Perks

[nesnl]

I am going to write this post, but I think that a lot of us would like too see lamster post about this topic on what direction he wants to go with all of this. A lot of this post references what Pillars said in another post about the balance of the perks.

First, I think that as the green and blue perks stand now, it's difficult to gauge their overall effect. I think that since they were implemented, most people have settled on repair drone and ultra capacitor. However, I think if you asked the average player they wouldn't really be able to articulate why they chose those beyond saying "they are better."

Personally I would like to see a section of the forums dedicated to the perks. Maybe an new area that has specific posts related to each perk. Again, I would like to hear what direction you want to take this in lamster. Basically, I think that it would be beneficial to be able to have hard data on what exactly each perk does. I know you may want to keep this out of the final game in that you don't want a perk to say "Increase health by 150 hit points" but rather it just say "Heavy Armor." However, in order to effectively test each of these perks I think we should be able to know what exactly is going on in order to give accurate feedback. If you said Rubberized Hull reduced damage from objects by 20% then people could give feedback like saying "increase it by 10%" or "decrease by 10%" or whatever the case may be. I think if you had a specific area for this type of discussion and encouraged people to come make their voice heard then people would be more apt to try the different perks and give feedback on the changes they felt were needed.

Also, I think you should dramatically increase the effectiveness of each perk from what they are now. I think it's easier to make things overpowered at first and then scale them back, then trying to slowly tweak things that are already hard to gauge how effective they are. Even if you throw the game out of whack by making all the perks really powerful, it is the beta, so I feel like this is the time to try some drastic changes.

The more I think about what would make this game more fun, the more I come to the conclusion that I want to see differentiation among planes. As it stands right now, it seems like most perks make such a small difference that if you asked the average player to determine which blue and green perk their opponent was using that most of them wouldn't be able to tell you.

So I ask you lamster to either give us some idea of what direction you want to take the balance of these things or give us an organized place where we all can see the hard data (using a lot of numbers) in order to give the community the best opportunity to give positive feedback.

Here is a list of what I would like to see:

Heavy Armor -
Total Plane Hit Points (I know this varies per plane)
Additional Hit Points added through Heavy Armor (is it percent based or a static number?)

Rubberized Hull -
Percent of damage reduction due to collision

Repair Drone -
Hit points repaired each tick (again is it static or percent based?)
Time interval between each tick

Super Burner -
Percent maximum speed increased

Ultra Capacitor -
Total energy points for each plane
Additional energy points added through ultra capacitor

Again, I want to stress that in order to gauge the effect of each of these perks that they need to be made to be over exaggerated at first. I would support doubling the effects (or more) of all the green/blue perks. Not only would it give good feedback for better adjustments, but it would also give more incentive to players to try them out instead of just sticking with what they always use.

I am going to throw some ideas of mine for the perks here as well.

Super Burner: would like to see this increase the top speed of the plane when not using afterburner as well. I think as it stands right now, part of the reason people don't use it is because most of the time you aren't flying at max speed. If it gave additional top speed to normal flight as well it would make it more attractive. Maybe if the top speed with afterburner is increased by 20% (just throwing in numbers here), you could have it increase the top speed of non-afterburner flight by 10% (or something like that).

Repair Drone: I think that most people use this because the other perks aren't balanced very well right now. However, if the others become equally as good, I think that the effect of this should be changed. I think it would work well if it repaired either all the time or when the player was above a certain amount of energy (like 25% or 50%). I feel that requiring the player to have full energy to get the effect makes this perk far too passive. In my opinion the perk (and all the perks) should be designed so that it is functional during combat as much as possible because this is what I feel the perks are all about.

Also, would like to see a blue perk for "Faster Energy Recharge Rate." While Ultracapacitor gives the player a big pool for bursts of energy usage, a faster energy recharge rate would give players who manage their energy usage differently a very useful perk.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts. I am just trying to come up with good ideas to organize the best way to help you balance the game. Also, an updated changelog with each patch would be nice!

[lamster]

I'm with you 100% -- later tonight I will post an "official" perk brainstorming thread and an "official" perk compendium with detailed stats on every perk I implement so that you guys can give informed feedback. I will be focusing on perks over the next few weeks so this is a great time to bring the community focus to them.