Today's Patch: Drops

[nCount]

The biggest thing I notice about today's patch is that players once again drop powerups upon death. This is great. Without this, when players have a dogfight, the winner is usually at low health and is a victim to the newly-spawned. Him gaining a powerup helps balance this out.

The big bombs are now also dropped and available for pickup when a player dies carrying one. This is a HUGE change to gameplay. After playing a dozen games with it, my thoughts:
- I can't decide whether I like it or not
- It speeds up gameplay (less removed bombs) and makes comebacks easier
- It strongly encourages lobbing, which I like a lot
- It adds a new level of strategy to bomb running and to killing the bomb runner.

[lamster]

Yeah I'd like to hear some more thoughts on this experiment, especially after we've had a chance to test it in a few big team games. To clarify (since this wasn't quite how it worked before), if and only if a plane is carrying a powerup when it dies, that powerup will now drop from the plane. The main goal is to encourage teamplay and allow for more dramatic swings in momentum based on team skirmish results. In particular, I'm hoping that it will no longer make sense for a defending team to focus only on the enemy bomb-carrier (ignoring the overall battle result), since his teammates can now scoop up the bomb and finish the run.

I'm really curious to see how this works out in practice.

[nCount]

This makes Biplane with heavy cannon even more imba.

[nCount]

It makes playing with newbs (who always ninja the bomb) easier because you just follow them until they die.

It makes 2v1 and 3v1 much harder, in a bad way.

[protest boy]

Originally Posted by nCount

- It strongly encourages lobbing, which I like a lot

There seems to be a slight bug. Sometimes when the bomb holder releases the bomb and then gets killed immediately after, he still drops a bomb powerup to be picked up by the other team or whoever is around.

But I do think that anything that does encourage lobbing is a good thing. I was thinking it might be interesting if a bomb does damage depending on how long it spends sailing through the air. i.e. longer lobs = more damage when it explodes.

[Blank]

Random thoughts:

1- I don't mind powerups dropping but their placement needs some looking into. Crashing into things tend to send the powerup inside walls/textures. Dunno if there's anyway for them to detect collisions and maybe bounce off or something?

2- big bombs need to be team specific. There's basically no point in even grabbing the big bomb in your base. Why bother when you (and your team) can just stock up on powerups, kill THERE bomber while they try to cross middle, then bomb then before they can respawn with their own bomb?

3- Seems like the groundwork for capture the flag :P Just make the big bomb into an unusable item that you have to land at your airport and BAM. CTF.

[nCount]

Originally Posted by Blank

2- big bombs need to be team specific. There's basically no point in even grabbing the big bomb in your base. Why bother when you (and your team) can just stock up on powerups, kill THERE bomber while they try to cross middle, then bomb then before they can respawn with their own bomb?

Because if neither team grabbed their bomb, this wouldn't be possible and someone would have to pick it up. I've found that running my own bomb makes as much sense as attacking theirs, depending only on team evenness.

[lamster]

Thanks for the feedback - keep it coming.

patch notes:
* changed "big bombs" to retain team status upon drop
* fixed bug "bomb holder releases and dies at same moment -> bomb released AND new bomb spawns" -- let me know if you see anything like that in the new patch

Still haven't had a chance to test any of this in a big game; if it looks like drops are going to stay I'll do something about the "wedge in wall" issue.

[nCount]

The new way seems to encourage team play more (because it makes it easier to succeed as a team than when anyone can pick it up). However, I liked the 'old' way more, where either team could pick it up. A lot more interesting.

[nCount]

On second thought - in larger games it's a lot more fun. I really does accomplish what you want, which is require destruction of the team's entire wave.

It also makes more sense; if anyone can pick up the bomb, it's almost a bad thing to have it, which is a bit wrong.

Someone suggested making it harder to pick up (in some way) but I'm not sure about that. The way it is now, in large games, it actually creates a battle front, which is cool.

[Ajplagge]

Havent played with the updates yet but what if the other team touching an opponents lost bomb caused it to explode or diffused it.

[PodBot]

what if... just the bomb icon would be affected by gravity? now it just seems like teams form great big lines and fly like an arrow towards the base and (maybe its the maps .. idunno) fly like an arrow untill they reach the base...
its a working modell i guess .. it works... however it gets quite predictable.

Gravity would atleast form a new level of flight (rebounce player would have to catch the bomb, rather than just fly behind whoever carries it.)

Callvote "Bomb affected by gravity".
Yes (1)
no (0)
What? (0)

[Ferret]

Feels pretty crappy and probably makes defense impossible against any team with 2-3 decent people. Dunno what to change, personally I'd just use the mechanics to make a different game type.

[PodBot]

well it would make defense easier seeing as it wouldnt be a matter of "left defending side has 4 planes in a row putting out x dmg on the right side 6 planes making right side win the wave of attack", you would have to aim for the bomb carrier NOT to die as it would make it harder for your wave to get the bomb over enemy base. Bomb carrier die = remaining players attack wave has to stop and fetch the bomb.

So defense easier (if you kill the bomb carrier, ultimatly that is the goal ...)
Attacking wave _really_ needs to defend the bomb carrier, (obviously it shouldnt be impossible to catch the bomb mid air) defending team has a fair chance of disrupting the attacking wave if they just pop that carrier.

making this a server side option is ok for me. tho i would probably have it enabled as default. my 5 cents.

[Ferret]

Yea that wasn't to you that to the original subject. I can't quite put a response to you into words.

[lamster]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try a few of these ideas in a patch this weekend. Depending on how that goes this concept may be split off into a new CTF style game mode.

[PodBot]

Originally Posted by Ferret

Yea that wasn't to you that to the original subject. I can't quite put a response to you into words.

someone needs a hug....

[nCount]

Thanks for the improvements, looking forward to the update...

[Snowsickle]

I know a decent amount of feedback has already been given, and I hate to sound too negative but I wanted to comment on a few aspects of gameplay that this recent change impacts negatively:

• "Escorting" the bomb is no longer an ideal bomb carrier strategy. What's replaced it now is sort of tag-team suicide dropping the bomb. I would rather fly behind the current bomb carrier to sneak the bomb in than fly in front of him and kill people. Example: Recent 2v2/3v3 games I would camp for a shield, have someone else suicide run the bomb, activate it and drop it. While this is definitely strategy and teamwork on some level, it just isn't fun to go up against, and it's ultimately still a suicidal mindset.
• The bomb carrier role no longer feels as crucial to the team. Previously, if you picked up the bomb, all of the pressure was on your shoulders. You were the key player, which is a somewhat fun feeling and creates priority targets (something that, in my opinion, adds depth to fights). Now the bomb carrier is slightly prioritized, but you basically have to kill everyone anyway.
• This creates futile feeling situations where you know that the bomb is already half a screen in front of your base and there are 3 people around so its inevitable that it's going to hit your base, regardless of your actions. Not fun to have no ability to impact a situation, particularly when the former system allowed for some epic feeling defenses.
• Catching the bomb and lobbing, two of the most fun tactics of the old system, are no longer really valid strategies. I no longer even attempt a difficult lob if I think someone behind me can grab the bomb and slam dunk it before the other team can react. (Catching is still a good move, but if good players catch on there won't be nearly as many lobs, so I included it)

I don't want this to come across like I'm biased against change, but I really think the old system was a good example of a system that didn't need fixing. Sure, suiciding the bomb carrier was a good move and escorts didn't happen too often, but that was because people neglected to work together, not because of any inherent flaw with the way the game was set up. However, this could be used to make a very fun capture the flag gamestyle, which was mentioned earlier.

[protest boy]

I was going to make a similar post to that of Snowsickle and agree with basically everything said. I would add that it also makes unbalanced (1v2, 2v3, etc) games even more unbalanced.

However, I could see it still have a place as a different game mode. I would also like to add that I liked the bomb drop upgrade more when the bomb could change team ownership, as it added a bit to the importance of protecting the bomb carrier at all costs even right outside your home base. This mode would still have a problem in unbalanced team games but I think it's worthy of keeping around as an option.

[Blank]

I think CTF is the most likely place for the whole powerup pickup idea.

You could also consider an "Oddball" mode (not sure what original name it goes by, but that's the Halo name for it). Basically have one powerup (big bomb) and you get points the longer you hold onto it. I'd imagine team oddball would suck, but it could make for an interesting FFA mode that's not... FFA.

Another idea is simply to design maps with this concept in mind. That is, plant a big bomb spawn in the middle of the map and both teams fight over it. Anyone can pick it up like any other powerup. I think current maps might be a hair too small for this to work on, I think it'd translate well to Ant Hill though... but I could be wrong. I did make the Deathstar map afterall

[bhtooefr]

For that matter, I still liked the ability to drop small bombs on the base.

Maybe make it so small bombs are half as effective as they were before?

Edit: OK, the latest patch makes things interesting. The ability to defuse dropped enemy bombs? Nice.

[Snowsickle]

Originally Posted by bhtooefr

For that matter, I still liked the ability to drop small bombs on the base.

Maybe make it so small bombs are half as effective as they were before?

Edit: OK, the latest patch makes things interesting. The ability to defuse dropped enemy bombs? Nice.

Plane weapons harming the base was almost unanimously decided to be a poor game mechanic since there is almost no reasonable way to stop it, and anything that creates a feeling of futility is not fun to play.

Plane damage versus bases was scaled back once or twice, and the same problems persisted with anticlimactic ends to epic games, people ignoring other planes to shoot the base twice and die, etc.

[Ajplagge]

Did the newest patch adjust loopy trace ability? They trace really really well now, perhaps too well. Maybe have the bullets go straight for .5 second before tracking begins. Anyone else notice this?

I'd also still love to be able to control when emp releases its pulse by hitting d again instead of just having it explode at a certain distance or when it hits something.

[lamster]

All the latest patch did was adjust the smoke trail effect on Loopy's tracking missiles. A couple patches back his missiles' tracking ability (max turn rate) was nerfed and his tracking cone was modified to require more careful aiming.

Loopy will definitely be getting some kind of EMP-perk, though I'd prefer to avoid making it too similar to Explodet's rocket. We'll see how testing goes

[bhtooefr]

Complaint about the new bomb defusing mechanics... instant defusing was much better.

[lamster]

Will revert next patch -- stay tuned.