Patch: july 15th, game mode cleanup, bug fixes, and a few balance tweaks

[lamster]

================================================== ===============
July 15th, 2009

Loopy - increased hit points by 5%
"Double Fire" - increased damage and energy usage; unloads 12% faster, overall damage efficiency bonus (compared to Tracker) increased from 15% to 23%

"Recoilless Gun" - reduced damage by 4%

"Time Anchor" - reduced cooldown from (0.85 seconds + 100% max length) to (0.8 seconds + 50% max length)

added instructions to all game modes

Objective game mode:
- testing: 25 XP per kill, all planes destroyed at end of game (to discourage positive feedback loop: winners get vet bars -> continue winning)
- fixed "multiple defusers receive XP for same bomb" bug
- you no longer take damage from landing on your own base (but still do not heal) when there is no bomb to defuse
- server configurable options:
-- Warmup time (seconds) - time after map change before first game starts
-- Between game time (seconds) - time after game ends before next game ends (allows players to switch teams/planes)
-- Games per round - number of games used to decide a winner (e.g. gamesPerRound=9 -> first to 5 wins)
- map editor configurable options:
-- Game Time (seconds) -
-- sub-mode "deathmatch" - infiltrator but no bases (infiltrator should be placed outside game bounds)
-- sub-mode "asymmetric objective" - infiltrator and only one team has bases (infiltrator can be placed outside game bounds, 1 big bomb will destroy a base)
-- sub-mode "symmetric objective" - infiltrator and both teams have bases (infiltrator can be placed outside game bounds, 1 big bomb will destroy a base)

improved "dead" indicator on scoreboard

fixed sound issue "plane plays full-throttle engine sound while spawning/landing"
fixed spectator cycling bug
fixed a few miscellaneous bugs

=========
I'm also considering replacing the twist effect on thermobarics with significantly increased damage. I feel like director and thermobarics are too similar now: each is designed around manipulating the motion of your enemies, each is used in almost exactly the same way, and, on balance, the thermobaric effect is usually superior to knockback and is more annoying and less intuitive for targeted players to counter. Replacing the twist with +damage would open up a new Explodet playstyle focused on dealing damage rather than disrupting motion. Thoughts?

[ryebone]

loopy: love the new doublefire, i may actually use it now.

recoilless: I don't really notice a distinct difference, but I got fewer kills so it's probably doing its job. Or i just suck.

time anchor: The initial reason why I disliked the anchor length being a determining factor was that, if you accidentally anchor in a corridor and stall, it's a guaranteed death because it will never reach its maximum length before you crash for good. Kinda beat the purpose of "time" anchor. I still think the cooldown should be based solely on time, but decreasing to 50% max length is a good start. Now it can be used when stalled into a corner, and devils just got that much better

The new death indicator is good, but it can get blurry at times if the team is full of players at varying levels.

[tyr]

Originally Posted by lamster

"Recoilless Gun" - reduced damage by 4%

This is a very light nerf considering the 30% of the heavy cannon.
Is this to avoid loopy/miranda oneshot ?
As a recoilless user i'm kinda afraid of that ...

Haven't tested it yet though.

[phong]

Is an updated client coming out for this?

[lamster]

I haven't actually pushed this patch yet; should be ready in about 10 minutes.

[lamster]

Ok it's deployed. Gogo feedback!

[ZidaneTribal]

r u trying to make ppl use dog fighter by nerfing recoiless gradually

[lamster]

These last couple patches were meant to even out the overall power levels of the Biplane configs; from my own play experience (biplane is my most used plane) and talking to vets I got the feeling that a very minor nerf was in order. Recoilless rocks and takes a lot of skill to use well, but it felt borderline too strong; everyone seems to agree recoilless beats dogfighter, hence a minor adjustment to just recoilless.

[phong]

Not sure how I feel about ships exploding after all of the opposite team has been eliminated. While the xp bonus does making gaining bars faster, I think I liked it better before when people retained them between rounds.

Double missiles is better, though from what I've seen so far time anchor hasnt changed much. One thing I'd like to see with the anchor is after a slice/warp, the anchor point should extend then slowly snap back to the normal distance. Double slice would be time anchors strong point but by the time you slice then time anchor you dont backtrack much distance. Without that anchor still seems pretty useless for a lvl 3 red.

[gameguard]

i feel like double fire is more playable now. Not sure if it is overpowered considering i still suck at aiming with it.

the + damage missles sound interesting. But changing thermo again might lead to some complaints.

[TomBRowkaH]

Changes all sound good, definitely agree director and therm are too similar. I think making therm just add damage would make it seem more boring to play, however.

[kirbmasta]

i really wish there was a way to turn off instructions, like how you can turn off tips

its not as noticeable for tbd and ffa, but its annoying for the text to appear whenever an infiltrator is planted, it catches your eye due to the color and makes me lose my focus.

not really anything too bad, but a pet peeve i have considering its not nessecary to see it more than once

[gameguard]

hey lam

what does the overall efficiency bonus mean?

does this mean if both missles connect, it will do 23% more damage than tracker?

[lamster]

Tracker/Acid Primary Weapon:
Energy: 307
Damage: 39
Efficiency = 39 damage / 307 energy = 0.127

Double Fire Primary Weapon:
Energy: 408
Damage: 32 + 32
Efficiency (if both missiles connect) = 64 damage / 408 energy = 0.157

So the overall "damage per energy" efficiency of Double Fire is about 23% higher than tracker/acid.

[nesnl]

Can I be that guy and ask you to post all the data for all the planes? Just a simple list of each planes health, energy for each weapon, and each weapons damage... I know people always ask for this, but I just wanted to add more voice to that crowd.

[X_denied]

Loopy - increased hit points by 5%
"Double Fire" - increased damage and energy usage; unloads 12% faster, overall damage efficiency bonus (compared to Tracker) increased from 15% to 23%

"Recoilless Gun" - reduced damage by 4%



loopy already kills us biplane easily enough with tracking, and now an increase of double fire?... bi planes are going to suck alot with the reduced recoilles gun..

each plane had its own problems, but decreasing and increasing stats, wouldnt it just make problems for other planes?... why not just increase some planes stats and not decreasing the others

[X_denied]

oh yah, i p.s.. why so much decrease on biplane... maybe decrease the explodet as they do control most people easily with their mines bombing everyone to the walls :P

[gameguard]

dont you think recoilless and dogfighter are too similar? It plays just about exactly the same. 5% difference in energy and damage really wont make people use it when its basically a recoilless with more limited options in terms of speed control. I think dogfighter could be changed to something a little different. I suggested in a different thread about changing the long range gun to a midrange gun with a boost in damage. This would make the dogfighter the dominant close range attacker (i think)

One problem with dogfighter is that when you get on someon's tail and unload, the recoil causes you to slow down and often times you cannot finish them off. So for this perk to be viable they need to be able to kill relatively fast. Maybe F+D should be equal to the old heavy cannon damage per second wise.

[chief]

All these changes seem really good.

As you mentioned thermo and director being so similar one deserves a change can you also change dogfighter and recoiless too.

[DiogenesDog]

agree with chief/gameguard and differentiating dogfighter/recoilless more would be sweet. but I dunno what you do without making people freak out and cry.

and I'd love to see some experiments with making thermo really play different.

in general tho patch looks great, can't wait to play it.

[nobodyhome]

maybe for the dogfighter, you could increase the recoil and then also lengthen the machine gun shot a bit. that might be interesting

[Niko0olas]

grr...

could you guys someday,
increase somethin on mirandas and biplanes?

I paid for the miranda 3 patches before..
not that trash im driving now...
if u really want activeness to your game give some stuff to the other planes
too...

i know lots of players with biplane and mirandas that hated the last 2 patches..

Niko0olas

[DiogenesDog]

the only miranda change was a buff.

[Stormich]

I feel that the double fire is too strong now, I just tried it out and got 2 mvps in a row and I suck at loopy. Maybe you shouldn't change the primary but add something other than emp. Emp+double fire is impossible to escape from.

[Rechtschaffen]

On Differentiating Dogfighter and Recoilless:

You could say that recoilless is just a tweak to dogfighter to suit some players. Those who don't want the recoil to pull certain manouvers can do without it. Those who do want the recoil can use it.
However, quite obviously recoilless is a lot more popular.

I think having the energy management and damage for recoilless slightly worse, as it is currently, makes it a difference. Simply point that out in the explanatory text ("this gun suffers from using more energy and slightly less damage due to venting the gas") and there is a clear different to all players.
It might also be an idea to make the range on dogfighter 4% or so longer. Surely venting the gas would also reduce range???



Final point: I'd love to see the heavy cannon with longer range BUT parabolic arc due to gravity. It would come out straight for most of the screen but then curve towards the ground. I'm not sure if it would be popular, but it would be fun to play! (For me! (I think!)). Shooting over obstacles would be hilarious.

[gumbyy]

Lamster, here are my thoughts so far on the patch.

As a predominantly recoilless biplane player I haven't found the 4% decrease in damage to be TOO much of a change. As long as my timing is right I can still finish off a loopy or Miranda in one head on pass. The 4% nerft DOES make my timing absolutely essential and raises the skill level required which I think is the purpose of the patch.

The larger Xs on the scoreboard make it easier to see who is dead on each team but could you make it an option to have a dead / alive display like in Team Death Match?

I'm going to join Maimer's chorus and ask for data on every plane...could you perhaps post it to a wiki or even just post updated stats with each patch?

As a long time explo player (24,000 kills) who has been using Thermo since it first appeared I will whole heartedly agree that thermo needs a big change. I stopped using it since the patch which made thermo effect the shooter at close range because it basically meant that it was suicide to try to attack an opponent close in front of you. No other plane has any weapon that will effect them--EMP and acid shot have no effect on the shotter--and I see no reason why thermo should be an exception. Regardless, Thermo needs to be changed and I don't think a simple damage buff is the answer. Perhaps make thermo kill afterburning for a second or two? This might seem too similar to EMP but I think that thermo needs to have some sort of motion-effecting component.

Lastly, I think that removing bars after each round of Team Death Match is absolutely necessary. You shouldn't be rewarded for your performance in a previous round nor should you be punished for a careless mistake in a previous round. Each pilot should start off on equal footing each round and roll-over veteran bars unbalance the dynamic of the game.

[protest boy]

I'll repost my thoughts in another thread since you asked for input:

I would like to see a return of shrapnel missiles. Then the player has a choice between affecting plane's flight (director) and dealing damage. Thermo and director are redundant as it is now, except thermo is clearly better. Also, the damage on director needs to be increased. It's very unfun to shoot someone 3 or 4 times and have them continue to fly away, barely smoking.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by gumbyy

No other plane has any weapon that will effect them--EMP and acid shot have no effect on the shotter--and I see no reason why thermo should be an exception.

Director stalls/damages itself. Mines damage/stall itself. Bomber grenades and bombs both damage and can stall itself. Homing missiles cause damage and can stall yourself. Loopy is the only plane that gets around the "AoE hurts self too" clause.

Thermo isn't the "exception" to the rule, Loopy is.

[DiogenesDog]

if Thermo goes back to shrapnel, I'd love to see a chenjesu style effect where it actually spits out additional shards that do damage. not only would this make the concept more intuitive, but it'd let you hit guys around corners and **** by detonating it at the right time. bad side is it adds some randomness for most detonations, but there's also a lot of skill in reacting to it by flying into the gaps between the shards that expand outward in that sort of asterisk pattern.

some kind of debuff like was mentioned might also be cool.

another thought would be to have the thermobaric vacuum actually suck the plane in towards the center without affecting its flight direction. like it wouldn't use the game physics to stall a guy even... it just pulls them inwards for a second, then when it ends the guy keeps going at his original full speed.

[Vania]

One problem with dogfighter is that when you get on someon's tail and unload, the recoil causes you to slow down and often times you cannot finish them off. So for this perk to be viable they need to be able to kill relatively fast. Maybe F+D should be equal to the old heavy cannon damage per second wise.

I agree, if you want people to use dogfighter you should improve dogfighter instead of nerfing the other two perks.

Biplane is hard to use as it is. It is the plane that suffers the most from latency, since the machine gun range is so small a tiny change in latency can make you fail.

About thermo, I think it should go. The player should always feel empowered and in control, it is a basic rule of game design, and thermo does exactly the opposite. The reduced maneuverability caused by EMP is tolerable, but thermo is too much.

[gumbyy]

Originally Posted by Blank

Director stalls/damages itself. Mines damage/stall itself. Bomber grenades and bombs both damage and can stall itself. Homing missiles cause damage and can stall yourself. Loopy is the only plane that gets around the "AoE hurts self too" clause.

Thermo isn't the "exception" to the rule, Loopy is.

Explo rockets / mines and bomber grenades / bombs can only stall you out at very low speeds and the minute amount of damage (to me it looks like 5% or less) is a tolerable amount of self-inflicted harm. For thermo to self-twist basically makes it useless as a short-range weapon and is an unnecessary "punishment."

I honestly think that both director and thermo (however it develops in the future) need a damage boost. For director perhaps as little as 4-5% but there is nothing more frustrating than hitting someone with 3 shots and having them bounce away with almost no damage. Explo is probably the most difficult plane to finish kills with (due to low maneuverability, low rate of fire, and low damage / second) and I only have a good ratio on it thanks to players who follow me into confined areas where I can mine them to death.

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by lamster

I'm also considering replacing the twist effect on thermobarics with significantly increased damage. I feel like director and thermobarics are too similar now: each is designed around manipulating the motion of your enemies, each is used in almost exactly the same way, and, on balance, the thermobaric effect is usually superior to knockback and is more annoying and less intuitive for targeted players to counter. Replacing the twist with +damage would open up a new Explodet playstyle focused on dealing damage rather than disrupting motion. Thoughts?

I've been playing Thermo nearly exclusively since the thermo twist was added, and I'm not sure how I feel about it being removed. The main thing that attracted me to explodet was the ability to control fights, and twist does that fairly well, whereas director will often blast your opponent away from you and you can't catch up because whales are slow.

On one hand the damage on thermo is fairly low and I've had situations where I've shot planes practically dead on 3 times and they survived, which is kinda crappy for an attack with low refire rate. Additionally, if your enemy isn't near walls thermo is practically useless, plus you need to be rather accurate to get a good twist.

On the other hand the twist effect can 1-shot someone if you catch them off guard at full speed, but a good player knows to slow down against a thermo explodet, so the effect is not so great against skilled players.

If the effect is removed from thermo the damage will need a VERY big boost to make it worth taking over director, because being able to stop a bomb run in 1 perfect shot is hard to beat. Personally I do believe that thermo is OP if only because I can catch people off guard and make them faceplant into a wall or twist them into my mines, but the ability to control fights is what makes it appealing in the first place. I feel that a straight damage explodet would be a gimmick and not many people would play it, but I'm willing to test anything for the sake of balance

[michael]

Feedback: I like the new messages in all game modes. I also like the additional time between rounds of obj_ to allow people to get onto their teams.

Feedback: I disliked the positive feedback from keeping 3 gold bars forever in obj_ (many bombers would just nade spam all day, rack up bars, and then two-shot everything). I therefore like resetting the bars, but i think it would be better if they "decayed" instead. Cut the amount of bars you have in half each time. This way, good playing is rewarded, but not to the same extent. However, it is a multiple round type game mode, so it makes sense for each round to be reset/fair, so maybe it is better like it is now.

Bug Report: (Obj) I played for a while and it seemed like when the round time ended, or one team was completely eliminated, the planes would despawn and the round would end regardless of a planted infiltrator. So if you planted the infiltrator with less that 12 seconds (or something) you would lose, since you would just despawn when the time ran out and you would lose.

[Vi*]

Originally Posted by Carbon

The main thing that attracted me to explodet was the ability to control fights, and twist does that fairly well, whereas director will often blast your opponent away from you and you can't catch up because whales are slow.

Wait another .3 secs before detonating and you'll blast them towards you instead of away. Director is called director for a reason.

I would like to see thermo change from twist also.

[lamster]

Thanks for the bug report -- the "time runs out while infiltrator planted" issue will be fixed in the next patch.

[DiogenesDog]

random feedback:

* Double Fire Loopy is a freakin badass now. Maybe even too strong. Almost definitely the best Loopy loadout.

* Love the instructions / random messages on the screen. Nice feedback / help for noobs.

* "Infiltrator"? Wha? It's a bomb, why not just call it a bomb? Or Demolition Charge or something if that seems too close to the Big Bomb from TBD?

* Can't feel the difference in Recoilless at all.

* I kind of liked how in the old Obj you carried over your bars. I guess it was a slippery slope mechanic, but I never saw it causing any real problems. On the other hand, I also like the added xp now where you can actually reasonably get quite a few bars in a normal round, and having both together would probably be a horrible idea.

* Someone mentioned making one of the bomber loadouts shoot no-splash high damage cannonballs instead of grenades. Seems worth trying. Right now flak vs normal is pretty meh. It'd also make bomber fight the standard red perk paradigm of normal / replace 2ndary / replace primary.

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by Vi*

Wait another .3 secs before detonating and you'll blast them towards you instead of away. Director is called director for a reason.

I would like to see thermo change from twist also.

Yeah, I know you can explode it infront of a plane to launch them back, but with latency and plane movement I never know exactly whats going to happen to them. Maybe I just haven't played director enough, but I tried it for a bit today and even when exploding my rockets pretty much directly beside a plane they barely shifted, unless it was behind them in which case it launched them forward extremely fast. Every time I play director I get frustrated because I barely do any damage and when I do slam people into walls they're usually using rubber hull, so its worthless :/ Nothing sucks as much as hitting a bomber with 2 mines 2 director rockets, having him rubber hull bounce off a wall then casually fly away then having a stream of loopy missiles appear from offscreen, killing you right as the loopy comes into sight.

Thermo on the other hand, whenever I play it I get ridiculous ratios and have tons of fun, but I make lots of people really frustrated

Feedback: I like the new X graphic showing when a plane is dead on the scoreboard, its a lot better than the old one because its easier to determind how many team members are dead at a quick glance.

[Golden Bough]

My first post, so sorry I step out of line or sound too harsh.

The miranda is a dying breed. When I first played the demo, the miranda was exotic and mysterious—it was even fun to watch. Now, not so.

Before the last few changes took place, I am sure many other people, including myself, can recall hearing new and demo players loathing about how they wished they could play the miranda (they couldn't cause of the demo). Now...no one talks like this any more. It is no longer treasured. It stinks (sorry if I hurt the few miranda loyalists out there...). For the developers I think this should be of serious concern: it was the reason I purchased the full version—period. With these recent boosts to the loopy, I think the miranda is in bad shape.

Before all these changes, I felt the miranda was a plane-of-attrition ("Many are called [to the miranda], but few are chosen"...lol): it took a certain commitment and guile in order to succeed. With loopys being the flavor of the week, I really think attention should be drawn to how limited this, in my opinion, once-exotic plane has become. The people who are good at time anchoring with the bomb, or, those who are good at well-placed trickster shots probably feel a bit cheated right now.

As for me, I worry about the squeaky wheel (the tyranny of the majority...) changing the game that I and others bought. Why are there so many changes?

I'm also considering...I feel...Thoughts?—Lamster

What about the many players who never offer their opinion or have never made comments on this board?

i respect that you guys are putting a lot of thought into gameplay, but if i had known that the heavy cannon gameplay would be changed this dramatically this far into development, i probably wouldn't have bought the game.

-moxie

and yes, i would like some cheese with this whine.

Just my two cents. And for the record, I really do like the game. It is hard to commit to things though when you know that it will not be the same in a week or two.

[Blank]

Ever play TF2? Starcraft? DotA? Any MMO ever?

Changes happen in PC multiplayer games all the time. Only those that aren't well supported or bogged down by a console version don't see the same level of support.

[protest boy]

Originally Posted by michael

I therefore like resetting the bars, but i think it would be better if they "decayed" instead. Cut the amount of bars you have in half each time. This way, good playing is rewarded, but not to the same extent.

This seems like a good compromise. The extra XP gained from kills needs to be balanced with how much it decays so that attaining 3 gold in any particular round requires more than one kill.