Patch - Mar 4th - perk tweaks + bug fixes

[lamster]

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March 4th, 2009

Explodet
increased rocket acceleration

Explodet-Red "Remote Mine"
visual change only: removed chain to make it easier to differentiate from chase mines

Explodet-Red "Shrapnel Rockets" replaced with "Thermobarics"
increases rocket damage 10% (much less than +45% from shrapnel)
knockback completely removed
creates a vacuum in the detonation environment causing nearby planes to stall for 0.75 seconds

Bomber-Red "Bombs" are now "Smart Bombs"
if a lock is acquired prior to firing, will seek locked target like a homing missile

Loopy-Red "Acid Bomb"
friendly smoke now renders behind planes
reduced opacity of smoke cloud

Miranda-Red "Time Anchor"
increased cooldown

Blue "Reverse Thruster": increased effectiveness, decreased energy usage

[Kupac]

Smart bombs are AWESOME.


Love these new perks. (Time Anchor and now this)

Thermobarics are pretty nice too, but no way as cool as the other two.

Also reverse thrust is like super useless lol.

Maybe if you replaced it with reverse fire?

[Sky_Paladin]

Explodet increased rocket acceleration

I didn't notice any difference which means you tuned it well.

Explodet-Red "Remote Mine" visual change only: removed chain to make it easier to differentiate from chase mines

Didn't get a chance to play with these yet~

Explodet-Red "Shrapnel Rockets" replaced with "Thermobarics"
increases rocket damage 10% (much less than +45% from shrapnel)
knockback completely removed
creates a vacuum in the detonation environment causing nearby planes to stall for 0.75 seconds

I played with this extensively and didn't seem to have any noticeable effect. A little later I wore one of these and noticed it though :P

It's good that you made a clear, visually distinct explosion to indicate it.

Bomber-Red "Bombs" are now "Smart Bombs"
if a lock is acquired prior to firing, will seek locked target like a homing missile

I've never had so much fun with the bomber before! I hope you had as much fun coding it as I did playing with it. It actually encourages bombers to come down from the sky and dogfight...and they can still drop bombs if they need to. Hours of fun!

Loopy-Red "Acid Bomb"
friendly smoke now renders behind planes
reduced opacity of smoke cloud

I like the acid bomb - I didn't have any problem with it before, either

Miranda-Red "Time Anchor"
increased cooldown
Blue "Reverse Thruster": increased effectiveness, decreased energy usage

I didn't try any of these yet~

[skywalker]

Dammit, I might have to spend an hour leveling up tonight so that I can try the smart bombs now.

[Kupac]

Originally Posted by skywalker

Dammit, I might have to spend an hour leveling up tonight so that I can try the smart bombs now.

it's worth it. They are buckets of fun.

I think other perk's should follow suit. Just be completely different from each other. (completely different mechanic)

like reverse and time anchor.

edit: or bouncy shot and laser.
and the already mentioned grenades and smartbombs

[tmm3k]

Thermobaric rockets are nice, but can we rename them fart rockets and have them make a farting noise when they detonate?


Are remote mines still just one at a time? If so, scrap them completely and put Shrapnel rockets in their place. I actually liked Shrapnel rockets.


The smart bombs need to be limited so that they don't fly up and bomb people above you. Other than that, they're pretty cool.

Also it would be nice to have two different flakgun perks--one where you can use grenades as primary, and one where you can use regular bombs as primary. Not sure why red perks have been limited to just three.

Edit: giving extra red perks to planes higher than Loopy might also give people more incentive to branch out a little.

[nesnl]

It would be nice if the thermobaric rockets had a different graphic or effect that showed players what they were before detonation. Also, the graphic for the explosion seems very faint and non-distinct. Maybe if you had some type of missile trailing effect that showed players that the rocket was of a different type while it was flying in the air and then some type of "sonic boom" effect when it detonated that had a more distinct outline of the area of effect. I didn't notice much of an effect from the rockets when I hit planes so it seems hard to justify getting rid of the knockback effect for this. Maybe if instead of a 0.75 second stall there was some type of mechanic that reduced the speeds of planes in the explosion radius. Something like being closer to the center of the circle meant a bigger speed reduction.

The problem I had with the smart bombs is that times I thought I had a "lock" the bombs often times just dropped out like normal bombs. It's tough when you let 4 bombs go, effectively all your energy supply used up, and have only 1 actually go towards the target. I think it will be difficult to manage the fact that the bomb has two separate mechanics since you end up using two varying playing styles based on them either just falling out or actually locking on to targets.

[Kupac]

Originally Posted by nesnl

I didn't notice much of an effect from the rockets when I hit planes so it seems hard to justify getting rid of the knockback effect for this.

It's pretty much an instant ko to any ship moving at max speed. (with and without boosters)

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by nesnl

It would be nice if the thermobaric rockets had a different graphic or effect that showed players what they were before detonation. Also, the graphic for the explosion seems very faint and non-distinct. Maybe if you had some type of missile trailing effect that showed players that the rocket was of a different type while it was flying in the air and then some type of "sonic boom" effect when it detonated that had a more distinct outline of the area of effect.

When it detonates, there's a brown fart cloud, so maybe have the same brown fart cloud kind of trailing the missile? Not that most people would pay attention, though.

[lamster]

Yeah we'll update the art if thermobaric ends up staying.

[Blank]

Time anchor cooldown = yay
explodet missile speed increase = didn't notice really
acid bomb color = yay
reverse thrust = forgot to play with -_-

Bomber bomb change is... strange. It seems completely inferior to grenades. I mean, I guess the option is nice but it's incredibly hard to keep a lock (or have the bombs hit) outside of near point-blanks or in REALLY open areas. I dunno...

Explodet thermo missile doesn't seem to do anything. I haven't been hit by it, but I've hit others and haven't noticed any effect. Considering a well fired explodet missile would already stall planes (and for much longer), this seems kind of redundant. I dunno, maybe need to play it more...

Remote mine should probably look like other mines still. Otherwise, it becomes MUCH easier to avoid. Before, people might think it's just a regular chasing mine and fly close enough to avoid it... now, they won't take that bait.

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by Blank

Bomber bomb change is... strange. It seems completely inferior to grenades. I mean, I guess the option is nice but it's incredibly hard to keep a lock (or have the bombs hit) outside of near point-blanks or in REALLY open areas. I dunno...

It takes some practice to get them working right. Usually I just fly really slow and use heavy armor so I can take a lot of damage.

Explodet thermo missile doesn't seem to do anything. I haven't been hit by it, but I've hit others and haven't noticed any effect. Considering a well fired explodet missile would already stall planes (and for much longer), this seems kind of redundant. I dunno, maybe need to play it more...

It sends enemy planes into a sort of loop de loop if it hits dead on. It's pretty cool.

[protest boy]

Here are my suggestions for the smart bombs:

They need to be more like actual smart bombs, less like missiles. Make the lock targeting work from below the plane, i.e. if your enemy is below you, that is when they lock on. Your enemy wouldn't have to be RIGHT below you either, there's some leeway, but definitely they could not be at the same height, or above.

Make the tracking action of the bombs less substantial. They shouldn't be super-rocket bombs, just guided, and will more like 'drift' towards the enemy instead of rocketing forwards at super speeds.

The bombs should not be able to go upwards or totally horizontal at all. If they miss their target on the way down, then they should just continue to fall following their current trajectory or maybe lock onto another target below.

Ace Instincts:

I think the balance between the various green perks is a lot closer now that heavy armor and repair drone have been adjusted. Flexible wings is great and I'm having a lot of success using that instead of armor or repair.

I still think that Ace instincts needs a slight boost though. It's really only advantageous when you get up to gold bar level and then you lose all that progress so easily if you die. You're effectively flying without any sort of a perk for 90% of the game.

Is the bonus as you move up in rank linear? Could make the bonus bigger in the first few ranks and then taper off to the current bonus as you get up to 3 gold. Maybe there's a better way...I'm just throwing that out there.

[Blank]

I like your smart bomb suggestions. I dunno if that'll make them good, but it's better than the current gimpy grenades IMO.

I really don't think ace instinct is all that bad. How often you get it's full effect depends more on player skill than anything else. I think tossing around "90%" as if it means something is silly. When you consider the other blue perks, it's a solid option right now. The energy perks are deceptively good (you end up getting like 1-2 more bullets out of it the majority of time or it's completely worthless in the case of explodets) and reverse thruster is still a pretty huge question mark. And you don't need max bars to see it's full effect.

It'd be nice if there was a visual effect that someone was using it though. Maybe instead of bars, he gets some other icon or something.

[Snowsickle]

I like ace instincts and feel that it's fairly powerful, but the "you're flying without a perk for some amount of time" is a legitimate argument.

Realistically you're receiving a benefit from the perk at any point after 1 kill, and I'm nearly positive it is linear, as you mentioned (its a flat bonus to the percentage increase that each bar provides, so each bar still adds the same amount to each stat). However a way to avoid this altogether would be to just separate ace instincts from bars altogether. I don't recall the exact numbers but, assuming 3 gold is 10% to each stat and ace is an additional 5%, just have the perk give you 5% to each stat right off the bat and have bars build on that 5% as normal. Same end result, weighted a bit more towards the beginning.

EDIT: Actually, I suppose this kind of defeats the whole concept of tying a perk to bars so just weighting it towards the first few kills may actually be the better route.

[DiogenesDog]

- I don't see why people want to make Ace Instincts more powerful early. The whole point of the perk is you're sacrificing power at first so you get godly later.

- The smart bomb is fun/funny as hell when it works, but it's just so hard to get a lock without getting in point blank range. I tried experimenting with reverse thrust to keep my distance while locking after seeing someone else use it that way, and that would've been okay but I kept running out of energy. In any case, there's definitely potential here, but I'm not sure what the best way is to make it awesome. If Protest Boy's suggestion doesn't work, maybe some kind of hybrid between the current version and that (you lock onto targets below you, but once locked the bombs act the way they currently do?)

- I also haven't noticed the Thermo rockets doing much.

- That speed boost perk that I forget the name of is pretty useless. Maybe you could do a custom bomb carrier build that's like armor/speed or something, but that's about all I can imagine using it for. Seems like you could give this some extra bonus that makes it cooler (add superburner to it and/or make it so planes with this perk don't lose speed when climbing?) But really, I worry that this will just become some BS perk that ppl use purely for bomb runs. I'm sure there's something more fun that could replace it.

- Weird reverse thrust idea: change this so that it's called "Anti-Gravity Device" or something. Keep the reverse thrust, but also make it so you are completely unaffected by gravity - that is, you can't stall, and instead you just hover in midair if you stop. You'd also have crazy climbing abilities as a side effect, but hrm. I dunno. Probably grossly overpowered, but could be fun.

- Yeah it was dumb of me to think that Miranda was underpowered. I still think the laser version is better than trickster, though.

[lamsbro]

Any reason Loopy poison shot limited to 1 at a time? I think you should be allowed to spam them as much as you want.

[Snowsickle]

I didn't find the current implementation of smart bombs fun at all. A lot of people already know that I support minimizing tracking on a lot of planes, and leaving it as more or less a unique facet of the loopy plane, but outside of that initial standpoint; I felt utterly helpless against smart bombs once the enemy had acquired a lock. 3 bombs chasing me, with what feels like the potency of a homing missile, and very few options as far as outmaneuvering them just felt like an instant death to me. No amount of skill or pre-planning could save me once I had been locked onto. Loopies and bomber tailguns, at least, were easier to throw off mid-volley and avoid death.

Thermobarics is a very neat concept on paper, and certainly opens up a lot of attack options for the explodet, but I also think it's fairly unfun to die to. Like smart bombs, death is fairly unavoidable once you've been hit. In this case, if you happen to be looping around near a mountain or in a tight space, you can count on your plane pancaking on whatever you were near. On the other hand if you're in open air, it's almost useless. Too hit or miss, in my opinion, and not a terribly fun mechanic for people playing against it.

Anyway, I hate to be too negative so I'll also mention that I'm really enjoying the new acceleration of the explodet projectile. Feels like the plane can keep up with the pace of the action moreso than before.

[I_AM_PBS]

Originally Posted by lamsbro

Any reason Loopy poison shot limited to 1 at a time? I think you should be allowed to spam them as much as you want.

What bro said.

Or maybe go with triple fire with even less tracking?