Perks and Perks

[nesnl]

I am kinda bored so I figured I would make this post. I was brainstorming some ideas for more perks and just wanted to post them because I thought they were fun. I have no delusions into thinking they will get implemented, but on that note I expect them to be in the game next patch.

I always wanted to see one more blue and green perk. Sticking with the themes of those categories I would want to see:

Blue - Superburner (I know this was already in the game once) but I want it modified a little. First, I want it to increase your top speed by 10% and not just when using afterburner, but also your top cruising speed when not using afterburners. I would also like to see it reduce energy usage from afterburner use by something like 10-15%.

Green - Hidden Compartment (This was not my original idea but I like it). Basically, it would allow you to carry two powerups at once. This would exclude the bomb or the ball, which would always count as two power-ups. The power-ups would need to be used in the order in which they were picked up.

The other perks I was thinking of were going to be in a new category. Let's call it Orange perks.

Orange - Kamikaze - Upon death this perk would cause the exploding plane to do a certain amount of damage to the planes in a certain radius around it's plane. Maybe something like 1/2 the Health of a Loopy to any plane within 3 Plane lengths of the dying plane in any direction.

Orange - Last Stand - Any shot that would otherwise kill you does no damage. This perk would need a cooldown. Something like 30 seconds before it could activate again. This perk could be really powerful against things like a heavy cannon shot because it would negate the entire shot, but against a Loopy, it might negate one rocket and then you would just get killed by the next one.

Orange - Spooky - Overall damage is increased by 10% (maybe a little less) but the user of this perk is unable to pickup or use any power-ups. If the user of this perk picks up a bomb or the ball (the only "power-ups" it can use) then the 10% damage buff would be negated until they released the bomb or ball and then the buff would return after 3 seconds.

Orange - Quick Recovery - Reduce your respawn time after you die by 3 seconds with a minimum of a 1 second respawn time in any mode.

Orange - Morale Booster - Increase the all stats (ie health, speed, turning, energy, damage) of all ally planes on your screen by 4%. You cannot be affected by this perk yourself while using it (so two people on the same team can't use it and boost each other). Each plane can only be affected by this perk once. So two planes on the same screen does not equal 6% stats increase.

Anyway, that's all I got!

[Sean]

Hmmmmm...Overall, I like the ideas. Very good idea about the spooky buff not coming online immediatley after releasing the ball/bomb, because then a 'randa self-passer would be REALLY powerful!

[Pieface]

Nice ideas! The only feedback I can think of at the moment is that being able to reduce spawn time to only a couple of seconds might make it a lot easier to defend than it already is in modes like TBD, which would correspond to longer games.

That being said I expect these to be implemented on a trial basis as soon as the developers' work on the Aerial Freeze Tag mode is completed.

[Taroud]

Originally Posted by Pieface

Aerial Freeze Tag

Eeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!??

Edit: Oh wait, I missed the facetious post dinnit I? Vodka has that effect.

[tgleaf]

Don't like Kamikaze or Last Stand because they alter the basic gameplay (I shoot a smoking plane, it dies, I continue to live) too much.

But I think the others sound very interesting and could alter team strategies in amusing and effective ways.

[GGQ]

I dont mind last stand, but Kamikaze = sad recoilless/dogfighter users.

[[Y]]

I, on the other hand, do mind last stand.

Last stand = sad HC/non-lazor randa users.

[gemigemi]

First of all, I have to say that I do NOT like the idea of adding a new perk slot. There are a few reasons to this:

- It adds more complexity for new players to learn.
- It adds a lot more complexity to the actual game experience, as so much is happening on the screen. With lots of perks doing lots of hugely different things you'll have a huge amount of information to follow all the time and it gets really hard to concentrate on actual tactical play.
- It makes balancing a lot harder as the number of combinations gets so huge. (New perk slot is a new multiplier in the equation, while new perks in existing slots just grow the existing multipliers. If you know any maths you notice the difference.)

Once that is said, I have nothing against adding new perk options to the existing perk slots, yet again keeping in mind that adding more than a few will get overly complex with the number of options and balancing. The number of combinations is still a lot lower than with a new perk slot though.

Adding new perks to the existing perk slots also means that you have more perks to choose from and still only get to choose as many perks as before, causing your choices feeling a lot more meaningful. When choices feel meaningful then the player feels good of making choices that he thinks are good. If you just have many slots with few options then the player easily feels like he is just picking the no-brainer choices out of the few offered. Basically currently most players use very limited perk combinations for each plane as those feel like no-brainer choices. With a few more perks options for the current slots the choices would become more meaningful (assuming that the perks are worth picking and aren't overpowered when compared to the other choices).

I'll comment on the different perk ideas and in case of the orange ones I'll assume they'd be blue/green instead.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Blue - Superburner (I know this was already in the game once) but I want it modified a little. First, I want it to increase your top speed by 10% and not just when using afterburner, but also your top cruising speed when not using afterburners. I would also like to see it reduce energy usage from afterburner use by something like 10-15%.

A speed boosting blue perk would bring a new valid option for many planes, especially the Loopy which has been the target of discussion lately due to the energy enhancing perks + "spam". In ball mode this would most likely be very popular with ball runners. The boost amounts just need to be tested and polished to be balanced.

Short: In favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Green - Hidden Compartment (This was not my original idea but I like it). Basically, it would allow you to carry two powerups at once. This would exclude the bomb or the ball, which would always count as two power-ups. The power-ups would need to be used in the order in which they were picked up.

When I first started thinking this I immediately thought "this is overpowered", but then I read it till the end and you already had taken my concern into account by saying that ball/bomb reserves all slots. I assume you wouldn't assign a new key for the second slot, so the s key would just trigger the powerup that was gathered first. This perk would be a valid option for a few roles. An escort plane might want to gather 2 shields / missiles, while a goal keeper would benefit from 2 walls. I'm not sure how popular this would be since it seems really good in only very limited situations, but I think it might find a few users loving it.

Short: In favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Orange - Kamikaze - Upon death this perk would cause the exploding plane to do a certain amount of damage to the planes in a certain radius around it's plane. Maybe something like 1/2 the Health of a Loopy to any plane within 3 Plane lengths of the dying plane in any direction.

I think that this perk will be more bad than good. First of all it promotes a style of play that isn't generally good (ie. get killed) while it also increases visual spam (large explosion effect required) and it also changes the tactical mechanics of killing others as it gives you a disincentive to kill the enemy. This perk also hurts short-range ships more, which is bad as the short range is already a disadvantage.

Short: Not in favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Orange - Last Stand - Any shot that would otherwise kill you does no damage. This perk would need a cooldown. Something like 30 seconds before it could activate again. This perk could be really powerful against things like a heavy cannon shot because it would negate the entire shot, but against a Loopy, it might negate one rocket and then you would just get killed by the next one.

Hmm, this perk would actually be an interesting choice as a green perk. It would offer a meaningful choice between more hp (works against small but frequent damage), repair (works when you spend long times between combat), and death preventation (works against a single spike). I don't think this would become TOO popular, but it would certainly offer a choice for many heavy armor users and would diversify the playing field.

Short: In favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Orange - Spooky - Overall damage is increased by 10% (maybe a little less) but the user of this perk is unable to pickup or use any power-ups. If the user of this perk picks up a bomb or the ball (the only "power-ups" it can use) then the 10% damage buff would be negated until they released the bomb or ball and then the buff would return after 3 seconds.

A damage boosting effect isn't currently available which might seem weird on the first hand, but I think that balancing one with the rest of the perks and between the different planes would be quite difficult. A plane with massive burst damage might not benefit from this at all while a plane with constant smaller damage (like Loopy) would benefit from this a lot. I don't even know which perk slot this would fit in so that it would offer an equal choice.

Short: Not in favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Orange - Quick Recovery - Reduce your respawn time after you die by 3 seconds with a minimum of a 1 second respawn time in any mode.

This would offer an interesting tactic as you could have one plane setup with this perk so after dying you could quickly switch to that setup so that you could get to a tight defensive spot very quickly. I think this would be used in better teams in tighter spots, while in public play some players would just constantly use it because they'd just have less down time. This would actually be a bad thing as they would otherwise have worse perks then, making them less effective, causing them to die more, and being less help for the team. Also I'm not sure which perk slots this should occupy. Maybe it should replace both your green and blue perk when selected? The timer should be balanced accordingly. I still think though that this would be mainly a bad thing in public games, so introducing it just for the sake of the high level play wouldn't be a good idea.

Short: Not in favor.

Originally Posted by nesnl

Orange - Morale Booster - Increase the all stats (ie health, speed, turning, energy, damage) of all ally planes on your screen by 4%. You cannot be affected by this perk yourself while using it (so two people on the same team can't use it and boost each other). Each plane can only be affected by this perk once. So two planes on the same screen does not equal 6% stats increase.

Hmm, I was just going to say "no" immediately, but again you had taken into account my worst worries with the "only affected once" and "using this causes you not to get this bonus even from another plane". The real problem is though that this would usually be a mandatory pick for one plane in each team. It also feels a bit of a "screwed" position for the player to be the designated "booster" as your own performance is hindered for the sake of the team. This wouldn't be seen much in public games for that reason. I would find it more suitable to add an entire "support plane" instead of a support perk, and to be honest I'm not too sure if that would work that well either.

Short: Not in favor.

[andy]

the ideas are very good especially the green and blue perks since they dont look too overpowered (like the usual extra perks people propose) you trade extra speed for less energy, you trade 2 powerups for no type of health boost or flexi. Im not so sure about the orange perks, i think they would change gameplay quite drastically, especially the kamikaze (instead of escorting i go straight into defence with 3 kamikaze planes and kill everyone = free bomb run) and the last stand which would make snipes much more difficult. On the other hand the morale booster and the quick recovery (although 3 seconds seem OP) are cool perks and could be implemented in one of the 2 already existing categories. e.g. morale booster (affects your plane too by 2%) green perk. quick recovery blue perk.

[Flyngbanana]

I'm not in favour of the orange perks at all. Especially the respawn time. That is seriously overpowered in terms of defence

The others I have no strong feelings over, would nice to have a bit more variety sometimes though

[zwanglos]

I'd be in favor of combining the concepts of last stand + spooky, thus becoming:
Last Stand: When your health reaches critical, you get a slight increase in damage.

And I find nothing wrong with adding more perks eventually... sure, makes things more complicated, but that means that there's more to 'digest' and honestly it will keep interest in the game going for longer. More possibilities = more investigating how things work = more time spent playing the game, etc.