like the addition of a new '???' item, but this was not the best option.

 

Addons -> Supplements : It's okay for more customized ships, but too much customization is bad. Letting a player create their ideal ship is not how it should be. They should have to think about the pros can cons and then decide. Creating that category of mini-addons reduces that, because they get to pick two. Separating power strip only made it more expensive, so it is harder for newer players to get.

 

Deflector Shield: The removal of the repel seems like it was done without much thinking. One repel is huge and it completely changed the game by removing it. I know that it was removed because people thought it was overpowered, but it is needed to get through the overpowered defense. Lancasters are pretty much safe now unless they make a massive mistake, like flying into a gline. There isn't much worry about leaking anymore, because it is so easy to block someone who only has 3 repels.

 

Evoker: Excellent addition. Done perfectly.

 

Shields: Advocates a hit and run playstyle. Hurt center gameplay quite a bit.

 

Lanc energy on attach: I like how this was nerfed, but I would like to see some kind of cooldown implemented for attaching with full energy.

 

Double Rewards: Double rewards completely ruined the zone for me. The beginnings of resets go by way too fast. People are already at 12k exp with all of their ships just about done after only a week. This means months of no progression left except parasite, alien tech, and extra sigs. People throw money at ruining games, because they have nothing else to do with it.

 

Easily attainable AT/extra sig: The zone is not balanced around these items. These items are too easy to get. This goes with double rewards.

 

Chargeables: I like the idea of chargeables, but I do not like how they were done. They all seem pretty useless to me except under certain circumstances. Such as: L1 gun with laser, HE with aux.

 

Turrets: I like the removal of point defense. I don't like the addition of the turret category. I'm not a fan of things that play the game for you. I would rather see an increase of skill rather than more relying on items. Also I'm not so sure about the balance of offense vs defense with turrets added.

 

Staffing/rules: Not enough jrmods. Rules aren't clear enough. I'm still not sure if hopping is legal or not? Too many absent higher ups. A single person has control over the direction of the zone. I would rather see a council of three or more people deciding where the zone goes.

 

 

The zone has gone from hero based to team based. This may sound good, but not when you are forced to play with people you don't want to play with. Having to rely on your teammates to not drool all over their keyboard ruins this zone. It wasn't so bad before, because there were hero builds. Hopping is such a huge problem now because we are forced to play with and rely on bad players.

 

Overall I'm not a fan of the direction the zone is going.

Edited July 31, 2012 by jareth

[Samapico]

I read quickly... but you can charge utilities with stealth on until almost full when you're idle, turn stealth off. Then you just need to use stealth for a second or two to get the full charge when needed, and you can release it whenever you want.

[Unix]

Cannot with inversion

[spidernl]

Which is intentional.

 

Also, I agree with a few of your points, Monkey. Double rewards are a little out of wack, and will likely be disabled soon. Nanomite is far from ideal, and I have a few ideas to make it more interesting (read: remove the current 'completion' goal and replace it with an entirely different one). Never been a fan of AT altogether, and double rewards does make it worse.

 

You seem to be a fan of the old hero ships. I'm not. I do want to see more teamwork, but I understand that it's hard to really work together with random people. Many people also prefer fattening their wallet (sitting back and gunlining) over being the best they can for their team (which does not necessarily mean fielding/bricking, but simply being more aggressive in general helps). Any ideas to reward more valuable players are welcome, as this would automatically encourage currently less useful players to try harder. Think monetary rewards - that's what motivates pretty much everyone anyways. And no, flagging privs that rule the zone are not a welcome idea.

 

Pests set up a site he should have told you about that should help players provide input for me. I agree that multiple minds would be more efficient and likely lead to better development than just 'me' doing both the actual development and the brainstorming. However, a few of the more vocal players have views that completely clash with mine, and there's no way I can make it work with them. Sue me.

[Cheese]

so i tried a chargable yestarday

 

why is it a good thing to only receive 20% fire delay reduction, which i didnt even notice while actively looking for it, while:

• stealth drain before it activates
  
• stealth drain while it is active
  
• while active, it drains itself while not in use with stealth still on
  
• still having fire cost for every bullet fired
  

why is this supposed to be any good?

there is nearly zero benefit at the cost of having stealth constantly on

[Cheese]

also had an idea regarding thors

 

lots of people complain about thors, which have been dismissed as no big deal, and "lots of people using thors at once is just strategy"

so far, someone changed antiwarp to disallow ship changes as a response.

this works as intended, as idiots cant just switch between their 2 thor ships, at the huge cost of blocking people and causing misery to people who arent faggots that just want to change ship legitimately.

the idiots now say "oh thors np just use aw", which is exactly what they should.

however, while the idiots say that, when the team actually does use antiwarp, the idiots just suicide by bombing themselves and respawn 300 centiseconds later.

 

solution:

each thor mount adds 25% to respawn delay

 

 

this way, people can use "strategy" and thor with their team, and antiwarp actually becomes a legitimate defense against thors, instead of the joke it currently is.

 

problem solved

[Dr Brain]

Not a bad idea. I have no idea if respawn delay is currently supported by the hscore as a property, but there's no reason it couldn't be.

[Cheese]

Cheese!> so did spidernl fix extraweapon kill packets yet

Cheese!> or are my kills still going to instead of me

 

 

so does extraweapon appear anywhere in my kills

i need to know before i waste my money on a broken item

[spittnacid]

cloaked ships should take waaaaay more damage IMO. Bullets all around should be faster. A sniper type gun would be neat with high energy consumption and slow reload but is super fast and does massive damage like 1 hit on small less shielded ships. My only concern would be cloakers using it. Edited August 5, 2012 by spittnacid

[spidernl]

My only concern would be Hyperspace turning into Trench Wars.

Bullets should be a tad faster. Not significantly - dodging should still be possible. Probably should decrease ships' speed but keep thrust similar as well.

 

Also, Cheese, other players aren't being hit by Extraweapon. They're being hit by your packets, with a weapon added to them. The only time it gets a kill is when you suicide with it.

[»D1st0rt]

Not a bad idea. I have no idea if respawn delay is currently supported by the hscore as a property, but there's no reason it couldn't be.

Won't tweaking this per-player create more antideath type invisibility?

[Cheese]

no, thats just the time from their death to their first weapon packet

and making their death time shorter would need ad compensation though

[Dr Brain]

Not a bad idea. I have no idea if respawn delay is currently supported by the hscore as a property, but there's no reason it couldn't be.

Won't tweaking this per-player create more antideath type invisibility?

 

It's possible, I don't recall exactly how that's determined by the client. But if it does then it'd only be for the people with the item (and presumably they're more able to deal with the ramifications than the average newbie).

[Cheese]

and even if the invisibility problem was related to people apparently respawning faster than the client death time, it would only cause invisibility in the people with the longer death times, which would discourage people from buying thors even more, which would only be a bonus

[»D1st0rt]

If I recall correctly it doesn't draw players clientside until the time is up, though it will show weapons. I would expect the result cheese describes, with other players getting a little bit extra invisibility

[Cheese]

and no ad fix would be needed as long as you dont reduce the death time for any reason

[Cheese]

also, aux launcher is broken atm, it does not work with extraweapon, cyclone+aux results in 3 bombs, 1 bomb, 3 bombs, 1 bomb, etc

 

also remove the . while youre in there, punctuation does not belong in item names for any reason