Plane ball problems:

[Vania]

1) The ball feels like a damn beach ball: its too slow, it barely bounces and its too big.
-Make the ball smaller, faster and a little more bouncy
2) If an enemy is behind you and you pass it you end up passing it backwards...
-Again, smaller ball, smaller "pickup area", and fire it from the nose of the plane or ahead of the plane.
3) A single explodet can cover the goal, making long distance shots imposible and forcing you to to "dunk" the ball.
-A smaller ball will help with this, but a bigger goal or two separate goals for each team would be better.

The most important thing is the feel of the ball, I think it should feel more like a missile and less like a bubble.

[Torrent]

I feel your pain i couldn't score a goal myself.

[protest boy]

Agreed.

The main problem is passing. It shoots weird and gets caught by planes that shouldn't be able to catch it (like you mentioned, when an enemy is behind you).

I'm getting all excited for some map ideas once all the details are worked out. I imagine maps where you can pass the ball into a narrow chute that will carry the ball to another location. Planes cant enter because the chute will be narrow and have turrets pointing inwards to stop them!

A more bouncy ball will enable other fun options like designing a map to use bank-shots and whatnot.

Even better, is if the ball attributes are customizable in the map editor, but that probably isn't a reasonable request.

[Blank]

ball needs to bounce more/be faster.

there needs to be some sort of auto-kill zone for people who just fly into (or near) the goal. Granted, this probably wouldn't be an issue if the ball moved faster and wasn't launched at an awkward angle. But it'll (hopefully) help stop people from reverse thrust camping the goal too.

Game could use some sort of heal option. Nothing sucks more than being almost dead and not having repair drone, you're basically worthless and might as well kill yourself. Maybe a team heal powerup behind the goal or something.

6v6 seemed cluttered and cave probably wasn't the best choice of maps for the mode.

Need different awards (suggested in other thread?)

I'm unsure if powerups (sans health?) should even spawn in this mode. Seems like everyone should be a viable target for passing/stealing.

[STACK]

Anyone else notice u can't do bank shots? It's like the ball goes neutral after it deflects off something or once it has been air balled too long. If u make an epic bank shot or three screen lob it ought to count!

[Luke]

Originally Posted by STACK

Anyone else notice u can't do bank shots? It's like the ball goes neutral after it deflects off something or once it has been air balled too long. If u make an epic bank shot or three screen lob it ought to count!

Strange, i've seen more then once the ball bounce on the ledge in front of the goal and then score.

[classicallad]

Yes in agreement with the physics of the ball etc.
Also this is a far better game than volleyball, bball etc but i would like a more open playing field, real teamwork could come into affect here with passing, movement, positioning etc.

Perhaps Reeslo's map Green would suffice?

KLF. class

[Luke]

Latest observation: planeball really destroys the k/d ratio. There are player who do not use their fav plane 'cause they do not want to ruin the statistics.
My suggestion is to add a toggle to enable/disable kills/deaths recording. That would be useful in all game modes when you want to play more relaxed so you could not think at the ratio going down. :P

[Fatknacker]

Is the Kill / Death ratio that important ?

[Luke]

High ratio raises the moral and the self-esteem like sitting around a fire in an icy cold night.

[Blank]

I vote lam hides stats again.

[NfoMonkey]

if K/D is so important then perhaps simply Ignore Kills/death (so they dont even go to your stats) in plane ball? but instead of kills/deaths just have, for example Goals/Experience there, and give exp (minor exp like 2-8, and 10 for a goal) for things like, intercepting a pass, scoring a goal, killing the ball carrier, catching a friendly pass, succesfully passing to a teammate and maybe have experience taken away when you are killed with the ball or pass the ball to an enemy... and i dont have anymore im out.

[Luke]

Well.. for me it's ok. It's not a problem if my k/d drops, planeball is fun! (And i can keep it high anyway with my demo loopy :P)
But i saw in game player worried about this.
Anyway.. like has been said in other topic, the main planeball problems are still:
1) passing the ball effectively is impossible with other planes near you. Collision area must be smaller i think.
2) planes can grab the ball as soon as they spawn, so you could end up passing the ball at an enemy just spawned where the ball is (happened more than once).
3) ball doesn't give a ball-feeling.

[Rechtschaffen]

Your team ambushes the enemy in the middle of the map, kills them all, runs the bomb through to the end, but they're all respawning and you die.

Respawn could therefore be lengthened, so that killing the enemy team is an offensive plus rather than a defensive one.

[DiogenesDog]

Originally Posted by Luke

1) passing the ball effectively is impossible with other planes near you. Collision area must be smaller i think.

I think what's going on is that powerup "collision" works the opposite of bullet collision, so you get the opposite problem that you have with bomb drops. When I shoot/pass the ball, whether it hits another player is based on what they see on THEIR screen. So instead of the bomb drop problem (the guy trying to catch it has it go through them on their screen) you have the opposite issue - my aimed passes go through guys because it misses on their screen, and sometimes enemies near me will pick up the ball even though it should have missed on my screen because on their screen they're slightly in front of me I assume?

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what's going on just from observing how my plane interacts with the ball. I've certainly never had a moment on my screen where I was tailing a guy and he shot it but I stole the ball, even though the reverse happens a lot.